Watched Coffy for the first time yesterday, really, really enjoyed it. Pam Grier, Sid Haig and Allan Arbus are all da bomb! Here's the trailer for your enjoyment...
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Shocking Death
HEATH LEDGERR.I.P.
Was really looking forward to his role as Joker in the Dark Knight.
I'll always remember him firstly from his role in 10 Things I Hate About You.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Bruce Lee and Popeye vs James Bond, Clint Eastwood and Emmannuelle +++ Much More
Bruceploitation Corner returns after an absence forced by not seeing any new Bruceploitation movies in the time between this one and the last one, but the good news is it's back with a bang, featuring two titles -one completely unlike anything that's gone before it- and another that as a villain then throws poisonous snakes at the hero... Anyway on with the classics.
When Bruce Lee died in 1973, it left a massive gaping hole in the Eastern superstar market which expoloitation producers filled with likes of "lookalikes" such as Bruce Li, Bruce Le, Dragon Lee and many more, it often varied in the lookalike stakes from not at all to maybe a little, some of them where pretty good fighters whilsts not been BRUCE, but not all of them not even Bruce himself could say they starred in a movie like The Dragon Lives Again (1978- again with most Bruceploitation movies the year seems to vary from source to source) which starred Bruce Leong (who didn't look like Bruce Lee at all, go on look at the picture above -nothing like him right-) as Bruce Lee, who dies and goes to hell and gets on the bad side of the King of Hell (whose very a very randy King of Hell aswell) after an erection/nunchuk joke that lasts about 10 minutes Bruce goes on is way to a part of Hell that looks like Chinatown at the turn of the century, Bruce then seems to get on the wrong side of rag-tag bunch of villains which include James Bond (The only thing he as in Sean Connery is that he is white), Dracula (who doesn't mind going out in broad daylight), Clint Eastwood (Chinese and dressed as The Man With No Name), The Exorcist (French, male and looks nothing like Linda Blair), The Godfather (nothing like Marlon Brando, the fact that he and The Exorcist continually get called by their name is the fact they repeatedly get called by their names) and Emmanuelle (whose hot) aswell as a bunch of minions in them crazy skeleton suits. They repeatedly go after Bruce for reasons never fully explained but luckily Bruce as got friends on his side including Popeye (What did Popeye do to get into Hell? Slaughter Olive Oil in cold blood), Popeye is played by Eric Tsang whose actually gone on to have a succesful career.
Anyway there's lots of gratious T&A shots, a great sequence of Bruce dancing with Emmanuelle, a bunch of Mummys, the names of Bruce's fighting styles which include The Big Boss, Way of the Dragon and best of all The Third Leg of Bruce. This film deserves to be a hit on the cult circuit i.e. stoner college students, weird films fan. Highly recommended. The Best Bruceploitation movie of all time?
Enter the Game of Death (1979 or 80), rip-offs the titles of two Bruce Lee films in one (how many Bruceploitation films can say that) and sees Bruce Le wear Bruce Lee's famous Yellow and Black jumpsuit for most of the movie. The films craptrap plot involves the Chinese, Japanese and Germans (and probably others) obsessed with a secret document that for some reason is been kept at the top of a tower, so the good guys (read: The Chinese) send Bruce Le up the tower to fight a number of baddies a la Game of Death, most of the baddies aren't too great truth be told except one a guy who throws poisonous snakes at our hero, that is the greatest scenes in this movie and without it could almost be described as a lacklustre affair until the last 20 or so minutes which is non stop fighting, among Le's opponents are Bolo Yeung (who was in any Enter the Dragon aswell as many other Bruceploitation movies) and a black tall guy, who I imagine the only thing he as in common with Kareem Abdul-Jabber is that he is a black tall guy. Recommended for some good moments but far from essential.
Viewing...
Fast Food Nation
Welcome to the Dollhouse
The Beginning of the TV Shelf
One of the wonderful things about the advent of DVD is the number of full seasons and full series that have come onto the home movie market, sure there was VHS releases but it just wasn't the same. I have an incredible number of Television on DVD titles, from both sides of the pond. This regular thing will deal more the television stuff I've been watching and making my way through.
A quick catch up with Christmas. I got a few titles. NewsRadio Season Four, Robot Chicken Season Two and Saturday Night Live: The Best of Saturday TV Funhouse (all on R1, these seem unlikely to recieve a British release).
