American Samurai

In the mid 80s, a film called American Ninja emerged, exposing Americans for the first time to Japanese martial arts culture. Seven years later someone said, "American Ninja... American SAMURAI!" And that's the movie they decided to make. 

The year was 1992. Cool stuff hadn't been invented yet, but fortunately CGI had also not been invented yet, so everything in this movie is REAL. When the main character pulls a bullet out of his gut, it's REAL. Or it might as well be. Though, sometimes when the scene cuts away, that wound isn't even there. It's the paradox of conventional FX.

I am deep in thought. I am a samurai.

This is the story of white man named Andrew, who was raised by a Japanese samurai master after after his mother and father were killed when their plane crashed in Japan, leaving the infant the only survivor. Despite this, Andrew has no Japanese accent and doesn't appear to speak Japanese. He was raised in English by a Japanese father, and his adoptive brother, Kenjiro (Mark Dacascos), also lacks the ability to speak his native tongue.  You may know Dacascos as the Chairman from Iron Chef America (SPOILER: He's not really a Chairman).

Mark Dacascos knows good eating.

Andrew was taught all of the essential samurai skills, and manages to master the elusive Samurai Sixth Sense, which Kenjiro can't even do, so the father declares that Andrew is his true heir and gives him a magical sword. Kenjiro is fucking pissed, calls Andrew a round-eye, and flashes his big-ass yakuza tattoo and he's all like, "Fuck you, dad!"

I'm all like, FUCK YOU DAD!!!!

Suddenly, it's five years later and Andrew wakes up to his apartment being burglarized by four or five heavily armed men who are trying to steal his sword, which he keeps in a glass case above his fireplace or something. After a brief but intense battle, Andrew winds up shot in the gut, which causes him to lose consciousness but gives him a psychedelic vision that his evil brother is trying to steal his sword.

PSYCHEDELIA TO THE MAX

He comes to consciousness and realizes it was all a dream. His brother isn't trying to steal the sword... he's already stolen the sword. 

Hi-yah! This is not my real sword, but it is my real package.

Hey, don't you think this movie could use an attractive female character? Well, one shows up and goes with Andrew to Turkey for some reason. She has red hair and she fights with Andrew all the time, like a meager rendition of Han and Leia. They fall in love.

"I'm sorry I couldn't find a screen cap of your face, but it's obvious you are hot."

Yata yata, the girl gets captured and Andrew has to agree to fight in a gladiator-style tournament against weapons masters, martial artists, a Texan with a big knife, a viking with a horned helm and battle axe, and, you guessed it, Kenjiro who is using the sacred family sword!

Tex-ass! Kans-ass!

I'm not going to tell you who wins, but there may be a reason this film is not called Kenjiro.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I ded

All in all, a pretty interesting and absurd watch, though parts are boring and it feels kind of rushed. Especially recommended if you have a high tolerance for bullshit and a love for stupid action. 

RATING

The Visitor (1978)

Nothing to do with the movie. 

The Visitor is getting a lot of buzz as they've recently re-released it to theaters, which is where I saw it and it was AWESOME. Seeing something like this on the big screen is just indescribable.

Let me describe it for you.

There are very few films like The Visitor. First of all, just take a look at the cast: Mel Ferrer, Glen Ford, Lance Henriksen, John Huston, Joanne Naill, Sam Peckinpah, Shelley Winters and Franco Nero as space-age Jesus Christ.

Shocked speechless by basic information for the rest of the movie.

That's right. Django himself. As the savior of mankind. In space. 

Kardashians got nothing on Katy.

John Huston stars as some kind of galactic warrior who, along with his often misplaced theme music, tracks down the evil children (indirectly?) spawned by some space criminal who sowed his seed all over the universe. He is locked in combat with an eight-year-old Earth girl (played by 12 year old Paige Connor) and her evil pet falcon. How does he conduct this combat, you ask? By going up on a skyscraper roof top, where interpretative dancers cast their shadows on white sheets, and lights dance around like a low budget Close Encounters. In the psychedelic world, he turns her into popcorn or something.

This little girl spends most of her time wreaking havoc at basketball games, gymnastics meets, ice rinks and any other sporting event she manages to attend or compete in. She also cusses out old cops (who seem to be incapable of applying the breaks of their cars when blinded) and generally sasses baby sitters, house keepers and anyone else who can't escape her insidious presence. She's a low budget Damien.

