Independent Film Club

2005-05-03T17:17:00.000-07:00

It seems that there was the most interest in "Kung Fu Hustle" so its THIS WEEKS MOVIE!!!

Dir: Stephen Chow
Written by: Tsang Kan Cheong, Stephen Chow, Xin Huo, and Chan Man Keung
Starring: Stephen Chow, Wah Yuen, Qiu Yuen, and Kwok Kuen Chan
Year: 2004-05

Review From New York Time's Movie Critic: A.O. Scott:

"Fists Fly and Feet Spin In a Place Called Pig Sty"

The recent popularity of Chinese-language action movies has been a curiously highbrow phenomenon, as filmmakers of lofty reputation, like Ang Lee and Zhang Yimou, have discovered the pleasures (and the profits) of swordplay and wire work. Their forays into action romance -- ''Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,'' ''Hero'' and ''House of Flying Daggers'' -- are full of swooping choreography and thrilling combat, but they are also marked by a stately, almost reverent tone. Luckily, Stephen Chow, the writer, director and star of ''Kung Fu Hustle'' (and the earlier ''Shaolin Soccer''), is around to knock the genre off its high horse, and to remind American audiences, as Jackie Chan did before him, that clowning is as much a part of this cinematic tradition as nobility and sacrifice.
Though it features a number of stars from the Hong Kong martial arts firmament -- including Yuen Wah, Leung Siu Lung and Yuen Qiu, who was also in the James Bond movie ''The Man With the Golden Gun'' -- ''Kung Fu Hustle'' has a demented appeal not limited to specialists or aficionados. Hectic and eclectic, the movie es tasty morsels of international pop culture, ranging from Looney Tunes to Sergio Leone to ''Airplane!,'' and tosses them into a fast-moving blender. After 90 minutes, you will be dizzy and perhaps a little annoyed, but those aftereffects, like the queasiness that follows an amusement park ride on a stomach full of junk food, serve as proof that you have been thoroughly and mercilessly entertained.
A thrill ride like this hardly requires a plot summary, and in any case the story is deliberately cobbled together out of time-worn conventions, which it both obeys and mocks. In a vaguely defined ''time of social unrest,'' with sets and costumes meant to evoke China in the brief interval between World War II and the Communist revolution, a pair of hapless lowlifes (Mr. Chow and Lam Tze Chung), pretending to be members of the dreaded Axe Gang, arrive in a dusty slum known as Pig Sty. Their failed attempt to terrorize the residents, who are much tougher than they appear, attracts the attention of the real Axe Gang, setting up a climactic series of battles among legendary kung fu warriors. These include Pig Sty's stumbling-drunk Landlord (Yuen Wah) and his wife (Yuen Qiu), a foulmouthed harridan in a housedress and curlers, whose chain-smoking does not seem to have weakened her lungs much.
The showstopping fight sequences are choreographed by the legendary Yuen Wo Ping (whose credits include ''Crouching Tiger,'' the ''Matrix'' movies and ''Kill Bill'') and given an extra jolt of nutty inventiveness by some cheerfully crude digital effects. Mr. Chow and his special-effects team use computer-generated imagery the way Chuck Jones and Tex Avery used pen and ink -- as a form of anarchic protest against the laws of physics and the limitations of physiology. Eyes pop, feet spin and fists leave dents and divots on their targets. All that's missing is an Acme delivery truck and a ready supply of anvils.
Although its blend of mayhem and spoofery seems ideally suited to 12-year-old boys, ''Kung Fu Hustle,'' unlike the version of ''Shaolin Soccer'' released in the United States, is sufficiently bloody and profane to warrant an R rating. Mr. Chow, true to his roots, sometimes carries slapstick to the point of gruesome brutality, which shows a certain integrity: this stuff may be fun, but you can really get hurt doing it. He also, again in accordance with tradition, slides from the hard-boiled to the softly sentimental, with flashbacks to his character's childhood that set up a swoony romance with a mute, delicately featured ice cream vendor (Huang Sheng Yi).
Her silence gives the picture its few moments of peace, while the Landlady's mugging and ranting supply a raucous comic vigor that makes the fight choreography and the special effects almost redundant. Yuen Qiu, a Hong Kong star of the 70's, has not appeared in a movie in nearly 30 years, and ''Kung Fu Hustle'' suggests that, in that time, world cinema has been deprived of a great comedienne. She is said to have gained 30 pounds to give the Landlady some necessary heft, but she seems to burn it all off on screen, as she tears through a performance that is equal parts Lucille Ball, Thelma Ritter and the Tasmanian Devil.
The film itself displays a similarly manic energy, spinning around like a high-tech windup toy designed to wear out its users and keep going. There will probably be sequels, but to some extent they will be redundant, since ''Kung Fu Hustle'' can be watched again and again. This is only partly a compliment: for all its punches, kicks, whacks and thumps, the movie does not have much impact, and for all its affectionate nostalgia, it produces a strange kind of amnesia. It knocks the sense right out of your head, and its own as well.

