There's a meme going around that I am certain others may have seen. I've been tagged twice by two distinguished residents from the left coast, Kimberly of Cinebeats, and Michael of The Evening Class. Aside from the fact that she tagged me first, I'm not going to say no to a woman who loves all manner of cinematic mayhem, and may love the films of my youth even more than I do.

The meme is this:
) Pick up the nearest book.
2) Open to page 123.
3) Locate the fifth sentence.
4) Post the next three sentences on your blog and in so doing…
5) Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

"I wonder if I can get this across to you in Japanese via an interpreter. I'll try. These three people are representatives of the human without possessing human souls."

Taken completely out of context, Ichikawa could well be speaking about some candidates for the President of the United States. I'm sorry. It's a cheap shot I couldn't resist. Actually, the three people are characters from Kagi, also known as The Key or Odd Obsession. Here's is a film from Ichikawa, based on a novel by Junichiro Tanizaki, starring Machiko Kyo and Tatsuya Nakadai, and it's only available on VHS! I can't be the only one who wants to see this on DVD with English subtitles.

I'm not tagging anyone because I think everyone has been tagged, and I'd rather not impose myself on anyone. If you want to join the "fun", consider yourself tagged.

In the meantime, today is the birthday of Burt Bacharach and Steve Winwood. Aside from sharing the same birthday, they both worked with Clive Donner. Bacharach did the songs and music for Donner's most famous film, What's New Pussycat?, while Winwood, with his then new band, Traffic, did some of the songs for one of Donner's lesser known films, Here We go 'Round the Mulberry Bush. You might not be able to see the film, but the soundtrack album is still available, also with songs from the band Winwood was formerly with, The Spencer Davis Group.

My favorite song from What's New Pussycat? is "My Little Red Book". Some consider it heresy but I prefer the version by Love. As for Mulberry Bush and Steve Winwood, here are the opening credits and song.

Halle Berry in Things We Lost in the Fire (Susanne Bier - 2007)

Flower Drum Song
Henry Koster - 1961
Universal Region 1 DVD

One last contribution to the Invitation to the Dance Blog-a-thon, a more traditional kind of musical, and a choice made more timely by a posting over at Edward Copeland's by Josh R.

There is so much both right and wrong with the film version of Flower Drum Song. The film and original play were made with good intentions, and yet . . .

Having a virtually all Asian cast in a mainstream Hollywood film was admirable, but having them portray Chinese or Chinese-Americans seems to emphasize the idea that all Asians look alike. I also have a problem with the casting of American-American Juanita Hall as a Chinese matriarch, no matter that Rogers and Hammerstein loved her. Even when the older characters do not speak pidgen English, there is still the taint of Hollywood stereotypes. Had Anna May Wong not died, and played the part filled by Hall, that may have been another reminder of how little had changed for English speaking Asian actresses since the release of Picadilly. Flower Drum Song works best in not looking too deeply at what may be wrong, and enjoy what is best in the film, primarily Nancy Kwan.

The other standout scenes involve talented Patrick Adiarte as the very American young man who loves baseball and rock and roll, dancing with Kwan as well as showing his solo abilities. The show's best song, "Love, Look Away" is part of a ballet on an abstract set, performed by Reiko Sato, with the singing voice dubbed by Marily Horne.

As one whose interest in Asian films has directed me to seeing some of the recently released DVDs of Hong Kong musicals made during that time, there are questions on how Flower Drum Song would have been perceived had there been awareness of the musicals that usually starred Linda Lin Dai. The Shaw Brothers produced musicals were Hong Kong versions inspired by the musicals Hollywood produced at the time. Of course the only people aware of Linda Lin Dai would be the residents of the real Chinatowns. That the dance sequences are reasonably filmed documents of the performances probably has more to do with choreographer Hermes Pan, than director Henry Koster. Serious thoughts get pushed aside when one considers that the best reason to bother with Flower Drum Song is the sight of Nancy Kwan's legs.

Rene Cardona III - 2006
Laguna Productions Region 1 DVD

I'm combining Marilyn Ferdinand's blog-a-thon with Cinco de Mayo today. This is a major holiday not just in my town, but especially in my neighborhood. Mesa que Mas Aplauda is about a small town restaurant without customers, that becomes an overnight success when Las Vegas showgirl Liz Vega shows up to introduce pole dancing. Rene Cardona III's film is closer to a Mexican version of Coyote Ugly than Showgirls, with fewer pretenses. The film was inspired by the Latin hit song recorded by Osskar Lobo y Grupo Climax, performed at the end of the film. Mostly Mesa que Mas Aplauda is an excuse to have close ups of jiggly parts of the voluptuous cast. Viva La Vega!

