New digital stamp titled 'Sixties Rock n Roll', you might already have guessed she was inspired by the beautiful Ronettes, my favourite girl group from the 60s! This illustration was made quite some time back (last year). I will post a coloured example soon!
Meanwhile enjoy some beautiful photos of the trio:
My favourite Ronette songs are: 'Be my Baby' (of course), 'I Can Hear Music' (first heard it from the Beach Boys), 'You Baby' (first heard it from The Lovin' Spoonful) & 'Do I love you'. The 2nd and 3rd songs were my faves from the Beach Boys and Lovin' Spoonful before I got into Ronettes.
Previously I only knew 'Be My Baby' and their Christmas songs. No surprise why I like the girls so much, it's the type of tune I'm into... giving Phil Spector the credit for that!
OH MY. What in the world did I just watch?! Loved it by the way! This retro Japanese movie called 'Hausu' or 'House' from 1977, I thought it was bad and brilliant at the same time. Anyhow, a few days back my boyfriend shared some screenshots of an old Japanese horror movie he had watched on Hulu Plus, and figured it was to my taste: old-school music, bluescreen surreal stuff, like a retro horror manga... kitsch!
I asked, "Oh like the Umezu Kazuo Hyouryu Kyoushitsu漂流教室 (Floating Classroom) horror stuff where heads and eyeballs fly all around and kids eating one another?"
"Yeah something like that."
"Ok cool."
Hahaha.... totally Japanese old-school wierdness, I'm in. I'd like to do this style if I ever produced e a horror movie lol.
The story: Oshare (or Gorgeous in the English subs, though I think 'oshare' means fashionable) has a new stepmother named Ryoko, and not happy about it. Missing her dead mother, she writes a letter to her maternal aunt who lives in an isolated house and asks to visit for the summer vacation. Her aunt agrees. Gorgeous invites 6 other school friends to join her. The house ends up eating them in various gruesome but psychedelic ways.
First off, this movie is one strange specimen: mostly nonsense but I have watched other Japanese horror rubbish and Hausu is not that incomprehensible and pretty straightforward. The house and aunt is right off the bat 'not right'. It doesn't take itself too seriously and doesn't treat its audience as idiots. I like how the wierd narrative doesn't bother explaining itself. The names are easy to remember, entirely cheesy and caricature-ish but a good fit to the tune of the movie imo. I doubt girls with such clashing personalities will ever hang out in real life lol.
Looks like director Obayashi Nobuhiko decided to utilise whatever creative concepts came to his mind. The more experimental, the better! They almost remind me of student work. Great for people with short attention spans lol. I like the low-school (lowbrow & old-school!) effects. He worked as a tv commercial director so that was evident in his style perhaps?
The movie is graphic intensive: pop and psychedelia, manga style
illustrations, superimposition, the best parts are the visually strange ways of getting killed... script says you turn into a watermelon and get ate! How about getting swallowed by (of all things) a PIANO! Yup you should have ran when your fingers got chewed off by the keyboard! It must have been fun conceptualising it onto film, I can't imagine what was going on in their minds, or what they have been taking lol.
None of the scenes were especially gory because they were animated and resembled drawings. I found the overlay and blue paint chroma technique interesting, and cared more about the graphics than the plot itself. They also have a movie-within-a-movie scene, and even some shoujo elements! However if you mind nudity, please take note.
Hausu is one of those genre types that you either love or hate, and I can understand if anyone has some disdain for this film. Ok my review is biased because I like pop oddities... and kitties!
I enjoyed the visually-pleasing atmosphere, and the cast was eyecandy. The performances by the girls, however, were poor. They were amateurs (the actresses act as if they were in a commercial) so it was forgiveable; it did made the show comedic despite the gore. Maybe it wasn't supposed to be this cheesy but a serious look at household appliances finding ways to eat girls.
According to Wiki, Toho greenlighted the script because they were tired of making losses on comprehensible films, so they allowed this to happen by giving the youth demographic a shot at a plot that didn't make sense. The plan worked because despite bad reviews from critics back in the day, the film was successful amongst youths and has somewhat grown into a cult status because of its originality and uninhibited creativity. Understandably no one wanted to direct the film so Obayashi did it himself when Toho allowed him to do it 2 years after approving the script. His daughter came up with the story.