John Huston as Obi-Wan Kenobi.

There's a weird cabal of rich white stuffed shirts who, for no reason ever fully explained, want to control the sex life of the evil girl's mom, using young Lance Henriksen to impregnate her and bring forth a boy child... for no reason every fully explained. They even resort to hiring evil futuristic football players with no faces to kidnap her and implant something in her womb. (SPOILER: It's a baby.) This gives her a great opportunity to reconnect with her ex-husband (Sam fucking Peckinpah) by seeing him for an abortion.

Hint: This is not a homoerotic incest scene.

Then, it sort of turns into The Birds. Birds were apparently the weapon the good aliens used to kill that space criminal guy, "fatally wounding him, in the brain."

Add together the Birds, Close Encounters and the Omen II... and throw in an Italian space Jesus.. and you've got The Visitor.

This movie is full of beautiful, arty, psychedelic scenes that make no sense whatsoever. The plot is so convoluted that it's brilliant. And the dialog... just see this damn thing, already. Or you'll never forgive yourself.

RATING

The Brood

If you like early Cronenberg (and if you don't, you are probably at the wrong blog) then this is a movie you should see, because it is early Cronenberg. It's not exactly a secret, but it's probably an easy one to miss. It slides right under the radar because it's not as popular as Scanners, not as weird as Videodrome and not as Viggo Mortensen as Eastern Promises. 

In The Brood, lots of people get beaten to death with blunt objects (primarily mallets) by weird mutant albino children who seem to be distant cousins of Chaka. 

At least Chaka had teeth and sexual organs. So you know he was a fun date.

Melodrama (or psychodrama, specifically, Psychoplasmics) and body horror abound, and everyone needs a new hairstyle. (See: Early Cronenberg.)

But this film does also contain some really great, disturbing scenes that make it one of the more memorable horror films of the late 70s. Cronenberg was well on his way to becoming a weirdo icon with this one. It might be the first film of his classic era (which ends with Spider, I'd say).

Don't eat the baby.

Oliver Reed turns in a brilliantly bombastic performance, as usual. And it's fun to pretend the little blonde girl in this movie is Carol Anne from Poltergeist. Make a riffing game out of it by quoting classic lines from that franchise. Drink if they don't make any sense in the context of the Brood.

You have something on your face, grandma.

Shockingly, the blood in this film is as tomato-red as any typical 70s schlock, and there is zero attempt to make any of the blunt trauma wounds look realistic. You'd think that might have occurred to Cronenberg, but he certainly puts in a lot of effort into other weirder effects. Like lymphatic chin tumors and boil babies.

Give us better make-up, father!

RATING:

Repo Chick

Repo Chick is a 2009 film by Alex Cox, but it's not a sequel (nor prequel nor postquel nor NyQuil) to his 80s film Repo Man. He still decided to cash in on the name here, and it's safe to say that if you like Repo Man and maybe latter-era John Waters or highly stylized comedies like But I'm a Cheerleader, you will probably like this movie. It's also got some nods to Dr. Strangelove.

This is a pretty good indicator of what this movie is like.

Someone called Jaclyn Jonet plays the titular Repo Girl. She's cute and wears a million cute outfits in this movie, but when I googled her has an exceptionally short filmography, though she does star in some TV series called The Boring Life of Jacqueline. Old Karen Black is in it. That's a pretty good sign. And an even older Francis Bay. Rosanna Arquette shows up, too. Along with Miguel Sandoval and Danny Arroyo.

Yep. A Pink Pith helmet.

It's also pretty evident that no actual sets or locations were used. Everything was green-screened, giving it a low-budget surreality. Like if you dreamt in bad superimposition. A lot of the backgrounds are from model train sets. At first you will cringe, but trust me, this actually works really well for the film.

Rosie Arquette standing in front of toy trains.

It's pretty interesting satire of pop culture, the post-housing market collapse economy and post-9/11 politics. Billboards that say "God Loves Golf" and "Eat Meat." There's a white dread who uses a horrible Jamaican accent. It really has it all.

RATING:

Cold Feet

If you are like me, in 1989 you weren't paying attention to comedy films that were ostensibly appealing to fans of country music and cowboy attire. But thankfully Netflix deemed to stream this film, and its cover art conveys exactly why you should watch it. Dayglo Country with Tom Waits, Keith Carradine and Sally Kirkland! But that's not all - Bill Pullman, Rip Torn and Jeff Bridges are in this too! It's a movie that's almost a good, clever comedy and almost a total abortion. So it will take some patience from fans of truly obscure cinema.

