Nextflix Reviews - DevilMan : Crybaby

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Back in the early nineties I remember getting into Manga movies. I don't remember where I 1st learned of them to be honest. Maybe I saw an advert in a magazine or perhaps the awesome adverts featuring the music of Celtic Frost came as a trailer on a video shop rental or something. I do recall the 1st one that I got that opened the floodgates for me was Urotsukidōji, The Legend of the Overfiend. My interest in them never went overboard I have maybe 10 VHS in my collection but I never went beyond that. I actually had a Devilman video but it's been years since I watched it and as I have quite a lot of videos and no player anymore I don't know if I ever will!! One thing I do remember or maybe I mean don't remember is that the person who turned into Devilman didn't spend a load of the time crying. 



The story goes that devils are set to reclaim the earth from humanity by possessing and transforming them. Akira Fudo is told of this coming conflict by his childhood best friend Ryo Asuka who has the knowledge to get someone to take on a demon without losing their soul at the same time. At a nightclub Ryo creates the conditions to let the demon Amon into Akira without losing his humanity which is symbolised by his need to cry a lot?! At the same time other patrons of the club get fully possessed by demons and Akira/Amon aka DevilMan destroys them all. That's episode one and then over the next 9 episodes the demon possession plague grows and spreads with DevilMan fighting tooth & claw to try and stem the tide. As Akira when he's not fighting demons he has a bunch of school friends where he's in the track team and a long time crush Miki. Demons soon begin to threaten his friends and family and he has to protect them whilst trying to keep his demon nature secret from them.

Personally I didn't find myself connecting with the characters that much but I enjoyed the many demon fighting scenes although it was a while back since I watched it really and I can't say it was really that memorable. The ending was a bit of a surprise but I can't spoil that so I won't say anymore about it now.  I'm not sure how to summarise really, it was OK but certainly I didn't find it compelling exactly, it was just something to spend a late night watching just so I could tick it off my view list. Thinking about it now though with the intro here I am tempted to dig out a video player and go back over my old VHS Mangas. Actually thinking about it, I think the correct term for the movie versions is anime whilst the comic books are called manga. I'm just used to calling them Manga as that was the company name that bought out the videos. I'll do a blog about it if I get around to doing that at all.
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Nextflix Reviews - The Alienist

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Set in the late 19th century in New York it stars Daniel Brühl as  Dr. Lazslo Kreizler, the Alienist of the title. What is an alienist you may well ask, it's the name used at the time for a psychiatrist, as it was supposed that the mind was 'alienated' from a person's true nature by madness and an alienist was meant to realign them again. Assisted by his friend John Moore (Luke Evans), police secretary Sara Howard (Dakota Fanning) and Marcus and Lucius Isaacson, brother Detective Sergeants with the NYPD, he seeks to understand and bring to justice a serial killer who's been killing and dumping the bodies of 'boy whores'. Early signs point to it being someone rich with power and influence, someone who has many of the city's corrupt police force covering up for him. Utilising new techniques for the time such as psychology and finger printing the team set to find the criminal despite the efforts of some in the force trying to block them. The story also features real people from the era such as Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the USA, who was at the time New York City police commissioner. It also takes inspiration from true crimes with a letter sent from the killer to a victims mother being very similar to that of one sent by Albert Fish to the mother of one of his victims. 

This 10 part series is based on the book of the same name by Caleb Carr and reminds me of Ripper Street in it's feel and theme but has  one long story arc rather than each episode focusing on a more individual story. Also with it's historic criminal procedure themes it reminds me of Mindhunter another Netflix programme I saw quite recently.  I must admit this starts out seeming like it would be great but dragged a bit I felt over it's 10 episodes and I don't know if I missed something along the way but I couldn't fathom the motives of some of the characters at all. Still an interesting watch if you like period detective/crime dramas. The author has written a follow up book with these characters so time will tell if that will be dramatized for television also. I'd probably watch it but am not actively awaiting it with bated breath.

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Nextflix Reviews - Pandemic

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The world is ravaged by a pandemic outbreak that has 5 stages of progression. At the 5th stage victims become mindless murderous savages. The story begins inside a safe zone where Dr. Lauren Chase (Rachel Nichols) is receiving instructions on a mission outside the zone she is being sent on.

Two teams are sent out looking for non-infected survivors and also a possible cure. This is Lauren's 1st mission outside the safe zone with her team. She is the team doctor but her lack of experience in the field could potentially harm the group as they travel out by bus looking for non-infected people in an urban area where they encounter desperate & mostly dangerous people suffering from various stages of the infection. Chase has more than just the official mission objective on her mind though, she has her own agenda and a secret she is keeping from her team. They soon come across the other team's bus with all but one of it's crew on board dead with no sign of the last member. Then slowly but surely her team whittles down in size, losing their bus along the way. Despite that though she still ploughs on with her own mission when any sensible person would be considering only their own survival.