Howard Marion-Crawford and Jesus Franco in The Castle of Fu Manchu (Jesus Franco - 1969)

Anna Biller - 2007
Anna Biller Productions 35mm film

Is it possible to create a parody of a film that was never meant to be taken seriously in the first place? Or can one make fun of a movie that may have been unintentionally comic? As one who has seen some of the films that served as inspiration for Viva, my reaction was that audiences might be better served by another viewing of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Camille 2000, perhaps topped off with a bit of Jesus (Franco) and Venus in Furs.

I feel bad in that Anna Biller totally put herself into the film as writer, director, costume and set designer, animator (!), song writer, producer, editor and star. Biller not only stars, but allows her beautiful and naked self to be exposed. The only multi-hyphenate that I can think of that came nearly as close was Clint Eastwood offering a posterior view in Space Cowboys. The best thing I can say for Viva is that Biller and co-star Bridget Brno have gorgeously fleshy bodies, rather than the stick figures that usually parade on screen.

The basic story of a married woman who ventures into prostitution after being ignored by her self-absorbed husband may remind many of the basic premise of Belle de Jour. The film ends with a very clear homage to Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, with a Biller penned song titled "Two Little Girls". A gay hair stylist resembles a subdued version of John LaZar, the immortal Z-man of BVD. Viva also succeeds in creating sets and colors that resemble "Playboy" pictorials of swinging bachelor pads. I must be getting old - I had lust in my heart not for any actor, but one the Eames chairs used in the film.

Except for a comment by one of the women that the "Playboy" playmates were skinny, any intended feminist critique of early Seventies exploitation films were not noticeable. More obvious were the reworkings of elements from the films from that era, some of which are available on DVD for comparison. I saw some of these films at the time of their initial theatrical release, and even recall interviews with some of the male filmmakers who insisted that their films were cries for sexual equality. For myself, I liked the films by Radley Metzger for the scenes of cunning linguistics. I have to think that had Anna Biller made films in the early Seventies, she might have had Roger Corman in her corner. There are part of Viva that make me think that what Biller created works better as a stage play rather than as a movie. What ever Viva was suppose to be in theory, the final film is a less than lively sum of its many parts.

Tian Tang Kou
Alexi Tan - 2007
Fortissimo Films 35mm film

Blood Brothers has a running time much shorter than that of the films that served as sources of inspiration. The look and feel of the film are closer to Once Upon a Time in America, mentioned by Alexi Tan, with more than passing resemblance to some of the style of Coppola and Scorsese. Currently seen at several film festival's, the film is an extremely accomplished. If Blood Brothers were an English language film with Hollywood stars, there would be talk of Academy Awards. Even if the story line can also be anticipated from the first few minutes, when the small town boys discuss making their fortune in 1930s Shanghai, the classic visual style of the film makes Blood Brothers satisfying to watch.

The original title translates as "Mouth of Heaven", which is also the name of the Shanghai night club where much of the film takes place. This particular heaven is run by Boss Hong, who wields the power of life and death over much of the Shanghai underworld even though his front is that of movie producer. For the three young men who initially come to Shanghai to work as waiters, the Paradise Club appears as a form of heaven with the well dressed men and women who come to dine and dance, and the stage show with scantily clad chorus girls and featured singer, Lulu. It is Lulu, mistress to Boss Hong, who warns one of the young men, Fung, to not get involved with Boss Hong. It is also Lulu who provides the motivation for the steps and missteps of the men who orbit around her.

It is no coincidence that the main female character shares the name of Louise Brook's ill fated Lulu. Blood Brothers is about irreversible destiny, as if no one has any choice about what they will do or what function they are expected to perform. The same could be said about the three young men - Kang, the one determined to be a success in the big city, Hu, his younger brother unable to do more than stand in his brother's shadow, and Fung, the sensitive friend who finds himself unable to break away from his past as a small town boy, or his more recent past as part of Boss Hong's family. Blood Brothers works because it fulfills the conventions of the genre, resembling a Italian or Italian-American epic as done by Chinese actors.

