Reviews (10/14 - 10/17)

10/14

Pickup On South Street (1953, Samuel Fuller, tcm) - 8.5
Richard Widmark pickpockets a woman's purse and ends up with important information meant to be delivered to Communists, so then the woman, the Communists, and the FBI all try to get it from him. It's really fucking good, and Widmark is amazing.
Poster: It's pretty good. The images on the bottom don't offer much, but the top 4 give you what you need. - 8

10/15

8 Diagram Pole Fighter (1983, Liu Chia-Liang, vhs) - 8
Something about a family, and most of them get killed in a big battle at the beginning, except for the women and two of the brothers, one of whom goes crazy and the other becomes a monk, and then at some point, there's an amazing fight scene where everyone's teeth get knocked out. It's good.
Poster: Looks like the cover of a kung fu movie. Nothing stands out about it. - 6

The Muppet Movie (1979, James Frawley, dvd) - 8
The story of how all the muppets came to meet each other, on the way to Hollywood. It was hard, of course, not to compare it to the recently seen Muppets Take Manhattan, which is a brilliant and hilarious film. The Muppet Movie is kinda funny, too, but it's a much broader sense of humor, and I felt it didn't have as much to offer. It's also seriously marred by an extended Mel Brooks cameo. Still very good overall, though.
Poster: It's great. It's a road movie and a love story, and this has those both covered. I like the way Piggy is holding Kermit, the shot of all of them in the car, and the tagline. It's all very classy. - 9

10/16

Survey Map of a Paradise Lost (1988, Hisayasu Sato, dvd) - 7
A reporter is doing a story on prostitutes. The first 2/3 of the movie is little more than a series of fetishized sex scenes, and then there's a murder, and then the murder is solved. Sato seems to like twist endings, but he doesn't seem to understand the concept of them. When presented with some facts about the murder and who was actually behind it, it's done in such a way that I assume we're supposed to be surprised. But like, we start getting those facts only about five minutes after the murder happens, so there's hardly time to develop an opinion about things being a certain way, before having our minds blown that they're actually a different way. The details of the murder are clever and unconventional, they're just not effectively twisty. But maybe I've misinterpreted it, and it's not actually supposed to be a twist, in which case, whatever, I liked it either way.
Poster: I like making out and I like the color pink, but they're not really meshing too well on this cover. - 4

10/17

Creepshow 2 (1987, Michael Gornick, dvd) - 9
Three different stories, one about a vengeful wooden Indian, one about a mysterious blob in a lake that eats some teenagers on a raft, and one about a woman haunted by the hitchhiker she accidentally kills. My favorites were the latter two, but all three were fucking awesome. I wasn't that into the last one at first, but the hitchhiker's appearance just keeps getting more and more ridiculously bloody, and the ways in which the woman continually tries to kill him also becomes pretty amazing. I like the original Creepshow, but this one is a whole lot nastier, and I think it's considerably better for it.
Poster: Seems kind of standard, but I love that it's in a movie theater, and I really like the feet sticking out into the aisle. - 9