The Doorman - Die Hard with Girl Power and a Norwegian Knock Off Bill Burr

*Blog post started on October 27, 2020.

My prior vacation day, I felt I was clinging to my past. This most recent one(s), old is how I feel.

With a three-day weekend, I think I got a lot accomplished. There is a new tattoo. Peoria bars were fun with genuine interactions, and I made it to more of them than usual. I paid my respect to Stacia Marie Hardin and discovered a cool block of shops in Pekin. Who would not call the last Co Op records in the Heart of Illinois being located by a thrift shop and a used bookstore operated by TAPS No Kill Shelter (featuring kittens and a polydactyl cats) a little slice of heaven in a town whose mascot was once the Chink? To the town's credit, the appropriation of the dragon into their municipal logos is cool.

I spent time with my folks with only the hourly mention of Hunter Biden's emails. Perhaps I should have spent the night and watch the Michigan State game, but a day where I did not leave my apartment and caught a lot of Pokemon was good (It was "Pokemon Let's Go Eevee". Perhaps the games are becoming to expansive. 20 hours of story is all you really need.). Sunday I was back at the retailer, but with a Redbox $0.75 off coupon and groceries to grab. With NinetyForChill.com back in working order, a review of "The Doorman" at 1 hour 37 minutes would be perfect content. Too bad I called it an early night. Catching up with the G1 Climax finals led to me being exhausted. This obviously felt odd since I did nothing extraneous on Saturday.

Since I will end up at some point putting out an abridged version of this post, let me fill up some space.  Thanks Redbox for the reasonable Blu-ray rental price and the inflated DVD rental fees. We as a society need to rid ourselves of standard def. Screw those who hate change. There is a good chance they will further ruin the country in a week. Let me have this.

Did I over exert myself taking a chest freezer out to a customer's car? Was the replacement air fryer too much work to move as I nearly lost it when I walked into a security pylon? The amount groceries I took home was less than usual.

This left me with a dilemma. I had a movie to watch and I would not be back from the bank until 6:15 pm. There was still dinner to make. So apologies for rushing through about five minutes of this Ruby Rose feature. The feeling of victory getting it back to an appropriate vending machine with 10 minutes to spare warrants this action. And it at least gave me some good vibes from this film.

The Doorman

Check out the rest of review at "Ninety For Chill: A More Acceptable Runtimes

CineMaterial.com - The Doorman (2020)

 

Лена Кусок Полена - Pinterest

"Versus": Dead Alive with Wires

It is hard to pin down what "Versus" is. A modern samurai flick, a wire-fu film a year removed from "The Matrix", another foreign zombie flick, etc. Japanese director Ryuhei Kitamura (whose best known American film is "Clive Barker's The Midnight Meat Train") throws so much into his films that you are bound to like something from each of them and appreciate his directorial style, but being able to wade through this stew maybe difficult.

Two prisoners have escaped and made it to the rendezvous point in the Forest of Resurrection. The gangsters they meet up with are a wild bunch who were instructed to pick these guys up after they kidnapped a woman. Prisoner KSC2-303 is a feminist and being unable to tolerate the arrangement, he uses his martial skills to dispatch one of this crew. His efforts soon turn out to be futile because that guy does not stay dead.

During the confusion over this undead compatriot, KSC2-303 makes a break for it with the woman. Now the gangsters must catch these two (whom their employer has special plans for) in the forest where they buried most of their victims. If you thought the Fire Swamp was tough, this place has more than ROUS to deal with.

"Versus" is a fast and furiously paced film until story becomes involved. It is fun and has a sense of humor, but it is because there is zero exposition until the latter half of act two.

For 80 minutes of being an homage to all the great Hong Kong genres, it slams the brakes to put some nationalism into the story. The story does pick up again to set up the finale, but the return to a samurai film makes it a bit anticlimactic. It is a clash of styles that only worked in "Kill Bill".

Mixing so many styles may require an expert filmmaker. This was Kitamura's first full-length feature. It is not as mature as "Meat Train", but his mastery of lighting is present and his mis en scene is dead on. He later abuses these traits in his Clive Barker adaptation, but his skill cannot be denied. He just was not ready for such complex projects.

"Versus" is an example of Ryuhei Kitamura's ability to make fun movies. He did not know at this point how to make a great film, but he definitely has the skill set. Kitamura is like Michael Bay except he can direct. If you think about a watching a Bay flick, immediately turn to his Asian equivalent.

IMDb - Versus (2000)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0275773/