NewsRadio Season Four
Robot Chicken Season Two
Saturday Night Live: The Best of Saturday TV Funhouse
is the brainchild of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog creator Robert Smigel is at times hilarious, the most brilliant animated bits are of course the Ambigously Gay Duo (picture above and voiced by Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell), The Michael Jackson cartoon, Saddam and Bin Laden, The New Adventures of Mr. T, Sexual Harrarsment and You and Shazzang are all hilariously funny. Recommended cause there's also about an hour of extra cartoons.A couple of DVDs I've been watching since Christmas...
Lost Season Three
is a great season after the sometimes clumsy and lacklustre second season. The episode features a lot of memorable twists (including the last scene in the last episode) and some great characters in Ben, Juliette and Desmond (who are all main characters this season). It's like what the first season was: Gripping from start to finish, plus you finally learn how Locke ended up in a wheelchair and many other little things.
St. Elsewhere Season One
(file under What I'm Currently Working my way through) is an amazing medical drama (with an often quirky nature) that began in 1982 and featured an amazing cast including William Daniels, Howie Mandel, G.W. Bailey, Christina Pickles, David Morse and Denzel Washington, I'm only 5 episodes in and I'm enjoying it lots. The fourth episode "Cora and Arnie" featuring Doris Roberts and Tim Robbins is the first truly brilliant episode of the series and I very much recommended. On a note Tim Robbins is deliciously vile and I wish one of the doc's would punch him in the face.Friday, January 18, 2008
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
The Top 30 Television Theme Tunes of all Time: The Countdown
#29
Round The Twist (Australian Program)
Been a while...
Sorry I haven't been around much lately, meant to get back to blogging a bit sooner, quick thing before moving onto the bulk of today's blog, got some great news before I broke off for Christmas holiday that I'd be getting the chance to make a film about sexual health for more money then I have ever earned for any film, just wanted to share that.
I've seen a lot of films in the last month-ish, I'm just gonna cover a couple of them (the ones I remember best, minus two that will be saved for later), The Fonzie scores will not be on this page, they'll return later.
Superman: The Movie
It's sequel Superman II (1980) which saw Richard Donner fired as director and replaced by Richard Lester during filming, the original version works - just - thanks to having three interesting stories that of Clark and Lois, General Zod and the other Kryptonians and of course Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor, the film is enjoyable but it's an obvious mix of two director's footage, and by the way it's a shame Ned Beatty is hardly in this. I'll check the Richard Donner cut out later.
It's hard to believe there is now an whole new American Pie direct to DVD trilogy featuring only Eugene Levy (and Chris Owen in Band Camp) as the only links to the original trilogy and all three have got something surprisngly in common, there not awful. Band Camp (2005) sees one of the Stifler's sent to band camp for some sort of punishment, Eugene Levy is Jim's Dad again and the Camp Counseller to boot, like I say not bad, same is said for The Naked Mile (2006) which is just marginally better and introduces another Stifler cousin (two actually), dumb but watchable, Beta House (2007) features a few of the same characters and is more of the same.
After been masterful on the television with Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared and a great movie debut with The 40 Year Old Virgin, Judd Apatow had a great year in 2007 with Superbad (which he produced) and Knocked Up (2007) which sees Ben Stone (Seth Rogen - it's hard to believe Seth Rogen is playing a leading man -) who by a massive stroke of luck and lots of alcohol gets to sleep with Katherine Heigl, however their awkard one night stands ends in pregnancy. Like Judd Apatow's other work it's both funny and sweet, some really good lines and career best performance from Apatow's wife Leslie Mann
From my side of the pond is seminal 60's movie If... (1968), starring Malcolm McDowell, set in a boarding school, it deals with a bunch of about to rebel students and it is engrossing from start to finish, Malcolm McDowell is a very underrated actor and their are a lot of great little performances in this movie, brilliant.
Another great British movie from the same year Twisted Nerve (1968) starred a never better Hywel Bennett and Hayley Mills. Bennett plays a young man who poses as mentally handicap and manages to weed his way into Mills life, trouble is he's a bit schizophrenic, this film as some great performances including Billie Whitelaw as Mills' mother, cinematography and of course the music (the theme was used later in Kill Bill Volume One, think the whisteling theme). Great little movie.
A Scanner Darkly (2006) based on the Phillip K. Dick story is pretty good with some decent performances, Keanu Reeves ain't bad but Robert Downey Jr. is much better, you can understand why Richard Linklater went for this unique animation style and it works to a point. Recommended for all the paranoids out there.
For Your Consideration
There's probably a few more films I saw and I'll cover the TV stuff in a different update. bye
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