Just Another Movie Post
Last movie you’ve seen?
Live Free or Die Hard. The one with Justin Long and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. MEW, who’s gorgeous as ever, played John McClane’s (Bruce Willis, ICYDK) daughter. I went to my parents’ last week and I decided to dust off some old DVDs, movies which I haven’t seen before. We saw Die Hard and Die Hard 2 first. The next day, I decided to skip Die Hard 3 and went with Live Free (or Die Hard 4) which I already seen before but don’t remember much about. Of the three, I thought Live Free was the most explosive in terms of stunts and set pieces but it was no better than Die Hard 2. And Die Hard is the best in the series. It has the best villain (Alan Rickman) and that memorable exchange between McClane and Sgt. Powell. In Die Hard 4, McClane was more like the Terminator, almost devoid of the humanity that made the character memorable in the first two movies.
Your top ten movies this year?
Forbidden City Cop (1996)
Aliens (1986)
Goodbye, Lenin! (2003)
The Man from UNCLE (2015)
Raped by an Angel (1994)
Supercop (1993)
Die Hard (1988)
The Whistlers (2019)
Unli Life (2018)
Zorro (1975)
Love Exposure (2008)
Is Forbidden City Cop as good as Kung Fu Hustle or Shaolin Soccer?
You bet. It’s like Inspector Gadget, if Inspector Gadget was funny, inventive and sexy.
This is the first time you’ve seen Aliens and Die Hard?
Yes. I’ve seen Ridley Scott’s Alien maybe two or three years ago and I’ve been meaning to watch this sequel since then. Ditto with Die Hard. I think James Cameron improved on the original; Aliens is better than the first. And not only because there are more xenomorphs in the sequel. Die Hard on the other hand, is what Hollywood action movies should ought to be. The tension, suspense, the witty one liners, well written characters, memorable villains, it’s all there. It’s not just cars flying and explosions and stuff, which is Die Hard 4, basically. Of course, action movies that’s mostly fights and shootouts and stunts can also be great and fun, like Jackie Chan’s Supercop. Supercop is a must-watch if you’re into martial arts-action movies. The fights and stunts look too dangerously real sometimes. Especially if you knew beforehand that Michelle Yeoh did all of her own stunts.
Did Michelle Yeoh really drove that crouching tiger motorcycle over that train?
She reportedly did that stunt. And there seems to be no hidden dragon strings or harness on her if you look at the BTS. There’s a video of it somewhere in YT. She also fell from a truck and onto a car’s hood in one scene.
You’re not into dramas or romance?
Not really. Although Sion Sono’s Love Exposure is basically that and it’s four hours long. It’s about love, lust, religion, lesbianism, etc. Raped by an Angel could be also considered a courtroom drama but it’s also a Cat III movie, which means it contains a fair amount of sex, nudity, sleaze and violence. Also, Chingmy Yau for the win.
Is Alain Delon’s Zorro as good as The Mask of Zorro?
It’s good. The movie’s extended sword fight is one of the best and longest I’ve seen. Though Zorro doesn’t quite generate the same amount of nuclear energy as Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones did in the 1998 movie (according to Patrick Willems, that dance and strip sword fight were so hot they could power up a city). That said, Delon playing the clumsy effeminate governor is quite funny and he’s also great as Zorro.
Any 2020 movie you’ve seen?
I’ve seen a few: Korean pandemic (zombie) flick #Alive, the almost un-Googleable horror comedy Porno, La Llorona, a horror movie about genocide in Guatemala, Hong Kong’s video game movie Double World, and the dark comedy thriller Come to Daddy. Also, The Gentlemen and The Whistlers, which originally came out in 2019 but released on streaming platforms only this year.
They’re mostly horror movies? Is Porno any good? How about the others?
Well, it has an interesting premise. I don’t think everything in the movie works though. The title is also misleading; there isn’t really porn in it. La Llorona may not be that scary but I like how the movie blends ghost stories with real life horrors. Alive is an OK zombie flick, competent, nothing special. Come to Daddy is probably the best horror movie on my list.
Some reviews compared The Whistler (La Gomera) with Pulp Fiction.
I see some similarities. But if you like Pulp Fiction, The Whistler might come off as boring. Not a big fan of Pulp Fiction, by the way. Have you seen Jackie Brown? That’s way better than Pulp Fiction. The Whistler is more like Jackie Brown, only more subdued. It’s also more like a Guy Ritchie film (minus the flashy visuals and narration) than a Tarantino really. You’d also get the dialogue 99% of the time because it has subtitles. That’s not very Tarantino, I guess. Subtitles. Americans hate subtitles.
Guy Ritchie did that King Arthur movie, Aladdin, then, The Gentlemen. You liked The Man from UNCLE better?
Yeah, I didn’t know he was behind Aladdin. I’ve seen parts of it on a bus. Same with his King Arthur. Yes, I liked UNCLE better than The Gentlemen. The Gentlemen is more like a remix of Smoking Barrels and Snatch. UNCLE is more like Mission Impossible but it’s CIA and KGB agents working together to fight (neo-)Nazis. Also, it’s one more movie to erase Henry Cavill’s turn as Superman and his unfortunate mustache in that awful Justice League movie.
How about short films?
I’ve seen a few short films: Un Chien Andalou (finally), My Ultranationalist Uncle, which was fun (unless you’re a right winger), Shotgun Tuding, Ang Maskot and The End Is Bigger Than Love, a zombie apocalypse love story which has more sex and nudity than brain-hungry zombies. At least the sex was hot. My favorites are Tila and Brownout Sa Neighborhood Namin That Day. Tila for its speculative fiction and Brownout for the funniest sexiest sex scene I’ve seen this year.
Other movies you like to include to your list but didn’t?
The Other Guys. It’s like The Big Short but it’s a buddy comedy. The look on Mark Wahlberg’s face when Will Ferrell introduced to him his wife (Eva Mendes), frickin’ funny, the part where Eva Mendes’ mom acts as messenger between her and Will Ferrell for their dirty little chit chat, fuckin hilarious!
Lastly, whoever did the choreography for Catherine Zeta-Jones’ bouncing dangling sword fight stance in The Mask of Zorro deserved an Oscar for this scene alone.
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