52 Years and 25 Films: The Feature Filmography of Martin Scorsese - Boxcar Bertha (1972)

To celebrate the upcoming release of The Irishman, Martin Scorsese's new crime drama epic starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci, I am going to do a retrospective on all of Scorsese's narrative feature films. The goal is to trace the career of one of America's most celebrated filmmakers of all time and maybe discover what makes him so special.

After gaining attention from critics for Who's That Knocking At My Door and industry professionals with his work attitude on Woodstock, Scorsese finally landed his first major gig when he drew the attention of infamous film producer and director Roger Corman. Corman was not only a reliable purveyor of every kind of cheap genre film his studio, American International Pictures, could churn out; he was also a sharp eye for talent. By this point, he had already launched the careers of Jack Nicholson, Peter Bogdanovich, and Francis Ford Coppola to name a few, as well as breathe new life into the careers of John Carradine and Boris Karloff.

Scorsese would be driven through the same rigorous process those men were: the mission would be to deliver a cheap, easy to sell movie using actors Corman had already selected for Scorsese in less than 30 days. The result is your typical outlaw movie that became a dime a dozen following the humongous success of Bonnie and Clyde but with enough of Scorsese's own flourishes to make the film still his own.

Zone Fighter Episode 4: A Very Special Guest Star

 

Shozo Uehara is one of the most important writers in tokusatsu history. He not only was head writer on The Return of Ultraman, he is most renowned for writing the first 5 seasons of both the Super Sentai and Metal Hero franchises for Toei. He shares co-head writer credit on the infamous Japanese Spider-Man series, and his notable anime credits include the first two episodes of Fist of the North Star and head writing credit on Space Pirate Captain Harlock.

Uehara has one more notable credit under his belt too. He wrote the first ever TV appearance of Godzilla.

52 Years and 25 Films: The Feature Filmography of Martin Scorsese - Who's That Knocking At My Door (1967)

To celebrate the upcoming release of The Irishman, Martin Scorsese's new crime drama epic starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci, I am going to do a retrospective on all of Scorsese's narrative feature films. The goal is to trace the career of one of America's most celebrated filmmakers of all time and maybe discover what makes him so special.

Today, we begin with Scorsese's feature film debut. Though he already had a few low-budget shorts under his belt, this would be Martin Scorsese's big debut to world cinema. Even though it has all the makings of a first feature, it also packs enough of Scorsese's trademarks to still make what could be an unbearable film in the wrong hands into a fascinating piece to watch.

Zone Fighter Episode 3: Divorces, Dimensions, Disguises and Dorora

Like I mentioned in my introduction, Zone Fighter was created by the premiere staff of Toho's special effects department, Toho Eizo. Because of the intense time constraints in television production, it would be next to impossible for a single person to handle every single episode without burning out. Not only did this apply to live action directing, but to special effects directing as well. Thus, special effects director Teruyoshi Nakano handed the reins over to one of Toho Eizo's senior staff, and episode 3 would mark his special effects directorial debut. That man was Koichi Kawakita, who would later be responsible for the entire Heisei Godzilla series following Nakano's retirement as well as '80s sci-fi epics Sayonara Jupiter and Gunhed. So how does his first directing job hold up? Let's take a look...

Zone Fighter Episode 2: The Greatest TV Episode Ever?

After years of waiting to finally get Zone Fighter into my eyeballs, it was disappointing to say the least when the first episode turned out to be so underwhelming. I'll even admit that after watching it, I was worried I wouldn't be getting much entertainment out of this show.

Well, episode 2 quelled all of those fears. If the rest of the series is as colorfully bonkers as this episode was, this could be one of my favorite tokusatsu shows of the 1970s. Now, let's jump in to:

ZONE FIGHTER

Zone Fighter: An Introduction and Episode 1

INTRODUCTION:

It's 1973. Movie attendance across the world has plummeted. While America was working its way through the New Hollywood phase, Japan's box office was immensely struggling. By 1971, Daiei Studios, producers of several successful film series like Gamera and Zatoichi, had filed for bankruptcy. Toei was surviving through its Toei Manga Festival programs for kids and violent crime dramas for adults. Nikkatsu had begun almost exclusively producing softcore pornography. Shochiku was able to get by solely on the successful "Tora-san" romantic comedy film series. Finally, Toho was able to put out the occasional massive event film like Submersion of Japan while cutting back budgets on every other production, especially the Godzilla series which had become exclusively aimed at children.

SXSW 2019 In Review - Part 1

A lot has changed in my life since my last blog post, my readers. The biggest change has been my recent move to Austin, Texas. I lived in Norfolk, Virginia for exactly 20 years, and it was time for a big change. So far, it's been all right, but the biggest highlight since moving here has been the chance to attend and volunteer for this year's South by Southwest (or SXSW) film festival.

The condition to earn my free badge into the festival was that I had to work 48 hours as a volunteer at one of the many venues that films were being screened. Not only was the experience surprisingly fun, but new friends were made and I got to fall completely in love with Alamo Drafthouse. Over the course of the festival, I managed to watch 9 movies, 8 of which were world premieres, and 2 episodic premieres. I didn't get to see everything I wanted to (we almost got into Us), but the vast majority of what I got to watch was worth the long lines and volunteer hours. Since a Facebook post would get too long plus they're harder to save, I thought I'd revive this blog to share my thoughts on each screening I was lucky enough to attend.