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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: An Elegant Weapon for a More Civilized Age

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: An Elegant Weapon for a More Civilized Age

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Star Wars (Twentieth Century Fox, 1977)

In adventure movies throughout the twentieth century, swords had been losing ground to guns as the hero’s weapon of choice. Though films of knights, pirates, and cavaliers had a strong start in the silent era, they were gradually sidelined over the decades as Western, gangster, and war movies came to the fore. By 1971, Dirty Harry and his ultra-macho Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum seemed to have put the nail in the coffin.

Then came Star Wars. And suddenly, out of the left field of Japanese samurai movies via the imagination of George Lucas, swords resumed their prominence. In the decade that followed, they even dominated for a while, falling back again during the Nineties to second place before Peter Jackson brought them back, seemingly for good, with The Lord of the Rings trilogy. So, from those of us who are sword fanciers, a hearty thank you to George Lucas, Peter Jackson — and Akira Kurosawa.

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You Should Be Streaming These Shows

You Should Be Streaming These Shows

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I really didn’t start streaming series’ until 2020. So, there were a lot of shows already completed; or with multiple seasons out there. Now, I mix them in with watching network shows on demand (I just finished first watch of Suits, was fantastic), and movies. Today, I’m going to talk about some streaming shows I think you should check out.

COBRA KAI

I’m going to start with the single-best streaming show I’ve watched yet. I just completed the recently dropped season four of this continuation of the original Karate Kid franchise. Every season has been excellent, and I think that four is the best; but I can’t say definitively one of the earlier ones wasn’t the best.

It was developed for YouTube, but when YouTube dropped original programming after season two, Netflix picked it up. Thank goodness!

The show starts 34 years after the events in the first Karate Kid movie. Johnny Lawrence’s (William Zabka) life fell apart that day he lost the All Valley Karate Championship because of The Kick. Episode one shows us what a mess he is. Meanwhile, Daniel LaRusso went on to running an expensive automobile empire, living the high life with his lovely wife. They are total contrasts.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: The Barbarian Boom, Part 3

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: The Barbarian Boom, Part 3

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Conan the Destroyer (Universal Pictures, 1984)

Filmmakers jump on a hot new genre with alacrity if it looks like it can be reduced to an easily replicated formula. That was certainly the case with Eighties sword-and-sorcery films, which were happily adopted as a replacement for the dying genre of Westerns. Producers of formulaic genre and exploitation movies, such as the notorious Roger Corman, practically started an assembly line to produce quickie barbarian pictures. Following the heroic fantasy formula probably reached its qualitative peak with 1984’s Conan the Destroyer, which has a story by Marvel comics writers who had already worked out every variation of standard sword and sorcery plots and characters, so they knew what worked best. Following that film, the best fantasy movies of the later Eighties would be those that broke formula to a greater or lesser extent.

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I Know That Actor (follow me on FB!)

I Know That Actor (follow me on FB!)

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If you follow me on Facebook, you know that I enjoy posting in an ongoing series I call I Know that Actor. It started a year or two ago, as I was re-watching Columbo periodically. I love that show – and one of my favorite things about it is the wide-ranging guest stars. I’d see Robert Stack in this episode. And then, Leonard Nimoy in the next. Hey, that’s Jose Ferrer! And isn’t that Jane Greer? Man, Martin Sheen was young in that one! And I would snap a screen shot on my phone, or find a pic on the internet, from that episode.

I’d say a bit about them: mostly other roles I liked them in. Columbo was a Who’s Who of stars. And various FB friends would leave comments – often some other show or movie that person had been in. The posts and the discussion are always positive, and information is shared. I like adding something that isn’t negative to FB.

I watch/re-watch a lot of shows with guest stars, which feeds this game: Monk, Psych, Suits, House, Leverage, Burn Notice, In Plain Sight, Royal Pains (USA shows shared a lot of folks), Star Trek: Discovery -I’ve probably done a couple hundred posts.

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Now Streaming: Sliding Doors

Now Streaming: Sliding Doors

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Sliding Doors
Sliding Doors

Although the 1998 romantic comedy Sliding Doors starring Gwyneth Paltrow, John Hannah, John Lynch, and Jeanne Tripplehorn may not immediately spring to mind as a science fiction film, it is one of the two micro-alternate history films that can be used to really explore the concept of alternate history on the personal level, the other being the 1946 Christmas Classic It’s a Wonderful Life.

Both films focus their attention on how things would have been different if things had worked out differently. In George Bailey’s case, Clarence shows him what Bedford Falls would have been like if he had never been born. Sliding Doors explores two alternatives for Paltrow’s Helen.

The film opens with Helen (Paltrow) heading into her public relations office for a normal day.  When she arrives and learns that she has been fired on trumped up charges, she heads back home.  The film shows her both catching her train and missing the train by moments, setting into motion the branching timelines for Helen’s life.

In the world in which she catches her train, she meets James (Hannah) who tries to jolly her out of her funk. He fails and she returns to her apartment to discover that her boyfriend, Gerry (Lynch) is having an affair with Lydia (Tripplehorn).  Fleeing the apartment, she eventually finds herself staying with her friend Anna (Zara Turner) and bumping into James again in a local restaurant.  Over the next several weeks, she and James become friends, and possibly more, and he encourages her to open her own public relations firm.

