Cobra Verde, Sans Soleil, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, & Tokyo Twilight

Cobra Verde is the last collaboration between Klaus Kinski and Werner Herzog, and is thus, insane. He's a bandit in South America where he impregnates three daughters of a landowner, and is somewhat exiled to Africa to restart the slave trade, but ends up leading a rebellion of an army of topless women to topple the leader of the country. You'd think I tried to make that more insane than it is, but actually that's what happens. It's pretty, but not as good as the other three Kinski/Herzog films I've seen (I haven't seen Woyzeck). A little less about obsession.

Sans Soleil I watched mainly due to wanting to rewatch La Jetée, which I'd seen a couple of times in college, and is excellent. Sans Soleil is more of a meditation on earth in general, a travelogue that also spends some time focusing on the obsession in Vertigo and time in Tokyo. Not quite as vital as La Jetée, but if you want to watch that, the Criterion DVD with them both isn't a terrible way to spend a couple of hours.

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin is two hours of crazy kung fu. Fight scenes range from great to outstanding, the story of an anti-Manchu student who goes to a Shaolin temple to learn kung fu in order to get revenge on the warlord who killed his parents. And then becomes a total badass and gets revenge and starts teaching kung fu to the general public to stop the Manchu. Definitely a must watch if you like martial arts films.

Tokyo Twilight is a late Ozu film (not unsurprisingly in the Late Ozu box set) and is pretty darn similar to most of the other post-war Ozu films, with Setsuko Hara, Chishu Ryu, and a few others from other Ozu films in the roles. It's sort of like you see one Ozu film, and you have seen most of them. The Ozu style of filmmaking, with static shots and characters talking directly into the camera just adds to the sameness. Of course, the abortion subplot extremely annoyed me, because women who get abortions have to be punished. Damnit, it isn't a first choice, but most women who get them don't die. Except in movies.