The Fate of Lee Khan "迎春閣之風波" (1973) directed by King Hu

 After A Touch of Zen (1971), King Hu did a slight, but important change-up. Ying-Chieh Han, who had been the action director on King Hu's films since Come Drink with Me (1966) was replaced in the role by the prodigy and contemporary of Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung. Hung had played roles as an elite mook in various other King Hu films (most noticeably in A Touch of Zen where he is one of the personal bodyguards too the final boss). While Han's fighting-style for cinema, rooted firmly in Beijing Opera, Hung (who grew-up in a Beijing Opera school with Jackie Chan) was part of the generation that was directly influence by of the generations that was directly influenced by Bruce Lee. Because of this, while Hung's action directing and choreography is greatly in Beijing Opera the quick movements and minimalist techniques of Bruce Lee is very apparent in this film compared King Hu's previous ones. Even Ying-Chieh Han's fighting is accelerated more than in the films where he was action director. I'll talk more about Han later. 

This movie, like Dragon Inn (1967), takes place mostly in an inn. Like Kenji Mizoguchi's Sansho the Bailiff, the movie is named after the antagonist. What sets this movie apart (also like 'Sansho') is that it is set in the Yuan/Mongolian era of Chinese imperial history—an era that is not usually filmed. Most historical Chinese films take place during the Ming or Qing dynasties (the Ming Dynasty is King Hu's preferred setting). This means that the costumes are very different from what we are used to seeing—especially with the antagonists.

This story is another King Hu espionage caper—but this time he is not putting his protagonists against the secret police, but the regular government. The protagonists are at a place called the Spring Inn to thwart the plans of the brutal regional Lord Lee Khan. The problem is that both Lee Khan and the Han rebels have spies everywhere.

Another interesting thing about this movie is the playing-against-type going on in this film. Ying-Chieh Han had always played antagonists in King Hu films (most notably the final boss in A Touch of Zen), but this time he is on the side of the protagonists. Meanwhile Hsu Feng–who was the main female protagonist in A Touch of Zen–is The Dragon in this film (Lee Khan's fateful daughter). It is amazing to see these two in the role-reversal and it reminds me of Feng's role in Raining in the Mountain (1979).

At two hours, this is one of the shorter King Hu films and possibly the most normal one to get into of his. I also like that, while it is a "Han vs..." film it does not engage in the same crude xenophobic-stereotyping of the antagonists as so many Shaw Brothers films do. And it is a Golden Harvest co-production to-boot (home studio of Bruce Lee). I am happy to watch another King Hu film, and happy to recommend it to you. Happy New Year!

My Goodreads Review of The Promised Neverland, volume 17

The Promised Neverland, Vol. 17 by Kaiu Shirai
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the last English-translation manga volume of The Promised Neverland for the year. This has been such an exciting book to read this year and it is crazy to think it will all be over in 2021. Of course, the Japanese-language version has already ended and season two of the anime is expected to premiere early 2021. In any case, this title has been one of the most interesting and intriguing comic books I've ever read and I can't wait to give my overall thoughts of the franchise when I read the last volume next spring/summer.

This volume has the beginning of the final battle. The parties to that conflict though may not be who we think, though. Emma and Norman have completely different agendas that will see the final conflict play out very messily and sorrowfully.

Posuka Demizu art work is almost better than the story, the dynamism on every page is just incredible and in an action-packed volume like this is used to great effect.

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My Goodreads Review of God Loves, Man Kills by Chris Claremont, art by Brent Anderson

This is I believe my first (non-Japanese) comic book review posted on this blog.

X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills by Chris Claremont
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Despite watching the 1990s cartoon as a child and watching the movies, I have read relatively few X-Men comics since I started reading comic books in 2013. Most of what I have read has been of the newer works—particularly Brian Michael Bendis' run on the books. I have not read a lot of the classic stories though I most of what they are about because of how they have been adapted for film and television. This is one of the most famous X-Men stories written by their most prolific writer Chris Claremont as a stand-alone graphic novel. It is illustrated by Brent Anderson pre-Astro City. It's one of those stories that sticks with you from the word go.

The graphic novel begins in a way that few comics would dare do in this era to establish the atmosphere, with the lynching of two black mutant children by an anti-mutant militia under the orders of a disgraced veteran turned right-wing evangelical named William Stryker. Stryker's aim is the full extermination of all mutants and he uses his militia, the Purifiers, with the goal of carrying out that plan. Their bodies are quickly discovered by Magneto, the Malcolm X avatar of the X-Men world who declares full on war against Stryker. If you've seen X2: X-Men United then you know where this plot is going. It is certainly an interesting story to read in 2020. The art is very interesting look at early Anderson who've I've only ever looked at in Astro City. Despite this book being a fairly heavy book, it is still obviously a book set in the late-Bronze Age of Comic Books (which where the majority of Claremont's works come out of) and the social realism is very apparent. Claremont wrote this book in response to the rise of Christian fundamentalism in during the Reagan era. Interestingly he pits a religiously-motivated antagonist against the most famously-religious superhero team in comics (this book in particular uses Kitty Pryde (Jewish), Nightcrawler (Roman Catholic), and Storm (traditional/Nubian)). It creates a very interesting dynamic when they go up against Stryker.

The interesting about this book is that, like Batman: The Killing Joke, this was meant to be a one-off story not in-canon with the main X-Men story. Like Killing Joke the publishing company ignored that fact after it became a hit and Stryker and the Purifiers have been popping-up ever since. Even still, this story still holds it's relevance as one of the most significant stories of this franchise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srwfA...

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My Review of Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai (1999) directed by Jim Jarmusch

 A curious film, pretty much de facto produced by the Wu-Tang Clan (Rza actually scored it, first film with an original hip-hop score). Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai (1999) was directed by Jim Jarmusch and stars Forest Whitaker as a hitman that follows the code of Bushido. 

This films feeling of loneliness and uncertainty of the coming millennium is one of the beautiful things about it. The protagonists and antagonists are looking into the year 2000 not certain what will happen to them. Their lives of the 20th century have become laughably obsolete--like Kierkegaard would say they are all tragic-comic. But before they can go into this void, some business has to be taken care of. The film is almost as apocalyptic as Eugene O'Neil's The Iceman Cometh. 

This movie is part adaptation of Le Samouraï (1967), concerning a mysterious hitman that works personally to a mobster in New Jersey. The twist is that this hitman–that refers to himself only as Ghost Dog–models himself after a Japanese samurai and regularly reads from the Hagakure, the most famous commentary for the code of Bushido. When he does a hit that goes wrong because of his boss' error, a hit is placed on Ghost Dog himself and while he realizes that as a "good samurai" he has to answer for this regardless of who's fault it was, he makes sure that the big bosses who control his "lord" answer before he does.

The theme of loneliness and uncertainty at the end of the 20th century are the two most dominant for me. The mobsters are facing an existential crisis over there future as they no longer command the sort of power that they once had. They try to keep their traditional lifestyle going, but it does not work as it use to. Gangster films like Casino (1995) also deal with some of these themes, but in as stark a terms. At the same time, the loneliness that the regular people who Ghost Dog encounters throughout this film is shown in such an intimae and beautiful way that defies my attempt to describe it. He unfortunately misses an opportunity to kill Marlo Stanfield—one of the few mistakes of this film😉. These themes almost risk overwhelming the film spiritually, but are sonically balanced by the Hip-Hop score. Though this is not the best Hip-Hop score made for a film, it ain't the worst and it definitely gives you enough of the feel of 1990s East Coat Hip-Hop. 

Jim Jarmusch is one of the greatest of the Indie film-makers and this movie further shows his talent. This is his penultimate film with the legendary cinematographer Robby Müller, who's cinematography is so masterful here as it is in most of his films.

