Movie picks of the last two weeks

Sunshine:

While the hollywood bean counters want to tell us that the smart science fiction movie is dead, they are claerly not speaking about Quality. Dark, bleak and intelligent with a great cast Sunshine is a great film and more proof of Danny Boyle's skill as a filmmaker. What he did best perhaps was gather an excellent cast who worked well together. the captain of the space vessel was Hiroyuki Sanada the star of the underrated Twilight Samurai and Michelle Yeoh who is fantastic in a non-stereotypical role.

Rescue Dawn: Warner Herzog is back in the jungle and it was worth the wait. This tale of a U.S. fighter pilot shot down and captured in Vietnam is pretty amazing film. Christian bale proves again that he is the bravest actor out there. Great stuff.

No retreat no surrender: Amazing crappy action movie directed by Corey Yuen who made respectable films in china staring Jet Li. This film kicks ass but i would not use the word respectable. It is a low budget rip-off of the karate kid complete with breakdancing scenes,training sequences featuring the ghost of Bruce Lee and best of all early Jean Claude Van Damme as the villian. Watched it with Bru-dawg, he approved.

The Thing: Watched this on the big screen at the HP Lovecraft fest, the place was packed and wow what difference watching with an audience and all huge on the big ass screen makes. A funnier, creepier(as if it wasn’t enough on TV)experience. Reminds you the value of the movie experience.

Tears of a black tiger: Crazy off the hook set design and color add a great dimension to this Thai western. The battles are bloody squib-tastic fests and include bazookas. Is this the birth of the Pad Thai western?

Demons:

Bru-dawg pick. Argento produced Italian gorefest with Motley Crue, the scorpions and Rick Springfield(!?!) on the soundtrack. The paper thin plot about a demons siege of a movie theater is awesome and most importantly short.

Yor Hunter of the future: Bru-dawg brought this gem over. What an awesome – yet god awful piece of crap. Amazing prog-metal theme song into a strange post nuclear war cave man fight aliens movie. With a finger poised on the fast forward button you will enjoy this. if you watch this and Zardoz in the same night your brainwill just stop working.

Book and the sword:

A made for Chinese mini-series based on my favorite Kungfu wuxia pan novel was nerve wracking choice at movie madness. On one hand I wanted to see it. On the other I assumed the production value would be crap. I was surprised to find excellent fights, well done wirework and the budget only shined through a few times. If you are a kungfu dork who wants to see a somewhat faith adaptation of a Wuxia pan classic it’s worth a rental.

I’m reading at the PDX Vegan Holiday fest!

Hey folks! I have good news. First off I happy to tell you that we were discussing Punk Horror Biz a few weeks ago and decided that do to the excellent critical response to my short story chapbook Screams from a Dying World, we are doubling the length for the second edition and publishing it as a trade paperback.

You can get a preview of the expanded material at the Portland second annual Vegan Holiday Fest. I’ll be reading Value Menu at a special reading during the event. It is one of my favorite vegan themed dark comedy tales. I read it on the Midwest half of the Screams book tour and it went great.

This will also be your last chance to buy the first limited chapbook edition of Screams which will be the only edition to have the story 'Normal' in it. I have only six copies left. Also you can buy the second edition in the fest silent auction and win one of the first five test copies!

The fest will have amazing food, great speakers and I can’t wait. Those of you in the northwest - I hope to see you there!

http://veganholidayfestival.com/

Extreme Horror novel Classic!

Cellars by John Shirley

Like many people I believed that the psychosexual extreme horror that Clive Barker introduced the mainstream with the books of blood came out of nowhere. The discovering of the works of John Shirley (shamefully I have to admit my first Shirley book was his nano-tech monster novel Crawlers) taught me that there was at least one novel that beaten Barker to the punch.

Released in 1981 John Shirley’s novel Cellars is his most traditional extreme horror novel. Reading the new revised edition that was released in 2006 from Infrapress has shown me what an influence this work had. Perhaps not directly on Barker but the splatterpunks like Laymon, Skipp, Spector and of course Edward Lee who wrote the introduction for this new edition.

Set in New York the city is character - a trick Shirley is known for having done more literarily in his Cyberpunk classic City Come-a-Walkin. Something is under the city trading the lives of persons found slashed and marked with occult symbols for power. Long before American Psycho Shirley explores the limits that the yuppies and power elite of New York will go to expand their power and influence.

Along the way you get satanic cults, romance, gore, suspense and one of the most bizarre horror novels of the early 80’s. A must read for fans of extreme horror that still has it’s bite after 27 years!

Movies I’ve watched 9/25

Hey I’m not sure anyone cares but since moving we are now super close to movie madness…Which happens to be one of the best video stores I’ve ever seen. Also an old friend of mine who will simply be known as Bru-dawg lives here. Bru-Dawg is a movie collector who loves bad action movies, horror, gore and Italian horror,western and action movies. So basically I’m in movie geek heaven.

I thought some of the folks reading my blog might enjoy some picks and mini-reviews of movies I’m watching. I’m on a Hong Kong kick right now but I’ll be doing some euro horror and a classic TV movie horror flicks soon.

Golden Swallow: In 1967 Chang Pei Pei who played Jade Fox in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was the star of this Martial arts classic. A sequel to the amazing King Hu film Come drink with Me. It’s directed by Chang Cheh who made about a thousand kungfu movie classics like Five Element Ninjas, Five Deadly Venoms and One Armed Swordsman.

