@avclub-832d86d3a05e2b4973c329471ee9d6c4:disqus Yes, and he also says "kill the blecks within the five principles," which is another Rhodesia reference. In fact the entire spiel is Rhodesia references, so I have to admit I don't get the South African accent, beyond the obvious fact that both countries were racist…

I think he was supposed to be doing a South African accent. He pronounces "black" as "bleck," which seems to be a stereotypical Afrikaans thing based on my extensive research (a viewing of Lethal Weapon 2).

Might just be the movie to beat this year, I posted a long disorganized spiel about it a few days ago so I'll just link to that and spare this thread the clutter: http://www.avclub.com/artic…

The Untold Story

Ran wasn't eligible in the Foreign Language category because the Japanese didn't submit it. It was still nominated in several general categories (including Best Director) and won for Costume Design. The Japanese selection committee had a grudge against Kurosawa, supposedly because he skipped the premiere but more…

It's the best screwball comedy since whatever the last one was. Which sounds like weak praise, but there's not a whole lot to compare it to, not even other recent Hong Kong comedies that tend to be a bit more situational or high-concept (the "blind detective" angle is all but a red herring). It's basically a character…

"Trainwreck" would be Kung Fu Man, a movie that Reeves produced for the same actor (Tiger Chen) and was dumped into Chinese theaters last week after spending two years on the shelf. Among its qualities:

Another Itami Juzo movie, funnily enough: Tampopo.

Don't get me wrong, it's nowhere near the aesthetic or transgressive achievement of Red Sorghum or Yellow Earth or really any of the other major Fifth Generation films. But it's close to the peak of the humanist-melodrama tradition that Zhang and Chen have toyed with over the last decade or two, with less convincing…

Eric Rohmer’s Boyfriends And Girlfriends, Juzo Itami’s A Taxing Woman, Abbas Kiarostami’s Where Is The Friend’s House, and Zhang Yimou’s Red Sorghum all came out that year, and any one of them would have made a much better choice—for the Oscar as well.

1) TWC didn't bother registering the title like they were supposed to. They gave WB an opening and WB used it.

Surprise, it's not very good. It has a few well-staged "realistic" fight scenes, but it's padded with typical "underground martial arts tournament" stuff a thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters could've come up with in a weekend, there's some hilariously clunky exposition, the SECRET BAD GUY is the most obvious…

I'm just glad someone's finally taking those Archie comics down a peg

The pedant in me is bugged by that exchange because "Fu Peng" is a blatantly non-Hokkien name (there's no "f" in Hokkien). Now excuse me while I go off into this corner to sulk.

Gentlemen, I have bad news. This room is surrounded by film.

Spectacular Spider-Man was actually a Sony thing, since their rights to the character included TV as well as movies. The show ended because Sony sold the TV rights back to Marvel. Of course Marvel could've kept it going, but they decided for whatever reason to ditch it and do Ultimate Spider-Man instead. Maybe Sony…

You don't have to go to Hollywood to make an English-language movie. Snowpiercer is funded entirely by a big Korean conglomerate, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was a UK production (albeit through a Universal subsidiary), Alfredson's next film is an English-language Scandinavian film, and Only God Forgives was a French…

http://www.youtube.com/watc…

Point of order, Snowpiercer is actually a Korean film that happens to have a bunch of Americans in it. Plus it almost definitely won't be out in the U.S. this year (maybe the Weinsteins need more time to decide what to chop out).

I don't get much in the way of independent or "arthouse" cinema over here and Hollywood releases are limited too. I could watch a lot on video, but weirdly enough, while the general trend seems to be shifting more and more to DVD/Blu-ray/VOD/Netflix/whatever, I'm increasingly reluctant to watch anything outside of a…