It’s not often that I categorize movies as “excellent,” because frankly that’s more Josh’s speed than mine, but I pretty much have to say that The Conversation is straight up excellent.  I’ve now seen about a handful of Francis Ford Coppola-directed movies (no, I haven’t seen The Godfather movies) and I’ve either really liked or loved all of them.  And actually, I’d probably say this is my favorite of his.

It’s about an expert wiretapper named Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) who records a short conversation between two people for a client of his.  It’s then suspected that these people are going to be murdered by said client.  What ensues is an intensely paranoid, suspenseful, and even terrifying movie.  Maybe it’s because I’m a paranoid freak that I think it was “terrifying,” but the atmosphere Coppola creates is as scary as anything I’ve ever seen.  He crafts great tension and suspense and a magnificent score by David Shire helps add to this atmosphere.  On top of that, Coppola created a really great character in Harry Caul, who is secretive to the point of paranoia and completely obsessive over his work.  It’s nothing completely unique, as the character is exactly what it should be, but Hackman does a really great job of making these characteristics come to life.  It’s a totally convincing performance.

I loved everything about this movie.  I don’t know if this sounds blasphemous or not, but it’s easily the most eerie movie I’ve watched since The Shining last year.  If you’re into thrillers or suspense, I highly recommend checking this out.

Here are some more extraordinary reviews from the best That Was Junker, Dave.

171. The Family That Preys- The rumor was that this was the best Tyler Perry movie. This was the first Perry movie I watched. If this is the best he has to offer, I am not looking forward to following his career. From the previews I received, I was under the impression that this was an intense drama. I was expecting Kathy Bates to be a bad-ass white woman. I don’t know why I was expecting these things. But my expectations were not met. The story for the most part was lame. When it all came to a head at the end it was somewhat interesting but the first three-quarters of the movie is dull and poorly acted. The worst performance of all comes from Robin Givens. Givens plays the “strong-willed executive woman” character, and her acting is atrocious. Her attempt at a cocky, know-it-all grimace is a huge laughable joke. Her very serious character can not be taken seriously at all.

172. UHF- I have been a fan of ‘Weird’ Al Yankovic since I was a child, yet I had never seen his one and only movie. So I watched it. Although there is no organization and the movie is one random scene after another, it does not stop it from being hilarious. Al is of course famous for his song parodies, but he goes even further in this movie, parodying everything from music to movies to television. The true shining star of the movie is Michael Richards however. Richards plays a dimwitted janitor who becomes a huge television success. The performance is dumb comedy at its absolute best. The character that Richards plays is one of the best silly characters I have ever seen. The movie is worth watching just to see him.

173. Se7en- This is one of my all-time favorite thrillers. Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, and Kevin Spacey are some of the best actors Hollywood has to offer, and it is awesome to see them all together. For those who haven’t seen this movie, it is very violent. Some scenes are graphic and disgusting.  And even after sifting through all of the blood and guts, a great movie is still found. The methods the killer uses to murder his victims are some of the most creative I have ever seen. The title is a reference to the murder methods in which the killer uses the seven deadly sins to punish his victims. This is an excellent movie with a surprising twist ending. You should watch it. Trust me.

174. The Marc Pease Experience- A person I know said this was the worst movie of all time. To someone like me that is an invitation to dive in. She was wrong. This is not the worst movie ever made. But it is far, far from the best. I am a huge fan of Ben Stiller but even he couldn’t save this movie. In fact, his character was far more annoying than funny. With the casting of Stiller and Jason Schwartzmann, this should have been a huge success. There is just something about it that completely misses. Neither actor is funny. None of the situations are funny. The storyline isn’t funny. Honestly there are no redeemable qualities about this movie other then a couple of occassional chuckles. Pretty much a waste of time.

175. New Jack City- This movie is a hit and miss at the same time. A lot of it is good. A lot of it is not so good. Let’s start with the good. The acting is actually very impressive. Wesley Snipes plays one of the cruelest men I’ve seen in film. Chris Rock is a very convincing scumbag crack-addict, and Ice-T is good at playing a bad-ass cop. The story is pretty typical, just a gang of drug dealers versus cops. But it had some unique appeal as well. The bad comes from a lack of substance. A lot of feeling was supposed to be felt for each of the characters, but I just couldn’t feel it. Also, Judd Nelson was completely useless and lame. Ice-T’s bad-ass cop performance was the complete opposite of Nelson’s.

