YOURS TRULY CHATS ABOUT THE STREET FIGHTER (1974)

Friend and filmmaker Bill Scurry tapped Yer Bunche for NO TALKING DURING THE MOVIES, an internet series wherein various pop culture pundits talk about movies that they're passionate about but that the general public might not be familiar with, and of the many films I could have spoken on a length, I went straight for THE STREET FIGHTER. Regular readers of this blog are already well aware of my high regard for that chopsocky landmark, a film I have often cited as my favorite martial arts movie that takes place in a contemporary context rather than a classical period setting, and when allowed to expound on it for Bill's series I went off for a little over forty solid minutes. What you'll see below is a very short version of my fervid pro-Sonny Chiba rant and I hope to eventually be able to post the full-length shebang. Enjoy!

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER (2014)

It’s two years after the events of MARVEL’S THE AVENGERS and Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) — aka Captain America — continues fighting for his country (and the greater good in general) as an operative of S.H.I.E.L.D. while also struggling with adjusting to being a living anachronism who’s been time-displaced by seven decades. Partnered with veteran super-spy the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and a crack team of the hardest of hardcore special ops soldiers, Cap and crew storm a hijacked ship to rescue the ransomed innocents onboard, but during the mission Cap discovers the Widow acting on a separate and rather shady mission that he was not made aware of. That discovery puts him at odds with S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), who, seeing Cap’s discomfort with possessing a strong sense of morality that runs counter to a career in the sometimes-nasty world of international espionage, clues him in on Operation: Insight, a government initiative that will put three new heavily-armed heli-carriers in the air, each ready to rock some heavy-duty ordnance on the nation’s enemies before they have a chance to actually get up to anything. Cap, being the true blue guy that he is, states that he’s all for fighting in the name of freedom, but this latest plan reads not as freedom but as a means of imposing order by means of devastating, practically-applied preemptive fear-mongering. While Cap stews over his disgust with S.H.I.E.L.D. and his own role in furthering their agenda, Fury, to his horror, discovers that S.H.I.E.L.D.’s security protocols have been compromised and the control of Operation: Insight is in the wrong hands. Fury soon finds himself targeted by unknown foes that dispatch a legendary, highly skilled, bionic-armed — and apparently un-aging — assassin known as the Winter Soldier, and calling the resulting takedown brutal would be a gross understatement. With Fury taken off the board, Cap, the Widow, and para-rescue veteran/PTSD counselor Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) — known to longtime comics readers as the Falcon — must ass-kick their way through a maze of intrigue and low-down treachery that leads to the highest levels of government, and whatever the outcome, things will never be the same for any of the players.

That’s really as much as I can say about the plot without giving away its intricacies and surprises, but I will say that I greatly enjoyed the film. It’s every bit as good as its predecessor, only with the WWII period flavor replaced with that of a political/espionage thriller, and with the action cranked up considerably. With Cap’s origin out of the way, the movie’s main thrust it to take the audience along with the most moral of heroes on a journey through the murkiest waters of the global spookshow as filtered through the sensibilities of the Marvel Universe. A few notes:

•  The heartbreaking return of Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell). She last saw Cap in 1944 and did not have the benefit of being frozen along with him. You do the math…
• Spectacular fight choreography that lets us see how well Cap fights when not relying solely on his shield-slinging chops. The fight in a crowded elevator, in which Cap decimates close to a dozen counter-terrorism hardcores and regular S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and the in-the-street battle against the Winter Soldier are standouts that had the audience cheering. 

Mess with the best, lose like the rest.

• More quality ass-whuppery from the Black Widow.
• The Falcon finally being rendered in a way that made me care about him as a character, something that was long overdue, especially since he shared Cap’s monthly comics series as his partner for a number of years in the 1970s.
• The live-action debut of Batroc (Georges St-Pierre), and the man can fight like an utter sumbitch.
• Robert Redford as Alexander Pierce, the man who hired Nick Fury as director of S.H.I.E.L.D. The last guy I ever expected to see in a Marvel Comics movie, Redford’s terrific and totally believable. 

• I saw the film in 2D and nothing that I saw appeared to be specifically geared for the 3D effect, so I suggest you opt for the 2D and save yourself the extra bucks.
• As expected, the movie features two Easter eggs at the end; one immediately after the main cast credits that prefigures the next AVENGERS installment, and one at the very end that looks to be an element that will be pursued in Cap’s next solo outing.
• Based on the strength of this entry, I’m very interested in seeing where Captain America’s solo adventures go from here, especially now that he’s partnered with the Falcon.

