Depends on how good Steed's fastball is. :O:

Both great films and both starring the great actor Tatsuya Nakadai. There is scene in "Kagemusha" where Nakadai transforms himself to impersonate another character that is truly amazing. I have always liked actors who can act with merely the expressions on there faces or small gestures rather than large, overt actions. Nakadai, by the way, is also the actor who has the great final duel scene with Toshiro Mifune in Kurosawa's film "Sanjuro", another must see samurai film.

Agree to all, altho in truth I prefer the predecessor "Yojimbo" to "Sanjuro"... however they are both fantastic. "Yojimbo" may well be my very favorite Kurosawa film, and that's saying a lot. I am still PO'd that Steven Spielberg didn't do the obvious "homage" shot to it when he was making "1941"... a movie about which the only really good thing I can say is that Mifune was in it. :O:

Nakadai is also great in "Ran" and IIRC starred in the (non-Kurosawa) trilogy "The Human Condition" (about a Japanese soldier in WWII)... which is supposed to be outstanding tho I've never seen it. Buried somewhere in my Netflix queue, no doubt.

Spielberg has redeemed himself somewhat in that he supported Kurosawa in his final years of filmmaking. He was instrumental in getting financial support for Kurosawa's film "Dreams" and was among the several other directors like Lucas, Coppola and Scorsese to offer aid and support for his final films. I have often thought a form of royalty should have been paid by those directors, screenwriters, and producers who benfitted from remakes and/or adaptaions of Kurosawa's works. Certainly, with out Kurosawa's "Hidden Fortress", George Lucas never would have made his 'minor' franchise of "Star Wars"...

I did not know that about Spielberg, Vienna. That's a very pleasant surprise.

Thanks.

As hard as it may be to believe, in his later years Kurosawa simply could not get the funding he needed to keep working (at the level he demanded of himself) from within Japan or the Japanese studio system.

It took deals with investors and companies in Europe and the US plus a lot of support from folks like those mentioned above, in order for him to get those last few films made.

One of my favorite things is to spot a Kurosawa reference or inspiration in somebody else's work. Which is why the absence of the no-brainer in "1941" annoyed me, because I was just waiting for it. There's a scene where the German officer aboard the Japanese sub pulls a gun on Mifune's character (who is commanding the sub) and I thought, oh, Mifune's gonna take out a knife or something and throw it into the German's gun hand. BUT NO. :stare:

It would have made sitting through that thing almost worthwhile.

But first, I'd enjoy nice rare steak.

http://henryfoolspicks.files.wordpre...ingbulls-2.jpg

Kurosawa's inabilty to get funding in his later years ultimately led to a suicide attempt and that act caught the attention of the rest of the world outside Japan. The outpouring of concern was immense and resulted in the many offers of assistance from other filmakers and industry people.

His inability to get funding was partly due to his filming style. He took way more time to film than was estimated and he spent way more than budgeted. For example, for his film "Throne of Blood", he had an entire medieval samural castle built. The studio balked at the expense but gave in with the expectation the castle could be used in other productions. Imagine the studio's shock when Kurosawa destroyed the castle filming the final battle scenes. It may be OK for John Wayne to build a duplicate Alamo in the desert and destroy it (U.S. studios weren't as concerned about the expense), but when Kurosawa did essentially the same thing, he was labelled as a wasteful spendthrift.

I'm planning to watch 'Hobo with a Shotgun' shortly!
I mean with a title like that it's going to be dam cool :D
And it has Rutger Hauer in it, as the Hobo.

great rating on imdb:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1640459/


Storyline:
A vigilante homeless man pulls into a new city and finds himself trapped in urban chaos, a city where crime rules and where the city's crime boss reigns. Seeing an urban landscape filled with armed robbers, corrupt cops, abused prostitutes and even a pedophile Santa, the Hobo goes about bringing justice to the city the best way he knows how - with a 20-gauge shotgun. Mayhem ensues when he tries to make things better for the future generation.
Street justice will indeed prevail.

Saw When the Last Sword is Drawn the other day, most excellent movie and I'd recommend anyone who haven't seen it yet, to try and find a copy and check it out. :up:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0359692/

I just watched В бой идут одни "старики" from 1973. I think the English title is Only "Old Men" Are Going to Battle. Anyway, it's about Soviet pilots in WW 2 and I thought it was very good. I was prepared for annoying patriotism but instead got a nice film that had genuinely good acting, amusing humor, yet also moving scenes too. The part where a mechanic laconically tells his new pilot "you're my fifth one" still sends shivers down my spine.

As far as war movies goes, this was different in a good way. I think it managed to capture the grim nature of war and paid respect to the men doing their dangerous work but without overdone glorification like in some other movies. In a way it reminded me of Das Boot in this sense. The settings were also very good, though I at first had trouble recognizing some German planes as such, because obviously they couldn't use real Bf-109s and FW-190s in the film. It didn't bother me too much, though, because there are very few scenes where the props are used. In the fight scenes (there are not many of those) I think they used real gun-camera footage too, so it might just be that I'm bad at plane recognition.

The plot was easy enough to follow even with my limited Russian, though in the end I got little confused when it seemed that people just started dying without explanation offscreen. The ending also left me with a feeling that there should have been something more, it was very simplistic. But overall I would still recommend this.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070861/

Finally got around to watching A Night to Remember and was it good!
I was surprised to see how closely it followed the events as told by the survivors during
the inquiries, had just read a lot about Titanic due to the 100th anniversary and picked
tons of things from the movie I remember reading about from the survivors' accounts.

And it really didn't feel like a movie that was made in 1958, the acting was superb.
Especially Michael Goodliffe as Mr. Andrews was nice to watch, actually felt bad
for him in the end. :-?

Soooo, if you haven't seen it and you're interested in Titanic, watch it. Now.

Has anyone else seen Melancholia? Not a bad movie despite the terrible reviews it must have received -- that is, not bad as long as you can get through the first hour or so. As dull as the first half of the movie is, the last half kept us talking for two days afterward. A brilliant movie in its own way. Some of the visual work is breathtaking. The opening credits, for one, are a true work of art IMO.