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Over the top of over the top! Flying saucers from outer space…check! Absurd, drug-fueled cartoon characters…check! Thai zombies with exploding heads…check! Loud, fast, distorted rock 'n roll…CHECK! ALL SYSTEMS GO!

We're talking about the lo-fi, lo-budget Wild Zero, the 1999 punk rock Night of The Living Dead starring power trio Guitar Wolf. This Japanese cult film pays homage to all things rock 'n roll filtered through western Pacific sensibilities. Framed within the buzzsaw roars of Guitar Wolf's "jet rock 'n' roll", you're gonna get cars, motorbikes and microphones that spit fire like the 1966 Batmobile! Of course there's the Yakuza and gallons of fake blood! There's even military-grade weaponry that wouldn't seem out of place in Michigan's upper penninsula! Oh, and the soul searching…

It's a bunch of stupid fun for the whole family…if your surname is Addams or Manson! See it!

Love knows no nationalities, genders or borders! Rock and roll!

Saw the 2021 documentary about the life of actor Paul Newman the other day, Pierre-François Gaudry's Paul Newman, derrière les yeux bleus (Paul Newman, Behind Blue Eyes). It's hard not to make a film about Newman's life without sanctifying the man, although he really did come close with all of his humanitarian work aside from all of the iconic roles he'd played in his career. But I'm not here to list his filmography nor his philantrophic endeavors today. Possibly another time.

Something Newman said, it had to be around 1977-1980 (it's unclear from the film exactly when), stuck with me as it's as timely today as it was 40-odd years ago—maybe more so.

It's very hard to take a lot of pride in your craft if the three biggest stars in America are two robots and a shark.

🔗🐒 Hi! I'm the MovieSnob LinkMonkey™! 🔗🐒 Enjoy these Google-free links!

Link 1: A Study of Black and White Filmmaking

Link 2: Film Noir: The Case for Black and White

Have you ever heard somebody say "I can't watch black and white movies?" I have a problem with this. Not because some of the most important movies are in black and white but because black and white can do just as much—if not more—than color.

Thanks, MovieSnob LinkMonkey™! Have a banana! And thanks to YouTube Channel Now You See It for both these videos succinctly and smartly analyzing the use and history of black and white in cinema.

Regarding the above opening quote (from the linked Film Noir video), an excellent recent example of this, forgive me if I'm repeating myself, is Robert Egger's 2019 The Lighthouse.

MovieSnob Ad Warning: as some YT vids are want to do, the first link contains promotional content (translated: advertising) fortunately at the end of the video (roughly at 00:13:14). Act accordingly.

How many buttons does this movie push? The cult of personality. Stalking. Delusional disorder. Prisoner of fame. Local boy makes good. If Travis Bickle had stand-up aspirations. Today in 2023, even though Todd Phillips has already 'fessed up to it, it's hard not to notice the resemblance in Todd Phillips' Joker (2019), especially with De Niro standing in for Jerry Lewis and…himself as the neurotic ~~Bickle~~ Pupkin. Was Scorsese just decades ahead of his time, like with New York, New York? Yes and no.

Although Scorsese himself admits an inspiration from Porter's Life of an American Fireman (1903)^1, in my research neither our director nor any film critics mention the resemblance to Steno's post WWII comedy Un americano a Roma (1954) starring Italian national treasure Alberto Sordi (RIP). Like Scorsese's Pupkin, Steno's Nando Mericoni also has an unrealistic obsession: to be American. Just as delusional as Pupkin, Nando's particular obsession with all things American brings him to the point of speaking English-sounding gibberish: his actual command of the language is almost nonexistent so he babbles to his friends and family in what sounds like American to their ears. He does so at any opportuniy, even when detained in a German prisoner camp during wartime!

Comedian Jerry Lewis plays comedian and Johnny Carson-like late night talk show host Jerry Langford: the duality (irony?) here is that when Langford is off stage Lewis' performance is delivered as serious as the proverbial heart attack. He is a man cornered, seething with a rage, and Lewis shows his dramatic skills brilliantly. Sandra ~~Bernhardt~~ Bernhard as crazed heiress and Langford's other stalker shines hilariously during her scene with her masking-taped hostage. Robert De Niro is just like other NYC natives The Ramones: even when The Ramones covered Louis Armstrong's What A Wonderful World, it was still inescapably The Ramones. This is a role like not quite like other in his repertoire and De Niro tries—and mostly succeeds—as obsessed nebbish Pupkin. But it's still De Niro, a tough and menacing presence and that's hard to reconcile with the Pupkin character.

