Hold on to your Kimonos - it's the Dr. Benway Akira Kurosawa goggle-fest! Coming soon to Media Junkies, nipponophile and all round bad egg Dr. Benway takes an amusing and often heart breaking look at the work of Japan's grand master of the moving image. With a Western resurgence of interest in all things samurai, and Japan's recent explosion in international film festivals, Benway's jaunt into the cinematic history of the Land Of The Rising Sun couldn't be any better timed. Expect questionable spelling and grammar, badly checked facts, and a general disinterest in anything that isn't pasted with blood and sexual exploitation.
Akira Kurosawa: Liked a cigarette
Out and About
If you're in London's trendy Hoxton Square this weekend, then you owe it to yourself to drag your better half along to check out Mika Kato's new exhibition, being displayed at The White Cube gallery.
quote: Kato (born 1975) makes intensely rendered oil paintings of young girl's faces, close-cropped and hallucinatory in quality, they create a portal into a fantastical and psychologically disturbing world.
Kato's technique is interesting since she starts not by sketching but by sculpting a doll out of clay, dressing it and then making a painting from that which is laborious and studied, a kind of evolving alter ego. “I wanted something that people had never seen before” she explains, “and that is how I came to be attracted to using doll faces as my starting point”.
Kato's portraits are precisely and beautifully painted, almost hyper-real, but this imminent reality is countered by their composition, a looming and close cropped image that makes the girls appear distorted, as if viewed through a bulbous fish eye lens. Huge, gaping eyes become liquid pools of black that appear like holes in the canvas, deflecting as much as absorbing the viewer's gaze. These figures have an overly articulated beauty made up of its idealised components: large eyes, perfectly oval faces, small noses and mouths. Their physique is almost ironic, a kind of mutated idea of what perfect beauty should be, an aberration comprised of perfectly formed parts.
White Cube is open from Tuesday to Saturday, 10am – 6pm. For further information please contact Honey Luard or Susannah Hyman on 020 7930 5373.
Something To Eat..
Gourmets and Gourmands alike will be licking their fat blubbery lips this week, as reknowned Halal fast food eatery 'Chicken Express' unveiled its deals for the New Year. Gone are the over salted and leathery 'potato wedges', to be replaced by the exquisitely deep fried onion rings, available in medium or large sizes. Burger lovers will be pleased to find that a new creation now basks under the artificial sun of the warming lights: The £1.50 chicken burger. Like its older sister (Chicken fillet burger, £1.99), the Chicken burger is served warm, with a sesame seed topped bun, and garnished with crisp iceberg lettuce and mass produced mayonnaise. But the real difference lies under the bun, where halal diners will find a refined yet compact helping of fried chicken. Ideal for tightwads and the impoverished, this bold new step into ultra-budget eating should please all those who crave chicken, but find themselves out in the cold when choosing to have it fried. The chicken burger has been generously teamed with medium fries and your choice of soft drink (we recommend the mango juice!) for a staggering £1.99 - the price of the fillet burger on its own! For more offers, wait until kicking out time on the Seven Sisters road, when promotional literature can be found affixed to the pavement with vomit and shit.
[ 25.01.2005, 08:34: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
Entertaining, and enjoyable to watch during it’s stylishly made and densely plotted running-time, this Love/War/Detective story ultimately left me feeling unsatisfied. Despite the film’s often visceral representations of the horrors of mechanised warfare it’s over fondness for wacky or whimsical humour ala Amelie undermines much of the weight these representations might ultimately have had. A shame.
[ 28.01.2005, 06:44: Message edited by: Boy Racer ]
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twenty five years too late, I finally managed to watch The Elephant Man, and am now perfecting a humourous impression of him going "I am not an animal! I am a human being!". I liked the film, although I had been assured that I would cry, and was disappointed that I remained fairly unmoved, apart from being irritated by the people who pour beer on his face. Also disappointing was that half of it wasn't even true, and even though it was made to be a study in human dignity, I felt that it was a bit contrived and the elephant man himself remained alien throughout. It was just too geared up to make people go 'ahhhhh, bless'. I didn't do this though, and as I said, not crying now makes me feel like some kind of emotionless bastard who may as well have laughed and pointed with the rest of Victorian society.
Well shot blah blah Lynch blah dreamlike blah great performances etc etc. I re-watched Mulholland Drive the other day, and comparison between the two shows how Lynch has refined his ablility in delivering The Essential Sadness Of Life. Also, I liked the lesbian bit, and the bit where the woman is frigging herself whilst depserately trying to maintain a fantasy where her life hasn't gone to shit. We've all been there, lol.