FILM CLUB THIS WEEK!

2005-05-01T18:47:00.000-07:00

"Kung Fu Hustle"

or

"Psycho a Go Go" ?

Email whsifc@gmail.com with which one you'd prefer to see this week!!!!

No Film Club

2005-04-13T15:14:00.000-07:00

Sorry, guys no film club this week :'(

I know, very sad

Sorry

2005-04-07T17:59:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I havent updated the website in a while, but here's some upcoming stuff

Kiri's Film Fest of Fun

-at the little theater. Talk to kiri or Mr. Boehm for entrance info

Film Club Field Trip to the Moon!

-hmmm, not really, but that would be cool

DOUBLE FEATURE! ("Peervention" / "Tokyo Drifter")

2005-03-09T12:57:00.000-08:00

"Peervention":

Director: Kevin Schoonmaker
Writer: David Walker
Starring:
Matt Maher (http://www.spiritandsong.com/song/artists/500002.php)
David Walker
Phil Dionesio
Dan King

"Tokyo Drifter"

Dir: Seijun Suzuki
Written: Yasunori Kawauchi
Starring:

Tetsuya Watari
Chieko Matsubara
Hideaki Nitani
and
Ryuji Kita

Review by J. D. Nguyen:

Seijun Suzuki is one of the sole reasons why I prefer Japanese cinema over Chinese films. There is a sense of style that is unmatched in Japanese culture, as if it were innate and natural for the land of the rising sun to display an impression of coolness and shade of class to everything they create in the world of art.

As with and , visual Japanese design and technique is overtly beautiful, containing sensations of magical surrealism and thousands of years of oriental culture in every pattern and motif in the imagery of their world. This can be seen in the historical designs of their old style homes and buildings, paintings and pottery, scriptures and writings, and even the samurai worlds of Japan's pre-modern period of Tokugawa and the turbulent Meiji Era.
And that is just the tip of it.

"Tokyo Drifter" is definitely no exception with its free for all neon jazz characters jiving to the boogie woogie backdrop of 1960's industrial Tokyo. A yakuza film of the purist form, way before it was romanticized in the mainstream in modern day cinema, Suzuki presents us characters of extreme brightness and colors that match the environments around them, following the Zen of their guns and continuing along the way of their ethics and codes no matter what end of the
gangster spectrum they fall in.

What we have here is an iconic gangster lead, "Phoenix" Tetsu played marvelously by Tetsuya Watari. Part Spike Spiegel, part Vincent Vega, and more Jean-Paul Belmondo if anything, Tetsu isn't your run of the mill fickle gangster, but a true samurai by way of honor, loyalty and overall style. Even as the individualistic killer he is, he stays dedicated to his boss all the way through the gunfights in the beach club bops and the fist fights in the dive bar hops.

Though the story seems simple and straightforward at first, our lead is confronted with many different issues that wear on his psyche. As the last member of a once thriving yakuza, he is offered one of the highest positions it the rival gang. Though there are still some connections within his beloved Tokyo, he has to leave his mamasita and the city into the snowcapped valleys of Northern Japan to escape. These conflicts create an unyielding charismatic lead that becomes sympathetic and compassionate. In a one of the more beautiful scenes, Tetsu is entranced with a small carnival game, holding the replica pistol with his club singer love and holding her close and tight. His blue suit along with his stance and head tilts evokes an Alain Delon like pathos that becomes apparent as Tetsu continues to drift around, attempting to escape the yakuza that continually follow him everywhere he goes.

Probably the most stunning aspect of "Tokyo Drifter" is the amazing and uncompromising art direction. The colors and the beautiful tints to the sets that change with the action is an interesting concept that provides bold atmospheric mood changes. From the dance hall to the western style bar, the set design is unique in its portrayal to capture the sensibilities of pop art in flaunting the unreal and surreal world of "Tokyo Drifter's" characters. Even in the suits and clothes each gangster wears extends their personality in a more comic and flamboyant fashion. Suzuki especially got into trouble with this from the Nikkatsu Studios when he turned an old fashion gangster movie into a blown out, loud and ostentatious film satiated with lurid and gaudy action.

