Paranormal Psychology

We badly wanted to see horror indy Paranormal Activity before the expected backlash had time to take effect, though we did hear from lots of interwebz folks that that the film was unworthy of the massive hype machine put in place by Paramount (who picked up the $10K budgeted flick after some positive festival appearances over the last 2 years.) The Blair Witch Project introduced audiences to the 'found footage' concept nearly a decade ago (in short, footage consisting of the film/video footage shot by the characters themselves) even though Ruggero Deodato's infamous exploitation gem, Cannibal Holocaust, had used the technique rather brilliantly back in 1980 (though there was a narrative framework surrounding the use of the footage.) We were lucky to have seen BWP in its opening weekend – too early for it to become hip to hate the film – and marveled at how directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez stayed true to the '3 kids with cameras' framework and made it feel real enough to send genuine chills down our spine when the characters on screen were sure that they heard something out there. It was years before thinking back on the film's much parodied final shot lost the power to utterly spook us out. Only the Spanish REC managed to improve on the method, by taking the cameras out of the hands of inexperienced kids and into the hands a professional camera crew working for a Barcelona news station following a reporter as she films a fluff piece on a local fire department, where a routine call to an apartment building turns into the requisite night of terror. REC is an extremely polished, professional bit of filmmaking, with the presence of a professional cameraman and equipment allowing for a less nausea-inducing theater experience (and probably also holds true for its Hollywood remake, Quarantine.)

Paramount's unusual ad campaign for Paranormal Activity has focused on the terrified reaction shots of preview audiences rather than film footage itself, almost as if the studio is bashful about the film being called out as a BWP knock-off. But having finally seen the film as part of Lincoln Center's Scary Movies 3 festival , I can attest to the veracity of all those jumps, gasps, and screams (okay, we didn't actually scream – honest.) Leaving the theater, we were trying to remember the last time that genuine fear had been felt inside a movie theater, aside from the feeling that car keys had been lost at the New Roc City multiplex. Paranormal Activity centers around the videotaped nocturnal activity of a spirit that Katie (Katie Featherston) feels is invading the modern San Diego home she shares with boyfriend Micah (Micah Sloat.) Micah's attitude is far more blasé, assuming that the culprit ultimately responsible for the noises in the night will turn out to be a neighborhood peeping tom rather than anything supernatural. Micah does most of the filming, playfully taping Katie as they cook meals and lay about on their couch, but also sets the camera up on their bedroom dresser when they go to bed, affording a view of the bedroom and the upstairs hallway through the open door. Time coded footage allows us to hear the odd creak and rattle – most of which happens in the middle of the night and go unnoticed until they play the footage back the next night – which quickly turns to loud bangs and door slamming. They enlist the aid of a psychic (Mark Fredrichs) who explains the difference between the spirit of a dead human being and a demon, the latter of which he suspects may well have followed Katie from childhood. Soon, even Micah becomes a believer, even to the point of bringing home a Ouija board to communicate with it – something the psychic explicitly warned them against. Attempts to communicate, he says, will only make their presence stronger (it also won't help to move or go to a hotel as the entity will simply follow Katie.)

This isn't a film that depends all that much on plot twists and turns, but it would be criminal to spoil any of what transpires during the tenser haunting sequences. Director Oren Peli has spent two nervous years dueling with a studio that first wanted merely to buy the rights to the film and remake it with big stars and effects to match (an act that would have shown such hysterically poor judgment we almost whished that they had gone ahead so that Paranormal Activity starring Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale would be appearing on Blu-Ray just about now) only to relent once Steven Spielberg – among others – had seen the film and spotted its potential. Nevertheless, Paramount sat on the film for what must have seemed like an eternity to Peli (particularly after the red hot reception which greeted the film at almost every festival it played at.) Peli expertly exploits the terror of lying in your bed in the middle of the night, having been awakened by mysterious noises and too petrified to leave the sheets to investigate the darkness. The usual 'cat jumps through open window' to the strain of a screeching musical cue type of scare is largely absent from the film, giving it an unusual rhythm that slowly but surely fills the viewer with an sense of escalating dread; once Peli and the actors convince us of the reality of the setup (within 10 minutes we stopped thinking things like "Oh, please, why would he be filming now") even the smallest shadow or unexplained noise had the power to turn our blood frigid. Now, we can't say that this psychology will work on everyone and we can hear the complaints that it was boring and that "nothing happened". Effects in the film are smartly limited (though we have strong suspicions where the studio mandated reshoots began at the film's conclusion) and most of the what occurs is left to the imagination of the viewer.

