Duo ming jia ren
Sun Chung - 1987
Joy Sales Films All Region DVD

Were that there was more suspense than melodrama, Lady in Black could more appropriately be described as Hitchcockian. There is enough to indicate that there was some influence at work here. The only overview of director Sun Chung is informative about his career in general. The film would indicate that Chung and the three credited screenwriters had some familiarity with Hitchcock's later films.

The opening scene of Brigitte Lin forging a check for $500,000 Hong Kong dollars brings to mind Marnie, in that the film centers on a woman who steal from her employer. In this regard, as well as with the use of other elements, Lady in Black takes elements that in a generic sense recall Hitchock. From the very beginning, the woman, May, is wracked with quilt, startled when her best friend barges into the office, thinking she's been caught in the act. The nervous guilt is with Lin when she goes to the bank to cash the check, and drops the envelope in front of a policeman who courteously picks it up, handing it back to her.

As it turns out, the money is for May's rat bastard husband, Sheng, to pay off a gambling debt. May and Sheng go to Thailand in the hopes that Sheng's uncle can help them out. When the visit doesn't pan out as hoped for, Sheng, feeling sorry for himself, sits out the outside of a tourist boat, getting drunk, seemingly posed to commit suicide. May tries to talk Sheng out of killing himself, only to fall overboard. Whether Sheng has deliberately let go of May, to drown in the water, and cover her crime of embezzlement, is unclear. As it turns out, reports of May's death prove inaccurate.

Hitchcpck is more or less quoted during May and Sheng's frenzied final encounter where it is easy to think of both Psycho and Dial M for Murder, and even Torn Curtain. Death in several of Hitchcock's films isn't quick and easy, but sometimes a drawn out struggle between the two players, where one or both people are grabbing at any sharp instrument they can as for use as an implement of of self-defense, but in a Hitchcock film, fatal for the person on the receiving end.

Lady in Black might have been a better movie had it emphasized the kinds of elements that might be found in Hitchcock's films. Aside from the embezzling wife, there is Tony Leung Ka-Fai as the social climbing, conniving, manipulative husband. There are the feelings of guilt that plague May, and to a lesser extent, Sheng. There is also May's "death", accident or deliberate murder. One of the better scenes is of a nightmare May has, a remembrance of the events that led her to her current state, with a battered face from the downing, her dream marriage now one of horror. Nightmares, usually composed of distorted memories, are another familiar Hitchcockian element.

What is sadly missing here is any sense of the erotic. It's not like Sun Chung had not made films with any degree of eroticism. Perhaps there was the thought that there shouldn't be anything sexy about a female who is both a wife and mother. Lady in Black came out a year after Peking Opera Blues, Tsui Hark's film that made some of the best early use of Lin's allure. Between the kernels of a suspenseful story and the presence of Brigitte Lin, Lady in Black is a film of squandered opportunities.

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This entry is part of the Third Annual For the Love of Film Blogathon. Black is also the color of the ledger ink for funding the streaming of the silent classic, The White Shadow. Send your green here. More postings will be found at always fashionable Self Styled Siren.

Lee Myeong-se - 2007
Panorama Entertainment All Region DVD

From a long time ago, I have always been interested in dreams. Dreams have always fascinated me. I dream a lot. I had a dream in the year 2000 in which Hitchcock gave me a book, and that book was titled "M." I said I would look at in a little while, and then I woke up from the dream.

Since then I have chased the meaning of "M" in that dream. I realized that "M" means MacGuffin.
- Lee Myeong-se

What makes M of interest within the context of films and filmmakers who have claimed inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock is that Lee's film takes on some of the content, but not the style of Hitchcock. This is not a mystery film in the conventional sense, nor a thriller. Instead, what Korean filmmaker Lee is more interested in is the Hitchcock who makes films about false and real memories, dreams, and love lost and possibly recovered.

Even the narrative aspects can not be fully trusted. Minwoo is a popular writer who dismisses his work as trash, and wishes he could write like James Joyce. He may be working on a new novel, but he seems to have writer's block. A young woman follows him in the street. She in turn may be pursued by someone else. Minwoo finds himself in a bar, the kind that has an entrance in a dark alley, the kind of bar that one sometimes finds by accident rather than design. Minwoo's relationship with his wife is shaky. Minwoo is also consumed by memories of his first love, a girl named Mimi.