176. Dr. No- Other than the two newest Bond movies, I had never seen one. I have always been curious, so I decided to start at the beginning. Sean Connery is straight up a wonderfully cool man. He is pretty much the epitome of a James Bond type of character. He did a good job of establishing the character in this first movie. He was calm and cool, but you just know he can beat somebody’s ass. From what I have read, most of the Bond movies are pretty much the same. A criminal mastermind tries to use nuclear weapons in a world dominating manner. I can’t properly make an evaluation on the plot until I have seen more of what the series has to offer.

177- 179. Kyle already reviewed all of these movies: See Kyle’s Robin Hood Review, Letters to Juliet Review, Kick-Ass Review.

180. The Best Years of Our Lives- Academy Award Winner, Best Picture 1946. So far, this is one of the best Oscar winners I have seen. At 2 hours and 46 minutes, I was expecting a long night. However, I was so wrapped up in the story that the time flew right by. The movie is about three soliders returning to their small town lives after WWII. All of the soldiers have vastly different experiences and handle themselves in different ways. The progression of the three characters is the product of great screenwriting. The thing that should be most noted about this movie is the performance of Harold Russell. Russell received a Best Supporting Actor award for his role. The impressive thing is that Russell had never acted before. He was in fact a real-life U.S. soldier who tragically lost both of his hands in the war. He had two hooks that worked by radar that he was able to use masterfully. For a first time actor, he showed true heart and ability. He was easily the movie’s most believable and endearing character. That is not to take away from the strong performances of his castmates who were also substantially talented.

There it is, ladies and gentlemen, the best reviews ever written.

I caught this one in theaters when I first moved to Philly and I remember liking it a lot.  Since then I haven’t seen it, and after a revisiting, I like it quite a bit less.  I don’t hate it or think it’s bad, but there’s a few major problems I have with it.  Well, actually there’s one huge problem I have with it.  And that problem is the director, Werner Herzog.  He takes the completely interesting character of Timothy Treadwell and the beautiful footage he shot over the course of his life and tries to interact with it.  He forces himself into the movie.

The story of Treadwell is interesting and as a person, he’s even more interesting.  Treadwell would spend 13 summers from 1990 – 2003 in Alaska, living with and “protecting” the grizzly bears who inhabit the area.  Whether or not they need his protection is questionable, but Treadwell loves the animals and what he does is definitely interesting.  Unfortunately, Treadwell and his girlfriend were killed by a grizzly in 2003 on one of his expeditions.  Fortunately, the movie isn’t biased for or against Treadwell.  Throughout the movie, we hear from people who agree and disagree with what Treadwell was doing.  But every once in awhile, Herzog steps in to make some seriously idiotic comments.

He narrates the movie and every once in awhile he interjects to flat-out TELL the audience what he thinks.  There’s a number of times where he will provide interpretation of Treadwell’s footage, or some laughable philosophical junk, or when he completely forces some silly film-making/cinema garbage into the movie so he can relate himself to Treadwell and his story.  It’s completely vomit-inducing when a movie tells you what or how to think about something.  Leave the subject matter alone, Werner.  I love movies and cinema too, but don’t force it where it doesn’t belong.  The story of Treadwell is full and interesting enough.  Adding to this, Herzog is even seen on camera at one point, listening to the tragic audio of Treadwells’ death.

Throughout the movie, it’s made abundantly clear that Treadwell was encroaching on grizzly territory.  He was somewhere he shouldn’t have been and in the end, he died for it.  It seems that Herzog didn’t realize that he was encroaching on territory where he didn’t belong.  It’s a shame someone didn’t slap him around or bite him in the editing room.

Released: December 2009
Plot: This is the true story of a love triangle that takes place entirely online. Lies lead to murder in real life, as a teenage vixen (screen name ‘talhotblond’) lures men into her web. Revealing a shocking true crime story that shows the Internet’s power to unleash our most dangerous fantasies.

Review: It’s so very easy to lie about one’s self on the internet and this movie proves it. One of the best things about the internet, besides Pennsylvania People, is arguably the fact that one can be anyone they want to be and have completely anonymity.  That hot 18 year old marine may not be who you think he is.  He, instead, may be a 40something impotent man trying to live out another life. This is the case for Thomas Montgomery a normal 47 year old factory worker from Buffalo New York. Thomas likes playing poker online. He meets a young 18 year old girl in a game chat room named Jessica who goes by the username “talhotblonde.” Not wanting to introduce himself as the creepy old man he is, he creates the persona Tommy or “marinesniper” an 18 year old tall and hot marine. Just Jessica’s type.

