-- Don Blanding, 1928
THE SINISTER SCOURGE
That's the blurb on the Swedish DVD for the surprisingly terrific South Korean monster movie THE HOST (2006). THE HOST was the highest-grossing Korean film of all time so naturally most insular Americans have probably never heard of it. But for the uninitiated, this is a rarity: a good old-fashioned monster on the loose movie which also excells in both post-modern snarky humour AND deftly drawn characterisations amongst disfunctional family dynamics. Basically, it's one great ride. The story opens in a morgue where the nasty-piece-of-work American doctor running the places tells his South Korean assistant that if there's one thing he can't stand, it's dust. And ALL the bottles of formaldehyde et. al. are covered in dust. So he haughtily commands his assistant to dump them ALL down the drain. The assistant meekly protests that the toxic chemicals will go into the Han River and pollute it. "The Han River is very broad", says the patronizing US doc, "and I need you to think. . .broadly," He commands his assistant to pour every last drop down the drain; which he obediently does. A really nice touch for movie buffs is the casting of Scott Wilson as the obnoxious morgue doctor; Wilson, of course, starred in THE NINTH CONFIGURATION and is now currently appearing in the AMC zombie series "THE WALKING DEAD". I am a huge fan of Scott Wilson and this casting was boocoo appreciated, I can assure you. Switch to later when two fishermen standing in the Han River notice a strange, mutant-type tentacly creature swimming by. One fisherman catches it in his cup but drops it and it swims away. If this was a US film, it would've been a redneck fisherman saying "Hmm, t'ain't never seed nuthin' the likes o'that 'round these here parts, Jebediah". Shades of monsters to come! But it's time for a time shift to the Park family.
As wacky families go, the Parks are almost up there with Takashi Miike's Katakuris! Sixty-something Park Hie-bong (Hie-bong Byeon) runs a snack/convenience store right off the Han River along with his 3 adult children and one granddaughter. Forty something Park Gang-Du (Kang-ho Song) has dyed blonde hair and has the habit of falling asleep at the most inopportune moments due (apparently) to his lack of protein as a child. (You just have to run with the bizarre, surreal nature of these plot points because they're done knowingly for comic affect). Gang-Du's wife "popped out" their daughter Park Hyun-seo (Ah-sung Ko) and promptly abandoned them both. The other two adult children are Olympic archery medalist daughter Park Nam-Joo (Doona Bae) and grumbling, unemployed son Park Nam-il (Hae-il Park). 
One bright and sunny day, pedestrians along the Han River notice a strange, gloopy mass hanging from the bottom of a suspension bridge. At first the people assume the sludgy mass is something from an oil spill but when the object falls into the river and seems to swim towards them underwater, they assume it's some sort of sea creature. As the crowd throws soda cans and snacks at the underwater mass, the creature swims away. However, moments later a crowd in the distance begins running towards them pursued by a large dark object about the size of an elephant or rhino. As they get closer, the bystanders can see it's some sort of monster which closes the distance and starts munching on anyone unlucky enough to get in its path. Blonde-haired slacker Gang-Du is among the crowd and alternately runs away and helps a US G.I. belt the creature with a heavy street sign. Much carnage and mayhem (and murdered bystanders) ensues in a truly terrific action scene. Suddenly, Gang-Du notices his daughter Hyun-seo is outside in the crowd. He grabs her hand and runs with her but they fall down in the crowd. Regaining his feet, he grabs her hand again and runs . . . but when he turns his head he sees he has grabbed some OTHER little girl's hand. He looks back in the crowd and sees his daughter standing there with the hideous monster bounding up behind her. Before he can act, a long serpent-like tail whips around and snatches the little girl up. The monster then plunges into the river and swims to the opposite bank where it pops Hyun-seo into its mouth and then swims away. As said previously, this is one heck of a scene. As the community (including the Parks) mourn their dead at a public memorial, the Korean police and military in hazmat suits arrive and inform everyone that the monster was carrying a deadly virus. Anyone who came in direct contact with the beast is taken away to a government quarantine site -- this includes the Park family. While in the hospital ward, Gang-Du receives a telephone call. The signal is faint and the call is full of static -- but the voice of a young girl says she's his daughter Hyun-seo and that she's somewhere deep. . .and dark. Is the girl still alive? None of the authorities believe him. The rest of the film deals with the Parks frantic efforts to find where Hyun-seo was calling from and rescue her; all this while on the run from the authorites.
