Based on the mystery novel “Kagi no Kakatta Heya” by Yusuke Kishi (published by Kadokawa Shoten, July 26, 2012) here is another great example of an Asian mini-series (11 episodes) with an original theme a bit of a surprise ending and knowing when to quit.
Enomoto Kei is a security “otaku” (Japanese slang loosely translated as geek or nerd but more pejorative than in the West) working for a firm who devoted to improving security systems on a daily basis. He is not an easy person to deal with, stoic, unapproachable, a maniac in Physics, Science, Architecture and profound in other basic theoretical sciences. Enomoto is convinced and proud of the fact that there is no key which he cannot unlock.
Enomoto’s abilities are initially put to the test when a young idealistic legal associate, Junko Aoto (Erika Toda), locks her boss, Serizawa Gou, in a bank vault on a Friday afternoon and because of the vaults timer can’t be opened until Monday morning. Within 17 minutes he opens this a seeming impenetrable vault door while explaining to the young associate that there are more than 100,000,000 combinations. That day, Enomoto is asked to help reveal a mystery behind a “locked room” murderer. While he lacks any interest in solving the mystery, he is inevitably intrigued by the term, “Locked Room” and decides to take on the case. Enomoto works side by side with Aoto Junko and Serizawa Gou, who are lawyers working at a major law firm. Because of Enomoto’s abilities to solve the “locked room” crimes, Senzawa is given all of the credit and becomes known as a locked room experts-though the real brains behind the mysteries is Enomoto.
I really enjoyed the series because of its unique premises and surprise ending (the good guy goes bad). It is well cast and the number of episodes is right for a movie binge. I may even read the novel assuming it has been translated into English.
SEJ and EJ of course have their own interesting take:
Both have a lot to say about this series starting with the opening credits which they describe as both “clever” and “weird.” EJ in particular enjoys the suspense filled music and the graphics used to open the show.
SEJ specifically says “this series is overly dramatic and at times even corny but has a clever starting sequence and great music. The characters are mostly likable and pause for too long but overall it is a great film.” As for the ending of the series “. . . HE CAN’T!” But he did.
The clips should give you the flavor of the music and Enomoto’s demeanor sorry about the cut off subtitles they were difficult to hard-code.
WordPress what the heck is your problem? You made me upgrade my site with a nice price tag to boot and now the clips that have been on your servers whether for a week or 5 years now only play for a few seconds then they crap out. What is the deal? I am well below my maximum storage limit and even if that was the case it should not be an issue.
I’d love an explanation at least nut more importantly I’d like it to work as advertised.
I stumbled on to this series simply by downloading from one of my favorite Asian movie websites. Well I have to say for another of Japan’s shows that became a manga it is not bad. As I said in the title SP was a big hit in its native country Japan. Given Clint Eastwood’s very popular film “In the Line of Fire” SP might be appreciated with western audiences but of course we will never know. I am not saying this is the end all be all of TV drama’s it certainly isn’t crap though. If you like Asian TV or films you will probably like SP.
SP, also known as Security Police is based on the real life security police unit of Japan which is responsible for protecting domestic and foreign VIPs. The series script was written by famed GO author Kazuki Kaneshiro and marks his first time writing for a television drama. This drama centers on the newly recruited SP officer named Kaoru Inoue has such sharp senses that his able to conduct his duties by using some form of ESP to take down threats before they materialize.
The franchise consists of the TV series, two film adaptations of the series released in 2010 and 2011 with a manga adaptation.
Inoue is recruited by veteran SP officer Sōichirō Ogata after being impressed with his training under Section 4 of the SP division. Inoue works with Eri Sasamoto, one of the few women serving in the division while another officer, Takafumi Yamamoto, who is the only known SP officer to have MMA experience with a preference to use the 7:3 hairstyle ratio (whatever that is) and of course there is the divorced Mitsuo Ishida who is the only known SP officer in the section who had been previously married. The series shows these men and women working in unison to protect the VIPs assigned to them from being killed by assassins.
I think one of the things that factors into the deserved success of SP is that it that its makers limited the number of episodes even in the face of its native popularity. In the west, a show that was as popular as SP would have been dragged out by the producers until it died a dog’s death—something I can’t stand.
Vacation 2.0 means well but tries too hard, and is ultimately just another pale imitation of the original. The memory of this film will likely not endure beyond one or two gags. Well I am not surprised that Vacation 2.0 is an awkward film that doesn’t deserve the name Vacation.