 I saw the film at the Marvel Comics company screening with a number of friends and former colleagues, and several of those comics veterans hailed CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER as the best Marvel movie yet. That opinion was espoused by people who would not say that in order to tow the company line, so take it for what it’s worth.

Yours Truly, at the Marvel Comics screening at the Ziegfeld. The shield belongs to a super-fan whom I've seen at the NY Comic Con several times over the years, and all of the signatures of comics luminaries are authentic.

JODOROWSKY'S DUNE (2013)

If it plays at a schmancy art theater anywhere near you, run, don't walk, to see JODOROWSKY'S DUNE, a documentary on the ultra-psychedelic director's abortive attempt to get his vision of Frank Herbert's science-fiction classic to the screen, with collaborators Moebius, Chris Foss, Dan O'Bannon, Salvador Dali, Pink Floyd, Magma, and H.R. Giger. I'm a huge fan of his movies — especially THE HOLY MOUNTAIN and SANTA SANGRE — but the documentary was not at all what I expected, because it is hands down the funniest account of the making of a film that I have ever seen. First of all, Jodorwsky hadn't even bothered to read the book when he launched the project, and at one point he describes his process as "raping Frank Herbert...but with love." A compelling look at what happens when an ambitious artist seeks to craft a project that will utterly change the horizons of film while granting its audience some form of enlightenment through a movie that sought to emulate the effects of an LSD trip without actual hallucinogens, viewers will find themselves rooting for the director's utterly bonkers plan, though it's obvious that no Hollywood studio in 1975 would have funded a 20-hour (!!!) film that would obviously cause a tidal wave of hemorrhaging cash. I could say more — a LOT more — but this documentary is best seen with as little foreknowledge of its content as possible. It's complete madness, thoroughly entertaining, fucking hilarious, and it gets my HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION.

A TRAILER THAT BLEW MY MIND

When I first saw this trailer back in 1988, it spurred me on a six-year quest to find the movie in question, which I finally managed to do when it turned up among VHS tapes relegated to the for-sale bin in a porno store that fell victim to the cleaning up/complete and utter ruination of NYC's legendarily sleazy Times Square area. Watch this and tell me that you would not have been intrigued. I was not disappointed when I finally got to watch this movie on home video,  but I deeply regret not having the opportunity to see in that 42nd Street theater that ran nothing but worn-out prints of martial arts movies 24/7.

COMING SOON: '80's-style indie horror returns with ALMOST HUMAN

Last night I attended the FANGORIA screening of ALMOST HUMAN, a terrific indie shocker that proves conclusively that people who care to can work miracles on a shoestring budget. It's an homage to '80's-style splattery horror, fused with lashings of alien invasion tropes, gore provided via practical effects — lots of it and not a trace of CGI — INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, alien abduction tropes, and a number of other influences, all used to pitch-perfect effect, and there's even a very rude bit of what could be considered R-rated tentacle porn. It comes out as a VOD on Friday via a number of sources and I strongly urge you to see it for yourself. If you're tired of the pussified bullshit that passes for horror in this sorry and largely-toothless era, I promise you will not be disappointed by ALMOST HUMAN. Check back here in a few days and I'll have a full review. 

Oh, and my buddy Chuck Doherty is part of the cast! (No, he does not provide the aforementioned tentacle.) 

MIRANDA (1948)

The one and only Glynis Johns as Miranda, a lonely mermaid who's out to catch herself a man.

Ever since I was a little boy I have loved and been fascinated by the lore of the mermaid, an interest likely sparked by the adorable Neptina, the tastefully topless half-fish girlfriend of early anime hero Marine Boy. I was one of the rare little boys who never found girls to be "icky," so I was fascinated by the female from Day One, plus I had a deep interest in aquatic lifeforms that led my earliest job aspirations to lean toward marine biology, so the concept of a magical creature that combined my two loves into one was bound to appeal. From the early days of watching Marine Boy and Neptina "fighting evil 'neath the sea," I moved on to reading world mythology and absorbing the many cultural variations on the mermaid, and as I got older I sought out any movies that had to do with them, nearly all of which revolved around mermaids falling in love with men from the surface world. The list of the genuinely good films in this niche category is rather small and until now I held the Daryl Hannah vehicle SPLASH! (1983) as the exemplar of the form, but now that I've seen Britain's 1948 cult classic MIRANDA (based on a stage play by Peter Blackmore), Madison's reign is over and her Cornish predecessor has taken her place in my heart and mind.

