From: wildman@athena.mit.edu (Timothy Worsley)
Newsgroups: alt.cult-movies
Subject: Random stuff
Date: 12 Sep 92 13:50:08 GMT
Reply-To: eprice@sql.sybase.com
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Sorry for such an odd posting, but there are a number of things I want
to mention.

1. Since I'm sure everyone was enthralled by the news that the music
from Argento's OPERA was used in BLOOD RITUAL, here's a similar
observation: I noticed that the exact same music is used in THE KILLER
(John Woo) and HERO AND THE TERROR (a Chuck Norris movie).  Anyone got
an explanation for this (is it a famous classical piece or something)?

2. Video Search of Miami claims to have a 125 minute Italian language
version of Dario Argento's PROFONDO ROSSO [DEEP RED].  In case you
missed the extensive discussion on this general topic, this is two
minutes longer than the running time given in Fabio Giovannini's book
on Argento and four minutes longer than the Domovideo version
(according to the highly esteemed Peter Correnty -- who also pointed
out that this difference may reflect only a sped-up transfer).  The
American video release is somewhere between 98 and 100m.  The Japanese
laserdisc release is 105m.  Anyway, I'll have something more definite
to report on this by next week I hope...

3. I called Video Vault (Washington, DC) to ask about uncut Argento.
The woman was very friendly and said that it is hard to come by (which
has become all to obvious).  They used to have PHENOMENA [released in
the US as CREEPERS, cut by 40 minutes] but their print was damaged and
they haven't been able to replace it (if I remember correctly).  They
only have SUSPIRIA (no big deal) and OPERA -- I asked her to check the
running time and she said it was 107m.  I believe the standard US
release is 100m so perhaps this really is uncut.  Yeehaw.

4. Anyone here seen any Harry Smith movies?  I got "Heaven and Earth
Magic" -- because John Zorn calls it one of the best films of all time
(in the liner notes to "heretic, jeux des dames cruelles", Avant 1).
It's a bizarre surrealist animated flick, about an hour long, made
between 1957 and 1962.

5. Anyone ever heard of a movie called... "heretic, jeux des dames
cruelles"?  I ask because the Zorn album I just mentioned is
supposedly a soundtrack, but since it doesn't say anything about what
film it's a soundtrack to, I can only guess that the film is of the
same name...  I'll try to look up the title in some books today, but I
have a feeling that it will be obscure (I looked in some of the usual
lame references already at the video store yesterday).

6. Just watched RAGE OF HONOR (Sho Kosugi).  Man, this was so *boring*
and *stupid* (and more than usually predictable even for the genre!),
the martial arts were uninpsiring, the action was incompetently
directed, etc. etc. etc.  *Lame*.  They must have had a serious budget
problem or rating problem or just been a bunch of morons, cuz there
was NO BLOOD (well, hardly none) and no dismemberments or
decapitations.  And there were plenty of opportunities, believe me, it
was frustrating viewing.  I kept thinking, ah, *now* Sho will slice
this guy's arm/head off with that nice Ninja sword, BUT *NOOOOOOOO*,
there isn't even any arterial spray, which I thought was de rigeur for
this kind of cinematic endeavor...

7. Saw GOD OF GAMBLERS (5th or 6th viewing) and A BETTER TOMORROW (Nth
viewing, N is definitely > 20) at the Museum of Fine Arts Thurs night.
GOD OF GAMBLERS has a *serious* amount of breaking glass action
(including a gratuitous slow-motion guy-runs-through-glass-door shot,
which I am told may be a Sid&Nancy reference???)  It's got a guy's
head going through the side window of a car, that may be an hommage to
A BETTER TOMORROW, and a nice guy-falling-onto-glass-case in slo-mo.
And the slo-mo-Chow-Yun-Fat-shooting-people-multiple-times-with-two-
powerful-handguns (with each bullet impact loving depicted for your
viewing pleasure of course) seems to be a serious KILLER imitation --
except that I think these two flicks were both released in 1989?  Oh
well -- THE KILLER is probably just the most outstanding example of a
glorious Hong Kong aesthetic tradition...

8. My brother just got John Woo's JUST HEROES and reports that
although there are no slo-mo shots of heads going through windows
there is a beautiful sequence of a guy crashing through a chandelier
or something.  And he also said that NIGHT CALLER was good -- Asian
Trash Cinema gave this one four stars and made it sound like some sort
of Hong Kong Argento-style horror/exploitation flick.  (BTW, my
brother is scum -- the day after I leave New York he goes to NYUE...)

9. Apparently Anita Mui (ROUGE, A BETTER TOMORROW III) is working on a
new gangster flick in Hong Kong, rumor has it that it will be cool.
*I'm* excited.

10. Watched THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (the LD, very nice) and noticed a
striking similarity between the use of the geiger counter to detect
the presence of the thing and the use of the motion detectors in
ALIENS.  I, for one, would not dismiss this as coincidence...

11. Finally watched THE YOUNG DRAGONS, John Woo's first film!  I had
attempted twice before to watch this and always fell asleep before it
was over (partly cuz I was probably tired, but not entirely).  Not
terribly good (I've seen worse), interesting for its historical
significance I guess.

12. Got a very nice poster for TENEBRE (the large -- 39 x 55 I think
-- Italian kind) at Jerry Ohlinger's on West 14th in NYC, a great
place for posters and stills and stuff.  This is only the second movie
poster I've ever bought; I really hate posters with quotes,
announcements about video releases, languages other than the original
(at least for the title), and lame artist's renditions of something
from the movie (I'd rather have a photograph, as on STRANGER THAN
PARADISE -- the other poster I have that I like -- or stylish artwork
that isn't trying to look like a still -- which is what TENEBRE has, a
very aesthetically-pleasing and appropriate image of a woman's head
with a tricle of bright red blood on her throat!  <THANK YOU, DARIO!>)
The American artwork for Argento flicks is, in every case I've seen,
infinitely inferior to the original Italian stuff.

13. Are there any serious Verhoeven (sp?) fans out there?? I have of
course seen ROBOCOP, TOTAL RECALL, BASIC INSTINCT, but not been very
impressed (well, ROBOCOP was fun, but not anything to get excited
about).  So, yesterday I finally saw THE FOURTH MAN!  *That* was
cool!!  (BTW, the protagonist is played by the same dude that played
the mob boss in THE PUNISHER -- I was going nuts for a little while
trying to figure out where I had seen him before...)  So, my question
is: what other films did he do before selling out and how do they
compare?  Thanks in advance!

Well, I hope anyone that actually read all this stuff got *something*
out of it...  And if someone can answer my question about "heretic,
jeux des dames cruelles" I would be very grateful (as would others,
including some readers of rec.music.bluenote where the question first
came up because of the "soundtrack" the CD supposedly represents).

-Ed (not Tim), eprice@sql.sybase.com (not wildman@...)