The terrible twos

They said it couldn't be done. They tried to cast seeds of doubt and throw obstacles in my path at every opportunity. But despite the best efforts of the communist vampire clowns that live inside my head, 4DK persevered, and today celebrates it's second birthday. At the dawn of what is sure to be the most noisome and obnoxious phase of this blog's existence, I would like to thank all of you for playing along at home. I hope you'll stay with me for more embarrassing episodes of public acting out and brazen attention seeking in the twelve months to come.

Wham bam thank you caveman

I know that I've been posting a lot of links to new pieces of mine over at Teleport City this week, and I want to correct the impression that I might be on some kind of bathtub crank fueled writing jag. The truth is that some of these reviews were written quite some time ago, and were just on hold while TC spent the month of January honoring the films of Japan's Nikkatsu Studio.

Well, Nikkatsu Month is over now, but with February comes another B-Masters Roundtable, this time with the theme "10,000 B.S.", which I think is probably self explanatory. My contribution is a review of When Women Lost Their Tails, a 1972 film that is one part knuckleheaded Italian sex comedy and one part scathing critique of the capitalist system. Read the full review here.

Friday's best pop song ever

Talking up the Telstar Man

Another of my music related pieces has just been posted over at Teleport City, this time regarding the brilliant and haunted UK pop producer Joe Meek. Check it out, won't you?

It's the 4DK Animalympics! Round 19

Charles from Doodh Ka Karz

Skill Set: Living javelin, brilliant military strategist, and bearer of a photographic memory; will basically dedicate his life to you in exchange for a fairly small amount of human breast milk

As I said before, Charles is not really the name of Doodh Ka Karz's lead cobra. But, because I feel that all anipals should be given the dignity of a proper name -- especially since, let's face it, they really are the true stars of these movies -- I bestowed this one upon him. And Charles seemed to fit, due to it denoting -- to my mind, at least -- a certain amount of sophistication. Charles is far from being your average stunt cobra, though he does indeed project himself through the air like some kind of disconcertingly slimy arrow with a small, expressionless face on it. He is instead a Cobra of both delicate sensibilities and finely honed intellect, capable of both calmly leading his cobra troops into battle and offering solace to a grieving mother. Plus, he drank some milk from Aruna Irani's tit. Holy shit! If only snakes had tear ducts, Charles would present us with a package that not even the great Moti could contend with. And ladies, I hear he's single (especially if you're nursing).

Suki Sa Suki Sa Suki Sa

Check me out. Not only did I contribute an incredibly longwinded review of a Mexican wrestling movie to Teleport City this month, but I also put on my music critic hat and wrote a not very critical review of the recent Big Beat compilation Nippon Girls: Japanese Pop, Beat & Bossa Nova 1966-70. I mean, seriously. Check me out.

Conquistador de la Luna (Mexico, 1960)

Nothing is more hilarious than people going to the Moon by accident. Whether it's Alice Kramden being sent hurtling onto the lunar surface by the force of her husband's intemperate fists (a scenario which I must point out combines that already winning concept with the innate hilariousness of domestic violence) or reluctant Egyptian astronauts raiding their rocket ship's minibar to comic effect, the idea always pays off in comic gold. By contrast, the project of going to the moon on purpose has become so boring that we don't even bother to do it anymore. Perhaps, in order to get the American public behind the space program again, we should forget about trained astronauts and instead send up some hapless NASA handymen or janitors in those rockets. I understand it's just a matter of leaning on the wrong lever.

In the case of the 1960 Mexican production Conquistador de la Luna, our chief astro-not is played by Antonio Espino, aka "Clavillazo", one of the top Mexican screen comedians of the late 50s. Here Espino plays Bartolo, an eccentric electrician whose home is rigged with all kinds of Rube Goldberg style contraptions for the purpose of performing even the least labor-intensive domestic tasks. It's a charming and amusing introduction that generates a lot of goodwill toward the somewhat rote but inoffensive space travel anti-epic that follows. In fact Conquistador so closely follows the same, Three Stooges-inspired template as the earlier reviewed Egyptian Ismail Yasin vehicle A Trip to the Moon -- made just a year earlier -- that the two films could have been separated at birth.

Once Ismail -- oops, sorry! -- I mean, Bartolo is called to the home of an irascible rocket scientist to deal with a routine electrical issue, things pretty much fall into lockstep. Our hero wanders onto the launch site of said scientist's moon-bound rocket ship, and then onto the vessel itself, where also can be found the scientist's attractive young daughter, Estela (Ana Luisa Pelufo), who is in the process of doing some kind of routine pre-launch check -- and at which point the remainder of the film flashes before our mind's eye like our lives might upon taking an unfortunate misstep off a steep cliff. The fateful lever is leaned upon, and we are soon treated to a rushed accounting of the perils peculiar to space travel as depicted in 1950s movies -- the unflattering effects of g-force on the human face, the copious yuks afforded by anti-gravity -- before the couple's transport touches down upon the Moon's surface a couple of minutes later. Interestingly, we do not get the narrowly-avoided meteor shower that other such movies have made us feel entitled to, but I imagine this is only because Conquistador director Rogelio A. Gonzales couldn't find the appropriate stock footage.

