There really is nothing like a Sion Sono film. It’s too easy to slip the “gonzo” tag onto any artist whose work straddles the line of garrish cartoons and meta commentary, over the top gore covering everything like…well, gore. The fact that Suicide Club still hasn’t been upgraded to HD (at least streaming, which is how I saw it) makes in a strange way for an even more effective presentation, as if I’m watching something that maybe I shouldn’t. The film that broke Sono to wider audiences is still just as weird, wild, and ultimately mysterious as it was when it was first released over twenty years ago.

Reviews

Hooptober 8.0 – Evilspeak (1981)

Being Film #20 for Hooptober 2021

It’s interesting watching something like Evilspeak now, 40 years after its release and in a completely different world where “nerd is the new cool” holds sway and the kind of ruthless bullying we see on display feels even more startling than it must have when it first came out. The movie tries to embodies a bunch of different trends at the time, including satanic worship and computers to invoke the Devil. Toss in a great Clint Howard performance and you have yourself a fine horror flick that fleshes out its nerdy protagonist and offers a little more than the standard power grab motif.

ChrisOctober 8, 20211 Comment

Reviews

Hooptober 8.0 – Shin Godzilla (2016)

Being Film #19 for Hooptober 2021

We’re so busy with the spectacle of shared universes and CG indistinguishable from reality that we forget the lessons of our monsters. Japan hasn’t, and Shin Godzilla is a reminder of the power the most famous kaiju in the world has in holding a mirror to the nightmares of our own making, allowing us to process unspeakable events through the rampaging of a massive radioactive fossil from the past. Where Ishirō Honda found a way to comment on the horrific aftermath of the atomic bombings of Japan in WWII, so now do Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi of Neon Genesis Evangelion fame craft a multi-faceted look at a country in turmoil after a devastating event, with the nuclear behemoth standing in for the very real terrors following the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, which happened following an earthquake and tsunami off the coast of eastern Japan.

ChrisOctober 8, 20211 Comment

Reviews

Hooptober 8.0 – Uzumaki (2000)

Being Film #9 for Hooptober 2021

Like a lot of people I fell into the world of Asian horror with Hideo Nakata’s Ringu. After being thrilled by the imagery and concept I read the trilogy of novels by Koji Suzuki: Ring, Spiral, and Loop. I knew there was a filmed adaptation of the sequel, but at the time Asian imports were hard to find, and I kept confusing Uzumaki, called Spiral when it came over to the states, with Rasen, which was the filmed sequel to Ringu and also translates to Spiral (and also NOT the filmed sequel by Nakata which I reviewed last year…confused yet? ). Anyway, that’s a long preamble to the fact I finally watched Uzumaki, which is a somewhat silly but effective nightmare that has some great visual moments and a barely held together story that nevertheless makes it an oddity to catch.

ChrisSeptember 26, 2021September 26, 20211 Comment

Cinema Dual (TEST SITE)

Examining a life through the media we consume. In other words, I’m reviewing all of my physical music media in alphabetical order, one day at at a time. Except when I don’t, as has been the case for the past few years. Still, we march onwards…Coffee essential, but not mandatory

Tag: Japan

Hooptober 8.0 – Suicide Club (2001)

Hooptober 8.0 – Evilspeak (1981)

Hooptober 8.0 – Shin Godzilla (2016)

Hooptober 8.0 – Uzumaki (2000)