Spoilers alert:
About my favourite girl, that would obviously be Kung Fu. No, not because of her itsy bitsy shorts and damn fine face, but because her personality was appealing and better developed than the other girls who were more like giggly stick-in-the-muds. She was the only one who fought back. Also, cute riffs when she comes on! She also had more common sense - even more than that Prof girl. Best of all was her superhuman abilities - being decapitated by the lamp and torso-less, her legs had become a separate entity and fly a death kick to the villain. Too bad the legs couldn't win the cabinet lol.... just incredibly bizarre imagery.
As for memorable scenes, I give kudos to the piano eating Melody up, it seemed more detailed than the other girls' death scenes, with a bit more visual effects and props. They used many cuts (both film scenes and her method of death) but she didn't actually die like a normal person would. Her head still reacts even when her body was clearly in pieces just like Mac & Kung Fu. Her acting was terrible though.
An afterthought about the ending to Fantasy.... I am left
with question marks??? Maybe she fantasized she was Sleeping Beauty but
her knight in shining armour turned into a pile of bananas
(or squashed by them) so she died by sleeping forever and got ate. A hypothesis.
Also Prof who got killed in the cat's blood... well I think maybe it's
acidic (chemistry), that was why she was nude... her clothes melted away,
then she corroded away too because it looks like it. Yup.
If you find the screenshots interesting and you're keen for visual surrealism, old-school effects and don't want to use your brain too much, I recommend checking this little horror movie out!
I've recently watched this absolutely hilarious movie called 'Detroit Metal City' starring Matsuyama Kenichi. It is about a timid countryside guy Negishi Souichi who packs up for Tokyo in search for a dream career of being a saccharine pop singer. To his horror he ends up being the leader of 'Detroit Metal City (DMC)' - a destructive death metal band singing about murder and rape; while assuming the role of the snarling 'terrorist from hell' Johannes Krauser II complete with over-the-top makeup and costumes. Against his will, DMC becomes extremely popular, and making things worse he runs into his crush Aikawa Yuri - a music magazine writer who views death metal music in contempt.
The plot centers around him trying to keep his secret from Aikawa and his mother, as well as a battle for the King of death metal title. The movie is adapted from the manga by Kiminori Wakasugi and was also produced into an anime series.
First of all Matsuyama Kenichi is totally unrecognisable! He is best known for his portrayal of L in Deathnote. It is hard to piece together that the cryptic L detective in Deathnote and Negishi/Krauser are one and the same person! His comedic timing is priceless; the full turnabout when he plays Negishi (dweeb haircut and feminine antics) to angst-ridden Krauser is outstanding; very versatile actor. The movie plot is rather predictable but his acting alone carries the film to greater heights.
The music score in the film is decently crafted and the performances look realistic, with Matsuyama helming some of the vocals. There is also a sub-plot where Krauser had to engage in a nationwide battle with indie bands, which is really pretty fun to watch, though adult content and foul language alert.
I was delighted to see Matsuyuki Yasuko as the monstress manager of Death Records, who is especially abusive to Negishi to inculcate hatred in him so he can produce more violent songs lol. Matsuyuki is one of my favourite japanese actresses since I first saw her in a j-dorama when I was little. Her usually classy image is shed away to something utterly unlady-like.. she looks great though!
I haven't had much interest in comedies, but one whiff of the trailer and I knew that it was going to be funny - seldom do trailers make me laugh! The one I caught on tv was a shorter censored version. Gene Simmons from KISS is the bonus feature; obviously KISS was the inspiration behind the character of Krauser. Trailer below (warning: bad language and no subtitles):
Ok last note I think this film is pretty good (dumb but in a good way) and I hope Hollywood leaves it alone (no remakes please!) unless it matches the original.... nah. It won't be easily done as the scenes are rather manga-centric, certain expressions are specifically culturally Japanese. If they do attempt a remake, it will either be very strange by Hollywood's standards, or not true to source material to cater to a different demographic.