Unlike a Hitchcock film, there is no progressive story line. Instead, the narrative goes forward, backward and loops around itself, and into dead ends that ultimately lead nowhere. To best enjoy M you have to totally surrender to the dream logic where different characters repeat the same dialogue, where time and space blend into each other.

Lee uses a lot of reflective surfaces - mirrors, glass, water. The viewer may find themselves as disoriented as Minwoo with the shifts in use of space and combination of images. There is also voiceover used from Minwoo and Mimi. There are moments when I wasn't sure if I was watching a dream, and if so, who was the dreamer? That's not criticism of the film, but one of the ways Lee keeps on upending viewer expectation.

While Lee has stated that Hitchcock inspired this film, other references are more clear. It is impossible not to think of Fritz Lang's movie of the same title. There is the mysterious bar, with its curious, aged bartender. The bar is named after the French fictional detective, Arsene Lupin, and an image of Lupin is seen on the bar sign as well as a matchbook. The bar, and the patrons are lit in such a way that may remind viewers of the bar in Kubrick's The Shining. The visual reminders of Kubrick are also in the scenes of Minwoo typing small phrases repeatedly.

While some of the stroboscopic lighting and editing would not strike traditionalists as being Hitchcockian, Lee shows Minwoo and Mimi on the run at various points, through long, dark alleys and hallways, in and out of shadows. It is the sense of space, of being in a place where there is some kind of unknown and unseen danger, that is most closely associated with the films of Alfred Hitchcock. And, as happens in several Hitchcock films, Lee Myeong-se pokes the viewer, to remind them not to trust too much in images, that not everything is necessarily what it appears to be.

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This post is part of the Third Annual For the Love of Film Blogathon. Another word that starts with the letter "M" is Money. Send yours here if you want see the silent film, The White Shadow stream onto your internet connected device. And check out the other postings at Ferdy on Film, no letter of introduction needed.

The name of Alfred Hitchcock will mean something to even the most casual of cinephiles. The opinions, and the films loved or loathed may be different. Today marks the beginning of the third For the Love of Film Blogathon. The goal is to raise funds for an internet streaming of a 1924 silent movie titled The White Shadow, along with funds to pay for a soundtrack. The movie was directed by Graham Cutts. But much of the other production work including the screenplay, editing and production design were by a tubby young punk who thought he could make movies better than anyone else.

Check in today and the rest of this week with the three respective hosts: Marilyn Ferdinand, Farran Smith Nehme and Rod Heath, at their blogs, to read the various postings about Alfred Hitchcock, film preservation, silent cinema, and any other related pieces. Today's home page for the blogathon will be at Ferdy on Film. I'll be writing about three Asian films that in show Hitchcock's influence in three very different ways. Most importantly, please contribute to making The White Shadow visible for other lovers of film.

Sexo, mentiras y muertos
Ramiro Meneses - 2011
Lionsgate Films Region 1 DVD

While the filmography of Alfred Hitchcock is finite, the number of films that have been remakes, homages, or just plain rip-offs might be, if not infinite, at least not fully explored. This article is of some help, but more as a starting off point than anything resembling the final word. When it comes to variations on Strangers on a Train, I will happily include Danny DeVito's fine and funny Throw Momma from the Train.

Patricia Highsmith is probably owed more credit than given for her original novel, about the two men who meet on a train, and agree to trade murder victims. I also have to acknowledge that Highsmith's popularity as an author is such that she has several books filmed more than once. I am certain, though, that it was Alfred Hitchcock's film of Strangers on a Train that has inspired the many versions that have followed. Among the more recent films I am aware of is a Tamil version, titled Muran. I am certain that more versions will be uncovered.

The original story has been described as being about tit-for-tat murders. This distaff version from Columbia might be described best as tit-for-tit. Viviana, taking a break from her abusive husband, is chatted up by Alicia, in a bar. Alicia is in an unhappy relationship with her lover. Within minutes of meeting, Alicia proposes murder. Viviana goes along, seemingly uncertain if this scheme will work. And of course nothing goes as planned.

