The most recent films

I had one of my typical days yesterday and literally watched a whole bunch of films, but was insufficiently impressed with any of them to discuss them in depth.  So let's do a brief summary:

Mondo Cane (1963): The first of the so-called Mondo films roughly translated as a Dog's Life and claiming to depict various instances of man's inhumanity  I saw it first a lifetime ago and perhaps once a decade subsequently and it gets worse with every viewing, so that it is no longer possible to understand why it was such a world-wide sensation on its release (especially when you realise that much of the footage is either staged or faked).  Its theme song "More" which most people would recognize without knowing its source even had an Oscar nomination. Pretty sleazy stuff.

Crazy Moon (1987): A strange and rather sweet Canadian movie of an ever-so-young Kiefer Sutherland -- a rich eccentric -- falling in love with a deaf young lady.  It's never been broadcast in Britain to the best of my knowledge, but there are far worse flicks out there.

Sky High (2003):  Not the Disney-produced movie from last year but a long and rather leisurely Japanese film from the director of "Versus" and "Azumi".  We have a cop looking for a serial killer who rips out his victims' hearts while they are still alive and the search becomes personal when his fiancee staggers down the aisle heartless on their wedding day.  The movie then gets very metaphysical with murder victims going to the gates of redemption to choose if they want to be reborn in paradise, haunt the world as a ghost, or seek revenge and go to Hell.  There's a lot of business about guardians of the gate, some pretty violent sword fights and the main villain looking to unleash the powers of darkness.  Quite stylish but just a little too slow and muddled, although probably well worth a look.

Team America: World Police (2004):  Finally this tasteless but often hilarious puppet movie from the brains behind "South Park" which I sort of saw on an airplane a while back; if you know the movie, you can just imagine how much it was cut for in-flight viewing. It takes swipes at American imperialism and so-called liberal thinkers and is about as politically incorrect as can be, but unless you are a first-class prig, it is really hard to take offence.  I particularly love the bit where our puppet heroes are attacked by vicious panthers played by black pussycats.  Yeah!