Director Joon-ho Bong has made a cracking monster yarn in the best tradition of Godzilla and every Ray Harryhausen dynamotion flick ever made. Of course, in this day and age, the monster is CGI'd and it must be admitted that the only a microbe less believeable than any Hollywood-made computer graphics. It's a completely effective job in almost every respect and is actually better computer graphics than I've seen in one or two so-called Hollywood blockbusters. Like Godzilla movies which slipped in warnings about the dangers of atomic radiation, THE HOST slips in the very green message concerning the pitfalls of polluting the environment; if you don't dispose of your toxic products properly you might get giant man-eating fish monsters! So watch yourself! Once again it should be noted that the director manages to combine scary monster action with sometimes surreal/sometimes wacky humour and genuinely touching emotional moments. This is no horror comedy but the laughs are perfectly integrated into the film without ruining the other aspects of scares and drama. It just so happens that right before I watched THE HOST, I watched the original JURASSIC PARK for the first time. Of the two, I would have to say I enjoyed THE HOST much, much more. JURASSIC PARK was . . .well, OK I guess but I truly don't see what all the fuss was about. Granted, the film is almost 20 years old now and perhaps you had to be there. But I found THE HOST to be much more involving and enjoyable a film. I can see why it was so successful in South Korea; it was tailor-made to put bums in the seats and sell sell SELL that popcorn. But THE HOST is much more than just that; it is also a surprisingly rich film that truly has surprises around every corner where what often happens truly IS unexpected. Apparently (but not surprisingly) a sequel was made in 2011 (which I haven't seen) which sadly does not see the return of director Joon-ho Bong. This is a pity because i think a great deal of the first film's success can be placed at the director's doorstep. The good news is that THE HOST is available to rent from whatever movie service to which you might belong so I heartily recommend you seek it out. 
As the old year wanes, it's time once again to reflect on those notable celebrities who dropped off the twig this year.
Also rans: WHITE CHRISTMAS (1954), IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946), HOLIDAY INN (1942), SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS (1964), ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS (1955) and BELL, BOOK AND CANDLE (1958).
Directed by Gianfranco Parolini on a shoestring, "SARTANA" became one of the most successful and influential of Italian westerns helping to push the genre more towards a "tongue-in-cheek" attitude (which would sadly eventually degenerate into parody). Obviously influenced by Sergio Leone's "Dollars" movies, Sartana had his own catchphrase he would give to those he was about to kill: "I am your pallbearer". The plot of this film is filled with twists and turns and may require several viewings before you get a grasp on it. First a stagecoach carrying a strongbox full of gold is robbed by a gang who is then attacked and 
killed by Morgan (Klaus Kinski) and his gang. However, Sartana shows up and kills all of Morgan's gang except Morgan who escapes. It is discovered that the strongbox is actually just full of rocks! A group of town bigwigs including a politician and bank manager (Sydney Chaplin and Gianni Rizzo) are trying to perpetrate an insurance fraud by having a Mexican gang led by General Don Jose Manuel Francisco Mendoza Montezuma de la Plata (make sure you get that name right, pardner!!!) aka "Tampico" (Fernando Sancho) steal the strongbox. Another stagecoach is robbed by the Mexican gang but is which is then killed by Lasky (William Berger) who tells his gang to meet up with him later. Lasky then has his now-partner Morgan go off to kill Sartana after losing all his money to the enigmatic stranger in a card game. Morgan tries. Morgan fails. Lasky collects a gang to go kill Sartana but the gang is in turn killed and Lasky gets away. Lasky blackmails the bigwigs who in turn tell Tampico that it was Lasky who killed the Mexican gang. Tampico captures Lasky and beats the snot out of him so he will reveal the real location of the gold. Lasky tells them that only Sartana knows. And on and on and on. There are plot twists and turns about every five minutes and everybody is double-crossing everybody else and it all adds up to a fun spaghetti western.
Gianni Garko makes a great anti-hero as Sartana. Besides his dark attire, Sartana is also given a 007-like gadget (director Parolini was a fan) of a four-barreled derringer with a playing card cylinder which fakes out shot-counting opponents by giving Sartana more shots than he should have. 