This movie is about an online love triangle that ended with the murder of Brian Barrett. Thomas tells his story and his history with Jessica, the outcome after revealing his true self to her, and how his internet persona caused a love triangle that had a deadly ending.

The very first thing and the worst thing about this movie is the narration from Brian. This isn’t a spoiler. He tells you at the gate that, “My name is Brian Barrett and I was ‘executed’ at the age of 22.” So the entire narration of the movie is told by fake dead Brian who has a very mysterious “what is the matrix” type tone. It absolutely sucks.

Putting together a documentary about an event that already happened is hard to do because you have to tell a lot of back story while keeping the audience’s attention. Putting the camera on one or two people and having them talk for 90 minutes makes for a boring documentary. The director, Barbara Schroeder knew that so, to fill in the gaps and to add time to the movie, she shows various pictures of Jessica, interviews a criminal psychologist and Thomas, and transcripts of the conversations between him and Jessica. That’s it really. One minute Thomas is explaining his story, then the criminal psychologist explains why Thomas might do what he just said, then fake dead Brian narrates over pictures of Jessica and random shots of Pogo and finally, the chat transcripts appear and fade away in a Star Wars type scroll. And then it starts all over again.

The format is boring and the transcripts too long and a bit unnecessary at parts. The transcripts help propel the story foreword, but when one is shown such as talhotblonde and marinesniper having sex, it runs a little too long. I kept saying to myself “ok, I get it you’re horny and want his man junk. Enough.” After a while it just got uncomfortable. Hearing Thomas speak about his experience and basically having the criminal psychologist translate his actions, gives the audience a really good look into the mind of someone who wishes he lived another life in this other world with this 18 year old girl. His on screen self and his internet self definitely clash and you kind of begin to wonder if the man talking to us is really the racist drama causing nuisance that is portrayed in the chat transcripts.

The movie isn’t all bad.  The whole love triangle bit is very interesting. Once Thomas revels that marinesniper is fake, Jessica accepts him for him and Thomas gains the confidence to confide in one of his co-workers, the 22 year old Brian. And like a bad episode of The Secret of the American Teen, Brian begins talking to Jessica online and falls in love. It’s here that the story gets crazy. Schroeder does a great job at creating suspense and building up the story to its climax. She even throws in some mediocre graphics as in-between shots here and there. . It would have been nice to hear more from the people around Thomas.  His wife speaks, but only for a short time.  But overall, the documentary isn’t that well put together and slightly biased based on the end result.

6 out of 10

Released: January 16th, 2009
Plot: To be titled “Big River Man”, the film will follow Strel as he attempts to cover 3,375 miles in what is being billed as the world’s longest swim. Strel, who hails from Slovenia, previously completed record swims in the Danube, Mississippi and Yangzte rivers and holds several Guiness World Records.

Review: In movies, there is nothing I love more than a good character study and lots of documentaries do a good job at capturing characters on film. Martin Shrel is definitely a character. If I saw this man walking down the streets of Pennsylvania, I’d peg him as maybe an angry shop owner or the angry foreign guy that used to wrap my meats. Why, because Martin is over-weight, old, stubborn, a drunk and overall, very eccentric.

While watching a live UStream feed of Mike Shinoda and Chester Bennington, Chester talks about how this is one of the best and most effed up documentaries about a crazy person he’s ever seen. So I thought to check it out. When I read around about this movie, I learned that it’s about a Slovenian man named Martin Strel. Martin is a world renowned swimmer known for swimming the lengths of some of the world’s craziest rivers such as the Mississippi River and the Yangtze River. Martin is followed by his adult son Borut, and Matt his red-headed, Jayson Werth look-a-like, hippie navigator whose job it is make sure he’s going the correct way and that he basically doesn’t die.  This movie follows him as he attempts to swim the Amazon River.