My Review of King in the Wilderness (2018) directed by Peter W. Kunhardt

 There have been a few docs that cover the late years in the life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but this may be the lengthiest examination of it. These days we have the Santa Clause-version of MLK that even his enemies now invoke for their agenda. This documentary looks at the darkest time of his career from the vespers at Watts to his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee (1965-1968). He'd never been popular in his lifetime with a majority of white Americans, but he looses ground with the younger generations of black Americans as well when the Black Power Movement begins. When he come out publicly against the Vietnam War he looses much of the remaining support outside of his inner-circle. The doc has a lot of photos that I had never seen before and certain footage that I had seen, but from different angles. This is King at his lowest point, but also at his maturest morally and revolutionary. I definitely recommend this to people who aren't familiar to post-Selma MLK.

My Review of The Way of the Dragon (1972) directed by Bruce Lee

 Happy Birthday to Bruce Lee!

I decided to celebrate by reviewing his only movie as director and his most ambitious Golden Harvest film completed during his lifetime: The Way of the Dragon (1972). This movie takes place in Rome, Italy and stars Lee as a martial artists from Hong Kong who comes to Rome to defend the Chinese community there. It is the second movie after The Big Boss (1971) to find Lee's character acting in such a capacity. We see the action increased as the henchman are more dangerous (I mean it is the Italian Mafia) and they have recruited a deadly martial artist of their own (Chuck Norris). The climatic fight at the Roman Colosseum would be one of the most spectacular one-on-one clashes in Kong Fu cinema until Enter the Dragon (1973).

Besides the action sequences, the most notable (and noticeable) thing about this movie is Lee's involvement behind the camera. Besides co-production of Raymond Chow (the Run Run Shaw of Golden Harvest Studio), the cinematography of Tadashi Nishimoto (a veteran of Hong Kong cinema despite being Japanese), and be edited by Yao Chung Chang, all the major roles of the crew are by Lee himself. This really shows the contrast between a professional like Lo Wei and someone who gets the idea, but is not polished. Lee as a film director is a little rough, but he was fortunate to have Cho, Nishimoto, and Yao working with him. Luckily, his skills as action-director are more than able to compensate for his skills as a screenwriter and film-director. The truth is, the fight between himself and Norris is the pay-off for everything we have to sit-through leading up to that point. The stretching sequence of those two in the lead-up to their fight is the most intense warm-up I've ever seen on film. Even without Enter The Dragon, this movie would've made him an international superstar either way. This film and The Big Boss are at the bottom of my personal Bruce Lee list, but are still worth checking out. Happy Birthday to the Master.

My Goodreads Review of How To Be An Antiracist by Ibrahim X. Kendi

I am always weary of reading library books of non-fiction. It is tricky with ebooks, but because I was already trying to get through an even longer ebook I was going through this book at a very fast pace so I have not been able to give my whole soul over to this book but I have gave it at least half my mind. Consider this more a first impression more than a full review.

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi


"An antiracist idea is any idea that suggests the racial groups are equals in all their apparent differences—that there is nothing right or wrong with any racial group. Antiracist ideas argue that racist policies are the cause of racial inequities."

"The most threatening racist movement is not the alt right’s unlikely drive for a White ethnostate but the regular American’s drive for a 'race-neutral' one. The construct of race neutrality actually feeds White nationalist victimhood by positing the notion that any policy protecting or advancing non-White Americans toward equity is “reverse discrimination.” That is how racist power can call affirmative action policies that succeed in reducing racial inequities “race conscious” and standardized tests that produce racial inequities 'race neutral.'"


I was mildly-interested in this book even before BLM II kicked off this summer of 2020, but my interest in this book was definitely peaked a little. When I recently discovered my library got a digital copy of it I checked it out. This book is a semi-memoir, semi-essay/manual/history. It is modeled in the mold of books like We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates or more aptly Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil by W.E.B. Du Bois. Ibram X. Kendi uses his life to explain the concept in all it's dynamics of antiracism. As well as showing his journey from being a racist to an antiracist he documents this journey in W.E.B. Du Bois. It is an interesting book in seeing his personal stories, but the hype I had heard over the policy is one of those things where I am being told things simply which I had already learned the long way. Had I read this book between 2008-2012, it would've been my bible, my handbook. Unfortunately, I read it in 2020 after discovering a lot of these concepts that are antiracism on my own. If you don't want to spend so many years reading like me, this book is the cheat-sheet.

I agree with pretty-much 90%-95% of what Kendi articulates in this book. Most of it is pretty didactic straight-forward telling you how to be antiracist. I do get annoyed at that very common new-intelligentsia habit of trying to rename certain academic terms ad hoc. I was not totally convinced at his arguments concerning institutional racism, but he makes an interesting argument when he says: "Policymakers and policies make societies and institutions, not the other way around. The United States is a racist nation because its policymakers and policies have been racist from the beginning." Beyond that he tries to give antiracist advice on every conceivable issue and he leaves almost no stone unturned. It is fascinating and I was impressed at how relatively simple he makes it (I wish he could have made it more simple, but this is the best you'll get out of these Gen Xer academics). Towards the end he gives his antiracism credo:

It happens for me in successive steps, these steps to be an antiracist.
I stop using the “I’m not a racist” or “I can’t be racist” defense of denial.
I admit the definition of racist (someone who is supporting racist policies or expressing racist ideas).
I confess the racist policies I support and racist ideas I express.
I accept their source (my upbringing inside a nation making us racist).
I acknowledge the definition of antiracist (someone who is supporting antiracist policies or expressing antiracist ideas).
I struggle for antiracist power and policy in my spaces. (Seizing a policymaking position. Joining an antiracist organization or protest. Publicly donating my time or privately donating my funds to antiracist policymakers, organizations, and protests fixated on changing power and policy.)
I struggle to remain at the antiracist intersections where racism is mixed with other bigotries. (Eliminating racial distinctions in biology and behavior. Equalizing racial distinctions in ethnicities, bodies, cultures, colors, classes, spaces, genders, and sexualities.)
I struggle to think with antiracist ideas. (Seeing racist policy in racial inequity. Leveling group differences. Not being fooled into generalizing individual negativity. Not being fooled by misleading statistics or theories that blame people for racial inequity.)

I had not expected this book becoming available to me as fast as it did so I have rushed through it and have not had time to really sit more with it to give a deeper analysis here. I read this as a library borrow on my Kindle, but because it temporary I have not made my notes and highlights from it public. If I buy the book then I'll give a more thorough breakdown of this book. I can't tell other people how essential this book will be to their development, but it was not as essential to me as I thought it would be. It is a fundamentally idealistic book which may put more realist/pessimistic-leaning people off. In the end, what it teaches is fundamental.

"I represent only myself. If the judges draw conclusions about millions of Black people based on how I act, then they, not I, not Black people, have a problem. They are responsible for their racist ideas; I am not. I am responsible for my racist ideas; they are not. To be antiracist is to let me be me, be myself, be my imperfect self." – Amen Brother Kendi, amen.

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My Review of...The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) directed by Brian Henson

 Never been a big fan of musicals, but growing up as a child in the 1990s meant that they were inevitable and I would tolerate them. Of course if the quality of the musical as a whole is good than there is no complaint from me. This adaptation of A Christmas Carol is one of the most beloved for a lot of reasons. For one thing it was the first movie made by Jim Henson Productions after the death of The Muppets creator Jim Henson. There had been talk of disbanding the company, but Disney stepped in and this movie would be the first project of The Muppets' Disney era and would be directed by Jim Henson's son Brian. 

On a personal level, this was my favorite adaptation of A Christmas Carol as a child and one of the hardest to watch. I was two years old when it premiered and the 1990s was still a long way out from the video-on-demand/streaming era, So if I didn't catch it on TV or find it in a Blockbuster store than I just didn't see it. I can remember watching it one year and not being able to watch it for another two. Those days made one very appreciative of today when one can see these films on our computer screens. I don't watch this show anywhere near as much as I did over 20 years ago, but it is nice to revisit it every once-in-a-while.

I probably should've talked more about the film itself, but I felt a more personal look was warranted here—there are plenty of people better equipped to sing this film's praises. As it is this is the best "all-ages" telling of A Christmas Carol you are bound to find.

