Roll with the Punches

The Japanese poster for THE BOXER (1977) aka Bokusa.

Movies about boxers often seem to break down into four categories; the most popular are the ones where the underdog fighter overcomes all odds to become a champion (Rocky [1976], Million Dollar Baby [2004], Cinderella Man [2005]). Then there are true-life biopics like Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), Raging Bull (1980) and Ali (2001), downbeat character portraits of boxers past their prime (Requiem for a Heavyweight [1962], Fat City [1972]) and noir dramas that highlight the corrupt aspects of the profession like The Set-Up (1949) or The Harder They Fall (1956). Bokusa (English title: The Boxer (1977), a Japanese film directed by Shuji Terayama, has elements of some of the above but it is decidedly different from any American film in the boxing genre.

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Autobiography of a Sleepwalker

How does a filmmaker begin to craft an autobiographical film of his or her own life? Many renowned directors have tackled it but usually by using a fictionalized version of themselves under a different name though many of the incidents depicted are true. Francois Truffaut did it with The 400 Blows (1959) as did George Lucas with American Graffitti (1973) and Sam Fuller in The Big Red One (1980). Even more recently Steven Spielberg re-imagined his childhood and teenage years in The Fabelmans (2022). But no one has ever made a more personal and dreamlike meditation on their roots than what Guy Maddin accomplishes with My Winnipeg (2007), which is set in the city where the Canadian director was born and resided for much of his life. Narrated by Maddin in a voice that sounds half asleep, half awake, our somnambulistic guide creates his own mythology about himself, his family and his home town that is utterly unique. Plus, his narrator approach is totally fitting for a city that allegedly has more sleepwalkers among its residents than any other major city.

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Introducing The Ramones

There was a time in the 1970s when film distributors were able to test-market their more offbeat offerings as “Midnight Movies” for adventurous moviegoers. Sometimes these developed into cult phenomenas like El Topo (1971), The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), or Eraserhead (1976). Sometimes they failed to find any audience at all like Pelvis (aka All Dressed Up in Rubber with No Place to Go, 1977) or Elevator Girls in Bondage (1972). Arriving at the tail end of the Midnight Movie craze, Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (1979) fell somewhere between these two extremes.

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