I’m going to start off and say that this movie could have been amazing. If Chris Smith had gotten his hands on Martin Strel before John Maringouin, this documentary could be the next American Movie. The movies strong point also acts as it’s weak point. Big River Man starts out like a traditional documentary then slowly transitions into a documentary that’s filmed like a movie. This gives the movie its uniqueness but, also its cheesy quality. There is one scene in the documentary where Martin is in the back of an Ambulance and his son is trying to recite his speech to him while the EMTs attempt to push him out of the ambulance. The camera moves around in chaotic movements and different angled cuts are put in every few seconds. The scene plays out like an episode of ER and it appears very obvious it was filmed later on for added dramatic effect.  Speaking of dramatic effect, at random points in the documentary, Maringouin decided to get political and mention the declining rain forests by overlaying pictures of the rain forest with pictures of rock stars with electronic guitars (because the wood from these forest go into making electronic guitars apparently.) It’s completely non-sequitur and distracting.

Towards the end of the movie, the focus temporarily shifts to Matt the navigator. But when Matt opens his mouth, I just really wanted him to shut it again. While in the middle of the river, Matt goes into hippie mode and begins going on a rant about the earth; how the beautiful sunset on the horizon is heaven and the crowded landscape of an African city seen in the distance is hell. After his mother earth monologue, he and Martin go missing for a day or so. Martin is found dirty, naked and unresponsive walking along a beach and Matt, after not sleeping for 3 days, begins writing poems about Martin and Jesus. I guess the sudden short focus from Martin to Matt was to show how being out in the Amazon affects them mentally, but I believe we get that feeling when we see Martin trying to get rid of larva in his hair by pouring lighter fluid on it and hooking a car battery to his hair. The focus on Matt was completely unneeded.

Big River Man does a good job at chronicling the mental anguish it takes to pull off a feat like swimming up the Amazon, but it strays too much and becomes too preachy. And instead of the director narrating the movie Borut, Martin’s son, narrates it in a monotone accented voice that just drones on and on. The fast pace of the movie and the almost bored sounding Borut just didn’t mesh together.

5 out of 10

I have fallen a little behind in my movie reviews but now that I finally have some time to post, I hope you are well informed by my latest entry.

161. The Lion King- Not only is this my favorite Disney movie of all time, it is also one of my favorite movies of all time. This is classic Disney at its absolute best. While watching it I couldn’t help but think about how much this movie kicks Pixar’s ass. The story is great, tragic like many Disney films. The songs are obviously unforgettable. And the characters are top-notch Disney creations. I’m not going to write a long review on this because I assume most people have seen it. But if you haven’t, shame on you.

162. The Fabulous Baker Boys- I had been curious about this movie for quite some time. This is yet another Jeff Bridges movie that I have added to my list this year. There is one glaring difference however. This is the only movie in which Jeff worked alongside his brother, Beau. Now my experience with Beau Bridges is far more limited but between the two, surprisingly I was more impressed with Beau’s performance. Jeff wasn’t bad. His character just wasn’t as dominating as I’m used to. The story is of the Baker Boys, a double piano lounge act, who bring in a female singer (Michelle Pfieffer) to increase their bookings. Eventually one of them falls for the singer leading to a conflict of interest between the brothers. There was nothing spectacular about the movie. It was pretty normal overall.

163. Ransom- I hadn’t seen this movie in years so I decided to finally watch it again. And I am so glad that I did. This movie is like Taken if the dad wasn’t a bad ass but still had a lot of balls. Mel Gibson plays a multi-millionaire airline owner who loses his son to a group of kidnappers seeking a ransom. The father proceeds to undertake unorthodox methods to retrieve his son much to the chagrin of his wife and the authorities. What happens next is an excellent action-thriller that keeps the audience in a state of anxiety. Ron Howard directs the film, and his direction style is one of my all time favorites. Howard truly knows how to capture emotion and suspense and always does a wonderful job with his actors. This movie rules.

164. P2- I was walking through a movie store last week looking for movies to buy and I came to the Horror section. I thought about how my rather large DVD collection had a strong lack of horror movies. It didn’t take me long to realize why. Most horror movies are really lame, and I pretty much own every one that I like. There are two approaches to a horror movie that can make it good. One is a crazy bloodfest without a lot of story that is just fun and disgusting. The other is a movie that doesn’t necessarily have a lot of gore, but instead has the ability to scare the crap out of you. Very few movies have both. P2 has neither. The story revolves around a parking lot attendant who traps a woman on Christmas Eve and tries to kill her. Wes Bentley plays the killer, and he is less than convincing. He isn’t very threatening (other than his big dog), and I felt the whole time that the woman could have easily kicked his ass. The only reason I gave this movie a 5.5/10 was because of one scene that was somewhat gruesome. Other than that it is a poor excuse for a horror movie.

