paul haggis has been raping my eyes and ears for years, i’m glad someone finally had the courage to come forward.
Emperor of the North (1973, dir. Robert Aldrich) during the great depression, a growing group of homeless outcasts get around by hopping on trains for free... but nobody gets a free ride on the number 19, ruled with an iron fist by ernest borgnine, and if they try it probably won't end well... then again, wily old lee marvin's hopped about every other train in the northwest, earning his reputation as the number 1 hobo, and then there's the kid played by keith carradine who's gunning for that title. like something out of an animé, the three engage in a battle of wits as the pair try to ride the train all the way to portland without necessarily being best of friends themselves. things get pretty intense in places... RYM classifies it as new hollywood but it screams old hollywood to me, as you might expect from a director who made his name in the '50s and '60s with brutal, pared down (and in the case of kiss me deadly, borderline lynchian) genre movies. there's little of the european malaise the likes of altman, hellman and rafelson brought to the table, in fact i wouldn't be surprised if this straightforward old-school thriller was a deliberate reaction against that movement. it isn't perfect, a little hokeyness creeps in on occasion and the mythologising of the hobos is pretty silly, but it's so cool that something this fun and violent and ridiculous existed in 70s hollywood when everything else was so cynical and doomed. i don't think i've ever seen a train movie i didn't like. or a lee marvin movie, for that matter.
I've heard of Emperor of the North, but you just rocketed it to the top of my watchlist with that post lmfao. Sounds incredible.
I'm working my way through David Cronenberg's feature length filmography. Consumed Scanners today. First watched that on VHS as a teen. It had an indelible effect on me when I first watched it as an example of extreme cinema. So far I would say, The Brood is the best of what I've see so far.
Same company that restored Ilya muromets now restored some old Finnish/Soviet film called Sampo from the same director. Since i liked Ilya muromets i ordered this one too..... Spoiler
https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/co...dq0jO3GiDYSwmRUciPJkcLU4R3VjocyXvACmbxrr5OmX4 I am salivating for this trio of sequels to three of the best action films of the 1990s!!!
Picked up another film related book that captures VHS art. Pretty cool for fans of oldschool movie art or anybody that remembers video stores. Covers quite a bit, not sure what the criteria was in choosing what made it into the book, but it's mostly UK artwork. @CiG pretty sure you'd dig it. Spoiler
from what i've seen he is a talented enough stylist/homage artist but doesn't have a vision of his own, so maybe that makes him well suited to remakes?
His last 3 films were Blair Witch, the Death Note adaption and Godzilla vs. Kong. I've seen the latter 2 and thought they were pretty meh.
I didnt realise he did Death Note, that was a case of taking the great concept from the original and raping it in a ditch.