Dr. Paul Martin (Griffith Jones) fails to entice his wife, Clare (Googie Withers), into joining him for a fishing trip to Cornwall, so he leaves by himself for a bachelor's holiday. While out angling in a boat, Paul's line is snared by what he presumes to be a very large fish and he is pulled overboard, where he is promptly seized and spirited away to the underwater cave of Miranda Trewella (Glynis Johns), a lonely mermaid who's looking for a man — she'd previously caught other men but threw them back because they were too short — and instantly takes a liking to the married doctor. She makes it very clear that she intends to keep the doctor forever and he is absolutely not immune to her considerable charms while stuck in her hideout (despite his love of his wife, which he immediately tells Miranda about), so, understanding Paul's fidelity (which is fighting a losing battle against her otherworldly allure), Miranda agrees to set him free, provided he takes her back to London with him for a three-week stay. She wants to see and experience all of the things she's read about in books and magazines found mostly on ships, and she would be willing to pretend to be an invalid during her stay, covering her fish tail with long dresses and blankets while riding around in a wheelchair or being carried. Paul agrees to her request and brings the beautiful creature to the London flat that he shares with his wife and their live-in servants, butler/chauffeur Charles (David Tomlinson) and maid Betty (Yvonne Owen), with Miranda playing the role of a patient who needs Paul's care over a specifically-stated period of three weeks. 

During the course of her stay, every male that she meets is completely enthralled with Miranda and not one of them stands a chance against her spell (though Paul puts up the most resistance). She bewitches Charles — who's engaged to Betty — and Nigel (John McCallum), an artist who's betrothed to Clare's best friend, snobbish hat designer Isobel (Sonia Holm), and enters into affairs with both, which of course results in all sorts of romantic mishegoss that postwar British society found scandalous and wholly inappropriate. Yet as all of this extracurricular spit-swapping occurs with the two mesmerized young men — and, to a certain extent, Paul as well — Miranda remains as sweet as honey and it's impossible to hate her for what appears to be simple (albeit powerful) sex appeal, and not even the women whose men she's stealing really hold it against her (their ire is instead directed at their helpless paramours). Especially not Clare, who eventually twigs to Miranda's secret, realizes there's some form of magic involved in all of the seduction going on, and settles back with an amused eye to watch what she knows will be an inevitable emotional train wreck (or as much of an emotional train wreck as the British stiff upper lip of 1948 would allow). It all amounts to a (mostly) one-set sex farce that leads to a rather surprising ending, especially for a film of its vintage and country of origin.

MIRANDA is a delight from start to finish and it wastes absolutely no time in getting the ball rolling, with Miranda coming into the narrative about two minutes after the opening credits. Highlights include:

• The eerie-but-charming siren song that Miranda sings at night, a strange melody heard by the entire household.
• The depiction of Clare and her performance by Googie Withers. It would have been easy to portray Clare as a shrewish wife who sought to tear down the invalid Miranda for her obvious effect on Paul, but Clare is both very smart and realistic, gradually realizing there's more going on than her husband's head, and the heads of the other men, being turned by a pretty wheelchair-bound girl. A refreshing change from what's expected in this kind of scenario.
• Miranda's adventures around London while chauffeured by the increasingly-smitten Charles, especially her argument with a sea lion after she orally catches and swallows a fish meant for it during feeding time, an argument loudly conducted in fluent sea lion, no less.
• Miranda's prodigious appetite and consumption of raw seafood.
• Miranda revealing in a throwaway line that she is the bastard daughter of her mermaid mother and a Covent Garden chorus boy named Matthew Trewella.
• British cinema legend Margaret Rutherford as Nurse Carey, the health care professional whom Paul brings in to attend to Miranda's "special needs" who is ideally suited to the case, thanks to her "eccentric" nature. She believes in mythical creatures, so her reaction to the reveal of Miranda being a living, breathing mermaid is one of utter delight, so it is never in doubt that she will keep Miranda's secret.
• The early pairing of Glynis Johns and David Tomlinson, some sixteen years before they were cast as Mr. and Mrs. Banks in the Disney classic MARY POPPINS. Witnessing a still-gentlemanly Tomlinson overcome with lust for the lovely mermaid and losing his battle with himself is very funny.
• The running gag involving Miranda treating the Martin's well-populated fishbowl as a candy dish. At the beginning of the film there are around ten fish in the bowl. By the end...not so much.
• As her time on land grows short, Miranda gifts her three men with neck-worn tokens containing locks of her hair, in celebration and remembrance of "a love that might have been."
• The scandalous notion that Miranda, while owning other undergarments, does not own a single pair of panties, much to the shock of Clare and her maid.
• "Sea Cow?!!? SHE KNOWS!!! If you think you're going to take a peek at my tail, you're very much mistaken!"
• Miranda's tail, which looks exceptionally realistic when its seen flopping about in water. The tail is even afforded an onscreen credit for its maker, namely Dunlop.
• The black and white photography lends the story a dreamlike aesthetic that greatly benefits the proceedings.