Conquistador de la Luna is the product of Producciones Sotomayor, the same outfit that was later responsible for teaming up Santo and Blue Demon for the first time -- and who are thus due the same heartfelt gratitude as the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup people. Like a lot of Mexican films of the 50s and early 60s, its set-bound sequences boast a slick look and high level of technical execution that seem to defy somewhat the constraints of what must have been a fairly tiny budget. Where that budget seems to have cut deep, however, is in the area of the film's special effects, which are largely accomplished by simply splicing in mismatched footage from a bunch of other movies. This is a fairly standard aspect of the old school Mexican approach to sci-fi, of course, as exhibited in films like the Blue Demon effort Aranas Infernales, which gave second life to Plan 9 From Outer Space's hubcap flying saucers, and the heavily Eiji Tsuburaya-indebted Santo contra Blue Demon en la Atlantida. I couldn't tick off every movie that Conquistador borrows special effects shots from -- mostly what I recognized was from either Warning From Space or Devil Girl From Mars -- but a real sci-fi buff could have a field day, perhaps even inventing some kind of drinking game around the movie. As fun as that might be, however, this cut-and-paste approach ends up undermining the good works done by the film's actual crew, giving the end product a pretty uneven feel.

That said, it's not as if Conquistador, thanks to its make-up and costuming departments, doesn't have some low rent visual thrills of its own up its sleeve. Very shortly after their arrival on the moon, Bartolo and Estela, true to form, are captured by some of its inhabitants -- in this case a band of menacing critters who look not unlike Sleestaks -- who take them to their home far beneath the lunar surface. Once this has happened, it's not long before a four-armed, female member of the Moon Sleestak community by the name of Warm has taken a shine to Bartolo.

And it seems like an equal shine has been taken to Estrela by the Sleestak's ruler, a giant disembodied brain with his own built-in sprinkler system and a giant eyeball on a tentacle-like stalk.

(The eyeball is an especially nice creation for how, in addition to undulating queasily on the end of its stalk, it constantly oozes slime. Nice touch!)

Soon the brain has Estrela dressed for marriage in a sparkly showgirl outfit and is regaling her with the details of his plan to destroy the Earth with some kind of super-weapon that will unleash all kinds of stock footage of famine and natural disasters (among which are some seriously mellow-harshing shots of dying animals). Of course, supervillain plans are made to be broken, and so Bartolo, somehow suddenly endowed with the power of invisibility (sorry, no subtitles), is soon putting paid to this scheme and returning to Earth with Estela on his arm to receive the well-earned gratitude of the Mexican people.

Conquistador de la Luna ends up being an enjoyable if utterly inessential watch, mainly because Clavillazo's comedy seems to be rooted more in being cheeky and resourceful than in being cowardly and shrill like so many of his comic peers. I think it also helped that I couldn't understand what was being said. Without such distractions I was left to take it all in a state similar to that of the ship that deposits our hero at his lunar destination: on auto pilot.

El gimp contra la robusteza!

Sure, I've reviewed Neutron vs. The Death Robots before. But never at such extraordinary length as I have over at Teleport City just now. Check out the full review here.

Friday's best pop song ever

It's the 4DK Animalympics! Round 18

Suraj from Appu Raja

Skill Set: Master of the evil laugh, harbinger of doom

I'm not entirely clear on how involved Suraj is in the creation of the elaborate death traps cooked up by demented dwarf Appu in Appu Raja, but he obviously has some role. I say this because he is always at the scene, looking down sardonically from his perch, whenever some unwitting victim is about to meet his fate at Appu's hands. Thus there is no mistaking that Suraj is a cockatoo of pure evil. I didn't mention it in my review of the film, but there's a scene in Appu Raja in which he demonstrates his ability to produce a human-like laugh so sinister sounding that it would make those of Amrish Puri, Ajit and Amjad Khan all sound like girlish titters in comparison. It's truly bone chilling.

