Actually had some downtime this weekend so I was able to get quite a few movies in.
Saturday was Teruo Ishii's final film "Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf" (2001). a no-budget surreal detective story based on writings of Edogawa Rampo, starring Lily Franky and Shinya Tsukamoto. Considering it was made completely independently and with no money it's still pretty visually ambitious at times but I couldn't help but feeling how good it could have been if it was directed with studio backing. it's also damn hard to follow early on, which was made worse because I was physically exhausted while watching. Considering I've fallen completely in love with Teruo Ishii in the past 6 months I still thoroughly enjoyed it, but newcomers will probably cry uncle 15 minutes in.
Sunday was a triple feature! I live a life of leisure apparently.
First was "What Have They Done To Your Daughters?" (1974) by Massimo Dallamano. I've seen 4 Dallamano films and this is easily my favorite, beating out "What Have You Done To Solange?". The police procedural / giallo hybrid really works, the subject is high school girl sex rings, and the writing is pretty dang good for this sort of thing. Audio recordings play prominently into the plot and it's my favorite part. real voyeur vibes throughout. It also makes me happy that the protagonists know nothing they do will amount to much since rich and powerful pedos will stop the investigation and so they basically leave it, like it would actually happen in real life. Oh and the score is absolutely great!
Second was my girlfriend's pick, "The Bourne Supremacy" (2004). I've never made it through this one without blacking out/passing out, so it was cool to finally see it. I'm not a big fan of the hyper fast cuts they do throughout all three of these movies. I know it's supposed to make the action even crazier but I think it just makes the sequences shittier. And these movies basically made that style the Hollywood style for a while, which became painfully prominent in the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy. also the lack of graphic violence due to the PG-13 rating annoys me to no end. But as far as PG-13 action films go you could definitely do worse.
Last was Beat Takeshi's "Outrage" (2010). I read a few negative remarks about this one so I had low expectations but apparently people are idiots. While it's certainly not as original or poignant as Takeshi's '90s Yakuza-esque films, it's relentless violent in that very Beat Takeshi matter of fact way. Gangsters being shitty to one another as they vie for more power and money, and many fingers, teeth, eyes and rips are destroyed along the way. there's no one to root for, it's just parade of meaningless violence. which is a compliment. Apparently Takeshi only used actors who hadn't been in his films before, but many of them are actually familiar faces if you've watched Takashi Miike's films. will be watching "Beyond Outrage" and "Outrage Coda" soon.
