For this Sunday Kino Night, first up is the first two installments of the samurai-action-fantasy Lone Wolf & Cub series, and two of the most beloved Japanese action films ever: Sword of Vengeance (1972) and Baby Cart at the River Styx (1972)! You wanted stuff about ninjas and guys stabbing people in the face, so here we go. Based on the manga of the same name, the series involves a ronin wandering the land with his small child as the shogun’s henchmen relentlessly hound them. The second film ups the ante by having our hero battle a clan of lady ninjas. He wracks up a ridiculously body count in all the films, generally by chopping the bad guys’ limbs off. Tarantino got the idea for the Kill Bill blood sprays from these movies. These are the best-known and arguably best-regarded films of director Kenji Misumi. After these two films, which are both short, we will finish up with the surreal French cartoon The Triplets of Belleville, (2003), set in a demented old-timey city and following a trio of sisters on a bizarre, dialogue-free adventure to find a kidnapped boy. It is currently the magnum opus of director Sylvain Chomet.

We’ll start early this evening, at 9PM EST on Hextube, right here:

https://live.hexbear.net/c/movies

Be there, comrades!

Letterboxd:

• Lone Wolf & Club: Sword of Vengeance: https://letterboxd.com/film/lone-wolf-and-cub-sword-of-vengeance/
• Lone Wolf & Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx: https://letterboxd.com/film/lone-wolf-and-cub-baby-cart-at-the-river-styx/
• The Triplets of Belleville: https://letterboxd.com/film/the-triplets-of-belleville/

Doesthedogdie.com links:

• Lone Wolf & Cub: Sword of Vengeance: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/85967
• Lone Wolf & Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068816/parentalguide?ref_=tt_stry_pg
• The Triplets of Belleville: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/12260

CWs for the Lone Wolf & Cub movies:

• Sexual assault. Oof. Despite the ridiculous, campy, over-the-top tone of these movies, the first film (Sword of Vengeance) has an unpleasant scene about 50 minutes in involving a woman being chased and assaulted by some bad guys. It lasts about one minute. I will announce exactly when this scene is coming.
• Nudity.
• Sex scene.
• Death of parent.
• Blood and gore.
• Dismemberment.
• Decapitation.
• Gun violence.
• Cutting of flesh.
• Profanity.
• A child is dropped down a well.
• Child abuse.
• Smoking.
• Alcohol.

CWs for The Triplets of Belleville:

• Torture.
• Spitting.
• Fat jokes.
• Burlesque dance scene with brief nudity.
• Car crash.

Links to movies:

Forthcoming. I have the files, and will upload shortly.

For this Friday Movie Night, we’re watching two of the most critically-acclaimed films of the year. First up is the best-reviewed Pakistani film of any kind to date: Joyland (2022), a romance about a young man from a conservative family who gets into dance theatre and starts woogin’ for a trans actor. Romance and struggle ensue. Pretty much universal acclaim for this one since its Western premiere earlier this year, and really, how often does a Pakistani gay romance come along? Let’s watch. After that will be the first of our Christmas-themed films this month, with the highly-acclaimed new dramedy The Holdovers (2023), the latest film of Oscar darling Alexander Payne (Election [1999], Sideways [2004], Nebraska [2013]). Some students at a prep school are too poor to go home for Christmas break, so a curmudgeonly professor (played by Paul Giamatti) has to look after them. Hilarity and feel-good antics ensue. Will they learn to understand each toher? Who can say? Anyway, this is likely to be up for some awards, and has received extremely good reviews, so we’re checking it out.

We’ll start at 9PM EST on Hextube, right here: https://live.hexbear.net/c/movies

Be there, comrades!

Letterboxd:

• Joyland: https://letterboxd.com/film/joyland-2022/
• The Holdovers: https://letterboxd.com/film/the-holdovers/

Doesthedogdie.com links:

• Joyland: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/885225
• The Holdovers: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/789816

CWs for Joyland:

• Alcohol abuse.
• Deaths of animals.
• Death of parent.
• Cheating.
• Someone wets themselves.
• Vomiting.
• Spitting.
• Hospital scene.
• Suicide.
• Flashing lights.
• Pregnancy.
• Death of pregnant person.
• Childbirth.
• Homophobia.
• Homophobic slurs.
• “Man in a dress” joke.
• Sex.
• Sad ending.
• Blood and gore.

CWs for The Holdovers:

• Child abandonment.
• Alcohol abuse.
• Dislocated shoulder.
• Death of child.
• Someone wets themselves.
• Mental institution scene.
• Hospital scene.
• Mental illness.
• Depression.
• Black character dies first.
• Sex jokes. No sex decpicted.
• Sad ending.

Links to movies:

• Joyland: https://vimeo.com/892786863
• The Holdovers: https://vimeo.com/892789373

More often than not, the plots are a variation of "woman in the big city gives up her job, leaves her (admittedly bougie and shitty) boyfriend, and moves back to the small town she grew up in where she hooks up with her old boyfriend who, in spite of his working class salt-of-the-earth appearance, has money."

