The Curator of Schlock #356 by Jeff Shuster

Dead or Alive: Finale

This one don’t make no sense.

I met a swarthy gentleman at a bar called The Grizzled Grizzly near the Canadian border. His name is Jacque Baptiste and he says he’ll get me across the Canadian border if I’ll have Edwige, my kangaroo companion, compete in a street fight. Now I’m sure there’s an ethical dilemma here, but I also have those poor people in Saskatchewan to think about. Sometimes you have to make the hard choices.

Tonight’s Arrow Home Video release is 2002’s Dead or Alive: Final from director Takashi Miike. I don’t know if I can call it a film as it was shot on digital video. Arrow Video issued a statement that they cleaned it up as best they could, but this movie was shot in standard definition and standard definition ain’t high definition.

This movie takes place in the city of Yokohama in the year 2346. That’s the far future! There’s even this weird blimp flying over the city that looks like a flying fish or dragon. We never see it again, but it’s one of those wow effects that’s supposed to suspend my disbelief that this is Yokohama in the year 2346.

This is a bad future. The mayor of Yokohama forces all of the citizens to take birth control pills in an effort to not repeat the mistakes of the past. You see, there was a cataclysmic war that nearly destroyed civilization. I guess by preventing people from having children, you can prevent future wars from happening as there will no longer be anyone to actually carry them out. Still, some pesky citizens still insist on procreating.

A resistance has formed for those that still want to have babies. And it is up to the police to stop this resistance. Leading the charge against them is Officer Takeshi Honda (Riki Takeuchi). Helping the resistance is a rogue replicant named Ryō (Show Aikawa). What is a replicant you may ask? It’s a robot created before the great cataclysm. They are very sophisticated and can pass for regular people except they have super powers. For instance, Ryō can catch a speeding bullet in his hands and send it flying back to his opponent.

Later, we learn that Officer Honda is also a replicant. So are his beautiful wife and young son. His whole life has been a lie. We get a huge showdown between Honda and Ryō and get treated to some flashbacks of the first two Dead or Alive movies. And then the two replicants morph into a huge robot that resembles a part of the male anatomy that I won’t mention here. I think the idea is that they will confront the mayor, but the movie just kind of ends.

I can’t figure out if I’m suffering from an extreme form of culture shock or if Takashi Miike is just that weird a dude. I hear he’s currently in charge of a TV show about magical school girls so I guess he’s gone the family-friendly route. The Arrow Blu-rays are chock full of special features including commentary tracks by critic Tom Men. He’s from Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

Okay. That’s all I’ve got. Time to dunk my head in a bathtub full of ice water and scream.

Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, and episode 450) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #355 by Jeff Shuster

Dead or Alive 2: Birds

Gas shortage! Gas shortage! Everyone’s losing their shit over the gas shortage. I still have to figure out a way to get across the Canadian border with my unvaccinated self and my kangaroo compadre. Still, I lucked out. I found a gas station with plenty of diesel so I filled up about six Hefty trash bags to the brim and tied them up as best I could. They’re in the truck with the canning equipment. They should last me as I drive around aimlessly trying to figure out my next step.

This week’s Arrow Home Video release is 2000’s Dead or Alive 2: Birds from director Takashi Miike. If you were hoping for a direct followup to Miike’s Dead or Alive, you’ll be disappointed, especially since the last movie ended with what looked like a world-ending disaster.  No, Dead or Alive 2: Birds is a standalone story. The only thing it has in common with Dead or Alive is its stars, Riki Takeuchi and Show Aikawa.

Okay. This seems to start out as another one of those Yakuza versus Triad deals. A low level assassin named Miyuki gets hired to assassinate an officer in a Triad gang…or was it a Yakuza gang? Same difference. As Miyuki sets up the shot, another assassin named Shuuichi kills his target. Miyuki still collects the money and runs before they figure out he wasn’t the actual assassin.

Miyuki takes a boat ride and gobbles down a noodle bowl while reminiscing about his childhood. Seems that he and his friends always saved the tofu at the bottom of the bowl for last. They would eat the tofu quickly at the count of three. Maybe it’s around then that he figures out that Shuu was his close childhood friend from the orphanage they grew up in. The two assassins meet each other again and they decide to take a trip to the island where they grew up. They visit the orphanage and stay with another mutual friend, Kohei and his pregnant wife.

And then the two assassins decide to help out with a children’s play for the locals. What? The play is about a lion in the jungle that subsists on chocolate and bananas. The lion runs into other animals, but there’s an eccentric tortoise that threatens the harmony of the group. I thought I was watching a movie about hardcore assassins and now I’m being subjected to some bad community theater.

