Buried Treasure

I thought we'd watched I Bury the Living (1958), but Ms. Spenser didn't remember it. It turned out I hadn't seen it, and I'm glad we did.

It stars Richard Boone - Ol' Paladin. That should be enough right there. Boone is a department store owner who is also on the board of a cemetary. He's checking it out and retiring the the old Scots groundkeeper, Theodore Bikel, in the cold but cozy stone cabin that houses the office. There is a big map on the wall. When a site is sold, they stick a white pin in the map. When the ... customer? dies and is buried, the pin is changed to black. A happy young couple comes in, just married, and buys a plot, so Bikel lets Boone put the pin in. But instead of white, he accidentally puts in a black pin.

And soon finds out that couple will be needing that plot, as they got killed shortly after they left. The prophecy is fulfilled. 

This creeps Boone out, but he can't believe it, He sticks a black pin in the map at random, and wouldn't you know? Another death. Now Boone is really freaking out. He tells the police about this, along with other members of the cemetary board. They don't believe it, and propose a test to disprove it...

This felt to me sort of like a Twilight Zone episode. Not so much in the plot premise, although that works, but for Boone's rapid descent into madness and terror. He's great in this - a bit Vincent Pricean. He starts suave and friendly, gets more and more haunted, and ends up twitchy, sweating and unshaven. 

A great black and white suspense thriller. 

Angels Unaware

 This isn't the first time I've seen Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003). Maybe it was before I started blogging. Anyway, now I own a copy (along with original 2000 film). So here goes.

It starts in a roadhouse in Mongolia. Angel Drew Barrymore is drinking some scum under the table while Lucy Liu skulks around. The door bursts open and Cameron Diaz waltzes in with a Fodor's, playing an oblivious German tourist. She is soon up on the mechanical bull with all male Mogolian eyes on her. The other two angels sneak into the cellar to rescue U.S. Marshall Robert Patrick. 

Back home, we get to meet the new Bosley, Bernie Mac (the orignal Bosley, Bill Murray, is his adopted brother). The new mission is to protect or retrieve two rings that together form the key to the Witness Protection database.

As the mission progresses, we discover that Barrymore is in the database herself, under her birthname Helen Zaas (*snicker*). And we finally find out that the bad guy is her old boyfriend Seamus (Justin Theroux). But first we get some beach time, an Xtreme motocross race scene, a trip to a convent dresses as nuns, and the re-appearance of killer psycho Crispin Glover. 

We also get some personal drama. Aside from Barrymore's old flame, Cameron Diaz is moving in with her boyfriend Luke Wilson, making the other angels worry that she will be leaving the team. Also, Liu's dad, John Cleese, comes to visit (she lives in the Lautner designed Sheat-Goldstein residence!). He thinks she's a nurse, but her boyfriend, Matt LeBlanc, makes him think she leads a team of elite sex workers (through a series of misunderstandings).

The action scenes are mostly pretty good. Director McG's music video past is pretty clear, especially in the motocross section. It looked a lot more realistic than I remembered it - the firsst time, I thought it was all video game CGI. 

But, really, the best parts of these movies is the girl power of the stars. A throw-away scene of Diaz dancing to MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This" with the other angels joining in - that's what the movie is all about. 

Echo Drum Song

Although I must have seen House of Flying Daggers (2004) while this blog was up, it looks like I haven't blogged it. Now that I own a copy and rewatched, I realized that I remembered very little. So here goes.

In corrupt Tang dynasty China, the House of Flying Daggers is a covert rebel group that fights the establishment. Andy Lau of the Imperial Guard assigns captain Kaneeshiro Takeshi to investigate a new dancer at a local pleasure house. This dancer is the blind Zhang Ziyi. Kaneshiro plays drunk and doesn't believe she is blind, so they play the Echo Game: A circle of drums are set up and Kaneshiro flips a bean at one. Zhang must respond by hitting the same drum with her sleeve while dancing. This is pretty much the only scene I remembered. He is so impressed that he assaults her, leading to a raid, and Zhang is imprisoned.

To gain her confidence, Kaneshiro breaks her out of jail and has a mock fight with the guards trying to get her back. It looks like she is falling for it, and will lead him to the leader of the Flying Daggers. But the guards get orders to kill both of them, and start fighting for real. So Kaneshiro begins to doubt his loyalty to the regime.

