Mar
30
Such a great video
FILM FUCKERS
We're just some guys writing reviews in an effort to sharpen our chops
Mar
22
I c u nigga
I c u nigga
Rip
Jun
7
IP-MAN (2008) THUGGY
I haven’t sat down and watched a Kung-Fu flick in many, many moons and I am almost positive that I would have been disappointed if I had. Not only did I assume I had lost my flare for mid-seventies “Black-Belt Theater”, I also am fairly sure that I had touched on all the sweet spots the genre has offered. Now before you start thinking how could someone possibly have seen all the good Kung-Fu films out there, I’ll just say this: The Shaw brothers and their like basically raised me between ’94 and ’98 and I can assure you that amidst the legion of Chinese Martial Arts films, only a bushel or so stand on their own two feet. Hell, I’ve probably lost more classic Kung-Fu VHS tapes than most people have seen. That being the case I skipped over this bull of a movie more times than I’d like to admit before I watched it. I first saw Ip-Man around the beginning of the year and was blown away by it in every aspect, so I gave it another go last night to get the creative juices flowing for a review, and on my second run I may have been more impressed than originally thought.
Ip-Man focuses on real life Grand Master Yip-Man during his time in Foshan, China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Some of you may know the name Yip-Man as being the original teacher of legendary Bruce Lee in the art of Wing Chun and some of you probably won’t. If you have been walking through life blissfully ignorant, don’t worry, the good lord will judge you for your sins in due time… Guffaw!
Whatever the case, I would say this film to be loosely based on Yip-man’s life as he was more of an opium addicted policeman who happened to be extremely gifted in the martial way, than he was “hero of the people” that is depicted on screen. This is not to say this movie is a complete mock up, it’s just the meat of the movie is total fantasy. So on that note, let’s get after it…
Ip-Man, played incredibly by Donnie Yen (a formidable martial artist in his own right) is a local Gung-Fu master in Foshan, China. He is shown to be a respectful and gentle man very much concerned with the well-being of others and his family. Though the latter appear to be somewhat neglected because of his constant dueling and local celebrity. His wife Cheung Wing-sing portrayed by Lynn Hung, —the 5 foot 10 Chinese fashion model— does a rightful job downplaying her beauty to depict a reserved but strong housewife. Then of course there is the obligatory Kung-Fu movie plot vehicle of the roving Master from another province who comes to town looking for a duel. Enter Louis Fan, the aforementioned travelling Master whose portrayal of Jin Shanzhao the rude and headstrong Northern martial artist is so skillfully done as to make him almost likeable. Now this film is called Ip-Man and not Jin Shanzhao so you could probably guess how the Jin fares, but he does provide an enduring and human antagonist in contrast to Japanese Military during the second act.
Speaking of which, let us mosey on down to the local Circle K and hit up Rufus so we can be transported a few years into the future where we will witness the second act and the terror that was “The Empire of the Rising Sun”.
Here we see Foshan in a derelict war torn state. Gone are all the elaborate and beautiful facades of a bustling Mandarin city, traded for barbed wire and drab military olive hues. Ip-Man and his family have apparently lost their estate and are living in abject poverty, which although makes for a terrible living existence has fully pulled the family together and Cheung Wing-sing could not be happier (or hungrier for that matter). Man comes under the scrutiny of General Miura played impeccably by Hiroyuki Ikeuchi, star of such venerated films as Warau Lemon and Battleship Yamato. *Laughs* Even though the simple fact that Ikeuchi hails from the Ibaraki Prefecture fills me with suspicious dread, I enjoyed the character thoroughly. Sure he’s surrounded by vicious war criminals, sure he likely sodomizes young Chinese woman back at headquarters but these things are the facts of war, and he has a duty to his Emperor. You see General Miura is “Bushi”, a martial man himself as it were, and takes great pride in his native Karate. Since occupying the city he has been staging contests between his Japanese recruits and the war weary inhabitants of FoShan, and the premise is simple… If a citizen wins, he gets a bag of rice to bring back to his family, if not, well… He goes home empty handed. As I’ve said, Miura is Samurai, and he upholds this honor in his dojo as he does not kill wantonly in the arena.
It is General Miura’s desire to duel Ip-Man that sets the back drop for the rest of the film. Of course other things happen, Jin Shanzhao returns as a local thug, a flock of hapless factory workers are trained to defend themselves by Master Ip, but it is the fight in the dojo that originally catches Miura’s eye which is worth noting. You see up until this point in the movie, Ip-Man has practiced more defense and evasion, and even in his duels has made sure to not hurt his opponents. This fight however is different, he is a man on fire, he breaks necks, backs, pulverizes joints in the most controlled example of rage I’ve seen in a while. It’s the type of fight you can feel through the celluloid, your heart rate jumps and that feeling of light-headed elation grips you for all of eleven seconds…. Then it’s over… Martial brutality at its best kiddies, you heard it from the horse’s mouf. Eventually Ip-Man is forced into a duel with the General, when his beloved factory workers are used as leverage, and like the honorable man he is he accepts his fate and steps into Foshan square with Miura and his destiny.
