Inglorious Basterds

I watched Inglorious Basterds last night. I liked it but did not think it was a great film. Better than Death Proof but not by much. I might have liked it better if I hadn't read the script and knew what was going to happen. When I saw the soundtrack listing when the movie came out I did wonder if the "Eastern Condors Theme" was from the Sammo Hung film and it was. He takes the music from Sammo's jumping on metal springboards to kill a guard before he kill his friends. and uses for Eli Roth's buddy taking out one of Hitler's guards. I doubt many people would have gotten the reference and of course "Eastern Condors" is basically a remake of "the Dirty Dozen". The music starts at around 4:20 into the clip.

Mark

Big River Man

I can't tell if this a fake documentary or a real film but I really want to see it.

True Legend 2010 kung fu film in 3-D

Yuen Wo Ping returns to directing after spending most of the last decade doing action choreography for the Matrix and Kill Bill films. True Legend stars Chiu Man Cheuk who was the bad guy in Fong Sai Yuk and features Michelle Yeoh and David Carradine. Some of the action scenes were filmed in 3-D. Here is a trailer for it.

Hard Boiled Update 1-8-10

Here are the new arrivals this week.

Orchestre Poly-Rythmo - Echoes Hypnotiques 2xLP on Analog Africa.

Twinsistermoon - Hollow Mountain CD

V/a - 5 Years Of Hyperdub 2xCD

Monolake - Silence 2xLP

Rev. Louis Overstreet - s/t LP Gospel reissue on Mississippi Records.

Clara Rockmore - Art Of The Theremin LP On Mississippi Records.

Spacemen 3 - Sound Of Confusion CD Reissue on Fire Records. One of my favorite records of the 1980's

Can - Soon Over Babluma CD Lower price reissue of classic Krautrock band

Can - Soundtracks CD

E-Man - s/t CASSETTE Limited release of 1984 project by Biosphere.

Wax Poetics #38

Yeti #8

2562 - Unbalance 3xLP Dubstep

Clouds - Spat 12" Dubstep

Quest - Stand 12" Dubstep.

Thanks

Mark

Neil Gaiman's Statuesque

Here is the short film written and directed by Neil Gaiman for Sky TV in the UK. It stars Billy Nighy and Amanda Palmer.

Silkscreen posters celebrating "Lost"

The producers of Lost commissioned a bunch of poster artists around the country to make a poster of their favorite Lost moments or characters. There are some pretty cool ones. I09 has a gallery of them.

Here is Jay Ryan's poster

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Mark's Top Ten movies that I watched in 2009

I'll try to keep this to current releases but there are always films that come out at the end of the year that probably would be on the list (The Road) or that played the Chicago International Film Festival (Mother) that I did not get the chance to see, that probably would be on this list.

1. Love Exposure by Sion Sono (Japan)
A four hour film about sinning and the bible. And a character dresses up as "Female Prisoner Scorpion".



2. Thirst by Park Chan-Wook (South Korea)
For the second year in a row a vampire film made the list and neither of them are called Twilight.



3. Gomorrah by Matteo Garrone (Italy)
Amazing expose of the criminal life in Naples, Italy.



4. Ip Man by Wilson Yip
First of a trilogy about Bruce Lee's kung fu teacher. Wong Kar Wai is also adapting the teacher's story so look for it on my list in about 5 years.



5. Drag Me To Hell by Sam Raimi (USA
I was impressed by Raimi's return to his horror roots. If he makes another one I won't wait for dvd to see it. Sorry for the intro to the trailer.



6. Shinjuku Incident by Derek Yee (Hong Kong)
On this list for two reasons. Jackie Chan plays a bad guy and as a producer of the movie he refused to cut the movie's violence and scenes of criminal life to get released in China.



7. In The Loop Armando Iannucci (United Kingdom)
Some awesome swearing and put downs in this movie and it is scary how close to what really happened this is.



8. Beast Stalker by Dante Lam (Hong Kong)
The trailer has some spoilers. Good crime drama with good acting from Nick Cheung and Nicholas Tse.



9. Red Cliff 2 by John Woo (China)
The trailer is not subbed but shows John Woo's return to action.



10. Crank 2 by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor
Just watched this last night and it makes the list because twice during the movie I said "I haven't seen that before" Stupid over the top fun action. Much better than Transporter 3. If these directors could hire Corey Yuen to help film the action they might just find their way on to future top ten lists.



Also the worst film I saw in a theater this year was "Ninja Assassin"