Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai

This week's suggestion is called Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai.

Forest Whitaker portrays a thoughtful antihero, a modern-day hit man who lives by the code of the samurai, who has sworn to protect the mafia member who saved his life. Things soon turn nasty when the mob put a hit out on him.

This is a really interesting movie - mixing action and philosophy, mafia and samurai, modern and ancient.

I found a couple problems with the realness of some of the action scenes, and it has an odd flow to it. It's not a typical Hollywood action flick. But that's the point here.

Closet Land

I'm going to break my own rule here. This is a super obscure movie that I loved watching when it first came out on VHS (1991), but haven't been able to see it since. Netflix doesn't have it so if you have a Mom & Pop video store near you that has a great selection you may still be able to watch this. And I highly recommend that you do!

Closet Land is a little movie - 2-person cast - produced by Amnesty International. But both actors are amazing in it - Alan Rickman (Die Hard) and Madeleine Stowe (12 Monkeys).

It's about a children's book writer (Stowe) who is imprisoned and interrogated at length for suspected political messages in her books.

Rickman 's use of accents is especially good as the interrogator. But it's when his accents slip that it gets really intriguing.

This is a superb look a dark subject, nuanced and intelligent. A true study of human nature.

Sukiyaki Western Django

This week's suggestion is a bit more off the beaten path, so to speak, than usual. It's also for a limited audience.

Sukiyaki Western Django is the film. Its a 2007 Japanese movie that Quentin Tarantino helped produce, and has a small (thank God) part in.

It's billed as an "East meets West western" and it doesn't lie. It's a spaghetti western where the characters are equally adept with a six-shooter as a samurai sword.

This is Yojimbo remade with a cult-type of intent. (Yojimbo was later remade as A Fistful of Dollars and Last Man Standing.) Gunslinger wanders into a town where neither of the two rival gangs can get an upper hand and plays them off each other.

Sukiyaki will have a bigger audience in Japan because of some of the campiness. But if you don't mind a little 'camp', aren't too upset by generous amounts of violence or gore, and like westerns and swordplay, this is a good film to rent.

I know that's a bunch of caveats, but here are two more. You need to watch this with the subtitles on - the accents are just too thick to understand. You'll need to somehow get past Quentin Tarantino's awful imitation of a Japanese accent - which borders on insulting, but is fortunately over after the first five minutes.