Iro's Film Diary

No love for the ladder fight? Don't tell me they cut out the ladder fight!

They didn't, I just wasn't overly wowed by it.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

>3> I thought it was cewl...

What would you say are the best Jackie Chan movies?

To me, First Strike is a solid step above... Battle Creek Brawl.

As of writing, I'd say a quick top five would be Project A, Police Story, Drunken Master, Snake in the Eagle's Shadow and...maybe Supercop? After those first four there are a few contenders for #5. I'm still working my way through some of his older stuff and also have plans to re-watch some other supposedly good ones that didn't leave such a good impression the first time around (mainly Drunken Master II and Project A II). Why, what would you pick?

Haven't seen Battle Creek Brawl so I might have to take your word for it for now.

Well I have to see Drunken Master again, but given the multiple Chan movies I've reviewed myself recently I totally disagree with your assessment of Police Story.

Police Story 2 is my favorite easily. It's a middle ground between the great but sparse action sequences in 1 where the intervening story was notably weaker (and with more immature humor) while 3/Supercop just felt like the action was spread way too thin, there's barely a story to speak of, just a series of loosely connected events and we don't get anything action-wise with the level of creativity from 1 or 2. Sure you got him hangin' off a helicoptor and fighting on a train, but those kinds of stakes don't do much when I'm already convinced Chan's going to save the day, I just want to see him push Rule of Cool as far as it'll go.

I'd go Police Story 2, Police Story 1/4, then Police Story 3. Operation Condor floats around the middle for me too, but I'd place Gorgeous and Rumble in the Bronx ahead of it alongside Snake in the Eagle's Shadow. Project A was pretty meh in my opinion, too much of it feels in service to Chan and Hung as a dramedy duo. I think Drunken Master 2's also certainly got the best fight sequence of the bunch, but there's way too much drag to get to it, a lot of "drunk" mugging.

Behind those I'd put Dragons Forever (even if it does have a crack finale). I haven't seen Project A2.

It's Chan's first American movie and it shows bad. The stunt crew plainly struggles to keep up with him and it makes fights look far more mock than they ought to. It's far less inventive than the others (perhaps save a weird rollerblade race) and altogether it's just really boring.

Supposedly it shares crew with Enter The Dragon, but for action and charisma and I'd go Enter The Dragon any day.

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"Well, at least your intentions behind the UTTERLY DEVASTATING FAULTS IN YOUR LOGIC are good." - Captain Steel

I really need to see Dragons Forever and Police Story 2 while I'm at it. You do raise some valid points about the ones I mentioned - I really wanted to like Supercop but it did feel just alright and little more. Rumble in the Bronx would be another slightly-above-average piece for me. Can't think of too much else to recommend - as much as I like the man, most of the films I've seen him in top out at for me.

Ah, I thought you'd seen Police Story 2. Dragons Forever is okay, but I don't put anywhere as much stock in the Chan/Hung/Biao trio as the movie does.

Yeah, same here, it's all of the not-action that tends to drag down his movies since they simply aren't compelling enough on their own. The stories don't really reach the levels of competency as in Fist of Legend or even the camp of Enter The Dragon, but I would offer Gorgeous as a suggestion if you haven't seen that. Given he directed, wrote, and stars in it against his lead stuntman, it's about as pure a Chan experience as you're likely to get, read as: kickass martial arts/goofyass romcom.

Duly noted, though of course what Chan movies I end up seeing tend to be dictated by their availability. I feel like I need to give Fist of Legend another chance, but it's hard to get past how much it plays like a rather bloodless remake of Fist of Fury and how it seems like if I ever actually want to watch another Jet Li movie then I might as well get around to re-watching Once Upon a Time in China.

I still have to see Fist of Fury myself.

I re-visited it last year. It's probably tied with Enter the Dragon for my favourite Bruce Lee movie, so I'd say it's worth checking out.