According to the box office statistics, this movie grossed $103 million dollars and I simply can’t believe it. There are only three things that are good about this film. One is, they kept the original credits and theme song; two Ron Livingston from office-space has a small role in the movie and three I like Christina Applegate who should’ve been more utilized because of her comedy experience going back to Married with Children. Otherwise, this movie simply sucks.
Vacation 2.0 just tries too hard to remake its predecessor. There are way too many crude jokes that are contrived, which signals the type of movie technique that is episodic; that is, they try to build the story around the gags and simply use filler for the rest of film. Clearly, the writers and directors of Vacation 2.0 simply don’t compare to the team of Harold Ramis and John Hughes working in their heyday.
The story starts with a grown up Rusty Griswold who is an airline pilot for some econo-airline. He has a very estranged relationship with his wife, Debbie (Christina Applegate), and their two sons, the shy and anxious older teenager, James (Skyler Gisondo), and the cruel and mindless younger kid, Kevin (Steele Stebbins). Envious of the vacation the family of his friends, Jack (Keegan-Michael Key) and Nancy (Regina Hall), had in Paris, Rusty decides to change his family’s annual trip to their cabin in Cheboygan, Michigan and instead drive cross country to Walley World, just as he had done years before with his parents and sister, Audrey Griswold (Leslie Mann) Chevy Chase (father) and Beverly De Angelo (mom) as seen in the original Vacation film.
Of course, using the basic plot techniques that Vacation 1.0 did, the family runs into many mishaps and “comic” stops along the way. It is as if every conceivable joke was thrown at the wall, and the ones that seemed to stick best were swept up and glued together as the plotline. I understand it is very difficult to follow such an iconic movie as Vacation 1.0, but they could have done a much better job.
You know here at JPFmovies we are never afraid to compare and contrast remakes of films or T.V. series (i.e. previously reviewed for example the original Battlestar Galactica with it remake). More often than not, we shred the remake, but who knows what we will find here.
National Lampoon’s Vacation, sometimes referred to as Vacation, is a 1983 American comedy film directed by the genius Harold Ramis and stars Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo, Randy Quaid, Dana Barron, and Anthony Michael Hall. John Candy, Imogene Coca, Christie Brinkley and the screen play was written by John Hughes the 1980’s movie writer/director legend and apparently basically is a fictionalized account of his own family’s ill-fated trip to Disneyland when Hughes was young.
The movie follows an “all American” family in their trek to drive across country and visit Wally World. Well you can imagine what the comedy genius’s at National Lampoon could cook up with that story line. Additionally, I believe one of the reasons for the films lasting popularity is that everyone has experienced in one way or another some sort of “family” debacle giving it a timeless quality.
During the family’s travels, they run into numerous mishaps, such as being tagged by vandals in a rundown area of St. Louis, while Clark is tempted numerous times by a beautiful young woman (Christie Brinkley) driving a Magnum P.I. red Ferrari. One of the great scenes is when they stop to visit Ellen’s cousin Catherine (Miriam Flynn) and her husband Eddie (Randy Quaid), who makes “real tomato catsup” and grills hamburger helper without the hamburger. I loved that scene so much you’ll see it is one of the clips.
Also the movie’s theme song “Holiday Road” was performed by Fleetwood Mac legend Linsey Buckingham—that is why another one of the clips is of the opening credits to give Buckingham his due.
The film really is the peak of the National Lampoon movement and with its all-star cast it was destined for greatness. How then is someone supposed to remake the film? That is one tough act to follow. So next up we will look the 2015 remake and see how it compares with the original.
A lot of parts of Major League (1989) were filmed in Milwaukee Wisconsin; the director filmed the stadium scenes at Milwaukee County Stadium, Bob Ueker, the famed baseball hall of famer is the regular radio commentator for the Milwaukee Brewers having a significant part in the movie and they film makers used 60,000 local Milwaukee people as extras to fill the stadium for several scenes (including JPFmovies personnel).
I was in high school at the time and the call went out for anyone who wanted to be an extra in the movie simply had to show up at the stadium so I did! Also there is a scene (there is a clip of it) which used my family’s downtown apartment! What the heck have I been thinking all of these years not reviewing this sports comedy classic?
The inspiration came to me when I was watching the Netflix original series The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmitt with SEJ and in one of the shows a teacher who was trying to get fired from teaching his GED class put in the movie Major League then it hit me like a thunder bolt—Must Review. As much I think this s a great film SEJ takes the opposite stance as you will clearly see.