Paranormal Activity frightened us in a way we haven't felt for years in a theater; a window into the deep, spine-chilling creepiness that sneaks into our bedrooms in the middle of the night, taking our knowledge that the supernatural doesn't actually exist and throwing it out the window.

A Wolfen in Werewolf's Clothing

Wolfen, to use a grotesque yet appropriate pun, is an unusual beast. The only post-Woodstock directorial credit for director Michael Wadleigh (and his only narrative effort) was released in the summer of 1981, wedged between two high profile werewolf pictures, Joe Dante’s The Howling and John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London. Audiences thinking that the film made up the third horse in the lycanthropic trifecta left this decidedly odd effort left feeling cheated, as the filmmakers had something more profound in mind than a simple ‘monster movie’.

After breaking ground on his sprawling South Bronx real estate project, super-wealthy businessman Christopher van de Veer and wife Pauline slip down to Manhattan’s Battery Park, where the happy couple enjoys a cocaine-fuelled frolic around a replica of a windmill erected there by van de Veer’s ancestor, all under the watchful eye of his mountainous armed bodyguard. But the trio isn’t alone in the park – something silent and swift is stalking them in the darkness, something with acute night-vision that registers even the most subtle changes in the human body’s temperature. After a few moments, the creatures strike; ripping off the bodyguard’s hand before he can get a shot off with his gun, and tearing apart the wealthy scion and his wife. The odd circumstances of the crime bring one of the NYPD’s more odd detectives onto the case, the sarcastic and possibly alcoholic Dewey Wilson (Albert Finney, marking the actor’s first lead role since 1974’s Murder on the Orient Express) who is aided in his investigation by the equally unorthodox medical examiner Whittington (Gregory Hines) and criminal psychologist Rebecca Neff (Diane Venora) who is put on the case at the behest of a shadowy international security service that provides security for executives all over the world, and are anxious to see the van de Veer case closed quickly.

The investigation leads them to several terrorist organizations that might have a bone to pick with van de Veer (who was not, as Det. Wilson points out, exactly a friend of the third world) until the body of a derelict found in a particularly desolate area of the South Bronx turns up in Whittington’s morgue. Like the van de Veer case, the skin was torn with some incredibly sharp, non-metallic blade and numerous internal organs were missing, but the body from the Bronx contained several diseased organs that were left untouched – almost as if whatever killed him was somehow able to sense this and leave them behind. A few strands of non-human hair lead them to zoologist Ferguson (Tom Noonan; for the first time billed under an actual character name and not simply as ‘Man’) who confirms that the hair is, in fact, canis lupus – a wolf hair. Dewey’s investigations also lead him to Eddie Holt (Edward James Olmos) a former radical in an AIM-like Native American movement just released from prison and with one political assassination already under his belt. Speaking to Eddie requires Dewey to scale the Manhattan Bridge where Eddie works with other members of his tribe who possess uncommon skill at working Manhattan’s high steel jobs (based on the amazing story of several generations of Mohawks who came down from their reservation in Canada to work NYC’s skyline for over a century) Eddie eludes to an ability shared by some Native Americans to “shape shift” into certain animals – including wolves. With his investigation dead-ended by the supernatural, Dewey and Whittington set out for the ruins of a massive church in the south Bronx where the bodies of several derelicts have been found with their (non diseased) organs removed, armed with automatic weapons and high-sensitivity microphones.