Still, Elephant Man was better than Female Market.
I had a crack with some Kurosawa, but in the end, I couldn't be arsed, and smoked some cigarettes whilst laying on the floor instead. The sound was all wanked, and only came through the centre speaker, and the subs were massive and in bright yellow. Seven Samurai even comes complete with a musical 'intermission', presumably the place where the reels would have been changed in the cinema. Perhaps it was worth $20 just for the babelfish translated introduction on the back that helpfully explains that Kurosawa is most popular than Mikado.
I've got 'China Mafia War' and Shark skin man and peach hip girl' (starring Tadanobu Asano, who played Kakihara in notorious gut churner 'Ichi The Killer') to get through this week, although I might just play computer games in my underwear instead. Stay tuned, movie lovers.
posted
I reckon I might go and see 2046 tonight or Sideways or A Very Long Engagement. If any forites are around Soho later on I might see you there!
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Wight, onto our last film of the evening, the we-welease of the much weviled slasher, 'The Toolbox Murders'. Banned for some 23 years; the wecent wemake by Tobe Hooper has prompted this weissue of the owiginal by established uk horror publishers, Vipco.
If you've seen the wemake, then you'll know what to expect. A cwazed killer tewowises a tenement block, offing beautiful women using items pwoduced from his toolbox: Yes, it weally is that simple. I'm sure I won't be spoiling anything when I tell you that many of the murders are bloody and gohwy, the seventies haircuts are extwagent, and the nudity is unneccesawy. But; who cares. This is not a film for pwudes, as is suggested by the sleeve of the DVD, which 'dares' you to watch this woutine slasher.
And, it is woutine indeed. Those of you familiar with the slashers and exploitation movies of the late seventies won't find anything to get excited about here. The Toolbox Murders follows the standard format: Pwetty girl takes shower or bath, hooded man appears, and after a bwief chase, the girl is dead. Cue unexcitable police scwatching their heads and failing to identify a suspect so obvious that he may as well intwoduce himself as such to the detective in charge of the case.
But, this isn't about an intwicate plot, it's about blood; and there's plenty of it here. Nail guns, hammers, scwew dwivers, and power dwills are all used to murdehwous effect, although much of the gore may seem a little coy for todays seasoned gore hounds. Sets look cheap, the camera wemains unemotional, and the colour is suitably washed out. Some snappy editing in places is able to drag some innovation fwom this fwankly tired format, but overwall, this is standard fare. By the time the twist came, I'm sowwy to say that I was weady to leave.
Those seeking a twuly disturbing example of the sub-genweh would be better advised to try "Nightmares of A Damaged Bwain", or the Savini effects laden "Maniac".
The Toolbox Murders is out to buy fwom today.
Wight, you may wemember that last week we offered you the chance to dwive your dweam car wound a gwand pwix twack, so congwatulations to Thorn Davis, who knew that Hugh Jackman played the lead in last years 'Van Helsing'. Onto tonight - one lucky viewer can bag themselves a bwand new HD TV, DVD player, and 'Aviator' T-Shirt, just by answerwing this simple question: What is an aviator: Is is A) A bird house B)Part of the body, or C)One in the aviation indstwy. If you think you know, email the answer, with your name and addwess to competition at bbc, dot co, dot uk.
wight, that's all fwom me. Tune in next week, when I'll be talking to hollywood sex bomb 'Halle Berry', and taking a look at the new George Lucas project, 'Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Blue Scween'. I'll leave you with a selection of murders fwom 'The toolbox murders', thoughtfully set to the spice girls. Goodnight!
[ 10.02.2005, 05:23: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
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benway- the cube microplex in brizzle have got a season of rare old nippokino stuff going down later on this month. their website is bruk right now but there were films in the programme thatlooked right upyour alley. (keywords: sex; ultraviolence; weirdness; japan; degradation; 1970s). the cube is sympa, it has a very distinctive smell of lobsterpots and mould and when i went on sunday they gave me some free vegetarian curry to eat that they were going to throw in the bin.
the cube microplex; teaky bingo in an offseason seaside resort; the book barn; arno's vale cemetary; bucky- just five of the reasons why disco's moving to bris vegas!
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To be honest I think I've kind of hit the sea bed in the ocean of Japanese Weirdness. I need to steel myself if I'm to start tunnelling into the crust of the earth itself. But, Ill look out for this anyway - might give me some ideas. Thanks Disco D!