I'll just drop a big SPOILER here: It turns out that Lau was an undercover Flying Dagger all along, and the whole operation was planned to turn or neutralize Kameshiro (I'm a little fuzzy on that). Oh, and Zhang isn't blind. And Lau and Zhang were lovers, but she's now in love with Kaneshiro. So mixed up!

There are some great set pieces, including the Echo Game, several fights in a bamboo forest, and a final duel in a blizzard. And, although the plot is twisty, I actually could sort of follow it. I guess Zhang Yimou's costume epics are a little easier on Western sensibilities that some

The Haul

I have an extensive collection of  DVDs, and since Netflix DVDs collapsed, I've been using it more and more. So I got to the library booksale as early as reasonable. Here are the books DVDs picked up. 

• Bird of Paradise - See above
• Queen Christina  - Haven't see it yet
• An American in Paris - For every collection
• Flamenco Flamenco - I think we saw this projected on the wall at Foreign Cinema. So sophisticated and romantic. We love Carlos Saura.
• Predator - Ms. Spenser's favorite monster
• John Wick 4 - Ms. Spenser's favorite human
• Minority Report - I want to rewatch, and it's only dollar. What is that in cents/minute?
• The Marvels - Darn it, I like this movie
• Shoot 'Em Up - I mainly remember the part about looking for lactating whores, and Clive Owen flying through the air, gun in one hand, baby in the other. 
• Charlie's Angels 2 - I already have CA1, and I think I like the second even better. The early computer game CGI and lots of Crispin Glover 
• Josie and the Pussycats - Why not?
• House of Flying Daggers - Not in my collection yet. Can watch over and over
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - Best in the batch. 

You wouldn't believe what I left behind. The 2000s X-Men boxset (my collection is only missing part 2), the 2005 Fantastic Four (already own it - but looking for Fantastic Four 2 - Rise of the Silver Surfer), Invaders from Mars, ... Maybe I should have gone back. I don't want to be a hard media absolutist or anything, but you can't trust streaming. 

For the Birds

I went to the local library's booksale yesterday, and picked up quite a haul - thirteen DVDs (at $1/each). Most of them were faves that I wanted to add to my permanent collection. I'll make a commented list later. But a few were new to me. For example, I decided to take a chance on Bird of Paradise (1951).

This is a classic tropical romance, filmed in Technicolor, directed by Delmer Daves. It stars Louis Jourdan, a rich Frenchman, sailing to a Pacific isle with his classmate, Jeff Chandler (!), the son of the island's chief. OK, turns out he has a European grandfather, so it's only 3/4 brown face (and hair dye). After an unpleasant meeting with shabby, racist Jack Elam, the ship lands.

Only one ship a year visits the island, and they are greeted by joyous native children swimming out to meet them. This is a big part of why I wanted to see this: it was shot on location in Hawai'i, so there were some real authentic settings. In this scene, the extras were clearly local kids having a ball being in a movie. The joy was real.

One person Jourdan wants to meet is Chandler's sister, dark, blue-eyed Debra Paget. Since she is the chief's daughter, she is taboo, and he can't speak with her. But boy, can they exchange smoldering glances! But he does meet the Kahuna (Maurice Schwartz!), who predicted that a white man would come and bring disaster to the island.

But Jourdan and Paget work their way around the taboo. Paget does a fire walk to show that the gods approve, and they eventually get married. But when the volcano erupts, who do you think will need to appease it?

As I said, this movie is full of authentic (-ish) Polynesian music, dress and customs. Everyone, including Jourdan and Chandler, wear sarongs, there is surfing, old Hawaiian songs and hulas. Also, Louis Jourdan is a fine swimmer, and gets to show it off. Chandler isn't bad either, and has quite the build. But Paget really stands out - smoldering isn't the word for it. Sex just radiates out of her eyes. She can even hula. 

Although this was about as culturally sensitive as you can expect, it still isn't great. Still, it did document real living traditions, especially in the backgrounds and musical selections. Maybe better than, say, Moana.

In conclusion, there were no birds of paradise, either floral or avian, in this movie. 

One Singular Sensation

I've wanted to see Mickey One (1965), but it was kind of hard to find. When it showed up on Amazon Prime, I still took a long while to watch it. I guess I thought it would be a homework movie. But one night, after I couldn't find any bad action or martial arts movies that appealed, I put it on. 

