Monday 16 July 2012

PDSA Charity Gig

Somewhat late on bringing this here, but anyway, another killer set list in Liverpool this weekend, £6 for 11 bands! And it's for animal charity too! Some highly-recommended names on here, it's set to be a good mix of hardcore, noise punk and thrash!

Wednesday 11 July 2012

The Last Match

As a small homage to the late Ernest Borgnine, here's a film that he's frankly not best remembered by, but one in which he still manages to give a good performance.
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An action film about American Football players as elite commandos taking on Henry Silva as the slimey warden of a hellish jail sounds like it has all the makings of a winner, but such a set-up may have been best left to someone more capable of making gold out of garbage; Fabrizio de Angelis' off-handed seriousness in delivering the story causes the film to miss its mark and instead turn it into a dawdling drama that uses words not actions to drill home a mind-numbing message of how great America is.


Oliver Tobias stars as Cliff Gaylor, an American Football player whose team has seen success thanks to the efforts of their coach Keith (Ernest Borgnine), his daughter Susan (Melissa Palmisano) and her boyfriend George (Robert Floyd) are holidaying in an unnamed Latino country when they decide to go home early, at the airport a shady individual sneaks a bag of cocaine into Susan's luggage, getting her strip-searched and arrested. Cliff kicks up a storm and attempts to get her out but everyone he turns to in the fictional country all tell him how bail is impossible and that their court system works extremely differently to America's (with lots of moments of how great America is in comparison being peppered in, the effect is weak when you consider this is an Italian film pandering to the US market; "it's important to know that in this country they play a very different kind of ball game").


Unexcitement follows with drama as invigorating as a talk with your banker, car "chases" and Henry Silva as warden Yashin being sadistic but not nearly as much as he could be; why aren't we getting a full-blown women-in-prison torture film in the middle of Strike Commando? Also, Sicilian and Spanish-born Silva doesn't nearly come off quite as convincingly as he could in his character's unspecified Latino nationality, especially when speaking clean cut English. Out of options, Cliff phones up his coach and teammates to help him break into the prison and rescue Susan, because when every lawyer in the country can't do anything for you it's time to do it unloading lead. The highlight finally arrives when the film delivers ass-kicking yankee rugby soldiers blasting through Silva's prison, enjoy the sight of guys in bright yellow armour successfully staging an entire attack as this is the only time this ever happens. The film misses every opportunity for some absurd moment of violence and action and there is only a small margin for error; simply have the action start from the get-go, however de Angelis must have seen a good opportunity for drama and political intrigue, but failed to incorporate any of that too.


This is unfortunately one you watch for the accident it is, the lack of energy in the film resonates throughout as its capable cast (other actors who do a good job on a meager script include Charles Napier and Martin Balsam) do little to bring life to their roles, with the exception of Borgnine, who manages to play with enthusiasm and makes his scenes at least somewhat worth watching. Even the music is dire, and as you may have surmised there is no conspiracy behind the character kicking off the events by putting the drugs in Susan's bag, though this could be regarded as a realistic detail, it still only sets the film up for a lot of hackneyed America worship. The Last Match is a solid indicator of when Italy's output of films of this caliber was greatly beginning to slide down with little being on offer even for purists.

Or maybe it all is just an allegrory for how America barges its way in everywhere, guns yeehawing and TV dinner sports being shoved in your face. Hahahahahahahaha.

- James

Review source: Japanese VHS
Title information
  • Production company: Fulvia Film
  • Year of release: 1990
Alternate titles
  • Kunnian koitos <Show of Honour> (Finland)
  • L'ultima partita <The Last Game> (Italy)
  • 怒りのタッチダウン/人質奪回作戦 "Ikari no tatchidaun, hitojichi dakkai sakusen" <Touchdown of Anger: Hostage Rescue Operation>
  • Son Maç <Last Match> (Turkey)

Sunday 8 July 2012

Ernest Borgine dies at 95

R.I.P.

