A few reviews

[Zaharoff]

My Name Ain’t Suzie - 1985 - 6/10
AKA - Fa Gai si Doi // 花街時代



Purported rebuttal to 1960‘s The World Of Suzie Wong is too little, too late.
Barely adolescent, village girls follow free-spending madam back to the Hong Kong brothel.
There, they are educated in the ways of male satisfaction, and emptying males of their folding money.
Colorful Shaw Brothers production is PG, with no nudity, let alone suggestive moaning.
Just giggling, happy hookers servicing the US Navy from the Korean conflict to Vietnam era, after which traffic ebbs.
Expect the ubiquitous bar fight. Triad involvement hinted at, drugs and pregnancies skirt by.
Most surprising (to me) was seeing the abandoned boy the madam had raised as her own, and was turning into her private boy toy, a young Anthony Wong in his first role.

[Zaharoff]

ZerØ' Days - 2016 - 7/10



Excellent documentary of the Stuxnet computer worm, discovered by Kaspersky iin 2010.
Without spoiling too much, evidence is fairly clear this was a government operation.
This was an early salvo in cyber warfare. Target, nuclear centrifuges.
Aftermath - the global proliferation of national cyber divisions.
Dozens of security folk interviewed, security firms and spymasters.
Do not hope for confession or clarity.
Coding jargon is basic 101, not overly technical (though I paused twice to answer questions).
For those who shrug, “This does not affect me,” au contraire. Targets include electrical grids, nuclear plants, dams, banking systems, hospitals, damn near anything with power and a micro processor.

[Zaharoff]

X-Files S02 - 1995 - 8/10

I enjoyed the first season, but I rarely return to it, save for an episode or two.
For many, the second year was when the series really began to flower.
The leads were no longer shrill or strident, the writing far more original, the narratives more layered.
New characters - adversaries or allies - followed their own agendas, morally indifferent.



At this point, creative elements of the series were on fire.
Stories often played out over several episodes.
By turns harrowing, flat out funny, or achingly poetic.



Planets and stars only stay in perfect alignment for so long.
The show went south for me after the location shifted to Los Angeles (closer to FOX money men perhaps?).
Much altered, not necessarily for the better.
Season 02 of X-Files remains spectacular, though.
I try not to rewatch too often, lest its magic go stale.

[Zaharoff]

The Wing Or Thigh? - 1976 - 6/10
AKA - L'aile ou la cuisse



Gourmet cuisine clashes with fast food and elephants in French farce.
Editor publisher of annual dining guide intends to retire and leave ratings guide business to his son.
The son, however, prefers being a clown in a childrens circus.
Meanwhile, greedy entrepreneur is snapping up regional cafes and turning into his fast food franchise.
Can the gourmet editor save France from going the American diet route?
Fast, funny, best of all, not oversubbed.

Great sequence finds our critic undercover as an American cowboy, wearing pink rodeo garb.

[Zaharoff]

Burroughs (Arena) - 1983 - 7/10



Penetrating, if difficult biography of William Burroughs.
Childhood, the Burroughs name, the William Tell incident, drug use, travels, sex, all check listed.
Being 1983, many interviewees were still alive (including Burroughs’ son) and they were blunt.
One memorable scene has him showing his defensive weapons in his bunker. Knives, blackjacks, and of course, guns.
College readings * were problematic for me, as listening to his prose seemed harder to decipher compared with reading.
Burroughs' growling snarl might be an acquired taste. Nonetheless, this is an excellent overview of the man a good decade before he died.

* Seeing some of the readings, I began wondering who current students listen to.
Not the corporate shills, media celebrities, or pop culture scribes. The poets, the literary masters, the underground.
Do junior and senior year intelligentsia value any literary elders enough to listen to?
Salman Rushdie? Joan Didion? Thomas Ligotti?

[Zaharoff]

I’m So Excited! - 2013 - 3/10
AKA - Los Amantes Pasajeros



Box reads: “FIRST-CLASS HILARITY!"
Balls.
Shockingly awful film. Even more appalling / distressing, it was written & directed by Pedro Almodóvar, who had been on a career streak up to this gobbler.
Jet circles over Spain, owing to disabled landing gear, allowing alcohol guzzling crew and 1st Class passengers to confess sexual secrets. For no apparent reason, stewards prance musical number.
Sexual bathroom humor, rampant homosexual stereotypes, not to mention a sequence where a female passenger rapes an unconscious male. If genders were reversed, would it be so “funny”?
Benny Hill did this nudge-nudge, wink-wink nonsense 40 years ago. Times and mores pass.
I ended up wondering if this reflects Spanish behavior and values.
Also knowing I had wasted of 90 minutes of my life.

