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Film & TV on DVD - John Doe News & Reviews

Greetings Film Fiends and welcome to John Doe's Film Blog. 30 years of dedicated celluloid obsession has meant that I have seen a few films. Drawing attention to some of the lesser discussed gems that I love. Cult classics, obscure curios and quality genre pictures. This blogs purpose is to translate some of my passion for these films and with luck, inspire you the reader to go check em out.

Foreign - Film & TV on DVD

The Good, the Bad, The Weird Trailer

June 2nd 2008 00:00

The Glorious Oriental Western trend continues...

The poster with no name walks into a frontier town.

The Good The Bad The Weird

High on John Doe’s list of must see films screening at this years Sydney Film Festival is the new Takashi Miike Spaghetti Western Parody titled Sukiyaki Western Django. The idea of an Eastern minded tribute to the Sergio Leone style mythic cowboy legends demands JD’s full attention.

The comic book style The Good The Bad The Weird banner

Peeking and foraging around the darkened recesses of cinema on the net John Doe stumbled across a similar project scheduled for release in some countries. The trailer for this new Korean film, The Good The Bad, The Weird has to be shared. (Even if there is no local date appearing on the calendar.)

Referencing the title of Leone’s best known work with an oriental spin, the footage below reveals some John Woo/Sam Peckinpah bullet wielding. From koreanfilm.or.kr:
“Inspired by the Sergio Leone classic The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, the film also builds off a string of Korean genre films from the 1970s that combined the aesthetics of the Western with outlaw movements aligned against Japanese colonial forces.”

The Good The Bad The Weird character teaser

Rapidly reloaded Winchester rifles crack a gunpowder atmosphere. The sound of hoofs come up beside a moving train. Holsters are reached for, pistols swiftly fired, gun-barrels emptied and the slain fall to the ground. Death is always present, the heat unrelenting setting the scene for showdowns.

Directed by Kim Ji-woon (A Tale of Two Sisters, A Bittersweet Life) Woo-sung Jung (Musa: the Warrior) plays The Good. The Bad is Lee Byung-hun (A Bittersweet Life, G.I. Joe) and The Weird, Kang-ho Song. (The Host)

Shame it’s not screening at the Sydney Film festival, Johnny would have been in the audience.

The Good, the Bad, The Weird Trailer

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Posted By: JohnDoe - Category: Action, Foreign, Coming Soon, Westerns

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La Grande Bouffe (1973) - Footage Included

September 13th 2007 05:40

La Grande Bouffe

My mouth began watering when John Doe asked me to post some film reviews while he's Gone Hollywood, so of course, first up, I'm indulging my taste for that which needs to be acquired. They don’t make films like this anymore: a gastronomic, carnal descent loaded with witticism and laced with cynicism, or a brilliant satire on bourgeoisie apathy and contempt. Either way Marco Ferreri’s squid ink comedy La Grande Bouffe (1973) is a rich, savoury dish unto its bitter self.

Four affluent middle-aged men arrange a weekend of utter indulgence; primarily the consumption of food, but sex rears its urgent head from time to time. They’ve had enough, disgusted with their lot, intent only on the devouring of the culture that has made them who they are. You are what you eat, more or less.

The pilot, Marcello (Marcello Mastrioanni), the chef Ugo (Ugo Tognazzi), the TV producer Michele (Michel Piccoli) and the judge Philippe (Philippe Noiret) leave their high-paying jobs and arrive at a quaint, somewhat disheveled, mansion in the Parisian hinterland that lonely Philippe has inherited. It is here that the four men will retire, psychologically and physically. The ample food begins to arrive by truck, sides of lamb and venison, whole pigs, fowl upon fowl upon fowl upon fowl.

Michel Piccoli, Philppe Noiret, Ugo Tognazzi, Marcello Mastrioanni

Then three game prostitutes; Danielle (Solange Blondeau), Anne (Florence Giorgetti) and Nicole (Michèle Alexandre), are hired as lusty side dishes, and finally a local school teacher Andrea (Andréa Ferreol), who happens to be on a field trip, is invited to join the party (which she does after her class). It is Andrea who ultimately relishes the lengthy degustation.

La Grande Bouffe Andrea Ferreol and Philippe Noiret

Andrea Ferreol with Philippe and drumstick

La Grande Bouffe is a French/Italian co-production. The title doesn’t translate accurately into English; "The Big Eat" is about as close as you’ll get (in the UK it is sometimes known as The Big Blow-Out). It is a highly unusual film in that it plays with so many of the Euro conventions of the period; the male chauvinism, the intellectual volleying, the artistic attention to detail, and the boundary-pushing marinade of sex and food, life and death.