My Review of Oliver Twist (1948) directed by David Lean

 This movie is one of the best and controversial adaptations of Charles Dickens. Dickens was a writer who was stage actor at heart, so he wrote works that were designed to be easily adaptable to the stage and consequently have been easily adaptable to the screen. This adaptation was after David Lean's blockbuster 1946 adaptation of Dickens' Great Expectations. Lean reassembled the actors and crew from that production for this one and did a similar streamline of the plot for cinema. This movie was a forerunner of the very new style of film noir that was more popular stateside, but had some admirers in the Old World. This movie employed the camera-style...unfortunately a very ill-timed faithfulness to the illustrations of the source material. 

The acting in this film is phenomenal. Everyone gets into their roles emotionally and really makes you feel like you are in the story. Despite the substantial cuts to the story, much of the social realism of Dickens' novel remains and it feels almost like watching a documentary—almost...

Suppose we have to talk about it. One of the controversies of the original novel was the antisemitism around the character Fagin. Dickens was certainly not known for his sympathy towards non-white gentiles, but the outcry over his portrayal of Fagin in Oliver Twist caused him to revise descriptions of Fagin later editions/printings of the novel. But he kept the illustrations by George Cruikshank. When Alec Guinness makeup for his role as Fagin was shown it caused outrage throughout the US and Europe. Given that the Holocaust had ended only three years earlier the anti-Semitic depiction of Fagin's physical features (the particularly the nose) was in poor taste. A shame as Guinness does a great job in acting the character in my opinion and the movie never makes reference to Fagin being Jewish (seriously, I did not know myself the first time I saw this that Fagin was Jewish until I looked the story up for myself). Still if you can overlook this flaw of the film than it is a good introduction to this story and Dickens (and there are of course other adaptations–not as well acted, but with more of the original story–with much less offensive Fagin makeup).

I have to say the ending of this movie is one of the craziest action sequences I have seen since the ending of Throne of Blood. That sh*t was wild!

My Review of Fist of Fury (1972) directed by Lo Wei

 Possibly the greatest action star of all time. This is the greatest achievement (to me) of Bruce Lee. Equal parts actor and martial artist, Lee's movies from The Big Boss (1971) thru Enter the Dragon (1973) (or Game of Death (1978) depending on how you count it) changed the game for Chinese Martial Arts cinema and set the tone for the genre up to the current day. Until Lee's collaboration with Golden Harvest, most martial arts films were in the wuxia-style of Shaw Brothers or the Japanese swords-style of films like Sanjuro or the Zatoichi movies. Bruce Lee, who had spent his time in the United States developing Jeet Kune Do and being marginalized by Hollywood, traveled back to Hong Kong and hooked up with Shaw Brothers Studio's upstart rivals Golden Harvest. Instead of using the wuxia genre, Lee and director Lo Wei went for realism and raw aggression. Curiously, Lee decided not to display his Jeet Kune Do style, but to use Wing Chun style that he was taught by his mentor Ip Man. 

Fist of Fury (1972) was made of the times, revolution in the air. The setting is the colonial period in turn-of-the-20th-century China and sees a martial arts school in Shanghai be harassed by a rival Japanese bushido school. Lee's character Chen Zhen returns from abroad to Shanghai just after the death of his teacher under not-so-mysterious circumstances and the naked racist antagonism from the Japanese school basically makes Zhen go on a revenge mission against the Japanese. The dueling escalation leads to the colonial powers placing a bounty on Chen Zhen's head, but he makes sure the Karate school will not survive no matter what happens to him.

The righteous fury of his anger, the super-speed of his kicks, and the electrifyingly brutal use of his num-chuks makes this my favorite Bruce Lee film. It may not have the incredible backdrop of Rome like The Way of the Dragon (1972) or the Hollywood production and budget of Enter The Dragon, but the story and the action is perfect for me. I obviously empathized with the story here and seeing that sign being kicked still makes me nod my head yes. Fist of Fury (1972) is Kung Fu cinema at its purest. Also the director Lo Wei (who also directed Lee's previous film) plays the police inspector.

My Review of A Christmas Carol (1938) directed by Edwin L. Marin

 This is not one of the better adaptations of the novella for me. It is way too 1930s Hollywood hammy for my taste. The script takes too many liberties with the dialogue and changing the plot, one of the worst Americanizations of a foreign work for my taste. This movie was originally supposed to star Mr. Potter himself, Lionel Barrymore, but injury forced Reginald Owen to step in. I don't think Barrymore would've made this movie any better—the whole production is wrong for me. The only thing this movie has going for it is that it is not the 1935 version with Seymour Hicks. This movie also ties with the 1984 adaptation for worst Tiny Tim.

My Goodreads Review of Henry V by William Shakespeare

This is one of my better early reviews and a Shakespeare one to boot! I was always hit-or-miss with these early reviews, but this one came out well-enough.

Henry V by William Shakespeare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

We are often told war is hell, in this play Shakespeare shows us it is cruel too. While you would do good to have some background info on the actual people being portrayed blah, blah, blah, you also would do good with a little guide of Shakespeare's last historical plays Henry IV, Part 1 & Henry IV, Part 2. But even without it you would never the less see how torturous a campaign as Henry V's into France was. This is one of the Bard's better war plays mainly because he is doing it for his patrons the court of Elizabeth I and because it was not as far past as it was now. It would be something akin to the American Civil War in distance and as Henry V of Lancaster was thought to be a direct (dynasty-wise) ancestor of the Tudors this put a real source of patriotic pride in the play.

Henry, who was unruly in his youth, was found to be a very determined, steely, and pragmatic commander-in-chief and he ruthlessly enforced discipline in his small, disorganized, but fanatically determined army.

The French had the advantage of a better organized and armed military, home-field advantage, and well earned degree of confidence. What they did not have was Henry V and they would pay dearly for that.

Like many a Shakespeare play if you do not pay attention closely you miss the subtle contemplations and debates on the ethics of such things as war, will, even if Henry truly has the right and divine grace to challenge for the French crown

"But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy
reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopp'd
off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all,
"We died at such a place"; some swearing, some crying for a
surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the
debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard
there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they
charitably dispose of anything, when blood is their argument?
Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter
for the King that led them to it; who to disobey were against
all proportion of subjection."
(And this is his own army asking these questions and making these statements. I never cease to admire a Shakespeare play for that.)

The Battle of Agincourt is the centerpiece of the play. After a soul-rousing speech reminding everyone that the day itself is a feast day (a day of commemoration of a particular saint i.e. St. Valentine, St. Patrick and is usually the day that person died) of saints Crispin and Crispinian and bringing home the point that if they die it will be for country, but he would not ask for even one more man to fight with him and if they DO survive generations will read (and watch) of their heroics on the day not to mention bragging rights and showing up those who were not there (truly awesome speech). He has the whole of the English Army ready for battle. The battle is a hellish and nasty one as per the rules of a 15th century battle and every violation of a rule of war and human rights is very meticulously broken,
"Kill the poys [young boys who accompanied armies in those times] and the luggage! 'Tis expressly against the
law of arms. 'Tis as arrant a piece of knavery, mark you now,
as can be offer't; in your conscience, now, is it not?"
They win miraculously, in part because of the over-powering use of long bows (something they can thank William Wallace for) and a peace treaty that gives the French king's daughter to Henry and makes his heir King of France (spoiler alert it doesn't happen that way thanks to his death, his son's folly, the War of The Roses, and a woman named Joan of Arc).

In hindsight this could be viewed as a tragedy because despite all this hard work, despite all the effort, in-the-end England will never conquer all of France, and the Norman conquest will always dwell in the collective unconscious of the English as the one time (okay second if you include the Romans...) a country subjugated Britain and they never avenged (and no, sports and singing contests do not count nor does D-Day). So, I couldn't help but feel a little bit of pity, as I'm sure the contemporary audience did, for the after knowledge that all of these gains will be wasted by the War Of The Roses, which Shakespeare covered in Henry VI, Part 1.