It's got laughs. Cringey laughs. As is, you'll find yourself laughing at the most uncomfortable things in this film. It could have had more laughs if Scorsese had decided to play it as a straight-up comedy. This is most likely why The King of Comedy flopped at the box office. The tide had turned: the era of The Blockbuster was in full swing and people wanted easier entertainment than the New Hollywood was giving them. Friedkin had spent (and lost) millions with his epic Sorcerer (for another post), Cimino was about to bankrupt United Artists with Heaven's Gate and the New Hollywood was in the process of being shown the door. If Scorsese had gone more Taxi Driver on the treatment and played it straight-up drama, then The King of Comedy might have won Best Picture at the 1983 Academy Awards instead of Joker at the 2020 Oscars®…?

As for the open ending…I've made my own conclusion. You?

Bonus link: Porter's The Life of an American Fireman. See if you can find the inspiration.

La La Land (Damien Chazelle, 2016)

New York, New York (Martin Scorsese, 1977)

~L.A.~ ~Image~ ~by~ ~12019~~,~ ~N.Y.C.~ ~Image~ ~by~ ~Noel~~,~ ~from~ ~Pixabay~~.~

I'd like to thank @wilberfan@lemmy.film for posting this article from the L.A. Times over at !moviesandtv@lemmy.film. A hot topic with some interesting (and less interesting) takes on the subject. This was going to be a mere cross-posting but, of course, you're always going to get your mouth-breathing audience in any discussion regarding the—ugh—superhero genre, so I felt the need to distance myself from that.

Did you not see the name of this community?

While I might admit under pressure to some exaggeration on Prof. emeritus Scorsese's part (it's Martin Scorsese, for Buddha's sake!), he's certainly not wrong. One thing that few have understood, like Scorsese has, is that while cinema has always had cookie-cutter formulas and copycat movies, since the age of the Blockbuster and especially in this age of 3D, AI and algorithms it's all been to reduced to formula. Campbell's Hero's Journey, Save The Cat scriptwriting, Seven Basic Plots, etc. It's just a matter of choosing what color gimpsuit the test audience preferred. Scorsese, when he was making The King of Comedy or New York, New York couldn't forsee the lowest common denominator going so low or so common.

I must mention the comment by @niktemadur@lemmy.world regarding Scorsese's reference to Christopher Nolan. Just in case anyone here can't see it, there is a world of difference between [insert any MCU/DCU/SMU movie] and Nolan's Batman trilogy. Especially with the second entry, The Dark Knight, Nolan elevates the entire genre because Nolan knows what he's doing: he made movies about a comic book character, the others make comic-book movies. Nolan's work is cinematic. The others' are just big, dare I say, hulking. There's just no comparison. It's the difference between Finnegans Wake and Finnegan's corner bar.

@MIDItheKID@lemmy.world commented…

Sure, the Marvel movies pull in more money than other movies, but the money makers are usually trash. Marvel is like the McDonald’s of movies. It’s going to pull in way more money than a fine dining establishment, but not because it’s good, because it’s the garbage that the public will take out their wallet for. There is space in the market for both of these things.

For the most part we're on the same page but there isn't space for both, really. Masked Gimpsuit IV: The Revenge of The Attack of The Revenge is always going to push any smaller (independant) release off cinema screens and (maybe) on to one of the streaming services, if not push them right out of production.

Dopamine hits used to have different flavors. Marketing has discovered dopamine doesn't even have to have a flavor, just get the drip timing right. God is in the details and the details have become flamingos.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.film/post/1319955

What's the connection between the iconic film 2001: A Space Odyssey and art-house purveyors The Criterion Collection? It may seem the obvious link is direct, that 2001 is part of the Criterion Collection but that's not the case—Criterion offers five of Kubrick's works and 2001 isn't among them. The connection is a terrible little English B movie from 1964 titled Devil Doll. This low-budget horror film stars Bryant Haliday, William Sylvester and Yvonne Romain but it's the first two names we're interested in today.