Wolfen avoids the same trap that other ecologically themed horror films of the era fell into by managing to balance the potentially over preachy ecological agenda with effective storytelling and expertly filmed suspense sequences. Not only was this Wadleigh’s first (and, to date, only) narrative film, it was also his first time shooting with 35mm cameras and considering his inexperience the end result is startling. His Panavision cameras run, swoop and climb all over the city, making superb use of Battery Park and the financial district of downtown Manhattan, and the final sequence featuring several real wolves stalking the steps of Federal Hall says more in a few shots than 20 pages of “You have your technology, but you lost” soliloquies ever could. Much was made in 1981 of the film’s wolf POV shots, which were basically a re-jiggered thermographic image, but just as Terminator 2 overused the new-in-1991 morphing effect, so did Wadleigh (or his producers) lean on this trick a little too hard. Luckily, the non-POV location photography always gives us something interesting to look at; in addition to the sleek skyscrapers and ornately columned government and financial buildings of Wall Street, Wolfen also affords us a view of the desolate Charlotte Street area of the Bronx – an area of the borough that resembled a bombed-out European city just after the second World War throughout much of the 70s through the mid 80s. A wasteland of abandoned tenements and rubble strewn lots provide the setting for the long abandoned, cavernous, cathedral that the Wolfen use as a den (the only artificial set used during these sequences, incidentally.) The notion that a race of wolves with God-like hunting instincts living in and feeding off the garbage of our inner cities comes directly from Whitley Strieber’s novel, but the Native American mythology that serves as the creatures’ motivation comes directly from Wadleigh and co-writer David Eyre. Wadleigh’s portrayal of Native Americans is certainly meant to be respectful – even reverential – but he falls into the trap that caught many other liberal, well-meaning filmmakers by elevating them to a level of near deification. Wolfen wasn’t the first – or the last – film to imbue them with mythic qualities as a cinematic reparation for genocide, but we can’t help but groan at hearing how in touch Native Americans are over and over again. It would be quite a few years before they would be allowed to behave like normal people on screen (beautifully done in the little seen Powwow Highway) instead of a symbol of our lost connection to nature and a fashionable emblem of white guilt (we’re looking at you, Oliver Stone.)

The mere presence of Albert Finney classes up the proceedings immeasurably, though occasionally his performance seems to wander – the actor badly stumbles over a line in his very first scene – and we wonder if the inexperienced filmmaker was too intimidated to offer much in the way of precise direction. Finney’s appearances had been limited in the years prior to Wolfen, and his shaggy, disheveled appearance must have been jolting to those who remembered him as the essence of youthful exuberance in Tom Jones some two decades earlier (Finney did look a bit better rested in Michael Crichton’s Looker, out later that same year.) A bigger surprise is how handily Gregory Hines steals each of his scenes from his significantly more experienced co-star; this was the only the second major role for the world class hoofer and he lends the stock character a genuine, unforced humor that aids the film immeasurably. We re-watched The Cotton Club just a few weeks before checking out Wolfen for this review and suddenly found ourselves missing Hines in a powerful way. The almost always underused Diane Venora – a theater actress whose best film role to date is probably as Al Pacino’s unstable wife in Michael Mann’s Heat – is fine in a mostly underwritten role. Noonan, another Mann veteran, is almost too quirky as an eco-minded zoologist (though we loved the very inside NYC reference of having his character report a fire rather than calling the police – a jaded New Yorker in 1981 would have certainly known which call would generate a quicker response) but Olmos give a nice, unmannered performance as a not-quite-so-former radical (compared to some of his later performances that, frankly, you could slice with a knife.)



Wolfen turned out to be the filling of a wish sandwich when it was released in 1981 – the werewolf picture without werewolves. We’ve heard that Wadleigh wasn’t completely happy with the film’s final cut, as may be evidenced by the theatrical trailer included on Warner Bros’ DVD, which contains glimpses of several scenes not included in the film proper. Whatever the reason, Wadleigh never made another film in spite of the real promise shown here, and spends much of his time being interviewed about Woodstock and forgetting that Wolfen even existed. Warner’s DVD looks fine during the on-location daylight scenes, but nighttime and dark interiors can look quite pale. On the plus side, the Dolby Surround track is quite muscular, nicely supporting James Horner’s terrific score (so good that he used much of it the next year for The Wrath of Khan.) Sadly, no informative extras are included.