Directed by Arthur Penn, it stars Warren Penn as a successful Detroit night club comic. We see him killing on stage, then drinking, driving his sports car, cuddling with a beautiful woman, and gambling. He also sees some mobsters beating some slob to death. 

He wakes up the next morning and finds that he is in trouble with the mob. He figures he owes them for the gambling - maybe the girl got him drunk so he lost big. OK, so they'll start taking his pay, maybe leave him a little to live on. He asks his manager how much he's owes, and gets silence. A thousand? Ten, twenty? Silence. Was it the girl?  Was she somebody's piece? Silence. How can he get out from under? Silence. He decides to run - his manager tells him he'll have to live like an animal.

So he destroys all his ID, hops a train to Chicago. He jumps off near a junkyard, where he hears the police talk about the body found in a crushed car. Not really a body, just a smear. He keeps going, picks up a social security card from a guy who has been mugged, Miklos Wunejeva. He takes it to an employment agency. They give him a disgusting job and tell him he'll be called Mickey One. 

He saves his money, gets some clothes and a place to sleep. He meets a girl who falls for him - he may be down and out, but he's Warren Beatty. He starts checking out the clubs, watches a Dangerfield-type comic (Benny Dunn) and tops his act. The comic greets him as "Brother Rat!' - one of us.

Soon he's getting gigs at some decent clubs. But when the big clubs want to hire him, he's afraid he'll be recognized. But these men, like Hurd Hatfield, aren't the type to take no for an answer. 

This is all filmed in a noir/verite/New Wave style. There are touches of absurdity, especially a clown-like man (Katamari Fujiwara) who keeps silently geturing for Beatty to come with him - Beatty assumes it's a trap and ignores him. As far as jokes go, you get the feeling that Beatty is pretty corny, although people seem to go nuts for his act. We really only get a couple of routines. At one point, he tells his girl about his past, making terrible jokes about his terrible life. At the climax of the movie, he is alone on stage with a spotlight on him, and he believes there is a gunman behind it. He starts riffing: "Who says I don't have to do this for a living? This sure gives you an appetite... to live!" etc. 

So this is sort of a Godard pastiche, with a touch of Kurosawa (who suggested Fujiwara). It ends with Beatty trying to find any way to get to the mob to plead his case - or even to take his medicine. No one will give him an answer, like Man searching for God. Some call this pretentious. I guess it is, but I like New Wave, black-and-white existential and absurdist movies. So I liked it. 

In conclusion, Beatty is often nasty and paranoid in the movie, This represents cocaine.

Four Kings

We've seen and enjoyed the first two, so we were happy to watch the third: Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings (2018). We have a new actor playing Detective Dee, Mark Chao, but Carina Lau is still Empress (Regent) and Hark Tsui is still directing. 

This is a sequel to DD1, and prequel to DD2. It starts with the Emperor bestowing the Dragon Taming Mace, a legendary weapon, on Dee, and lets him know he can use it even against the imperial family, if necessary. Since empress Lau wants to be the ultimate power in China, this threatens her. So she enlists Feng Shaofeng, head of the palace guard to steal it back. He is Dee's friend, but loyal to the empire, so he agrees as long as Dee isn't hurt.

Meanwhile, she is gathering an army of sorcerers, who promise her the power she craves. She tasks them with getting the mace and killing Dee. He has gone into hiding and hidden the mace. At one point, the sorcerers are demonstrating their powers, and a dragon sculpture comes to life and starts killing people in clouds of smoke. Dee shows up in disguise and settles things, and figures out that this magic is based on illusion and mind control. 

His research turns up an ancient Indian cult with mind control powers (possibly drug assisted). and sets out to fight them. 

The whole science vs. magic and illusion is the basic theme of the Detective Dee stories, and it's fun to watch. This movie does the magic well, with the CGI improving in each movie. We get more of Dee's Investigation Bureau - a steadfast, strong and loyal crew, but maybe not as bright as Dee. The sorcerers are great villains, with grotesque costumes and weird powers. And in the end, when they are defeated, the Empress is freed from their hold and dedicates herself to the Buddha Guanyin. In fact, she's beginning to think she might be Guanyin herself, setting up the first movie. 

My only complaints: It is rather annoying that the third movie has "four" in the title - especially because the Heavenly Kings in the title aren't really in the movie. And it doesn't look like Hark Tsui is making any more of these. If he does, I'll watch them.