In the world in which she misses her train, Helen decides to take a cab home and finds herself on the wrong end of a mugging.  Stopping off at the hospital, by the time she gets him, all evidence of Gerry’s affair is long gone.  While Gerry continues to struggle with his novel, Helen begins working two jobs to try to make ends meet. Gerry continues his affair and also gaslights Helen whenever she begins to question him about things.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: The New Zu Review

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: The New Zu Review

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Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (Hong Kong, 1983)

The worldwide success of the Star Wars movies, followed by that of Conan the Barbarian, opened the funding floodgates for fantasy films, not just in Hollywood and Europe, but in Asia as well. Of course, Asian cinema had a tradition of making movies of fables and horror stories dating back to the silent era, but the new, hot trend out of Hollywood was combining such themes with heavy special effects support. Filmmakers in Japan, Hong Kong, and even Indonesia were eager to follow that trend, and though they had solid experience with practical effects and models, building the capacity to add sophisticated animation would take time and investment. But Asian filmmakers had no shortage of wild visual ideas to portray with the new special effects, as we’ll see from the early examples below.

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What I’ve Been Watching: (A BritBox) December 2021

What I’ve Been Watching: (A BritBox) December 2021

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One of these five doesn’t make it out of the pilot. Cast changes began early!

During my hiatus from Black Gate, I watched a lot of shows, and some movies. And I grabbed a BritBox subscription, so today, we’re going across the pond. I might drop a minor item here and there, but these reviews are mostly spoiler-free.

DEATH IN PARADISE

I had just finished season four of this enjoyable British police show on Netflix, back when the newly-created BritBox snatched this – and many other shows – away. I recently got a ‘two months for $2’ deal through Prime, and lo and behold, I had access to this show again. Season 10 wrapped up in February of 2021, and it just started season eleven last week, over on the BBC. I was pleased when a Christmas episode dropped just a few weeks ago. With a BIG surprise!

The basic premise is that Scotland Yard assigns a DCI (Detective Chief Inspector) to duty on the island of Saint Marie (pronounced ‘San Marie’), located in the Lesser Antilles. Saint Marie was turned over to the British by the French roughly forty years before the show starts. So, it still has a French-Caribbean culture.

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Goth Chick News: Keanu as The Devil in the White City?

Goth Chick News: Keanu as The Devil in the White City?

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As a lifelong Chicagoan I have always enjoyed stories of my city’s colorful history. From its Blues connection to New Orleans, to the Gilded Age of Marshall Field and Parker Palmer, to the seedier stories like that of the Everleigh Sisters, the building of Chicago reads like a naughty version of Downton Abbey. Of course, as entertaining as its early history can be, Chicago was a tough, crime-ridden place. It was dirty, both literally and figuratively, and violent in every sense of the word. The city was and still is, associated with a lot of unsavory activity that we unsuccessfully try to distance ourselves from. For instance, we’d love for the world to stop thinking of Al Capone every time someone brings up Chicago. Ironically, the one name most people don’t associate with our city is H. H. Holmes, at least up to now.

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Now Streaming: The One I Love

Now Streaming: The One I Love

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The One I Love
The One I Love

The One I Love is the feature film debut of director Charlie McDowell and stars Mark Duplass and Elisabeth Moss. It was released in 2014. Although the film begins as a reasonably straightforward getaway for Ethan (Duplass) and Sophie (Moss) at the advice of their therapist (Ted Danson), the story quickly takes a quirky turn, giving it the feel of an episode of The Twilight Zone produced for the big screen.

The first scene makes it clear that at some point prior to the movie, Ethan cheated on his wife, Sophie. Flashbacks show the start of their relationship when everything was fresh and exciting as well as their failed attempts to rekindle those feeling. After listening to them, their therapist offers them access to a country house where they can rediscover each other in a secluded environment, noting that several of his patients have successfully made use of the house.

Upon arriving at the country estate, Sophie and Ethan discover there is a main house and a guest house, both of which they have full access to. After a first night getting used to their surroundings, they begin to explore separately. They also notice some oddities, for instance, Sophie prepares a breakfast of bacon and eggs for Ethan, who comments that she hates it when he eats bacon. Things get even weirder when Sophie mentioned how great the sex was the night before and Ethan has no recollection of having sex with her.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: The Barbarian Boom, Part 2

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: The Barbarian Boom, Part 2

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The Sword and the Sorcerer (USA, 1982)

The pre-release hype for Conan the Barbarian in 1981, and then its delayed release until the following year, meant that by the time it appeared, there were already plenty of imitations in the pipeline ready to take advantage of its success. As a result, 1982 abounded in barbarian adventures, and if none of these was better than merely good and you couldn’t get quality, you sure as Hyborea got quantity. If you were young and just getting your eyes opened to the sword and sorcery genre, that was good enough. A new fantasy genre was emerging, for both filmmakers and their mass audience.

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