Interspersed with segments from the children’s play are violent gang slayings in the newly unfolding war between the Yakuza and the Triads. Oh, and I think it’s revealed that Miyuki and Shuu aren’t really human. I think they’re either extraterrestrials or fallen angels. You see, feathered wings keep poking out of their back. They also make a point of sharing their assassination fees to help impoverished people in Africa. I guess that’s a sort of moral justification. If you kill criminals for money, but then use that money to help out the poor and oppressed, is it really evil? I think I’m getting a headache just thinking about the moral complications. That or it’s the gas fumes. Maybe a cigarette will calm me down. Where did I put my lighter?

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, and episode 450) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #354 by Jeff Shuster

Dead or Alive

Not be confused with DOA: Dead or Alive. 

So I make it to the Canadian border crossing and the guys in the snow fatigues start asking me all kinds of questions. Have I been vaccinated? No. There’s a vaccine for the virus? I haven’t really been keeping up with the news. Do I have a passport? Nope. I guess you need those when you’re traveling. Is that my kangaroo? No! Edwige is no one’s property. She’s my traveling companion. They made me turn around, but I’ll find another way in. Those poor people in Saskatchewan need me!

This week’s Arrow Home Video release is 1999’s Dead or Alive from director Takashi Miike. This brutal movie makes Miike’s own Black Society trilogy look tame. The movie begins with chaos reigning on the streets of Shinjuku. A naked prostitute clutching a bag of blow falls to her death from a high rise. A yakuza member with blond hair and a blue suit rips the blow out of her dead hands. While he’s employing the services of a male prostitute in a dingy bathroom, his throat gets slit by the hand of a rival gangster, blood spraying all over the face of the male prostitute.

Things settle down a little bit after that as we’re introduced to Detective Jojima (Show Aikawa). He and his family are going through a rough time as his daughter needs expensive surgery that the family can’t afford. She’ll die without the surgery, so he makes a deal with a yakuza boss named Aoki (Renji Ishibashi). This Aoki fellow is a bad man that likes to pick up women from hostess clubs and then drown them in inflatable pools filled with their own feces and urine.

Seriously, I hate this guy.

Aoki makes Detective Jojima to hunt down some petty crooks that robbed one of his operations in broad daylight. They are not to be arrested, but turned over the Yakuza so they can be dealt with as the Yakuza deals with people who’ve ripped them off in broad daylight. The ones that stole from them are a small gang of fearless criminals led by a black trench coat wearing malcontent named Ryūichi (Riki Takeuchi). He’s not a nice man. In fact, Ryūichi has the eyes of a cold blooded killer.

Ryūichi and his gang commit a brutal hit on the club belonging to Aoki’s yakuza outfit, wasting almost every member including those in higher leadership positions. They even kill Detective Jojima’s partner who went in trying to arrest them. Jojima shows up to the club well after Aoki and his gang have left the premises. Aoki is the one survivor of the massacre and he forgives the debt Jojima owes him as he is now the boss. Jojima thanks Aoki by shooting him dead.

Detective Jojima turns his sights to Ryūichi’s gang. He intercepts some heroine they’re trying to smuggle into the country. Ryūichi retaliates by rigging Detective Jojima’s car to explode. Too bad Jojima’s wife and daughter were the ones in the car when it it exploded. And just before his daughter was supposed to get that life-saving surgery, too. This leads us to a violent last showdown between Detective Jojima and Ryūichi’s gang. Seriously, this finale is worth the buildup toward it. Check it out!

Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, and episode 450) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #349 by Jeff Shuster

Greyhound

Not the bus. 

Edwige and I were about five days into our road trip to Canada when I realize I had made a horrible mistake. I left my box of Arrow Blu-rays back at Big Tom’s. I have to turn this rig around, but that’s okay. I subscribed to Apple TV Plus for all sorts of exclusive content like old Charlie Brown specials and a Justin Timberlake indie film. Oh, boy. Well there is a new Tom Hanks movie on there called Greyhound.

2020’s Greyhound from director Aaron Schneider skipped the theaters last year due to that whole global pandemic thing. Apple landed it as their big exclusive movie on their fledgling streaming service. This was much to the disappointment of Tom Hanks who wanted a big screen release for this movie he wrote the screenplay for based on the novel The Good Shepherd by C. S. Forester. I typically don’t care for World War II movies, but this one was interesting. Maybe because it’s the first movie I’ve seen about The Battle of the Atlantic. Also, at a 91 minute runtime, Greyhound doesn’t overstay its welcome.