One of the things that most fascinates me about this film is that when looked at from the point of view of a rather jaded audience member some 65 years after its release, it's fun to ponder just how risque this movie must have been when it hit the U.K.'s screens during its original release. For one thing, you get a mermaid who's topless when she's seen in the water (though her hair is always strategically placed), and piled on top of that there are several references to fish (and their smell) and wetness that bear intentionally vulgar connotations, and Miranda's sweet-faced, very matter-of-fact sexual aggressiveness, which brings me to the film's ending.

WARNING!!! HERE THERE BE SPOILERS!!!

Far from being merely the male sex fantasy adventures of a beautiful horny mermaid on the loose, Miranda's sexual campaign is revealed near the end of the film to be her acting not only on her personal loneliness, but also taking action to ensure the survival of her species. She earlier states that her mother had an affair with a human man, and she also mentions that mermen do exist but their unattractive looks make them unappealing to her — and presumably other females of her species — so she's opted to mate outside of the more obvious choice, and her dalliances with the three men under her thrall are an effort to widen the genetic options. It's never explicitly stated as such, but that's exactly what's going on. And while the goal of conceiving a child out of wedlock via three different men was probably scandalous enough for its era, an aspect that absolutely would never have flown in an American film, it's the film's very last shot that really raises eyebrows. When Miranda escapes back to the sea after Clare subtly calls her out for being a mermaid — and there is no malice about that; Clare is fascinated, but she wants to make the discovery public, which Miranda (and Paul) is not at all thrilled about — we see Miranda swim away, after which there is a flash-forward that shows a very happy Miranda on the shores of Majorca with a mer-baby on her lap. So in a film made by one of the most propriety-obsessed European societies during the postwar/pre-Profumo era, we get a feel-good story about a hot chick who gets knocked up by one of three possible babydaddies and we're happy to see the unashamed result.

How in hell did they get away with that in a 1948 British comedy, and did it ever get an American release? (I'm guessing that it was okay by virtue of Miranda not being a human woman, but even so it's still a bit of a shocker for its time.)

The movie is dominated by the performance of Glynis Johns as Miranda, and I defy you to find any straight guy who wouldn't willingly end up a slave to the character. She's beautiful, dryly funny, has eyes that draw one in like quicksand, has charm to spare, and she's horny as hell in a classy British way. And while Miranda is a natural-born seducer — which may be magically assisted, though it's never explicitly spelled out — and knows full well that's she's messing with men who are all involved in very committed relationships, she doesn't have a malicious bone in her body, so her man-stealing ways are impossible to hate, especially once we get that she's doing what she's doing by way of acting on a biological imperative. In short, she's an ideal fantasy creation who carries equal irresistible appeal for both adults and kids. This movie can be run for kids and not be considered salacious because when viewed through innocent eyes, Miranda's romantic entanglements can be seen as simply kissing and such, the kind of thing that mermaids get up to in even G-rated kiddie flicks, and the scene fades out during the three instances when it's obvious to adult audience members that the Beast with Two Backs is about to be made. (Don't ask me exactly what the logistics of achieving successful intercourse between a human male and a mermaid may be in this specific instance. Unlike Madison in SPLASH!, Miranda does not have the ability to become bipedal below the waist, so I'd say that magic is a definite factor here. That, or a process similar to the fishy mating process involving the female's eggs being fertilized by the male's milt, which when translated to this sort of scenario would amount to bukkake, which is something best not thought about in this movie's charming context.)