Seijun Suzuki is definitely a national cinematic treasure among the ranks of Kurasawa, Kitano and Miyazaki. His influence on modern day, mainstream and underground Japanese cinema is immeasurable. Along with his other tour de force, "Branded to Kill," "Tokyo Drifter" is by far one of his greatest accomplishments in his career.

Samuel Fuller's "Shock Corridor"

2005-02-13T13:20:00.000-08:00

At the 19th Meeting of the IFC, we will be screening Samuel Fuller's classic High-Octane thriller "Shock Corridor."

Director: Samuel Fuller
Writer: Samuel Fuller
Starring: Peter Breck, Constance Towers, and Gene Evans
Year: 1963
Running Time: 101 Minutes

"Shock Corridor still has the power to pick a fight with you, even if its message will leave you more bruised these days than bloody. While the Cold War may be over, and we pride ourselves on being a more "enlightened" society, Fuller's indictment of our tendency to mentally retreat from the social evils we create still resonates in a world where insanity sometimes spills into the streets and schoolyards, yet we pretend it must be someone else's fault. As the attendant Wilkes tells Barrett (and us) early on, "We're here to help you to remember not to forget." It may not be a happy message, but why do you think Fuller called it Shock Corridor anyway?"

-Mike Pinsky

Short Biography of Director Sam Fuller From Critic Leonard Maltin:

Brash writer-director whose oeuvre includes many inexpensively made genre films, held in much higher regard today than when originally released. Fuller's movie work encompasses most of his varied experiences: he rode the rails as a hobo, wrote pulp fiction, worked as a crime reporter, and fought in Europe and North Africa during World War 2. Although he worked sporadically in Hollywood since 1938, Fuller didn't hit his stride until 1949; his first directorial chore, I Shot Jesse James proved that he could turn out reliable B films in short order. His early movies included a first-rate Korean War drama, The Steel Helmet (1951), and a picaresque newspaper story, Park Row (1952). Fuller's films, fashioned by the brutal economy of means, are usually steeped in melodrama, and his blunt worldview is easily discernible. Cultists favor two of his 1960s movies, Shock Corridor (1963, America allegorized as a lunatic asylum) and The Naked Kiss (1964, small-town hypocrisy exposed by reformed prostitute).

When directorial work for him petered out in the late 1960s, Fuller moved to France, occasionally playing cameos in other directors' films, such as 1941 and Salem's Lot (both 1979). He also acted in The Last Movie (1971), The American Friend (1977), Hammett and The State of Things (both 1982), among others. His "comeback" picture, a striking and personal war drama titled The Big Red One (1980), fizzled at the box office, and his career was sidetracked a few years later when controversy erupted over his production White Dog (1982), about a hound trained to attack black people. Again he went to Europe, where he continued to find backing for films, which have not been released in the U.S. In Tigrero: A Film That Was Never Made (1994), Fuller tells filmmaker Jim Jarmusch about his futile attempts to make an adventure film set in the jungles of Brazil.

OTHER FILMS INCLUDE: 1950: The Baron of Arizona 1951: Fixed Bayonets 1953: Pickup on South Street (one of his most "mainstream" movies, and one of his best); 1957: China Gate, Run of the Arrow 1959: The Crimson Kimono 1961: Underworld U.S.A 1969: Shark, Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street

Review By Mike Pinsky:

The year was 1963. Most of us think today America was like Camelot, in those heady, lively days before the tragic fall of JFK and the morass of Vietnam. But Americans in 1963 were in the midst of a Cold War, still haunted by the specters of Cuba and Berlin and Korea. Racial tension was seething, and about to boil over into riots, protest marches, and near civil war in some areas. And while some in Hollywood still gave the public that happy escape from the pressures of reality, some filmmakers were challenging audiences to face their worst impulses.

Let's be honest: Sam Fuller did not make politically correct, feel good movies, where all social ills could be solved in ninety minutes by the warm drawl of Jimmy Stewart and a few hugs and cookies. His films are dark, cynical, and a little sordid. They lure you in with a little sex and violence, and then knock you over the head with real ideas.

Shock Corridor is bookended with a quote from Euripides: "Whom God wishes to destroy he first makes mad." Of course, some might argue that the seeds of madness are already inside us. Take Johnny Barrett (Peter Breck) for example. He wants that Pulitzer Prize so badly that he will pretend to suffer from incestuous urges, check himself into a mental hospital, and get his story by any means necessary. His editor and a psychiatrist of dubious ethics love the idea, but Barrett's girlfriend Cathy (Constance Towers) says, "You've got to be crazy to want to be committed to a mental asylum to solve a murder."