Like most Chang Cheh films this movie is blood bath with corpses piling up to Kill Bill or commando films. Great movie, in fact crucial.

The Hidden Blade: One of the best films of the last few years was a Japanese Romantic drama called Twilight Samurai. Tear-jerker in everyway when I heard that it was second in a trilogy I searched for the first(still haven’t found it) and didn’t find the third until last Saturday.

Hidden blade is not quite as amazing as TS but it is a great samurai film. A slow and quiet film about honor, true love and friendship. Must see.

We’re Going to Eat You: The second film by Tusi Hark the amazing director by the once upon a time in china films, Time and Tide and uh..er Double Team. This is a demented Kungfu cannibal comedy. You read that right. It drags a bit at times, but the fights are good, the gore intense and the laughs are there.

This movie is only for diehard Hong Kong or Gore fans

Eastern Condors: Bru-dawg and I had a Hong Kong double feature on Sunday watching We’re Going to Eat You and this Sammo Hung classic dirty dozen rip-off. This movie has cameo’s by Cory Yuen and Yuen Woo Ping but the star is the over the top fight scenes. Brutal, brutal fights and perhaps my favorite stabbing in a movie ever.

The last fight scene has about five rewind worthy cringe inducing kungfu moves. The villain is this amazing general played by the dude who went on to play the landlady’s husband in Kungfu Hustle.

My story in the new flurb

One of my favorite cyberpunk, bizarro Science fiction authors does a webzin called Flurb. I'm super proud to say my story A Fifth Noble Truth is in the new issue.

Check it out...

http://www.flurb.net/

Kungfu stars have aligned

To your left Jet, Jackie and Woo-Ping

The Kungfu movie stars have aligned just right for the first time Jet Li and Jackie Chan are working together on a film. At first I was skeptical about the project that despite being filmed in china was going to be written and director by Americans and in English language. The writer is talented having written John Fusco (Young Guns -which is not great movie but could have been worse) and Directed by Rob Minkoff who directed the Lion King and Stuart Little. Say what you will about those kid movies they were well made kids movies. Most important is Yuen Woo-Ping directing the action.

He should have just directed the movie, the man has made some brilliant films as a director – two of my favorites being Iron Monkey and Tai-Chi Master.

Woo-Ping and Jet Li working together always has fantastic results, Fist of Legend was some of the best onscreen fights ever(by anybody), Tai-Chi master over the top like no other Kungfu Comedy and recent fights in Unleashed and Fearless are some of the best in Li’s career. Jackie Chan and Jet fighting on screen should be interesting although I have to admit that It pales to onscreen matches between Jet Li and Donnie Yen(Hero and Once Upon a Time in China II)

The film is called Forbidden Kingdom and has an American kid falling through some kind ring/closet type thing into the story of the Monkey King(AKA 15th century Chinese classic novel Journey to the west). This story is one of the most important mythologies in Chinese literature and pop culture there just is no Western equivalent. Part Lord of the rings, part Mark Twain the Monkey King is more than just a classic to the Chinese.

As the owner of over Twenty Jet Li DVDs I am a devoted fan to his work more so than any other actor working in the world. I’m not the biggest Jackie Chan fan but I am excited about this project even a little more than I am for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Not that anyone cares but I paid homage to the Monkey King tale in my first novel Hunting the Moon Tribe. The story of the Monkey King is so important to Chinese mythology I just didn’t think I could avoid it. It’s that important. Films have been done based this book (several hundred years old) mostly notably when Stephen Chow of Kung Fu Hustle fame starred in a 1994 production titled Chinese odyssey which had several sequels.

Let’s hope they get it right.

For off the hook Sci-Fi the Doctor is in!

Dr. Identity by D.Harlan Wilson
205 pages from Raw Screaming Dog press

D.Harlan Wilson like many authors has a lot to say about his job. As a college professor teaching students about literature we get a pretty wide glimpse into the man’s thinking by cracking open this book. From the promotional material and the various blurbs (some are hilarious fictional ones) on the cover you can see that most people reading this book have every different takes on the material from each other.

What is Dr. Identity. Bizarro? Science Fiction? Humor? Future-Noir? Speculative? Satire? Social Commentary? Dystopian? Cartoonish? Pulp? Surrealist? The short answer is yes! All of the above and then some words I can’t think of. Not to slight all the other fantastic Bizarro books that have sprung out of the growing movement I would have to declare this one perhaps the most brilliant one I’ve read yet. Is it the best or my favorite? I’m not sure, but I have to say Science Fiction fans have not had a laugh riot like this on their hands since Douglas Adams got bored with his own books.

The novel is about a professor (Dr.Blah Blah Blah) in a quite absurdist future that has to go on the run after his substitute doppelganger decided to slaughter his class. On the run in Bliptown where time doesn’t always move forward or you must shop in stores where bug eyed monsters attack you for not buying fast enough provides a hilarious and inventive back drop.

The level of creativity and invention that appears on every single page is what makes Dr. Identity a must read. D.Harlan Wilson is real talent that has me imaging Phillip K Dick writing for the Monty Python. Fans of Rudy Rucker’s funny and bizarre science fiction will also find Wilson’s work a good fit on the same shelf.