That Alicia's victim is her lesbian lover is the least of the twists to this film. Sadly, the film, shot on video, is like the murders, better in the planning than the actual execution. When all is said and done, the potential for eroticism and suspense gets squandered. Had Brian De Palma gotten hold of the script, we might have had a better film. And hopefully, he would have added the murder of Viviana's cloying mother-in-law.

One aspect of Hitchcock's film that has been up for discussion is the depiction of homosexuality.. Sex, Lies and Death offers a mildly titillating view of women who love women. What makes Hitchcock's film enduring, while the Meneses remains a forgettable diversion, is that for all of the twists and turns in this remake, it lacks the depth that Hitchcock gave to his characters. There are worse ways of killing an hour and a half than watching the redhead star Columbian television star, Andrea Lopez. But Sex, Lies and Death also proves that when it comes to cinema suspense, it's not just the contents of story, but how you tell it that makes the difference.

Schulmadchen-Report 8: Was Eltern nie erfahren durfen
Ernst Hofbauer - 1974
Impulse Pictures Region 1 DVD

During the first half of 1973, I was living in Portland, Oregon, primarily doing unpaid work at the Northwest Film Study Center. My capacity as some kind of expert in film got me into a special advance screening of Deep Throat, that seminal film in the history of "Adult Cinema". I found out after the screening that most of the audience at that screening was composed of lawyers, presumably enlisted in case of possible legal action against film or the theater. While I appreciate the erotic in film, my interest in films made primarily for the raincoat brigade is casual at best.

I figured that as long as Impulse Pictures was going to send me Schoolgirl Report #8, the least I could do is take a look. This is best described as a soft core film, presented as a documentary, about some overly ripe high school girls on a field trip, telling stories about their sexual misadventures. There's a bit of bawdy humor, and some slapstick, mounds of pubic hair, the obligatory group shower scene, and a sanctimonious ending voiced by some male narrator in a feeble attempt to give the film some sense of greater signicance. Sometimes just watching plump and naked German girls, circa 1974, is its own justification. Maybe the best that can be said is that at the time this film came out, my idea of German cinema was catching up on work by Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, among others who were lumped as part of the "New German Cinema". What I wasn't watching was the kind of German movies that actually helped pay the bills.

Coming, as it were, when more graphic depictions of sex were on theater screens, Schoolgirl Report #8 seems almost innocent in comparison. The kind of coupling going on here is pretty basic, no gymnastics, and nothing that could be considered kinky by anyone other than those self-appointed guardians of morality. Regarding personal preferences, I can only depend on Pedro Almodovar, an openly gay filmmaker, to provide me with decent cinematic depictions of cunilingus. In this film, there's sex in bed, in a field, on a pool table, all hetero and vanilla and simulated.

I'm baffled by any contemporary interest in this kind of film. This movie appears to have been originally shot in 16mm, and no one will be fooled by the obviously post-dubbed dialogue. I can only assume that there is a firm cult for this kind of film to justify making it available on DVD. The actors and actresses are listed in the film as uncredited parents and students although here is where IMDb proves itself useful. The online trailer, in German without subtitles, provides a brief taste of the action. What may be this films best asset is that the actresses look like relatively attractive girls next door, and not a collection of wannabe models. And when too many women in front of the camera are filled with silicon and other artificial ingredients, there is some pleasure to see one voluptuous actress run blissfully naked, her breasts bouncing in the breeze.

Senritsu Meikyu
Takashi Shimizu - 2009
Well Go USA Entertainment Region 1 DVD

I feel like an old fogie, not only not being able to watch the Blu-ray version, but even worse, missing out on the 3D Blu-ray. I can imagine someone muttering about how watching a movie nowadays on DVD is so late 20th Century. Anyways . . .

It would have been even better to have had the opportunity to see Takashi Shimizu's film as originally intended, in a theater. Sadly though, unless the art theaters do some technological upgrades, or the multiplexes take chances on more imported fare, stateside audiences are going to miss some interesting work done in 3D, such as this film, and the British StreetDance.

