A few reviews

[mnkykungfu]

Man on Fire (2004)
It's got some flaws but having Denzel Washington delivering the kind of performance that wins Best Actor Oscars in the kind of slightly trashy violent thriller that would never even be nominated for anything is a real bonus.

^By far one of his best performances I think, and it still irks me that you can get stuff like this but because this has amped-up action he'd never get the Oscar nod for it.

The plot for this movie otoh was written by Dakota Fanning I think. I have no idea why she didn't get screen credit and an EP. Really pushing the boundaries of what her 7-year old brain could come up with.

The insanely chaotic "music video" stylised editing might irritate some viewers, but it's clearly a bold deliberate artistic choice. I didn't like it but could respect it for trying something different.

This was the biggest complaint I heard about this film when it first came out and I tried to get everyone and their brother to see it. I'll admit that it was about the maximum that I could take, like the Top Gun dogfighting scenes thrown into a blender with The Hunger visuals and Spy Game filters. It's electric, but the movie pushes the length of time you can take it. His film the next year, Domino, went over the edge with this and was just too try-hard for me.

 

[skyled]

Man on Fire (2004)
Ridley Scott has occasionally made a masterpiece but I'd rather pick a random film from the hat of his late brother Tony. You're almost guaranteed to find a quality entertaining action movie and 'Man on Fire' is no exception. It's got some flaws but having Denzel Washington delivering the kind of performance that wins Best Actor Oscars in the kind of slightly trashy violent thriller that would never even be nominated for anything is a real bonus. It's unusual in this type of revenge thriller that the whole first hour is dedicated to just letting us hang with the two characters and see their relationship develop, before a shot is ever fired. 10-year old Dakota Fanning is adorable, it's easy to believe she could melt the heart of Denzel's abrasive, alcoholic, suicidal bodyguard. I was totally oblivious to the Christ imagery right up to the ending on the bridge. That layer of meaning makes this worth a re-watch. I love these kind of genre films, what I call "Irrational Unstoppable Vengeance Quest Movies".

There's a Korean movie called the Man from Nowhere which is basically the same plot as this. You might want to check it out. I enjoyed it. Less stylized and the main lead is not nearly as interesting, but still a good watch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_from_Nowhere_(2010_film)

 

[TM2YC]

RoboDoc: The Creation of RoboCop (2023)
'RoboDoc's big strength is it's commitment to shine a spotlight on every facet of the production, with seemingly every member of cast and crew contributing fascinating information, unlike other film documentaries that may only focus on acting and directing. The discussion of the soundFX was particularly revealing, bringing focus on things I'd never noticed before on a hundred re-watches. The bit of info about the notorious Dick Jones puppet with the long arms being shot with the wrong lens (thus distorting the arm length when close to the camera) was cool. If I wanted to nitpick, the range of topics being covered, does leave you craving even more depth in a couple of areas, even when this is 5 glorious hours long. So much love and work has gone in to the presentation, positively bombarding you with documents, sketches and photos. A re-watch is maybe required to assimilate it all. I loved the way 'RoboDoc' gives you the feeling of how enormously proud every one is to have been part of a "perfect movie".

As a lifelong Judge Dredd fan I was hoping for more info on it's influence on 'Robocop' beyond "we were reading JD when we wrote it" and "we handed Verhoeven a stack of JD comics so he understand the satirical humour we were going for". Or the photo of an early sculpt of the Robo armour looking exactly like JD. The bit about them originally intending to have a JD style badge on Robo's armour, before they presumably thought "that and the black visor might be a bit too close guys". Them using catchphrases like "creep" and virtually lifting a whole line (and the same context/meaning) from the 17th June 1978 cover of 2000AD: "Come quietly. Or there will be trouble" don't get mentioned. But I suppose it's gonna be a touchy subject to ask about.

---

RoboCop (1987)
I was craving yet another re-watch after seeing 'RoboDoc: The Creation of RoboCop', so I plumbed for the "Edited for TV" version included on the Arrow Video blu-ray boxset. I must have seen this version a ton of times when I was a kid. It's a masterpiece of clever editing really, to take a movie so violent the MPAA were almost refusing it an R-Rating and getting it down to a PG but still feeling like the same fun ride. Clarence's censored "I don't have time for this BALONEY" line is iconic to me, it was great to hear it again. Obviously all naughty language and most of the violence is removed but it was fascinating culturally to see what else was changed. The fact that Bob Morton snorting cocaine off a hooker's boobs is totally uncut, while all shots of Dick Jones simply using the lavatory are replaced with alternate shots, says some strange stuff about the hang-ups of 1980s US TV censors. But whatever version it's in, 'Robocop' still rocks!

