More Quickies

Kind of busy doing stuff around here so I have to keep it short!

STRAY DOG-(Nora inu)-1949-Akira Kurosawa’s early classic film about the frantic search for a homicide detective’s missing gun. Several murder victims are found, killed with bullets from his gun. A very young Toshiro Mifune plays the harried detective Murakami and Takashi Shimura (the Japanese John Carradine) is another detective who helps him. Kurosawa had already made THOSE WHO TREAD ON THE TIGER’S TAIL and DRUNKEN ANGEL but would only establish himself the next year with RASHOMON. Sometimes overlooked STRAY DOG is a must see!!

SPIDERBABE-2003-This is a soft-core porn version of SPIDER-MAN (duh..) featuring Misty Mundae as Patricia Poker, a nerdy girl who gets spider type powers and has sex with many women. She fights a super villain called Femtilian and likes a guy named MJ. It copies several scenes from Sam Raimi’s better-known version (and one from BATMAN and ROBIN) but it’s all extremely low budget and badly executed (even for a direct to video porn). 

Mundae has starred in a lot of direct to video porn recently many of them horror themed including LUST FOR DRACULA, VAMPIRE VIXENS and SCREAMING DEAD.

MONSTER ROAD-2004-This is an interesting documentary about the brilliant but eccentric clay animator Bruce Bickford. It examines his influences, his ideas, his painstaking technique and philosophy in his own words and those of his father a retired Boeing engineer now suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Excerpts of his work are shown and they might make you want to see more. He’s also the subject of THE AMAZING MR. BICKFORD (1987) a video that was released by Frank Zappa who used much of his animation in his BABY SNAKES.

KING BOXER-1971-Not very thrilling Martial Arts film that begins with a seemingly endless scene of a couple riding an elephant. A group of friends get revenge for the killing of their “King of Boxers”. Like many boring Kung-Fu movies this one is saved by a bloody out of control finale. One of the stars Meng Fei was later in 5 FINGERS OF DEATH. Japanese actor Yasuaki Kurata who plays the main villain here later produced and starred in BLOODFIGHT (1989) a Japanese rip-off of DEATHSPORT done in English!

REVENGE OF THE DRAGON-1972-This is a typical ‘70’s martial arts action drama from Hong Kong complete with bad dubbing, unintentional laughs and crazy fights. A man seeks revenge against a gang boss responsible for his wife’s death. The title theme sounds like a “Shaft” outtake. Director Hung Chiang also made a movie called KUNG FU: THE HEAD CRUSHER. Not to be confused with Bruce Lee’s RETURN OF THE DRAGON that was sometimes called Revenge on cable TV prints.

Thanks for reading!