Ghost Stuff

THE PRESENCE-2010-A woman writer, the victim of incest (Mira Sorvino, also one of the producers) spends time in a isolated cabin. She is observed (SIXTH SENSE like) by a ghost (perhaps her father played by Shane West from the cable TV show WEEDS). Nothing really happens until "The Man" arrives. This seems to be her boyfriend and he asks her to marry him. She accepts and then begins to display unusual erratic behavior. Meanwhile another ghost, the man in black (Tony Curran) advises the ghost on how to possess the woman. After the man in black fails to kill (?) the woman an African American ghost shows up and takes the ghost away.  This pretentious "art film" seems to have been made by a guy just out of film school who saw too many Ingmar Bergman films.  Movies like this don't surprise me though. It's typical of many actresses like Sorvino who wins an Academy Award early in her career then struggles to find  more mainstream roles and winds up co-producing vehicles like this for herself. Director Tom Provost edited episodes of TV's THE BACHELORETTE.

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Hong Kong

DRAGON ON FIRE (THE DRAGON, THE HERO)-1979-Wow! I was so confused by this typical old school '70's martial arts movie made in Hong Kong. There were a lot of characters and they all fought each other in various styles. I think it had to do with two fighters who become enemies. One fighter is actually a spy sent to infiltrate a smuggling ring. There's a pasty faced Asian bad guy Tang (Tino Wong) and a non-Asian villain (Jim Jones) too.  Dragon Lee/Bruce Lei is in it imitating his hero. Mostly it's fights and fighters laughing. Much of the dubbed voices are ridiculous even for a Kung Fu movie! A very dark scene of a guy eating food and fondling a woman and an attempted rape where the rapist is castrated by a dog (!) seem to be from another movie. This shouldn't come as a surprise since DRAGON was directed by Godfrey Ho (MANHATTAN CHASE), a prolific B-director known for his "paste up" jobs (the Al Adamson of Hong Kong?). The finale goes on for ever where in one of the fights the pasty face guy turns into some kind of zombie (with green skin and blue hair) and fights Lei. Occasionally the music lapses into a cover of the SHAFT theme! Most reviews say Bolo Yeung has a cameo but I think it was cut out of the version I saw.



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More Japan

OSAKA ELEGY-1936-Ayako (Isuzu Yamada; later in films by Kurosawa), a young woman who works as a phone operator for big pharmaceutical company lives with her younger sister and deadbeat father who'd been caught embezzling money from the company he used to work for. To raise the money to pay back the company, she leaves home and reluctantly becomes her boss's mistress. After the boss's wife catches them together a couple of times they break up. An ex-office co-worker Susumu wants to marry her but instead she becomes the mistress to another married man and sends money to her self-serving brother but her father steals it for himself. So she and Susumu can get married she tricks another married man into giving her money but he calls the cops and has her arrested. Dumped by her intended and ostracized by her stupid family Ayako goes off by herself (to prostitution? homelessness? a better life?). 

Interesting, well acted and directed early film (and first hit) from Japan's Kenji Mizoguchi (UGETSU, SANSHO THE BAILIFF). Takashi Shimura, the character actor later in GODZILLA and many films by Kurosawa has a small role.

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Japan

I WAS BORN, BUT...-1932-The great but sometimes overlooked Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu made this silent film after the advent of sound (Chaplin made MODERN TIMES in 1936). It's about a family that moves to a new town and the trouble two brothers have with some bullies at school but later with the help of an older delivery boy they become the leaders. Their dad is a clerk who constantly acts subservient to his boss to try and improve his position. When his two sons realize this they have a mini-revolt. They question their father about his behavior but don't like his answers. They throw temper tantrums that result in a spanking but later after his children are asleep he confides to his wife how he hates what he does and hopes his sons will never have to act the same way. Eventually the boys learn and accept the strange ways of adults.



This is a very touching comedy drama with good acting especially from the two brothers (Tomio Aoki & Hideo Sugawara). Some of the "little rascals" type humor with the kids is very funny. Ozu who's career started in silents wasn't nearly as well known in the US as fellow countryman Akira Kurosawa due to the fact that Japanese International distributors thought his movies were "too Japanese" for western audiences. Thankfully he's now getting some long overdue respect. The actor who plays the father Tatsuo Saito had over 140 film credits (and some as director). One of his last was in LORD JIM.

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Real Porno Stuff

INSIDE DEEP THROAT-2005-Dennis Hopper narrates this documentary about the making of one of the most well known, infamous and successful porno movies of all time. It has interviews with director Gerald Damiano (who died in 2008), male star Harry Reems (who died in 2013), production manager Ron Wertheim and other luminaries such as Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal, Larry Flynt, Dr. Ruth, Dick Cavett, Hugh Hefner, Erica Jong and John Walters. It makes a good point in showing that when the (Nixon) government singled it out for censorship the movie became "porn-chic" and did even bigger business. Prosecuting attorney Larry Parrish seems as nuts today as he was when he tried Reems  for conspiracy. Also they talk about mob involvement using theaters running the movie for money laundering. One guy is even yelled at my his wife during his interview. 