Geotropism


In my opinion, any so-called punk that does not recognise the importance of dadaism or the avant-garde can unglue their mohawks, sell their uniform jackets and get a bath, things don't spit in the face of normality much more than the revulsion that can be found in dadaist work. Extreme Japanese hardcore group G.I.S.M. most certainly did not shy away from the avant-garde, with lead singer Sakevi Yokoyama dabbling in harsh noise side projects and various audio collages, expert collage printing and art design, full-force shock tactics (readers new to G.I.S.M. might do well to know about their prolific violence on and off stage) and some involvement in experimental filmmaking, with Geotropism (directed by Junji Yasuda) being the token film to the band's name in terms of a full appearance, or as close to one as possible. The film stars Sakevi as himself while the rest of the band appear as homeless folk (punks all the same), there is no dialogue and it clocks in at 20 minutes; if you were expecting it to be Sakevi beating up pussyfooters, you're going to have to reserve that expectation for his short scene in Robinson's Garden.


Barbaric editing and pounding audio collide in what is nearly an incomprehensible montage of Sakevi walking round an abandoned building with solarized images of gas mask-clad faces, x-ray examples of human anatomy, radiation warnings and shelter instructions briefly flashing on screen in between. Sakevi seems to be a controller of some sort (it's hard to tell with the version used), eventually he boards a train, the amplified audio of coughs, spits and clicks eventually becomes a harsh noise track as Sakevi is shown going crazy in his building intercut with images of explosions and a rocket taking off, a caucasian man is show in a segment talking but his dialogue is inaudible. Eventually, it culminates to the final scene of Sakevi eating while listening to an omnious English voice count repeatedly in billions, as the shadow of a gun can be seen trained on his head.


Despite how much the film likes to assault with its imagery and sound, it's not hard to deduce that it is a scathing critique of human progress in the title alone (in relation to the concept of geotropism, roots growing underground is positive geotropism whilst stems growing away is considered negative geotropism, perhaps the latter can be applied to the shot of a rocket launching into space, alternatively, GeotropISM) and that everything in it ultimately points to nuclear war (one has to only consider the fact this is a Japanese film made during the Cold War, that and G.I.S.M.'s generally nihilistic and military-themed style). For those interested in the Japanese art film scene, material focused on nuclear warfare or general nonsense of this nature, it's an intriguing little watch that is no doubt poetic for some and complete rubbish for others, if anything it's a progressive post-apocalyptic short. Keep in mind, this is an especially rare one though.

- James

Review source: Japanese VHS
Title information:
  • Year of release: 1984

Friday 22 June 2012

Docfest

Another steal night of music if you happen to be in Liverpool this coming week! £10 entry gets you a night of sludge, doom, brutal thrash and hardcore punk! Plus an after party of Extreme and Industrial Metal!

Full details here.

- James

Saturday 16 June 2012

True Gore


You cannot review a shockumentary as you would any other movie; the 'successor' to the defunct mondo genre, the shockumentary is the high school failure and family outcast that few members like to talk about at dinner. Usually nothing more than patchwork collections of executions, fatal accidents and other gross mishaps, still form or in motion, the shockumentary preceded the Internet in terms of pulling images out of context and grossly sensationalising them with snide commentary and presentation. The genre is as extreme as it is immature, often under flawed artistic pretense and its audience is within the absolute minority of the already tightly-knit niche of obscure, VHS-only, B-to-Z-grade movies; it's this family of freaks that accepts the shockumentary fan.