For reference the visual adaption I saw was Kenneth Branagh's 1989 version so yeah...the battle scene was quite brutal. This movie adaption is a pretty close second for most bloodiest and grittiest adaption of a Shakespeare play in my opinion (with Akira Kurosawa's Ran coming at number one).

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My Review of Henry V (1989) directed by Kenneth Branagh

Mars touches France

This play adapts the last of William Shakespeare's plays on the Wars of the Roses and the Henriad. This is also the first feature film directed by one of the greatest Shakespearean actors of all time Kenneth Branagh. After years acting and directing at the Royal Shakespeare Company, he finally got his way to Hollywood on the start of his run of Shakespeare films. He uses this star-studded cast to tell the story of Henry V using scenes from Henry IV, part 1 & Henry IV part 2 (both which had been adapted by the BBC Television Shakespeare and would be adapted again by the BBC for their Hallow Crown series). This was the first major adaptation of the play since Laurence Olivier's WWII era pro-war adaptation.

This movie comes at the end of the Cold War and unlike Olivier's adaptation is of a distinct anti-war character. We begin the play with the decision and scheme to lay claim to more French land as we were still in the middle of the 100 Years War between England and France. This movie covers England's greatest success in the war (Shakespeare's first and second plays covers England losing that war). It is not an easy victory and it seems every step forward the English make is at great cost and the movie is always questioning and interrogating if this was all worth it in a way that Olivier did not dare do in 1944. Even the climactic St Crispin's Day Speech is delivered by Branagh (playing King Henry) with a sorrow and exhaustion that even the triumphal background music could not hide (this was that late80s-90s era of Hollywood movies being afraid of any scene not having incidental music). The speech made the night before the St Crispin's Day Speech by a soldier to King Henry is the one that I think about a lot: "But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopp'd off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all, "We died at such a place"; some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of anything, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the King that led them to it; who to disobey were against all proportion of subjection." 

One has to be truly amazed at this movie. Shakespeare films marketed towards a wide audience are always risky (as Branagh himself would find out in his latter Shakespeare adaptations), but Branagh nails it here and it would do to great acclaim in the the early to mid 1990s. This play is near the same level as Ran (1985) in the depiction of war in a Shakespeare movie adaptation—Edwin Starr would certainly agree that war is as brutal. The fact is, you can't call yourself a Shakespeare movie fan if you have not yet seen this movie yet.

My Review of Parasite 기생충 (2019) directed by Bong Joon-ho

 Every so often there comes a work of art that taps into a universal feeling of the human condition.The last few years has seen the growing stratification of society along class lines and almost astronomical levels of wealth inequality. This is a problem throughout the world, but South Korea has the fastest growing rate of  economic and social inequality in East Asia. Furthermore, the economic juggernaut that is the K-Pop industry (which is partly subsidized by the state) pushes a culture of absolute consumerism in line with the late-stage capitalism of the times. While the overall poverty rate in South Korea is low, the country has the among the highest poverty rate for the elderly in the world. The myth of the "American Dream" has been super-charged in South Korea . Out of this environment, Bong Joon-ho ('Bong' is his surname) decided to make a movie…

Parasite is a tale of two families, one at the bottom and one at the top of the stairway to heaven (Bong described it as a upstairs/downstairs movie). There are no heroes in this movie—everyone is a parasite in this movie because they live in a system that rewards them for being so. When the small parasites  get a chance to prey on big parasites, we see it all unfold in hilarious then tragic ways. As a satire, Parasite reminds me of Four Lions (2010) in the way it uses comedy and tragedy to tell a story about society. The way Parasite keeps revealing twists and making you question what you are seeing till the bitter-end is amazing. The old neo-Confucianism combined with the economics of modern capitalism to make the idea of empathy and modern welfare almost in illusion in this society according to this movie. The film's ending was almost a foregone conclusion when such an extreme imbalance is allowed to go uncheck for so long; all pretense to morality is easily tossed out the window very fast like in Bresson's L'Argent (1983), though the true spiritual predecessor to this film is Akia Kurosawa's High and Low (1963) which Parasite takes a lot of visual and plot references from (the most obvious being the position of the wealthy house to that of the slums).

This movie won nearly 60% of the awards it was nominated for. No matter what demographic you are from, this movie touched a nerve. There seems to be quite a few people who are fed-up (including myself, naturally) and this movie spoke to them—spoke to us. I get the same feeling from this film that I got when watching Charles Burnett's The Final Insult (1997). That movie and this one deal with the raw intensity–and offer a strong critique–of wealth inequality. All of us feel like we are in the basement trying to signal for help.

My Review of Nosferatu (1922) directed by F. W. Murnau

 Of all the many movie adaptations of the Dracula by Bram Stoker that I have seen, this is supposedly the most faithful to Stoker's novel when it comes to the characterization of the vampire. This is of course ironic given that this adaptation changed the names of all the characters and locations from the book in a failed effort to beat the copyright. Still this movie is one of the most enduring example of German Expressionism and one of the few legit scary adaptations of Dracula. 

As far as silent movies go, this one is a spooky one. Though labeled "black and white," the film is actually tinted in several different colors based-on location and mood. Max Shreck as Count Orlock (the name-changed Dracula) gives as creepy a performance that you would see in a silent horror film in 1922. The expressionist use of shadow, camera angles, and overall cinematography is amazing and the stand-out scene for me is the one of Orlock entering Thomas Hutter's room to attack him the first time—no one has ever walked through a door with that much menace before or since in the history of film.

My Goodreads Review of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Vol. 17: Successors by Koyoharu Gotouge

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Vol. 17: Successors by Koyoharu Gotouge
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Happy Halloween folks!! (To think that the actual scariest day of this year is actual three days from now.)

No better book to read on this day than one of the best horror manga of the new century. We are in the middle of the final battle and as usual no easy victories are allowed to come here. We lead this volume off with a devastating lost for the demon slayers, but we don't linger on it for to long because we are actually visiting multiple fronts of the battle and getting in more back-story on the different participants. Zenitsu (my least favorite of the protagonists) shows off a new weapon and we get some more of Tanjuro's history with his father. The pacing of this manga is definitely a "writing for the trades" situation so I it is obvious this battle won't be over know time soon and this volume is just a segment of the story with no beginning or conclusion. Because I came to this manga from the beautifully-made anime, Gotouge's art will always feel off to me though he is the one who created all these characters. Can't wait to read the next volume.

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Castle in the Sky (1986) directed by Hayao Miyazaki

 The film is the technical first film of Studio Ghibli film by the legendary Hayao Miyazaki. It is not taking the man vs nature theme in quite the way Miyazaki usually does. We have a more complex debate on technology and ambition. The movie is almost like two films harmonized in perfect sync. A combination of fantasy and sci-fi (of the steampunk variety) and one where the character are all the more complex than we are initially led to believe. The strong female character are featured here as is usual for a Miyazaki movie.

The movie ask if people really deserve paradise. The protagonists and antagonists are searching for a secret floating city called Laputa and when they find it are presented with a hard choice. The ideas and aesthetics of the movie brought steampunk into the mainstream of anime and directly influenced Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water by Miyazki's acolyte Hideaki Anno. It is a sharpening of the design of the animation from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) (though the plots are similarly strong). I am very torn between Castle in the Sky and Princess Mononoke (1997) for my favorite Miyazaki film.

Chronicle of a Disappearance (1996) directed by Elia Suleiman

 I never had been a big fan of the silent, physical comic movies growing-up. Though I knew of Chaplain, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Jacques Tati but I didn't really watch them until I started watching and being interested in films as art. I first got wind of Elia Suleiman during the promotion of The Time That Remains (2009). I became interested in his other films and I managed to see first Divine Intervention (2002) and then TTtR. It took me awhile at the time, but I eventually got to see his first feature film and was amazed by it.

