While many critics have not been kind to True Legend, I love it and have included it on my list of best films of the year at #10. Reviewers have dissed the film for being poorly scripted and disjointed. To which I respond: since when does the success of a martial arts flick depend on a tight cohesive script? It’s in the nature of chop socky flicks to have a certain loosy goosy lunacy.This ain’t fucking David Mamet. It’s kung fu!

Yuen Woo Ping has been making cutting edge martial arts films since 1978 when his groundbreaking classic Snake In The Eagle’s Shadow starring Jackie Chan burst on the scene like a fist to the solar plexus.  He is arguably the greatest director and choreographer of action scenes in the history of cinema. His credits include the fight sequences in The Matrix, Kill Bill, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Kung Fu Hustle. Ping’s latest wi-fu spectacle True Legend is among the finest martial arts films produced in the past two decades. While the film features a shitload of computer generated imagery, at heart it’s an old school kung fu movie. A morality play with grand emotions and epic action, True Legend engages the heart while being breathtakingly thrilling. Plus, it has a terrific cast: the awesome Vincent Zhao, Gordon Liu (as Old Sage), the late David Carradine in his last film appearance and Michelle Yeoh (as Physician Yu). Just when you thought Asian action flicks had lost their mojo, Yuen Woo Ping resurrects the genre once again.

True Legend has yet to receive a theatrical release in the States, but you can buy it on DVD here.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds: Exclusive video of Yuen Woo Ping at Fantastic Fest.

Above, Katja Kean in Pink Prison, shot on the same prison set as Dancer in the Dark.
 
Although this is hardly a secret In Europe, few American fans of Oscar-nominated Danish director Lars von Trier are aware of the fact that the controversial Dogme auteur responsible for films like Antichrist, Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark and Dogville, also produces porno films.

“High Art” porn, to be sure, von Trier’s company Zentropa has owned two subsidiary companies, first Puzzy Power, then Innocent Pictures, aimed at the elusive female/couples sex film market. The goal is/was to produce porn with mainstream cinema production values and their movies have few anatomical close-ups of female genitalia. A Puzzy Power manifesto laid out the original company’s aims and can be read here.

Nevertheless, they are hardcore fuck flicks, with two of them, Constance (1998) and Pink Prison (1999) starring Danish porn actress Katja Kean, who’s best described as Denmark’s Jenna Jameson (Kean, also called Katja K, is a crossover to the world of TV comedy and the lingerie business).

Lars von Trier himself is said to have little to do with the films, himself, except for signing off on them, and in a free-thinking country like Denmark, of course, pornography has never had the shame associated with it as in other countries. A 2005 film called All About Anna, starring mainstream Danish actress and singer, Gry Bay, and the third sex film produced by Zentropa, was their biggest success.

Innocent Pictures has also produced a hardcore gay feature, HotMen CoolBoyz, which starred bloody LA-based performance artist Ron Athey. It is the only hardcore gay porn film ever produced by a mainstream studio.

 
Dangerous Minds pal Alan Stuart writes:

We here at One Long House have been working hard on a new non-profit venture, Women’s Voices Now, over the summer.  In their first effort for women’s rights, the team at Women’s Voices Now (with the help of us) created Women’s Voices from the Muslim World: a short film festival, which has received hundreds of film submissions from over 50 countries—the best of which highlight and comment on the lives of Muslim women in stories that might otherwise go unheard.

If there are any filmmakers out there, which there almost certainly are, you have until November 24 to submit to the festival (one week!), for a chance to win part of the $35k being awarded.

For non-filmmakers, there are scores of films to love, hate, donate, laugh at, comment on, share, and rate.

So far my fave follows the first and only female bus driver in Tehran, in a simple documentary that sheds light on something most of us would have no idea of.  If you don’t dig that one, there are films ranging in topic from slavery, dancing, smoking in the bathroom, and racism in French class, that might just tickle your fancy.

Below,” It is Written” by Mostafa Heravi (2006) “A woman in chador passionately dances to ancient Persian music. In Iran women are not allowed to dance in public. “It is Written” shows us how it would look like if a woman was allowed to dance. Heravi emphasizes the fate of womankind and the inescapable results of freedom of action.”
 

 
Christian Nightmares writes:

‘20 Minutes To Go’: Possibly the most amazing, disturbing, and captivating video I’ve ever seen, about nuclear war, the end of the world, the Rapture, and life in Heaven. It’s a long video, but every second is worth watching!

The creative vision on offer here is bust-a-gust funny and distressing—yet joyful—at the same time. Notions of the afterlife are always pretty silly, if you ask me, but this one rivals Xanadu for schmaltz and poor costuming choices…

 
Well, the jury’s out until next year on the film, but here’s the trailer for Jon (Iron Man) Favreau’s latest Cowboys and Aliens, based on the graphic novel by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, Fred Van Lente and Andrew Foley. The film stars Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell, Adam Beach, Paul Dano, and Noah Ringer.

1873. Arizona Territory. A stranger with no memory of his past stumbles into the hard desert town of Absolution. The only hint to his history is a mysterious shackle that encircles one wrist. What he discovers is that the people of Absolution don’t welcome strangers, and nobody makes a move on its streets unless ordered to do so by the iron-fisted Colonel Dolarhyde. It’s a town that lives in fear.
But Absolution is about to experience fear it can scarcely comprehend as the desolate city is attacked by marauders from the sky. Screaming down with breathtaking velocity and blinding lights to abduct the helpless one by one, these monsters challenge everything the residents have ever known.