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hippy: no, im back in london now. :angruss:
london: yes. it is difficult for me to resist its siren call now i realise that you can get a small flat in an (admittedly probably unsalubrious) bris for the price of a shitty double room in an almost inevitably unsalubrious part of london.
you know how samuel johnson said if you are tired of london you are tired of life? ive been entirely tired of life recently. bristol makes me happy. easy decision, really.
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unfortunately this has become my mantra when things get a bit on top of me about being here. shouting it as i'm walking down the corridor with big plates of worms in my hands doesn't really help in the meeting people stakes.
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Pure shite. I couldn't physically watch it once the training section began. Up until then I had good-naturedly given it a bit of slack. I chuckled at some of the gags, and made a few positive comments as the proceedings unfolded. Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story got a few positive reviews when it played in cinemas across the UK, and I'm not totally against dumb sporting movies; I really like Kingpin, for example.
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story is a bit of a turd though. The 'bad taste' gags are just rubbish and offensive in a bad way. You'll be longing for the high level humour that appeared in Naked Gun or Airplane after going head to head with Stiller in this stinker.
I thought it would be alright. I didn't hate Starsky and Hutch, and I really liked Zoolander and Cable Guy, so this Stiller fellow isn't all bad. But this is an empty film. Very glossy, all extremely obvious, and lacking any edge. You could even describe it as 'deflated'-
...
The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue
No, not the sequel to 24 hour party people LOLOL, but instead a zombie flick from the early seventies. A joint spanish and italian production, set and filmed on location in the uk, and dubbed by a troupe of hysterical circus animals, this is probably only of interest to fans of zombies or Manchester. Even then, you don't get much Manchester action, and Tony Wilson doesn't make an appearance.
Farming experiment blah blah microwaves blah blah local tramp spotted wandering around even though he died a week ago yadda yadda, out of towners blamed for increasing body count etc etc
But, there are some interesting bits. Some nice night time photography helps to bleak up an already miserable looking landscape of hills and fields. There is a bit of gut eating, and a tit gets ripped off, although it's nothing exeptional. There is also some passionate acting, and a traditional 70s downbeat ending. Inexplicably, a naked woman was running around at the beginning. I was rolling a fag at the time, but it didn't seem to fit with the rest of the film. It looked like it was in Italy or something.
The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue has a traditional pacing, with a slow start gathering momentum as the blood flows. Zombies are more Romero than Fulci, but the logic behind the whole zombification process seems a little bit muddled at times. It won't scare, but it isn't cosy, mostly thanks to the aforementioned photography being teamed with some unpleasantly squealy ambient sounds.
I wouldn't pay for it, but it was a diverting couple of hours.
Belladonna in Buttman's Comics
Belladonna is a biker chick who arrives at a biker bar, and drinks some tequila. The Nick Knowles-a-like bartender recognises her from a pornographic comic that he has, and he and Bella read the stories. They are:
Vampire Hunter Van Helsing themed event, where a waitress goes to have a fag out the back in an alley and gets lezzed up by this demon vampire chick. Then a guy comes along and fucks the evil out of both of them, mostly via the anus.
Cowgirl Two semi naked girls on horses round up a load of naked men in a field, and after sitting on their faces, they put them in a paddock. Then they select one with a big cock, and, amazingly, he bones them both in their arses. I quite like how the country and western music comes on intermittently. It's quite triumphant and dramatic, a bit Sergio Leone. It seems at odds with the on screen XXX action.
Doctors A girl has an irritation in her anal passage. A couple of busty nurses and a doctor soon discover that it's an entire dildo, one of the bendy ones, and then they all fuck, mostly anally. One of the nurses uses a speculum.
Biker Bar
Bella Donna finally shags the guys in the bar, and one of them pisses on her. At least, I assume that's what happens. It's cut or something. I liked the bit before the shagging where she just kind of bounces up and down on a chair.
I also watched the first series of Look Around You, which is good. Very different from the second series, but still the same blend of incredibly cheap gags and effective mocking of science based programming. I liked the bit where he keeps retrieving the egg from the beaker by plunging his hand in boiling water. It's funny, but also a bit disturbing.