In each of the three films in Suleiman's "Palestinian" trilogy, we follow the silent Suleiman as he observes and interacts with life in apartheid and statelessness. The first and third movies are autobiographical treatments of Suleiman and his parents while the second is a then-contemporary allegory of life in the Holy Land during the Second Intifada. Chronicle of a Disappearance sees Suleiman as he comes back to the region after a 12 year exile in New York City. He examines life for Palestinians in Nazareth and Jerusalem. It is him trying to adjust to life and others are not allowed to adjust even to the apartheid system. The film style of Jacques Tati is very present and the satirical spirit of Tati is used as a framework to examine life for Palestinians in the years between the First and Second Intifadas when the idea of peace was at it's closes for Israelis and Palestinians before the door of peace slammed shut. We principally observes what Suleiman observes in the Palestinian peoples of Nazareth and Jerusalem and in himself.

The introduction of the Jerusalem section and the film's end are what really endears the film to me. When we go to the "Jerusalem Political Diary" we are treated to a lengthy phantom ride through East Jerusalem that ends in the most random way imaginable. At the movie's end we have a powerfully moving tribute to his parents and a rebuke of what the Israeli state as tried to do to them in one of the most controversial scenes in Middle Eastern Cinema (ironically controversial with other Arabs) that ends with the simple dedication: "To my mother and father, the last homeland." 

Taxi Driver (1976) directed by Martin Scorsese

 Where do you begin with this one? This is a film with a lot to tell about the way certain folks think today and the impact of folks taking for granted or misinterpretation of them have done to the world in the last few years. A semi-autobiographical screenplay by Paul Schrader of a white, dispossessed, Vietnam War veteran that wanders New York City aimlessly, while we see his mind collapse under the weight of his insecurities, obsessions and paranoia. So many fools have come to this with some naïve worship of the protagonist as the public at the end of the movie and miss the point Scorsese and Schrader was trying to make. But lets get into this film…

We see Travis Bickle (played by Robert De Niro) aimlessly passing time and we hear his neurotic musings to himself.  After awhile, he decides to become a taxi driver and takes any route he's given—even picking-up black passengers (shocking behavior for a New York City cab driver). He works almost all hours and hangs around an equal assortment of co-workers and develops a crush on a campaign worker for a presidential candidate That ends poorly, but around the same time he meets an underage prostitute (played by Jody Foster) who he becomes convinced he must save from the evils of the world…and the movie really goes wild.

The editing of this film is incredible and really takes us into this world along with the cinematography of Michael Chapman. This film takes us inside the heart of Manhattan in the mid-1970s with no recognizable landmarks. The camera-work also takes us into the heart of Travis. Despite him saying that he will work "anywhere, any time", when he speaks about wiping away the filth and sleaze of the city, he's usually looking at black people. Whenever we see him looking at black people he has a paranoid, threatened reaction and a sense of dread. Travis has to conversations with white supremacists in this movie (one notably played by Scorsese himself) and one of the first people he kills is black. This always fascinates me with the film because usually when American cinema wants to show a white supremacist, they show a loud, boisterous almost ogre-like character or a faux-affable neo-nazi. This movie shows a much more quiet and unusual example of one who's entire mental state is in free-fall. 

This movie is an amazing character-study and example of existentialism on film. Scorsese, Schrader, and De Niro created a strong snapshot of post-Vietnam/Watergate New York City—the kind of place where a psychopath living among assholes somehow ends up a hero who does not have to answer to no one because no one is smart or competent-enough to hold him to account.

My Review of Pulp Fiction (1994) directed by Quentin Tarentino

 Being born 10 years before the 21st century, few films dominated the pop-culture landscape of my childhood like Pulp Fiction (1994). This film was one of the defining cinematic achievement of Generation X, and the definitive post-modern film. Many of the defining traits of Tarentino's film-style would be codified here and possibly one of the best film roles of Samuel L. Jackson. Three simple morality tales told out-of-order and with no film score of its own, but using the film's soundtrack to layer the atmosphere of the film. The movie told a story about America that Hollywood was not quite sure it wanted to hear at the time. 

For all the violence in this film, it is amazing that the majority of the movie is gangsters contemplating the world and their navels. Though at its heart it is a gangster/noir film, much of Tarentino's love for 70s film culture (e.g. blaxploitation, Japanese New Wave, 70s horror) is the body of the film. Like a certain other indie film-maker on the other side of the country, the influence of Martin Scorsese is apparent throughout. I'm not sure this film is as good as Django Unchained (2012), but it is a masterpiece. And yes, in a movie with so much murder and a rape scene, the n-word scene is the overkill, the film rises above that flaw. Also, this film lost the Best Picture Academy Award to Forrest Gump (1994)—how folks still take the Oscars seriously I'll never know.

My Review of Harakiri (1962) directed by Masaki Kobayashi

 You take an artsy idealist leftist that wants to make movies and you force him to fight for a fascist military dictatorship and you get a guy who has an axe to grind with the society that made him suffer. Masaki Kobayashi's ordeal in WWII made him the Japanese film-maker with the most cynical view of Japanese history, culture, and society. Coming off his contemporary social films and his magnum opus The Human Condition (1959-1961), he decided to do a brutal interrogation of the samurai ideology of Bushido and ask the question: "What do you think really happened during the Edo Period, given what we know about human nature?" He attempts to answer that question with one of the bleakest and existential samurai films of all time. Donald Richie calls this the "anti-samurai" film.

We start with a ronin named Tsugumo Hanshirō showing up at the doorstep of the Iyi clan House in Edo (aka Tokyo).asking if he can commit harakiri–ritual suicide–in their courthouse and the clan is baffled that another samurai from Hiroshima would come to them with this request. As this ronin–played by Tatsuya Nakadai–begins to speak, we learn that something is very off about what is going on here. The film shows how absurd the logic of Bushido is in peacetime and how the hardcore, selective application of it leads to disaster. While a few samurai clans at the top had a clean transition to the Edo Period, for many the end of the Sengoku period was more tumultuous than the strife of the warring states period they had just emerged out of. The moodiness of Toru Takemitsu's music score and the cinematography by Yoshio Miyajima makes the film feel to us the audience the doomed atmosphere of the protagonists being toyed with by the system.

Kobayashi was on a hot-streak during this time with all of his films engaging in social realism and holding institutions accountable for the mistreatment of people during the way years and the modern day. This was his first venture into period films, but he manages to interrogate recent Japanese history and contemporary society all the same. Nakadai may not have been as highly celebrated at this time as Toshiro Mifune, but he was just as commanding in his star roles―and his star never shined brighter than with Masaki Kobayashi. Kobayashi is the anti-weebo of of cinema, he uses his knowledge of Japanese art and culture against all who would try to romanticize Japan without taking into account its dark side. Every inconsistency of the code of Bushido is when presented against practical reality is presented here, but the hypocrisy and ruthlessness of the state is shown in full display at the end when it is able to brush-off all this by virtue of being able to write the history books.

My Review of The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962) directed by Robert Bresson

 I can't remember the exact day I watched this film for the first time. All I remember was that it was late at night I was thinking of going to bed and I started doing some last minute channel surfing on the TV, when I ended-up on the TCM channel just as this movie was starting. An hour later I was stunned by what I had seen. I was a Joan of Arc fan for the next 24 hours and a Robert Bresson fan for life.

This movie was my introduction to Robert Bresson and a form of art film I call "grown folk cinema." It was clear that Bresson is not messing around with the standard theatrics of most movies and went for a minimal approach to how his "models" (his name for the actors in his films) went about their roles. There is a quiet aggression that is spell-binding to watch. The script for the movie is adapted directly from the transcript of the actual trial of Joan of Arc as well as her posthumous rehabilitation trial 25 years later after the 100 Years War had turned decisively in favor of France. Along with the obvious religious themes of the movie, this film is a study judicial corruption and kangaroo courts/show trials; this film came on the eve of the Women's Liberation Movement in the West and right after France lost the Algerian War (literally 2 months, a lot of themes of this movie about the military's over-reach had real-life parallels in that war). The memorable performance of Florence Delay really draws you into the movie and the character of Joan and makes you really consider the person who could be a teenager and yet command an army.

