Mannaja Trois?

Hey people, I've decided to dust off the old bloggo and give it another tiny tiny chapter, which will hopefully help me get out of this non-writing funk I've been living in (I blame facebook, riding my bike and getting drunk for this...but never myself ) and back into the glory of boring you to death about movies. I've seen quite a bit of stuff since my last post, made mental notes to write about certain films, but then wiped them away with a guilt soaked magic eraser and never following up, like I should have. Well hopefully those times are behind me and I will stop spending money on those damn nifty erasers. So what film brings me here? Well, unfortunately it wasn't a steamy three way orgy of tomahawks as indicated by the photo above, but you're getting warmer.





 
The movie is called Mannaja (aka "A Man Called Blade") from 1977 and was directed by Sergio Martino, who is better known for his Giallo films. Mannaja is a pretty formulaic spaghetti western that succeeded at keeping me entertained. Nothing out of this world as far as story goes but some great scenes when it came time to showcase some gore (Martino being a Giallo director, I expected this). Mannaja (excellently played by Maurizio Merli) is the main character in the movie, a tomahawk wielding bounty hunter in search of some loot for some scumbag he rounded up. After chopping said scumbag's hand off with his tomahawk, Mannaja drags this dude into some wack ass town where drinking and chasing tail has been outlawed. The town has no sheriff but is run by a rich old man (Philippe Leroy) named McGovern. The old man has the town by the balls; he owns and operates the silver mine where basically the whole town works at. The catch is that he's an asshole and is literally working people to death and not letting them chill and get loose on the weekends...imagine that! Mannaja finds out out all this and decides he wants to meet this douche so he can get his money for the scumbag, but it's not that easy son.

Everybody following along okay so far? There is a Douche AND a Scumbag, two different characters...just want everyone to be clear on that. Of course, he can't go straight to the Douche directly, he has to talk to his top bitchboy first. The top bitchboy is a guy named Valler (John Steiner) who has two Dobermans. That's his thing, he chills in a shitty western town with his badass dogs that will bite your ass if you look at him sideways. They meet at a card game and when Mannaja brings his card game-winning, money-taking skills to the table, bitchboy sicks his dogs on him. This turns out to be one of the funniest scenes in the movie because what Mannaja does is basically slap the the shit out of the dogs with the back of his tomahawk, making them cry and run. After killing a couple of the guys and taking his winnings, Mannaja decides he doesn't need the reward for the scumbag and cuts him loose.

 From here the film takes some expected turns. McGovern (the old guy that runs the town) and Valler (bitchboy) keep sending guys to try to kill Mannaja but they just end up with his tomahawk in their skulls and shit. On one of these attempts, Mannaja almost dies but is saved when a pimp named Johnny Johnny(Salvatore Puntillo) and his girls find him in under a pile of rocks that fell on him. Johnny Johhny (whose parents apparently liked the name "Johnny" so damned much) dreams of having his own brothel someday, so naturally, since they saved his ass, Mannaja promises to hook him up in the town of no sin...you guessed it; CONFLICT. Shit goes wrong and more people get tomahawks in them. It's gonna happen when you piss this guy off. Talking shit? BOOM! Tomahawk to the dome! You said what? FWACK! You get a fuckin' tomahawk chest ornament! At this stage in the film it starts getting really good, as you can tell from my excitement about tomahawks. Without spoiling it, it turns out to be a pretty decent plot with some unexpected twists that involve some great gore and some pretty impressive torture. Don't believe me? See below!

Yes, you are seeing what you are thinking, he is buried up to his neck and his eyelids have been pinned wide open with needles (or nails, couldn't really tell) with a fuckin' spike under his chin...pretty dope, huh?

All in all a very entertaining film with some excellent shots as above and some good acting. Although I can't speak for myself , I do need to point out that I  read in a couple of places that this film is very similar to a film from 1976 called Keoma. I haven't seen Keoma so I can't compare, but I definitely will check it out now. I'm assuming that Keoma is superior because it stars Franco Nero of Django fame, but I'll have to wait and see. Something interesting is that the similarities don't stop at just character and plot, some say that the reason Maurizio Merli even got the title role in Mannaja is because he looked like Franco Nero. The funniest thing I found out is that the score was done by the same team in both films, Guido De Angelis & Maurizio De Angelis, two brothers that in my opinion, created one of the worst theme songs to a western ever when they wrote the theme to Mannaja. It's as if they wanted to really wow the world with a horrid combination of Leonard Cohen and David Bowie. It had me cracking up when the title sequence came on. Truly awful sounds do that too me, I just can't believe the recording session where somebody was like "Fuck yes! I wanna hear this shit during my ENTIRE movie!", it just doesn't compute in my head. You can kind of hear it in the background of the trailer, but the vid below really lets you have it.

Check out the intro and quirky theme song!
(The fun begins at around 2:08)

I truly enjoyed Mannaja. Even if it was a little generic, the last act threw out some curve balls that made the movie standout. The direction was solid and so were the performances, making this something I would recommend. Just remember, when the opening theme comes spilling out of your speakers in all of it's glory...turn it up!

