Caliber 9 (1972) Trailer

A favorite film of Quentin Tarantino which features the lovely, gyrating, go-go dancing, bikini-clad Barbara Bouchet, who happens to be one of my favorites.

Quentin Tarantino Lists His Favorite Films of 2011, Likes Feet

The Golden Globes are over and The Oscars are about a month away, so earlier this week the Quentin Tarantino Archives released a list of the director's 12 favorite films of 2011.  There were only supposed to be 11 but there was a tie, it seems.  Anyway, I'm sure most have already seen this but I'm using it as an excuse to post this gif.  Hypnotic isn't it?

Quentin Tarantino’s official Top 11 of 2011

1. Midnight in Paris
2. Rise of the Planet of the Apes
3. Moneyball
4. The Skin I Live In
5. X-Men: First Class
6. Young Adult
7. Attack the Block
8. Red State
9. Warrior
10. The Artist / Our Idiot Brother (tie)
11. The Three Musketeers

Others he liked (no particular order)

50/50
Beginners
Hugo
The Iron Lady
Carnage
Green Hornet
Green Lantern
Captain America
The Descendants
My Week With Marilyn
Fast Five
The Tree of Life
The Hangover Part II
Mission Impossible 4
The Beaver
Contagion
The Sitter
War Horse

I have to be honest.  I haven't seen a single movie on this list so I can't really comment on his choices.  I'm sure he knows what he's talking about though, because cocaine heightens the senses.

Visit the Quentin Tarantino Archives to see the rest of the list including his least favorite films of 2011.  In years past he also provided lists of his all-time favorite Spaghetti Westerns and exploitation films, so check those out along with updates on his current project Django Unchained.

Tarantino's Next Movie Has a Name

Rumors have been circulating for some time that Tarantino had put plans for a third Kill Bill movie on hold to work on another project, which might possibly be a Spaghetti Western set in the American South.  A Spaghetti Southern, perhaps?  Now, according to The Quentin Tarantino Archives, there is a script and a name.

At this time, little is known about Django Unchained but there are some rumors:

- It may or may not have Christoph Waltz and the original Django, Franco Nero in the cast.
- It may be about a freed slave bounty hunter in the American South.
- It may be a true Spaghetti Western modeled after the 1966 film Django.
- Production will begin in the third quarter of 2011.
- Pulp Fiction producer Stacey Sher is attached to the project.
- The release date will be in 2012.  Maybe.

Coincidentally, Zoltan reviewed the original Django from 1966 only yesterday so if you want to see what the "inspiration" for this Tarantino project is check it out.  I will post more details as I learn of them or you can visit the Django Unchained fan page on Facebook or The Quentin Tarantino Archives for more information.

Source: The Quentin Tarantino Archives


UPDATE:  Wait!  We have a plot update from Westerns... All'Italiana!:

"Django is a freed slave, who, under the tutelage of a German bounty hunter (to be played by Christoph Waltz) becomes a bad ass bounty hunter himself, and after assisting Waltz in taking down some outlaws for bounty, is helped by Waltz in tracking down his wife, who is still a slave and liberating her from an evil plantation owner."

A Zoltan Review: Django (1966)

While many people are probably familiar with the “Man with No Name” trilogy of spaghetti westerns by Sergio Leone, Django (1966) is a little more obscure.  It is a fun little western, directed by the second of three notable Sergios, Sergio Corbucci, and stars a blue eyed Franco Nero of Die Hard 2 fame.  With a body count in the hundreds, it has earned itself the dubious honour of being one of the most violent films ever produced up to that point.

Popular culture has referenced this film (and its 30+ spin-offs, follow-ups and sequels) quite a bit.  Rob Zombie, Glenn Danzig, and Rancid all reference the character in their lyrics or videos.  George Lucas is said to have named Boba Fett’s “father” after him and of course the genre king himself, Quentin Tarantino, could not be out done.  The ear severing scene from Reservoir Dogs is a parallel to a scene from Django where a tattletale priest gets his own ear sawed off and force fed to him.  This film is certainly admired by some heavy hitters, so let’s get on with the review.