[ 07.03.2005, 12:16: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
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Tonight I have got 'Fiend Without a Face' to watch, but I actually wanted 'Eyes Without A Face'. I've also been checking out the films on this website. It looks like this is probably the last stop on the Horror Express before it turns into the Prison Sleeper Service.
quote: Here’s one hell of a weird Japanese art/trash/mondo film that packs a powerful punch! You get this weirdo guy who thinks he’s a chicken going around to work in slaughter houses to feed the pigs (And eating their slop!) while doing odd things. He eats various gross stuff, walks around like a chicken and even masturbates while watching a hot Jap bitch touch herself! LOTS of mondo pig slaughter footage along with plenty of bizarre scenery.
quote: Japanese sexploitation starring everybody’s favorite Japanese anti-hero, RAPEMAN! Mild mannered high school teacher by day, masked, knife wielding rapist for hire by night, Rapeman rights wrongs through penetration, teaching the evil women of Tokyo respect for their elders, for society and for the ways of the culture. Truly a must see.
[ 07.03.2005, 12:32: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
Woooo! This is what happens when you mix eggheads an radiation. American airbase in Canada, running an atomic reactor to produce power for an AWACS system. People start dying, and the townsfolk blame the military and their crazy ideas.
I got this film by mistake, but it's not too bad. Runs at a fair clip, with surprisingly believable performances, especially in the face of an an attack of disembodied brains in the later scenes. The premise allows for all sorts of tension between the local civilians, the military, and the scientist, and there is a icy vein of cold war type paranoia running through the core of the plot. Invisible killers, mind control, and the aforementioned swarm of brains all seem to fit into a general metaphor. Well, even if they, don't, you can't talk about 50s sci fi without saying 'cold war' and 'paranoia'.
What raises this above a lot of the 'killer blahdy blah from outer space' type films that were around at the time is the combination of art direction and intent. This isn't campy fun, and there's something kafkaesque about the sparse angular sets and high-contrast lighting. It's a modernist interpretation of the domestication of powerful technologies such as biochemistry and nuclear reactions, and as such, it manages to be a wee bit unsettling even though it isn't scary. IT could just be the swarm of killer brains at the end though, affixing themselves to victims like face huggers. This part of the film reminded me a bit of evil dead. Hero with an axe, in alog cabin, and some invisible exterior force causing a disprution of reality. The brains even melt away like the bodies at the end of Evil Dead.
Anyway, it's British made, and it's much better than I thought it would be.
[ 10.03.2005, 04:56: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
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Citizens! Are you in search of bittersweet, cgi-light, wordy entertainment from across the pond? Then you should repair immediately to your local teraplex to check out Alexander Payne's new film about wine-drinking losers Sideways.
It's a literate, beautifully acted little drama that's like a very low-gear Withnail & I but with divorcees coasting into their mid-forties rather than sound-and-fury twentysomethings who have yet, really, to taste much of life.
Jack is a washed-up actor gagging for one last draught of pussyhole before he gets hitched for the second time - Miles, his best man to be, a depressive english teacher who has flung himself into an obsession with wine to attempt (and partly, but disastrously, to fail) to fill the aching void left in his life after his own divorce. Together they set off on a 'stag week' of wine tasting and golf in California's wine country around Santa Barbara.
Paul Giamatti's Miles is a great portrait of a little man as outraged and mean and selfish as we ourselves are, locked into a destructive trajectory that Jack - however much of a fuck-up he himself may be - is trying to coax him off of. There's a wonderful moment after Miles hears his wife is about to be remarried when he runs off into a vineyard and - when he can run no further - he reaches for two thick bunches of grapes and gently holds them together for an instant. They could be two pieces of a broken heart, a pair of breasts or a valedictory symbol of he and his ex parting for good. It's a fantastically poignant image... as memorable, in its way, as the moment when Zhang Ziyi dives into the fog at the end of Crouching Tiger.
Also good is Virginia Madsen, who plays a waitress who becomes the object of Miles's excruciatingly hesitant affections. The last decent thing this luminously gorgeous actress was in was Candyman ffs, and it's a pleasure to see her getting stuck into Payne's beautifully judged, occasionally lyrical, dialogue. It isn't often in an American film that the camera closes in so candidly on the reality of the human face - with all its lines and blemishes - but in Madsen's case the result is glorious proof that, like the wines being quaffed and savoured, some things reach perfection as they get older.
Anyway - check it out! Especially you, Benway, before this relentless diet of gore and mayhem coarsens your palate irretrievably.
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H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby. We all locked in.
posted
+++++++TINY SPOILER INCLUDED FOR ABSOLUTE PEDANTS+++++++++++
I loved this film too - saw it on Monday. I liked that it was subtly nuanced, that a lot of the acting that Paul Giamatti put in was low key and in the eyes. I also especially liked the way that Jack completely broke down when persuading Miles to fetch the rings, that his cocky exterior totally crumbled and you saw the little boy's desperation - in that sequence you finally began to realise why Jack had stayed friends with Miles for 20 years, what the glue in that relatinship was, as prior to that scene Miles was definitely the 'pity' friend that you thought Jack was humouring.