The basic story is about three childhood friends who reunite after ten years. All about twenty years old, the dark and stormy night is disrupted by the appearance of a fourth friend, Yuki, who claims she has escaped from a hospital. Three three aren't sure if that really is Yuki. Meeting with Yuki's teenage sister, things go from bad to worse, as Yuki suddenly is in need of hospitalization. The hospital that this quartet finds appears to be in the middle of nowhere, and seem abandoned. As in the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, the film takes place in a building with a life of its own.

I can only imagine what The Shock Labyrinth looked like theatrically, and can only hope that any filmmakers wishing to work in 3D would study this film. Shimizu emphasizes depth and a keen sense of color, expressively using yellow, pink and red. A shot near the end of the film, of a long corridor, and feathers floating down, took my breath away. Definitely recommended is the supplementary section which discusses the creation of a small camera, allowing for shooting in 3D in confined spaces. The film was shot on location near Mount Fuji, mostly inside the attraction, Labyrinth of Horrors.

Shimizu smartly steers clear of what currently passes for horror. Instead, there is a buildup of dread and creepiness, as past and present converge, collide and wrap around each other. Shimizu makes use of some iconic imagery, such as the child's rabbit back pack that seems to have a life of its own, and a spiral stairway with a red railing. I was also reminded of Alejandro Amenabar's The Others, where there is uncertainty about who are the ghosts, and who is doing the haunting in this house of horrors. The story takes on the logic of a dream where the characters are helpless to change their future, especially in the face of a past revealed.

On the face of it, Shock Labyrinth might seem resistible with the basic premise of young people trapped in a haunted house. But as anyone who has watched dozens of genre films, be they film noir or westerns, or anything else, will tell you, it's not the story but how you tell the story that makes the difference. And as for the 3D, Takashi Shimizu is much younger than Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog and Martin Scorsese, but I think he could teach these acknowledged masters a thing or two.

1) Favorite movie featuring nuns

I love the killer nuns in Judex. (Georges Franju - 1963.

2) Second favorite John Frankenheimer movie

Yes, Seconds is second.

3) William Bendix or Scott Brady?

Brady's resume includes Gremlin, Strange Behavior, and one of the strangest World War II movies ever, Operation Bikini View image.

4) What movie, real or imagined, would you stand in line six hours to see? Have you ever done so in real life?

Never stood in line for six hours to see a movie. If I did so, it would be for To Sleep as to Dream, Kaizo Hayashi's debut film from 1986, a tribute to Japanese silent movies that actually looks like it was filmed in that era, unlike an overrated French film from last year. Second choice would be the first filmed version of Black Lizard starring the very seductive Machiko Kyo. The clips indicate this film is more in the spirit of Edogawa Rampo's short novel. Neither film is currently available on DVD from Japan, or anywhere else as far as I know.

5) Favorite Mitchell Leisen movie

Tough one here based on three movies released between 1939 and 1940. I haven't seen any of them in years, but I'm going to go with Arise, My Love.

6) Ann Savage or Peggy Cummins?

Peggy Cummins. No matter what she wears in Gun Crazy, it looks so right. Let's face it, nobody wears a beret quite like her.

7) First movie you remember seeing as a child

Old Yeller (Robert Stevenson - 1957)

8) What moment in a movie that is not a horror movie made you want to bolt from the theater screaming?

Blood Feud (Lina Wertmuller - 1978). Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni and Giancarlo Giannini, and one of the few films I have ever walked out of. Wertmuller is one of the few filmmakers I find truly unwatchable.

9) Richard Widmark or Robert Mitchum?

The The Way West question! I'm going to go with Mitchum.

10) Best movie Jesus

The animated Jesus in Ralph Bakshi's Heavy Traffic. Live actor version - Luis Bunuel's The Milky Way, of course.

11) Silliest straight horror film that you’re still fond of

The Brain that wouldn't Die is the movie that will never die.

12) Emily Blunt or Sally Gray?

Blunt is smokin'.

13) Favorite cinematic Biblical spectacular

I'm going with The Story of Ruth (Henry Koster - 1960) even though I barely remember the film. But I saw it on a double feature with Please Don't Eat the Daisies with my grandparents.

