——Spellbound——

(B+)

I like this movie for the one Freudian slip that’s made that isn’t explained at the end. When Ingred Bergman meets Gregory Peck for the first time she is describing a swimming pool and draws a shape in the table cloth that looks surprisingly like the female genitalia, which causes Peck to blush and go all crazy. Of course the reason the movie gives for why he is uncomfortable is that the lines in the white table cloth remind him of skiing, but I can’t not see the sexual metaphor when it is staring me right in the face, especially after Peck tries to cover it up by moving an especially phallic shaped butter knife between the lines. Well, that’s not only why I liked this, but you get the idea. Two great actors discussing psychotherapy with a Dali designed dream sequence. Good stuff. A tighter script and this could have been really damn cool.

——Executioners from Shaolin——

(A-)

Pei Mai, an expert at tiger style kung fu, turns on his brethren and kills the head priest of the Shaolin Temple for the Manchus, who are getting rid of all opposition. The story of this movie takes place over 20 years after the head priest is killed as one family tries to avenge his death (most of the characters, it should be noted, never age for some reason, including Pei Mai who should technically die of old age before these people got their act together). The best student goes around posing as a theater performer to try to teach the people to oppose the Manchu. During this period he meets his wife who is an expert at Crane style. But very soon the Manchus figure out what the theater troupes are up to, and they disband. The husband and wife go into hiding while the husband perfects his Tiger style.

Pei Mai is an expert though and he can’t be beat by the husband’s inferior kung fu. Pei Mai’s weak spot happens to be his nuts (hey, whose weak spot isn’t?) but they only come out at a certain time of day. The rest of the time his balls retract into his body and you can kick him there till the sun sets and nothing will happen. In fact one of his favorite tricks is to get your foot stuck up there and drag you around just to show you how cool he is. It’s hilarious. Also you can’t eye gouge him, as he has eyelids of steel or something like that. So pretty much he just sits around all day waiting for people to come to him to challenge him, just so he can act cool.

The father is defeated by him, but luckily he had a son who grew up learning his mother’s crane technique. When the father dies the son pulls out the father’s tiger style manual, but it has fallen apart from age and so he can only learn half of the moves. This is a good thing though, as by combining Crane and Tiger he is able to beat Pei Mai. (Why the father stubbornly refused to learn Crane is beyond me.)

A nice epic plot with lots of kung fu, and of course Pei Mai, makes this must see.

——Five Superfighters——

(A)

OK, there are actually only three fighters, and they aren’t particularly “super”, but this movie kicks ass. It’s pretty much no stop action from start to finish with some excellent choreography and lots of different styles of kung fu.

The plot is that this egotistical kung fu corrector is traveling around and pretty much beating up anyone who he feels doesn’t have perfect kung fu. The corrector beats up a master and his three pupils (they do monkey style) and humiliates them. The students decide to leave while the master is sleeping and split up to learn kung fu from other masters so that they can come back in 6 months time and kick the corrector’s ass for their teacher’s birthday.

The kung fu is so freaking cool in this movie, and the climax is quite impressive. Also this movie has one of the most fantastically bad soundtracks ever. At times it is like a cheesy 70’s action TV show, while at other times it’s like an insane Nintendo game. This movie kicks ass.

——Legendary Weapons of China——

(B+)

Very often I had no idea what the hell was going on in this movie. The plot has something to do with a kung fu master who quits his school when his ability to stop swords can’t be applied to stopping bullets and he doesn’t wish to see any more students die pointlessly trying to take bullets. His school views him as a traitor and all sorts of people try to find him and kill him (including his brother who wants to be the new master of the school). The school is also kind of based on Chinese magic too, so there are lots of cool scenes of people using flash bombs and shooting knives out of their backs and all sorts of madness. While the plot will leave you scratching your head, some of the fight choreography is amazing to behold and very cool, well worth wading through the plot for. As the title suggests, there is a whole hell of a lot of weapon fighting in this one.

——Street Fighter’s Last Revenge——

(C)

This Street Fighter movie I thought was actually pretty crappy. The plot is a little easier to follow than the last two movies and there is no annoying sidekick, but the movie also doesn’t have much of the fun and extreme violence that the first two movies have. This time Terry has become a B-movie James Bond of Japan and unfortunately that combination doesn’t make for a very exciting movie about people fighting over a recipe for synthetic heroin. The amount of fight scenes are minuscule and not really all that cool. Stick with the first two Chiba movies.

——Elf——

(A-)

Man, there have been a lot of great kid’s movies out this year, haven’t there? And this is one of them. Aside from the final fifteen minutes where the film turns into a rather generic Christmas movie, this film is incredibly hilarious. Most of that is probably because of Will Ferrell throwing himself 110% into his role as a human raised an elf, and definitely the movie wouldn’t be as good without him. But he’s not all this movie has going for it as most of the screenplay snaps with great dialog and funny lines, and the direction by Jon Favreau pays loyal homage to movies of Christmas’s past while making fun of the conventions at the same time. It’s the little details like making the North Pole look like the old claymation movies (even including claymation characters like the hilarious Frosty the Snowman) and things like letting us know what the three professions of elves are (shoe cobblers, cookie makers, and toy makers (somehow being able to make etch-a-sketches with wooden mallets)) or why dwarves don’t make toys (they’re drunks) that make this movie so fun. Will Ferrell is fantastic though. He needs more movies like this that showcase his many talents.

——Legend of the Eight Samurai——

(D)

This Sonny Chiba movie is bad. It’s bad, bad, bad, bad, BAD! I was probably a little naïve to expect a Kurosawa quality samurai epic, but I never expected anything like this. This movie is like Seven Samurai/Hidden Fortress combined with Masters of the Universe, as put out by Roger Corman. Oh man this sucks. The movie even starts out with the worst 80’s movie pop ballad played over artwork inspired by Journey album covers. That said, there is something about this movie being SO bad that it is actually quite hilarious. I broke down with some heavy laughter quite a few times while watching this. The acting is so hammy, the lines so bad, the sets and makeup so garish, the plot contrivances so absurd that you can’t help having a good time hating this movie. My favorite part has to be when the bad guy suddenly turns good, falls in love with the princess, the make love in the middle of nowhere for like five minutes to a pop song that goes something like “I wish this night would never endddddd~!” and when the song ends a giant rubber snake pops out of the fog to attack them. It’s the fakest thing EVER, and so goddamn funny. A horrible movie, but a great movie to get drunk to (and there are actually two scenes in it that aren’t half bad).

——Slap Shot——

(B+)

A pretty funny comedy that uses just about every good hockey joke out there. Some of the parts aren’t great, but put together as a whole this movie is hilarious. There is nothing quite like watching the three Hanson brothers on the ice killing everyone they can get their hands on. Everyone is obviously having a good time making this movie, and that energy is contagious.

——Blow Out——

(A-)

This Brian De Palma film is expertly directed, but unfortunately De Palma isn’t as exciting a writer as he is a director. Some of this movie drags on and it probably could have been a little more exciting than it is, but just from the director’s standpoint this is a very interesting and amazing film. John Travolta is actually quite good here, but I’m still trying to decide if De Palma knew what he was doing with the main actress or not. I kept going back and forth between thinking she was chosen for the film because of her annoying voice or thinking that it was some really bad casting. I’m still really undecided. Dennis Franz is also kind of annoying, but again is that intentional? I don’t know. I really liked the film though and am becoming more impressed with De Palma’s direction as I see more of his films (even if I don’t really think any of them are classics).