She paid good money for these things, so dammit, you are gonna see them. 

Okay, there's a plot to smuggle jewels from Mexico by sewing them into the belly of a horse. Once Carradine, Waits and Kirkland get to Montana--where Carradine's responsible, honest and gullible brother Bill Pullman lives--they are going to cut the stallion open and split the loot. But Carradine is not honest, and he steals the horse and splits. Waits is not exactly sane, so he comes after Carradine with Kirkland in tow. The two travel in a Winnebago and Waits spends most of his time pacifying Kirkland with food and protecting her from sex with radioactive miners. 

Yeah, that's Jeff Bridges as the bartender. He's in this for like two minutes, but he's a pretty memorable character. 

Tom Waits and Sally Kirkland wear so many great, late 80s outfits that you should probably watch this movie just to see them. Meanwhile, Carradine has reunited with Pullman, giving him a prize stallion (with secret jewels sewn inside his gut) and promising to straighten up and fly right. Of course, all the while, Carradine is making plans to sell the jewels and split. But Waits is just too clever and buys some really expensive boots from a local shop owner to pin down the whereabouts of Carradine. Then Waits makes a big mistake: he throws the expensive boots away, attracting the attention of Sheriff Rip Torn. 

Also, Carradine has a young daughter who has been at boarding school while he's been off doing his outlawry.  They all reunite at Pullman's farm, and then Waits and Kirkland show up, Waits wanting to kill Carradine, Kirkland wanting to marry him. Carradine agrees to marry, because he's a spineless weasel and he wants to stay alive. Waits agrees not to kill Carradine, and hijacks Pullman to lead him to the jewels. Torn disguises himself as a preacher to perform the wedding and arrest all three ne'er-do-wells based on absolutely no evidence. Aw, I guess it's a little complicated to relate here. So I'm just going to post more pictures of Tom Waits.

It's goofy and sometimes almost good. Watch if you love the idea of the cast members in a totally unrealistic cowboy comedy.

RATING:

Master of the Flying Guillotine

Okay, let me start by saying there are so many reasons to like this movie, both seriously as a good example of a Hong Kong Kung Fu film and as a campy, old action movie with some absurd moments. Additionally, for fans of post-punk and early industrial music, you get an amazing soundtrack. The background music sounds like it could be Clock DVA messing around in the studio before laying down their real tracks, and the main title theme could easily be a Chrome outtake from Half Machine Lip Moves. Oh, and this was released in early 1976, so it was ahead of its time punk-wise.

The guy pictured above is the Master of the Flying Guillotine, "the most gruesome weapon ever conceived!" He's so bad ass that he can punch the air! His fists make loud sounds on impact with even our gassy atmosphere! Don't fuck with this guy. He can jump straight up through a thatched roof!  He's got a weird hat on a chain that decapitates any person, statue or chicken he throws it at.  And did I mention he's blind?

This guy is the One-Armed Boxer. He's also a total badass, and can even walk on the goddamn ceiling, but he works for the Ming dynasty, so the Master of the Flying Guillotine wants to kill him. The Master is actually the antagonist in this film. And it raises the question: which handicap makes you a better Kung Fu master? It's an age old question, finally put to the test.

Despite his moustache, this Mongol Kung Fu master isn't a major character.

Some guy holds an open tournament for masters of Kung Fu from all over. This Mongol guy with a great moustache shows up, as well as a Thai boxer, an Okinawan kobojutsu user, and an India yoga master. The One-Armed Boxer brings his disciples to watch the event, but he doesn't want to attract the attention of the authorities, so they have to keep a low profile. It's not so easy to evade prying eyes when you only have one arm. I mean, how many one-armed guys can possibly show up to a Kung Fu tournament? At least three. The blind master kills the other two, because apparently he can hear the sound of having just one arm. He's going to kill every one-armed man he meets, just to be sure he gets the One-Armed Boxer. So, he starts fucking shit up at the tournament, and recruits a few of the foreign masters to help him track down the Boxer.

If you practice yoga and you can't do this, you are doing it wrong.

After this, there's just a lot of Kung Fu, just like the part of the film before this. You get decapitations, burnt feet, poetic justice, random pink-filter flash backs. All a lot of fun.

"He wasn't the One-Armed Boxer. He was a one-armed bum!"

RATING: