Curt McGirt Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 And next Monday we get Way of the Gun and The Duellists. I didn't know anything about the former so Wiki'd it and it's interesting; Christopher McQuarry had just written The Usual Suspects and ran afoul of execs who didn't give a shit about someone who wrote one of the best scripts ever putting out something equally good. Hollywood sucks. And The Duellists of course is Ridley Scott's first film, which is completely awesome. A blood-and-thunder version of Barry Lyndon with an obsessed Harvey Keitel? Sign me up for a rewatch! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted August 6, 2015 Author Share Posted August 6, 2015 Ralph Bakshi's Wizards comes on Satuday. I definitely enjoyed it more when I was fifteen and in awe of elf boobies. I found it kinda dragging in the middle when I watched it as an adult. It is worth watching for sake of nostalgia and it is a pretty good fable. The Japanese do not have the patent on cartoons for grown ups. And The Fury with Andrew Stevens, Kirk Douglas, and Amy Irving also comes on Saturday. It is very Stephen King-esque in its psychic powers and evil government agencies deal. One of DePalma's underrated gems. It is a slow burn but it goes from zero to fucking awesome right at the end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 Oh yeah, The Fury has some wild moments, three in particular: one at a mall, one character's extremely bloody and sudden death, and that final scene (WHOA!). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted August 9, 2015 Share Posted August 9, 2015 I've seen the animated Lord of the Rings, and I know about Fritz the Cat (though have never watched it, sadly). Now I'm watching Wizards, looked him up, and didn't realize how much of a national treasure Ralph Bakshi is. Bless the man for breaking so many boundaries in all manner of ways artistically. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SolidGoldBomb Posted August 14, 2015 Share Posted August 14, 2015 Wow I loved The Master & Challenger of the Masters, another couple of awesome kung-fu flicks that I surprisingly have never seen! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted August 14, 2015 Author Share Posted August 14, 2015 Venom Mob gets most of the Shaw Brothers notoriety . There is not enough love for Chen Kuan-tai especially since he was a martial artist that became an actor and not the other way around. He brought legitimacy to the fight scenes in his movies.. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted August 16, 2015 Share Posted August 16, 2015 Death Touch Thursday is Vengeance and Vengeance Is A Golden Blade (is that not thee best fucking title of all times or what?!). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 Finally caught The Duellists again and bah gawd is it amazing. Harvey Keitel is a man obsessed, haunting poor Keith Carradine like a ghost through multiple wars, insisting on death duels over something that would be like stepping on someone's shoe in a bar today. Keitel can't let it go and they meet each other in these great chance encounters at random -- at a bar on leave, in the middle of the freezing fucking Russian wasteland -- and have it out with heavy sabre, on horseback, with pistols... it's intense. The denouement is perfect, especially the last scene with the loser standing against a rising sun on the side of the screen clouded and stormy, with the opposite side raining sunshine upon him, almost taunting him for his loss. And Diana Quick is fucking gorgeous. REALLY good looking here. Wow. My only complaint is that Carradine couldn't even try and evoke an accent for his character. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Koch Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 Death Touch Thursday is Vengeance and Vengeance Is A Golden Blade (is that not thee best fucking title of all times or what?!). I watched Vengeance not too long ago. It's slow in parts, but the finale is really good. Tarantino definitely borrowed a lot from it for the Crazy 88s fight in Kill Bill. http://hkfilm.net/movrevs/2/vengeance.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSJ Posted August 18, 2015 Share Posted August 18, 2015 Have I missed it or have they not gotten around to Five Masters of Death or Five Shaolin Masters? They also need the long version of Seven Golden Vampires. Vampire Kung Fu movies are the greatest thing ever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NikoBaltimore Posted August 19, 2015 Share Posted August 19, 2015 I really could go for some vampire kung fu. They showed a clip in this documentary showing the timeline of kung fu movies (airs on the network once in awhile) The vampire kung fu seems so damn wacky and i just have to see it. I think I found it on Youtube but I want to see it on El Rey if possible. Also, if you like vampire kung fu and have Galaxy S6 or S6 Edge check the theme store. There's one called Jiangshi Castle that is pretty much a chibi version of it and it's awesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSJ Posted August 19, 2015 Share Posted August 19, 2015 Head and shoulders above everything else is The Seven Golden Vampires or Dracula vs. Seven Brothers. Apparently after filming The Lost World in Hong Kong, all the Hammer people were still there sitting around with all their equipment. Christopher Lee had already headed back to England so they had to shoot an opening scene with Dracula possessing the body of a Chinese man. David Chiang is just wonderful in it and the FX are great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted August 19, 2015 Share Posted August 19, 2015 Yeah, why can't we get Mr. Vampire and A Chinese Ghost Story for Creature Feature Friday? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Koch Posted August 19, 2015 Share Posted August 19, 2015 I don't think any US companies own the rights for those movies. IIRC they are held in Hong Kong by Fortune Star who charge a lot of money and give companies shoddy materials. Like on Shout Factory's big Bruce Lee box set, they got upscales rather than true HD materials. The Shaw Brothers did do some good horror/exploitation movies. In particular, I like the Black Magic movies a lot. I don't think the Shaws did too many kyonsi/jiangshi ("hopping vampires") movies. A lot of the ones that come to mind like Encounters of the Spooky Kind were Golden Harvest productions, which are now owned by Fortune Star. If you have interest in the subgenre, most of the Mr. Vampire series are good, or really, pretty much anything with Lam Ching Ying after about 1986 or so, as he quickly became typecast as the ghostbusting Taoist priest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SolidGoldBomb Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 ~TEN TIGERS OF KWANG TUNG~! Man, I think every kung-fu actor except Gordon Liu & David Chiang were in this flick. Not the easiest plot to follow, but it sure had some great action scenes. I marked out pretty hard for all the Wu-Tang samples, and when the dude got his head kicked off, that was incredible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted August 21, 2015 Author Share Posted August 21, 2015 Ten Tigers is one of my favorite films. It is up there with Kid With The Golden Arm and The Incredible Kung-Fu Mission. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted August 22, 2015 Author Share Posted August 22, 2015 Old School Bond movies all weekend. From Dusk Til Dawn's Season 2 starts next Wednesday. Death Touch Thursday double feature is Five Fingers of Death / King Boxer (YES~!) and Shaolin Mantis. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NikoBaltimore Posted August 28, 2015 Share Posted August 28, 2015 MVP recently switched carriers and now has El Rey Network. It's pretty amazing when somebody gets it for the first time and has that "Holy shit, look at all this!" feeling. Him going on about Shaw Bros. movies and how he grew up with them is pretty damn cool. And holy fuck Five Fingers of Death is still so fucking awesome. It's super badass and the music is ultra memorable. Not just the one that's used in Kill Bill, but that fast drum song where you know shit's about to get real. So good, might have to track down those songs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted August 28, 2015 Author Share Posted August 28, 2015 It recently dawned on me that Chi Hao from FFoD is one of the few heroic roles Lo Lieh has portrayed. When I started digging through my catalogue recently, I discovered that Lo Lieh was just as much of a stock bad guy for Shaw Brothers as Lu Feng. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SolidGoldBomb Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 Finally caught The Duellists again and bah gawd is it amazing. Harvey Keitel is a man obsessed, haunting poor Keith Carradine like a ghost through multiple wars, insisting on death duels over something that would be like stepping on someone's shoe in a bar today. Keitel can't let it go and they meet each other in these great chance encounters at random -- at a bar on leave, in the middle of the freezing fucking Russian wasteland -- and have it out with heavy sabre, on horseback, with pistols... it's intense. The denouement is perfect, especially the last scene with the loser standing against a rising sun on the side of the screen clouded and stormy, with the opposite side raining sunshine upon him, almost taunting him for his loss. And Diana Quick is fucking gorgeous. REALLY good looking here. Wow. My only complaint is that Carradine couldn't even try and evoke an accent for his character. Yeah I just caught it this weekend too, such a weird little movie but very cool the way it was put together. YOU HAVE INSULTED ME! Dude, he scraped your forearm. It's crazy how such a minor thing can lead to a decades long feud with the characters changed so much from it. I was fascinated with Carradine's transformation from nancy-boy to hardened street fighter, while having to endure losing his wife basically because she thought he was a total bitch for not killing Keitel, and then her turning into a prostitute because of the despair. I liked that at least Carradine learned as the time moved along, and got a better wife and improved his fighting skills and tactics each time leading to his "deal" at the end. Keitel really made him a better man ultimately, and in the pursuit of his honor and dignity he ended up losing so much more of his own cherished honor in the process that he didn't even realize it until it was over. Great hidden gem of a movie. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted September 7, 2015 Share Posted September 7, 2015 Sly Stallone is sitting in The Director's Chair soon. They better replay the Michael Mann one too because I missed it. Oh, and Hogan as a heel without a boatload of coke in Rocky III fucking sucks. And Rocky movies are too cornball to believe. AND I am amazed to find out that Rocky III invented the Bigelow "throw Spike into the crowd" spot. EDIT: Oh and they're playing The Stand, The Tommyknockers, and The Langoliers (!!!) on Saturdays soon. Come for the awesomeness of The Stand, stay for the awful digital work and Bronson Pinchot! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jingus Posted September 7, 2015 Share Posted September 7, 2015 AND I am amazed to find out that Rocky III invented the Bigelow "throw Spike into the crowd" spot.Is this a Hogan claim? Cuz it's not even remotely true. Joe Leduc hurling Jerry Lawler onto the not-quite-ringside table happened in 1978, for just one example. Also, Andre's entire early WWWF career was based around a gimmick where he was constantly slinging jobbers into the front row. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt McGirt Posted September 7, 2015 Share Posted September 7, 2015 I forgot about Jerry's broken leg and didn't know that about Andre, actually. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted September 8, 2015 Author Share Posted September 8, 2015 Sly Stallone is sitting in The Director's Chair soon. They better replay the Michael Mann one too because I missed it. Oh, and Hogan as a heel without a boatload of coke in Rocky III fucking sucks. And Rocky movies are too cornball to believe. AND I am amazed to find out that Rocky III invented the Bigelow "throw Spike into the crowd" spot. EDIT: Oh and they're playing The Stand, The Tommyknockers, and The Langoliers (!!!) on Saturdays soon. Come for the awesomeness of The Stand, stay for the awful digital work and Bronson Pinchot! The Stand ruled. Speaking of "quality" Stephen King stuff, why in the hell did Rodriquez throw money at getting a Dark Tower miniseries on El Rey? Aside from a premium cable network, this is the only place where I'd love to see a DT movie or limited miniseries since I'd expect to see decent production values and uncensored content. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted September 15, 2015 Author Share Posted September 15, 2015 Why the fuck do they show episodes of The Stand while I am at work? Why did I not call in sick today? OH SHIT THE CHURCH (CATHEDRAL OF DEMONS) AND BEYOND THE DOOR 2 COME ON FRIDAY NIGHT GIALLO MOTHER FUCKERS SET YOUR RECORDING DEVICES~! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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