Mission of Burma + Jonathan Kane + Third Border @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

Mission of Burma Great show 4/5. I took some horrible concert photography with my cheap camera, and might post later. 1 hour show plus 2 encores for 20 minutes. From about 11:10 to 12:30. Roger Miller did not have those gun range mufflers on fyi.

Jonathan Kane's February 3/5 Saw them last summer in LES park, and this show was definitely better. Instrumental rocking out ala 1960 something. Jonathan is a pretty damn good drummer.

Third Border
Ben Miller the guitarist here is Roger Miller's(Mission of Burma) brother. 3/5 nice rocking out stuff in a good way.

Born Reckless - Ford at Fox - Museum of Moving Image

MOMI:
Born Reckless
Saturday, January 19, 5:00 p.m.

1930, 82 mins. 35mm. With Edmond Lowe, Lee Tracy. A notorious New York criminal sentenced to fight in the war returns as a hero. Working around the technical problems that plagued early sound films, Ford created some impressive near-silent scenes, including a delightful baseball game sequence.

The fun of that baseball sequence- a batted ball hits a general's horse on the ass making him buck and throw him on the ground. All the buddies jet and leave some palooka holding the bat. Fun with the gen. ensues. The movie is almost unintentional comedy drama. There is also a parallel with the sister brother thing as you had with Scarface

NYC Connecetion: Although filmed on Hollywood sets, we see Williamsburg Bridge and some shots of elevated, when people are riding in a car. LES and Jamaica Bay swamps are mentioned.

NYTimes review from 1930! Second one down.

Spoiler- he takes out one of the kidnappers in a gun battle in Jamaica Bay shack(nice shots of full dark room and just guns flashing) and saves the kid. They return to their hang out and Big Shot is there, he finds out that big shot was also the guy who set up the banker to be killed during the robbery. The bartender makes himself scarce and gun shots follow. Big Shot is dead and Louis Beretti is shot and needs a doctor for sure, but his buddy who just comes in with the news he returned the girl to the mom says he needs a shot of whiskey first, from the top shelf. That's the movie.

Conclusion: 3/5 I'd show it as 1-2 with Scarface, which came out 2 years later.

Opera Jawa - Nugroho - Global Lens 2008 @ MOMA

Official site
MOMA:
Opera Jawa. 2006. Indonesia. Directed by Garin Nugroho. With Artika Sari Devi, Martinus Miroto, Eko Supriyanto. The operatic opulence of this uniquely exciting and poetic film encompasses all elements of the filmmaking: musical numbers with acrobatic choreography; sets that include multicolored mountains covered in artificial flowers and the pristine beaches and densely forested heart of Java; costumes and design that reinvent Surrealism; and performances that defy naturalism, not to mention every standard for movie musicals. Part of the commissioned New Crowned Hope project, the film combines gamelan music, ballet, and eye-feasting visual pageantry in a tale of a village potter's unfaithful wife and his vengeance against her seducer. Based on "The Abduction of Sita," from the Hindu epic The Ramayana, Opera Jawa is offered by Nugroho as a requiem for the victims of violence and natural disaster. In Bahasa Indonesian; English subtitles. 120 min.

Unlike some of the other viewers I found the political dimension to be one of the good things about this movie, the social unrest parts and how they are interwoven into the plot. Art installations and dancing were good and yes the guy who danced with Madonna makes this movie. Also the fat singer who sings in the bar, a welcome diversion.

Excruciatingly dull was the lead male star (no wonder his wife wants to be seduced) and the repetive slow tempo vocal singing. I think it was the same pattern throughout the movie, and by the end I felt like I could have composed (see it coming) those vocal lines.

Spoiler- Setio kills both lovers, although I missed where he killed Ludiro(Ludiro return to his mother and want to return to the womb, but apparently he dies). He kills Siti in that tent on the beach, which is a pretty shocking moment.

Conclusion: 3/5 however, not if you have short attention span. I would watch it again just to clarify some minor plot points for myself.

The Green Slime - Fukasaku on TV (TCM)

Fukasuku directed the Japanese parts of Tora Tora Tora just a year later. And he did the Yakuza Files series of movies. Also the special effects team (Watanabe and Wanoba) I notice those are the same guys who are responsible for most of the Keiju-Godzilla flicks of that era.

ALthough the movie has a serious low budget look, it's still a treat for Japanese monster movie fans. Not to mention it looks like a precursor to lot of later sci fi.

Spoilers - after an asteroid is discovered on collision course with earth a crack team is send up to blow it up by setting charges (Armageddon). On landing they find mysterious oozing green slime, which gets splashed on the leg of one of the astronaust, which no one notices (Alien- looks like some shots are direct homage to this movie). They blow up the asteroid and return to the space base. Once on board the slime activates feeding on energy, turning into a big one eyed moster from the poster, and there are many of them. The plot also includes a love triangle, and some pretty tense moments of who is gonna get the girl(Italian girl Luciana Paluzzi who is also the space station doctor), and this boils over into arguments over professional competency. At the end one of the commanders (Robert Horton) organizes the escape, however the other one(Richard Jaekel) who was put upon stays on board to manually work the space station controls. Commander Rankin get there in time to take out some of the creatures but too late for Commander Elliot who is killed by the slime.

The slime monsters kill by electrocution. The are very hard to stop and once they start to multiply due to abundance of energy there are dozens of them. The movie achieves a level of dread that is quite surprising, almost on the Forbidden Planet level. These monsters can't be stopped, if you shoot them with lasers they just get stronger. Also I should mention the search for the monsters in the air ducts just like in Alien as well. Overall hard to believe it was only 10 years between this and Alien, the special effects were like night and day.

conclusion: 3/5

Jigokumon ( Gate of Hell ) - Kinugasa on TV (IFC)

Critically acclaimed film, won Palm D'Or, NY Critics and foreign language Oscar. The copy of this film(from Janus films) shows was slightly color faded and with some noise artifacts.

