masonfisk

A Shaw Brothers film from 1979. Leaning more into comedy, this kung fu'r, starring Gordon Liu & Wong Yue, finds Liu a royal on the run who fears for his life due to the machinations of one of his brothers. He meets up w/a con man/thief, Yue (in a funny bit they each try to curry the favor of some prostitutes w/an increasing amount of money then jewels) but soon enough Liu lets Yue into his secret & seeing his fighting prowess joins him in his quest to suss out the truth especially after Liu is stabbed in his leg forcing Yue to become his surrogate as his enemies come for him. The film is a delight reveling in the juxtaposition of the honorable Liu & scheming Yue but the time the final fight commences (w/Yue having to do the bulk of the combat), the masterful choreography shines. Also starring Lo Lieh (he & the other 2 leads were in Executioners of Shaolin together) as one of the assassins w/Kara Wai popping up as one of the prostitutes.

A 1950 film noir. A man who's down on his luck, Kent Smith, is arrested for vagrancy & on his way to the lock-up, he's seen by an attorney in the courtroom, played by Robert Douglas, bails him out & when Smith asks why such kindness, Douglas reveals his uncanny resemblance to a missing socialite & if he's willing, for the right price, will he stand in his stead since he believes the man met a foul end & Douglas wants to get to the bottom of it. So, Smith becomes an unwitting pawn into the machinations of this family where no member can be trusted & past grievances come to the fore between him & the extended kin which all barrels towards the reveal on what truly happened. Tight, concise & to the point is the concern here w/the majority of the action taking place within the confines of Smith's 'adopted' locale giving the narrative a nice, adrenalized rationale to reach the finale while adeptly ticking off the typical noir boxes we come to expect.

What another Nicole Holofcener film in as many weeks, this one from 2018 & a Netflix original (who knew?) & also an adaptation, based on a novel by Ted Thompson, which follows a man, Ben Mendelsohn, who has dropped out of the rat race & divorced his wife, Edie Falco, to hopefully live the good life but after scoring some quick delights w/some women he meets in the most random of places (he buys a tchotchke at one store to decorate his condo & ends up bedding the saleswoman) but life has a funny habit of getting in the way as his finances start to look bleak so much so he might have to broker the subject w/Falco into selling their house which he left her in the divorce. Their son, Thomas Mann, isn't doing much better working at his mom's charity where his old gambling habits come back to bite him when he borrows money from one of the clients he's supposed to be helping. In a chance encounter at a dinner party, Mendelsohn meets up w/one of Mann's old friends, Charlie Tahan, himself a recovering drug addict (or so his parents believe), & shares an angel dust encrusted doobie which doesn't garner him any favors w/the rest of the adults in his life which comes to a head when Tahan passes (from exposure after running away on his way to rehab) & Mendelsohn was the last person to see him. Working from someone else's material, Holofcener still manages to leave her mark w/characters not too dissimilar to the ones found in her concrete jungles of Manhattan w/Mendelsohn in what could be construed as a somewhat normal role still finds himself as befuddled w/his situation whether or not he gets the Death Star active. Also starring Connie Britton as one of Mendelsohn conquests, Bill Camp as the new man in Falco's life, Josh Pais as a friend of Mendelsohn w/Elizabeth Marvel as Tahan's mom.