14) Favorite cinematic moment of unintentional humor

The theatrical release of Rambo III coinciding with Russia's withdrawal from Afghanistan. Mission accomplished.

15) Michael Fassbender or David Farrar?

Setting aside those Michael Powell movies, Farrar also starred in Beat Girl, enough to put him in the all time Hall of Fame.

16) Most effective faith-affirming movie

Song of Bernadette. Even James Agee couldn't resist. What I love about this film is that it keeps open the discussion of the meaning of faith and how it is manifested, and how Henry King is respectful of all of the characters, allowing the viewer to decide for themselves. Maybe I should also mention that I'm not, nor have ever been, a believer in any form of Christianity.

17) Movie that makes the best case for agnosticism

Robert Bresson's The Devil, Probably.

18) Favorite song and/or dance sequence from a musical

"By Myself" - Fred Astaire in The Band Wagon.

19) Third favorite Howard Hawks movie

Red River

20) Clara Bow or Jean Harlow?

I can't even remember Bow in Wings, a film that was dominated by the bromance between Buddy Rogers and Richard Arlen. I saw Wellman's film theatrically quite a while ago. A few years earlier, I had been able to see in theatrical presentations, Red Dust and Platinum Blonde. Whether on the big screen or small, Jean Harlow is easily the memorable star.

21) Movie most recently seen in the theater? On DVD/Blu-ray/Streaming?

In a theater: Pina. On DVD: One Night in Mongkok.

22) Most unlikely good movie about religion

I'm not sure if I understand the question. But I'm going to go with The Day the Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise - 1951), even if it's a big tip off to have Michael Rennie's Klaatu go by the name of Carpenter, when posing as an earthling. Also for consideration, Andrew Lau and Alan Mak's Infernal Affairs for its discussion of Buddhism.

23) Phil Silvers or Red Skelton?

Um, Shecky Greene. (Kidding)

As "King Leer", he oggled at Jayne Mansfield in The Girl can't Help It, and Marilyn Monroe swimming nude in Something's Got to Give, and starred with Zero Mostel, Jack Gilford and Buster Keaton in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Golden Silvers!

24) “Favorite” Hollywood scandal

Ava hearts Lana.

25) Best religious movie (non-Christian)

The Burmese Harp (Kon Ichikawa -1956)

26) The King of Cinema: King Vidor, King Hu or Henry King? (Thanks, Peter)

King with Ava and Tyrone.

King Hu is to Chinese martial arts films what John Ford is to westerns; and I love Vidor's Show People which I got to see on the big screen a few years ago, as well as Beyond the Forest. Aside from having a religious experience, sitting down, and talking about his movies with him, I'm finding more to discover with Henry King. Based on his interviews, I need to see his silent films aside from Tol'able David, The Winning of Barbara Worth and The White Sister. As it stands, Way Down East needs to be seen by everyone who loves The Wizard of Oz, because of Margaret Hamilton's performance. A Yank in the R.A.F has that wonderful shot of nothing but Betty Grable's legs. The Black Swan shows how to do a fast and funny pirate movie. There's also the previously mentioned Song of Bernadette. I spent a month devoted to King's films on my blog, and am considering shelling out for gray market silents and import DVDs.

27) Name something modern movies need to relearn how to do that American or foreign classics had down pat

Visual style in general. Framing of characters in two-shots, instead of just cutting back and forth.

28) Least favorite Federico Fellini movie

Ginger and Fred left me feeling meh.

29) The Three Stooges (2012)—yes or no?

I might see this on DVD, but the real Stooges were Jewish.

30) Mary Wickes or Patsy Kelly?

Kelly's resume includes The Naked Kiss, Rosemary's Baby AND The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini View image.

31) Best movie-related conspiracy theory

The claim that Sinatra shelved The Manchurian Candidate because of the assassination of JFK.

32) Your candidate for most misunderstood or misinterpreted movie

Kim Ki-duk's Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter . . . and Spring. Kim is NOT a Buddhist, and his version of Buddhism in this film is generic, rather than representative of a specific sect. As a practicing Buddhist for about 39 years, and as someone who has seen a good number of Kim's films in addition to reading several interviews and articles, I think I have some authority here.

