Tag: anti-establishment

Crazy Thunder Road
(Kuruizaki
Sanda Rodo,
狂い咲きサンダーロード)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 10 June 2022
No Comments on Crazy Thunder Road
(Kuruizaki
Sanda Rodo,
狂い咲きサンダーロード)
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Director – Sogo Ishii – 1980 – Japan – Cert. 15 – 97m

*****

Following on from Arrow’s superb BD of Sogo Ishii’s Burst City (1982) comes Third Window’s equally impressive BD release of its predecessor in the Ishii canon Crazy Thunder Road (1980) – on Blu-ray from Monday, February 21st 2022 and, as of January 2024, available to stream on Amazon Prime UK

This was Ishii’s Nihon University student graduation project, his first to be shot on 16mm rather than Super 8, which somehow got picked up for distribution by major Japanese Studio Toei which led to their giving him a budget for Burst City. Tom Mes, who as with Burst City supplies a commentary for the film, describes Crazy Thunder Road as “one of the Holy Grails of Japanese film releases if not the Holy Grail.”

When Toei presented Ishii with what seemed like astronomical funding for Burst City, it led him to overreach himself. In retrospect, he considers Burst City unfinished… [Read the full review at All The Anime]

Crazy Thunder Road was out on Blu-ray in the UK on Monday, February 21st, 2022 and, as of January 2024, available to stream on Amazon Prime UK.… Read the rest

Tags 16mm, 1970s, 1976, Adam Torel, amateur, amateur film, amateur film movement, anti-establishment, army, aspiring filmmakers, Autonomous Film, barmaid, bike, biker, bikers, bookend, camera spin, car, commentary, concrete, defence, defend, destruct, doom, enthusiasm, entry points, eruption, film club, film production, funding, Gakuryu Ishii, gang, gang leader, gangster movie, gone soft, graduation, Holy Grail, improvisation, independent, Japan, Japanese film production, Jasper Sharp, Jishu Eiga, Kinji Fukusaku, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, leader, listings magazine, maboroshi, microbudget, Naomi Kawase, nationalist, Nenji Kobayashi, Nihon. student, no money, on your own terms, p, paramilitary, performance, phantom, Pia, Pia Film Festival, production, project, punk, punk ethos, rage, raining, renegade, right-wing, script, Shinya Tsukamoto, shooting at different speeds, Sogo Ishii, stopped hiring, Super 8, Tatsuo Yamada, Time Out, Toei, Tokyo, Tom Mes, UK, unfinished, university, university film club, volcanic ash, volcano, Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, YIDFF

Art Documentary Features Live Action Movies Music

Squaring The Circle:
(The Story Of
Hipgnosis)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 10 July 2023
No Comments on Squaring The Circle:
(The Story Of
Hipgnosis)
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Director – Anton Corbijn – 2022 – UK – Cert. – 101m

*****

The story of the visual creatives behind album sleeves, for Pink Floyd and others, who revolutionised the field from the late 1960s and through the 1970s – now out on Blu-ray/DVD combo and various streaming services plus BFI Player following its release in cinemas in the UK and Ireland on Friday, July 14th

Everyone who bought LP records from the late 1960s through to the very end of the 1970s knows the name Hipgnosis. As one interviewee points out, you would go in to the centre of your town to buy the latest album and mull over all the written information on the sleeve on the bus coming home to find out who played on it and who was responsible for the cover. Many of the most memorable sleeves were designed by Hipgnosis, the name coming from ‘hip’, meaning ‘cool’, and ‘gnosis’ meaning ‘secret wisdom’.