Also stars Alfie Allan (Theon from Game of Thrones)

Much of the film is in 1st person, shot from the helmet cams of the team members. This idea has been used in quite a few films now and can often be quite jarring with the picture shaking around and everything filmed in near total darkness but it's actually done pretty well here with some gritty & visceral fighting sequences. In some fights the perspective moves from camera to camera which also works quite effectively to convey the chaos and panic of the life or death melee. It also provides a couple of nasty point of view scenes which I thought were pretty well done.

Overall I thought this was a pretty decent movie with some good ideas and action sequences, well worth checking out I'd say if you like a bit of horror.

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Nextflix Reviews - Temple

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Why is it that tourists, adventurers, archaeologists, whoever never listen to the locals in these movies anyway? Well I suppose that is the trope isn't it, they have to ignore the locals advise about never venturing into a place or we'd have no movie at all!! It reminds me of that comedy short in the style of a horror film trailer called "Hell No!" The sensible horror movie where the protagonists don't go onto the moors or read the dark tome they've been warned against. I'll post the video here if I can find it.

The particular advise ignored in this film by 3 American tourists in Japan is to not visit a deserted mountain temple. A bookseller refuses to sell them a book about it at 1st, another person tells them it is an "unlucky" place, then when they reach the village beneath the temple in the mountains they are told what happened to a previous visitor there. He came down again holding his eyes, no not covering his eyes, holding them in his outstretched palm.

Surprise, surprise they still go anyway and the story is told within a framework where a very much worse for wear survivor of the night is explaining what happened to the Japanese authorities. The film is only 1hour & 18 minutes long and I think it takes 40 minutes to actually get to the temple. Then a few things happen in the shadows and there's some crying but it just seems to be over really quickly with out much being seen. There's what I guess is meant to be a twist of sorts but it's so obvious when it happens that I didn't even realise this was meant to be a clever reveal at all so there's no pay off at all. In summary, this isn't very scary at all, there's precious little for gore fans but at least it's short and I have seen a lot worse. There is just nothing in it to propel it into top recommendation status. Bland and unmemorable. 

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Check out some cool cheap Horrors on Amazon

   

To Boldy Watch - Part 1

OK a guy named Allan Swain posted in the Geek Asylum group on Facebook that "it would take roughly 23 days (556 hours) to watch all of the television episodes and movies in the entire Star Trek franchise, as they were aired on television or released in the theatres (this does not include director's cuts, added scenes, remastered episodes, or any other modifications - but does remove commercials)."

These are the figures according to him, (I am far too lazy to fact check!)

Television Series
The Original Series
79 episodes x 50 minutes each = 3,950 minutes

The Animated Series
22 episodes x 23 minutes each = 506 minutes

The Next Generation
178 episodes x 44 minutes each = 7,832 minutes

Deep Space Nine
176 episodes x 43 minutes each = 7,568 minutes

Voyager
172 episodes x 43 minutes each = 7,396 minutes

Enterprise
98 episodes x 42 minutes each = 4,116 minutes

Discovery
11 episodes x 45 minutes each = 495 minutes
Total = (531 hours / ~22 days)


Movies
The Motion Picture - 132 minutes
Wrath of Khan - 112 minutes
Search for Spock - 105 minutes
The Voyage Home - 122 minutes
The Final Frontier - 106 minutes
The Undiscovered Country - 110 minutes
Generations - 118 minutes
First Contact - 111 minutes
Insurrection - 103 minutes
Nemesis - 116 minutes
Star Trek (2009) - 127 minutes
Into Darkness - 133 minutes
Beyond - 122 minutes

Total = (25.25 hours / ~1 day)







I recently watched and thoroughly enjoyed the Netflix series Star Trek Discovery, go read my review of it HERE. So that's 1 series and 495 minutes already done, although I think it's got 15 episodes not 11 so perhaps Allan did these calculations before that series ended but that's cool as it means I am even further along my Star Trek journey than I thought!! I'm not quite at Warp Factor 5 but that's 1 down at least!

I already own the box set of the Animated Series which I haven't watched fully yet, so I'll get cracking with that and post updates/thoughts/reviews as I go.

