Hey folks, Harry here with another wonderful report from Ade at the Philadelphia Film Festival a few miles from that defective broken bell of theirs and a host of M Night locations. Sounds like a neat selection of films. I've seen CUTIE HONEY - which simply is candy for the senses. And I'm looking forward to most of these. Now, let's hop to it, here ya go...
Another full weekend of titles from the Philadelphia Film Festival!
Lipstick & Dynamite
This film documents the history of women’s professional wrestling. It turns out that women’s wrestling started out in the carnivals back in the ‘40s. The promoters basically found young women in dysfunctional families and offered them money to become wrestlers. In the beginning they not only wrestled other wrestlers, but also bears, alligators, or people from the audience. It wasn’t long before wrestling moved out of the carnivals and became what we now call “sports entertainment”. Interviews with Gladys "Killem" Gillem (the oldest living female wrestler), The Fabulous Moolah, Mae Young, Ida May Martinez, and others are very entertaining. They tell stories of their best matches, abusive promoters, abusive husbands, wrestlers sleeping with promoters, and wrestlers sleeping with other wrestlers’ husbands. There is also some jealousy towards The Fabulous Moolah. She is by far the most successful, as she still works for Vince McMahon in the WWE. Moolah has been managing and training other female wrestlers for a long time, and they seem to think she has always taken advantage of the wrestlers she manages. Since these women are “old school” it was sometimes annoying when they talked about wrestling as if it was a real sport. But that’s a minor point in an otherwise wonderful documentary. The director Ruth Leitman was on hand for a Q&A after the film. She’s another local Philly director. I don’t remember any previous festival with so many films from local directors. She talked about the difficulty in getting the Fabulous Moolah to talk to her, and then get video footage from her boss Vince McMahon. The director didn’t admit this, but without Moolah there is basically no movie, as Moolah has dominated women’s wrestling since the ‘60s. I wanted to ask her if she tried to get the women to talk about the predetermined nature of their “sport”, but didn’t get the chance. The older wrestlers generally want to keep the illusion going to the very end. The movie has been picked up by a distributor and has recently opened in NY and LA. Worth checking out if you have any interest in the topic.
Arahan
This “Danger After Dark” entry is a martial arts comedy from Korea. A young cop is accidentally injured by a martial arts “ch’i” student. She takes him to her master so that her master can heal him. The master discovers that this young cop has an extremely high level of ch’i and therefore can be easily trained to become a ch’i master. I guess you could say he has a high Midichlorian count… Anyway, the young cop is introduced to the “Seven Masters” but he does not want to be trained. After taking a beating while trying to ask a suspect for ID, he changes his mind. He learns “palm blasts”, levitation, and other supernatural kung fu abilities. While training, one of the “Lost Seven Masters” returns with ideas of taking over the world. The two students must work together to stop this new menace. The comedy in this film is much better than what you usually see in a kung fu comedy. There are a lot of funny moments. The fight scenes are all wire-fu and CGI. Personally, I prefer the old school style of kung fu, but I did like the action in this movie. The film is a lot of fun.
The Soup, One Morning
This film from Japan won the Grand Prize at Japan’s PIA Film Festival and the prestigious Dragons and Tigers award at the Vancouver International Film Festival. The film introduces us to an unemployed man trying to cope with an anxiety disorder. He is put on medication but ends up involved with some type of cult. The woman he lives with discovers money missing from their account and confronts him. He tells her about the “Sublimation House” and how he had to spend the money on a special couch to improve his Karma. She is very upset and plans to do everything in her power to get him to the doctor and away from this cult. The movie was shot on DV and almost the entire film takes place in their small apartment. It shows how their relationship is falling apart little by little. When he stops attending meetings, a cult member stops by to say that they were thinking about giving him some type of promotion. This gets him back involved and causes more problems with his woman, just when things seemed to be going smooth. The film starts out slow, picks up steam, and then just ends. The ending is very unsatisfying, as it seems as if nothing really gets resolved. The audience I saw the film with didn’t even clap at the end, which is the general custom during the Film Festival.
