East and West

Last summer, I spend time in the South. The backwoods of Georgia, where Flannery O'Conner grazed peacocks and spun stories wrapped in Catholic guilt. It's time to take a trip down other paths. 

EAST

HONG KONG ACTION

Shaw Brothers, Zatoichi, Jackie Chan, CAT III, Pinky violence, John Woo, Johnnie To. These are the things you will come to expect from me during this season of sweat and sunscreen. Hong Kong has a glut of great films overflowing from three specific genres: the martial arts flick, the horror film and the heroic bloodshed movie. I'll be watching a bit of all three this summer. Blood will flow from the blade. 

WEST

I have been working on a major piece for this blog since January and hope to have it published in the fall. It concerns the Western as genre which has both peddled and later deconstructed myths that America has built itself on. The essay traces the genre from the earliest days of cinema up until Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon. In doing research, I've been able to track down a litany of films I've always wanted to get around to but couldn't because the watchlist it too fucking big. Now that I have a subject I'm chasing, the films of John Ford, Bud Boetticher, Sam Peckinpah and more have been moved up the queue. And that's not all, partner...

KEN BURNS' THE CIVIL WAR

It's a crime for someone who loves studying history to not have seen this. I watched Ken Burns' The Vietnam War last year in January and it stood out as one of the best things I saw that year. The 20th century remains the most fascinating to me, particularly the 60s and 70s. So this historical nectar has eluded me. 

DEADWOOD

During the 'Golden Age of Television', where once The Sopranos broke open the door, television had become a respectable medium for longform storytelling, there were three shows considered gold standards at HBO which at one point were all on at the same time: The Sopranos, The Wire and Deadwood. Both Sopranos and The Wire were given their flowers in countless Best TV Shows lists. Deadwood sometimes gets the short straw. Canceled prematurely after only three seasons, the show's fans are as die hard as they come. I've seen the show once and I plan on watching it a second time. 

The ensemble remains unmatched: Ian McShane, Timothy Olyphant, Robin Weigert, Molly Parker, Brad Dourif, Powers Boothe, Keith Carradine, John Hawkes, Kim Dickens, Paula Malcomson, William Sanderson, Garrett Dillahunt, Jeffrey Jones, Dayton Callie. And that's just the core cast. Each character acts as an analog to a type of American who emerged out of this experiment we call the United States. 

AND TWO BARE BREASTS

Besides Action and Comedy, there's another genre I am drawn to watch during the summer- sexploitation. Andy Sidaris, Joe Sarno, Doris Wishman and the big, busty one...

RUSS MEYER

I've been sitting on Severin's recent restorations of Russ Meyer's films. Like Bennett Media's reason for not watching these during the frigid month of February, I have put these off for this special occasion.