Klaus Kinski's character is given the nicely flamboyant touch of having little bells attached to his spurs while Sartana himself frequently opens a musical watch to unnerve his victims. The entire film was shot in the Lazio area near Rome and the hacienda belonging to Tampico is actually a villa once owned by Mussolini! There would be four more official Sartana movies with all but one starring Garko. These sequels would be lighter in tone (leading to the eventual deterioration into parody of the genre) as directed by Giuliano Carnimeo. 
This trend would eventually lead cheeky fans to alter the title of the first Sartara movie to 'Se incontri Sartana, digli che è un stronzo' which means "If you meet Sartana, tell him he's an asshole!" Ah, the fickle fancy of genre fans.
The "poliziesco" is an Italian crime film which flourished in the sixties and seventies alongside the even more popular "spaghetti western" and "giallo" genres. Many of the directors of polizieschi also simultaneously turned out movies in these other genres as well. VIOLENT NAPLES director Umberto Lenzi is a case in point; he also directed gialli like "SEVEN BLOODSTAINED ORCHIDS" (1972) and cannibal horror movies such as "THE MAN FROM DEEP RIVER" (1972) and the later "CANNIBAL FEROX" (1981). in VIOLENT NAPLES, Lenzi declares himself to be a master at the action film in a movie which rarely slows down for a second.
A "Dirty Harry"-like cop named Commisioner Betti (Italian genre hero Maurizio Merli) arrives in Naples to take on the mob. Almost immediately, an affluent couple are robbed and the wife raped by a couple of hoods working for mafia boss The General (Barry Sullivan). There is also a mob financier named Capuano (John Saxon) who double-crosses the boss, a protection racket terrorizing local business owners and a bank robber named Casagrande (Elio Zamuto) who is secretly knocking over banks all over Naples. Casagrande is out on parole and has to sign in at the police station every day at 1pm; he robs the bank at a few minutes before 1 and then hops on the back of a motorcycle (driven by an actual Italian motorbike champion) who whisks him through Naples at breakneck speed so that he'll appear at the police station at 1 thereby making the police his alibi. Commissioner Betti spends the movie roughing up crooks while his superior complains about his methods. The General and Capuano spend the film double crossing each other. The protection racket smashes shop windows and torches garages. One fleeing hood impales himself through the chin on a wrought-iron fence, a father is burned to death while his son is crippled by the protection racket, a 68 year old woman is pushed down a flight of stairs by muggers, and a man is killed with a bowling ball! (Here Barry Sullivan's strike is about to meet stoolie's face!) 
This is a gritty and violent movie but not in an overly unpleasant way; the violence is not graphic (by today's standards) and the action is kept at a high pace so that you never get bogged down in the details. Particularly thrilling is the motorcycle footage shot from on the bike itself throughout the actual streets of Naples with the notorious Italian traffic making for a pulse-poundingly realistic sequence of many actual near-misses. There is a lamentable use of sped-up camera at the end of one of these sequences but it is meant to be obvious and almost Keystone Kops-like. And also, if you have an aversion to cheesy mustaches, this movie may frighten you because there's almost wall-to-wall porn-star mustaches throughout. Hey, it was the seventies what can ya do?!? If you're in the mood for a frantically-paced Italian crime film with lots of punches and gunshots and high speed chases than VIOLENT NAPLES is perfect for a Saturday afternoon in front of the telly with a bowl full of spaghetti. 
At the end of each year I like to look back over those movies which I watched for the very first time in the preceding year. Some were new but most were old movies I'd missed up till now. Just as a library full of books - all of which you've read - has no real use, a history of movies - all of which you've seen - would be terrible; the joy of being a film buff is discovering previously undiscovered movies and watching them for the first time. These are 50 of my favourite films I saw for the first time in 2011:
Here's looking forward to much more movie watching in 2012!!!