The first 2 seasons of Search Party was some of the most engaging TV I've ever seen, I was fully into it. The third season is still pretty alright, but not anywhere near as great as the first 2. But what the fuck even is the 4th season of this show? The last episode just made me feel extremely cheated.

Come at me old timey film nerd!

First up is the third installment in the Ninja Cinematic Universe, Ninja III: Domination. A tale as old as time, of an evil ninja spirit who can't help but possess the bodies of the living to murder every LAPD they see. After that is Miami Connection, a group of orphans form a ninja themed butt rock band that starts playing at the local club, unknowingly making enemies with ninja drug dealers who are out for blood. The ratio of faces kicked in this one is extremely high.

Letterboxd:

Ninja III: The Domination: https://letterboxd.com/film/ninja-iii-the-domination/

Miami Connection: https://letterboxd.com/film/miami-connection/

Doesthedogdie.com links:

Ninja III: The Domination: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/81802

Miami Connection: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/165101

CWs for Ninja III: The Domination

Attempted sexual assault

Sex pest cop

CWs for Miami Connection:

Dudes getting parts chopped off

Butt rock

Links to movies:

Ninja III: The Domination: https://vimeo.com/891667247

Miami Connection: https://vimeo.com/891757763

"Two dads, one toy, zero prisoners." "Where is your Christmas spirit?" "He got two! He got two!" "Put that cookie down! Now!" "Shouldn't wear fur."

Sinbad and Schwarzenegger are awesome! We also had Phil Hartman! (RIP)

I love it as a Christmas movie, because it is very realistic (cynical). I heard some people do not like it? They must gotten too much eggnog!

https://nitter.net/DiscussingFilm/status/1732107912191803411

First look at ‘SASQUATCH SUNSET’, starring Jesse Eisenberg as a Sasquatch — “full makeup, full body hair, no lines. I grunt, but no lines.”

Exec produced by Ari Aster & releasing in 2024.

wtf did they make a grunting sasquatch movie because of the writers strike

Shot during the filming of Mystery Train (1989)

For this Sunday Slop Night, first up is, by request, Hoot (2006), a family film about a trio of kids who team up to stop some evil developers from plowing over the habitat of an endangered owl population. Kids rock? I guess we’ll find out. This is the only film of director Wil Shriner; he is a one-hit wonder. Second is the highly-acclaimed Italian union drama-comedy, The Organizer, about a well-read socialist professor at the turn of the 20th century who tries to organize a strike of textile workers, and has to deal with false consciousness and liberalism every step of the way. Director is Mario Monicelli, who also did the anti-Rififi film Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958), which was a hit when we watched it a month ago. Superb reviews across the board for this one, so let’s give it a shot. Last for the night is Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train (1989), a comedy following several storylines of odd characters during a night in Memphis, Tennessee, including a ditzy bellboy, a Japanese tourist couple, and a trio of bumbling thieves. Steve Buscemi is in it. The previous Jarmusch movies we’ve watched (Down By Low, Ghost Dog) have been great, and this is supposed to be one of his best. Let’s watch.

We’ll start early this evening, at 7:15PM EST on Hextube, right here: https://live.hexbear.net/c/movies

Be there, comrades!

Letterboxd:

• Hoot: https://letterboxd.com/film/hoot/
• The Organizer: https://letterboxd.com/film/the-organizer/
• Mystery Train: https://letterboxd.com/film/mystery-train/

Doesthedogdie.com links:

• Hoot: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/17240
• The Organizer: Sorry, nothing on DTDD or IMDB.
• Mystery Train: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/32043

CWs for Hoot:

• Animal abuse.
• Comic violence.
• Sexual innuendos.

CWs for The Organizer:

• Someone is hit and killed by a train.
• Worker abuse.
• Poverty.
• Angry mobs.
• Capitalism.

CWs for Mystery Train:

• Alcohol abuse.
• Smoking.
• Bugs.
• Ghosts.
• Suicidal ideation.
• N-words.
• “Sexual content”. Seems pretty tame to me, though.
• Blood and gore.
• Gun violence.

Links to movies:

Forthcoming. I have the files, but the most convenient way to upload them is to replace one of the earlier videos while a later video is playing.

Yes the quality is not great.

Pretend you are watching this on a cathode-ray-tube television that is hardwired to a video-cassette-recording machine slowly unwinding information from a magnetic tape.

I have really mixed feelings about this film because it's a robot emancipation film that feels like it was written by a leftist but at the same time it has some really serious issues as a film that holds it back from being an outright good movie

The Good

• This is like, one of the only modern+mainstream man vs machine narratives I can think of that is explicitly sympathetic to oppressed humans hand in hand with the sympathy towards robots. In this film, the robots are in solidarity with the humans they are living together with (robots protect human civilians and vice versa, humans attend robot funerals, they're seen cohabitating together, etc) and they fight together against the NATO coded invasion forces.