 

[mnkykungfu]

^I watched a shorter doc of this that's up on Youtube in 3 parts of about 15 minutes each. It's presumably the typical DVD extra thing, and I threw it on as a lark but couldn't stop watching. Lots of info on all the technical stuff and story influences, but to me the most interesting thing was the theatrical and unrated screen comparisons for some scenes with Verhoeven explaining his back and forth with the MPAA. Murphy's murder scene is a big one, and his comments about it were so esoteric and visceral, they almost put me in the mind of Werner Herzog.

 

[TM2YC]

Swiss Army Man (2016)
Like the more recent 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' not all of 'Swiss Army Man' 100% works but the hit-to-miss ratio was much lower here. I found little of the humour funny and the possibilities of the absurd premise described by the title were surprisingly underused. Some of the emotional philosophical stuff worked towards the end. Paul Dano is peerless as usual and Daniel Radcliffe does as perfect an acting job as anybody could do when playing a corpse. Although it didn't all add up for me, I have to salute the Daniels for attempting something this outside of the box of standard story telling.

 

[TM2YC]

Insomnia (1997)
This 1997 Norwegian original to Christopher Nolan's 2002 remake is decent but generally inferior. It's mostly down to the script, rather than Erik Skjoldbjaerg's direction, or Stellan Skarsgard's world weary performance. The Hollywood version adds some extra layers to the story, which take the central cop character from a guy who is rotten and corrupt from the get go, to a more interesting once admirable Sherlock-like detective who has lost his moral compass. Skarsgard sounded like he was dubbed by somebody else to me but I can't find anybody mentioning it, or maybe I'm just less used to him being younger and speaking Swedish/Norwegian?

 

[Hymie]

There's a Korean movie called the Man from Nowhere which is basically the same plot as this. You might want to check it out. I enjoyed it. Less stylized and the main lead is not nearly as interesting, but still a good watch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_from_Nowhere_(2010_film)

Scott's version was actually the second adaptation of the story, the first being in the 1980s with Scott Glenn in the Kreasy role. The Scott version is definitely better in my eyes, but the first is worth checking out for those interested.

 

[TM2YC]

Johnny Handsome (1989)
That this unusual Water Hill neo-noir is about a man having his disfigured face turned into handsome Mickey Rourke via plastic surgery, is strange considering Rourke's subsequent real life has been that in reverse. It's also interesting because there are definite similarities between this title character and that of Marv, the similarly disfigured but good-hearted criminal from the 'Sin City' comics. Which was written soon after the 'Johnny Handsome's release, with Rourke ultimately cast as Marv in the 2005 film. The early scenes of 'Johnny Handsome' have a touch of 'The Elephant Man' too. It needed some more backstory to establish who Johnny was and his key friendship with Mikey, more time spent on the romance subplot, and I was expecting a more elaborate resolution to Johnny's revenge plan, more than just shooting the baddie. Morgan Freeman is a lot of fun as the cynical cop pursuing Johnny. This would make a good double-bill with John Woo's 'The Killer' (also 1989) due to some thematic similarities, although it would serve to illustrate why 'Johnny Handsome's script doesn't work as well.

A 35mm open-matte trailer:

 

[mnkykungfu]

^Interesting...never realized this was Walter Hill! Is it sort of a physical version of Flowers for Algernon?

 

[skyled]

Scott's version was actually the second adaptation of the story, the first being in the 1980s with Scott Glenn in the Kreasy role. The Scott version is definitely better in my eyes, but the first is worth checking out for those interested.

I wasn't saying The Man from Nowhere was an exact remake, of course. There are loads of movies which have this same basic plot - guy is wronged and goes on a rampage. John Wick, Taken, etc. I would even make the case for Rush Hour and the Ripley's rampage at the end of Aliens. The Man from Nowhere is just one more on the list, but one most Western audiences probably aren't aware of. Another would be the Hong Kong movie Vengeance (2009), but I didn't think it was that great.

 

[TM2YC]

^Interesting...never realized this was Walter Hill! Is it sort of a physical version of Flowers for Algernon?

I don't think so beyond a couple of similarities.

I forgot to mention that there is a proto-John Woo's 'Face Off' vibe. In the "patently ridiculous, borderline magic, face surgery, which you are required to just except for the interesting plot idea to happen" type of way. Again this comparison only serves to highlight why the JH script isn't as much fun.

 

[mnkykungfu]

^I mean, the real genius of Face/Off is in the casting. You've got two of (at that point) the most imitable actors who then get the chance to do imitations of each other. Rourke is kind of hamstrung by having to be himself. lol Would've been interesting to cast a different actor at the start, like a Rick Moranis or someone, and then have Rourke do his version of Moranis, but of course, looking like he does.

 

[Moe_Syzlak]

The Killer. (I was originally posting this in the quick review thread, but it got a little long).