Blu-Ray Review - The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi

On Tuesday, Sept 15th, Miramax and Buena Vista will be releasing a welcome, if oddly grouped, selection of martial arts films, all making their Blu-ray disc debut. Called the “Ultimate Force of Four” set, which actually makes it sound like a poorly translated Japanese cartoon from the 80s, the set features four popular films starring Hong Kong sensations Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen, Jet Li, and even Takeshi Kitano for the sake of cultural diversity. Although some of the films share similar elements, other than being elaborately costumed period shows they have little in common save having been snatched up for American distribution by Miramax Pictures.

Takeshi Kitano has worn many hats in the Japanese entertainment industry over the last few decades; from wacky game show personality, half of a stand-up comedy act, master of ceremonies, not to mention writing, producing and directing a series of films that run the gamut from lowbrow humor to hyper-violent and deadly serious police/yakuza dramas. Like fellow countryman Takashi Miike, some of Kitano’s films have managed to break through the seemingly insurmountable cultural barrier that sadly keeps most Americans ignorant to the wealth of Japanese films that exist outside the limited realms of Akira Kurosawa and Godzilla. Kitano was first seen on this side of the Pacific in a major supporting role opposite David Bowie and Tom Conti in Nagisa Oshima’s 1983 POW camp drama Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, but Kitano’s fortunes were assured while filming Violent Cop for director Kinji Fukasaku (who would go on to direct him in arguably his most widely seen film, Battle Royale.) The aging master fell ill during filming and Kitano took over the directing chores, re-fitting the script and fashioning a tough guy screen persona similar to that of Ken Takakura, whose steely gaze often said more than whole pages of dialog. This contrasted sharply with the heavily comedic work that he had come to be known for on shows like the utterly mad Takeshi’s Castle (immortalized stateside as MXC on Spike TV.) Kitano fine-tuned this gangster persona several years later, creating one of his finest films, Sonatine, a festival favorite that won the actor a considerable international following.

Kitano had some initial trepidation in taking on the role of the blind swordsman (and masseur!) as it was so heavily identified in Japan with Shintaro Katsu, who owned the role thanks to a 26 films and a TV series that stretched from 1962 to 1989. But Kitano, who directed and starred, as usual, under the Beat Takeshi moniker, changed the more traditional good against evil tone of the early films, mostly by giving the villain of the piece, a Ronin bodyguard (Tadanobu Asano) a tragic backstory that allows for empathy. The plot of the film, which finds Zatoichi working with a group of poor farmers who are caught between two warring groups of Yakuza, is as old as the hills, with roots back to Italian westerns of the 60s, which were, in turn, inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s jidaigeki films of the 50s, Yojimbo and The Seven Samurai. But Kitano adds a few new twists, like buckets of stylistically-rendered CGI blood (Kitano seems to be the only filmmaker that knows how to apply this technique properly) and a large-scale celebratory tap dance sequence that will strike many as unusual to say the least, but as a director, Kitano isn’t known for emotional pandering and the scene makes for a joyous and touching way to cap the proceedings.

If Zatoichi was given a US theatrical release, we missed it, but Miramax has obtained the US home video rights, which usually means a regimen of cutting and dubbing, but the news isn’t all dire. We do get the uncut feature with an original language audio track, but (as with the other 3 films from the box set) only the English dub track is accorded a lossless DTS audio track while the original Japanese audio rates only a DD 5.1 mix. the transfer, however, is a mixed bag; initially the picture appears bright and clear, but closer inspection reveals some distractingly noticeable edge enhancement, as if the sharpness was turned up too high, which gives the illusion of fine detail when the actual effect is just the opposite. The brightness also appears to have been artificially boosted, giving the film the over-lit feel of television product. It’s by no means unwatchable, but we also feel that a little more care should have been accorded to Zatoichi – a box office and critical smash in Japan that could have made Miramax some major coin in the US had it been handled better. An excellent 40min making-of docu is included, along with a collection of short, individual interviews.