Tom Hanks plays Commander Ernest Krause, captain of the USS Keeling. Its radio call sign is “Greyhound.” Greyhound is part of a team of escort ships, protecting supply ships on their way to Liverpool. Captain Krause is in command of the fleet, but it’s his first mission, first time coming face to face with the dreaded threats that lurk within the waters of the “Black Pit,” an area of the Atlantic out of range of air support, where the ships are vulnerable to the dreaded German U-boats. 

The U-boats are known as “wolf packs” because they hunt in groups. And they are pretty terrifying. We don’t get to really see the enemy in this movie. The creepy music blares, the sub pops up from the water with a red wolf’s head painted on the side, and before you know it, an oil tanker is torpedoed. You can see the toll this is taking on Captain Krause as he downs cups of flaming hot coffee while refusing to eat anything. 

Every so often, one of the Germans figures out the Greyhound’s radio frequency and starts trolling the crew. The German officer says stuff like, “We hear the screams of your comrades and we laugh. The wolf always eats the hound. We will kill you. Awhooooooooooo. Awhoooooooooo!” Captain Krause changes the frequency, but the Germans figure it out again and keep trolling them. There’s loss of crew members, high stakes suspense, and a climatic finish.

I’m with Tom Hanks. This should have gotten a theatrical release. The spectacle of warships and submarines attacking each other on the high seas would have been worth seeing on the big screen. Also, Tom Hanks tends to keep the details as true to life in these war films. This would have been an immersive experience in a proper theater. Here’s hoping it might get a second chance for a theatrical run. 

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, and episode 450) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #348 by Jeff Shuster

The Big Knife

Serious movie time!

So Big Tom had a heart attack. The doctor says he’s forbidden from trucking for the next six months. That means there’s no one to deliver that fancy canning equipment for that ready-to-eat salmon salad canning factory up in Saskatchewan. No one except for me. That’s right. Edwige and I are taking a road trip up to Canada. Granted, I’ve only observed Big Tom driving a truck. I’ve never taken the wheel myself. What could go wrong?

This week’s Arrow Home Video release is 1955’s The Big Knife from director Robert Aldrich. This is a bit higher class than the typical movies we cover here, but I will persevere somehow. I should warn you that The Big Knife is based on the play The Big Knife by Clifford Odets. I can always tell when a movie is based on a play. You’ve got few sets and a lot of dialogue. I always ask myself why I’m watching this on the screen when I could be watching it on the stage.

We’ve got an incredible cast of Hollywood stars of the era like Jack Palance, Ida Lupino, Wendell Corey, Jean Hagen, Rod Steiger, and Shelly Winters. As for the play—I mean movie—it’s another American tragedy deal. Don’t get me wrong. I love American tragedies. Arthur Miller’s A View From the Bridge is one of my favorites. What do you want from me? I grew up in the New York Metropolitan area where theatre is everything.

Jack Palance stars as Charlie Castle, a big Hollywood movie star living in the lap of luxury. Wine, women, and song are at his fingertips, but the only thing he wants in this world is his wife, Marion (Ida Lupino), who has separated from him due to all his drinking and womanizing. She’ll come back to him, but only if he doesn’t sign another contract with Stanley Hoff (Rod Steiger), the head of the studio. Charlie promises Marion he won’t sign, but we all know he will.

You see, it seems that Charlie had a bit of a drunk driving accident a few years back. While he was sloshed, he ran hit and killed some poor girl. His good friend, Buddy Bliss (Paul Langton), took the rap for the hit and run because he thinks the world of Charlie and didn’t want his career to go down the toilet. You know, I don’t care how good a friend someone is, you don’t go to jail for him. Sucker. Later in the movie, Charlie will get seduced by Buddy’s wife, Connie (Jean Hagen), and sleep with her. Charlie has a darker nature, you see. Buddy is such a sucker.

Anyway, Charlie doesn’t want Marion to leave him for good and he’s also tired of making schlock movies for the studio. But Stanley suggests that he should sign a contract with him as he’s privy to several of Charlie’s dark secrets. Charlie agrees to sign on for seven more years of financial security. I feel terrible for him. Perhaps I should bad for Dixie Evans (Shelly Winters), a struggling young starlet that was in the car with Charlie the night of the accident. And Dixie is threatening to blab to the press if the studio doesn’t give her a plumb role. I’m sure everything in Charlie’s life will work out fine. I’m sure it won’t end in tears.

Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, and episode 450) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.