Enter The Dragon is the only Bruce Lee movie I've seen so I definitely need to check the rest.

Eh, I guess. Way of the Dragon is okay, but The Big Boss was a serious let-down and Game of Death might be one of the worst movies I've ever seen (though that can hardly be pinned on Bruce himself). I did reviews for all three last year.

#370 - One More Time With Feeling
Andrew Dominik, 2016



A documentary about Australian musician Nick Cave as he records his latest album, Skeleton Tree.

Even without its promotion as a one-night-only event intended to overlap with the release of Skeleton Tree itself, One More Time With Feeling would still qualify as an interesting film. As demonstrated in the 2014 documentary 20,000 Days On Earth, Nick Cave is definitely an intriguing individual as far as musicians go and any film dedicated to investigating what lies beneath his moody countenance has to be appropriately inventive to keep up. 20,000 Days On Earth opted to take the docudrama route and invoke blatantly fictional constructs such as therapy sessions or imaginary conversations in order to achieve a fuller portrait of a rather enigmatic personality. In comparison, One More Time With Feeling can seem much more conventional with its simple combination of song performances and straightforward interviews, but that doesn't render it dull. A lot of that has to do with the fact that the events of the film are informed by tragedy; though the accidental death of Cave's teenage son Arthur doesn't get explicitly mentioned until the second half of the film, the effect can still be felt from the very first frame as an interview with long-time Cave collaborator Warren Ellis stops and starts for reasons that go beyond technical malfunctions.

Though grief can be felt throughout One More Time With Feeling, it is not a completely dour and funereal affair. The film is still prone to including many instances of warmth and humour in its behind-the-scenes footage not only when it comes to the players sharing amicable banter with one another but also in Cave's frustrated interior monologue clashing quite hard with his largely unflappable exterior. It's a little hard to know how to take this, though - I saw this in a packed theatre and people were laughing uproariously at many of the offhand remarks or silly gaffes that happened throughout the piece, but I personally didn't get too much of a spontaneous reaction out of it myself beyond the odd chuckle. At the same time, I wouldn't say that that's automatically a failure on the film's part - if anything, it only adds some much-needed texture to its depiction of the creative process and how many different things not only go into making it work but also threaten to undermine it completely. It helps to ground some of the more generalised concerns about mortality and one's place within the universe in something more personal and real, thus rendering it more effective in general.

The fact that cinematographer Benoit Debie is best known for shooting garishly colourful films like Enter the Void and Spring Breakers definitely makes his work in the monochromatic One More Time With Feeling especially noteworthy - even the ways in which the shots overlap and render crew members visible during performances does nothing to break the atmosphere (the same goes for the variance in quality between the songs themselves). Though the sheer artifice on display may threaten to undermine any moments of poignancy within the film (and occasionally succeed in doing so), One More TIme With Feeling definitely has its fair share of resonance. Everything from mundane conversations about retaking scenes to elaborately-staged performances of new numbers is captured remarkably and serves an important purpose in created a well-rounded cinematic experience. The "one-night-only" promotion implies that the experience is best reserved for devoted Cave fans, but I reckon that non-fans can always get something out of the film as both a rich audio-visual experience and as a decidedly singular meditation on many subjects that are key to the human experience.

I really want to see that.

I would hope that the "one night only" thing only extends to the theatrical release and not the home entertainment market, though time will tell on that front.

#371 - Crime Story
Kirk Wong, 1993



A Hong Kong police detective must solve a case involving a kidnapped multi-millionaire.

I think this may be the first Jackie Chan movie I've seen that actually takes itself completely seriously - though the title implies a similar experience to the iconic wackiness of the early Police Story movies, it soon becomes clear that this is not going to be your average Chan movie. Of course, that's not to say that it lacks for action as it features Chan getting up to his usual daredevil antics, but this time things are played extremely straight. Chan's detective character is not a charming goofball but a stressed-out workaholic and the kidnapping plot is treated severely due to its true-story origins. The tonal whiplash takes some getting used to, but eventually one can roll with its competently-told tale that features some notably stylised colour palettes that accentuate a Chan movie's usual level of manic cinematography.

