X-rental: 67 Days (1974)

I've always wanted to see one of these Yugoslavian war-flicks, and this one sounds spectacular and nice. Better watch it someday :) The original title is "Uzicka Republika" and this the first movie from my tape-collection I'll ad here. The company is VideoRama.

My collection of X-rentals!

Yeah, this is it. All the big boxes you see here down in my basement is filled with swedish x-rentals, VHS and Betamax. I actually packed a suitcase full of tapes and took photos of some of the movies in one of the boxes. 

My "new" betamax broke quite early so many of the betamax-tapes I haven't seen yet. And some I have no idea what it is. I found a philippino action-movie (something for Jack I guess!) from 1982 though, and one strange thai-movie... and a lot of COOL stuff. 

The mission now is to take photos of as many of my x-rentals (at least the interesting ones, I'm not sure I want to "save" some old Smurf-collection on beta to the future) as possible and put here on the blog. I can't guarantee I will do it, but I will at least try.

More screenshots from The Ninja Mission!

I took these screenshots to show some of the good folks at avmaniacs what a cool movie The Ninja Mission is, and I just can't stop myself from putting these here on the blog to. 

Terror Is a Man (1959)

After reading Jockes review of Brides of Blood I decided to take a look at the work of Eddie Romero. Finally. I found Terror is a Man cheap in town and it's not directed by Eddie, it's still one of his more celebrated works. It was instead his mentor, Gerardo de Leon, who directed this very stylish shocker which is more or less is another version of Island of Lost Souls. But with one "manimal" instead of a whole tribe.

It feels a lot like one of those povery row-movies from the fourties, with a lot of talking, a busty leading lady and a manly hero. What differs here is that this one has a good script. The story isn't original, but it feels fresh and interesting. The dialogue is smart and is not about making the movie longer than it should be. The monster itself, a panter-man, is great. The mask is cool and kept in the shadows a lot, but you'll get to see it clearly to.

De Leon injects a lot of tension in the lab-scenes and makes it quite creepy to be honest. There's no deeper explanation to how the monster evolved, except some notes that the main "villian" Dr. Charles Girard shows the hero. But I'm not sure if he's honest. I have a feeling that a lot of what he says is a lie. We never get to know the panter-man, which ads to the mystery.

The actors are better than average to. Greta Thyssen is a danish actress who probably in normal cases won't be remembered for her acting abilities... but she makes a good performance here, frail but still cocky, and with way more personality than a lot of the other ladies in the genre. The hero is played by Richard Derr (even the name sounds macho and heroic) and he's makes a credible performance as a quiet passive and skeptic hero, without being a wimp. Francis Lederer is the doctor who wants to play god. A magnificent actor that worked mostly as an acting teacher up to a tender age of one hundred years old! Then he died.

I wonder if the titles actually refers to the main monster, or maybe to what the mankind can do? Smart and cool, intelligent and far from the usual exploitation.

Brad Pitt in The Ninja Mission!

Ever since I (and my dear old friends agree) The Ninja Mission for the first time, one of the highlights was the legendary "Brad Pitt-sequence". Suddenly one of guards seems to be Brad Pitt!

I decided to take a few screenshots to prove my point here.

Yeah? He's quite similar to the old hunk, only a bit younger! And I guess I got reminded of this after all the photos of Brad with a mustasche from Inglorius Basterds.

Well, just had to share this with the world. Even if you don't like it.

The Ninja Mission (1984)

To really appreciate The Ninja Mission you have to be one of those people that can look beyond the uneven accents and the low budget. You have to see the movie as something uniqe, an action movie made in a country that loaths genre movies. I'm not sure I'm willing to make the director, Mats Helge, a genius as some fanboys tend to make him. But he's a good craftsman and made a very fun and violent ninja-movie which still competes against the other ninja-films from that time.

Polish actor Krzysztof Kolberger plays Mason, a super-ninja and of course our hero with a perfect eighties haircut. Though we never hear his own voice he makes a good job and works fine both in the few dramatic scenes and in the huge amount of action scenes. He's backed by Bo F. Munthe, who's not in the movie to much actually. He's the "father" to the europan Bujinkan one of the worlds leading experts in Ninjutsu. When the shooting took longer and longer Bo demanded to be killed, and that's why he dosen't survive the movie in the end for example. The rest of the actors are local talents from the south of Sweden and most of them are quite okey. In anyway, the ninjas will go into the Sovjet Union to grab a scientist that's been fooled that he's in Sweden - and of course save his daughter, a singer (played by fellow polish citizen Hanna Bieniuszewicz). And that's more or less it. 

No, there's a lot more of course, but I just don't feel for describing very action scene! This is the only swedish action movie ever made and it makes it a real action film because it's built around the action. The action makes the story progress and there's no pretentions to do something deep and meaningful. Mats Helge has made a good looking flick who looks a lot more than those 350000 dollars it was made with. It keeps the realistic europan look for most of the time with gritty and cold locations, but throws in some gorgeous colors to, especially in the end. 