Fincher’s latest sounds like the sort of thing I’d love, despite this premise being done to death. It sets up as seemingly a throwback to the 70s era character studies of those solitary people that exist in society’s shadowy corners like The Conversation or even Taxi Driver. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come close to living up to that promise. My first red flag was the voiceover. Voiceovers rarely work for me, but I was willing to have an open mind given the subject’s solitary nature. But we don’t really get much insight into the character. We get some hints at a backstory but never any real motivation. Without getting too deep into spoiler, suffice to say it just didn’t work as a character study at all for me. But it still could’ve worked as a sort of glimpse into the workings of a modern contract killer. Unfortunately, it fails there too. It never feels real at all as the killer tells us about how no one is invisible in modern society and how methodical one must be and then proceeds to act as though surveillance cameras and sitcom aliases are no big deal. He doesn’t feel methodical or expert at all despite the movie constantly telling us—or rather him constantly telling himself—that he is. And yet, all of this could still be forgiven if our titular killer was charismatic enough to hold it together. And I love Fassbender, but it seems Fincher has directed him to be as uncharismatic as possible. His voiceover may be worse than Harrison Ford’s (allegedly) purposefully awful VO in Blade Runner. It’s not a horrible movie, but it felt like a huge missed opportunity with so much talent on board.

 

[TM2YC]

Imperium (2016)
I hadn't heard much about 'Imperium' before but it's very good and Daniel Radcliffe is brilliantly intense as the undercover agent trying to infiltrate a white supremacist terror plot. Maybe it went under the radar because it was a little too on the pulse, as it came out a year before the issues it's talking about seemed to be everywhere in the media. e.g. The Alt-Right radio host in the movie admits he's just playing a fictional character for profit, a year before the "real life" equivalent said the same. Director/co-writer Daniel Ragussis adds an extra layer of discomfort for Radcliffe's undercover mission by making the Nazi terrorists otherwise "normal" people, who are often kind, trusting and welcoming toward him (because they think he's one of them). The always brilliant Toni Collette does some incredible gum chewing work as Radclife's fiery FBI handler.

 

[TM2YC]

The Brink's Job (1978)
During the first half I was thinking "Wow! this is one the greatest heist movies ever". Peter Falk is utterly charming as the amiable underdog thief dreaming of that one big score and taking us with him through every step of the planning and execution of the job. It's highly amusing to. But once the job is done, the film seems to lose it's sense of direction and pacing. Christopher Nolan must have had this as an influence on the bank heist at the start of 'The Dark Knight'.

 

[mnkykungfu]

Wow, thanks for those screen comparisons: that's cool. You know, I've sometimes mixed it up with people (usually older than myself) who push this narrative that older films are superior to modern films; in particular that sort of anything from the late '70s onwards sucks. I feel like part of that is that there are different sensibilities at play as far as how the editing feels, how music is used, the pace and type of dialogue and performance, etc. But also part of it is not subjective, it's just that they feel like modern film stories are all derivative, they've seen them all before.

For my part, I feel like what happens a lot of the time is filmmakers loving something they saw when they were younger, and wanting to take the parts that worked and use them in a new thing while leaving the parts that didn't work. It seems like Nolan might have done that with The Dark Knight, where maybe he thought like you did and incorporated the best part of The Brinks Job into what (I think most people would agree?) is a superior film. I just saw When A Stranger Calls, and had the same thought about how Scream takes the best part of that movie and works it in, and improves it actually.

For my money, a lot of newer films are in conversation with the older films, trying to learn from them, tweak them, find a way to do it just a bit better. The direct remakes often fail, but a lot of the films doing these "homages" often succeed. The only downside is when you go back to watch older movies, and recognize a scene or character or plot point from all the later films you've already seen that in. It was influential, but now the original ironically feels derivative and less well executed.

 

[TM2YC]

Escape from Pretoria (2020)
I listened to anti-apartheid activist Tim Jenkin recounting his exploits on the BBC World Service radio and thought "This is an unbelievable story! It would make a great movie", so I was pleased to discover Daniel Radcliffe had already played Jenkin. I felt 'Escape from Pretoria' was influenced by another real-life prison-break movie, 1960's 'Le Trou'. It's not quite as good, or as tightly experimental but it creates some of that same claustrophobic intensity by spending most of the runtime with us locked up with the characters. The plot has much of the detail exactly as I'd just heard in the radio interview, although it left out one of the most astonishing facts, in favour of making the prison guards extra contemptible for dramatic reasons.

 

[TM2YC]

Dillinger (1973)
From the premise, the trailer and knowledge that Roger Corman had commissioned this as another modest-budget 'Bonnie and Clyde' knock-off (like with Martin Scorsese's 'Boxcar Bertha' from the year before) you might expect more in that vein. But of course writer and director John Milius' perspective is less interested in making John Dillinger and his gang out to be "Robin Hood" style folk heroes, he's more admiring of Ben Johnson's lawman. Milius' version of Dillinger might be viewed as an anti-hero celebrity by the poverty stricken people of the depression but it's not down to any admirable qualities of the man, he's mean, vain and viscous. It's arguably a bit of a problem dramatically as you're left not really rooting for either side. The many bloody and chaotic gun battles are in the then new Sam Peckinpah style, with countless squibs and rounds being fired. Warren Oates plays Dillinger very well and looks remarkably like the real old photos.