The film begins with Django dragging a coffin through a bleak landscape.  It seems ridiculous, but he pulls it behind himself with a rope.  He comes across a gang of Mexican banditos whipping the stuffing out of a beautiful young woman.  He stands by watching while these thugs are suddenly set upon by some masked men.  This second gang, clad in crimson hoods, also has a bone to pick with the half-naked temptress.  Before they can burn her to death, Django springs into action and shoots them all dead.  The red haired beauty is named Maria (played by a sombre Loredana Nusciak) and has nowhere left to run.  Django lets her follow him back to town.

The town is as bleak as shit.  The only people that seem to live there are four ugly whores and the grizzled proprietor of a saloon.  Django sets up shop in the saloon and installs Maria in the room of one of the prostitutes.   Maria offers he thanks and Django takes his payment by drinking greedily from her chalice (if you know what I mean).

Thus the stage is set.  Two rival gangs.  The first, a group of KKK pretenders lead by a masochistic southern gentleman named Major Jackson who just can’t get his head around the fact that the Confederacy lost the war.  The second, a band of stinky drunken Mexican expatriates lead by one General Hugo.  You would think that this would play out like Fistful of Dollars or Yojimbo where the hero plays both gangs off against each other but Django throws us a curve ball.  He whips out a machine gun from his coffin (it is a fictional gun but modeled after a French mitrailleuse) and guns down all 48 of Major Jackson’s men.  He finishes off his gambit by double crossing the Mexicans, loading all their gold into his coffin, and rolling on dubs with his confused woman.

The film ends with Django pulling a butterfingers and dropping his coffin in some alarming fast quicksand.  Hugo’s men catch up with him and toss him a beating like you wouldn’t believe.  They crush his hands, shoot Maria, and leave him for dead.  While Django is discouraged a little, he battles back in the final scene when Major Jackson and his men corner our hero in an old graveyard.  Django rips off the trigger guard of his Colt SA Army revolver with his teeth so he can manipulate the trigger with his mangled claws and cowboys up something fierce for the final gun battle.

All said and done, if you consider the context of the film, it was pretty violent.  By today’s standards it is pretty tame.  While I can tip my hat to the film as a whole, I have to say I didn’t really like the character of Django.  He was just a putz.  Why he was honoured with so bloody many imitations and sequels escapes me.  The coffin metaphor is not lost on me, but I found myself bewildered by his emotional reactions to some situations, and lack of reaction in others.  Perhaps some of the character’s nuance was lost in translation.  Oh well, it is still worth a watch if you want to get in to the genre.

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Get Django on DVD or Blu-ray 
at TLACult.com

Girls of Grindhouse: Meiko Kaji

Meiko Kaji was born as Masako Ota in Tokyo on March 24, 1947.  Little is known of her until she started her film career with Nikkatsu Studios in the 1960s.  At the beginning of her film career she played a variety of minor roles and even worked with the legendary Sonny Chiba but failed to make it big.

Her first big break happened in 1970 when she was cast as the lead in a series of films known as Stray Cat Rock about gangs of female delinquents and their crimes and shenanigans.  She played the role of leader of these rebellious young girls in such movies as Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter and Stray Cat Rock: Wild Measures '71.  This is when Masako Ota changed her name to Meiko Kaji.  Both of these films appealed to the Japanese youth at the time and her fame began to grow.

About the time Meiko was starring in the horror/chambara film Blind Woman's Curse Nikkatsu Studios began to produce a line of soft-core films known as "pink" or "roman porno" movies to attract horny young men to the theaters.  These predecessors of the "pinky violence" genre involved little or no violence but had a whole lot of nudity and Meiko wanted nothing to do with them.  In 1972 she switched over to Toei Studios to avoid having to be in them.

Ultimately, the migration to Toei Studios worked in her favor.  There she became the star of a new series of films based on a popular manga series about female convicts.  The Female Prisoner series is where Meiko would become known as Sasori or Matsu the Scorpion - the quiet, tough as nails prisoner who exacted revenge on those who betrayed her. 

