This year the tourists were more in evidence as were the desperate and homeless.  Despite a dissapointing lunch, the trip was a success.  The weekend happened to co-incide with a tax holiday in Mass.  I added to my chopstick collection—including a pair of stainless steel sticks.  I also my usual haunt, China Arts on Tyler Street.  This cramped trinket shop specializes in DVDs and other music/movie permutations.  For almost $160 I got 30 plus movies, including two free for being such a whoop ass spender.

Future write ups will concentrate on the movies themselves.  But a few observations.

There is  a shift to the bargain range.  No doubt a result of world economic stumble.  Packaging has gone from plastic to paper.  There should be no shortage of material—-amateur, old stock not yet in DVD format, and commercial production should allow a steady flow to the Couch Potatoes and Couch Noodles here and abroad.

Beyond operas, porn, ans soaps, the Chinese are catching up on the “What we did in WW2 and against the Nationalist” movie genre.  With war going from 1931 to 1945/49 and then the Korean war, there are plenty of themes, events, and tales to tell.  Almost all unknown the self absorbed West.

Slick, the Chinese are getting very sophisticated and edgy in their movie production.  With money to burn, China has begun to challenge India as top movie producer.  Look out for more, and we are not talking about Chinese Popeye either.

Now Scandinavian movies are still hard to come and not made in great quantity.  Besides ABBA DVDs, Frostbitten is the most prominent Swedish DVD I have.  And it is good. The production was very professional–it was shot in way northern Sweden.  And the plot was and is kinda neat—a vampire comedy that includes Nazis, teen rockers, and genetic testing.  The police are right out of Fargo or more likely Fargo was spot in Nordic impersonation.

The movie starts out like Cross of Iron. Slowly we catch up to the present day.  Here we have an arctic town filled with medical malfeasance, teenage drug use, and police way out of their league.  There is gore, but I found it pretty tame. Unofrtunately the movie ends just as the first night of horror gets started.

But there are great plot twists and a whole lot of one liners that make witty comedy.  One of the best features of the vampire disease is that animals talk to the vampire-humans.  No these vamps get spooked by animals spilling family secrets.  Unlike 28 Nights, Frostbitten slows at time, but the wait is worth it.  Rent it, buy it, or go to Sweden to see it.  It is the best comedy-horror since Young Frankenstein.

It is bad, real bad. Creepiest of all is having a back seat Hitler–head only–menacing despite Hitler’s utter dependence of others.  No Boys from Brazil, this has madness all about.  Imagine the worst of mid century film making—and one of the century’s worst dictators—and you have (sadly) They Saved Hitler’s Brain.

Basically it is a suicide mission with the object to blow-up an arsenal left behind, by mistake.  Humor, martial arts, and plenty of ordinance demonstrations…Eastern Condors is one giant meat grinder. Sammo Hung helps to build a creditable martial arts ensemble. (Sammo is a buddy of Jackie Chan–they both studied under the same master).

The story concerns Rani of Jhansi, a queen of a princely state, fair, just, and not bad with whoop-ass size cutlery in her hands.  She is forced to take sides and the price of resistance gets pricey.  The story plays out as per the history books.  The violence is the tame 1950s style, but the music, costumes, and story is a magical mystery tour—one of those movies that got me turned on to visit India–somehow, sometime.

The film is virtually public domain and can be got at flea market cost, but also at full freight if not careful. Shop warily.

Clement, the subject of the story, is determined to get home.  The coal mine where he works is pure hell.  Through grit, luck, and persistence he does break out.  Of course that is the easy part.  He is thousands of miles away from any even remotely friendly territory.  Germans are not exactly a popular group in 1945.  And beyond physical hurdles there are psychological barriers to cross.

Adding to the plot, there is a prison commandant who is just as determined to catch him.  The movie is long, sad, and epic in scope (despite focus on Clement). Flagged as a “we all were not hunting Jews” movie, it does have an angle to history rarely seen and sadly under understood.

He gets hired to provide security/protection to a fuzzy group of questionable characters interested in stealing a Buddhist Thangka (tapestry). Beyond some entertaining tradional Mongol singing/dancing, there is a series of gunfights and hand to hand fighting.  The movie seems to have run out of money as the movie was made.  Crudy acting, wide gaps in storyline, bare bone props…o.k. the mobile vehicular gunfights has some “excitement” quotient.  But this movie is a dog, a mongrel at that.

