Movies for the Week of June 20

I only published one post this week: A review of Love and Honor. But I have an excuse: I’ve been gone all week on vacation. In fact, I’m gone now. I wrote this newsletter more than a week ago and set it to go live at the appropriate time.

Festival-wise, Another Hole in the Head finishes up Sunday, while Frameline continues through the week.

Love and Honor, Roxie, opens Friday. Yoji Yamada makes Samurai films like nobody else’s–studies of a highly stratified class system with occasional, well-staged fights to break up the serious drama. His follow-up to Twilight Samurai and The Hidden Blade concerns itself with a low-level samurai (Takuya Kimura) who loses his eyesight in the line of duty. But this is no Zatoichi fantasy. The combination of emotional depression and looming financial disaster soon strain the protagonist’s once happy marriage (Rei Dan plays his wife). But even a serious samurai film must have swordplay, and events eventually force Shinnojo into one-on-one battle without benefit of sight. But Yamada doesn’t pretend that a blind man can make a brilliant fencer; Shinnojo’s one strategic advantage doesn’t promise a long, Zatoichi-style career fighting for truth, justice, and the Japanese way. For more details, read my full review.

Serenity, Clay, Friday and Saturday, midnight. Ever hear of a science fiction TV series called Firefly? Like many superb, original shows that somehow made it onto a weekly network schedule, Firefly failed to find an audience and soon died. This big-screen spin-off is a gift from the series’ creators to the handful of people who saw the show and wanted more. But if you’ve never seen Firefly, skip the movie and rent the complete series on DVD–it’s only a few episodes.

Double Bill: The Son of the Sheik & Road to Morocco, Stanford, Wednesday, 7:00. Okay, I haven’t seen either of these movies in years, but it’s worth noting that Son of the Sheik was Valentino’s last film, released posthumously, and that I remember Road to Morocco well enough to call it one the best Bob Hope/Bing Crosby vehicles. And think of the music. One movie will be accompanied by Dennis James on the Stanford’s Wurlitzer pipe organ, and the other has a very catchy and witty theme song. Other than that, the one thing they have in common (at least that I can think of) is a very Hollywood view of Arabic culture.