Blu-Ray Review - The Legend of Drunken Master

On Tuesday, Sept 15th, Miramax and Buena Vista will be releasing a welcome, if oddly grouped, selection of martial arts films, all making their Blu-ray disc debut. Called the “Ultimate Force of Four” set, which actually makes it sound like a poorly translated Japanese cartoon from the 80s, the set features four popular films starring Hong Kong sensations Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen, Jet Li, and even Takeshi Kitano for the sake of cultural diversity. Although some of the films share similar elements, other than being elaborately costumed period shows they have little in common save having been snatched up for American distribution by Miramax Pictures.

The next film, chronologically speaking, is 1994’s The Legend of Drunken Master starring Jackie Chan in another film inspired by the Wong Fei Hung legend – although this time with a far more humorous take. The Wikipedia page on the revered martial artist and doctor says nothing about his ability to drink large amounts of accelerant and fight off Imperial interests “drunken monkey” style, but then again, this is Jackie Chan’s Wong Fei Hung story (actually his second, counting 1978’s The Drunken Master, one of the star’s earliest successes.)

The film was released in Hong Kong in 1994 – the same year that Jackie Chan celebrated his 40th birthday and the last film of Jackie’s “golden era”. The previous 10 years had yielded a stupefying array of breathtakingly choreographed martial arts mayhem in films like the Police Story series, Armor of God, Operation Condor, and Project A; all serving to elevate the Peking Opera-trained star’s reputation as the preeminent performer in the post-Bruce Lee era. Chan’s early career actually overlapped with Lee’s, as the stars can clearly be seen trading blows during the climactic fight in Lee’s swan song, Enter the Dragon (1973). Lee’s template of the stern-faced hero cast a shadow over Hong Kong cinema for years after his death, with many young stars being shoehorned into increasingly formulaic roles. Though Chan’s more successful early pictures, like Snake in Eagle’s Shadow and The Young Master, flirted with a more comic tone, Chan’s early pictures haven’t aged all that well. Early forays into the coveted American action film market yielded the disappointing Battle Creek Brawl in 1980 (seriously, did Robert Clouse really direct Enter the Dragon?) and the unwatchable Golden Harvest-Warner Bros co-production The Protector in 1985. Ironically, Chan seemed far more ‘at home’ in his extended cameo in The Cannonball Run, which reportedly inspired him to use outtakes during his closing credits (“I want you to take these bleeds…”) But once Chan set aside plans for American conquest and concentrated on his Hong Kong films, he quickly blossomed into the most innovative martial arts performer of his – or, frankly, anyone’s – era; comparisons to Buster Keaton aren’t used lightly, and Jackie’s comic inventiveness and creativity was seemingly boundless. Age finally began to catch up with Jackie just as his star was finally ascending in the States; a re-edited and dubbed Rumble in the Bronx served as his official breakthrough American film in 1995, but the film was severely weakened by New Line Cinema’s editing of nearly 15min, loosing most of the show’s more comic moments (some of which can still be glimpsed in the film’s end credit outtakes) and the fact that an injury to Chan’s foot hampered the star’s usual kung-fu theatrics. But Chan’s success in America was assured, and the Shanghai Knights and Rush Hour franchise became world-wide smashes, even if his physical prowess was on a slow, but steady, decline.

The Legend of Drunken Master is the 2000 Miramax retiling of 1994’s Drunken Master II, easily one of Jackie’s best films, and one of the last made during his physical peak. At 40, Chan might seem a bit too young to play the seemingly teenage Fei Hung that we see here, but accuracy has never been the strong suit of the Wong Fei Hung films (a Hong Kong tradition going back to the Second World War) and this is easily the most entertaining that we’ve ever seen. The film begins as more or less a domestic comedy, with Fei Hung caught between his stern father (Ti Lung) and mahjong-playing mother (the late and much missed Anita Mui). Fei Hung’s keen ability at drunken boxing (actually a legitimate form of Wushu called Zui Quan, incorporating movements that make the practitioner appear intoxicated) is frowned upon by his father, even when he uses it to protect his mother against a group of street thugs. But soon Fei Hung runs afoul of a group of smugglers working with a “foreign power” to spirit historically important Chinese art treasures out of the country, culminating in some of the greatest fights in the star’s career.