Bryant Haliday, in 1959 with business partner Cyrus Harvey, Jr, founded Janus Films, an American film distribution company famous for essentially creating the American market for foreign film. Janus Films imported and distributed some the most iconic films to be created outside of American borders. Ultimately, riding out the wave of success the partners sold Janus Films in 1965, with present-day Criterion doing the distribution of the Janus Films library.

On the other hand, William Sylvester, the "token American"" in many British productions in the 1950s and 1960s, portrayed Dr Heywood Floyd in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Permit me an aside: personally speaking, I always thought Sylvester had the makings of a bigger career. He certainly was handsome and talented enough, maybe with a small streak of ham in him. Even after his appearance in 2001 he (and/or his agent) never made the jump to bigger and better things, remaining in mostly smaller films and one-off television roles on both sides of the ocean.

But back to our nexus at hand. Despite any positive reviews you may have read, I can't recommend this film even at a historic level. Usually I'll try to identify with the era of a film but even so in this case, Rod Serling did this type of thing better with one hand tied behind his back. In fact, he did…twice[^1][^2]! That's what Devil Doll feels like: a Twilight Zone episode that goes on far too long. Apparently film critic Leonard Maltin (who?) found the film "…An exquisitely tailored, sharply edited sleeper." Well, I'll grant you the sleeper bit.

Prepare to not be scared. For your snoozing pleasure MovieSnob Horror Theatre presents the wasted opportunity Devil Doll! Waste an hour and twenty minutes of your precious time…if you dare!

[^1]: "The Twilight Zone," The Dummy (TV Episode 1962) - IMDb

[^2]: "The Twilight Zone," Caesar and Me (TV Episode 1964) - IMDb

Spike Lee's 1989 masterpiece. One of the best films in the history of cinema. Yeah, you heard me. I defy you to cite an example of a more powerful film. The story and the cinematography (not to mention the actors' performances) with Lee's vision deliver a 1-2 knockout to the gut then to the head that leaves the viewer reeling. Nobody's right in this film. Nobody's wrong either. Everybody's a villian and a hero. We all have our shining moments sometimes. And it all still rings frightfully true today.

We've got five great films here, and they're great for one reason: because they tell the truth. But there is one film missing from this list, that deserves to be on it, because ironically, it might tell the biggest truth of all, and that's Do the Right Thing.

—Kim Basinger, from her presentation of Best Picture nominees at the 1990 Academy Awards

I leave you with the closing quotes…

Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by destroying itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.

—Martin Luther King, Jr

I think there are plenty of good people in America, but there are also plenty of bad people in America and the bad ones are the ones who seem to have all the power and be in these positions to block things that you and I need. Because this is the situation, you and I have to preserve the right to do what is necessary to bring an end to that situation, and it doesn't mean that I advocate violence, but at the same time I am not against using violence in self-defense. I don't even call it violence when it's self-defense, I call it intelligence."

—Malcolm X

Your call. Do the right thing.

Bambini e bambine, don't worry. The King will be back in the skyrise offices of MovieSnob HQ in a day or so. Baci!

Forget about plastic dolls come to life, puffy-faced 60-year-old men jumping around in front of greenscreens and American 20^th^ century witchhunts! If you click the image next to the post title, you can watch the original summer blockbuster, the first epic movie (sez Scorsese), one of the first colossal films, 1914's Cabiria by Giovanni Pastrone in 720HD! All this and an accompanying soundtrack, yet!

If we wanna push definitions, it's one of the first superhero movies or, with less definition pushing, the first "action hero" movie, introducing the perennial Italian-cinema superman, nascent cinema's Arnold Schwarzenegger, Maciste!

Besides inspiring the later American epics of D.W. Griffith, Cabiria also gave birth to the (by today's standards) simple idea of putting the camera on wheels (dollying), henceforth naming said camera technique "the Cabiria shot."

Even more impressive, generations raised on weak scientists turning into giant, green musclemen or wisecracking, belligerent raccoons would do well to note, the sets in Cabiria were not 3D nor miniatures[^note]. Those babies were either constructed, old school, life-size! or shot on location, taking advantage of the Roman Empire's slave labor hundreds of years earlier, thus getting around various unions and guilds—that's a IATSE joke. Among the most impressive are the scenes of Mount Etna's eruption and ensuing destruction, and most famously, the temple of Moloch and the human sacrifice!

• Yes, it's in (gasp!) black and white, although this copy is hand tinted. Pretty!