 
True Gore
sticks out marginally for what it is; domestically rarer than most titles of its ilk, True Gore was curiously released in Japan dubbed (under the name "Super Junk", to cash-in on the Japanese release of the Faces of Death series, which were not inappropriately retitled Junk over there) and prominently features the overbearing creative consultation of Industrial pioneer and obscene exhibitionist Monte Cazazza, who is partly notable for pouring cement over a staircase in his college as part of an art project and setting alight a dead cat in front of his friends. Information on Cazazza is scarce and he reportedly witnessed necrophilia in action as a child, take of this what you will. Divided into sections in an amateurish charade of importance, this pleasant 85-minute collection features gruelling images of rotting cadavers, live animal vivisections, staged suicide scenes, extreme BDSM footage, robots made from meat that completely fail to appear functioning, indecipherable audio collages of Jim Jones, early Industrial music, a cartoon music video about how atoms work and stock footage of the Nazis. As a boiling pot of all things disturbing, this is somewhat cool. A narrator hidden behind sunglasses and a solarizing effect punctuates this fiendishly-edited, trash bag of seizure-inducing, irritatingly-orchestrated fake scenes and genuine footage of varying qualities, it's all nasty, nasty stuff and the frankly terrible music you hear throughout does a phenomenal job at making this a punishment to the senses, which in itself should be a real joy for some.


Credited to one M. Dixon Causey as director, the majority of what is on show has been compiled from Cazazza's own movies and the music featured is what he has worked on, True Gore is obviously something you don't need to see save for those curious about Cazazza's work and are welcome to more extremities. True Gore however, might prove a worthwhile watch for those with access to some hardcore drugs for a truly ill-fitting trip, as a shockumentary it's one of the sicker names less known out there and has a bit more variation to its visual carnage. The people who will watch this will know who they are.

- James

Review source: Japanese VHS
Title information
  • Production company: VU Film And Video
  • Year of release: 1987
Alternative titles
  • スーパージャンク/世界大終末 "Suupaa jyanku sekai dai shuumatsu" <Super Junk: The End of the World> (Japan)

Wednesday 30 May 2012

M.A.C. Of Mad, BBYB, Cybergrind Gabba DnB Goregrind Party . Liverpool

If you're in the UK, get down to Liverpool, Sunday June 3rd, for a 12-hour show! £5 gets you 16 bands if shit this messy is up your street! This is a combined effort by its organizers to get more music like this into venues in the North West, so if you ever see these names in your town go and see what they've got on!

- James

Sunday 27 May 2012

An interview with Koichi Ohata

Thanks to Ryohei Miyaji of Japanese VHS Hell a year or so ago, I was able to contact rogue anime gore-manipulator and mecha designer Koichi Ohata, director of the fond-around-these-parts M.D. Geist, Cybernetics Guardian and Genocyber OVAs amongst other works that have kept him active over the years. Ohata agreed to answer several questions and was even kind enough to provide an autographed sketch of Geist. Having been something of an infamous figure in anime over the years, this brief interview should hopefully shed some light on the man's influences, background and interests.

How did you begin your career at age 19? Was working in TV anime restrictive and how did you feel seeing your designs animated?
K.O.: When I was 18, I had set out to Tokyo in aiming to become a sci-fi or fantasy comic artist, but a colleague of mine advised that there may be more action in production plans for SF anime. From there, I created my own project and took it to production companies, but the person who reviewed my sketches and designs introduced me to the job of character designing for TV anime instead. That era was the boom of robots and mecha triggered by the original Mobile Suit Gundam, so science fiction-esqué visuals were in high demand. After seeing how my initial designs came to life on the screen, I was a bit disappointed in how the animator put their own spin on things.

You have been involved in many projects as a director, designer and animation supervisor, with other work in storyboarding, scripts and series composition. What is it like to have been involved in so many different areas with different types of people?
K.O.: Continuing my work in television anime, I began to develop a desire for starting my own production plan, fully utilizing my own original SF ideas and mecha characters. As a result, M.D. Geist was made. I believe that thanks to it, contribution requests increased from those who’ve praised my ability of successfully materializing an original project. I greatly strive to have others understand the intent behind my creations, but there are some who don’t share similar outlooks. I’m always troubled in communicating with the staff.

