Weng Weng was a 2’9″ movie actor who starred as a James Bond-type character in the 1980s. Thanks to Chrissy at Barnes & Noble who told me about him.
I have seen For Y’ur Height Only and The Impossible Kid which both star him as Agent 00. They’re not great movies but they are fun to watch. They are available on DVD. I haven’t seen the documentary about him.
The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek – directed by Preston Sturges. I think it’s his best film. It’s never been on Blu-ray and the DVD is out of print
Une Femme Douce/Four Nights of a Dreamer/Lancelot du Lac – Directed by Robert Bresson. Bresson’s first three color films. Only Lancelot was ever on a US DVD which is out of print. Une Femme Douce was on VHS. The films have been restored and circulated in the US around 10 years ago.
Nazarin/El – directed by Luis Bunuel. Two of his 1950s Mexican films that have never been on US discs.
Viva Riva – an excellent crime drama from the Congo
Rabies/Big Bad Wolves – directed by Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado- two fine Israeli films that are gruesome. Big Bad Wolves is also darkly funny.
Films by Spanish director Alex de la Iglesia
I will add more
Singin’ in the Rain is a good choice for #1. I am also a big admirer of The Band Wagon.
“That’s Entertainment” was written for The Band Wagon.
A new list
Extreme Job is a very entertaining 2019 South Korean comedy film. It’s available on Amazon Prime and YouTube Movies but not on US DVD or Blu-ray. I bought an Asian Blu-ray on eBay. There is a similar Chinese film, Lobster Cop, which I haven’t seen, also on Amazon Prime. Kevin Hart announced that he is making a remake in the US.
The film is about police officers who are trying to monitor the activities of a criminal gang. They buy a chicken restaurant across the street from the gang’s headquarters. They introduce a new chicken recipe to keep the place open and suddenly their great success at running the restaurant interferes with tracking the bad guys.
This is a large but incomplete selection of zombie movies. Modern zombies films originated with Night of the Living Dead (1968). Prior to that, zombie films were more about voodoo than people coming out of graves – see 1943’s I Walked with a Zombie.
The whole world does zombie movies. There are big budget ones and independent ones. The latest is Army of the Dead which recently premiered on Netflix. This film even has zombie animals.
The 10 Best Zombie Movies of the 21st Century, Ranked
Even though the subject matter is gruesome, there are many zombie comedies.
This is a real cheap one which I just watched. It’s more the early voodoo style zombies and takes place near New Orleans:
Robert Bresson is one of my favorite film directors. While some of his films are available on DVD and Blu-ray (primarily from the Criterion Collection). I have only seen Une Femme Douce (1969) once and that would have been in the early 1970s but I still have strong memories of it. It has never been released on a US Blu-ray or DVD. New Yorker Films did have a VHS version. The entire film can be found online. It’s based on a Dostoevsky short story.
Bresson’s films never pander to the audience and are not fun to watch. He always addresses serious subjects like like faith and some of his characters commit suicide. He drains suspense – in A Man Escaped, you know from the title that the main character got out of prison. Bresson uses non-professional actors and the color palette in this, his first color film, very understated. Dominique Sanda, who starred in this film, went on to a successful film career.
Une Femme Douce explores the marriage between a woman who committed suicide and her husband. She commits suicide at the beginning of the film and her husband tries to figure out why. His narratives in voice overs don’t always match what you see on the screen in terms of the happiness of the marriage.
Bresson didn’t show things you know didn’t happen. The suicide is shown by a scarf falling slowly from a balcony to the ground and traffic stopping on the street below. You see this before you see the body. The first clip below shows this opening scene.
I have a French lobby card set I got on eBay and an 8×10 glossy I got at Cinemabilia in New York. I have attached photos of two of the cards and the picture.
Here’s an interview with Bresson from 1970. I remember reading it back then. The writer, Charles Thomas Samuels, later committed suicide. Une Femme Douce was Bresson’sA most recent film at the time of the interview.
Here are trailers for two 2008 Japanese films from Tokyo Shock that I watched recently. They’re outrageously violent. The Machine Girl was especially creative- it had a bra that had drill bits. In one scene a woman blows a hole through a guy’s stomach, then puts the gun through the hole to shoot someone else. A character shoots nails into a guys face.
I’m not going to tell you these are great films but they are entertaining if you can handle all of the bloodshed.
It’s called “House of Harris” because the producer was Jack Harris. Blobfest is great, even in virtual form. Tickets and merchandise are on sale now.
Sad! 