Du bi quan wang da po xue di zi - Master of the Flying Guillotine - Yu Wang - HK - (1975)

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072913/ 

Plot by Imdb: The one-armed boxer is stalked by a vengeful flying guillotine expert, after his disciples were killed in the first 'One-Armed Boxer' film...

One of the best kung-fu flick EVER ! Really funky & over the top all the way.

Not much of a storyline here, a revenge path, a bloodsport-like tournament and some crazy fights, HK style. The fun factor comes from the weaponry and the crazy 70's style of the movie. The main villain, the master of the flying guillotine, is really outrageously dressed, with a complete Buddhist monk robe, huge eyebrows (as usual), and a swastika sign  around his torso (this has not the same connotation for Asians as for Europeans of course, swastika is still used there as a religious symbol). The fights are nicely done, and quite entertaining, thanks to the different styles presented: Thai boxing, Indian Kalaripayattu (with extending arms !!!!), Mongolian wrestling, monkey kung-fu, Japanese sword-fighting, you name it !

Of course, the real heroe here is the Flying guillotine, apparently a real weapon used in the YongZheng era !

Nice treat for the 70's electro-rock fanatics, like myself, during the flashy opening credits, there is a crazy tune by NEI!, a german band that could be compared to Tangerine Dream...Of course,  the chinese producers had not purchase the rights and, due to complaints, it was removed in some later releases of the movie. (the US dvd version still has it). I choose a trailer with this music, because it was such a shock to me the first time I saw it. Enjoy !

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

The Mystery of the Leaping Fish - C. Cabanne & J.Emerson - Silent - USA - (1916)

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0007108/

Plot by Imdb: Coke Ennyday, the scientific detective, divides his own time in periods for "Sleep", "Eat", "Dope" and "Drink". In fact he's used to overcome every situation with drugs: consuming it to increase his energies or injecting it in his opponents to KO them. To help the police he discovers a contraband of opium (which he eagerly tastes) transported with "Leaping Fishes", and the blackmail of a mysterious man who wants to marry the "fish blower" girl. Will Coke be able to free the girl ? 

While Europe was busy killing half of its male population, Hollywood was high on cocaine, making crazy comedy about it. Great gem from the silent area, Douglas Fairbanks & Bessie Love + Todd Browning at the script...Nice to see that Hollywood was at that time already hooked on drugs...Not a great surprise to anyone, I guess. Great interpretation by Fairbanks, who is unstoppable as the junky detective and dance around like a madman, every chance he's got. Story really doesn't matter much, but some nice ideas and a real feeling of freedom in this movie. Really vintage wackiness....

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Die Antwoord - Fucked up HipHop from South Africa (with Progeria in it)

 (I humbly bow to the extreme weirdness of my lifelong best friend Alexis, who still manage to amaze me with his bizarre findings - helped by Jaimie in his quest of the insanely deviant. Thanks mates !)

Be afraid....Be very afraid...

The Ninja "hit":

Die Antwoord 

The Book of Orgasmo - 40 minutes Doc

A doc about "Orgasmo", the second movie from genius duo Matt Stone & Trey Parker ! Made my day !!

("whooo ! Assfuck twins !!")

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4

For the fools out there, who have NOT seen this movie, here is the trailer (you HAVE to see it, if you want to go on reading my blog...I'm not kidding...It's like...mandatory.)

Soy Cuba - Mikhail Kalatozov - Cuba/URSS - (1964)

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058604/ 

Plot from Imdb: "Four vignettes in Batista's Cuba dramatize the need for revolution; long, mobile shots tell almost wordless stories..."

Where to start ? To begin with, it's a movie from genius director M.Kalatozov, who won the Palme d'Or in Cannes in 1958 for "The cranes are flying", another great movie. But "Soy Cuba" is a tremendous leap forward, because it contains almost all of the modern cinema techniques. Some shot are so innovative for that time, it's almost unbelievable. It starts with a slowly moving, grand angle sequence, in a pirogue, it cuts to one of the most famous scene of this movie, the "wild capitalist party" sequence shot, that starts in a hotel roof to end IN a pool, ten floors below. And so on, and so on...I could tell you also about the "procession" sequence, with "flying cameras", etc... but there is no end to it. It goes on and on, it's mesmerizing and overwhelming. This movie has been shelved during years by the communist authorities, that though that it didn't do its works well as a piece of propaganda (the "wild capitalist party" looks great, I must say), therefore nobody knew about this movie until Francis Ford Coppola & Martin Scorsese found it, restored it and distributed it. Thanks to these greats directors, we can at last see this masterpiece !

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

trailer: 

Roof-pool sequence shot:

CHOPPER - Andrew Dominik - Australia - (2000)

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0221073/ 

Plot from Imdb: Chopper tells the intense story of Mark "Chopper" Read, a legendary criminal who wrote his autobiography while serving a jail sentence in prison. His book, "From the Inside", upon which the film is based, was a best-seller.

Great Insane movie about a legendary man, Mark "Chopper" Read. After watching the movie, I was so much interested in the character that I bought his first book and read it. And it's fucking hilarious...You can't believe the shit this man has been through but it helps to understand why he sometimes acts so roughly. A one of a kind criminal, he attacked, tortured and robbed- or killed drug dealers & other fellow criminals only. Never laid a finger on a "civilian".  That's nice for us. My kind of criminal: a hardcore gangster, with a code. I guess everyone has to live by a code.

Andrew Dominik's movie, thanks to the AMAZING performance by Eric Bana , is really great and does the book justice. Just go & watch it, it's an all time classic crime/prison movie !

Cheers, mates !

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 The real Mark "Chopper" Read:

 

And for those of you,  rapists & woman bashing pieces of shit, a warning from Chopper:

The Trip - Roger Corman - USA - (1967)

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062395/ 

Plot by Imdb: Paul Groves (Peter Fonda), a television commercial director, is in the midst of a personality crisis. His wife Sally (Susan Strasberg) has left him and he seeks the help of his friend John (Bruce Dern), a self-styled guru who's an advocate of LSD. Paul asks John to be the guide on his first "trip". John takes Paul to a "freak-out" at his friend Max's (Dennis Hopper) pad. Splitting the scene, they score some acid from Max and return to John's split-level pad with an indoor pool. Paul experiences visions of sex, death, strobe lights, flowers, dancing girls, witches, hooded riders, a torture chamber, and a dwarf. He panics but John tells him to "go with it, man." Would you trust John? 

Roger Corman is my MAN ! Peter Fonda in the main role and a script by Jack Nicholson (you can laugh), it's written you'll end up with a weird movie for sure. Did I mentioned Dennis Hooper as an Acid Freak Master (this guy is a republican, now ? Come on !) ?  The plot is really funny because it's very cliché, everything is what you'd expect to see from a movie about the "LSD experience", a very incommunicable experience indeed. The hallucinations sequences are hilarious, specially the "middle-age" part (as the dwarf say in "Living in Oblivion": Have you ever had a dream with a dwarf in it? Do you know anyone who's had a dream with a dwarf in it? No! I don't even have dreams with dwarves in them. The only place I've seen dwarves in dreams is in stupid movies like this! "Oh make it weird, put a dwarf in it!". Everyone will go "Woah, this must be a fuckin' dream, there's a fuckin' dwarf in it!".) And there is a dwarf in it. And hooded riders. Year I know. Hallucinations are not what they used to be.