The Good, the Bad, the Weird (2008): South Korea – directed by Ji-woon Kim

Not rated by the MPAA – contains some strong violence, mature themes, language

This movie is as awesome as it sounds.  That’s a tall order indeed, especially since the film referenced by the title is often considered one of the greatest westerns ever.  But now we have The Good, the Bad, the Weird, and it most certainly stands successfully on its own.

One of the first scenes is an amazing and elaborately shot train robbery that also introduces the three main characters.  There is have Park Chang-Yi, the Bad, who’s a terribly evil person.  He’s played by Byung-hun Lee, who has been in some other great Korean films like JSA: Joint Security Area and Three…Extremes (which is only a third Korean).  There is also the Good, a straight up cowboy bounty hunter, who is practically a Korean-looking Clint Eastwood.  The actor, Woo-sung Jung, was the star of Musa, another South Korean/Chinese war epic.  Finally there is the Weird, a slightly crazy train robber and petty thief, played with gusto by Kang-ho Sang.  He has appeared in pretty much every Korean movie I’ve seen, including The Host, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, JSA: Joint Security Area, Swiri, and Antarctic Journal.

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Event 16 (2006): New Zealand – directed by Derek Pearson

Not rated by the MPAA – contains some violence and a little sexual content

Event 16 is an odd little film from New Zealand, made with no budget in Wellington.  It’s always good to see new filmmakers get their feet off the ground, as director Derek Pearson does here.  However, some do it better than others, as Peter Jackson proved with Bad Taste and Dead Alive, also made in New Zealand.

Unfortunately, Event 16 isn’t quite as good.  It is an interesting little sci-fi movie with some intriguing themes and made almost entirely with special effects.  There are some actors and locations, but almost everything has had some post-production work done on it.

The effects look great sometimes, especially the backgrounds, and that’s probably the best thing to say about the movie.  Conversely, some of the effects are dreadful, but that’s not necessarily the worst thing about the film.  Almost everything screams low budget, from some of the special effects to the delivery of the lines.

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Jail Bait (1954): United States – directed by Edward D. Wood Jr.

Not rated by the MPAA – contains some mild violence and sly, semi-nudity

Jail Bait is one of the movies made by the infamous Ed Wood, whose life was chronicled in Tim Burton’s Ed Wood [review here].  For a director known only by the awful movies he created, Ed Wood certainly deserves the recognition.  Jail Bait is no exception, and possibly even worse than Plan 9 from Outer Space.

One of the primary reasons why this movie is so terrible is the plot.  The title refers to a gun, which is the reason a kid named Don (Clancy Malone) gets thrown in jail.  His sister and father (who’s a respected plastic surgeon) look out for him but he’s a rebel and old enough (21 years old) to mess up things for himself.  So he carries around a gun and gets mixed up with a real gangster.  They rob a theater and Don shoots and kills the night guard.  They run for it, escaping the scene of the crime, but soon Don wants to go to the police to confess.  He’s not a bad kid, he’s just a bit mixed up.

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Perng Mang: The Haunted Drum (2007): Thailand – directed by Nuttapeera Chomsri and Sranya Noithai

Not rated by the MPAA – contains violence and gore, some mild sexual content

There are a couple things that make Perng Mang: The Haunted Drum a little different than most horror films.  The first is that it is Thai, and I have not seen a great number of Thai films.  The second is that it mixes genres in a way that only certain Southeast Asian films do.  Is it a horror movie?  Sort of.  Is it a tragic romance?  Yeah, kind of.  Is it a sports/music competition movie?  Yes.

As you might imagine, this all gets a little confusing.  The first twenty minutes in particular are poorly stitched together.  The film starts in the 1800’s, and we are introduced to a couple of small children.  The film then jumps ahead a few years, and one of the children receives a ring from his dying grandfather.  This ring is present throughout much of the rest of the film, but has no real significance.

A few years later a young man is sent to join a traditional Thai band.  He plays the drums in a percussive orchestra.  The most important instrument is the perng mang, a set of seven drums that sounds quite unique and interesting.  This particular band is rumored to have a haunted perng mang, with a spirit inside that protects the band.  However, there is also a rival band, with more money and better status.  The two bands don’t always get along, and loyalty to one’s band causes some fights.  Eventually the film progresses to band-offs, where each band plays in order to win a wager with the political ruler of the area.

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Before Sunrise (1995): United States/Austria/Switzerland – directed by Richard Linklater

Rated R by the MPAA – contains language and some mild sexual content

I confess to not being overly familiar with the work of Richard Linklater.  The only other features of his that I have seen are Waking Life, an interesting and philosophical rotoscoped tale, though too heady to be emotionally involving, and Tape, a slight but interesting film experiment.  With Before Sunrise Linklater displays a great deal of maturity while crafting a film about two young people.

The film also manages to do something rare; each scene, individually, is underwhelming.  When placed together, however, the sum of the whole is much greater than the individual parts.  This is not a movie to watch on television, or piece by piece as the fancy strikes.

The story is sparse, but necessarily so.  An opening sequence introduces a pretty, young French girl by the name of Celine (Julie Delpy).  She’s riding a train across Europe, heading back to Paris, but an unruly German couple interrupts her respite.  Moving toward the back of the train, away from the noise, she sits near an untidy American youth.