MIRANDA proved popular enough to generate a Technicolor sequel, MAD ABOUT MEN (1954), which brought back Glynis Johns and Margaret Rutherford, but it appears to be unavailable on DVD in an official release, either domestically or in a foreign edition. That makes me quite sad because I loved MIRANDA and I've read several reviews that cite MAD ABOUT MEN as being superior to the original, so I'm anxious to see it. Anyway, take my word for it and check out MIRANDA for yourself. It's a rare and unique treasure. I would love to see it rediscovered because it really is a classic deserving of wider recognition on these shores. (Then again, the one possible negative byproduct of MIRANDA getting rediscovered is that some Hollywood douchebag will greenlight an unnecessary remake, replete with modern day raunchy humor and fart gags, so maybe it's better off staying in relative obscurity.)

Poster from the original theatrical release.

RIFFTRAX LIVE: SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS (1964/2013)

Last night I went to the Rifftrax live screening of the classic seasonal bad movie SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS (1964) with three friends, and we had a blast.

For those not in the know, SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS is a cheapjack kiddie movie that played annually for ages on the now defunct kiddie movie matinee circuit, and it was in that context that I saw it several times during my childhood. Even as a wee moppet I knew it was a piece of shit, but I saw it numerous times during those days because it was always part of an all-day movie show where parents could drop off the little ones for three full features and a number of cartoons  and short subjects, giving mom and dad time in which to sleep, fuck, get wasted, have marriage-ending fights without the kids around, or a combination of some or all of the aforementioned activities. As a kid I found it an insult to my intelligence but as I got older and my fascination with bad movies blossomed, it took on a luster that few of the bad kiddie movies I endured could match. Its narrative of a party of Martians kidnapping Santa Claus (and an incidental brother/sister team of kids) in order to bring joy to the listless children of their world is ultra-juvenile, cheaply-made and very cheap-looking, boasts no special effects to speak of — which is a real problem for a movie involving technologically-advanced  space aliens and inter-planetary travel — contains one of the most irritating "comic relief" characters in the entire history of world cinema, possesses the screen debut of future sleaze-film star Pia Zadora, has robot and polar bear costumes that would not have passed muster in an Ed Wood flick, and features an incredibly annoying theme song that sticks in one's head like napalm while being so terrible that it comes back around to actually become endearing. In short, it's a masterpiece of crap.

The film rests on its laurels among the pantheon of classic bad movies, so it was perhaps inevitable that the crew at MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 would find it perfect fodder for their weekly sarcastic evisceration of terrible cinema. Their version of it is now rightly hailed as one of the all-time greats from the series' ten-season run, so when the guys from Rifftrax — all of whom are alumni of MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 and continuing that show's tradition for the 2000's — announced that they'd be doing a live theatrical simulcast of their take on SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS, I swore I would be there with bells on and I would drag as many of my friends as possible along with me. Two of the three friends who attended had never seen the movie before (much less with it being snarkily riffed upon by Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett), so they were unprepared for what they got.

Though I enjoy what the guys of Rifftrax do, not all of their efforts result in gems and their treatment of SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS, while certainly funny, simply could not hold a candle to the MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 version. That was a bit of a disappointment but it was fun nonetheless, largely thanks to an unexpected bonus.

SANTA AND THE FAIRY SNOW QUEEN (1951): a jaw-dropping short of the highest (?) order.

The screening was preceded by the short SANTA AND THE FAIRY SNOW QUEEN (1951), a spectacularly warped kiddie time-waster that felt like it was made in the ERASERHEAD universe. Think "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" if it had been viewed through the effects of a potent cocktail of well tequila, muscle relaxers, and Nyquil. The shit was funny as hell and worth the price of admission. MST3K fans will enjoy it because it is extremely reminiscent of aspects from the legendary MR. B NATURAL. (Those who've seen that one will immediately get what kind of psycho vibe I'm talking about. In tonight's short there's a character named Snoopy who's a magical brownie played by a woman, which brings up all of the confusing androgyny that made MR. B NATURAL an instant classic.) 

Some of the live Rifftrax shows have come out on DVD — BIRDEMIC: SHOCK AND TERROR and MANOS:  THE HANDS OF FATE being the must-sees — and I'd be willing to bet that we'll be seeing this one available for at-home enjoyment soon enough. I recommend it, but mostly for SANTA AND THE FAIRY SNOW QUEEN. The MST3K version of  SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS is currently available in a two-movie DVD edition that pairs it with MITCHELL, a film considered by many fans to be the series' single funniest entry, so recommend picking that up in the meantime.