Raiders Series: Tokyo, Seoul & Europe (2000, 2005, 2018)

A Chinese kung fu spy comedies directed by Jingle Ma, starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai.
Spies and government agents work against and with one another to uncover secrets and obtain stolen items or people.
The first two films were entertaining and had their own style. It was like Jackie Chan mixed with James bond or "what if Austin Powers were Chinese and done relatively well?" The third film was trash: just new Hollywood "how big can we make it?" I should have expected something when the intro was a person skiing down a mountain in a light suit. What was really missing in Europe Raiders was humor. For example, the series had established that after the first fight, Tony says "I don't mind fighting, but don't mess up my hair" and Europe did not have it. All of the films had too much camera movement and the editing was too fast. That is the style of the times and I don't like it, but can live with it if there are other things going on that are good. My favorite scene of the series was in Seoul when Lam has Owen tied up and plays a sushi prank on him as torture because the truth serum won't work on him. Europe was also missing the truth serum! Everything that the first two films worked so hard to establish and that worked so well in them was missing from the third. I'm rating the first two adequate and the third bad. The strategy for watching them should be obvious.

In the Realm of the Senses A.K.A. L'Empire des sens, Ai no korīda, Corrida of Love, 愛のコリーダ (1976)

A French Japanese erotic drama directed by Nagisa Oshima.
A married man and his mistress meet in hotels to have sex for long periods of time. Things take a strange turn when erotic asphyxiation is added to their activities.
What Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) did with drugs, this did with sex. Although, these people weren't acting most of the time. They were really doing it. The camera-work looked good, but I was mostly distracted by what the actors were doing. There were a few too many dick shots for my taste though. All through the duration, Sada is threatening to kill Kichi or cut off his wang. Unfortunately for her, that would exterminate her only form of entertainment. She doesn't realize this. The audio was good and subtitles I got were on time. I rate this a strange pink rating because I'm glad I saw it, but wouldn't watch it again. I need something more from a movie than sex sex sex, but it was made quite well.

In the Mood for Love A.K.A. 花樣年華, huāyàng niánhuá (2000)

A Chinese romantic drama directed by Wong Kar-wai, starring Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung.
A man whose wife is constantly busy with work and goes on business trips to Japan meets a woman next door whose husband is always busy with work and goes on business trips to Japan.
Very pretty, but pretty boring. The blocking in Wong Kar-wai films always stacks characters and items in focal depth. A prime example in this film was the woman standing in front of the man and walking away. She is in focus, then he is in focus as she walks past him and goes out of focus into the background. It's just brilliant camerawork! The music was alright too. Everything else sucked. The plot held my attention like a wet paper bag holds battle axes. Sex could have been implied in a very discreet and classy way, but we don't even see them taking their shoes off to enter the homes. They never touch one another. Is having a friend next door this scandalous in Hong Kong? I rate this poor. Read that first sentence of my review paragraph again.

Alice in Wonderland (1933)

An American fantasy directed by Norman Z McLeod, starring Cary Grant and Gary Cooper.
A compressed version of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.
Holy shit! I didn't know that such great films were made in 1933. As far as early movies go, I would rank this among Nosferatu, Haxan, Metropolis and Journey to the Moon. The special effects were as cheap, cheesy and easy as they come, but looked so "in place". I liked that the plot spanned both sections and that it went through them so quickly. Watching a film this old should not be a long, drawn out process. I got a version on Archive.org with incoherent subtitles that I was tempted to pause and read for humor, but turned them off to actually watch the movie. The sets were absolutely beautiful and the costumes matched. I have to rate this best because for that time, it is one of the top 5 films I've seen.

The Great Mouse Detective (1986)

An American Disney animated mystery directed by Ron Clements, Burny Mattinson, Dave Michener and John Musker, starring Vincent Price and Frank Welker.
A rat criminal overlord has abducted the mechanic father of a small mouse child. A mouse man returning from a journey finds the child and they meet up with a Sherlock Holmes style detective. As the case unravels, it turns out that the rat is using the child's father to build a machine which will kill the detective and a robotic replacement for the mouse queen so he can rule the city.
This is the best and most coherent detective film I have ever seen. Maybe my brain works in a different way from live action detective films. The only one that made sense to me was Sin City (2005). I liked that the animation was classic Disney style and there were only 3 musical style songs, none of which were the "heartstring" style. There was an equal amount of humor and suspense. I'm rating this awesome because when it finished, I wanted to reset and watch it again.

Pure Fucking Mayhem (2008)

A Swedish music documentary directed by Stefan Rydehed.
The history of the Norwegian metal band, Mayhem is told through interviews.
I thought this was excellent. The interviews were far more serious than Until the Light Takes Us (2008). There was lots of background noise in most of them, but the monologues came through very clearly. The video was 1 camera angle per interview, but it looked fine except for one point. There was a few second clip going into one of the sections in which camera or sound gear could be seen to the left. Being 90 minutes just about Mayhem, it was obviously more informative about that band. What I really liked was seiing different photos of Pelle/Dead. I rate this good and would probably watch it again sometime.

Tom Yum Goong 2 A.K.A. The Protector 2, Warrior King 2 (2013)

A Thai action directed by Prachya Pinkaew, starring Tony Jaa and Yanin Vismitananda.
Do you remember the man and elephant duo from The Protector (2005)? They get separated again, but that seems a minor plot element in the crime gang deal.
Total fucking dildos. When I watch a movie with the guy from Ong Bak (2003) and the girl from Chocolate (2008) in it, I want to see Thai boxing and acrobatics. At 1 hour 4 minutes there was still none of that. I turned it off. I would have hated to be the director who had to restrain these heroes of modern martial arts from practicing their craft on screen. If I were either of the 2 heroes, I would have knee-dropped the director, set up a stationary camera and just filmed the fight scenes that way instead of 75 cameras from 365 angles cut in 0.0001 millisecond clips. These are people who are skilled in moving their bodies. I think it would be nice to see that in the video. Obviously, I rate this shit. Watch Ong Bak, and Chocolate and wish that Tony and Yanin could fight gangs together, using their real Muay Thai skills and being recorded on a few less cameras.