   

Nextflix Review - Star Trek : Discovery

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I always liked Star Trek as a kid and sci-fi and fantasy generally and watched a ton of it but I must admit to getting out of the loop with it. I grew up and entered my drinking years I suppose you could say and with the freedom of going out and partying I lost interest in what was on the gogglebox and the programmes I used to enjoy. I caught a few episodes of Next Generation, Deep Space 9, Voyager but it was no longer must-see TV for me. Now I've slowed down with things from that chapter of my life (yes I'm getting old and past it), and since my redundancy I have a lot more free time on my hands and I'm going to see if I can track down and catch up on the shows I missed. Hopefully they'll be on Amazon Prime & Netflix* otherwise I may have to look for bargains. I will try and make a blog diary of it on HERE as I go.

(* I have since found most of it can be viewed on Netflix, yay!)

Anyway this new series Discovery is set 10 years before Kirk and the Starship Enterprise. The main character is Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) apparently Michael is a unisex name now?! Never knew of a woman called Michael but it could be in the future I guess!? She starts as 1st officer to Captain Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) on board the U.S.S. Shenzou but after things go awry during an encounter she ends up in disgrace and finds herself by chance on board the U.S.S. Discovery. Starfleet are now at war and as the series progresses she discovers more about the Discovery's mission and more about it's vital role in that battle. 

Discovery is staffed with lots of interesting characters and it's cool getting to know them as the series progresses although there are plenty of twists and turns that you may or may not see coming and later in the series there's a big upheaval that shifts things quite significantly. Also no character is safe, it's not the Star trek of my youth, people die, named characters, not just guys in red shirts. Apparently there is swearing too which I must admit I never even noticed it myself but that's probably down to my own normal 4-letter word heavy vocabulary. 

Star Trek during it's 50 years of existence has often been about progressive thinking, foreseeing technological changes and spearheading social change with it's message of unity on Earth and in space. It's often credited with having the 1st interracial kiss on US television with Kirk & Uhura in 1968 although that's not quite true. In this series there is a gay couple something that could never have happened back in the 60's I doubt. I wouldn't be at all surprised if we get some transgender characters in the not too distant future and that's a great thing, I doubt I'll be around in another 50 years, although it's possible, it'd be interesting to see how much it changes to stay current with the society of it's time and what things are on it possibly foreseeing what's to come.

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Film Review - Wonder Woman

I am a sucker for a superhero movie and especially those with DC comics characters as I am a big DC fan. I won't disparage any Marvel movies cos they've all been pretty decent but it annoys me all these Marvel fans that slag off the DC movies. They have a different focus with their films, more serious, not trying to be buddy movies and comedies. I was really hopeful that Wonder Woman would be a success, otherwise all the DC naysayers would've jumped on it as they always do. So I went to see this at the cinema with high hopes and I was not disappointed and in fact I was pretty delighted as this film got practically universal appraise. So now I have it on DVD too as I have to keep my super-film collection as up to date as I can 👸 (I was looking for a smiley and this one looks a bit like Wonder Woman)

As mentioned before in my Wonder Woman blog Diana and her tribe of warrior woman, The Amazons live on Themyscira. She is born of magic, the youngest person on the island, shaped from clay by her mother Hippolyta and brought to life by a thunder bolt from Zeus. It is her destiny to battle the evil god of war Aries if he ever returns as he is expected to do some day. Isolated on their island though they do not realise that war has encompassed the world of man beyond their magically hidden borders. They are alerted soon enough when Steve Trevor, an american spy working for the British crash lands into the sea. Diana rescues him just in time for boatloads of pursuing Germans to emerge through the magical island obscuring fog. After a battle where some Amazons die and the Germans are all eliminated they question Trevor and Diana becomes convinced that Aries is abroad in man's world and is determined that it is her duty to go out and put a stop to him.

So Dianna accompanies Steve to man's world during the end days of WWI, the armistice is due to be declared but General Ludendorff who she determines to be Ares and his scientist Dr. Maru have plans to prolong the war and even perhaps win it with the creation of a new terrible poison gas weapon. 

There's plenty of action and a dash of humour as Dianna is out of her element and unfamiliar with the way man's world works, the role of women in this era not being like it is today, I think they'd only just got the right to vote at this point in time in the UK. As you can imagine the top brass won't listen to her and no one believes in ancient Greek gods anymore. Eventually Diana with Steve and a small team of his friends go to Europe to face the enemy head-on in some great action sequences and end up confronting Ludendorff who is planning to drop gas and Ares finally appears for an epic battle.

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Nextflix Reviews - The Villainess

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So I'm going to start reviewing any interesting films and/or TV series that I discover on Netflix as so many people are always asking, "Hey what shall I watch next on Netflix,?" and I normally forget what cool things I've watched. So if I make posts about it from now on I can remind myself can't I? 

