Spider-Man 3 (2007, Sam Raimi)

I'm not going to write anything about this one. There are hundreds of reviews out there already. I will jsut say that I disagree a lot with most critics on this one. I felt that it was a bit messy and the flow felt odd at times. However, I still thought it was an insane amount of fun where you could tell that the cast, as well as the director, were having a lot of fun making it. It's everything and the kitchen sink and that all I wanted from the film.

- ***

Fong Sai Yuk/The Legend (1993, Corey Yuen)

"A martial arts expert's father is held hostage by the evil emperor and guess who has to save him before it's too late"

I have long been wanting to watch some of the old Jet Li films that made him a legend in China. The reason why I haven't is because of the bad word of mouth I have always heard of the only versions that are available here. the infamous "Jet Li Collection by Dimension Films" These were some of the first dvds that came out and on top of that it was a collection of all these "rare" Jet Li films that a lot of martial art fans have been wanting to watch. The catch was that Dimension Films bought all these movies, dubbed them over badly, edited out scenes, made a new musical score, and changed the titles.

I really don't have a problem with the dubbing. I have watched many badly dubbed martial art films when I was a kid, so this never made me not want to watch them.The editing of scenes is just horrible in my opinion and I refused to watch them because of this. However, I was very bored and wanted something that was a lot of fun to watch and decided to just suck it up and watch Fong Sai Yuk. Now renamed "The Legend"

The dubbing is horrible. The new musical score is good as far as I can tell and I cant really tell what was edited out. Having said all of this, the film is tons of fun. I can't really write much about the story or the characters since it really doesn't have much to write about. I hate saying that what matters are the fight scenes but this is the case and the fight scenes are beyond amazing.

I was in awe during each fight sequence and they really are some of the best I have yet to see. My favorite being the scene where the fight is fought while balancing on the heads of the people that are watching it. The other thing worth mentioning is the balance of serious drama and slapstick comedy. I normally hate these mixtures in martial art films, except for old HK Jackie Chan films, but in this case it works well enough to not be annoying.

I can't say that I applaud the film, because of all the edits and changes that dimension did, but what is there is a very fun and just down right awesome film. I have noticed that the dvd I rented is out of print now, as well as all the other Jet Li collection films, and I really hope this means that they were yanked out because they are planning a new collection. I really think that if I were to see the original cut with the original dialogue that I would put this high on my list of favorite martial art films As it stands now, it is still a great film of the genre.

- ***1/2

Heavy Traffic (1973, Ralph Bakshi)

"Michael, a Jewish-Italian cartoonist with a black girlfriend tries to make it in New York City"

I was pretty blown away from this piece of art. That's right, art. Not cinema. I really think this one surpasses the term"cinema" and becomes an odd piece of personal art from the mind of Ralph Bakshi.

This film is about a troubled cartoonist who passes his time at the local arcade playing pinball. He imagines his life and world in his mind as being a living cartoon. In this cartoon he is still a struggling cartoonist who begins to date a black woman which upsets his whole family. Of course this is as much as I got from it.

This is a very surreal, demented, and often perverted piece of work. Cartoons blend with real life and real life blends with cartoons. There are random little "short films" that come and go and there also tons of shots of a pinball bouncing around a pinball machine. It all adds up to a very angry and inner piece of animation that never stops pouring it's angry angst into it's images.

This is the main reason why I loved it. It really feels like a very personal work of art. It feels like a showcase into a mans mind and it also feels as if Bakshi has just created his latest work of art and he is letting you watch it. He truly gives a sense of being a true artist. The only thing I can compare it to is a film by Lynch. Not as in terms of style or anything. They really have nothing in common in that sense. I just use this example because I feel the same way towards Lynch as I felt towards Bakshi with this film. I feel a sense of watching art from an artist. You can hate it or love it but you have to watch it in order to contemplate it.

-***1/2

Update

I know it's been awhile since I last posted anything here. I just havn't had the time to watch anything lately because i have been busy trying to be a crtic/film journalist. It really isn't that easy of a job but I am loving every second of it.

The reviews and articles I do for the website/magazine will soon be posted here or at least a link to the reviews and articles will be here soon.

This blog will one day be picked up soon enough but first they have to do some more stuff.

My movie watching will return to it's normal state sometime during this weekend when I finish off somethings that I have to write up.

Also, Spider-Man 3 isn't that good? I have to admitt I am dissapointed but it won't stop me from watching it today. EDIT: nevermind every showing was sold out : (

The Big Bird Cage (1972, Jack Hill)

"Grier and Haig are thieving mercenaries who engineer a prison break from the outside."