Throw Down
This “Danger After Dark” entry is a Hong Kong film (directed by Johnnie To) that has been described as an “ode to judo”. Judo is a martial art, originally from Japan, which makes use of throws, strangles and joint locks. There is generally no kicking or punching in Judo. A young judo “master” named Tony sets out to challenge a former judo champion named Sze-To. Tony visits Sze-To’s bar and is surprised to find that Sze-To is now a drunken gambler, who no longer practices judo. Tony begins to hang out with Sze-To and one of the singers at the bar. Tony begins to challenge other judo masters in the hopes that Sze-To will eventually come around and train to face him. It’s no surprise when Sze-To and Tony finally have their fight. Afterwards, they begin to train together so that Sze-To can have a final match with an old rival. The fights are beautifully filmed, especially the fights in the street. All the fights do use judo, so you don’t have the flashy kicks and punches that are standard in most Hong Kong martial arts movies. But it was good to see a martial arts film that appears to have no wire work or CGI. The final fight was a bit of a disappointment. It was short, and the setting makes it hard to see what is going on. But overall the fight scenes were good, and the bar singer provided the comic relief. It’s always good to see a well done martial arts film from Hong Kong.
Cutie Honey
This “Danger After Dark” entry is live action Japanese Anime. “Cutie Honey”, played by Eriko Satoh, is a crime fighting superhero. She changes from a mild mannered office worker, who is always on the verge of being fired, into Cutie Honey by exclaiming “Honey…Flash” while touching her special superhero necklace. In this “episode” her scientist uncle is kidnapped by the evil Panther Claw Clan. With the help of a stuck-up policewoman and a reporter, Honey must fight her way through such villains as Gold Claw in order to save her uncle from the dreaded Panther Claw leader Sister Jill. Along the way she builds a friendship with the policewoman. The fight scenes are all wild CGI spectacles. None of the fighting is anything close to realistic. The movie is very silly, with every scene done with a sense of humor. The ending is particularly silly. The best thing about the movie is Eroko Satoh. She is wonderful to look at as Cutie honey. The movie is 90 minutes of eye candy, nothing more.
Me and You and Everyone We Know
This film won a special jury prize for “Originality of Vision” at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and was film critic Roger Ebert’s favorite feature at Sundance. Performance artist Miranda July wrote and directed this film about various people trying to connect with each other. Miranda plays Christine, who drives an “Elder-cab” for senior citizens. She is trying to get noticed by a department store shoe salesman. She gives him her “elder-cab” business card, and eventually he calls. The shoe salesman is recently separated from his wife. He has two sons, 7-year-old Robby and 14-year-old Peter. Peter shows Robby how to chat with women on the Internet, and he ends up seducing a lonely woman even though he can barely type. Peter has his fun with two teenage girls when they have an argument over who gives the best blowjob and need an outside opinion. Those same two girls have fun teasing an older single man who spends his nights writing them notes about what he would do to them if they were 18. Peter likes talking with a young girl who has a secret hope chest and already has her entire life planned out. The dialogue is well written and each of these stores is very funny and entertaining. This is one of those films that you end up talking about with your significant other long after the movie has ended.
Miranda July was on hand for a Q&A session after the film. She even filmed part of it with a small digital video camera for posting on her web site. She seems to have the same likeable personality as her character Christine. She talked about how she was involved with every aspect of making this movie, with casting being particularly difficult. She plans to continue as a performance artist, but does plan to make at least one more movie.
Soundless
This thriller from Germany is about a hit man who calls himself Viktor. He assassinated a man in his sleep but leaves the man’s sleeping female companion Nina untouched. He basically fell in love with her at first sight. He follows her and ends up preventing her from committing suicide after she is interrogated by the police. Their love affair progresses while, unbeknownst to her, Viktor plans out his “final” hit. Unbeknownst to Viktor, the police have figured out his identity and are closing in. After Viktor successfully completes the next hit, the police figure out his connection with Nina. The police call Nina in for questioning and then put her under surveillance. Viktor tells her about his profession and she doesn’t even care. It’s now up to Viktor to do everything in his power to escape town with his new love. This is the typical thriller with suspense, car chases, and shootings. The problem is that there isn’t enough of any of it. And the romance is totally unbelievable. The action in the movie is well done, but there was too much time spent on the investigation. This one was a disappointment.
There are 3 days left in the film festival, but I’m not certain that I will get a chance to see anything else. I’m almost certain that the festival will set an attendance record this year, as most movies I’ve seen were sold out. It’s been fun!
Ade’