As I’ve said, the historical accuracy of this film is fairly skewed, as the actual Yip-Man never fell into an abject existence, grudgingly shoveling coal during the occupation let alone duel a stone cold Samurai General but hey… It’s all in the heeips right?
I say give this one a try, the set pieces are wonderful, harkening back to those good ol’ fashioned Shaw Brothers flicks. The musical score is engaging when it’s not completely drowned out by ass-kickery, the acting is on the level, and if you want to talk choreography, then break out your chopsticks boys and girls because you’ll be staying for dinner.
4/5
Rihpt Rating: 3/5- Crazy assed kicks n’ shit nikkuh
Rihpt Fuel: Purple Cream
P.S. The rating system will now be standard 5 star as I assume my “Inside Joke” with myself is probably more confusing than not…
RIP Clydesdale Scale… See you in the Heart Country…
May
12
Pet Sematary (1989) THUGGY
Pet Sematary is one of those movies everyone knows about regardless if they’ve seen it or not. It has been parodied and referenced so many times in pop-culture since its release that it is almost synonymous with the death of a pet; if not the walking undead themselves.
I watched this film for the first time in years last October on a whim. I had just woken up on the cold hard tiles of a friend’s foyer after a blistering day of Ancient Age abuse. It was maybe twelve, one o-clock in the morning and everyone had already retired or fallen into a similar coma. Feeling rested, I decided to break into a few Coors Originals, smoke some pot and watch a flick. Now although I am a “King-Fish” rager, prone to unbelievable blackouts and less than civilized behavior this time was special… I was on assignment.
I had been commissioned to trim a large crop of plant life inside the legendary “Triangle” and was spending a few lazy, hazy days at the staging ground situated at a giant house far out in the middle of nowhere. Needless to say my compatriots and I were embedded, with too much time to kill and all too much misadventure. The house itself was spooky as hell which I feel deserves a mention; it was built by a psychotic retired military man sometime after we came back with our heads hung low from Vietnam. It was cavernous, and whole rooms had been walled off with the furniture still inside. Electrical outlets were everywhere, along the ceilings, in the middle of rooms, rows stacked one on top of the other, many of which did not work and quite a few that were just the flat panel with no plug sockets. One room boasted a massive 3-D wilderness scene with bears and hawks bulging from the wall fashioned from paper-mache and plaster of Paris. On a previous visit we found a mask not unlike one a member of the band Slipknot may have worn. It turned out to be a British Para-trooper mask, but the fact that it was wedged behind a work bench with a pair of Terminex cover-all’s was highly disconcerting. Unmistakably human footfalls could be heard throughout the gravel parts of the property during the early morning hours before dawn and lamps would come unplugged on their own. Add this to the fact that the man himself perished there and you have possibly the perfect setting to watch “Pet Sematary”.
As a child I wasn’t very impressed with this film as it was before my unbridled passion for Stephen King books and was a tad bit too tame for me. At that point I was more interested in kills and body counts (Halloween, Nightmare on Elm St.) than anything else, but weighed against my options which consisted of children’s movies I had never heard of and overplayed comedies “Pet Sematary” was a no brainer. This time around I was pleasantly surprised with the film. It’s much more supernaturally terrifying than I originally imagined and I am at a loss as to how I was not deprived of sleep in my younger years. Within minutes of the opening credits we are treated with a massive head wound, pulsating brain matter and a death bed message courtesy of our dear Victor Pascow, owner of said brain matter and our protagonists guide there forth into the depths of loss, insanity and death.
Our protagonist (if we can call him such) is Luis Creed, a doctor who moves his family into a quaint main Victorian located on a dangerous road populated by speeding truckers on their way to Bangor. I probably don’t need to mention the actors name seeing as I don’t recognize him from anything else and his acting was much too stiff to pull me completely into the film. Come to think of it, the entire cast was this way, save for the gem of my story Mr. Fred Gwyne , “Herman Munster” himself. I’m not sure if this was done on purpose to make us hate them or just bad casting on the part of Paramount, though judging by Stephen King’s hit or miss silver screen adaptations I suspect the latter. That being said, the film does do a fine job at creating a creepy and consistently unsettling atmosphere for spinning this tale.
Basically the premise is this… Chicago doctor moves his wife and two children Gauge & Ellie to rural Maine because of job opportunity, change of pace or something yadda yadda. The Creed family moves in next to Jud Crandall (Fred Gwyne) resident nut-bag, porch-sitter with a pile of bones in his closet. Separating these neighbors is “That damned Road!” this films true villain. Shortly after moving in, Jud takes the Creed family down a little path into the woods which leads to a Pet cemetery. A decidedly odd choice to get to know your neighbors but hey… The plots gotta start somewhere. Later Jud reveals to Luis that behind the cemetery is an ancient Micmac burial ground that was abandoned because the ground had “gone sour”. He explains that whatever is buried on this soil will return, and return they do… Only they return “sour”. Long story short, the burial ground gets its fair share of use, nobody wins, and everyone dies.