It could well have been the European influence of Blood Brothers that attracted John Woo to serve as the film's producer. Woo has been quite open about his admiration for Jean-Pierre Melville, and Daniel Wu may remind some of the young Alain Delon in his emotional vulnerability. Shu Qi, the Lulu of Shanghai, is transitioning ably from action star to dramatic actress. Lulu's dream is to appear in films produced by Boss Hong, and be a star like Anna May Wong. One brief scene in Blood Brothers features Wong as a guest in the Paradise Club, based on her real life return to Shanghai in 1936. In the end, Paradise, whether in the form of a nightclub, or as power or fame, is easily destroyed. The heaven that the characters aspire to turns out to be their hell.

The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic Book Scare and How it Changed America
David Hajdu - 2008
Farrar, Straus and Giroux: New York

Artists and Models
Frank Tashlin - 1955
Paramount Region 1 DVD

I was taking classes in the summer of 1971 at the University of California in Berkeley. At a course on Mass Communications, I was discussing underground comics with a teacher. He encouraged me to read Seduction of the Innocent, the influential "study" of comic books by Fredric Werthem. A psychiatrist adept at self-promotion, Werthem's book fed into the fears about the corrupting influence of comic books of the kind that were available in the early Fifties. While I don't think my parents read Werthem's book, the hysteria regarding comic books was such that by the time I started buying them myself around 1960, the only kind I was allowed to buy were Classics Illustrated. I had also been aware that many of the comic books I wasn't buying featured a special seal of approval, stating that the comic met some designated code. David Hajdu's book tell about the history of comic books up to the time that the code was mandated.

When Artists and Models was released, the comic book industry had already changed. The screenplay refers to a kind of comic book that no longer was published. To a degree Tashlin's film reflects the film industry's attitude at that time towards comic books, both as a rival form of entertainment and for its depiction of violence. The middle class attitude toward comic books is reenforced with the main characters leaving the comic book industry for the more wholesome pursuit of children's stories and advertising art.

Even though Hajdu's book makes Tashlin's film outdated in its view of comic books, and the people in the industry, it still remains the best film from the team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Eddie Mayehoff's comic book publisher probably was inspired in part by Bill Gaines. Gaines was perhaps the best known publisher not only because of the notoriety of "Tales from the Crypt" and "The Vault of Horror", but also his bravery to actually face the congressional hearings regarding comic books. Tashlin plays with the notion of how much influence comic books had on anti-social behavior on youth with nine year old George Winslow threatening Lewis with a letter opener thrown like a Bowie knife, and Lewis appearing on a television panel to report the effects of reading comic books for much of his life, the word "retarded" stressed in that scene.

Having Dorothy Malone as a comic book artist seemed unusual to me until Hajdu pointed out that until about 1954, the comic book industry was one of the few places where female artists could work. Hajdu explains the stratified world of professional artists in New York City, and how the comic book industry was more inclusive of women and racial minorities, especially when the industry peaked in the early Fifties. This is also documented by Hajdu's list of names of artists who were forced to leave the industry after 1954. Many of the events in The Ten-Cent Plague take place simultaneously to the HUAC trials of Hollywood filmmakers, and the later Army-McCarthy hearings. Similarly, it should be of little surprise that many of the people affected were of Jewish background such as Will Eisner, Stan Lee (Lieber) and Bob Kane (Kahn). It would be interesting to know if Bill Gaines had seen Artists and Models or if Frank Tashlin had ever read "Mad" magazine, the only Gaines publication that survived after 1954. The two shared an affection for parodies of movies, as well as an affection for the culture that they also satirized.

Setting aside the more topical aspects of Artists and Models, familiarity does not diminish the humor of Jerry Lewis confusing himself and Dean Martin in explaining his accidental encounters with the Bat Lady and the Fat Lady. While the Martin-Lewis films are usually overlooked in most discussions of musicals, the film features two scenes that continually delight. Written by Jack Brooks and Harry Warren, "Innamorata" may not be quite as catchy was the pair's "That's Amore", but it charms as one of the better vehicles for Dino's crooning to Dorothy Malone. Better and funnier is Shirley MacLaine belting out the same song, stopping the hapless Jerry as he attempts to make his way to catch some sun on their building roof. "The Lucky Song" is the type of number that could have probably wedged its way into a number of films but is fortunately found here. Dino is surrounded by some talented dancing neighborhood kids in this alternative version of Greenwich Village. Included is a dixieland jazz band featuring a piano player who looks like Fats Waller. It is also worth noting that unlike most films the time, the group of children performing with Martin are racially mixed, giving a little bit of New York City truth to this made in Hollywood scene.