While watching any of Jackie’s golden era films, we’re always struck by his incredible sense of the proper pacing of the action sequences. While a large scale opening sequence was becoming standard in most HK films of the era, Drunken Master II builds its rhythm slowly; the first one-on-one fight around a stopped train and the aforementioned engagement between Jackie and several street thugs seem to be the equivalent of a martial arts warm-up lap, allowing Jackie (and us) to get used to the drunken boxing style (and no one has ever done this to better effect) so that each subsequent sequence trumps the scene before it. We first saw the film at NYC’s Cinema Village in the mid 90s, and I’m sure that I thought that there would be no way to top Jackie’s encounter with the ‘ax gang’ – a hypnotic sequence involving a two story restaurant and what seems like about 300 ax-armed assassins – until the final fight in the foundry. Jackie’s fight with Ken Lo (a member of Jackie’s lauded stunt team and his personal bodyguard) who amazingly stepped in at the last minute when an injury sidelined the actor slated to appear. Lo’s character, Jon, is a perfect example of the classic martial arts villain, sitting back throughout most of the film wearing a suitably smug expression, just waiting for that perfect moment to show you what an utter badass he is. The sequence is one of Jackie’s very best two-man fights ever filmed. But another supporting actor deserving special mention is the fabulous Anita Mui, playing Jackie’s mother while the actress was almost a full decade his junior. Her scenes with Jackie absolutely sparkle, and the two would be reunited in Rumble in the Bronx. Mui’s comic timing is flawless, taking what could have easily been a forgettable role and making it into something special. Mui had an equally successful career as a pop singer as well, and remained one of Hong Kong’s most beloved entertainment figures until her death from cervical cancer in 2003.

Blu-Ray Review - Iron Monkey

On Tuesday, Sept 15th, Miramax and Buena Vista will be releasing a welcome, if oddly grouped, selection of martial arts films, all making their Blu-ray disc debut. Called the “Ultimate Force of Four” set, which actually makes it sound like a poorly translated Japanese cartoon from the 80s, the set features four popular films starring Hong Kong sensations Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen, Jet Li, and even Takeshi Kitano for the sake of cultural diversity. Although some of the films share similar elements, other than being elaborately costumed period shows they have little in common save having been snatched up for American distribution by Miramax Pictures.

The oldest film of the set, 1993’s Iron Monkey, was directed and choreographed by Yuen Woo-ping several years before being set up as Hollywood’s official HK fight choreographer, giving films like The Matrix and Kill Bill films instant street cred. Slightly more historically accurate than Drunken Master II, the film nonetheless plays fast and loose with elements of the life of Chinese folk hero, Wong Fei Hung. The story of Iron Monkey centers on a Robin Hood-like figure, Yang Tianchun (Ru Rongguang) who serves the poor of his community by day as a doctor, but by night he dons a black outfit and robs the rich to pay for his clinic. The “Iron Monkey” even steals gold directly from the governor’s mansion, inciting a manhunt that ensnares innocent physician Wong Kei Ying (Donnie Yen) who just arrived in town with his young son, Fei Hung (Angie Tsang). After watching him fight off several members of a gang, the local police believe him to be the Iron Monkey, arresting him on the spot. During the trial, the real Iron Monkey arrives to attempt to rescue the innocent Kei Wing, but the innocent doctor is so intent on proving his innocence that he fights the Iron Monkey to a virtual draw. Sensing a nerve, the governor decides to send Kei Ying out to hunt down the masked avenger, keeping his son hostage as insurance.