33) Movie that made you question your own belief system (religious or otherwise)

After Passion of the Christ, I lost any faith I had in Mel Gibson.

Dung sing sai tsau 2011
Jeff Lau - 2011
Kam & Ronson Region 3 DVD

If any filmmaker is as obsessed about hair even more than Alfred Hitchcock poking the lens into Kim Novak's coiffure, it would be Jeff Lau. It's not just the flamboyant styles of several of his characters. Several shots are of the back of Karen Mok and Eason Chan's heads. When Mok and Chan first meet, scissor are whipped out with Chan providing Mok with a new do.

I couldn't begin to tell you what East Meets West was about. There is some story about seven good immortals and one that is evil, meeting again in this lifetime. There's also the Cantopop group, The Wynners, reuniting, with Kenny Bee rescued from his current career as the world's least scary amusement park zombie. There is also talk about body temperature and love at first sight, and a few quotations from William Shakespeare. The Chinese call this "nonsense comedy". I like to think of it as being a contemporary equivalent to the kind of comedies Hollywood use to make with the Marx Brothers at their peak, or something along the lines of Never Give a Sucker an Even Break, W. C. Field's last movie which is virtually a series of visual non-sequiturs barely held together by an astoundingly incoherent narrative. Rather than frustrating one's self with logic or even the need to catch up with the fast and furious subtitles, it's better just to give in the film's many visual pleasures.

Second only to the hair are the loving shots of Karen Mok's legs. Skinny, but still shapely. Not tall, only 5 foot, six inches. Still, if I'm going to hear that musical cliche called Pachelbel's "Canon in D", I'd rather hear it while watching Mok's slender stems bathed in golden light. Sure, the film is loaded with other Hong Kong stars, but East Meets West mostly belongs to Mok who runs, flies and basically takes over every scene she's in.

For those unfamiliar with recent Hong Kong movies or pop culture, East Meets West may prove baffling. Aside from Kenny Bee basically playing a parody of himself, Lau loads the film with verbal and visual references to other movies, including those he's produced for Wong Kar-wai and Stephen Chow. At one point, a mob's shouts consists of Hong Kong movie titles. And while several Cantopop songs are used, notably The Wynner's big hit, "Sha La La", Lau teasingly uses The Turtles' "Happy Together" when gangsters are chasing after Bee and Mok. The perfect DVD would include running subtitles to point out the various references. One the other hand, no translation or explanation is needed to laugh at the sight of Kenny Bee with an oversized Elvis pompadour.

The Chinese title translates as "Anything is possible" which pretty much sums up what goes on here. Of the Jeff Lau films that I've seen, it isn't as inspired as Eagle Shooting Heroes, the parody of Wong Kar-wai's Ashes of Time, which Lau also produced, made with most of the same cast members. Talk about eye candy- the film might be described as having the visual qualities of a multi colored popsicle. The heart of the film, both literal and metaphorically, is revealed at the end, giving a bit of substance to this overabundance of style.

SuckSeed: Huay Khan Thep
Chayanop Boonprakob - 2011
Cai Chang Region 3 DVD

All I'm going to say about the title is that it reflects the sometimes idiosyncratic usage of English that I've come across while I was in Thailand, and one of the characters also explains why he's chosen it for the name of his rock band.

And while SuckSeed! is not the Thai equivalent to A Hard Day's Night, it is, by turns both funny and charming. At the heart of the film is the unrealized affection between Ped and Ern. The two form a friendship as schoolchildren. Ped, a very shy boy, is challenged to create a song for his class. Ern, with parents who run a record store, introduces Ped to rock music just days before leaving Chiang Mai to live in Bangkok. Jump ahead six years later, and Ern, now an attractive teenager, has returned to Chiang Mai to finish up high school. Ped, more or less on impulse, decides to form a rock band with his pals Koong and Ex. Ern, who has played with high school bands previously, is invited to join the group. Complicating things are Ped's continued shyness around Ern, and Koong's infatuation with Ern and his sibling rivalry with twin brother Kay, a more accomplished musician with his own band.