Now, the stranger they rejected is their only hope for salvation. As this gunslinger slowly starts to remember who he is and where he’s been, he realizes he holds a secret that could give the town a fighting chance against the alien force. With the help of the elusive traveler Ella, he pulls together a posse comprised of former opponents – townsfolk, Dolarhyde and his boys, outlaws and Apache warriors – all in danger of annihilation. United against a common enemy, they will prepare for an epic showdown for survival.

 
Via liveforfilms
 

 
Based on the new Fantagraphics book, Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punks on Film this weekend, our friends at Cinefamily are presenting a full weekend of punk rock cinema, a two-day meltdown of what appears to be yet another embarrassment of cinematic riches:

From teenage ragers to mohawked post-apocalyptic gutteroids to actual, bona fide punks, this two-day multi-event mega movie showcase of pure power is a brick in the face of every film snob and/or high school principal! The book’s editors, Zack Carlson and Bryan Connolly, will be on hand to casually guide you through the garbage-strewn annals of punk celluloid history. This is the final stop on their West Coast book tour, and they’re saving all the special guests, surprises and chaos for the grand finale! Plus, Sticky Rick’s will be here to curate a punk sticker display in the Cinefamily lobby!

The line-up for this is nothing short of wonderful:

TV Party Tonight: kicks off the event with a look at how punk was portrayed on the small screen. Who could forget the punk rockers on CHiPs and Quincey? The Dickies with Don Rickles on CPO Sharkey or Black Flag on Entertainment Tonight?  Then it all goes kaboom with the seldom-seen Afterschool Special The Day My Kid Went Punk (one of Tara’s favorites).

Urgh! A Music War: A 1981 film of live performances by Devo, Dead Kennedys, X, The Cramps, Oingo Boingo, Gang of Four, The Police, Wall of Voodoo, Klaus Nomi, Gary Numan, OMD, XTC, Pere Ubu, Magazine and more). The screening will be followed by scenes not included in the US version.

La Brune Et Moi, a 1980 look on the Parisian punk underground with Metal Urbain, the Go-Go Pigalles and Astroflash.

Shellshock Rock, a 1979 account of the Belfast, Ireland punk scene with The Undertones and Stiff Little Fingers.

D.O.A.: A seldom seen gem featuring X-Ray Spex, Generation X, The Dead Boys, The Sex Pistols and an insane interview with a nodding-out Sid VIcious and Nancy Spungeon. Directed by Lech Kowalski.

Also screening, The Class of 1984, Desperate Teenage Lovedolls (with cast members and director, Dave Markey, Allan Moyle’s Times Square (with Tim Curry), The Slog Movie (LA-punk doc with Fear, TSOL, and the Circle Jerks), a special “punk in cinema montage” by the fine folks at Everything is Terrible!, and there will even be an after party at Part Time Punks when the on-screen madness ends! This looks to be a blow-out good time, people! Festival passes are on sale until midnight on Thursday.

Co-presented by Fantagraphics, L.A. Weekly, Alamo Drafthouse, Razorcake, Big Wheel Magazine, Don’t Knock The Rock and Part Time Punks.
 

 
I’m not quite sure this is what J.K. Rowling had in mind when writing the Harry Potter series. It kinda gives a new meaning to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

(via TDW)

 
Airwave Ranger of ‘Everything Is Terrible!’ re-mixed bits and pieces of 1994 South African boxoffice smash There’s a Zulu On My Stoep (there’s a Zulu on my porch) into something all together surreal and quite frankly disturbing. The movie is supposed to be a madcap comedy for kids ala The Gods Must Be Crazy, but the re-mix creates something racially and sexually charged. You can find the flick in its entirety on Youtube as Yankee Zulu. But I have the feeling its not nearly as interesting as Airwave Ranger’s redux.
 

 
George Franju’s 1949 film Le Sang Des Bêtes (blood of the beasts) is one of the most beautiful and horrifying movies ever made. Filmed in the backstreets of Paris, Franju contrasts bucolic scenes of fog-shrouded streets, canals, deserted junkyards and children playing, with the nightmarish events taking place within two slaughterhouses. Marcel Fradetal’s stunning black and white cinematography turns the horrific into a brutal kind of poetry that if it had been shot in color would be unbearable.

Observing the workers going about their gruesome work with emotionless efficiency is the most disturbing aspect of the film for me. How much of our humanity is sacrificed for a plate of meat? Franju’s intent may have been no more than to compose a work of visual art, but as I watch Le Sang Des Bêtes I can’t help but be reminded of the fact that France was still reeling from the effects of years of war and in these images of animals being murdered I am aware of the thin line between man and beast, killing one is not so different from killing the other. Is not the abattoir a concentration camp for animals? Is the flesh of the beasts any less sacred than our own? Or have we arrived at the place where nothing is sacred? And if so, isn’t that hell?

Outside the walls of the abattoir we watch life go on, while inside we watch it come to a cruel and bloody end.
 

 
Parts two and three after the jump…

 
Marianne Faithfull looking stunningly gorgeous in 1967 French musical comedy Anna starring Anna Karina and Jean-Claude Brialy. In this scene Marianne sings ‘Hier Ou Demain’ written by Serge Gainsbourg.

Oh, Marianne. My knees are trembling, my upper lip quivering, my groin is vibrating like a tuning fork struck by the hand of God and storm clouds are bursting in the skies hovering above my feverish head. My dog is slapping me silly and begging to come to my senses. Could this be love? .