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I didn’t know anything about Ultraman before seeing these four episodes. What I know now: there are five members of Team DASH, and they fight giant monsters, kinda like Kaiju Big Battel. Team DASH is a special group within the UDF. Giant monsters tend to ravage a specific area of Tokyo which is a cut below the classic Toho models. Officer Kaito can turn into Ultraman Max, who is exceedingly tall and who kicks butt on almost everyone. He only gets to stick around for three minutes, though. And, um, that’s pretty much it. ...

Shinobi is state of the art Japanese high budget historical romantic dramatic action. The story is not Romeo and Juliet with throwing stars, as tempting as it is to use that line. (So tempting I used it anyway.) However, it is fated lovers and there were throwing stars, so that’s all good. There’s a minimalist plot which, for much of the movie, looked like it was going to leave me hanging in terms of story satisfaction. I’d been sort of middling satisfied as the various ninjas, each with their own unique fighting style — excellent fight choreography — battled and struggled and died. But then the final confrontation turns out to not be the two lovers; rather, their story transmutes into the driving engine for something which is in the end more important. And that rocked. ...

I gotta stop seeing Thai movies unless they get really good reviews. Hell was kinda Saving Private Tootsie in, well, Hell. Lots of wandering around, no dramatic tension, and I didn’t really care if any of the characters made it back to the mortal world. Also I knew they would, because the big demon boss said “Let them out once they learn their lesson,” except he couched it in terms of karmic debt. ...

This was, I think, a metaphor for the state of sports in Boston after the first two New England Patriots Super Bowl victories. The All Out High baseball team is of course the Red Sox, doomed to never win (at least in the eyes of the city). The All Out High soccer team, successful and snooty and possessed of innumerable chicks in miniskirts, is the Patriots. The struggle of the baseball team to make the Nationals under a goofy laconic manager is the struggle of the Red Sox to make the World Series under Terry Francona. ...

I find most movies advertised as “so bad it’s good” don’t fulfill the latter term. Three MIghty Men was an exception. The print sucked, the music was laughable, the acting wasn’t, the fight scenes… actually, the fight scenes were kind of imaginative, but they were imaginative at about half-speed. Captain America’s actor knew some gymnastics, so we got that. The Spider was defeated, by my count, six times. No explanation given. Not a lot of explanation of anything, really, except the reason why our heros wore masks. (“The Spider is like a child; masks send him into a rage and he will try and kill us. Also, my costume is bulletproof.”) ...

This was, I think, a metaphor for the state of sports in Boston after the first two New England Patriots Super Bowl victories. The All Out High baseball team is of course the Red Sox, doomed to never win (at least in the eyes of the city). The All Out High soccer team, successful and snooty and possessed of innumerable chicks in miniskirts, is the Patriots. The struggle of the baseball team to make the Nationals under a goofy laconic manager is the struggle of the Red Sox to make the World Series under Terry Francona. ...

No clever titles this trip. It’s gonna be a long one. The drive up was nice, excepting the insane Big Dig traffic in Boston. Taking 89 up through Vermont is a win from an aesthetic standpoint; it was a bit late for much of a view of the islands, but on the way back S. and I expect to be able to bask in natural beauty. Customs happened. This year, our maps were accurate and we found our Montreal domicile without trouble. ...

Really, the festival is pretty much what I’m thinking about right now. The links here go to IMDB, rather than the Fantasia site (like the ones in the last post). Saturday Three Mighty Men: bad Turkish 70s flicks are really hot on the festival circuit right now, and I kinda wish I was kidding, but I kinda don’t because if I was kidding I wouldn’t have the chance to see this one. This is also the only movie I’ll see at this year’s festival with a masked wrestler, unless someone else holds a surprise for me. ...

It looks like this: Three Mighty Men (original) All-Out Nine: Field of Nightmares Hell (original) Shinobi (original) Arthouse Ultraman Vampire Cop Ricky Samurai Commando 1549 (original) Train Man (original) Junk (original) Wilderness (original) Red Shoes (original) Isolation Synesthesia (original) The Gravedancers (original) The Kovak Box (original) Storm Pusher 3 (original) The Echo Subject Two (original) The Descendant Reincarnation (original) DJ XL5 Zappin’ Party Cavalcade Ressonances (original) Evil Aliens (original) The Order of One (original) Five Deadly Venoms (original) Aziris Nuna (original) The Great Yokai War Executive Koala (original) Arcanum My Dead Girlfriend (original) Kebab Connection (original) Commentary perhaps later.

It looks like this: Three Mighty Men All-Out Nine: Field of Nightmares Hell Shinobi Arthouse Ultraman Vampire Cop Ricky Samurai Commando 1549 Train Man Junk Wilderness Red Shoes Isolation Synesthesia The Gravedancers The Kovak Box Storm Pusher 3 The Echo Subject Two The Descendant Reincarnation DJ XL5 Zappin’ Party Cavalcade Ressonances Evil Aliens The Order of One Five Deadly Venoms Aziris Nuna The Great Yokai War Executive Koala Arcanum My Dead Girlfriend Kebab Connection