• No, the intertitles are in Italian but never fear: the King Mongoose has a link for you all to an English-language version from our friends at The Internet Archive. Unfortunately, it's at a lower resolution and no accompanying soundtrack.

• Yes, this version comes in at 02:34:22 and isn't exactly paced like a Fast and Furious movie. Set the video to 1.5x speed if you get fidgety; oddly enough, the film doesn't suffer but the soundtrack may seem a little frenetic. YMMV.

[^note]: That is not to say miniatures were not used among the few cinematic tricks, to wit, the film's eruption of Mount Etna, coupled with double exposure.

I have a confession to make that may disturb many of you. I've tried to combat this aversion but have failed, so now I have to live with it. Let me don my Kevlar™ vest. Take a deep breath and…

I generally don't like anime. I find it mostly boring and repetitive. If you've seen one giant robot…

You must have heard this one knock knock joke regarding a banana before. You must have. Oh, well…

  Knock knock
  Who's there?
  Banana
  Banana who?
  Knock knock
  Who's there?
  Banana
  Banana who??
  Knock knock
  Who's there?
  Banana
  Banana who???
  Knock knock
  Who's there?
  Banana
  Banana who?!?

…this charming exercise goes on ad nauseum until the racconteur decides to finish with…

  Knock knock
  Who's there?
  Orange
  Orange who?
  Orange ya glad I didn't say Banana?!

…and that, mes ami, is how I perceive most anime.

Why did I call you all here today? To talk about Paprika (2006) by Satoshi Kon, produced by Madhouse animation studio. It's a wild, wobbly, surreal ride into the world of dreams. I'm not going to say it's anime cliché-free: just as American or Indian cinema have their own formulaic bromides—stylistic or cultural—Nipponic cinema, especially anime, also has its own. There's no escaping your roots.

The plot is a science-fiction police procedural: Tokita—a cartoonish, morbidly obese, bumbling engineering genius—invents a headset device dubbed the DC Mini for an unnamed firm headed by The Chairman, who—get this—is literally confined to a wheelchair. So far, so anime. The DC Mini headset allows dream co-habitation between two or more wearers (theoretically, doctor and patient); the psychiatrist (headset wearer no. 1) may enter and influence a (headset wearer no. 2) patient's REM dream state to better study the patient's psyche. The DC Mini is still in prototype stage, all its security precautions haven't yet been worked out, and of course multiple headsets have been stolen. Someone is trying to control everybody's dreams. It's up to the other protagonists, mainly Detective Konakawa, Dr. Chiba and her dream alter ego, Paprika, to solve the mystery.

While the idea is high-concept science-fiction, the story itself isn't much deeper than your typical manga[^1]—the film is based on 1993 novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui—nor is the style anything you haven't seen before in anime. For the given subject matter, the art direction is quite linear and not at all abstract nor dreamlike. But it's Kon's presentation that gives it its depth. The dream sequences that unexpectedly weave in and out of the film's reality are intriguing enough; the opening titles are a wonderful example as is the hilarious shot of a line of salarymen, in tribute to Esther Williams, that take a nosedive off of an office building! But the main event is "The Festival", a fever-dream mad parade that extends to the horizon of marching refrigerators, medical simulation mannequins, waving neko cats, golden Buddhas, dolls dolls and more dolls and just about every other absurdity in a never-ending parade. Everything ebbs and flows like made of soft putty.

It is impossible not to make the connection between this film and Nolan's later Inception (2010). Paprika had to be an inspiration to Nolan (and apparently your King presumes correctly).

For such a surreal premise, it's paradoxically grounded and straightforward; it's closer in spirit to Vanilla Sky than Mulholland Drive. The film's broadstroke characters, its resolution and the ending were all a bit…anime…for my tastes (there's no escaping kaiju or mecha in Japanimation, I suppose). But forgiving all that, Paprika is still entertaining and definitely worth seeing at very least for its spectacular eye candy. So, for now you can keep your Akiras, your Evangelions and your Cowboy Bebops. But I am all about Paprika!

[^1]: Relax, I know saying your typical manga means nothing as there are hundreds of different genres. Nevertheless, admit it, you're not normally going to find Sartre-, Hemingway- or Dostoevsky-level literature in your average comic book/manga/fumetto/whatever. No matter how much incest or revenge you want to infuse, it still ain't Shakespeare.