 

[skyled]

John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wick:_Chapter_4
Ugh. I previously gave brief reviews on Chapters 2&3 and was not impressed. I complained that the movies are dumb and too long. They were already pushing the envelope of tedium, and this one blows right through it and keeps on running. I was struggling to recall anything from the previous movies as far as actual plot, but it didn't matter anyway. The fight scenes are dragged out and dumb. Remember at the end of that short movie Kung Fury, how it was like a side scrolling beat-em-up game? This movie is just the same, where one or two bad guys will come to fight Keanu at a time, except without any hint of fun or humor. It's a slog. Possibly the only interesting fight, and keeping with the video game theme, was a top down shooter section which felt very Hotline Miami inspired. Once again, several interesting characters are introduced, only for them to be killed off or very quickly disappear from the rest of the movie. Notably: the Japanese manager of the Osaka Continental hotel and his daughter. Remember(?) that one bad guy in one of the previous movies, where Keanu stabs him and says he can either leave the knife in and live or pull the knife out and come after Keanu and bleed to death. It seemed like they had some history and it could have been interesting to bring him back, but no. New random characters with supposed backstories are just randomly thrown in instead. No development allowed. I felt like turning this off partway through the fight at the Osaka Continental, but only kept watching to see if the two Japanese characters mentioned previously would stick around. I made the wrong choice and watched the whole thing. This is what passes for action movies these days? It's just like watching a (boring) videogame.


The Heike Story
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heike_Story
mnkykungfu suggested I watch this because it has the same director as A Silent Voice and Liz and the Blue Bird, both of which were excellent. This one is an 11 episode anime series about the Heike clan in Japan during a civil war starting in 1180. The main character is a young girl named Biwa who has the power of foresight, but the power is more similar to Cassandra, in that she can see the future but is powerless to change it. She is taken in by the Heike clan who are dominant at the time. However, they have grown arrogant and cruel, and are hated by the other rival clans. The other clans eventually organize the downfall of the Heike.

At first, this show is very confusing. I have no prior knowledge of this period of Japanese history and the the show makes no effort on explaining it to you. Numerous things make it difficult to follow. Most of the Heike clan look very similar and their names all end with -mori. It's very difficult to tell them apart. There are 3 older characters that have retired to become priests. All 3 are old, bald, rather fat, wear similar colorful kimonos, and are very hard to distinguish. Basically, you just have to know that the Heike are powerful and everybody else wants to kill them though.

I wasn't too impressed with the show until the last few episodes where things really started to come together. The Heike are desperate and on the run. Emotions are running high and you really start to feel for the characters. There's a key scene where one of the younger Heike heirs is angry that all their allies are deserting them and he says, "what happened to loyalty, honor, and duty?" His older brother berates him and says, "do you think the Heike had any of those things?"

Some spoilers:

Towards the end there is a scene where many of the Heike are committing suicide by drowning themselves in the sea. The child emperor calmly jumps in to his death. It reminded me of this painting of Ophelia from Hamlet:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophelia_(painting)
Just calmly accepting his fate.


Something I found interesting is that multiple characters retire their high ranking positions, including the emperor, to become Buddhist priests. Sometimes this is to escape their enemies, but other times it is to allow their chosen successor to accede. It remined me of Byzantine wars, where at times the ruling king would be deposed and executed, while his heirs would be castrated and blinded but allowed to become priests instead of being killed.

The show was good but I feel it was a step down from the director's previous efforts. They were much more focused.

 

[mnkykungfu]

^I had many of your same issues with JW4. I'll say that appreciating the nuances of jujitsu or "gun-fu" is really the draw of those films though. There's an effort to be creative and storytell through the action that you don't get in most Hollywood action films. It's much easier to appreciate that though when the story is more focused. Gimme the first JW any day.

Re: The Heike Story, I don't really know much about it, I just thought it seemed more interesting to me than Yamada's other work. I'm not so much with the J-romances, but I do love a good historical epic. Sometimes they can be like you described: it would be like an American film that just shows all the big Civil War generals and political leaders talking together and doesn't bring you up to speed. Lots of white dudes, lots of beards, and they just assume the audience knows their Stonewall Jackson from their Longstreet. The Japanese audience generally has the basics of all those old leaders, so the films/series don't belabor it. I will say it can be a real learning curve, but if you like the sub-genre, it's very rewarding once you get more acquainted.

I didn't read the spoilers...overall, do you think the show is probably a good watch for someone with my tastes?