I loved this one so much. I loved every single campy second of it and it will soon be in my favorite guilty pleasures.

The plot deals with a loving couple, Pam Grier and Sid Haig, who are revolutionists in the Philippines. One day their group of rebels decides that they need to build up their army by kidnapping woman. Instead of kidnapping them though, they decide that they should stage a prison break in the local evil women prison where the evil gay wardens torture the hot women non stop.

This is a very simple outline of the plot. We are treated to a lot of great stuff through out the movie. Most of these things take place during the prison scenes where we are treated to tons of classic stuff. We get the nympho prisoner who is more mad that she can not get some than the fact that she is in an evil prison. We get the hatred between the tall dyke and the short dyke. We get the gay wardens of course, The evil and intense prison warden. The wooden cage that drives woman wild and crazy! Half naked girls all the time. Mud fights and we of course get Sid Haig getting a job at the prison later on by posing as a gay man. This film has it all.

The film is always fast and pretty self conscious of what it is. It doesn't try to go for big emotions and because of this the film is a lot of fun. It also doesn't hurt that the direction is not bad at all given the type of film it is and it's also great to see some good acting for once in one of these old exploitation films.

There is once again not a lot to write about for this one. It's a fun ride while it lasts if you are able to just lose yourself in the camp. I was able to and I loved it more than I probably should have.

- Ridiculously Awesome

Matando Cabos (2004, Alejandro Lozano)

"A dark, offbeat comedy about a group of Mexico City teens embroiled in a kidnapping involving a retired wrestling legend and a parrot."

Matando Cabos (Killing Cabos) was one of the most popular Mexican film in 2004/2005. It even won a couple of awards and took home the MTV en Espanol award for "Favorite Movie" among other things. I was curios to watch it to just see what a big mainstream film is like in Mexico and how it compares to an American film. I am happy and both sad that there is a big difference between the two but I am sad to say that it's not that big of a difference really.

The movie is about two young guys who by mistake kidnap one of the guys father in law. They set off to simply take him home and dump him on his front lawn but when an ex Mexican wrestler,a fighting midget, 2 would be kidnappers, and a crazy next door neighbor become involed over the night everything becomes crazy and close to impossible to pull off.

With a plot like that you can expect the film to be a lot of fun, which it is, but it also should ring a bell in your head. If it does, it's because you have already seen this film over,and over, and over again. It falls into the "Tarantino Wannabe" pile along with Lock Stock,Snatch, Boondock Saints, Go, and plenty of others. It's one of those films where every other character has something eccentric about them and every other scene uses some cinematic device like a flashback scene, or a "5 minutes earlier" scene to establish each of these "crazy" characters pasts. When the film started to do this I even thought "awwww shit not another one" but to my surprise it was actually good.

The thing that Matando Cabos has that most of these other wannabe films do not have is a small dose of creativity. It was nice to see the Tarantino formula put into a non gangster film. The plot of this film at least uses the multi story plot device to make things move along in a very fun way that keeps everything to a point where you don't know whats going to happen next.

Matando Cabos is an odd film to critique. It's nothing new because it uses plot devices which have become cliched ,so it's nothing new. Yet it is something new because it uses them to move along a fresh approach to these kinds of films. I don't know if I should applaud this or not but I do know that i had a lot of fun watching it.

- ***

Save the Green Planet! (2003, Joon-Hwan Jang)

"Byeong-gu believes that the world is on the verge of an alien invasion, and sets out to save the world."

Just looking at this DVD cover/poster makes me mad. This film is nothing and I really do mean nothing like how the poster portrays it as. This is one dark and extremely unique film.

I used to bump into this DVD all the time at my library. I used to see the cover and just brush it off because it just looked bad. However based on some great word of mouth I decided to see what all the fuss was about and I was not let down at all. I am glad to spread the word of mouth just a little tiny bit more that way more people see past the horrible cover and check this film out.

Save the Green Planet! is a tough film to write about. It's such a unique film that you can't really explain it and it's such a crazy journey that it's hard to write about it without spoiling anything or implying anything that will spil anything. This is one of those films that the less you know about it the better. All I am going to do is post the trailer that way you can get a feeling of how this film is....



It shouldn't work at all and yet it does. You shouldn't care for some characters and yet you do. You should be thinking that the film is too over the top and ridiculous but you never think this. This is just a great film. That simple. It takes something that could very easily become bad and makes it charming,quirky,smart and tons of fun. This really is one great film that deserves the cult following it so desperately needs. Nevermind films like Slither that try hard to be an immediate cult film. This is the cult film everyone is looking for but few know about.

Just please give this one a chance. It's a one of a kind film.

- ****