Unlike the previous two Girls of Grindhouse, Barbara Bouchet and Christina Lindberg, Meiko Kaji did not pose for men's magazines or have many nude scenes in her films.  In fact, her first film in the Female Prisoner series, Female Prisoner 701 Scorpion is the only time that she appears naked on screen.  Because of this fact and her icy, violent portrayal of Sasori, Meiko became an action heroine and a symbol of female empowerment in Japan.

In 1973 she starred in the film that we here in the West best know her for.  Based on another manga character and series, Lady Snowblood was one of the main inspirations for Quentin Tarantino's two Kill Bill films more than 25 years later.  In Lady Snowblood Meiko played a delicate, steely-eyed assassin dressed in white who cut down those who wronged her family.  It's easy to see the direct "influence" on Lucy Liu's O-Ren Ishii character as well as the general plot in Kill Bill.

Meiko reprized her role as Lady Snowblood in the sequel Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance, played the sister of a yakuza boss in Yakuza Graveyard and then practically disappeared from films in 1978.  Although she left the film industry at an early age, she has starred on Japanese television since the 1980s.

Meiko Kaji also had a successful singing career and her songs were often showcased in the films that she starred in, including Lady Snowblood and the Female Prisoner series.  Tarantino included two of her songs on the Kill Bill soundtracks, as well.

Inglorious Bastards (1977)

Whatever the Dirty Dozen Did, They Do It Dirtier!

Inglorious Bastards

This is the original 1977 (or 1978, depending on who you talk to) version of Inglorious Bastards.  The important thing to know about this movie is that it stars Bo Svenson who played Ivan in the two-part Season Three episode of Magnum P.I called "Did You See the Sunrise" where Thomas Magnum asks Ivan that famous question, "Did you see the sunrise this morning?" and then blows the Soviet colonel's head off with his M1911.  It was awesome.  Sure, Bo Svenson also played the minister in Kill Bill Vol. 2 but that' doesn't really matter because the important thing is, he was in Magnum P.I....  Fred Williamson is also in this move.

Inglorious Bastards really isn't that similar to the 2009 Tarantino film, Inglourious Basterds .  It takes place behind enemy lines in Nazi occupied France but that's pretty much where the similarities end.

A group of ragtag criminals are being transported to a military prison when their truck comes under fire from a German plane.  Because of the ensuing ruckus, the prisoners manage to escape and decide to make their way to freedom in Switzerland.  During their travels, hi-jinks and death are their companions as they kill Nazis, accidentally kill Americans, befriend a German deserter, get chased by naked gun-wielding Nazi women and finally, in an attempt to earn their freedom, agree to blow up a bridge and steal rocket technology from a German train for the American government.  Not all of the Bastards make it.

"I know you Thomas,  I had you for three months at Duc Hua."

Inglorious Bastards is a fun film.  It has plenty of action, some racist and less than politically correct banter, and a little bit of nudity thrown in for good measure.  The Deuce calls it "The Dirty Dozen with nudity and a shot of blaxploitation" and I think that's an apt description.  It's definitely worth watching.

Violence Rating:  3.5 out of 5
Booby Rating:  2 out of 5

And Happy Birthday, Quentin Tarantino!

And not a single fuck was given that day.

 
Buy The Inglorious Bastards 
Unrated DVD or Blu-ray 
at TLACult.com

The Grindhouse Roots of Kill Bill

Everything Is A Remix: KILL BILL from robgwilson.com on Vimeo.

It's common knowledge that Kill Bill is an homage to some of Tarantino's favorite movies.  I stumbled upon this video yesterday which directly shows where those influences came from by comparing the scenes from Kill Bill to the parallel scenes from the original films.  And of course most of those influences are grindhouse films, some of which I plan to review in the future such as Lady Snowblood and Deep Red.  So stay tuned!

Also, thanks to everyone who has voted so far in the movie review poll.  It looks like Mexico is still in the lead... barely.  And apparently nobody gives a rat's tookus about Canadian cinema since Canada is dead last.  Poor Canada.