Chunga in Croydon

We have received word from the fishlifters that the British copies of Chunga 17 have finally arrived in Croydon after an 18-day journey across the sea. So where's your LOC then, eh?

Message from Space (Uchu kara no messeji, 1978)

I've mentioned before that Netflix has a lot of movies available for streaming that aren't otherwise available on home video. This includes a number of rare film noirs that I've been wanting to see for years. So what do I watch instead? Kenji Fukasaku's goofy Star Wars-by-way-of-Seven Samurai rip-off, Message from Space, which I've been dying to see again ever since watching it for the first time on Night Flight many years ago. At the time, I was impressed with the low-budget special effects and the earnestness of the cheese. Well, you know, it's a good stoner movie, let's just say that. If you take the right attitude, it's still good fun.

Fukasaku had an interesting career. He made stylish, mod crime films like Blackmail is My Life (Kyokatsu koso Waga Jinsei, 1968), surreal tales of amour fou based on the stories of Edogawa Rampo like Black Lizard (Kuro tokage, 1968), downbeat WWII movies like Under the Flag of the Rising Sun (Gunki hatameku motoni, 1971), gritty, anti-romantic yakuza films like Battles without Honor and Humanity (Jingi naki tatakai, 1973), exploitation samurai films like Samurai Reincarnation (Makai tenshô, 1981), and a number of science fiction films of varying quality, including his final film, Battle Royale (Batoru rowaiaru, 2000), which is supposed to be very good. Science fiction fans of a certain age will remember his other foray into international science fiction productions, Green Slime (1968), which recently became available from Warner Archive. I'm waiting for a sale before I splurge on that one up.