The film is divided into three time periods of 2000, 2006 - when most of the film takes place, and 2011, when the main characters reunite. There is a break from the live action, given over to an animated section where Koong explains the meaning of SuckSeed. The drawings look pretty much like what you'd expect from a high school age boy, scribbling in his notebook, an indication that some things don't change that much over generations or cultures. Given the opportunity, I would imagine western high school kids enjoying this film.

One of the funnier recurring motifs is the use of Thai rock bands to act as a kind of Greek chorus. Where most films settle for using a song to express the inner feelings of a character, Chayanop has the singers appear on film for comic effect. Showing up at various points are the bands Bodyslam, So Cool, as well as solo turns by Anon Saisangcharn, and Ekarat Wongcharat, the lead singer from Big Ass. As such, these musical interludes also help serve as an entertaining introduction to Thai rock music. It could be that Chayanop was inspired by the those scenes in Rock and Roll High School where Joey Ramone suddenly appears in the most unlikely places to serenade P. J. Soles.

The film was shot in and around Chiang Mai, with a few setting recognizable from my time there. The battle of the high school rock bands, the Hot Wave Music Awards, is an actual music competition that has served as the launching pad for several popular Thai rock bands. SuckSeed! is also one of the rare Thai comedies that was popular with both critics and audiences. That this is also Chayanop's first feature indicates another reason to pay attention to the future of Thai cinema. Especially at a time when Thai films are little seen, save for a few martial arts films, SuckSeed! serves as a reminder that there is more to Thai cinema than meets most westerners eyes. Few new Thai films are available as subtitled DVDs, and like this, are made for the Chinese language market. Without getting to pedantic about it, this is a film recommended both for the Asian film scholar and the rock film aficionado.

Rang zidan fei
Jiang Wen - 2010
Well Go USA Entertainment Region 1 DVD

What? You think I'm going to send back the new DVD/BD set of what will probably be counted as one of the best foreign films of 2012?

Most of what I have to say coincided with the theatrical release at the beginning of March. And if you haven't seen Let the Bullets Fly yet, you have no excuse now. I watched the English dubbed version this time. And while it is jarring to listen to Jiang Wen, Chow Yun-Fat and the others in English, it does allow for better attention to the visuals. To some extent, the various narrative threads are easier to follow as well.

Jiang recently was honored as Best Director by the Chinese Directors Guild, along with the film as Best Picture. The very popular "everyman", Ge You, won for Best Actor. Not that awards are always the most accurate gauge of a film's worth, but this is an example of getting it right. Just don't be surprised if you see Jiang's film on a few U.S. critics lists at the end of 2012.

Frank Tuttle - 1950
Allday Entertainment Region 1 DVD

"In the middle drawer are pictures of me in nude . . . at age 2." And so Simone Signoret teases the detective looking for an escaped convict, as well as the audience. Signoret is not exactly a femme fatale in this film. As repeated by her and the convict, played by Dane Clark, everybody is playing out their predestined roles.

Gunman is in the Streets bears a strange history as the English language version of a film that was shot with essentially the same cast in a French language version with a different director as La Traque. A somewhat cut version played in Britain and Canada, but never in the United States. There are several probable reasons why the film never got a U.S. release. At the time, director Frank Tuttle, a former member of the Communist party, was dodging the blacklist. Tuttle later named names, notably Jules Dassin, and made three more films in Hollywood before retiring. Dane Clark's star was on the wane, before settling to a career of guest shots on television. While Simone Signoret had appeared in a couple of English language films prior to Gunman in the Streets, it would be several years before her Oscar winning turn in Room at the Top.

What may have put off potential stateside distributors is the Gunman in the Streets was, by the standards of the time, a rough film. Clark kicks a wounded cop, socks Signoret in the jaw, leaves an informer to inhale the fumes of a gas stove, and does some self-surgery, removing a bullet from his upper arm. In a bit of grim humor, Clark regales the informer, an antique dealer of ambiguous motives and sexuality, with how he almost got burned alive in the police van, shooting his way out. The posters for the film tried to sell Clark's character, an army deserter turned holdup man, into someone in the tradition of the film and real life gangster of the Thirties - "Dillinger, Little Caesar, Scarface, Capone". Clark's Eddie Roback might be as nasty, if not nastier, but he lacks the charisma of his cinematic predecessors.