After finishing the film I went outside to call my girl, and seeing as I was miles and miles from the nearest cell phone tower I had to journey into the darkness of the woods to find a “sweet-spot”. Only minutes into our conversation I was convinced young zombie Gauge was going to scurry out of the woods like a spider and slice my Achilles tendon and eat my entrails. Bottom line… The movie may just make your imagination run rampant.
The real fun though was the next morning and the following few weeks. The owner of the DVD was a guy named, ehhh lets call him “Luis”… Seems fitting… Anyhow, he is a hard drinking Katrina survivor, (survivor as in on the news in Mississippi giving an interview amongst the ruins of his recently standing home with a bottle of whisky and two gaping leg wounds…) No Astros Stadium for this guy. Whatever the case, I told him about my late night foray into the world of the dead to which he bowled over in laughter and immediately broke into a hilarious over the top rendition of Fred Gwyne’s “Jud Crandall” character. I set directly out to master the impression myself and before long we were throwing quotes back and forth like madmen. “The grounds sour Luis”, “You bury your own”, and “It’s your cat now Luis” were favorites. Only after a few hours we realized that we only knew a handful of actual movie quotes, but by that time we were deep in the forest at the actual work sight with the DVD back at the staging ground.
Now without getting into too many details I’ll just say the work sight was minimalist. Internet and cell phone service was out of the question, beds a thing of the past and if you needed to use the facilities you were handed a shovel. The only thing in abundance was food and hard drink, and so started our month long marriage to long days, longer nights, sticky hands and our Jud Crandall impressions. At the inset jokes abounded, laughter and camaraderie made “Luis’s” and my constant impressions and maniacal cackling sort of background noise, but as the hours and weeks wore on the jovial vibe of the camp had deteriorated dramatically. Plainly people were at each other’s throats, the female of the team went sideways after someone accidently urinated next to her head in a freak sleepwalking incident. She slowly spiraled into a manic depression which cast a metallic taste throughout the camp, like pennies or burnt wires in a remote controlled car. Next to fall apart was the teams’ resident “creeper”, a fine gentleman when bright eyed and bushy tailed, but a depraved fiend when “in his cups”. He was just as likely to threaten any and all orifices on your body as he was to shake your hand. So subsequently his liquor intake was rationed. The effect of the deterioration was like Dominoes; one by one the team members reached their breaking points.
Interestingly enough this breakdown never reached “Luis” and myself, we were neck deep in a different kind of breakdown, one of complete mental collapse. By the second week our normal voices had started to seem alien, and we were effectively locked into our Jud Crandall characters for the duration. This, accompanied by fact that we only knew the handful of original quotes led us to create a whole different world for the character. We began to talk about the “Big War” and the hills of Tripoli, cannibalism and the loss of our pal and fellow soldier “Buddy”. This insanity all came to head during a torrential downpour one night close to the end of our time up there.
Now the property is nestled deep in the hills and to get anywhere you had to travel by ATV… Usually straight up tracks it took an effort to walk, so after a full day of work we were prepared to make the trek down to base camp for the night. With a little whiskey fueled ingenuity we fashioned a sort of poncho out of two contractor bags, and used plastic shopping bags as makeshift bonnets. For anyone who doesn’t know, contractor bags are fairly ridged, durable bags, so when we put our arms through the bottom edges of the bags stayed taught, giving the look of 80’s style shoulder pads. This I immediately associated with the television show “Designing Women” and launched straight into a Designing Women, Jud Crandall diatribe. I had also worn my back pack across my chest to better cradle the handle of whiskey inside, as I would soon be sitting backwards on a four-wheeler racing down a muddy river trail in the pure blackness of the woods. The effect of the backpack gave me the look of a professional woman who had gotten knocked up at last year’s Christmas party mixer. So the quote of the night was obviously, “Gotta leave the office for a while Phyllis… I’m on maternity-leave!” belted in my best Jud Crandall delivery. We pulled our shoulders back and accentuated the shoulder pads by thrusting each one forward with every step, all the while howling like loons. By the time we made it to base camp we were absolutely positive that we weren’t in the woods at all. In actuality we were bone dry in some mental institutions mess hall, locked in a thorazine induced hallucination, everything would be fine. This was not true of course; we have never come out of that monstrous state of mind. My voice has gone back to its normal timbre sure, and we successfully completed our mission in the woods, but in some twisted way a part of me is still on “Tripoli Hill”, reliving this sinister movie over and over again…
Clydesdale Scale: 4 Star(Remember the scale is based on how many giant horses I would want to tear off my face before the movie ends, the lower the better.) Nostalgia and the above experience tempted me to give it a lower rating, but lets be honest, it ain’t Citizen Kane..
Rihpt Fuel: Whiskey haze, Coors, Granddaddy Purple
On a side note, I last saw “Luis” on January 25th of this year. He joined me and a group of friends to celebrate my ladies’ birthday. Again we were far up in wooded hills and we all ingested copious amounts of “mushroom tea” at some point in the early morning he drove off into the canyons and darkness never to be heard from again…….
Apr
12
“LA is like.. Nowhere.. Everyone who lives here is lost.”
Apr
11
baby
dream
water
← Older posts
Page 1 of 3