This 2002 film by director Alexander Sokurov (in Russian "Русский ковчег") doesn't fit any category I can think of. Filmed on location in the actual Winter Palace of the Czars which is now the Hermitage Museum, the entire 96 minute film was shot IN ONE TAKE! No cuts. No edits. And there are 2000 people in the cast; all wearing period costumes who all had to know their cues and enter at the proper moment or else the entire film would've been spoiled! Seriously!?!? The film is half about the building itself and its history and half about the masterpieces of art which the Hermitage now houses. Sokurov's obvious love of both art and Russian history permeates every frame. And each and every frame was captured with a digital Steadicam in one single take. I'm sorry, I just can't get over that. Directors from Orson Welles to John Carpenter to Martin Scorsese have been chasing the "extended take" in their films for years but here's a guy who shoots his entire movie in one take. Actually, the first two takes were spoiled by "technical difficulties" and Sokurov only had time for one more attempt before his time allowed in the Hermitage expired. Luckily, the final take went off without a hitch and that is the movie as we now have it. Sound was redone in post due to the director's habit of cursing loudly whenever something didn't quite go perfectly.
The film opens with a totally black screen and our on screen narrator (director Sokurov himself) explains that he was in some sort of accident and somehow finds himself here. Wherever that is. The entire film is shot from the camera's/narrator's POV. We shortly find ourselves in the Hermitage where the narrator encounters people dressed in the clothing of various historical eras. The narrator soon meets a character known simply as "The European" (Sergei Dreiden) who actually represents the 19th century French diplomat Marquis de Custine; the Marquis wrote a famous book on his travels in Russia "LA RUSSIE EN 1839". The eccentric "European" winds his way throughout the Hermitage with our narrator/camera in tow encountering people from all different eras in Russian history. We even see Catherine the Great, Peter the Great and Czar Nicholas II and his ill-fated family. The off-kilter, dream-like quality of the film is remarkable and there is a certain dream-logic at work here. Also there is a very real probability that the narrator (and "The European") are dead and merely ghosts gliding through the museum. The European sometimes interacts with the people he meets (especially the staff who constantly seem to be shoo-ing him out of rooms) and sometimes appears completely invisible to those around him. 
We witness a grand ball with an orchestra playing Glinka, a theatrical performance, Czar Nicholas I received the grandson of the Shah of Iran for a state "apology" at the murder of a Russian ambassador, Catherine the Great bounding down a snow-path (presumable to make a romantic assignation) and even a man building his own coffin during the World War II siege of the city. Add to this the frequent stops to examine works of art in the museum: Rubens, El Greco, Canova, et. al. The surroundings -- being the actual Hermitage itself -- are obviously stunning to look at; as are the works of art. The costuming is extraordinary. Lighting by Bernd Fischer and Anatoli Radionov is unbelieveable considering they were constantly on the move for 96 minutes. And the photography by Tilman Büttner is nothing short of a miracle. Then, of course, we come to Sokurov's direction which required a cast of 2000 to know their lines, their cues, their choreography and their timing so as not to spoil the one take. If for no other reason, this film is worth watching just for the technical accomplishment. But the film is much more than that. It's a slightly dizzing, often exquisitely beautiful, sometimes surreal and occasionally funny experience which resembles no other film out there. And for anyone with even the slightest interest in art or history, RUSSIAN ARK is a delightful Faberge egg of cinema.
Melville, Conrad, London, Stevenson; Gauguin and Loti and Rupert Brooke; Lubbock, Masefield, De Hartog -- Slocum and Rockwell Kent; Trelawney and Cook and Bligh; Chapelle and Underhill -- Nansen, Frobisher, Villiers and Scott and Louis Becke. Homer, Geribault, and Tompkins. Hundreds more: all cast in a common mold -- blessed with the genius that makes men feel, and dream, and go.
Poised this night: seven children and thirteen adults; ten tons of water, six tons of fuel; a four-month supply of food; three hundred charts -- within the trussed shell of the last merchant-built windjammer to fly the American flag (museum ships excepted). Primed and able to go.For me, boredom is not the opposite of amusement; . . . Boredom to me consists in a kind of insufficiency, or inadequacy, or lack of reality . . . . The feeling of boredom originates for me in a sense of the absurdity of a reality which is insufficient, or anyhow unable, to convince me of its own effective existence . . . . from that very absurdity springs boredom, which when all is said and done is simply a kind of incommunicability and the incapacity to disengage oneself from it.
-- Alberto Moravia
La Noia
