Friday, March 19

Ichi, Bin Eine Ramoner

I went to a friend's house last night to eat pizza, drink beer and watch a coupla dvds. While we were eating the pizza, we flipped through the channels and were forced to stop at YTV and watch the spectacle before us. "Forced", by the sheer oddity and spectacle of the show that was airing. It was an episode of The Powerpuff Girls, a cartoon I enjoy whenever I happen to watch it with my son (when he happens to watch it), that was presented as a musical. It was the trippin'est thing I've seen in a long, long time. Very "Hair"ish and psychedelic in style, with a Jack Black-type villain and lots of way-out songs and lyrics. A total "what the f&*%" trip for the kids, I'd guess. For us, too, for that matter. A pleasant surprise.

We then turned our attention to Rock and Roll High School. This is a movie that I wanted to see for a while. It revolves around a group of clean-cut 1979 era high school kids try to keep the evil principal from eliminating rock and roll from their school and their lives. Some good stuff in the movie, some pretty lame stuff, all surrounded by tons of tunes from The Ramones. It was like a 1950's teen rebel movie infused with a punk attitude.

Next up was Ichi, the Killer. Very violent and very sado/masochistic. A Japanese flick about gangsters who take pleasure and pride in inflicting pain and having pain inflicted on them. While most of the violence was over-the-top, a couple of scenes did make me squirm, which was good. Interesting and somewhat disturbing, that while most of the violence against men was over-the-top, the violence against women was more rooted in reality.

Some pretty cool, interesting visuals, but the main thing about the movie is the extreme violence. Worth watching if you've got a stomach for it. On the Internet Movie Database, a user's comment sums it up pretty well: "Snuff film for cowards".



4 comments:

Jason said...

Hi Rob:
That first one you described sounds very much like a Clone High episode. Might it have been that? The episode has the students of clone high basically tripping from raisins sold by the "pusher". The villan in this episode is actually Jack Black (he lended his voice). It may very well have been Powerpuff Girls...but what you described sounded a lot like Clone High, which in my opinion is one of the best cartoons ever produced

Rob MacD said...

No, Jason, it was definitely The Powerpuff Girls, because as we were watching, we tried to figure out who we would get to star in a Live Action Film Version of The Powerpuff Girls. We were content to come up with: Janeane Garofalo (as the black haired Powerpuff), Uma Thurman (as the blonde haired Powerpuff), and Julianne Moore (as the red haired Powerpuff).
I don't think I've ever seen Clone High.

Jason said...

Wow...that's crazy Rob. Very similar to the Clone High episode. Check it out sometime if you get the chance. You may want to tape it as it's on late. I think it's on Sunday's to Wednesdays at 11 or 11:30 on Teletoon.

dave s said...

the more i think about it, rob, it was the perfect triple bill. i guess the only thing that would have added to the experience would've been if we were 20-somethings who were hopped up on (insert illegal substance here).
fun, fun, rock 'n' roll high school...