Eugen Schufftan has some very adoring shots of Signoret. One fantastic image is a close up with Signoret holding a very large wine glass in front of her lips. There is also the beautiful shot of Signoret, hearing the whistle of a train, that sounds almost like a scream, knowing that she has lost her final chance to get away from Clark. A good part of the film was shot at night in the streets of Paris. Some point of view shots of when Clark and Signoret drive much too fast on a foggy night through a wooded back road, must have made for tense viewing on the big screen. Signoret was game enough to run barefoot through the streets of a small French town near the Belgian border during the final sequence.

While the film on the DVD is the complete version, it's hardly pristine, as if no one bothered to clean up the print. The stray hairs, scratches and such might be considered a blemish by some, although I thought they added to a seedy kind of charm. Even with Joe Hajos wonderfully sad and dreamy score, this is the kind of film that would have been best seen in a worn second run theater on the cheap, rather than a first run picture palace.

Alex Stapleton - 2011
Anchor Bay Enetertainment Region 1 DVD

I wasn't expecting to learn anything new about Roger Corman. I've been following his career on and off for almost fifty years. I wrote about Corman almost six years ago for a blogathon instigated by Tim Lucas. I had purposely not seen any previous documentaries on Roger Corman because I figured that as I had seen most of the films he's directed, read most of the anecdotes, and in some cases personally knew some of the people who began their own filmmaking careers with Corman, that there was little incentive to revisit familiar ground. My main reason for seeing Corman's World is that aside from being the most recent documentary on Roger Corman, it has become the most publicized of the bunch. But it does raise a couple of questions.

One of Roger Corman's claimed pet projects was a film about Civil War general Robert E. Lee. One of the stories I recall was that Corman couldn't get financing because the unnamed studio thought the proposed budget was too low. I have to wonder why Corman never took his own money to make the film. Was he that gun shy after mortgaging his house to produce The Intruder, one of his few financial failures? It's something not mentioned in Corman's World, and a question I think worth asking.

There is also a nice little anecdote from Polly Platt, who also was one of the executive producers of this film. It's only been in retrospect that the best things in a Peter Bogdanovich film were often due to Platt's collaboration with her then-husband. At the time of their divorce though, while Bogdanovich was still feted as a top young filmmaker, it took a while for Platt to be recognized for her talents. Apparently Roger Corman had extended an invitation to Platt to direct a film. I don't know what Corman might have had in mind, but I would like to think that he would allow Platt to make a film closer to the artistry of Jeanne Moreau's directorial debut, Lumiere, which Corman brought to U.S. screens, than films made by such Corman alumni as Stephanie Rothman, Barbara Peeters and Amy Jones, which managed to have some kind of feminist message tuck in between shots of women displaying their hooters. Maybe Platt felt more comfortable being in more supportive film production positions, but I wish she had taken up that invitation to direct at least one movie herself.

There is also Penelope Spheeris mentioning that a younger generation of film aficionados don't know about Roger Corman. I would assume some truth to that in some message boards from people who couldn't understand why Corman received a Lifetime Achievement Oscar. And while the Oscar was probably a kind of tribute to someone who gave early opportunities to a significant number of people who became Academy Award nominees and winners themselves, whatever one thinks of the films Corman himself directed, many are still fun to watch.

There's also an unintended wistfulness to this documentary in that several people interviewed have recently passed. Including Ms. Platt, there is also George Hickenlooper, David Carradine and Irvin Kershner. To the best of my knowledge, Kershner was the first of the university trained filmmakers to get his start with Corman with Stakeout on Dope Street. The big news was hearing that once upon a time, the then unknown Kershner was also working in theater, and that he directed a production of He Who gets Slapped starring an equally unknown Jack Nicholson. Jack sits back to tell stories about his time with Corman as actor and writer. Corman is shown at home and on the set of Dinocroc, possibly the most energetic octogenarian on the planet. For those who still have no idea who Roger Corman is, take the hour and a half to see the DVD. For the rest of us, there may be bits to glean, but even better are to see the films themselves.