• In fact, there's even a scene at the beginning that, although brief, shows that working class western citizens are very sympathetic to the robots, and have to be conditioned and propagandized into dehumanizing them.

• It's a very pretty film. The sets and sci fi designs look really good and the robots have some cool designs among them, humanoid and less humanoid. ....Wait it only had an $80 million budget? God damn

• In addition to the more overt anti-imperialist themes of the film I feel like there's a lot of room for a Marxist interpretation of the film, that the robots could represent leftist groups in Southeast Asia, with the fear of use of nuclear weapons being one of the main propaganda pieces used by the West against them, the West's fear of the robots disrupting capitalist markets, the fact that the main goal of the film is to destroy a physical representation of Western military power and how that representation allows the West to invade and bomb countries with impunity, and so on.

The Bad

• The first half is a fucking mess, both pacing and writing-wise. There's a lot of narrative choices that are inconsistent with the second half of the film to the point that it's a detriment to the story. In a film with a focus on robot sapience and compassion, we get a Star Wars-esq scene where a grenade thrown by a robot soldier is rolled back into a crowd of robots, and the following shot of their maimed bodies flailing around is instead played for laughs. The discrepancy in the two halves is VERY noticeable, it feels like some sort of editing fuckery happened.

• It somehow manages to fumble 3/4 emotional beats that happen in the film. This is arguably the big issue here. Like it is genuinely impressive how consistently it missed the mark when attempting to pull off scenes that should have had emotional impacts. Like, my guys, you are writing a narrative about a grizzled reluctant father and an odd troubled daughter figure. This shit should be color by the numbers by now. I don't even think its the main actor's fault here because the scenes that do work, work fine. Like, the turning point when the lead starts seeing the robot child as a person? Skimmed over, no impact. Choosing to side against the West? Skimmed over, no impact. A sort of reunion with his dead wife? They bungled that scene so badly.

• The worldbuilding can kind of get wishy-washy. I feel like the story suffers for not having a human voice on the side of the New Asia coalition. It didn't even necessarily have to be a big role either, just a named human character to be all 'hey I'm from Bhutan and robots are people too and we want to build a new future together'. There is technically a character who fills that role but it's the fridged dead wife character so her voice only exists in retrospect and in the lead's memories in relation to himself. Without that presence existing in the story, what the (human) people of the New Asia coalition feel about anything goes kind of unspoken when it should have been a bigger aspect of the story.

Anyways it's not a good good film but it's a fun enough watch and you can watch it here lol

he committed le random evil act for no reason!!!

Yes, him and 99% of hollywood villains who hate elites because otherwise they wouldn't be allowed to release the movie

For this Friday Movie Night, we’re watching one of the all-time classics of Indian cinema: Nayakan (1987)! Imagine The Godfather, but in Tamil, and with the melodrama cranked to max, and a bunch of song-and-dance numbers thrown in. Dude gets too far in with the mob, and then he becomes the mob. We have not watched much from India, despite the size of its film industry, so we may as well start with one of its most critically-acclaimed, canonical works; nothing but praise for this one from pretty much all corners. It is considered the magnum opus of director Mani Ratnam. Okay, we’ll give it a try. After that will be our obligatory God Damn America entry for the week, with Frances Ha (2012), directed by critical darling Noah Baumbach (Manchester by the Sea, among others) and starring another critical darling, Greta Gerwig, who is now better-known as the director of Barbie (2023). She plays an aspiring dancer trying to launch her career in New York, and finds that showbiz sucks ass. Excellent reviews for this one pretty much everywhere, so let’s give it a whirl.

We’ll start at 9PM EST on Hextube, right here: https://live.hexbear.net/c/movies

Be there, comrades!

Letterboxd:

• Nayakan: https://letterboxd.com/film/nayakan/
• Frances Ha: https://letterboxd.com/film/frances-ha/

Doesthedogdie.com links:

• Nayakan: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093603/parentalguide?ref_=tt_stry_pg
• Frances Ha: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/16834

CWs for Nayakan:

• Sex. No nudity depicted.
• Blood and gore.
• Beatings.
• Gun violence.
• Death of parent.
• Torture.
• Police brutality.
• A bottle is smashed over someone’s head.
• Vomiting.
• Stabbing.
• Child abuse.
• Cutting of flesh.
• Strangulation.
• Eye trauma.
• Spree killing.
• Explosions.
• Someone is set on fire.
• Profanity.
• Ableist language.
• Drug use.
• Alcohol.
• Death by hanging.

CWs for Frances Ha:

• Alcohol abuse.
• Vomiting.
• Miscarriage.
• Discussion of sex.

Links to movies:

• Nayakan: https://vimeo.com/890460752
• Frances Ha: https://vimeo.com/890466021

Let's fucking goooooo