Destroy All Podcasts DX Episode 62 - Stray Dog: Kerberos Panzer Cops
Hosts: Feddy, Jeremy, Mike
This is about sweet armor, killing mimes, whether or not that girl is 15 and if she should take her clothes off, and crushing boredom.
Click [HERE] to become a dog. A dog that Mamoru Oshii is kicking relentlessly. Actually, no, getting kicked is more exciting than this.
Enjoy super exciting scenery after the cut.
Yes, that's right. He is rudely drinking water on someone.
And here's Mamoru Oshii's vacation to Taiwan. He wandered around the streets of Taipei looking at a girl's ass for two weeks.
People sitting around eating? In a Mamoru Oshii film? Impossible!
Awesome. Again we get to see the back of some people's heads while they have a conversation without looking at each other. But this time it's at a beach. Because this is Mamoru Oshii's vacation.
Bored of seeing Oshii follow a girl around the streets of Taiwan? Here, let's go to this super dark tunnel and watch a motorcycle drive though it really slowly. Mamoru Oshii doesn't skimp on one second of the action!
Hey, at least this movie has a guy getting kicked in the nuts.
Oh, you thought we were done wandering the streets of Taipei? WRONG. Approximately 95% of this movie is aimlessly wandering around Taiwan while a guy noodles on a Spanish guitar.
| Posted 7 July, 2008 - 00:11 by Destroy All Pod... |
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Comments
11 comments postedMimes and Long held shots? Didn't another Italian film maker do that already about 40 years ago?!
Great review as always!
PS love the Vespa PX in the final fight scene!
Cheers
LF
We'll fight them on the Beaches!
This time on Destroy All Podcasts DX, Mike and Jeremy watch a horrible movie, so you don't have to!
What about FEDDY?!
-Jeremy
Dude, Blow-Up is WAYYYYYY better than this movie. A lot of why Blow-Up gets away with long held shots is because the lead actor is massively charismatic and I am fasinated by just how he moves. Beyond this guy's charm, it also has naked girls in it, and someone getting murdered and people going to crazy rock shows and awesome parties. And he treats skinny model chicks like shit.
On the other hand, Inui is a dull, uninteresting cipher played with no verve whatsoever by some dude who is not trying very hard.
But yeah, man, I hate the mimes in both movies.
-Jeremy
.. Don't forget the stupid mime in The Conversation...
Yes, a Mod Vanessa Redgrave Naked, although she bugs me these days!
I know what you mean by a film having a great prop and then they don't use it. In the latest version of the 4 Feathers they are lugging around four Gatling guns and when the battle scene happens they just sit there. What the heck are they renting the prop in the first place if they are not going to use them?
Don't show me a killer prop and then don't use it!
It seems like Oshii after reading his Wiki entry and hearing your reviews of his films is hung up on Godard and Michelangelo and seems to take traits and themes that work for those directors and muck them up for himself.
Both directors are great but it's extremely obvious when people try to copy them.
looking forward to watching Dallos....
Cheers
LF
We'll fight them on the Beaches!
The Conversation actually reminds me a lot of Blow-Up and I like both movies. But I hatez the mimes.
I have to admit I pretty much hate Godard, but I am more into Italian neo-realist film than I am into French new wave, though I absolutely love Jacques Tati.
Oshii can do some really cool things when he's under control. But when he's not, he echoes the worst tendencies of the French new wave.
-Jeremy
I'll reiterate something that was pointed out to me by Tom Franck, the old CJT website owner. The Conversation is a great movie if for no other reason than that it actually has a scene of old people partying.
Also, I remember the dream sequence was sampled in an old avante-garde song I heard on the radio when I was a kid. I looked for that sample for years and only found it by accident. Never could remember who made the song, though.
"This must be settled the way nature intended....with a vicious, bloody fight!"
Onyx Blackman
Principal, Flatpoint High
While listening to the 6 or so minutes of soundtrack you tacked on to the end of this podcast, I was reminded of the beginning of Manos: "the hands of fate" where there's about 12 minutes of driving with no dialog. The music seemed similar too.
Having never seen Stray Dog: Kerberos Panzer Cops, I really can't compare it to Manos. I imagine Stray Dog: Kerberos Panzer Cops never saw a US release, right? So... which film is better, Manos or this one?
It's hard to top Torgo. It'll be dark soon. It's hard to top Torgo.
-Andrew
So a little chunk of that is the trailer but most of it is one of the really long sequences with almost no dialogue or sound effects from the movie itself.
Stray Dog: Kerberos Panzer Cops DID see a US release, along with Red Spectacles and Talking Head. You can get all three of them separately or in a box set from Bandai Entertainment. No dub track though, so either you have to watch it subbed or straight Japanese.
While Stray Dog is a tedious mess, it's still better than Manos. Even at his worst, Oshii has a really great eye for the camera and there are many shots that are totally gorgeous. But it's beauty signifying nothing.
-J
I think that what epitomizes this movie's failure, for me, is the scene at the very end where the Kerberos guy is on the stairs and the Evil Mimes light him up. He covers up, and squibs go off all over him, and oh wow, this is cool! These Evil Mimes are gonna get wasted!
...and then he just sits there, for like two full minutes (which is an eternity for a scene in a movie where nobody is moving or speaking.) It was cool, then it was odd, then it went past odd and just turned silly. It think I commented that Oshii's like 'dammit, I paid a lot of money for that film stock and I'm gonna use every inch!'
And then he stands up and his armor plates bend. Like, they couldn't even bother to make the armor plates out of fiberglass to give them some rigidity--they just cut them out of black foam rubber! It's a freaking muppet suit! (Albeit an EVIL muppet suit.)