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By  Stephen, on April 4, 2012, 5:20 am  The Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love? [超時空要塞マクロス 愛・おぼえていますか, Chōjikū Yōsai Makurosu: Ai Oboete Imasu ka] (1984)
AKA Macross: Do You Remember Love?, Super Dimension Fortress Macross the Movie, Macross: Clash of the Bionoids, Super Spacefortress Macross
Starring Mari Iijima, Arihiro Hase, Mika Doi, Akira Kamiya, Osamu Ichikawa, Eiji Kanie, Ryūnosuke Ōbayashi
Directed by Shōji Kawamori & Noboru Ishiguro
Here it is: Macross. The holy grail of sci-fi anime. It may not have as much mainstream recognition as some others, but within the industry, Macross is the preeminent giant robot anime. In America, it was turned into the first part of the Robotech series, one of the more popular cartoon shows of the 80s. It even impacted the Transformers. The character Jetfire was created from a Macross toy, and while Michael Bay and Shia LaBeouf have been using the Transformers franchise as their own personal commode lately, that Macross inspired character is still around today.
There is no Robotech version of this film, which is an adaptation of the original Macross TV series, but because of the various copyright conundrums, it never got a proper American release. It did get an English dub under the title Macross: Clash of the Bionoids, but one version going by that title was edited into oblivion. (If someone makes a list of the most confusingly published movies, this one better be on it.) I didn’t have much trouble getting a DVD of the original Do You Remember Love, but it is an all region disc, so I think it’s an international release that somehow sidestepped the copyright problems. Sadly, that “perfect edition” is far from perfect. While it does have some good quality video, the subtitles are abysmally timed. The worst part is the karaoke subtitles, which cannot be turned off under any circumstances. Maybe someday we’ll get a good remastered Blu-ray edition in America, but don’t hold your breath.
Continue reading Stephen reviews: The Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love? (1984) →
By  Will, on March 26, 2012, 5:20 am  Starring Danny DeVito, Billy Crystal, Kim Greist, Anne Ramsey, Kate Mulgrew, Branford Marsalis, Rob Reiner, Bruce Kirby, Joey DePinto, Annie Ross
Directed by Danny DeVito
Expectations: Low. One of those 80s movies I’ve never seen that could go either way.
Throw Momma From the Train has a lot of interesting aspects, but in the end they don’t add up to a wholly satisfying movie. As with all 80s films, some of this is pleasantly explained away with the “only in the 80s” mantra, but to dismiss all of the film’s faults with this argument would far too forgiving. To focus solely on the faults would also be a mistake, as the film does do a good job of entertaining. I don’t know, it’s a weird one for sure, and some of my strange feelings can be traced back to my knowledge of the film prior to watching it.
This is one of those 80s movies I never saw back in the day, but I heard and saw a lot about it upon its release. Between regular trips down the video store aisles to Anne Ramsey’s Oscar nomination, this film was seemingly everywhere in my young world. I remember my parents refusing to watch it (or maybe it was refusing to let me watch it), but there was something about that video box (and the whole forbidden fruit mentality that arose because of their restriction) that made me want to watch the film. Enjoying Billy Crystal and Danny DeVito helps too. Flash forward twenty-five years and I have finally realized this dream of youth. That mysterious film with the two guys sitting on the train tracks is no longer in the gigantic “To Watch” pile of my mind.
Continue reading Throw Momma From the Train (1987) →
By Will, on March 16, 2012, 5:20 am This is the third in a three-post series where I share my school reports from my first real film class, Film History. These were the first serious writings I did on film, and they offer a look back at the foundations that would eventually lead me to start writing reviews here at Silver Emulsion. I recently found them in a box while preparing to move, and I hope they are as entertaining to you as they are to me (they won’t be). These were written about twelve years ago during the Fall of the year 2000, when I was a spry nineteen years old. I will be re-creating the documents with the same formatting and images to the best of my abilities with the WordPress editor. Also, I’m leaving in any grammar errors or other things that I might want to change. It’s all about posterity and not falling into the George Lucas trap. Anyway, enjoy! Maybe.
 Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998)
“I simply make a film as I want it to be,” Akira Kurosawa replied when asked why he shoots his films the way he does. It is this independence, this incredible cinematic vision, that has given Akira Kurosawa the nickname of The Emperor. His films not only inspire and teach but also entertain with top notch acting and visuals. Kurosawa never settled for second best and it comes through in every single one of his films, especially the three films I have chosen to focus on: Rashomon, Yojimbo, and Ran. These films were all pivotal to Kurosawa’s career, Rashomon made him famous, Yojimbo was his biggest commercial success, and Ran was the film that he felt to be his best. All of the films are set in the past, in Japanese history. As a student, Kurosawa was very interested in literature, especially Dostoevsky and Shakespeare, and the kodan, a story-telling entertainment where traditional samurai tales were told. Obviously, these interests molded themselves into the films Kurosawa made and shaped his style and vision into something the world had never seen before.
Continue reading A Look Back: Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998) →
By Will, on February 27, 2012, 5:20 am  The Dagger of Kamui [カムイの剣, Kamui no Ken] (198)
Starring Hiroyuki Sanada, Mami Koyama, Tarô Ishida, Yuriko Yamamoto, Ichirô Nagai, Kaneto Shiozawa, Takeshi Aono, Kazuyuki Sogabe, Takashi Ebata
Directed by Rintaro
Expectations: Moderately high. The trailer was awesome.
Before I get into anything concrete, I should preface this review with a quick bit on my knowledge (or lack thereof) of anime. In the 90s I saw a few, but nothing truly captured my imagination. Then I saw Spirited Away and I realized just how good the genre could be. From that point forward I sought out more Miyazaki films and was equally impressed with each of them. Despite working solely within animated films, Miyazaki had all the trappings of a traditional director, and being a firm believer in the auteur theory, I naturally latched onto him. I made a deal with myself to pretty much only watch his films when it came to anime; he was a name I could trust. Then I watched Whisper of the Heart a few months back, and I realized the fallacy of my personal pact. Clearly there were other films out there in which Miyazaki was not the director that were done just as well. I silently decided to one day re-visit anime in its many forms and truly give it a good ole college try. Enter one of my co-workers, who’s much more of an anime dude than I am. He suggested me this film, and after an initial internal struggle with myself, I decided to watch it. And I’m glad I did.
The Dagger of Kamui tells a somewhat complex story of betrayal and death, but it’s all told from the point of view of our hero, Jiro. The film opens with an unseen assassin murdering his mother and his sister, and when Jiro walks in and finds them, the townspeople immediately accuse him of doing the deed. They always knew he’d do it too; he was found in the river as a baby and was not actually one of them. This event sets into motion the entire film, as Jiro gets taken in by the kind and mysterious Tenkai and taught the ways of the Shinobi via a kick-ass montage of Jiro running along ocean waves and jumping between tree branches.
Continue reading The Dagger of Kamui (1985) →
By Will, on February 16, 2012, 5:20 am  Starring Sho Kosugi, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Doran Clark, Bruce French, Vladimir Skomarovsky, William Bassett, Kane Kosugi, Shane Kosugi, Dorota Puzio, Jan Tríska, Gene Davis, Alfred Mallia
Directed by Eric Karson
Expectations: Sho Kosugi. JCVD. I heard it’s bad, but I gotta see it!
On the general scale:
On the B-Movie scale:
Hot off the heels of the amazing Bloodsport, Jean-Claude Van Damme landed the main villain role in this Sho Kosugi vehicle, and regardless of whatever flaws the film has, it definitely delivers on the schoolyard playground promise of “Sho vs. JCVD!” They face off a few times throughout the film, with two major battles occurring during the closing half hour. I’m getting a bit ahead of myself, but Black Eagle is the type of movie that doesn’t lend itself much to beating around the bush.
Basically a low-budget version of the James Bond film Thunderball (but with better underwater sequences… fuck Thunderball‘s torturous underwater filmmaking), Black Eagle sees Sho Kosugi as the title character: a covert CIA operative capable of fucking up any evildoers holiday plans. An experimental plane went down off the coast of Malta and even though it’s Sho’s scheduled family vacation time, they force him to do the job. How does the U.S. government do that exactly? By picking up his kids and flying them directly into harm’s way in Malta, and then using their presence there to force him into a position where he has no choice but to agree, that’s how! Stand up guys those CIA suits. Of course, he’s not the only one looking for the plane, and this is where JCVD and all the requisite Russian baddies come from. It’s the Cold War as told through a mediocre James Bond rip-off starring two of the screen’s favorite Western martial arts stars.
Continue reading Black Eagle (1988) →
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