Alas poor Swine, I knew him Piggy!

It’s a very small ensemble cast, impeccably chosen; from the four leads, curiously each using their own real name, to the plump schoolteacher, to the three leggy women of ill repute. The male pigs pig themselves, they snort, grunt and fart, and generally wallow in self-pity, moral debauchery, and the cuisine of the aristocracy. The school teacher is surprisingly engaged by the whole gluttonous affair. The prostitutes, on the other hand, quickly become ill, rather than sated, and eventually bail.

La Grande Bouffe Solange Blondeau and Marcello Mastrioanni

Solange Blondeau as the redhead courtesean Danielle

Only fitting then that the final dish of the day is a massive mixed pâté (goose, chicken and duck); a temple of foie gras sludge on the large kitchen table, where chef Ugo steadily ingests, with the handy assistance of Andrea whom adds a decadent tug. If you’re gonna expire excessively, one might as well expire at the peak of pleasure, if you get my priapic drift.

I've heard of breast meat, but this is ridiculous!

La Grande Bouffe is one of those movies you’ve heard about but never seen. Its cult following has been further fuelled by the fact that it is a hard film to come by. VHS and DVD copies are a rarity (the out of print copies that surface from time to time on ebay can fetch up to $US100). Still, it is a film to be savoured, perhaps not as much as a foodie flick (one that makes you want to indulge the pantry immediately after viewing), but more so as a cinephilic decadent curio about art, sex and consumption.

Chef Ugo's piece de resistance

The movie’s wry wit captured beautifully in the screenplay by Ferreri, Rafael Azcona and Francis Blanche is something to be eaten like a sweet delicacy. Swirl its themes around inside your mind as if it were the finest Belgian chocolate melting upon your tongue. Treat the tone like it was a truffle-streaked bowl of tagliatelle. Ponder the ambiguity with the sharp tang of a fruity tart. Devour the lushness with little regard to its grim, surrealist denouement.

Yes, La Grande Bouffe is a funny film, an offensive film, but not a film about realism. It’s a film about parallels and juxtapositions, analogies and metaphors. It’s an intellectual film for the base and primal at heart. And for those who enjoy an applied scatological sense of humour. Prepare some delicious finger food, pop the corks on a few decent bottles of Grenache and pinot noir … and chow down!

“What about the turkey stuffing?” asks one of the men, “Life is stuffing!” is the reply.

Here is one of movie's many scenes of eating and pontificating ... relish!!

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: Foreign

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Sympathy for Lady Vengeance – Another FilmInk Review

August 15th 2007 00:15

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance – Another FilmInk Review

This is a review that was published in FilmInk I did awhile ago. Figured with Cib’s review of the confronting thrillride Old Boy igniting interest in the second part, it would be a good time to focus on the final chapter.

Available on DVD in Australia

Title: Sympathy For Lady Vengeance
Year:2005
Rating:TBC
Genre:Thriller
Director:Chan-wook Park
Cast:Yeong-ae Lee, Min-sik Choi, Tony Barry, Anne Cordiner,
Distributor: Madman
Available: September 2006
The Film: 4 out of 5

Cult Korean Director Chan-wook Park continues his emotional and psychological examination of revenge and retribution.

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance aka Chinjeolhan Geumjassi is the final installment in this profound trilogy that began with Sympathy for Mr Vengeance (2002) then Old Boy (2003).

This time around time it is a female trapped in the maelstrom of violence and guilt. Geum Ja Lee (Yeoung-ae Lee) has been in prison 13 years for the brutal abduction and slaughter of an 8 year old school boy. The film opens on the day of her release to a tidal wave of media coverage and public outrage.

Physically she is beautiful with a soft appearance, inside rages an inner turmoil of incomprehensible proportions. Once free she immediately begins implementing a mysterious plan she has been obsessing over in prison that appear to revolve around Mr Baek, (Min-sik Choi) an ex teacher of hers.

As we have come to expect the film delves deeply into how violence destroys the soul. How brutality can be cathartic and the ugly beauty of atonement. The ambiguity of evil and the effect sin has on the human psyche.

The fractured narrative and bold precise editing suck you in like a vacuum, the surreal cinematography and enthralling character performances keep you on edge. The textured dialogue laced with pitch black comedy is entertaining and thoughtful.

Extras include a Directors commentary, behind the scenes feature and trailers, unpreviewed.

See the Sympathy for Lady vengeance Trailer