Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

WELCOME! Use the search engines on this site (or your own off-site engine of choice) to gain easy access to the complete MAKSQUIBS Archive; more than 5500 posts and counting. (New posts added every day or so.)

You can check on all our titles by typing the Title, Director, Actor or 'Keyword' you're looking for in the Search Engine of your choice (include the phrase MAKSQUIBS) or just use the BLOGSPOT.com Search Box at the top left corner of the page.

Feel free to place comments directly on any of the film posts and to test your film knowledge with the CONTESTS scattered here & there. (Hey! No Googling allowed. They're pretty easy.)

Send E-mails to MAKSQUIBS@yahoo.com . (Let us know if the TRANSLATE WIDGET works!) Or use the Profile Page or Comments link for contact.

Thanks for stopping by.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

JOSANGO TAIHI-SEN ORI: SONO GOSHO O NERAE / TAKE AIM AT THE POLICE VAN (1960)

This middling noir from Seijun Suzuki (about a prison cop who tries to find out who attacked him & his busload of prisoners) was made shortly before he broke thru the strictures of Nikkatsu Studio with a more personal voice. Typically, a good set-up forgoes the demands of logical development for a non-forensic grab-bag of intuition, luck & unlikely coincidence. But, that was the house style for these quickly made films, and Suzuki counters with such an abundant display of technical chops and visual pizzazz that you don’t mind the narrative ellipses & manipulation. Sometimes, just watching a screen pulse with slick compositions, razor-sharp editing & an array of witty framing devises carries the day. The opening jangles the nerves with a beautifully realized assault on a police van & there’s mayhem aplenty along the way. Death, destruction, speed, high contrast b&w in WideScreen . . . catnip for noir fans.

No comments: