Well I’ve managed to hold off for a while and this time we have a bumper edition of Readers Lives.
This time around…
…help a fellow reader find a film he’s can’t…
…check out the super cool Flash Gordon site where you can create your own comic strip out of movie stills…
…read an interview with The Last Dragon, remember the glow?…
…check out a new site on all things Indie, including movies…
…read an interesting and indepth essay on Quentin Tarantino and the history of the film maker…
Help find the film
Don has written in with a common problem. We’ve all had it, you remember a quote or some scene from a movie, but you can’t remember what movie it is. Let’s see if we can help him out here.
Don’t know if you can help me as I don’t have all the info necessary to track a film I loved as a teenager (circa 1977). It was a Kung Fu flick in which all the combatants including the good guy wore classic Mandarin collared gear and fought with knives. EXCEPT – one bad guy wore a standard black suit and tie (dressed much like MIB Will Smith/Tommy Lee Jones characters). And this little musical sting would play every time the BAD GUY would show up. He was cool as hell and he had a cough that was getting progressively worse as the film continued. In the end he came to the aid of the GOOD GUY after doing so much harm earlier in the film.
Another story beat is the hero is in love with a woman and she kills herself hari-kari style while he’s battling on a stairway to save her life -She does this because she believes he won’t accept her once he finds out that she’s a prostitute.
One line for certain in the film is when some woman asks the cool BAD GUY near the end of the film – re: their relationship:
“What about us?”
He replies –
“There was no us.”
And lights a cigarette or something, coughing one again.
That’s quite a bit of information and I’m sure someone out there has seen it, any ideas? Post your comment and let’s see if we can help Don find his lost film. Do you have a scene or line you remember from a movie but can’t remember which?
Create your own Flash Gordon Comic
Brooke dropped me a note to point me in the direction of the Momentum Pictures Flash Gordon site specially created for the Silver Anniversary of the movie. It’s seriously cool.
Select a scene from the movie, create a caption, insert your own words into the speech bubbles and Bob’s your uncle and Emporer Ming’s your Aunt…
I hate to say it about this marketing game…it’s fun! You can create your own Flash Gordon cartoon strip!
THE LAST DRAGON – 20th ANNIVERSARY : An Interview with Taimak
Do you remember the movie The Last Dragon from 1985? Well I have to say it took me a little while to remember it, but I did, and it came from one word, read this from IMDB…
A young man searches for the “master” to obtain the final level of martial arts mastery known as the glow…
…get it? That last word hit me like a brick and I remembered the movie. Well Wilson (technically not a reader, an actual poster over at BlackFilm) has sent me the link to his interview with Taimak, the man who played Leroy Green, the one who was searching for…the glow. See the interview here, and hear the possibilities of a reunion!
New “all things Indie” site
Another from an Editor of a site rather than a Reader, although Jason does say he’s dug our site for a while, well anything to get free publicity! Much appreciated Jason, honestly. Jason tells us that he’s started on a new site…
a group of D.C. journalists and musicians recently started a website called Econoculture. The site concerns all things indie-from music to politics. This week we have a feature on the filmmaker Bradley Beesley, who made the Flamming Lips doc among other films. Next week, we have a huge interview with two-time Oscar winner Barbara Kopple…
Have a look at the site, we hope to see more movie based news there soon.
An essay on Quentin Tarantino
Eric David sent a link to an essay he’s written about the work of Quentin Tarantino which has been picked up by The Ooze and is called KILL WILL: The Rough Magic of Quentin Tarantino. In Eric’s own words:
My essay reviews the movies of Quentin Tarantino, from his first amateur film made with friends from a Manhattan Beach video store, on through to the recent films to Kill Bill and Sin City. I focus on the role of vice in his films, and what we discover about violent people, and about ourselves. Along the way, I draw parallells between that most postmodern of directors, Tarantino, and the world’s greatest dramatist, William Shakespeare, using a montage of quotes from those who know both well.
Have a look, it’s an interesting read, and very well written.