Summary w/ spoilers: During an uprising against one of the clans, Maritoh is escorting Lady Kesa who is send out of the fortress as a decoy, and saves her from capture. They arrive at the lords outpost and by mobilization are able to put down the rebellion (including Maritoh's brother). The rebels are hung at the Gate of Hell, the gate to the fortress.

Maritoh for reward for service asks the lord for Lady Kesa's hand in marriage, but unbeknownst to him, she is married to one of the palace guard, Wataru. He will not easily forget this lady. During a horse race tournament he defeats Wataru's team, but they quarrel when it is implied by some other samurai that Wataru let him win on purpose (which throws Maritoh into rage). He decides that he must have Kesa even if he has to kill her mother and the husband, or even kill her if he cannot have her.
He corners her in the woods and tells her she must arrange for her husband to be alone that night so he will kill him. She seems to obey. When the time comes Maritoh strikes at the figure behind the curtain, but it is Lady Kesa herself who he has struck with his sword.

Maritoh realizes his evil ways and decides to repent and become a monk. Wataru forgives him.

3/5 Released 1953, less than a year prior to the Seven Samurai and Godzilla. I take it the movie is trying to be allegorical, and show where uncontrolled sexual desire can lead. Also, husbands should not be too passive lest their wives have to sacrifice themselves? So a sort of Greek(or I guess Japanese, dont know source material if any) tragedy, and for me it just doesn't work. Perhaps the huge amounts of praise this was getting at the time is due to this being the first Japanese technicolor film, or first one to be distributed internationally.

Andjeo cuvar ( Guardian Angel ) Paskaljevic @ MOMA

MOMA synopsis:

Andjeo cuvar (Guardian Angel). 1987. Yugoslavia. Written and directed by Goran Paskaljevic. With Ljubisa Samardzic, Jakup Amzic, Neda Arneric, Saban Bajramovic. Paskaljevic's mordant view of gypsy life was made in Yugoslavia two years before Emir Kusturica's fantasy Time of the Gypsies, but there is nothing romantic in Paskaljevic's treatment of modern slavery. In order to survive, families sell their children, who are transported west, trained as pickpockets and thieves, and viciously abused if they do not comply. The film follows a journalist who, appalled by the situation, tries to rescue a boy. Conceived out of sheer outrage, Guardian Angel is the closest Paskaljevic has come to making a thesis film. In Serbo-Croatian, Romany, Italian; English subtitles. 90 min.

SPOILER: The Journalist goes to Venice and manages to rescue the boy from the people for who he is working. They return to Belgrade together, but soon the boy leaves the apartment when the journalist goes out to get groceries and bring a woman friend to see the boy. He goes to Gypsie town looking for the boy and it is a big holiday on this day for them. He doesn't find the boy but is cornered by few of the big shots of the town, beaten severely and thrown on the garbage heap. Day passes and we pan to the journalist on top of the heap and he is not moving and in same position, possibly dead. Shots of processions for the holiday. Now it is dark again, and still the same. END SPOILER

My favorite scene was when the boy tells him why he had to be sold, his mother was dying and one of the elders said a pure white ram had to be sacrificed to save her. This ram is so expensive the boy had to be sold for work. The flashback scene of the sacrifice is intercut with the telling, and the theme music, the fabled guardian angel who comes in the night, as seen in the first scene of the movie. The fable which you tell strangers that children disappear in the middle of the night.

At the end credits tell us 20,000 Yugoslav children a year were sold into slavery every year (film made in 1987).

An important movie and must be seen. However I think it suffered a bit in the lead role of the reporter, his seeming passivity and gentleness, although we could say he was the "guardian angel" of the title. Still it was perhaps a bit incongruous, also I wish he showed more emotion than that half smile. The movie was at its best showing the gypsytown conditions. 3/5

Poseban Tretman ( Special Treatment ) Paskaljevic @ MOMA

MOMA Synopis:
Poseban Tretman (Special Treatment). 1980. Yugoslavia. Directed by Goran Paskaljevic. Screenplay by Paskaljevic, Dusan Kovacevic. With Ljuba Tadic, Milena Dravic, Dusica Zegarac, Danilo Bata Stojkovic. Paskaljevic's wry and soulful portrait of practices in an alcohol treatment clinic is a mischievous look at the abuse of power. The head doctor, an autocrat, uses unorthodox tactics—including the music of Richard Wagner, the flapping of hands, the eating of apples, and amateur theatricals—to cajole his reluctant patients into sobriety. When he brings his wards to perform in a brewery, all does not go as planned. The film may be read as a comic metaphor for a benign totalitarianism. In Serbo-Croatian; English subtitles. 94 min.

Spoiler: The doctor is distracted into a sex scene with one of the brewery workers, the patients get loaded on beer. So performance is marred by their drunkenness, comically. But the doctor doesn't give up, gives a motivational speech that despite their wishes to get drunk, he knows best what is best. Final scene is he takes them to a field for the exercises but they run away over the hill and away.
END

Not so much a study of alcoholism, (precious little to show it here) but a study or allegory of dictatorship aka Marshall Tito. Alcohol = freedom, something the doctor/dictator doesn't want people to enjoy. Apparently this movie is being remade, according to the recent interview in NY Times. I wonder how it will work now being stripped of this dimension, as slapstick? Another Road to Wellville?

my rating: 3/5