166. Babel- I was told to watch this multi-language film without subtitles. I didn’t listen. If I hadn’t used subtitles, this movie would have been a confusing mess. With subtitles, however, this movie was incredible. If I could rename it, I would call it International Short Cuts. The movie is made up of four stories from different parts of the world (Morocco, Mexico, and Japan) and how the people connect although so far apart. I can’t even begin to summarize a story of this magnitude. I will warn those of you who are reading this that there are a lot of sad moments in the movie. Also, as an interesting fact I discovered, this is one of two films starring Brad Pitt in which four different languages are used (the other is Inglourious Basterds).

167. The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3- I had the privelege of seeing the original Walter Matheau- Robert Shaw version of this movie from 1974. That movie is completely awesome. This one… is not. This Tony Scott remake attempted to change the story of the original and used a lot more action and surprise moments than its predecessor. In the end, all that it adds up to is an incomplete story with insufficient characters. It is difficult for me not to compare it to the original, but I am trying. John Travolta’s appearance is far more threatening than his demeanor. And the opposite is true for Denzel Washington. Denzel is supposed to be a nerdy dispatcher, but his true Denzel can’t help but shine through. When it comes to playing dominant, powerful men, Denzel is the best around. When it comes to reserved family men, cast somebody else.

168. Date Night- The one thing that held this movie together was its excellent casting. Each role was perfect for the person playing it. However, if just one person were miscast, this whole movie could have fallen apart. The veteran comedy abilities of Steve Carrell and Tina Fey really made this movie work.  The difference between what was scripted and what was improvised was pretty clear. The scripted stuff lacked a lot of humor. I didn’t care much for the couple’s adventure. For me there felt like a large amount of unplanned awkwardness between the two. The cameos are pretty funny, although not unexpected due to its revealing trailer. There isn’t really a whole lot to say about this one. It is a pretty basic comedy.

169. The Last Emperor- Academy Award Winner, Best Picture 1987. Congratulate me, folks. This is the 50th Oscar winner I have seen. If you are interested in the history of China in the early 20th century when it changed from an empire to a republic, this is the movie for you. The story is a flashback of the life of Pu-Yi, the last emperor of China from his crowning at the age of three to his eventual imprisonment for becoming a traitor to Japan to his life as a regular citizen. The movie was captivating for me, as I am interested in history and this is one part I didn’t know much about. One funny thing about this movie is that as Pu-Yi ages, his accent changes. As a young child he has a Britsh accent, as a teenager he has a Chinese accent, as an adult it is back to British again. It isn’t a big deal, and it doesn’t take away from the movie. It is just a funny little thing I noticed.

170. Mystic River- I saw this movie when I was younger, and I remember not liking it very much. I completely forgot the entire plot of this movie. The only thing I remembered was that Sean Penn was in it. So I watched it again. I love this movie! As it turns out, Sean Penn isn’t just in this movie, he owns it. Although I have found a lot of disagreement with my opinion, I think that Penn’s Oscar winning performance in this movie surpasses even his performance in Milk. Another person who gave the performance of his career was Tim Robbins. The audience is able to see a different side to Robbins that is appealing and tragic. As Josh previously stated, the ending of this movie is pretty great. I don’t want to say too much about the plot because this is one of those movies you should just see.

Well there it is. I am almost through ten more movies so I may be posting again in the next couple of days. Don’t forget to watch our April Fivegoo on the Most Underrated Directors. Bye children.

Well, here we go again people. This time Dancy heads off a Fivegoo where we discuss our picks for most underrated directors. Give it a watch and if you want, comment on here! Disagree? Tell us! Think Dancy’s an idiot? Tell us! Have better picks or think we completely suck? TELL US.

We hope you enjoy another enlightening installment of Fivegoo.

What a boring movie.  A completely mediocre, puzzling movie that I would say is disappointing, but was anyone really expecting it to be that good?

First off, you need to know that this is an origin story.  Now it may be just me, but isn’t the appeal of Robin Hood that he’s an excellent archer and robs from the rich and gives to the poor?  That’s how most people know Robin Hood, and if you go into this movie expecting to see those things, you’ll be sorely disappointed.  I believe there’s only two scenes where he wields a bow.  Three at most.  Now I had no idea it was an origin story, so in hindsight I guess this makes a little sense, seeing as he isn’t a legend yet.