I can't say whether this movie is the best introduction to the films of Robert Bresson, but it was my introduction to and it is the shortest of his major films. This film shows you how am unjust criminal justice system or an overzealous wartime tribunal acts regarding the rights of anyone they insist on putting to death. This film revealed to me a whole new way of films. Also, note that the only "music" heard in the film are drum and horns at the beginning and drum rolls at the end.

My Review of Trances (1981) directed by Ahmed El Maânouni

 This is one of the most underrated music documentary of all time. I first saw this movie randomly on the TCM (Turner Classic Movies) channel in the United States and it blew me away. I knew a little about Moroccan music and gnawa, but this group Nass El Ghiwane is something special. They are the forerunners of interpreting Moroccan folk music in the post-independence era. This documentary tracks this group in 1981 and gives an overview of their history and influences. The film balances the narratives of their background with their musical selections. 

Nass El Ghiwane broke with traditional Arabic music popular at the time in North Africa and went for a combination of more traditional Moroccan music which is based in Berber and Sub-Saharan African culture and they symbolized this by using all Moroccan instruments and replacing that key Arab instrument–the oud–with that key African instrument: the banjo. They also included Sufism in their music in a big way that contemporary groups at that time rarely did. Their shows also were a way for folks to vent their grievances with Moroccan society and the government at that time and their lyrics summed up the general mood very matter-of-factly. If Moroccan or African music is not your thing than, you don't have a reason to watch this. But if you like those genres, this movie is required viewing.

My Goodreads Review of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Vol. 16: Undying

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Vol. 16: Undying by Koyoharu Gotouge
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Well, we resolved the last training-arc of the series and the final battle is upon us. The original Japanese publication of this series finished this year, but the last Japanese volume of this is not until December 2020, and the official English translation won't be done until the middle of next year (hopefully we'll have a functioning COVID-19 vaccine by then). Tanjiro get's his last training by the Stone Hashira and just in time, because Muzan makes his move and the whole Demon Slayer Corps is now fighting in total war against him and his lieutenants.

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My Review of Taste of Cherry (1997) طعم گيلاس directed by Abbas Kiarostami

 Depending on who you ask, this film or Close-Up (1990) is thought to be the magnum opus of Abbas Kiarostami. I can't say, but like all of the films of the Iranian New Wave it is something that humbles you and really make you consider what it is to walk upon this Earth. Right now I am dealing with the back to back losses of my grandmother and my aunt so I may be foggy in my perspective, but I'll try to get this right. The plot of this film is not the important part, but the details of how the plot plays out.

Bahdii is the man who goes to different people with the macabre favor of burying him if his plan to take his life goes forward successfully and collect the payment he has left behind for them. Most people turn him down flatly, but he finds an old man who is willing to it–but trying to convince him not to take his life. He uses the analogy of being in a dark night of the soul himself and almost killing himself until he eats a cherry from the tree he had planned to hang himself with–hence the title. I'll leave the ending up to the viewer.

This film in the hands of a lesser or less sophisticated film-maker would have been a disaster, especially given how easy the plot could be given over to pretentious grand-standing. But we have one of the greatest humanist film-makers of all time and the top-dog of the Iranian New Wave working this project so it becomes a transcendent masterpiece. It is a quite masterpiece compared to Close-Up, but it does make one fell a certain lightness and thoughtfulness (at least that's how I felt). The featuring of so many ethnic minorities in this film was noted throughout this movie. Also, this may be the darkest Range Rover commercial ever created (some comedy for you in these sad times). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMbRV5d7TeY 

Donnie Darko (Director's Cut) (2001) directed by Richard Kelly

 This film is one of those 2000s classic films of the hipster canon. I can't lie, I saw this over 12 years ago and I got caught-up in the weirdness of it. It's that James Joyce effect of something being attractive because of how obscure it is and I wasted more time than I care to admit trying to figure out what was going on. Those were more innocent times. Now after watching this after maybe 10 years of forgetting I owned it, the basic way I would sum this film-up is that it gives the opposite answer of the question asked in It's A Wonderful Life (1946): maybe folks would be better off if you did not survive. Interesting piece of sci-fi suspense, but I've outgrown it. Still  the best use of Tears for Fears music in any movie. 

Godzilla (1954) directed by Ishiro Honda

In 1954-55, two films were released in Japan that commented on the fear and paranoia of nuclear annihilation in Japan. One was I Live in Fear (1955) directed by Akira Kurosawa about a Japanese business owner who goes insane by the threat of nuclear war. The other film was by Kurosawa's frequent assistant director Ishiro Honda and deals with a creature spawned by nuclear fallout taking revenge on humanity. Godzilla (1954) was not the first "kaiju" or giant monster film, but its impact has been the most long-lasting. It has used the threat of these un-natural beings as direct allegories of man's appetite for destruction alive in the public consciousness since 1954. 

The nuclear testing on the Bikini Atoll and the nuclear fallout that affected the Japanese fishing boat Lucky Dragon No. 5 were the immediate catalyst for this film, but the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are obviously the event shadowing the whole film. One may be surprised at how much of the codifiers of the Godzilla franchise was established in this film. Despite the very 1950s special effects, the narrative and seriousness of the this film is still the best of the franchise. Of course, the longest lasting aspect of this film is Godzilla's iconic roar. Also the political commentary has also remained a feature of the franchise, more or less. I'd guess that the Cold War balancing at Japan was engaged in and public opinion to the Luck Dragon Incident deeply informed this film. This movie is the cornerstone of the idea of a man-made apocalypse; if you take Godzilla out, a lot of the devastation you see in this movie still have real-life analogues–that's what makes this movie endure to me.

Some afterthoughs: It is interesting to think the Takeshi Shimura had starring roles in the two biggest Japanese movies of 1954: this and Seven Samurai. Half the crew of this film (especially the special effects crew) were war criminals associated with the wartime ministry of propaganda. The Godzilla suit was by all accounts the most hellish thing on Earth to work-in at that time (this was before Toho Studios has air-condition).

Some Further Thoughts on the movie Us directed by Jordan Peele

 Spoiler Alert if you have not seen this movie as I talk very directly about a key plot point of the movie.

I will bring on them a disaster they cannot escape. Although they cry out to me, I will not listen to them.

How do you follow-up one of the most celebrated horror films of the decade? By making another film that is hotly anticipated. We saw a horror film meditating on race relations with Get Out (2017), but with Us (2019) Jordan Peele turns his focus to class inequality and the division of American society between the haves and have-nots. This movie can also be seen  as a commentary on what Generation X thinks about American society in the new century–their anxieties about it, but I want more to focus on the class allegory. Like Peele's previous feature, this film rewards repeat viewings; Peele has really learned well from the Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg movies.

The using of the Tethered as the underclass (they literally are forced to live underground) and "regular" people as the privileged ruling class was brilliant enough. Peele really outdoes himself by showing what he thinks would happen if two members of these classes found themselves in each other's shoes–a kind of warped version of The Prince and the Pauper or Trading Places (1983) as horror instead of comedy. In Peele's mind, the member of the underclass who schemed her way to the surface is able to more or less "pass." The member of the surface world that is kidnapped and forced to live among the underclass does not accept her supposed fate. She gathers a following among the underclass–the Tethered–and decides to launch a violent invasion/revolution on the privileged surface world. The idea that Peele postulates how one rises out of the underclass and if the closing of the inequality gap can be done without massive loss-of-life is something the movie gives a very pessimistic answer to. We aren't led to believe in the end that the real Tethered Adelaide was even a little bit remorseful for what her actions kicked-off. We know that the leader of the Tethereds' revolution is killed before the event is completed and the movie ends without "us" (the audience) knowing the aftermath.

The confirmation of what happened in the house of mirrors that we see at the end served more to make me feel conflicted than anything else. Does the film mean to tell us that a revolution against inequality is not worth the cost? Is it saying that only select talented people can lead it? When watching the whole film, the characters of Adelaide and Red come-off more tragic and frustrating than anything else. In the end we are forced into the same predicament as the son Jason of reckoning with the truth and our complicity in the inequality and suffering of the world around...us. 