John Garfield and Jennifer Jones in We Were Strangers (John Huston - 1949)

Suay Laak Sai
Piraphan Laoyont & Thodsapol Siriwiwat - 2007
Magnolia Home Entertainment Region 1 DVD

I first read about Sick Nurses through Curtis, also known as Wise Kwai. You can google the term "Thai logic", or you can use this film as Exhibit A regarding the wide, undisturbed release of this film in Thailand while Syndromes and a Century finally gets released in a censored version. Curtis has noted several times the scenes that caused offense to the Thai cultural gatekeepers. Two of the offending scenes involved the medical profession - a doctor has an erection pressing inside his pants, his response to being with his fiancee, a female doctor, and some doctors imbibe on some alcohol while off duty, but on hospital grounds. To the best of my knowledge, no one speaking on behalf of medical professionals has expressed outrage, but these scenes were among the handful that has caused this critically acclaimed Thai film to be seen as intended almost everywhere, except Thailand.

In the meantime, Sick Nurses is in part about a doctor who works with a black market organ market. Doctor Tar is also revealed to have had affairs with most of his team of nurses, impregnated one, and had wistful flashbacks about the hunky male doctor who proposed marriage to him. One of the nurses, discovering that the good doctor was not going to marry her, gets killed by the doctor and the other nurses to prevent her from spilling the beans about the illegal activity. The ghost of the nurse goes around killing the nurses in a variety of inventive and increasingly gory ways.

Well, not always inventive, as the ghost looks like a more fashionably dressed version of one of those long haired ghosts from Ju-On. There is one scene that will look like it was almost lifted from that film or its English language remake. One of the murders involves a nurse losing her jaw after being forced to swallow paper clips, follow by the literal visual metaphor of a cat getting her tongue, topped off with a killer fetus. While Sick Nurses wallows in dubious taste, the revelation regarding the identity of the ghost nurse may strike some as not only offensive, but giving lie to the notion of sexual tolerance in Thailand.

Sick Nurses is crap. Undeniably well made crap, but crap just the same. It was produced by the same team made Tony Jaa a star, and distributed by one of the biggest film companies in Thailand. I wouldn't be surprised if, like the other horror films I saw in Thailand, this was released with their ubiquitous PG13 rating. Adding to the absurdity that the cultural gatekeepers of Thailand felt the need to gang up on a gentle film by a filmmaker who other countries would cherish simply for bringing prestige to their country, is that none of these people seemed to regard it in any way as contradictory that Sick Nurses would be given a pass for a more questionable presentation of the medical profession. It also bothers me that Sick Nurses gets a U.S. DVD release well before that of the far superior Alone. It's within the context of what is going on with Thai cinema, both within and outside of Thailand that I make my comments.

There are a couple of good points to Sick Nurses. The nurses are cute. And the film runs for less than 80 minutes.

Showa Kayo Daizenshu
Tetsuo Shinohara - 2003
Synapse Films Region 1 DVD

The title Karaoke Terror suggest someone just drunk enough to get onstage to sing "Feelings", "Achy Breaky Heart" or "I Will Always Love You", very, very badly. The original title , from Ryu Murakami's novel, means "Complete Showa Era Songbook". Most western viewers will miss any significance from that title. Overlooking the silly English language title, this is a film that will probably be most appreciated by those familiar with author Murakami.

The store is about two bands of outsiders. One is a group of young men who hang out together and periodically dress up to perform songs in costume, in a remote beach location, with no audience. The Midoris are a group of divorced women ranging in age from the early thirties to forties, unrelated but sharing the same last name, who also share an interest in music from their youth. The film follows the escalation of revenge between the two groups, after one of the men murders one of the women following her decline of his advances.

For those who want a better idea of some of the Japanese pop songs of the time, or you just want to find out a bit more about Pinky and the Killers, this site will give you a better idea. Further musical explorations can be done here as well. Murakami has a very caustic view of Japan and Japanese society, but an abiding affection for popular culture in all its forms. In one scene, the four remaining Midoris discuss their next plan of action. Realizing there are only four of them, they think of themselves as The Beatles. When one asks who they were when they were five, the response is The Rolling Stones.

Murakami's novel was written in 1994. The songs used are similar in being about impossible love, or looking back to a lost past. As explained in the notes that come with the DVD package, the Showa era referred to by Murakami is Japan's post-war era which roughly coincides with his own birth and entrance into middle-age. The notes also helpfully come with the list of songs used in the soundtrack with the release dates and authors.