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From Paris with Love (2010): France – directed by Pierre Morel

Rated R by the MPAA – contains violence, some blood, constant profanity, some sexual content, utter stupidity, and naked mannequins

It appears that Pakistanis are officially the new Russians.  For years following the fall of the Soviet Union the movie industry was unsure who to blame for the world’s terrorist acts.  With 9/11 it became both clearer and more ambiguous: the dark, nation-less, bearded man was inevitably a jihadist terrorist intent on the destruction of America.  Now, with From Paris with Love, these terrorists have a country.

At the same time, the man who made Léon has fallen a long way.  Luc Besson is credited with writing and producing From Paris with Love, though perhaps Alan Smithee would have been better off taking the “credit.”   John Travolta attempts to return to Pulp Fiction form in what will surely end up being one of the worst films of 2010.

The trailer for the film was a disaster in its own right, with odd editing that made it painfully obvious that each sentence Travolta utters ends in profanity.  Expanding the trailer to a mind numbing 92 minutes, the film merely gets more offensive and stupid as it nears the end.

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Tokyo Gore Police (2008): Japan – directed by Yoshihiro Nishimura

Not rated by the MPAA – contains an absurd amount of CG blood, bizarre bodily transformations, general strangeness, and ridiculous violence

Note: As you might expect from a film entitled Tokyo Gore Police, some of what is discussed in this review is slightly violent and some of the photos are not for squeamish stomachs.

In what is surely one of the bloodiest films since Peter Jackson’s Braindead, Yoshihiro Nishimura brings us the culmination (so far) of Japanese shock.  It seems as though everyone involved watched all of Takeshi Miike’s movies and jammed as much of his craziness as they could into their own movie.  The star here, Eihi Shiina, even starred in Miike’s Audition.  Some of the guys from The Machine Girl were involved, too, and the fight choreographer from Versus and Azumi performed the same task here.  It’s almost as if everyone involved with Japan’s low-budge shock cinema got together and somehow found a bunch of money.  Tokyo Gore Police is the result.

There is a story, actually, though you may be surprised to hear it.  Tokyo’s police department has now been privatized.  All the cops dress in silly hats that look like rooftops and wear a lot of armor.

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Chugyeogja (The Chaser) (2008): South Korea – directed by Hong-jin Na

Not rated by the MPAA – contains violence, gore, language, sexual content

Note: This review was initially written in February, 2009, for 24Framespersecond.  The film is now getting a release (of sorts) in the United States.

There’s a dirty ex-detective (Yun-seok Kim) who has turned to pimping out girls to make the big bucks.  He still has some tenuous connections with the force, but those are waning.  There’s a sidekick he calls Idiot that does his dirty work, like jam topless pictures of his girls in the windows of every car on the street.  Then there’s the girl of his that he sends on a job, even though she’s quite sick with the flu.  He loses touch with her and starts becoming paranoid that someone is selling his girls, as she’s the third he’s lost.

Things get a little more complicated after that, as there’s a serial killer targeting young women.  The police are involved with a man who threw feces at the mayor, and jump at the chance to switch the media focus to catching the serial killer.  Much more than this would be detrimental to spoil: the film kept my attention for the entire two hours and I wouldn’t want to ruin the experience for anyone.

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Benny & Joon (1993): United States – directed by Jeremiah S. Checkik

Rated PG by the MPAA – contains profanity and some mild sexual content, mature themes

Some folks are serious, some folks are silly, and some are just a little mentally ill. So goes the threesome at the core of Benny & Joon, in a slight but enjoyable story full of fun and quirky moments.  And, although the message is dubious and vague, the primary draw for most audiences will be the antics of Johnny Depp and Mary Stuart Masterson.

Masterson plays Juniper Pearl, a young woman in a small town in middle America.  Her brother Benny (Aidan Quinn) takes care of her, for she is afflicted with an unannounced mental illness resembling schizophrenia.  By day Benny runs a car repair shop, hiring a caretaker to watch out for Joon, who is occasionally given to fits of setting things on fire.  Joon exhibits a great deal of odd behavior and likes to finger paint and create strange milkshakes.  Their lives are complicated, especially considering that Benny must juggle work and Joon, leaving little time for a personal life.

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L’atalante (1934): France – directed by Jean Vigo

Not rated by the MPAA – contains a single nude pin-up and mature themes

L’atalante is a deliberate, slowly paced film.  At the same time it appears almost haphazardly constructed, with a loose plot.  It presents some themes, however, that are at once raw and powerful, and it is a striking look at the difficulties faced by the two participants in a new marriage.

Juliette (Dita Parlo) and Jean (Jean Dasté) are freshly married in a small village in France.  The villagers wonder why she’s decided to marry a boat captain, a trade that will require the pair of them to travel up and down the rivers of France, occasionally stopping at larger cities and smaller docks.

They won’t be alone on their barge, however.  The first mate, a surly, rude, and unkempt fellow by the name of Jules (Michel Simon), proves both a companion and a hindrance to the couple.  Additionally, there is a younger boy (Louis Lefebvre) who helps out around the ship, though it appears he may be a bit dim-witted.  Finally, there are a plethora of cats, kept by Jules, that continue to multiply throughout the film.

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