Major league as a potent cast written and directed by David S. Ward, starring Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, Wesley Snipes, James Gammon, Renee Rousseau, Bob Uecker, Pete Vuckovich (former Milwaukee Brewers pitcher) and Corbin Bernsen. It was a very profitable film costing $11 million and grossed $50 million in domestic release.
The story begins with a former Las Vegas showgirl Rachel Phelps (Margaret Whitton) who has inherited the Cleveland Indians baseball team from her deceased husband. She has received a lucrative deal to move the team to Miami, and she aims to trigger the escape clause in the team’s contract with Cleveland if season attendance falls below 800,000. In her attempt to sabotage the team she bring in new players consisting of aging veterans and inexperienced rookies, hoping to make the worst team ever that would certainly cause attendance to decline. Donovan hires Lou Brown, a former coach from the Toledo Mud Hens to lead the team.
During spring training in Tucson, Brown and veteran catcher Jake Taylor (Tom Berenger) discover the new team has a number of interpersonal issues as well as their own struggles with the game, such as the prima donna nature of Roger Dorn (Corbin Berson), the only player on a long-term contract with the Indians, and the weak arm of veteran pitcher Eddie Harris who is forced to doctor his pitches with everting from snot to Crisco.
As the season starts, the team is unable to overcome these problems and starts on a losing streak. Their rookie pitcher, Ricky Vaughn (Charlie Sheen), has an incredible fast ball but with no control, leading him to be called “Wild Thing” because he sets an American league record of throwing 4 wild pitches in one inning; however, by chance, Brown discovers Vaughn has eyesight problems, and when they fit him with glasses, his pitching drastically improves, helping the Indians to a series of wins. The rest of the team rallies behind this, putting aside personal issues and coming together to bring the Indians higher in the division standings.
Phelps tries to demoralize the team by taking away their luxuries such as a private jet, but the team still holds strong, and appears to have a shot at winning the division. Meanwhile, Taylor finds that his ex-girlfriend Lynn is living in Cleveland, and tries to get her to come back to him even after learning she has become engaged to a new beau.
When Phelps’ original plan falls through, she decides that she will purposely void the contract, despite the financial penalty, and will move the team to Miami regardless. Donovan relays this to Brown, who informs the team that no matter how well they do, they will be fired after the season. Taylor leads the others to agree that they should do the best they can and win the division. To spur the team, Brown uses a covered cardboard standup photo of Phelps from her showgirl days, pulling off a piece of the cover for every game they win. The team succeeds in tying the division with the New York Yankees, leading to a one-game playoff to determine the title.
In the playoff in Cleveland, the Yankees take an early lead but Pedro Cerrano is able to overcome his inability to hit a curve, knocking out a home run to tie the game. In the top of the 9th, with the bases loaded and the Yankees’ power hitter Clu Haywood (Vuckovich) at bat, Brown has Vaughn pitch relief despite past confrontations Vaughn has had with Haywood. Vaughn manages to strike out Haywood, sending the Indians up to bat.
With the game tied and the Indians with two outs, the speedy Willie “Mays” Hayes manages a single to get on base, and then steals second. Taylor steps up, and after signaling to Brown, calls his shot to center field. With the Yankees prepared for the long play, Taylor instead bunts, allowing Hayes to make it to home safely and win the game. The team and crowd erupt into cheers while Phelps realizes that she likely not be able to move the team after this. As the team celebrates, Taylor sees Lynn in the stands, no longer wearing her engagement ring. The two rush to hug each other as the city celebrates the victory.
Not only do I find this movie funny on all sorts of levels, but the personal connection I have with it only glorifies and possibly skews my objectivity in examining this piece of cinema. Bob Uecker does a fantastic job merely acting as himself as he does every Brewer game, but many people outside of Milwaukee don’t get to share his humor. Sure it has a cheesy ending but the comedy leading up to it is well worth overlooking that point. For a 1999 film it is in my opinion one of the great films of the 80s and I would urge anyone to watch it with an open mind. Additionally, please watch the clips as they give the flavor of what major league was all about. Contrived perhaps, but funny nonetheless. And even though it had a story beginning there was still some great moments in movie sports history.
Now we move on to SEJ’s review, which is not so kind and I’m quoting this verbatim:
“Based on the first few minutes of major league I got the impression the scenes were weakly written. The logo of the team was simply absurd. It is stupid to attempt to play badly so you can move to a state with a more desirable climate. Furthermore, Wesley Snipes, character who was meant to be funny came off as bizarre and childish.”
Since she only would watch the first few minutes of the film give it whatever weight you so choose.
I apologize about the length of this review but there was so much to say.
J.P.'s I'm Outta Here Movie Thoughts 