The action is fantastic for us that enjoys older movies. Mats Helge goes completely Peckinpah here and shows us so much slow-motion mayhem that even Walter Hill would get green of envy. Hundreds of people are being killed, often with huge fat squibs blowing them into pieces. The ninjas also has a tendency top cut people in the faces with their swords and also shops a guys head in half in fantastic and bloody scene. A special weapon is also an arrow that makes the enemies organs (like the brain and heart) to literally EXPLODE! I'm talking Cozzis Contamination here, so you know what I'm talking about. The fighting goes from competent to mediocre, but is mostly saved by good editing. Ah, did I mention the big explosion to? And high falls? And helicopter vs truck? Or the Volvo car-chase? The disco-massacre? There's so much fun here!

Mats Helge and his crew never saw any money from the movie. Here in Sweden it got cut to ribbons and they sold the rights to New Line Cinema who made around 20 million dollars on it and could go on and produce A Nightmare on Elm Street among other movies. It was a huge hit in Asia and sold to over 50 countries. The polish actors never saw any money at all and stole one the production cars and drowe home to Poland to sell it and get some money. I'm sure it was the right decision. In the great massacre on the russian soldiers in the end the crew ran out of money and extras and that's why you can see children and very old men among the soldiers being gunned down! The music is strongly inspired by John Carpenter and it works nice during the last half hour - which is almost non-stop action. Mats Helge also claimed that Jean-Claude Van Damme was one of those that applied to be an extra in this movie. Not sure if that's true, but with Mats Helge you can never know!

As a interesting note there's important to know that Hanna Bieniuszewicz and Krzysztof Kolberger are two very famous and popular actors in Poland nowdays. So this makes them the only two from the crew that actually had big success and a career that will last longer than any of the people involved in The Ninja Mission. So they got their well deserved pay anyway, sort of.

The Ninja Mission is right up there with the best of the cult movies from the eighties. It's more gory and bloody than most other action movies that was made during these days! There's a very cheap dvd out, slightly letterboxed and uncut (Mats Helge of course says it's a lot cut from it, but... really. You can't cut any more violence at least from this movie. It's already so fucking much!). So get it and spread the word that swedish (and polish) ninjas rules!

The Inglorious Bastards (1978)

There was a time when The Inglorious Bastards wasn't hype, but just one of those crazy italian action movies I owned on tape. It was the old VTC-version, with a golden cover and Bo Svenson grinning on the front. Of course I loved it, because it's hard to dislike this excellent and unpretentious war-comedy. People compare it with The Dirty Dozen and the likes, which maybe correct storywise, but the attitude is more Kelly's Heroes and MASH. The heroes aren't dangerous to innocent people, like in Robert Aldrichs classic, but witty and smart anti-heroes that's tired of war and death and just want to get home.

Of course some parts are tragedy, but our characters just shrug their shoulders and continue the adventure. The part where they kill the americans who are dressed like germans is genius, and one of the few parts that feels disturbing in a funny way. I'm sure you all know's what the movie is about: a gang of deserters who acidentally get's themself a job to carry out a dangerous mission. We have Bo Svenson, Fred Williamson, Peter Hooten, Jackie Baseheart and chewing gum-fanatic Michael Pergolani. They're joined by Raimund Harmstorf, Ian Bannen, Debra Berger and Michel Constantin. In smaller parts Joshua Sinclair and Donald O'Brien. Not a bad cast, and everybody is in on the fun to.

Another thing that makes different from the director Castellaris other action movie is the lack of slow-motion. There's some slowmo in the end, but more or less everything that explodes, flies or get's shot down is in normal speed. It's okey, because the action itself is so much fun and there's just one action scene after another, so it never get's boring. Castellari let's Rocco Lerros stuntmen work hard, and it's impressive stuff going all the time. But most of the time it's fun, matineé-style action and adventure with not much blood - except a couple of squibs during the end - and a lot of charm.

When I talked with Castellari many years ago I mentioned that it looked like he had use a steady-cam in some shots, and he confirmed it. Now it's a common knowledge that this was the italian movie that probably used this kind of technology first! He also uses is very little, maybe just trying it out, and the few shots are great and it works fine in the way of telling the story.

I'm a train-guy. Not that I collect trains or build models or stuff like that, I just love movies that has at least one train in the storyline! There's endless possiblities for coolt stunts exciting chases. In Bastards there's a lot of it at the end and the actors even seem to do their own stunts, at least the ever macho Fred Williamson. It all ends in a Margheriti-style mega-explosions that takes out an whole area of buildings and vehicles!

My to favorite stunts is quite subtile work to, check out these to screenshots. The one with the motorcycle could be a mistake, and they didn't get enough footage of it, and the burning people is probably a way to integrate them with destroyed miniatures in the foreground. But it looks great and is not right up your face. More discreet... and wonderfully executed.



Studio S (who where the first to release it on dvd ever) has released The Inglorious Bastards again, now in regular 1-disc edition and also in a Limited 3-disc Edition - they one I have in front of me, what else? You can check the details below, and if you're a collector - and especially a fan of this movie - this is a must. It's a new remastered version of the movie, a second disc with interviews and stuff like that and the third is a cd with the only surviving soundtrack. Limited to 500 pieces... and I have nr 11 :)

The Inglorius Bastards is so much more than a movie that Tarantino loves. It's a great-looking, fun and action-filled adventure that holds up excellent even today. It's one of my favorite action-flicks, and it should be one of yours to.