But getting at the truth is far harder than Johnny anticipated. His only witnesses to the unsolved murder are three madmen, each suffering from some form of disassociation. Stuart: a former Korean War soldier who briefly converted to Communism, convinced now that he is General Jeb Stuart, fighting a more "civil" war over ideology. Trent: a black college student and "guinea pig" for desegregation, who believes he is a white racist and founder of the Ku Klux Klan. Bowden: nuclear weapons scientist, regressed to the mind of a six-year-old who only wants to draw pictures.

The mystery plot (which I comment on briefly in my Deep Focus column on the Detective Film) is really rather thin. Who killed Sloane in the kitchen? Why hasn't anyone bothered to investigate this crime before now? Well, since we don't even learn Sloane's name until 30 minutes into the film, it is hard to see this mystery as anything more than director Fuller's excuse to get us into this mental asylum, and to give Barrett some overwhelming (but ultimately meaningless) goal that will overshadow all his other thoughts. As Barrett drives himself to solve the case, his own anxiety burns, taunting him with images of Cathy hovering over him like one of those devils on your shoulder in cartoons. We watch Barrett unravel, but it is pretty clear that the loose threads were always already there.

So if the mystery plot is really just a McGuffin, what is Fuller really trying to accomplish by setting the story in this mental asylum? The key is in the patients themselves. Fuller's aim is to expose and critique the social evils of Cold War American culture: redbaiting, racism, nuclear holocaust, and even the abuse of psychology. He pulls no punches here. Take a look at Trent (in a powerful performance by Hari Rhodes), donning the white hood and screaming about "niggers marrying his daughter." Watch how he makes a catatonic patient hold up his arm in a Nazi salute and remarks that it looks like the Statue of Liberty. America is a mental asylum, and the patients are all around us.

The incendiary tone of the film is helped by aggressive performances all around. Peter Breck bullies his way through the role of Johnny Barrett, emitting piercing screams as his sanity breaks down. Most of the rest of the cast seems to go at full tilt as well, in true film noir fashion. Special mention should be made of Larry Tucker's performance as Barrett's wardmate Pagliacchi. On the surface, he seems warm and comic, like a funny if annoying sidekick, but with small disturbing traits that subtly remind you that he is crazy. For example, in one early scene, he wakes Barrett up with a boisterous aria from "The Barber of Seville," but his hand over Barrett gently mimes a stabbing motion. Is there something dark and sinister about this clown that we can never really understand?

Director Samuel Fuller, who also wrote and produced, is in complete control of his camera. While the sets are clearly made on the cheap, he takes advantage of the stark cinematography of Stanley Cortez (The Magnificent Ambersons, Night of the Hunter). Fuller and Cortez keep the camera moving in to heighten the emotional pressure on his characters, letting their faces bear the detailed and worried looks that the sparse sets cannot. This is a world which is very black and white, with sharp contrasts and no soft focus, even during Cathy's burlesque number. But Fuller juxtaposes this with three brief color sequences (restored by Criterion for this edition): softer, grainier, more dreamlike (Fuller used leftover footage he shot himself in Japan and South America). These are fantasy sequences, dreams of the characters that suggest that the world outside the asylum is richer and more "colorful" (in fact, Stuart and Trent both remark deliberately that their dreams are in color).

Criterion's transfer is well handled (from a 35mm low contrast print, according to the packaging), although the print shows some dirt and scratches. The sharp contrast of light and shadow is quite clear, although a little color bleed is visible on highly detailed objects (Criterion includes color bars to help adjust your system). Although the restored color footage has the slightly-washed look of a home movie (which it more or less is), that roughness seems to enhance its contrast with the rest of the film. On the whole, it is in pretty good condition for a B-movie from 1963. The sound mix is monaural, with some echo in spots to give it the illusion of depth, especially during internal monologues. Not much hiss, and again, pretty crisp for its age.

On the whole, Shock Corridor is a B-movie with the guts to aim for something bigger. It is full of the usual sordid trappings of drive-in fare of the age: the mention of incest, a burlesque musical number (no nudity, which one character snidely comments on), a brutal attack by beautiful nymphomaniacs, and a jarring electroshock sequence. This is the sort of stuff that got audiences in the seats. But Fuller's real purpose here is to send a message. There is an unpleasant edge to Fuller's inclusion of the voyeuristic formula devices (hence the coldness which permeates them): you can have your ice cream, but you'll still have to eat your vegetables.