Director Corbijn made his name in black and white photography and album sleeves for such bands as U2 and Depeche Mode in the 1980s, so has a background in the album cover world in a later decade. He is therefore extremely well placed to tackle the subject and chooses to film many of his interviewees in trademark black and white.… Read the rest

Tags 10cc, 1960s, 1970s, 6 Denmark Street, A Saucerful Of Secrets, album, album sleeve, animals, anti-establishment, Anton Corbijn, art, artist, Atom Heart Mother, Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell, bankrupt, bankruptcy, Battersea Power Station, Beatles, boring, burning man, Cambridge, camera, Coil, cow, darkroom, David Gilmour, drugs, Elegy, Emerson, fire, Genesis, giant pig, Giant’s Causeway, Graham Gouldman, hand-coloured photograph, Hipgnosis, Houses Of The Holy, Humphrey Ocean Roger Dean, iconic, illustration, Ireland, Jill Furmanovsky, Jimmy Page, Keith Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Led Zeppelin, Legerton Court, light, London, LP, LP sleeve, LSD, manager, monolith, music video, Nick Mason, Noel Gallagher, Paul McCartney, Peter Christopherson, Peter Gabriel, Peter Grant, photographer, photography, Pink Floyd, presence, prism, record, record sleeve, red balls, refraction, Repulsion, Rick Wright, Robert Plant, Roger Waters, Roman Polanski, Royal College of Art, South Kensington, space rock, statue, Storm Thorgerson, stuntman, The Dark Side Of The Moon, The Nice, The Original Soundtrack, Throbbing Gristle, throwaway, Tottenham Court Road, UK, Wings Greatest, Wish You Were Here

Features Live Action Movies Music

Burst City
(Bakuretsu Toshi
Burst City,
爆裂都市
BURST CITY)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 12 June 2022
No Comments on Burst City
(Bakuretsu Toshi
Burst City,
爆裂都市
BURST CITY)
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Director – Sogo Ishii – 1982 – Japan – Cert. 18 – 115m

Film ****

Cultural significance *****

Arguably the lynchpin film that brought Japanese cinema back from the brink of extinction in the early 1980s and paved the way for much of what was to follow – on Blu-ray from Monday, November 20th 2020

Looked at today through Western eyes, the opening with its breakneck, speeded up race through (presumably) Tokyo cutting between nighttime and daytime POV shots, with motorbike noises, anticipates the more demented pixillated chase scenes of Tetsuo: The Iron Man (Shinya Tsukamoto, 1989), shots of bikers recall the anti-establishment feel of Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969) and patterns caused by moving lights burning into film emulsion recall Norman McClaren and Len Lye’s early animation experiments drawing and painting direct onto film. Then it seems to turn into Mad Max (George Miller, 1979) by way of a gangster film elements (two men in a car wearing a suit and a leather jacket respectively) who avoid a near collision with two punks on a motorcycle and sidecar.

How many of these precedents Ishii had in mind (or even had seen) when he made this is impossible to say.… Read the rest

Tags 16mm, abandoned factory, aesthetic, amateur, anti-establishment, bands, battle, bike, bike noise, bikers, bondage, box office, breakneck, burning into film emulsion, car, Cell Number 8, chase, cinema, cops, daytime, direct onto film, drawing, drawing and painting direct onto film, early animation experiments, engine noise, fight, film industry, frantic, Gakuryu Ishii, gangster, Hollywood aesthetic, hyperkinetic, inaccessible, independent, indigenous, James Cameron, Japan, Japanese punk, Japanese punk bands, Japanese punk rock, Japanese punk rock bands, Japanese rock, Japanese rock bands, Jasper Sharp, Jishu Eiga, leather jacket, Len Lye, lynchpin, Midnight Eye, motorbike, motorbike noise, motorcycle and sidecar, moving lights, music, near collision, nighttime, Nihon University, no pay, noise, Norman McClaren, nudity, outlandish, painting, Pink Cinema, Pinku Eiga, pixillation, porn, POV, pubic hair, punk bands, Punk Rock, punk rock bands, punks, race, restless, rock, rock bands, Shinya Tsukamoto, Sogo Ishii, song, speeded up, suit, Super 8, The Rockers, The Roosters, The Stalin, The Terminator, Tokyo, Tom Mes, UK, UK punk, UK punk rock, unpaid, whore