[Zaharoff]

Julieta - 2016 - 7/10



Stellar return to form from Pedro Almodóvar.
Older woman, on the verge of leaving Madrid for Portugal, suddenly decides to remain.
She returns to a previous residence then sets about writing a journal - memoir about her relationships with her mother, husband, daughter. All lost.
Writing is part therapy, part confession, meant for the daughter whom she has not seen in over a decade.
The narrative time slips, settings shift, and two different actors portray Julieta.
Much of the tone, indeed the whole music score, is reminiscent of a Douglas Sirk thriller.
There are no throwaway scenes in this, either, and several are outright magical.
The story pulls the viewer irresistibly into a past often shrouded with guilt and self deception.
For me, the best Almodóvar since Talk To Her (2002).

[Zaharoff]

Matango - 1963 - 7/10
AKA - Attack Of The Mushroom People



Seven went a'sailing and encountered heavy storms.
They wound up stranded on a deserted isle in the middle of nowhere.
Only it was not so deserted.
Classic Japanese horror film with anti-drug subtext, hints of cold war experiments, nuclear fallout, Lord Of The Flies, ...
As starvation clamps down, food choices narrow to forest mushrooms.
Color film, but as black and white it is far creepier.

[Zaharoff]

Monsters Wanted - 2013 - 7/10



Entertaining behind the scenes documentary on Asylum Haunted Scream Park.
The site is a sprawling 40 acres outside Louisville, with four dedicated horror areas.

https://www.asylumhaunts.com/

Doc follows Rich and Janel, a well adjusted enough couple, and their labors to get everything in place before opening day.



Surprise visits by inspectors, backstabbing rival horror parks, rain and more rain, temperamental actors - including one who seems borderline certifiable, complaining business partners, equipment malfunctions, running out of money, as the opening deadline shrinks from months to weeks to days to hours.
You wonder how they can possibly get it done.
Will hold your interest from start to finish, might even plant the urge to get out Halloween night.
For anyone who is a repeat customer of haunted parks, for anyone who ever worked a Midnight Mansion, for anyone who took a stab creating their own Death House*, this film ought to be in your queue.

* Admittance - One Candy Bar

Spoiler

Yes, back when I was eight or nine I can up with this brilliant notion of creating our own haunted house.
We would charge one candy bar per admission. No cause for us to rush all over the neighborhood Trick or Treating, our victims would do the legwork, then pay to stroll our horrors.
Candy for free! Our bags were going to burst!
Alas, the best laid plans of nine year olds . . .
Few entered. Those that did reported back that our haunted palace - an empty garage - sucked.
(An early lesson how dreary reviews can kill Broadway openings, new record releases, lemonade stands, or haunted houses.)
There were less than ten bars to share between the five of us. Worse, we had missed Trick or Treat night, and all the other kids blamed me and my stupid idea! Shunned me for days.
Over the years, there would be more stupid ideas where that came from. Many more.

[Zaharoff]

Der Samurai - 2014 - 4/10



Can’t say I wasn’t warned.
Low-budget horror film from Germany earned scathing reviews ... except ... from pretentious arthouse types.
In whose ranks I probably belong.
Apparently I am not pretentious enough, however.
Local police officer deals with problem wolf by feeding it in the woods.
“What are you trying to do?” everyone asks. “Feeding it won’t get rid of it!”
Chasing a lead, he enters an abandoned house and finds a homeless squatter.
Male - wearing a dress - applying makeup - wielding a samurai sword.
Lots of speculative arguments follow, along with foot chases.
Is the guy a werewolf? Or an escapee of sorts in a dress?
Film - shot almost exclusively at night - suffers from limited costs. No plot and no effects.
Dull - boring - offscreen gore - no sex - no nudity - scant violence.
Wine n cheese crowd might enjoy better, indie horror flick connoisseurs that they are.