Diya Aur Toofan (India, 1995)

Some of my Bollywood blogging friends often make reference to a phenomenon they call "the curse of the second half", by which they mean the tendency of many Indian films to expend a lot of razzle-dazzle on their first halves, only to fall flat and wheezing like a distance runner who has failed to pace himself during their final stretch. While this notion certainly applies to a good number of Indian films, what it fails to take into account are the near equal number of Bollywood movies that, while being somewhat run-of-the-mill or even outright dull during their first hour, end up being shit awesome for the remainder. (One shining example that immediately comes to mind is Kalabaaz.) In some ways this is an even more irksome phenomenon, because it has been the inspiration for me sticking with many, many films that turned out to be crappy throughout not only their beginning, but their middle and end, as well. In any case, what I'm getting at is that the subject of this review, the Mithun Chakraborty vehicle Diya Aur Toofan, is a pretty good example of one of those films that is the antithesis of the aforementioned curse. And now, lot's of pictures:

Handsome engineer Amar (Mithun!) shows up for his first day on the construction site sporting some neckwear that I'm fairly certain isn't up to snuff with safety standards.

Amar's predecessor was mysteriously killed as a result of being murdered by Amar's new bosses, a pair of crooked contractors played by Shakti Kapoor and Prem Chopra.

It seems that Shakti and Prem objected to said predecessor's plan to blow the whistle on their black marketeering activities. Amar knows nothing of this, of course. But it's not long before he begins to sense that something fishy is going on, at which point Shakti tries to buy him off.

This does not meet with the desired results.

In the course of going Full Mithun on Shakti, Amar demonstrates what will come to be his signature move, and also shows us the true purpose of that festive scarf he's been modeling.

Using the scarf, he ties his two fists together, in effect combining them into one giant fist, a super-fist of sorts.

Later, Amar meets his neighbor Asha in an embarrassing NSFW accident.

Okayyyy, not really. Suffice it to say that things get off to a bad start.

Asha is played by Madhoo, one of whose main duties here, given that this is a Bollywood movie from the 1990s, is to wear a succession of outfits that look as if they were purchased at the outlet mall in Hell.

Of course, Amar and Asha soon decide that they are madly in love with each other, which does not play well with Joginder (Mohnish Behl), the son of the evil contractor played by Prem Chopra, who sets his goons upon Amar.

Fools! Do they not know about the super-fist?

Finally Prem, Shakti and Joginder get fed up with Amar's righteous antics and murder him in earnest.

Soon after, his body is discovered by Dr. Vijay Mehra, who is not only Amar's best friend but also a pioneering neurosurgeon with some radical ideas about brain transplantation.

Did I mention that it was Amar and Asha's wedding day? When she hears the news, Asha goes nutzoid, and in the course of her berzerkery accidentally kills her own mom!

At which point Asha goes permanently nutzoid.

Meanwhile, pioneering neurosurgeon Dr. Vijay Mehra has decided what he must do.

And so Mithun's startlingly tiny brain (look, I'm just sayin') is removed...

...put on a dinner plate and placed in the Deep Freeze.

Fortunately, it is not long before crazy Asha is doing an angry dance to Krishna...

...which she concludes by dashing her already addled brains upon the steps of the temple.

Pioneering neurosurgeon Dr. Vijay Mehra knows what he must do.

And so Asha's defective brain is scooped out and, I assume, tossed into a nearby medical waste receptacle, to be replaced by Amar's undamaged, albeit very tiny, brain.

Later, Amar wakes in fine spirits, and with an appropriately mannish haircut.

Only to be greeted by some shocking news.

(This film didn't have English subtitles, so I can't tell you if Dr. Mehra broke it to him with the old, "I have some good news, and some bad news" gambit, but that's what I would have done.)

Anyway, once the news has sunk in, Amar quickly returns to his old self.

Which is bad news for Shakti Kapoor, who is busy praying to a pile of money.

...only to be interrupted by Amar, who proceeds to beat him to death in a surreally phony looking stable set.

Next it's Joginder's turn, in a disturbing scene that sees Amar deciding to make effective use of some of his newly acquired assets.

Of course, once Amar has Joginder where he wants him, the mood turns very quickly.

Finally, in an attempt to determine just who is killing off his associates, Prem Chopra kidnaps pioneering neurosurgeon Dr. Vijay Mehra, taking him to his lair, where he is mercilessly tortured. This because, in Bollywood movies, even crooked contractors have lairs.

Of course, it is not long before Amar shows up on the scene to deliver some machine gun justice.

And when it comes time for the coup de grace...

Aw, yeah...

SUPER-FIST!

Many Hindi films have told us that love inspires miracles. But you know what inspires even more miracles than that? Wrath. So far we've seen the thirst for payback as the impetus for countless reincarnations, house pets becoming serial killers, and now a case of science-assisted, cross-gender body switching. What's next? A man avenged by his own breakfast? A favorite pair of socks, long thought lost in the wash, that returns to strangle those responsible for its owner's death? Whatever the case, I'm sure you'll be reading about it here at 4DK.

Anyway, thank you for joining me on my journey through Diya Aur Toofan today. And remember, don't try the super-fist at home. Mithun is a licensed professional.