Much found footage with Lovelace is shown (as well as other people) and it's very good after the "celebs" stop talking. They have interesting opinions I guess but sometimes it seems all the old people are just trying to justify the fact that they like porno.  It also covers the decline of "porno film making" and Lovelace's later life.

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Stan Lee Has a Cameo!

AMAZING SPIDER-MAN-2012-Hollywood couldn't stop when they were ahead could they? I'll say Sam Raimi's 2004 version wasn't perfect but he did a good adaptation. Why not 10 years later did they have to "re-invent" the whole thing over again?? The makers of this could have cut to the chase at least and just included a brief introduction on how the old web-head came to be but no they had to start all over again although the origins are basically the same. This time however nerdy science brain photograph taking Peter Parker has a mysterious missing father (Campbell Scott) who was once friends with the one armed Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans) now head of a technology corporation working with spiders. Flash Thompson is still the dumb muscled bully but when Peter after gaining his super powers humiliates him in front of the whole gym it's Peter who gets in trouble and receives a stern lecture from his doomed Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen). Hey! Someone has to defend bullies, right?

But in fact Peter is kind of a fuck up, acting very dysfunctional and even forgetting to do things for his devoted Aunt May (Sally Field). Later Peter strikes up a relationship with Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) who's father (Dennis Leary, Dennis Leary? Really? At least THE DARK KNIGHT had Gary Oldman) of course is the police captain trying to arrest the crime-fighter. Andrew Garfield is a total failure in the title role who instead of being the wisecracking hero is more like a smug bully himself. Connors later turns himself into The Lizard but of course instead of a being a lizard man it's a huge mutated CGI monster. The stupidest part is how The Lizard finds out Peter secret ID. After one of their encounters he finds a camera stamped "property of Peter Parker"!

Director Marc Webb (who also made the romance  (500) OF SUMMER) should stick to making Jesse McCartney videos. Unfortunately this was a hit and Part 2 is in post-production at the time of this writing. Too bad no one told him the phrase: "With great power comes great responsibility"....

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Universal Classic

THE INVISIBLE RAY-1936-This was the third teaming of Karloff & Lugosi. It's more science fiction than their previous two outings (THE BLACK CAT and THE RAVEN) which emphasized horror.

Karloff (in his last role when he was billed just by his last name) is Janos Rukh, a scientist who's a bit loony because he blames himself for his mother's blindness. At special meeting he uses a kind of "magnetic ray" to show that a meteorite landed in Africa a million years ago. Lugosi is the skeptical Dr. Benet who invites Rukh to join him on an African expedition funded by Sir Francis (Walter Kingsford) and his dowager wife (Beulah Bondi) so he can find the meteorite and extracted the mysterious "Radium X".  Unfortunately he becomes radioactive, glows in the dark and his touch kills (his first victim is his dog). Seeking help he goes to Benet who concocts a serum that works temporarily. Rukh returns to his research and "harnesses" the radium in a ray gun that can destroy anything. He gets crazier when Benet says he will reveal Rukh's discovery when he returns to France.

Things don't get any better when Rukh learns Diane has left with Ronald. Later Rukh returns to France and cures mom's blindness. And then another shock! Although Benet promised Rukh would be credited with the discovery of Radium X a newspaper article makes it sound like it's Benet's find. Rukh decides on an evil plan then fakes his death. Diana marries Ronald and Rukh plots his revenge. He imagines some stone statues are his intended victims. After killing Sir Francis, he destroys a statue. Benet suspects Rukh immediately and sets up a scientific gathering to trap him (just before he's killed). The trap doesn't work but Mrs. Rukh (Violet Kemble Cooper) shows up at the climax to do her son in. Frank Reicher has one short scene as a victim.

TIR is a pretty cool ahead of it's time story. The sequence where Rukh explains about the meteorite crashing on Earth is very well done.  Although director Lambert Hillyer made the stylish cult film DRACULA'S DAUGHTER the same year and would make the first serial version of BATMAN in 1943 he would become better known for the many westerns he did from the early forties till the earlier fifties when he went into TV.

Screenwriter John Colton (who died in 1946) was also a playwright (RAIN, UNDER CAPRICORN) wrote THE WEREWOLF OF LONDON  the same year.

PS: The scene where Karloff (with a helmet and visor on) is lowered into a crater to retrieve the Radium X was later used in a chapter of the Lugosi serial THE PHANTOM CREEPS!

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