Japan Organized Crime Boss - 1969 - Japan

Japan Organized Crime Boss - 1969 - 6/10
AKA - Nihon boryoku-dan: Kumicho // 日本暴力団 組長

 
As the Danna Organization from Osaka expands and grows stronger,  the Tokyo families form an alliance.
In the middle is the territory around the port of Yokohama.
The major factions exploit the smaller Yokohama groups as proxies, thereby sparing their own men.
(Anyone who cannot see modern day parallels is blind.)
After the boss is murdered, Tsukamoto becomes the new head of a small Yokohama group.
Trying to protect his men, he charts a careful unaligned course.
Moody, Kinji Fukasaku yakuza film mixes explosive violence with tactical lulls.
Doom laden, watching the small firm caught between powerful belligerents.

English subs = https://subscene.com/subtitles/japan-organised-crime-boss-nihon-boryoku-dan-kumicho/english/3076748

The Most Assassinated Woman In The World - 2018 - France

The Most Assassinated Woman In The World - 2018 - 6/10
AKA - La Femme la Plus Assassinée du Monde

 
Decadent premise, the ebbing nights of the Grand Guignol.
Well thought out backstage mise-en-scènes, allusions to troupe interactions.
Potentially compelling backstory for our main heroine, Paula Maxa
Acting theatrical, if not melodramatic, fitting for the subject matter of onstage murders being mirrored out on the cobblestone alleys.
For all that, the script, written by committee, is a muddled attempt.
Predictable shocks, with a serving spin at the end.
Felt like the creative team over-compromised.

Calling Dr. Death - 1943 - USA

Calling Dr. Death - 1943 - 6/10

 
Lon Chaney, taking a break from monster roles, plays a neurologist who uses hypnosis.
His own life ain’t so hot.  His glamorous wife Maria runs around on him.
Until she is grotesquely murdered, that is.
Who do police target as suspect numero-uno?
Chaney is OK, supporting cast far better.  Internal monologues used to good effect.
Several montages, excellent.
Fun commentary with film historian C. Courtney Joyner and Regina LeBorg (director’s daughter).

Millennium Mambo - 2001 - Taiwan

Millennium Mambo - 2001 - 6/10
AKA - Qian xi man bo  // 千禧曼波

 
Akin to watching an in-your-face trainwreck.
Vicky floats through the neon nights of Taipei.
Boyfriend Hao Hao, anxious she will outgrow him, ensures she will never have any sort of career.
Even after she meets and hooks up with small criminal Jack, hers remains a listless existence.
Shu Qi is remarkable as Vicky, other characters are peripheral support.
One of my favorite sections (apparently trimmed) is Hokkaido Japan during a retro film festival.

Fire Of Love - 2022 - USA

Fire Of Love - 2022 - 7/10

 
Ofttimes puzzling documentary of volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft.
Much of their career was working as close as possible to eruptions and flows.
Both come across, at times, as reckless, chancing their luck, their lives.
At one point you see shoes melting, another time one canoes a lake of sulphuric acid.

 
Murkier is where they met, how they fund their expensive passion.
They describe themselves as freelancers, but jet-setting to fresh outbreaks must have been costly.
Commentary is sprinkled with speculations and assumptions, out of place in a doc.
Nevertheless, one watches this for the photography, which is top rate.

Blue Jean - 2020 - UK

Blue Jean - 2020 - 7/10

 
Jean is a young P.E. teacher, also a closeted lesbian in Thatcher Britain.
Section 28 is coming to the fore, and if outed, she could lose her job, possibly any job.
A new student arrives, unsettling the classroom and gymnasium dynamics.
Film excellent in showing the pettiness of school (no rosy nostalgia here), as well as the camaraderie of the women in what one supposes are private clubs.
Jean makes mistakes, has errors of judgment, trying to straddle two worlds in a high stakes era.
The women’s characters seem spot on (I worked with several for years, and I recognized a couple “types”).
Good film, neither sugar-coated nor preachy.

Budapest - 2018 - France

Budapest - 2018 - 6/10

 
Two junior execs, stymied on the Corporate ladder (they are not our kind, understand), launch a travel agency.
High end bachelor parties, stag night.
Attendees get a coked out guide, mass quantities of booze and drugs, strippers, playmates, access to military weapons.
What could go wrong?  What do you think, Clyde?
Disasters on a colossal scale, and their business soars.
Uneven comedy skewers the foolishness of guys.

Jailbait - 1954 - USA

Jailbait - 1954 - 5/10

 
I suppose I’ve seen worse.
Don, son of a prominent – and wealthy – surgeon, gets busted for packing a gun.
He is also warned by the police, his sister, his father, not to associate with cheap thug Brady.
So, before you know it, Don and Brady commit armed robbery.
Shoddy film by auteur Ed Wood grinds to a periodic halt, yet he keeps tossing in scenes and ideas.
One being a black-faced minstrel smack in the middle of the story.
Lyle Talbot and Herbert Rawlinson shore up weaker players, outshine non-existent sets.
Very early film of a clean shaven Steve Reeves, pre-Hercules.

Cause For Alarm! - 1951 - USA

Cause For Alarm! - 1951 - 5/10

 
“Is your head bothering you?”
“Terribly, both of them.”
“Doctor, I made an absolute idiot of myself rubbing his head, both of them!”
For a brief moment, I wonder how this one sailed past the Code board.
That was the lone double entendre, and the whole story downshifts into a plod.
Fighter pilot George is now laid up at home, in physical and mental decline.
Wife Ellen intends to murder him, or so he imagines.
Loretta Young flutters effectively in cozy suburban thriller that strikes me as pure melodrama.

Murder In Castellane - 2020 - France

Murder In Castellane - 2020 - 6/10
AKA - Les Mystères de la Chorale

 
Returning home on her bicycle, a young woman is run over, then stabbed.
The police pair investigating the murder are a young, female captain, and a much older, seasoned commander.
It is her case, but he is showing her “the ropes.”  When to lean on suspects, when to let them stew.
When to intrude on the bereaved for details, when to leave them alone.
This how-to is a plus for the mystery.
The victim is Turkish, Muslim, and quite early I theorized (correctly) what type of killing it had been.
Midway, with evidence, I realized the motive.
That is a minus, if I can work matters out like that.