Those how are only familiar with Murakami through Takashi Miike's film, Audition may be disappointed by Karaoke Terror. The killings are bloody, but also very brief. Those who have read Murakami's books such as Coin-Locker Babies or 69 will see how the film fits in with Murakami's other works. The original novel seems to have not been translated into English.

It is worth noting that several of Murakami's other novels have been made into film, but have yet to be available in the U.S. Murakami also wrote and directed an English language film produced by none other than Roger Corman.

Todd Rohal - 2006
Benten Films Region 1 DVD

I hope whomever gives out prizes will remember The Guatemalan Handshake for best DVD packaging. The illustrations by James Braithwaite have a homey charm that held my attention in a way that the slapped together photoshop jobs from the big boys never will.

The two sports that are featured in The Guatemalan Handshake serve as fitting metaphors for life, especially when faced with limited possibilities. In the roller rink, the object is to keep on going forward, in a circle around the rink, or fall down. In the demolition derby, the goal is to be able to crash into another car until it no longer can move, while keeping your own car in motion. The winner is the last mobile car. Both of these sports involve repetition of movement to the point of monotony, kind of like the jobs most people have, and to a certain extent, like real life.

Thinking about the film just a little bit more after one viewing, what The Guatemalan Handshake may resemble is not any other films, but a smaller, less rambling version of a story by Kurt Vonnegut. One of the key events, a power outage in the small town is just apocalyptic enough to cause the mysterious disappearance of one of the residents. Even the names of the characters are reminiscent of those found in Vonnegut, such as Donald Turnipseed and Edith Firecracker. The concept of time, which goes forwards, backwards, and occasionally loops around, is a literary device Vonnegut explored most famously in Slaughterhouse Five.

Where The Guatemalan Handshake is best is when Todd Rohal is simply observing his characters, particularly the young girl known as Turkeylegs. The truth is that Katy Haywood's legs don't seem that much thinner than those of any ten year old girl. Even when some of the small town eccentrics have an overload of quirkiness, one smiles at scenes of Haywood, observing a sunset in a field, falling asleep on her oversized cowboy hat, practicing baton twirling, or swinging on a rope over a small lake. The film ends literally with fireworks, but it is the quiet moments with Haywood that I'll cherish.

Supakson Chaimongkol in Art of the Devil (Tanit Jitnukul - 2004)

Gidam
Jung Brothers - 2007
TLA Releasing

Epitaph recently was shown as part of the Danger After Dark series at the Philadelphia Film Festival. It is a very ambitious film in that the Jung Brothers are attempting to smarten up the Korean horror film. That is is a ghost story, and that some of the ghosts are reminders of past horror films is in itself nothing new. What makes Epitaph interesting is the narrative structure which is mobius strip that repeats scenes from different perspectives, answering some, but not all questions, about the relationships of the characters in a haunted hospital.

The film takes place almost entirely in a hospital in Japanese occupied Korea, 1942. Starting with the memories of Dr. Park when he was an intern, the film has three main stories that interconnect. Park is seen as a clumsy intern, but a talented sketch artist, who is assigned to morgue duty. It's a creepy enough assignment made more difficult with electricity that is inconstant, with faulty refrigeration and lights that suddenly go out. There are dead bodies, live ghosts, stabbings, brain surgery, snails, and even necrophilia, and yet Epitaph is much less over the top than its description might suggest.

Hopefully someone will do an in-depth interview with the Jung Brothers about their film influences. The violins and violence of Psycho is obvious. There is also a shot that is the reverse of the signature shot from the Thai horror film, Alone. In the earlier film, we see the surviving half of two conjoined twins, walking on the beach, looking back to see two sets of footprints. In Epitaph two married doctors are at the beach, but we see only one set of footprints. There is also a scene involving a snow globe, which may possibly be a deliberate nod to Citizen Kane. It is not simply the use of the globe, but how Kane's shifting narrative may have inspired the Jungs. In addition to the repetition of scenes, the film shifts into memories, dreams, and dreams within dreams.

It is not simply time that is played with, but space. This can be as simple as a young girl stepping into a room filled with white light. One of the more spectacular moments is a scene depicting the evolution of a relationship between the young intern Park and the woman of his dreams. As the camera moves forward, we see the lovers in as newlyweds, and as parents, with screen doors sliding open to reveal each new stage of the relationship, with a corresponding color scheme representing the changing seasons. It's a brief scene, but one that indicates a promise that the Jung Brothers may be among the more interesting young filmmakers in Korean cinema.