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Author Topic: Hold On To Your Butts: Junior Watches All the Things  (Read 14323 times)

DarkeningHumour

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Re: Hold On To Your Butts: Junior Watches All the Things
« Reply #30 on: August 31, 2017, 06:03:46 AM »
Happy to have you along, Dh. Even if I'm still jealous of your recent Demy big screen viewing.

Dh...I like that. Sort of looks like PhD. DarkeningHumour, Doctorhate in Theoretical Misanthropy.
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pixote

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Re: Hold On To Your Butts: Junior Watches All the Things
« Reply #31 on: August 31, 2017, 12:50:24 PM »
Happy to have you along, Dh. Even if I'm still jealous of your recent Demy big screen viewing.

Dh...I like that. Sort of looks like PhD. DarkeningHumour, Doctorhate in Theoretical Misanthropy.

Or like duh typed by a lazy person.

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DarkeningHumour

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Re: Hold On To Your Butts: Junior Watches All the Things
« Reply #32 on: August 31, 2017, 01:06:07 PM »
Or a Welshman.
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Junior

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Re: Hold On To Your Butts: Junior Watches All the Things
« Reply #33 on: December 13, 2017, 06:14:54 PM »
Y'all thought I forgot about this like I do with most of my marathons!?!?! Not yet! Let's keep it rolling.

I've watched four of the Lone Wolf and Cub movies so far. Overall, very fun, but here's a quick breakdown.

Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance

The Shogunate Executioner (AKA HEAD BADASS) is the dude who stands off to the side as people who have wronged the Shogun commit seppuku and then he chops their head off to complete the job. It's a primo gig, but then his wife is murdered and he is framed for treasonous acts and he only gets away because he's the baddest sword in town and slices the fools who killed his wife. He takes his very young child and goes on the run. Because of the framing and his grief he decides to take The Demon Path in Hell (I don't really know what this is but it's a running thing in the series) and become a lowly assassin. The first amazing scene comes as he offers a choice to his toddler. He sticks a sword in the ground and places a ball (or something, it's been a while) adjacent to it and lays out the situation for the child: join him on The Demon Path in Hell or got to his mom via death. Ok, cool. But what makes this great is the seriousness with which the assassin (Ogami Itto, by name) addresses his pre-talking child. I'm pretty sure the kid doesn't quite comprehend the situation, but he's also adorable and of course he picks the sword so that he can join his pops in his quest to kill fools and get some vengeance. The whole scene is played as high melodrama, though, with intense music and the best combination of deadly serious acting from Ogami and super cuteness from Daigoro (the kid).

The rest of the movie sets the pattern for the series (so far). Ogami gets a contract to kill some people and then goes to the place where the people are to kill them. This time he goes to a spa nearby a path where his contract is supposed to show. The people at the spa are universally assholes and goad him into combat. Here's where the movie begins to transcend mere samurai cinema. The baby cart that Daigoro rides around in isn't just a cool proto-carraige, it's also a bunch of weapons. I got all giddy when some blades snapped out of hiding places and the push-bar was revealed to be part of a spear-type weapon. And then things got amazing when the wounds Ogami inflicted on his opponents started gushing this crazy red blood. If y'all thought the arterial spray in Ran was something else, just wait 'till you see the orgy of blood and violence that these movies produce. It's delightful.

The movie ends with the lone wolf and his cub walking slowly away from their latest scene of carnage. It's not a movie that has the weight of a Kurosawa samurai movie (the only other examples of the genre I've seen outside of Onibaba so far), but it's way more fun than those films have been so far. This entry has a lot of set-up to do but it doesn't shy away from cool little touches like the way the ninjas enter Ogami's house under cover of prayer bells tolling. And did I mention the blood? The blood is awesome.

A-

I'll be back soon with more on this series. The second is even better.
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Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Hold On To Your Butts: Junior Watches All the Things
« Reply #34 on: December 13, 2017, 07:20:25 PM »
I want to read the manga of this at some point.