#372 - Risky Business
Paul Brickman, 1983



When a teenage boy is left at home by his wealthy parents, his plans to cut loose escalate when he crosses paths with a sex worker.

I haven't watched Risky Business in a very long time and it's interesting to see how my views towards it have changed. Despite ostensibly being billed as a teen sex comedy where its most iconic scene features a barely-dressed Tom Cruise rocking out to Bob Seger and has a theoretically wacky plot about a misunderstanding between Cruise's rich boy and Rebecca De Mornay's street-smart sex worker, on this viewing none of that really seems to matter. What makes Risky Business stand out now is the style of it all. The distinctively '80s visual aesthetic that combines neon slickness with urban grit lends a lot of character to what could have been one very pedestrian excuse for a movie - the same goes for Tangerine Dream's moody electronic score being as vital to the film's personality as the visuals (if not more so). I even went out of my way to grab a screencap that best reflected this. It is that same style that bleeds into the tone of the story - though many parts of the film are broadly comedic, the aesthetics lend them an interesting degree of nuance (which is just as well since I only really got one solid - albeit well-deserved - laugh out of this viewing). The style may not be enough to render Risky Business a particularly timeless classic, but it is a truly remarkable thing to witness this level of craft in such an unlikely movie.

#373 - Sid and Nancy
Alex Cox, 1986



A biopic about Sid Vicious, the bassist in legendary punk band the Sex Pistols, and his relationship with punk groupie Nancy Spungen.

I can't imagine that annoyance is particularly high on the list of emotions people want to feel when they're watching a movie, but Sid and Nancy comes across as a film that is dependent on it (arguably to a fault). As a result, it becomes something of an endurance test as one has to spend the better part of two hours bearing witness to the eponymous duo's highly toxic (both metaphorically and literally) relationship that may be weirdly sweet in its own way (it's just them against the world, maaan!) but can grate quite severely thanks to a relentless barrage of incredibly self-destructive misadventures.

It'd be easy to write off Vicious and Spungen on the basis of their viscerally irritating behaviour, but a second viewing does indicate that there is at least a degree of depth underneath the trashy exterior. Gary Oldman may get a lot of credit for his work as Vicious and he does deserve it, but it's interesting to consider how often Chloe Webb gets singled out for being the most annoying thing about a fundamentally annoying movie. This is especially true considering the popular narrative surrounding the Sex Pistols and Spungen's Yoko Ono-like reputation for breaking up the band (while Vicious was never that good a player in the first place), which Sid and Nancy does play into quite a bit for better or worse. In this regard, Webb's turn becomes tolerable as you can catch many glimpses of the tragic figure underneath the screechy surface.

There's no faulting the film on a purely cinematic level as it features some early Roger Deakins cinematography (which may lack his more distinctive style but still shows enough visual prowess to make an inherently ugly film look good), while the film is able to inject some eye-catching sequences into its generally grimy downward spiral - the best example of such is probably Vicious's solo performance of Frank Sinatra's "My Way". Sid and Nancy is fundamentally flawed, though this is mitigated by the film managing to show its flaws as being at least somewhat deliberate. This may make it a hard watch for reasons that go beyond its inherently tragic narrative (especially when it can get to the point where you wonder why you should care about what happens to the lead characters), but considering the details of what actually happened between these two, is a film like this supposed to be an easy watch?

For whatever reason, it struck me as odd that you referred to Rebecca De Mornay's character in Risky Business as a "sex worker". Of course, you're not wrong. It's just that call girl or escort seems to go more with the type of film it is, while sex worker is a term I'd probably use in a more downbeat or sordid type of a film. Perhaps it's a weird observation for me to have.