As an action choreographer, Yuen Woo-ping is a name that is recognizable to even the kung-fu layman. His first major assignment was alongside Jackie Chan on Snake in Eagle’s Shadow in 1978, and since then has gone on to work with virtually every major action star in Hong Kong. Yuen was a major force in shifting HK martial arts films out of the over-rehearsed looking, missed-by-a-mile programmers that dominated the scene in the 70s, into a more elegant, fluid style that retained a street-level feel. Star Donnie Yen never quite broke through to Western audiences in the way that that Jackie Chan and Jet Li have (though, ironically, Yen spent part of his adolescence with his family in Boston) but he’s maintained a high profile career in Hong Kong since getting his start as a stuntman in the early 80s. He rose to prominence as a performer after facing off against Jet Li in Once Upon a Time in China II; a scene that proved so popular with fans that Li personally intervened on Yen’s behalf and cast him in Hero. There’s also more of an adherence to the laws of physics on the part of the fight sequence participants, which might displease those who are either devotees of that particular school of martial arts storytelling, or who hadn’t seen a martial arts film before Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. And because the film was made in 1993, there are no attempts made at digital trickery. Iron Monkey is a fun throwback to a simpler era of martial arts film, and one that appeals greatly to those who feel that the tone of self-importance that has formed around the genre in the last decade – yours truly included.

Unfortunately, Iron Monkey has been brutally Americanized by Miramax in an attempt to make it more palatable to the average consumer (the very consumer that will be too busy renting Wesley Snipes movies to give a 25yr old foreign film called Iron Monkey more than 2 seconds of thought.) Good news first – the Blu-Ray picture is quite nice given the limitations of the source material. Colors and detail are quite strong, with deep, inky blacks and good contrast. The bad news is that only the English dub track has been graced with a lossless DTS audio track – purists will have to content themselves with a DD 5.1 Cantonese track. Now the worse news; Miramax have given us the edited US version, shorn of roughly 5 minutes from its original HK running time of 90min. as is usually the case with Hong Kong films, comedic sequences are first on the chopping block, as it’s widely thought that the humor doesn’t travel well (we’ve never seen the longer cut – this is pure conjecture.) Worst still is that the film’s original score and much of the familiar Hong Kong foley effects used during the fight scenes have been replaced – apparently the same people that don’t like Chinese humor don’t care for Chinese sound effects either.

The Saga of Roger Corman and His Voyage to the Waters of Oscar Gold

It was great to find out from our own beloved Cinefantastique that Roger Corman is slated to finally receive an honorary Oscar for being the most important producer in Hollywood history.

And I’m totally serious.

John Landis - Keeping His Head in the Game

Sorry to be away for a while – we’ve been keeping busy over at Cinefantastique and the all-important (yet still dreaded) day job. But we just came across a bit of news that was just too delicious not to pass on. According to Dread Central, John Landis is about to start work on his first narrative feature (discounting his recent, and excellent documentaries and television work) in 10 years. Can the news get better? The subject matter is going to be a pair of gentlemen by the name of William Burke and William Hare, who kindly supplied the Edinburgh Medial College’s need for fresh bodies for dissection in the early 19th Century; first by simply stealing bodies from the grave, and later by cutting out the middle man and murdering the subjects on their own. There have already been several films dealing with the pair, including the excellent The Flesh and the Fiends from 1960, featuring Donald Pleasence as Hare and Peter Cushing as the tragic Dr. Knox – a brilliant surgeon whose dealings with the pair cost him his reputation, the forgettable 1972 Burke &Hare, and the odd 1985 entry, The Doctor and the Devils, a Hammer-inspired work from Mel Brooks’ production company that used an unproduced script by Dylan Thomas as a launching pad for a fictionalized take on the case and featuring a smashing cast including Jonathan Pryce and Stephen Rea as “Fallon and Broom” (the renamed Burke and Hare) and Timothy Dalton as “Dr. Rock”.



Even Landis’ most strident supporters (a group that we proudly belong to) would acknowledge that the second half of his directorial career has generated an awful lot of garbage (of which The Stupids isn’t even the worst) but the man’s footpath is littered with more diamonds than can be easily be counted. Approached as coal-black comedy, Landis could do wonders with the material – particularly if Simon Pegg remains attached.