In the past you have worked with Gainax and Sunrise, with directors such as Hideaki Anno, Yoshiyuki Tomino and Kazumi Fujita, what was it like working with them? How did they differ from other directors or from your own style?
K.O.: Whenever I’m a part of the staff in a someone else's creation, I answer to the director’s demands. Even when I personally disagree, I still prioritize their requests. Some directors will at times not show a clear intention, but in such cases, I create a number of patterns, and have them choose from it.When I’m in the chair though, I would already have things that serve as the base for the story pre-prepared. Recently, I’ve even begun taking pictures for references and not only sketches.

During your work as an anime director, what did you think of the OVA industry? Was the episodic format of something such as Burst Angel comparatively better?
K.O.: With OVAs, I can concentrate in making each one, so controllability is easier, but the downside is that the production time is longer, requiring more perseverance. With anime series, the schedule is tight, so I narrow down key elements and leave the rest to the episode staff. Because of this, general flexibility is valued. Burst Angel was the show that taught me the difficulties and enjoyment in creating an anime series.

You use lots of demonic imagery in your works, is there a particular inspiration behind all of this? Do you have many influences?
K.O.: The monster films I watched as a child have had an influence, but I've also been very fond of the skeletons of animals and insects. Living creatures with a creepy form interest me, as do intimidating shapes and sinister atmospheres.

How have you felt about music in your productions? How did the band Trash Gang come to do the music for Cybernetics Guardian?
K.O.: I envision my favorite soundtrack from a movie, and issue a request to the composer. “Trash Gang” was a recommendation from the music director at the time, but the album they already created fit the image of Cyguard, so I used it.

Aside from anime, you have also worked in live-action movie productions. Can tell us about your experiences? What was it like compared to working on an animated product?
K.O.: I’ve directed two live-action films. “Ghost Boxer” is a horror flick about a boxer who died from excessively cutting weight coming back as a zombie, killing fatsos. “Mega Ladies” is more or less a junk picture featuring aliens who invade Earth fighting against a ladies pro wrestling tag team. For CG anime, BIOHAZARD 4D EXECUTER (a motion ride movie), DOA3, Ninja Gaiden (the opening cinematic for those two), and the opening for the online game: Tantra are the ones I’ve directed.

I understand you are a fan of horror movies, are there any other types of movies you are a fan of? 
K.O.: Aside from horrors, as work-wise I often tend to watch historical classics, yakuza themed, kung fu, and gun action types. However, I do take interest in cult movies like El Topo also. Even though it’d have nothing to do with the piece I frequently view human dramas and comedies, too. A genre unlikely for me is musicals.

You have written two books on films; can you tell us some of the details of these books?
K.O.: The title is “Sekai Tohoho Eigagekijyou” (lit. It's a Tohoho Film World) and it’s released in two parts. Contents introduce videos of poor films such as “Inframan” and “El Santo” with illustrations.

Are you still in touch with various people you have worked with?
K.O.: Whenever a project is finished, most end their association at that point. With those that I found were easy to work with, I contact them personally and ask them to join the staff. Currently, I’ve not worked with Riku Sanjo, but we do occasionally meet up to eat.

What do you think of the anime industry today?
K.O.: That’s a well asked question, but with each generation, the situation and stature changes, so I can’t say much about it. Though the fact that whatever the DVD consumers desire are being emphasized today is something that cannot be denied. Of course, that doesn’t constitute much for the creator on whether that is good or bad.

Do you think you will make something again that is similar to your old productions? Would you ever want to remake one of your old OVAs with a longer story?
K.O.: As a personal wish, I would like to do it, but titles like M.D. Geist may be a bit hard-pressed on the T.V. code. I believe it would be more suited for OVAs.

Finally, how do you feel about your old and new work overall?
K.O.: The creations I’ve made in past and present are all a part of my body; ergo I can’t think with them separated from thought. Personally if there’s any chances in the future, I’d want to make a omnibus SF fantasy animation similar to Heavy Metal.

Anti A.D. would like to personally thank Mr. Ohata once more for taking part, Ryohei Miyaji for making this possible, VF-Kun for question contribution and Yuta Baba for assisting in translation.




- James