My Review of The Haunting (1963) directed by Robert Wise

 It is amazing to think one of the greatest psychological horror films of all time was directed by the same guy who directed The Sound of Music and West Side Story. The Haunting was one of the few books I read in grade school that I didn't feel was a chore and this movie adaptation is just as a good. The idea of what you don't see  being scarier than what you do see is always an interesting idea. This film comes at what can be considered the end of the black and white movie era in the West and used black and white filming techniques superbly.

A swf named Eleanor living unhappily with her asshole-sister's family is chosen to stay with other specially chosen people at a strange mansion called Hill House with a paranormal researcher for his project. Eleanor is not the most socially-trained person (she spends the whole movie having a mental breakdown), but luckily for her her haunted-housemates are all assholes so it all balances out. Meanwhile we learn that Hill House is basically a slaughterhouse for all the people who have ever lived in it and the two caretakers who work there won't go anywhere near the property after sundown. As the gang stay at the house, strange things do indeed start happening and Eleanor and the others debate whether the house is haunted or not. It all comes to a head when an unexpected visitor arrives.

It's a testament that the screenplay is so good given how painfully sixties the acting is. That can be credited to it being co-written by the author of the novel the movie was based on: Shirley Jackson. Claire Bloom was the best of the bunch for me. What makes this movie work is the set-design and cinematography combining to give the film such a terrifying atmosphere. The crowning achievement of this film is the refusal to use any visual special effects (compared to the disastrous 1999 adaptation that tried to cram as many special effects in it as possible).  It would be interesting to compare this to the Roger Corman adaptation of The Fall of the House of Usher.

My Review of Get Out (2017) directed by Jordan Peele

 I've never been a big horror movie fan, but I got my horror-movie go-to list. This movie and any other with Jordan Peele's name on it is on that list. As soon as the previews for this film came out I was curious and seeing this film when it was released was an experience. This is one of the few movies that gets scarier when you see it the second time and you are in on it. From what I understand, this movie and Us (2019) are part of a larger story of a sinister conspiracy.

Chris and his girlfriend Rose plan a weekend at Rose's parents' house. Chris is nervous because he's black and Rose and her parents are white, but she reassures him that it's fine. On first meeting the parents are overly-friendly, but the black workers at the house are noticeably uncanny in their speech and mannerisms. After a run-in with Rose's hypnotist mom, things go down-hill for Chris.

This film being the commentary that it was on the dawning of the Trump-era has been talked about. The look at racism among white leftists that this film meditates on has been talked about. I want to focus on the idea of being in a situation where there is no sanctuary. Where those who you thought were friendly allies were actually not only enemies, but in some cases the masterminds. One wonders what a Denmark Vesey or Toussaint L'Ouveture would have thought about this film. For me, the most agonizing part of this movie was when Chris thought he was with a friend and we know that was not the case.

I should also comment briefly on the hero of the film: Lil' Rel Howery playing the role of Chris' best friend Rod. Rod is the character every horror movie needs. Yes he's funny, but the fact that remains that while the antagonists were one step ahead of Chris, Rod was one step ahead of everybody! Howery gave that star-turn performance here.

This movie holds up so well because despite the fantastical elements, so much of it is rooted in the bitter truth that people carry in their hearts due to the myth of white supremacy. Peele originally conceived of this movie as a meta-commentary of the treatment of black horror film-fan by mainstream horror cinema generally. But of course, if you've read James Baldwin's review of The Exorcist in his book The Devil Finds Work then you know that the ideas of Get Out had a long relevance before Peele wrote the script and as long as the dual ideologies of whiteness and anti-blackness exist, not simply Chris but the whole country is doomed to be trapped in the sunken place. Oh, and the ending was geniusly subversive allusion to Othello. 

My Review of To Sleep with Anger (1990) directed by Charles Burnett

 After false starts with both Killer of Sheep (1977) and My Brother's Wedding (1983), Charles Burnett once again was making a feature film and third time was the charm. No blocking the full distribution of the film because of music rights like in 1977. No botched editing of the film by the studio like  in 1983. In 1990 Burnett's reputation as an auteur was enough to get him producers for another feature,  at a major studio, with the backing of Danny Glover (who would play the film's larger-than-life antagonist). This would be Burnett's first feature to be released and distributed without incident. I suspect that the breakthrough success of Spike Lee in the years between My Brother's Wedding and To Sleep With Anger (1990) made Hollywood temporarily more willing to work with more black film-makers.

This film is the story of a family that is having some struggles with each other when the patriarch looses his good-luck charm and a mysterious old-friend named Harry appears. Harry's presence starts leading to strange occurrences and disasters that get the family to start putting two and two together.

This a classic folk tale of the protagonists versus the trickster character and Harry is an especially crafty and almost-demonic one. Harry represents a warped sense of African-American culture and tradition that opposes the family that he terrorizes. As those around him are weak in their knowledge of self or in-conflict, he comes in and takes over almost pushing the family to the brink. We see the conjure tradition that has it's roots in traditional African practices come up against African-American Christianity. There is Harry's sinister greed and self-centeredness versus the selflessness of the family matriarch and then there are kids who refuse to clean-up after themselves. The fish fry gathering was a vintage Burnett show-piece and the performance of See See Rider is a nice call back to the opening of My Brother's Wedding. It is interesting to see Burnett working with professional actors for the first time as oppose to his neorealist preference for amateurs and non-actors. It is interesting to hear Harry say that he doesn't have enemies because he doesn't hold on to the past despite him being a twisted embodiment of the past itself. Though the family nearly falls apart, they mange to realize Harry's hold on them and mange to break it not through rational means...but with Chekhov's marbles.

This movie is a great parable of the crossroads of culture and history. Harry forces the family to reconcile the conflicts they had before his arrival in order to overcome him with a trial by fire. When the family survives him they come out stronger than before. This story fits into the tradition of Charles W. Chesnutt, but brings it to 1990 South Central Los Angeles. And the boy did learn how to play the trumpet after all.

My Review of Early Summer (1951) directed by Yasujiro Ozu

 I am careful about how I talk about Yasujiro Ozu because he is prime hipster/weebo-bait. His "strangeness" and his adoration by Western critics make it hard to properly critique his films. It's even worse if you are a big fan of one of his contemporaries like myself😉. His static seat-level shots, his post-war near-elimination of tracking and panning shots in his films, and his full on framing of actors, places, and his use of transition shots as temporal ellipses have been analyzed to death–so I will skip it here. That gives me the chance to talk about the story which like most of Ozu's filmography deals with generational conflict and drama in a changing (Japanese) society.

Most folks might think that Ozu only dealt with domestic drama, but that's not true. What is true is that regardless if it is pre- or post-1945, Ozu's dramas tend to carry very similar themes (this is especially the case after Late Spring (1949)). Having watched Late Spring, Tokyo Story (1953), and An Autumn Afternoon (1962) for example have shown that when he found a story he liked–he used it and Early Summer does not break this trend. In his 1930s dramas it was The Great Depression that became the underlying catalyst for conflict; in his post-WWII films it was the Westernization of Japan that spurred conflict between the younger and older generations.

The plot of the film is one of the numerous variations on the plot of Late Spring. A woman named Noriko (played by Setsuko Hara) is unmarried and living with her best life with her family when a visiting uncle suggests that it is time for her to get married and drama ensues from there. One big issue that comes up is the changing status of women in postwar Japan. This is something that one would expect with Kenji Mizoguchi more than the more traditional-minded Ozu. The "debate" (in the Ozu sense of the word) is whether the family playing match-maker for Noriko is acceptable for her as a modern Japanese woman. In 1949's Late Spring, the unmarried woman is forced to marry her family's choice of husband against her wishes and has little say in the matter. In Early Summer (made just  two years later), not only does the daughter not marry the man the family has picked for her, but she ends up marrying a man they don't approve of. During the course of these events we learn a good deal about the goings on about middle-class Japanese society at this time. I think the theme in this and others of Ozu's films about family separation has to do with the  trauma of the war years.