So 1st up is the film The Villainess which is a high action, violent martial arts rampage of a movie. The opening protracted ultraviolent sequence plays a bit like Hardcore Henry meets Oldboy. In 1st person mode our heroine, (at least I think she's more of a heroine than a villainess to be honest, although she certainly is conflicted), plows her bloody way through a multitude of gangster looking types with guns and blades. We (or she) switch from this perspective after she gets her head smashed into a mirror. The rest of the bloodbath (and the film) then ensues in 3rd person mode. 

In the aftermath of this slaughter she is caught by a shadowy organisation, perhaps government sanctioned and trained by them as an undercover operative. A spy/assassin kind of akin to the film Nikita. She is found to be pregnant and has a baby daughter which she raises inside the organisations prison like training camp. She makes friends and enemies there and she eventually gets let out, the idea is she has to give the organisation 10 years of her life then she'll get her freedom. 

From then we see how she deals with life once she is released into the world and she tries to create a semblance of a normality for herself and her daughter whilst doing the agency's bidding and also being the focus of their machinations. Throughout we are shown flashbacks of her history and what led up to the initial bloodbath the movie started with and things from her past begin to catch up with her resulting in a clash between her new alliances and her old ones which doesn't leave very many survivors.

The action is fast and nasty and there were a couple of points that had me exclaim, "Ooh steady on there film, that was a bit much!"

All in all a very enjoyable, bloody, violent, action packed hit as far as I am concerned. It's a South Korean film, released in 2017 and has subtitles so if you're one of those people who don't like them it may not be for you. 

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Also starring Kim Ok-Bin

   

Also directed by Byung-gil Jung

DC Exhibition: Dawn of Super Heroes

So, I'd seen the ads, I'd seen people's posts about it on Facebook and I decided that I had to go and see it for myself, so off I jolly well trotted to the O2 at North Greenwich at 12 O'clock today to go and see the DC heroes on display. And jolly glad I am that I did cos it was fab. 

Click to enlarge

The venue was pretty quiet today which was nice, I could take my time poring over all the cool vintage art from 80 years of comics action. All the great names I knew from my collecting days and even a fair few I'd not heard of were on display. I was fascinated with the way it was put together with annotations in the borders and with the lettering and page banners etc all applied on top of the drawn page. You could see the alterations made as well and penciled guidelines. 

I love the older comics with their hokey stories and dated notions of romance, they have a kind of naive innocence of a bygone era that always tickles me.

If you are more interested in the movies rather than their source material then you shouldn't be upset as there are a wealth of props, models, costumes, concept art and storyboards from all the DC hero films and even some focus on the old 60's and animated Batman shows. The display rooms were divided by characters with focus on the more recent crop of movies. So Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Suicide Squad & The Justice League all got plenty of coverage. I would have liked a Green Lantern dedicated room as well but with the unfair negative feedback that movie got there was no chance of that!

Upon entering the exhibition you can get an audio exhibition guide which was easy enough to use and gave some fascinating insight into the comics world. My only real gripe was the lighting which was very muted. The info plaques were black with the white text on them in pretty small font and it made them hard to read. I also missed a load of the audio guide number prompts probably due to the lack of light also. (Although I am not sure if that was the fault of the light's dimness or my own!) Perhaps I was too enraptured by the art to notice the numbers.

Another small gripe but probably only specific to old bums with flat feet like me was that there could've been a few more seats to park weary butts in for a while.

Anyway, in summary I thoroughly enjoyed my couple of hours and thought it was excellent value for money. If it sounds like your cuppa tea the exhibit runs till September the 9th. 

Click HERE for more info.

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Geek Tee Friday - Cute-thulhu!!

Check out my other Geek Tee BLOGS

I love the stories of H.P. Lovecraft and the dark beings of his Cthulhu mythos but I also like a laugh and this cute Cthulhu shirt is great, especially when juxtaposed with my big ugly hairy mug!

I need more Lovecraft geeky tees for sure though. One is not enough really but I am trying to be good though as I have a blooming mountain of heavy metal shirts already.

Check out my Heavy Metal Cthulhu themed podcasts that I do every year for Cthulhu-mass (which I have decided is the 1st Sunday after Christmas) HERE.

Also check out the silly home horror movie that I made, it's very bad but I kind of like it
Cthulhu Fear

Have a look at the review I did of the London Lovecraft festival HERE

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DVD review - Kung Fu Hustle

Kung Fu movies, I love them, I maybe don't watch them so much nowadays and maybe I'm out of the loop but there don't seem to be as many coming out any more. At least not in the west, I am sure they are just as plentiful as they ever were in Asian cinema but I am just not seeing them advertised at the cinema here anymore or in DVD rentals at all. They are kind of like the 80's style action blockbusters, I just don't seem to see quality examples of the genre much around lately.


