Lost In Translation

Kujira

I've been meaning to check out Kujira, a curry shop in Koenji. I went with the keema curry for ¥800. It was good but very mild, I noticed the chicken curry and two flavor curry were much spicier-so next time I'll try one of those.

Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart In The Land Of Demons

Kenji Misumi returns to the director's chair for the fifth Lone Wolf and Cub, Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart In The Land Of Demons (1973), sadly for his second to last film before his death. I think there is something about films that were directed by Misumi that show he is more than a mere action film hack-the exquisite framing effective use of the lush summer time background with all its brilliant greens is something to behold. I should take a moment and point out his cinematographer, Fujio Morita, as well. Of course Misumi is also adept in coming up with more unusual ways for villains to be dispatched and for the blood to be spurted in new and unusual ways.

Tower

Keith Maitland's documentary on the 1967 University of Texas Tower shootings, Tower (2016) is compelling and original. Maitland has shot the reenactments as animation sequences instead of using actor to act them out. He talks with victims, police officers, and others who were that day to give  comprehensive picture of how people were effected by the first mass shooting on a school campus-something that has been going on for 50 years since then as shown in a montage sequence at the end of the film.

Writers At The Movies: Part Two

There's a couple other films that I would not have watched had it not been for essay that were included in Writers At The Movies. The first was Stevie (1978) directed by Robert Enders starring Glenda Jackson in the role of the poet Stevie Smith that she mastered on the stage in its play form. There was a very comprehensive essay about the film production by poet Edward Hirsch-I was not so familiar with Smith-although I have heard of her and she seemed to have written some interesting poems (Including one about a man in the water who was not waving, but drowning), but my interest was no way as strong as Hirsch's.

The other film I was compelled to see was Edmund Gouling's anti-war WWI aviation film The Dawn Patrol (1938). It owes most of its charm to the paring of Errol Flynn and David Niven as the charismatic fly-boys who know how to have a good time. The film's message is not so different from that of other films such as Gallipoli-the waste of young lives by the military officers who see it as an abstraction and are far removed from the human cost of war. Philip Levine is another poet and has gone back to see if the film stands up to the memory of his youth when he first saw the film-it is clear that he enjoyed the blast form the past..

Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in Peril

The fourth Lone Wolf and Cub film of 1972, Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart in Peril was directed by Buichi Saito and marks a departure in several ways. This film is more exploitative sexually with the character O-Yuki who bares her breasts and front and back tattoos when fighting to distract her opponents. She is seeking vengeance for a rape she endured and eventually succumbs to Ogami (Tomisaburo Wakayama). This film also is significant for having master cinematographer Kazuao Miyagawa (He has worked with Mizoguchi, Kurosawa, Ichikawa, and filmed several Zatoichi films in the past) at the helm for a more stylized visual style. The film also has a more funky 70s soundtrack score this time around. There is another ridiculous climatic battle against all odds at the end and once again Ogami uses his crude Gatling gun to reduce the numbers before he dispatches the rest by hand to hand combat.  Unrealistic, perhaps, but it is good fun after all.

Get Out

Jordan Peele has created a very original horror film in Get Out (2017), which is also a satire about racial relations in America. Things get seriously strange when Daniel Kaluuya (Chris) goes to his white girl friend's, (Alison Williams) house for a weekend visit. I don't want to give anything away about the story, but it is a well-made and highly original horror film. I am curious to see what Peele will do next.