The movie is 2 and 1/2 hours long, and it’s a completely unnecessary length.  I saw it with my co-writer Dave, and to quote him, “why do directors think that they need to make movies that long because they’re set in an old English time period?”  I ask the same question, because it’s pretty damn stupid to continuously do this.  For a movie called Robin Hood, there’s sure a lot of focus on politics, society, traitors, invasion, etc.  Robin Hood’s character and plot-lines become so secondary at times that you begin to wonder why the movie is called Robin Hood.

The plot is convoluted and boring.  It’s all typical stuff you’ve heard before.  Lords and friars and dukes and queens and kings and blah blah blah.  King Richard, or “The Lion King,” gets killed.  His young, arrogant, douchebag of a brother becomes king.  At the same time, he’s screwing the French queen’s wife (or sister? does it matter?), so France is mad, and his own mom is mad at him.  Plus, he has a traitorous idiot of a friend.  There’s more side-plots and pointlessness I won’t bore you with, but you get my drift.  You’ve heard it all before.  Except a really odd, unexplained, stupid sub-sub-plot where these masked child archers show up once in awhile and kinda do some stuff?  Ugh.

What makes things all the worse and more misleading is the opening title cards.  It opens with a card saying something along the lines of “When tyrants rule, the outlaws make their way into history.”  At this point I’m thinking “okay, we’re gonna get Robin Hood as an outlaw, shooting arrows and robbing the rich.”  I was down.  I like the quote and I like the tone it sets.  But what we ensues is dull junk.  After two hours of useless, unfulfilling plot, we get some battle.  This last half hour is somewhat entertaining, but once again, nothing special.  Then in the last 2-5 minutes we find out that Robin Hood has been decreed a criminal by the king and he should be killed.  This is where he becomes Robin Hood.  For a whole two minutes at the end, he is finally “Robin Hood.”  The movie ends with a title card saying “And so the legend begins.”

Really?  Are you kidding me?  Do we have to wait ’til Robin Hood 2 to see some cool stuff?  This movie is a heap of boring pointlessness.  If you’re going to dedicate an entire movie to setting up the back-story of a character, make it interesting for Christ’s sake.

All in all, it’s not a terrible movie, I just think it’s pretty useless and almost total junk.  Some people will like it, as I heard someone say “I loved it!” on the way out of the theater.  I was utterly confused as to how, but opinions opinions.  I guess it looks somewhat nice at times (even though it’s digital as fuck) and has some cool actors in it.  Total meh.

Welcome to the first installment of my 12,256-part series called “BOOM FROM THE PAST”. In these posts you will be fortunate enough to find out what movie(s) I watched exactly one year ago and what I think about it today, one year later. This is what I will be doing on certain days I’ve watched not a single movie. Like today. HOW FUCKING EXCITING.

APRIL 18, 2009 - LONE WOLF AND CUB: SWORD OF VENGEANCE
At this point in April last year, obviously, I began watching the entire LONE WOLF AND CUB series by director KENJI MISUMI. ALL SIX ARE AMAZING. They follow betrayed shogun’s assassin/samurai master OGAMI ITTO and his son, DAIGORO on a blood-drenched, sweet-ass voyage of, you guessed it, vengeance. The first two movies, SWORD OF VENGEANCE and BABY CART AT THE RIVER STYX (referring to a bamboo stroller DAIGORO rides in that doubles as a wheeled weapons artillery) were cut into a single movie for western audiences and simply entitled SHOGUN ASSASSIN. If you are considering taking on the entire series, SHOGUN ASSASSIN is a good way to test the waters. If after seeing ‘ASSASSIN’ you decide to watch all the movies in their entirety-do not worry-there is still plenty more to see in the uncut versions of the first and second movies. ANYWAY!!! I can’t even begin to describe the obsession I have with how these movie are shot. Just from the INTERACTIVE MENU of SHOGUN ASSASSIN you’ll understand what drew me in. Besides the direction and cinematography of the series they are still ridiculously great. The acting is superb, TOMISABURO WAKAYAMA especially, the writing is fierce and hilarious and the effects! My lord, the effects! I would trade most CGI of modern-day to see fake-ass orange blood like in LW&C explode from someone’s face once more. That’s it. Go watch them.

P.S. In case you were wondering they are subtitled (Japanese) and were made between 1972 and 1974. Yes, all six, in 2 years. SHOGUN’S ASSASSIN came out in 1980.

BOOM! FROM THE PAST!!!