Now historically I am sure that Bruce Lee was the original martial artist that made it into the movies in Hollywood. He had to work hard to get what he could from the business but had a hard time trying to popularise Kung Fu movies and getting roles. I remember the TV series Kung Fu, I enjoyed it as a kid and I am sure I had a Kung Fu annual at some point. However that was a prime example of Lee being held down by the TV Execs. He came up with the idea for the show and they chose the non-Asian David Carradine to play the role of the half Chinese "Grasshopper" Kwai Chang Caine. 

David has a few more geeky claims to fame, he played Frankenstein in Death Race 2000 and Bill in the, Tarantino written and directed, Kill Bill movies. He actually learned martial arts later in life inspired by his role in Kung Fu. I'm just glad that inspired him and not his driving in Death Race 2000 😏 



  

Lee played the role of Kato in The Green Hornet. I never saw that at all as a kid, I don't know if the UK TV networks ever bought it. I don't recall it from the time but Green Hornet & Kato popped their heads out of the window in one of the Batman TV shows from the 60's. They also appeared as guests in one show solving a crime together. I only know this as an old customer of mine ripped me the whole series onto DVD-Rs for me but I left them at work when I was made redundant. Needless to say as the Batman series is now out on DVD it's on my to-buy list. I may well look into getting the Green Hornet series too, it only ran for one season though with 26 episodes running from September 9, 1966,  through to March 17, 1967. I am not sure if this series is even available now though. All I could find were a couple of movies, The Green Hornet and Fury of The Dragon cobbled together to cash in after Lee died 😢 I did discover that Kevin Smith had written a Batman/Green Hornet comic that followed up from the TV show story!! And there was a 1940's TV series of the Green Hornet where the master from Kung Fu plays Kato!

    

 I have the movie from 2011 and that was pretty cool. Hey another thing, off tangent, but did you know that Britt Reid aka the Green Hornet is a relative of The Lone Ranger?? He shares the same family name as Britt's father was the Lone Ranger's nephew. True story! 


As far as movies go the only one I really recall of Lee's was Enter The Dragon. (It was sadly practically his last, he died during filming of his next movie The Game of Death). It's a classic of the genre, no nonsense, no jokes just serious action. If you want this movie with jokes and silliness check out The Kentucky Fried Movie, it has a parody called A Fistful of Yen which is hilarious.

So Lee was historically first I think but for me I am sure that I was aware of Jackie Chan before I knew of him. I could be mistaken of course, my memory is naff as heck. I recall he was in a movie called Battle Creek Brawl (1980) that was on in the cinemas in the UK and I was too young to go and see it. This was the age of the video rental shops though and I did watch a ton of Chan movies over the years. Some I can recall are of course Drunken Master, Armour of God, Wheels on Meals and Police Story. His films were different from Lee's with the added element of humour, lots of fart jokes and terrible dubbing and sound effects. Also insane stunts, remember the crazy out takes scenes at the end of each film? It's surprising Jackie is still going with all the crazy bumps he's taken over the years. He's still making good films too. Check out my review of The Foreigner, it's got no humour in it at all but it's a cool serious film and Jackie is great in it.

    

Sho Kosugi is a name I remember too, with a number of "Ninja" movies from the early 80's being pretty good viewing at the time.

Of the 80's/90's action heroes Jean-Claude Van Damme was the most martial arts focused, with films like Blood Sport, Kickboxer, A.W.O.L, Double Impact and Street Fighter but his movies branched out from that with gun fights so I don't think of him as a total martial arts hero really. 



Fun fact: I found out he studied ballet for 5 years!! Well I never!!

Played Colonel Guile in Street Fighter and was the inspiration for Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat too!

A more recent series of films I liked were Ong Bak with Tony Jaa.

 The knees and elbows thrown in those are insane, it just looks damned painful watching it!! Those fight stuntmen earn every penny of their money and they probably deserve more really I reckon! I've not seen any other films by him though and there doesn't seem to be any martial arts action star that I know of bringing out a succession of great movies.  There are a few one-offs like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the Ip Man series, both of which are pretty entertaining. 

This film Kung Fu Hustle starring Stephen Chow who also did Shaolin Soccer is pretty huge though, looking it up I found out it was the highest-grossing Chinese-language film in the history of Hong Kong until it was surpassed in 2011. It came out in 2004!! Wow, time files huh?