One interesting thing about this movie was seeing Chishu Ryu playing a character (Noriko's brother) that was his actual age. Ozu always had Ryu play older male characters–even when he was in his early 20s. So it is uncanny to see Ryu in his 40s, playing someone in their 40s (just two years later, he was playing the elderly patriarch in Tokyo Story). Setsuko Hara would age less dramatically in Ozu's films, but by the late 1950s she would be playing the matriarch roles herself.

As with all his films, Ozu's Zen belief informs the narrative and technical aspects of the film. He uses temporal ellipses to such great narrative-effect that it almost creates an atmosphere of suspense since you don't know where the story is going to pick up after a scene has concluded. His insistence on stressing the impermanence of all things also connects all his films. You can argue that this was one of the most relatively optimistic of his dramatic films–a far cry from the sorrow that loomed over the ending of Late Spring. Early Summer has some optimism for Noriko and her family and Japan's future. It's also interesting to note that the most optimistic of Ozu's dramas has the woman making her own choice. 

My Review of Kwaidan (1965) directed by Masaki Kobayashi

 After the success of such a gritty masterpiece like Harakiri (1962), Masaki Kobayashi  got the greenlight to make one of the most ambitious movies in Japanese history. He took his clear-eyed revolutionary critique of power, Japanese national mythology and history and applies it to the horror genre. The anthology-format and the stunning set-design and cinematography make Kobayashi's first color film a resounding success. This also sees him go from his social realism style of his previous films to a surrealism influenced by traditional Japanese art-aesthetic (something had only previously done in Thick-Walled Room (1956)). 

The film adopts four stories from Lufcadio Hearn's horror anthology collection Kwaidan. Kobayashi takes these stories and adds his own social commentary to them. Story one centers on greed. Story two centers on betrayal and the surveillance-state of wartime Japan. Story four deals with arrogance and Japanese culture. But for this review I want to talk about story 3 "Hoichi the Earless." This story is about a blind biwa player that lives in a Buddhist temple and gained renown for his performances of passages from The Tale of the Heike. Hoichi starts being forcibly-summoned to play for a mysterious aristocratic clan. It turns out that the dead Heike clan has been forcing him to play manically in a cemetery for them about there past glories despite it undermining his health. This keeps going on until the Buddhist priest figure out what's going on and intervene. This is the longest of the episodes in this movie and was Kobayashi's commentary on how the nationalist glorification of figures of like the Heike was so twisted and helped lead to the destruction of a generation during WWII. Kobayashi's interpretation of the Battle of Dan-no-Ura  and the story overall was meant to make folks question the glorification of these suicidal-militaristic values in the Heike story. Kobayashi certainly did not believe in honoring any aspect of the past that senselessly harmed people in the present. Anything dealing with the military and rigid duty was the enemy of Masaki Kobayashi.

Though I am not a big fan of horror movies, I do appreciate horror films with a message or a point (though I have my exceptions like Zombie comedies or John Carptenter's Halloween) like this one or the Jordan Peele movies for example. This movie is showing you the uncanny, but also making you think of some real-world scary things like militarism, fascism, and nationalism–very 2020 type of horror.

My Review of Solaris (1972) directed by Andrei Tarkovsky

 Snaut: "We have no interest in conquering any cosmos. We want to extend the Earth to the borders of the cosmos. We don't know what to do with other worlds. We don't need other worlds. We need a mirror. We struggle for contact, but we'll never find it. We're in the foolish human predicament of striving for a goal that he fears, that he has no need for. Man needs man."

*Spoilers if you have not seen it*

I don't if it was this film or Masaki Kobayashi's Kwaidan (1966) that got me interested in ghost stories that are not about or not just about scaring you, but about teaching you something about life. Solaris (1972) is about a lot of things, but I think the theme of being thankful for what you got is very prominent. This is the first–though not the last–of Tarkovsky's "anti-science fiction" films. Though a lot of the action this film takes place away  from the Earth, Earth is the key place of this movie. Of course, this is also a ghost story featuring a lost love...and a sentient alien planet.

We find a cosmonaut-scientist named Kris Kelvin who  is a widower and is estranged from his family–particularly his father. He is given the assignment to assess the strange happenings on the a space station orbiting the mysterious alien planet Solaris. He spends his last day on Earth with his father, aunt, and father's friend Berton who was a part of an early exploratory mission to Solaris, but had a mental breakdown during the course of that mission and retired soon-afterwards. When Kelvin makes it to the station, he finds it in disarray and then things take a turn on him...

[Spoiler-stuff now]

So lets just get into the big twist. The ideas of alien ghosts is genius to me. The alien planet reads your subconscious make people based on who or what you desired most based on your memories of that person. Kelvin's buried love and remorse of his dead wife Hari makes her the "guest" that shows up after he arrives on Solaris. The longer she exist, the more "Solaris-Hari" becomes her own person separate from the one that existed on Earth and more human than the other folks on the space station. We also have to other scientist at Solaris station who have gone half-mad by the "guests" Solaris has forced upon them they offer very different opinions on everything that is happening in the movie.

The film also goes out of its way in criticizing the obsession with Outer Space and the neglect of the Earth. This movie is Tarkovsky's direct response to 2001: A Space Odyssey and movies like it. He felt  that the obsession (even at that time) with human colonization of Space was an attempt to not deal with the human-made problems on Earth. The ending of the movie shows Tarkovsky's opinions on this. The use of rain should be mentioned as well. It has been suggested that the use of rain (or snow) in his films suggested a holy or spiritual presence. Tarkovsky never gave a definitive answer on this, but I tend to believe it.

Reconciling with one's past in order to have a future is not an original theme in films, it's certainly not an original theme in ghost stories, but few films have done it more beautifully than this one. When I watch this movie I feel the pain of lost, but the peace of having reconciled something. Andrei Tarkovsky and his troupe took the best of the Russian literary tradition and translated it to film. The two themes I have just wrote about are just a few that this film goes over and I could talk about more things if I choose. I like movies that give you a lot to think-on.

My Review of The Sacrifice (1986) directed by Andrei Tarkovsky

 It's the end of the world and I don't feel too good myself. I'm not talking about 2020, but I am talking about Andrei Tarkovsky's final film before he left this Earth. The Sacrifice (1986) is about a man named Alexander who has, like Ivan Ilyich, wasted his life and now realizes that world may be coming to an end soon as the Cold War has taken a turn for the worst and a nuclear holocaust may be imminent. He tells God (who he says he has long had a non-existent relationship with) that he's willing to give-up everything he loves--and his family--to stop this from coming. Luckily for him, he has two associates who can possibly help. This movie is a very meditative parable about life at the "beginning of the end" of the Cold War. 

The fact that this movie has a coherent plot distinguishes it from Tarkovsky's other feature film made in exile: Nostalghia (1983). This film also acts as a response or call-back to 2 earlier films of his: Andrei Rublev (1966) & Mirror (1977). While the use of rain/snow is the most recognizable motif of Tarkovsky, fire is a strong secondary one. The previously-mentioned films and The Sacrifice all use fire in a very pronounced and important way to symbolize a change or significant act. While this this film is more comprehensible than Nostalghia (though that film has a much stronger ending–possibly Tarkovsky's best), Tarkovsky wears his influences of Bergman and Kurosawa in very un-characteristically sloppy form here. It was quaint to watch this film of Europeans pining for an imagined past while living in an unbearable present. Maybe it's just me, but I prefer Tarkovsky's monologues/soliloquies in Russian rather than Swedish.

What trying times that this world (and myself) has been going through as of late! This movie puts it all in that kind of context that only Tarkovsky can offer. I compared this movie to The Death of Ivan Ilyich earlier, but I could also compare it to The Cherry Orchard by the fact that it is asking us what we would be willing to do to survive the end of the world. As I am still in mourning even as I write this, I can only imagine what sacrifice I would offer to stave-off disaster...