Thanks for reading, time for me to go smack some Doberman Pinschers!

Scotch and a Sofa

After last night, I can now finally check off yet another elusive little film off of my list. One film that for some reason never crossed paths with me...CRIMEWAVE(aka The XYZ Murders)! I first learned about this movie when I read Bruce Campbell's "If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor about 5 or 6 years ago. Being an Evil Dead fan, naturally, I devoured that book and my quest began. The "quest" was really not a "quest" per se, but I was pretty driven to see this damned movie. Why? Well, how can I put it? Basically, it's like the cinematic equivalent to The Justice League. Well, not as many superheroes, but really really important ones.

Crimewave marks the first collaboration between a few of my favorite filmmakers of all time; Sam Raimi, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen. Who would not froth at the mouth at the mere mention of this team? Along with a screenplay written by this awesome trio and directed by Mr. Raimi, you can also add a bit part for Bruce Campbell as well and this sounds like something a little too good too be true. So that was it, I needed to see this movie! The only problem? It was out of print. I would only find bootleg vhs copies on ebay (which I refused to watch)for years to come, so I was relegated to sadly checkng imdb.com every month or so looking for any signs of dvd release. Eventually, I gave up and decided that it was one that got away. Until recently. I was casually searching through Netflix's catalog when I ran across it, there it was. It was there and I couldn't believe it. Crime-fucking-wave, directed by Sam fucking Raimi, 1980-fucking-5. Holy shit. click. This title has been added to your dvd queue. Availability: LONG WAIT. Really?! The 5 plus years that have gone by meant nothing to you? Why must I be tortured?

Fast forward a couple of months and my mail box smiles and spits out the dvd into my anxious palm (cue Bruce Springsteen's "Glory Days") and I set into motion an event that has been years overdue: my viewing of Crimewave!

So was it epic? What the fuck was it about this movie that I felt the need to waste so much of your precious time building it up? NOT MUCH. Don't get me wrong, it's an awesome movie and I loved it, but is it important? Yes and no. It's important in the way that you can see early habits starting to form, habits that would become key signatures for these filmmakers who would go on to be considered by some to be a major force in keeping film original and extremely entertaining for us today. First and foremost, it's a fun, goofy dark comedy written by the Coens, so the dialog is totally off the charts and hilarious, even for an eighties comedy, and that says a lot, based on my belief that comedy is the genre that suffers the most with age. Some shit you saw 10 or 15 years ago just isn't that funny anymore, we all know that. What keeps Crimewave funny? I don't know, I think it's the over-the-top film noir delivery combined with cheesy(but totally effective)sound effects and cartoon-like situations. It almost seems as if after Evil Dead, Raimi wanted to amp up the silliness that was just an effective background tool for Ash and company and just went totally balls out and made a cross between The Three Stooges, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" and a live action Tom & Jerry episode. Watching this you can't help but imagine just how much fun Raimi had throwing every classic slapstick gag into this movie. You name it, it's in here.

The storyline is insanely surreal but simple. Two business partners are dead and an employee is framed for the murder. Through flashbacks, we get thrown into a plot that involves Bruce Campbell as a scumbag (or "Heel", as he is constantly referred to) that utters lines like "Hey baby, why don't ya come on over to my pad. We'll have a scotch and sofa", a sorry ass nerd (who is also the "hero" played by Reed Birney, whoever the hell he is) who is in love with the wrong girl and best of all, there are two "exterminators" that kill people with an electrocution device that has 3 hilarious settings: "RAT", "MAN" & "HERO". The movie is a blast and you'll love it if you love campy, goofy cult classics. The Budget wasn't the best, the acting is not top notch, but the talent is there and the fun is in your face, just stop being a tight ass and enjoy the damn movie.

Check out the clips below!

 

And here's the trailer (shitty quality)

Trivia:
-The name of the prison in this movie is "Hudsucker", a name they would reuse for the Coens' "The Hudsucker Proxy", a film where the trio would collaborate on screenwriting duties yet again.

-The Oldsmobile Delta that is featured prominently in the Evil Dead trilogy which also makes an appearance in this film (and many of Raimi's films to come, including Spider-Man), was Sam's actual car for quite some time.

Losing the Kung-Fu Grip

Dang! It's been almost three months since my last post...what the shit? I've been a little sidetracked friends, sidetracked by my vices, and for this...I apologize.

I have a couple of good movies at home that I gotta sit down and chew on, however, I can tell you this:

- District 9 was a really great surprise, I love those "Focking Prones" (fucking prawns)!!

- Of course Inglourious Basterds was a great time, but that goes without saying.

- Tokyo Zombie is a hilariously entertaining Japanese Zombie/Jiu-Jitsu/Stoner comedy that you should DEFINITELY check out.

- Z Channel was interesting but a little too California-centric for me to really feel the need to grab you by the shirt and tell you about it.

I will make up for my slacking ways and try to post up some good fresh reviews for you very soon, sorry to keep you hanging (as if anyone is really "hanging" on this blog anyway, lol).