Dolph was planning on making a frnachise of the “Rambo-like” character.  After seeing the movie crash and burn, Dolph decided to run and hide.  Hideous, despite the coolness of the locale, this movie is ugly bad and watchable as a cheap thrill or for the 2 minutes of tradional Mongol dancing.

(This trainwreck was $3 from Big Lots)

Them!:  One of the earliest ant themed horror movie.  With James Arness, Jim Whitmore, and Fess Parker, the cast are white lightning.  These ants are big, rip your camper apart big.  Residuals from the A-bomb lead to Them!.

Typical of the era, the movie includes a “documenarty short’ about ants.  Entertaining and cheesy, Them! is actually more high end then one might expect.

The Naked Jungle:  Two words: Charlton Heston.  The man takes on a couple hundred trillion little ants.  The movie slips between the glitter of Moses and the glamor of Omega Man.

Empire of the Ants:  Back to the big ants.  This 1970’s horrible horror has giant ants snacking on visitors at a Florida timeshare sales seminar.  And from there it only gets better—plaid leisure suit catharsis, penitent dialogue among the palms, and ants that have harnessed the local sugar business in what had to be a “hostile takeover”.  More Deep South creepiness for those who like watching ants reinstate slavery.

Ants!:  Definitely not a winner.  Lots of little ants lay seige to a northern California B & B.  True the B & B is up against a cliff.  But the ants are neither giant nor uncounted trillions.  Yet the humans are neither swift of foot or brain. A real loser of a film, best to be lost,

Now my brother has seen my collection.  But he (and Amy) had to go on guts and instinct.  And they scored.  Only 2, maybe 3 were “dupes” (duplicates).

Below is the rundown on the DVDs, with commentary.

Ken Burn’s Civil War:  A classic documentary that Thomas was shocked had not been nabbed when he spotted it.  Going for $69.00 new, this pick alone was more than worth the resources expended in this year’s DVD rodeo.

Lidsville-The Complete Series:  A note first on “Series”, I get funky about having partial series.  There is a feeling of unfulfillment and I don’t need more of that.  That being said the shorter the “Series” the better likelihood the “Series” will be obtainable.  Lidsville is the type of series I like—a short run, but memorable.  Admittedly Lidsville is dated and not exactly Family Guy sophisticated.   It is 1970’s Sid & Marty Croft silliness with echos of The Munsters (Butch Patrick in the “kid” role).  Still the series is complete.

Now a word on what’s ahead.  Thomas and Amy managed to grab a plethora of diverse and wide ranging DVDs—Mongol, French, Telugu, Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Armenian, and English.

Them!: Classic 50’s horror about giant ants. Always good for a giggle.  Giant ants—right.

The Harder They Come:  In English, but essentially a Jamaican movie about a musician turned working class hero. 

Chi-hwa-seon:  Korean story of  “artist goes introspective”.

Khadak:  One of TWO Mongolian movies in the batch.  Mongolian movies don’t come cheap. (Note:  Amazon has raised significantly their DVD prices and wiped out their bargain section).

Mongol: Aptly named given its Mongolian language content.  Even more, a historical epic about those Mongols–1oth century movers and shakers.

Nenunnaanu:  This is a Telugu movie which is soooo cool given I studied the language in India.  What makes this real awesome is the movie is set in Vizag—the very city I lived and studied in.  Ok the story is standard fare.  But the references were right out of Jagadamba Junction.  Considering Tom and Amy knew not of what they were selecting—hot diggity damn!

The Last Voyage of the Lusitania/Sugihara/The Great War 1918:  Three awesome documentaries.  Not quite “The Civil War”, but important in their own right.

The Color of Pomegranates:  One of those once seen, often wished for…a truly deep and intense movie of Armenian kultur.  Made in 1969, when the rest of the world was in a purple haze, Pomegranates is the Soviet answer to Yellow Submarine and Me and My Arrow.  Watchable, yes. Understandable, depends on how you eat your pomegranate.

Battle of the Rails:  French, postwar look at the railroads and those who suffered keeping them from the Nazis.

Monsters, Marriage, and Murder in Manchvegas:   Considering Manchvegas (Manchester) is 40 miles from here and clear across the country from Seattle, I can see why few at the sale would even give it a first glance.  Once again, Tom and Amy, went by gut and scored a keeper.  There is a reason NH is not called Granitewood.

The above is a sampling.  Yes there were more.  Suffice it to say that this year’s haul was even more impressive than last year’s (and last year was a winner).  The Civil War alone made it worthwhile.