Junior

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Re: Hold On To Your Butts: Junior Watches All the Things
« Reply #35 on: December 13, 2017, 08:36:19 PM »
Seems like it'd be cool. My criticism of the later movies is that they get a little talky and the pace slows down (especially in the third movie), so I wonder if that's from the manga or just a function of trying to fill out (short) movies with enough to warrant the ticket prices. I also wonder if the kids does more in the manga. There's a limit to his abilities in the films based on his actual kid-ness, it'd be nifty if the manga went further with that character.
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1SO

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Re: Hold On To Your Butts: Junior Watches All the Things
« Reply #36 on: December 13, 2017, 09:20:51 PM »
America solved the talky problem. They took the first three movies and edited them down to a 90 minute orgy of violence called Shogun Assassin. You'd think the story wouldn't make any sense, but trimming it down only hurts the characters, who are now paper thin.

But the blood.

They didn't cut a second of the blood.

I watched this before I watched my first Kurosawa. It spoiled me and I was disappointed by the lack of spray in Yojimbo.

DarkeningHumour

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Re: Hold On To Your Butts: Junior Watches All the Things
« Reply #37 on: December 14, 2017, 04:53:25 AM »
Disregarding and generally forgetting about marathons is the forum's national passtime.

The review was hilarious. « It's a primo gig, but then his wife is murdered and he is framed for treasonous acts and he only gets away because he's the baddest sword in town and slices the fools who killed his wife. »
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Junior

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Re: Hold On To Your Butts: Junior Watches All the Things
« Reply #38 on: January 19, 2018, 12:12:57 PM »
Rebecca

I'd been curious about Rebecca since I heard about it about a decade ago. It doesn't really feel a whole ton like the other Hitchcock films I've seen, it's much more character based than something like North By Northwest. And the romance is a thing I can really believe in for the first time outside of maybe Rear Window. I read the back of the Criterion case and it sounded a heck of a lot like Jane Eyre with the class difference between the man and the woman and the man's mysterious past that haunts his (big and beautiful) house. But this is its own thing, enhanced by some superb acting and Hitchcock's amazing eye for detail and manipulation of the frame.

Lawrence Olivier as Maxim de Winter is a suave, charming dude, clearly born with a silver spoon in his mouth but not so arrogant as to deny his attraction to Joan Fontaine's unnamed character. She's a paid companion to a real piece of work and revels in the opportunity to get away from her employer, first for just a few hours, then for forever. But she finds that Maxim's dead wife, Rebecca, has left her mark all over the glorious Manderley mansion and it really starts to get to her. What happened to Rebecca? What was Maxim's role in everything? And why is he becoming ever more distant from his wife? Hitch plays all of these beats marvelously, and Fontaine's performance is pitch perfect as she gets more and more obsessed with figuring out her new husband's past. Olivier is perfect, too, as he seems to be the height of charm at one moment and then dangerous the next.

Rebecca is a gothic romance, so secrets abound and an air of the macabre hangs over the house too big to really reckon with. A rundown boat house on the beachfront property is overcome with cobwebs and sets the scene for the dramatic showdown between Mrs. de Winter and Maxim. As Maxim tells his story, the camera follows the action in the small, dank house as if Rebecca's ghost were there and replaying her role. It's a wonderful bit of filmmaking that also demonstrates just how powerful memories can be. For Mrs. de Winter, Rebecca's place in the house and in the new Mrs. de Winter's mind has become so strong that she can command the camera to move even though she has died long ago.

There's a big court case that doesn't do much for me except give George Sanders some delightfully smarmy stuff before getting his comeuppance. But the really astounding bit comes at the very end as one housekeeper tries desperately to keep the new Mrs. de Winter from dethroning Rebecca's place in the house and in Maxim's mind. What a spectacular scene of violence and terror! It's filmed in gorgeous, rich black and white, but for that scene alone I wished it was a color film, something big and bright and technicolor. It'd be even more brilliant. As is, though, this is still a new favorite Hitchcock for me, and it's fun to see such a young Olivier showing off his brooding side.

A-
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DarkeningHumour

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Re: Hold On To Your Butts: Junior Watches All the Things
« Reply #39 on: January 20, 2018, 07:34:05 AM »
I have wanted to rewatch Rebecca for two years (but the running time, brr...) and you may have given me the final push. More people need to understand that this is higher Hitchcock.
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