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There was little gore in the film that I watched last night, just a few floating brains being shot. I don't just watch horror and gore, you know. I'm now slowly building a pr0n/exploitation collection, inspired by film 'Emmanuelle in America". I'm expecting the first three Emmanuelle films from The States soon, which although not exactly 'pr0n', are probably important in terms of its developmental history. Stay tuned for reviews.
Fans of gore, however, should check out French film "Dans Ma Peau" (In My Skin), which has just come on DVD. I saw this number in the cinema, and it's about a woman who cuts herself to ribbons and then eats herself. It's pretty nasty and very strange, but there are some nice arguments raised about the metaphysical implications of bodily dysmorphia. It'll make you wince though. If you like women eating themselves, be sure to give "Naked Blood" a look-see. I've already mentioned this, and after a second viewing I still can't make sense of it. The self-cannibalism is even more lovingly recreated than in Dans Ma Peau. Check out the squirting blood after the chick pulls her own eye out with a fork... MENTAL!
[ 10.03.2005, 06:37: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
quote:Originally posted by ben: Er - you might want to put a **SPOILER** in there, Hippy?
O good - I'm glad now, that I scroll past H1ppychick's posts.
I liked the other film that this guy done: About Schmidt, which is about an ageing guy reaching a crossroads in his life and setting of on a touchingly mundane road trip in a quest to do something and failing. It's good to see the director stepping away from that and try something new: a film about two ageing guys reaching a crossroads in their lives and setting off on a touchingly mundane road trip in a quest to do something and failing. Looking forward to seeing what he's got up his sleeve for his next feature.
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I mildly enjoyed Sideways, but I didn't really need to see it in a cinema.
I haven't seen trailers for anything exciting in ages.
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Wow, Thorn - the haggard, red-eyed cynicism of your post certainly gives Tom Boy a run for his money. I think you should give it a go anyway - I never saw About Schmidt as I vowed never to watch a Nicolson mid/end-life crisis film again after the welter of shit and stale cum that was Something's Got To Give.
Anyway, since you and Benway are here, let me take the opportunity to recommend you watch Teh Culture Show tonight at 7pm. It has Robert Crumb on it, who is always good value and Paul Giamatti played him in American's Blender last year, so there's a bit of a connection.
On the gore front, sick of fucking Comic fucking Refuckinglief Dofuckingofuckinges Ffuckingafuckingmfuckinge Acafuckingdefuckingmy the other night I forced my heavily pregnant wife to watch The Evil Dead with me. It was great. Forcing her to watch it, I mean. The film was okay, I guess.
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posted
Sideways was okay, but not as good as everyone wanked on about.
Saw The Woodsman. The same. In fact, a bit silly really. More holes in it than an Italian Secret Service man at an American roadblock.
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quote:Originally posted by Thorn Davis: Looking forward to seeing what he's got up his sleeve for his next feature.
Oh lol! It's an ageing man on a roadtrip through mundane America, bound for disappointment. Fucking hell! Where does this guy get his ideas from?
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quote:Originally posted by ben: I never saw About Schmidt as I vowed never to watch a Nicolson mid/end-life crisis film again after the welter of shit and stale cum that was Something's Got To Give.
Oh lol-sticks lollalorum. I decided this after As Good As It Gets. Doesn't Schmidt have Kathy Bates in it though? She's usually ok viewing.
[ 10.03.2005, 07:15: Message edited by: The H Pony ]
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quote:Originally posted by Dr. Benway: Did anybody watch Bad Lieutenant last night? A laff riot, and well timed to coincide with my purchase of the DVD.
The film is quite deadly. Sometimes things no wrong when you watch it. It's cursed I tell ya.
The thing that I find interesting about Bad Liutenant, is that Harvey Keitel does some method acting right? So in that scene when he pulls over the two girls and makes one do her 'blow job face' and the other hitch up her skirt and bend out of the window. Right, that scene. When Harvey Keitel is pretending, nay acting that he's having a wank and pulling a supremo concentration face. Is that his method wank face i.e his real cum face or is he just making it up, like trying to imagine what the characters cum face would look like?
Because if it's his method face. I've seen Harvey Keitels proper, proper cum face.
quote:Originally posted by ben: I never saw About Schmidt as I vowed never to watch a Nicolson mid/end-life crisis film again after the welter of shit and stale cum that was Something's Got To Give.
So you watched the shit one, and missed the gem? Nice one - I should really follow your film picks more often.
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