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Your pick is like buttah!

Glad to see this is a well-received pick! I mostly only know this because of the individual songs that came out of it (like 'People who need people') and because it was a featured storyline in 'Glee'. It seems like it might be long-ish, but I'm hoping that it's more 'Cabaret' and less 'Gigi'!

Well I don't want to speak on too much authority, I have lived in Japan for 16 but not born here, but this is pretty spot on. Japanese do believe in spirits and ghosts and them haunting and residing in places, but there is no real history of them possessing people. There are those than can channel spirits but for actual ghosts stories of a possession nature are indeed very rare. Quick addition to this. The one man we see the black ninja killing is eye patch's father. He actually cries out for his father in Japanese.

Meet The Fockers is the second one. Little Fockers is the third one. I'm in the same boat though. I obviously know who Barbra Streisand is, but I've seen very little of her actual work. If we hadn't done Hello, Dolly, I wouldn't understand her appeal at all. I've hated the other stuff I've seen her in.

Not Meet The Fockers? Haha but ya I'm mostly the same. I saw her A Star Is Born and I like her in it, but none of her other classics and I'm looking forward to that

‪‪I couldn't help but recognize Officer Case was played by John LaMotta, who played ALF's Mr. Ochmonek, one half of the nosey neighbor married couple always threatening to expose Alf by snooping on the Tanners. LaMotta was also in the previous installment of Cannon's "Ninja Trilogy," Revenge of the Ninja, as the seemingly unrelated character "Joe," then in American Ninja as Rinaldo, and other Cannon movies like Breakin' 2. And it's not a Cannon movie, but Bloodfist IV: Die Trying feels HDTGM adjacent.

Hi everyone! I'm sorry that my inability to check email last night meant I delayed the pick today. I am never around here anymore but that doesn't mean I don't miss you all, and I am especially appreciative of watching you all generate great work over on Letterboxd. I had a bit of a struggle this week with what I would pick: should I pick the standard HDTGM-worthy thing to make fun of, or something that would pep us up in this difficult time? In the end, I chose the latter, a generally well-received musical based on a Broadway production that launched an international career. What's that you say? "They didn't make a Broadway musical of Across the Universe!" Yet. They haven't made it yet. Anyway, I noticed that this movie had been added to Netflix, I had never seen it, but my wife said "oh, I want to see that!", which is as much as to say, I'm picking that, instead of the terrible movie I was going to pick. So, let's all watch the movie version of the Broadway musical that would eventually launch the career of Rachel Berry! No one in this thread had reviewed it on Letterboxd yet, so hopefully this is a new experience for many of us! It's nice to be back! I'll try to remember to be around more! (I've said that 3000 times in the last 3 years. Sorry guys.)

No I didn't sadly. I was too intimidated by Kris Kristofferson's beard.

In order to have equality, we'll have to do Yentl sometime since we did The Jazz Singer.

You didn't watch A Star is Born when we talked about the new one?

So far this is the understatement of the year.

Now I'm trying to think if I saw that... if that was the third no. If that was the second... maybe?

I think Hello Dolly was my first Barbra Streisand movie (cameo appearances not included) and I'm curious to make this my second. Good choice.

Good shout outs to character actor James Hong. Like bumping into an old friend, it’s always a pleasure. “Hey! It’s you! Wow, it’s been a while!” Of course, we greet each other with a rueful smile, as once again Hollywood casts a Chinese-American actor to play a Japanese man. But then again, maybe that fits in a movie where a Chinese medical shop performs Japanese exorcism, or the fact there’s a Japanese temple in Arizona where Chinese kung-fu is being practiced. But do Japanese ghosts possess people? There are a ton of Japanese ghost stories and their urban legends are notorious, but the kind of ghostly possession featured in Ninja III falls more into the Western ideas, like in the tradition of Regan in The Exorcist or Emily Rose. In these stories, it’s demons going into the body of another, with the horror being a loss of control and individuality, the helplessness and victimizing. Japanese spirits are yūrei (“faded souls”) more distinct from demons. They’re more like “haunting” kinds of ghosts, even violent ones, similiar to a poltergeist. These are called onryō (vengeful spirit) and will feature in movies like The Ring and Ju-On (The Grudge). Possession in the way we might think of does occur in a couple of ways, but it’s not easy to do a one-to-one translation for these kinds of ideas. You can think of one way as similar to channneling, like how mediums invite spirits into them. Another way is to use haunted items and risk being influenced by an accompaning spirit. Still not an exact Emily Rose scenario, and the horror is more existential, a kind of warning— against attachment that Buddhism says is the root of suffering. The closest we get to Regan & Emily is a unique Japanese possession featuring a ikiryō, or a “living spirit.” Here, it’s not a dead person at all, but a consuming spirit that detaches from someone living to afflict others. The most famous story comes from the Tales of Genji, the classic ancient hero of Japan. Here, a mistress of our hero Genji grew so jealous over his wife that the jealousy became a ghost and possessed the wife, afflicting her with mental distress and leading to her death in childbirth. The horror here? I dunno, probably patriarchy. (Standard disclaimers that the world of Japanese ghosts is prolific and tied intrinsicly to culture/religion, and I am only a hobbyist looking to learn if others can correct or expand on anything.)

Oh man, I remember in the long, long ago when they were super inconsistent with their release schedule. I think we waited something like a month and a half for Secret of the Ooze to drop. Those were the days-lol As for this movie, they’ll most likely release it. They were on tour for most of last year and have a considerable backlog at this point. They also only release two episodes a month. It could just be that they’re saving some backlog stuff for when they maybe filming and unavailable to record. They’ll get to it eventually though

I believe it’s the same person.

Differences Between a Bad Ninja and a Good Ninja.... Goofus carelessly flips completely over a barbwire fence without thinking twice. Gallant carefully places his jacket over the barbwire before completely flipping over the fence...just in case.

Now I just remembered the horrors of Across The Universe and completely regret my decision...

Scientist and the Secret Service. Growing up my best friend's dad was a scientist for TRW in Los Angeles in the 70s and 80s. Whenever he traveled out of the city for business, he was accompanied by a security detail. Growing up we knew never to ask for details about what he did.

Just because I think right now correct statistics are super important when discussing these topics I looked this up and according to the 2010 US Census Hispanic/Latinx Americans make up 16.3% while Black/African Americans make up 12.6% of the population. While we may be splitting hairs, those few percentage numbers actually do make up a lot of individuals and are important to factor in. Also looked up what they expect to be reported this year and the Census is expecting it to be reported as 13.4%. Also not criticizing - only think stats are important lol! Also didn't see this movie, but I really appreciate how vocal June and Paul have been on this subject. Please consider looking up your local bail funds because many protestors are being arrested without even being read their rights (happened here in Dallas) and shit is just getting insane.

I just want to know what that scientist could have been working on that he required that level of protection. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that no one working on the Manhattan Project or Apollo Mission ever had that kind of security detail. This movie centered on demon ninjas but yet somehow there was a more interesting story somewhere off screen. This movie went a long way towards fighting the stereotype of the the silent ninja during the fight in the dilapidated house. The sound mixer turned all their knobs up to 11 for the floorboard creaking in that scene.

Billy was super creepy from moment one with his interactions with Chris. When he first meets her, he makes several pleas for her to go out with him, asking if she likes coffee, daiquiris, pizza, etc. Then he says “how about candy?” and he goes to his pocket and then you hear a plinking sound on the floor. Does Billy just keep loose candy in his pockets? And who would ever take him up on that offer?

I was curious how much force it takes to crush a golf ball like the ninja does with his bare hands. It varies by brand but, according this this video, the weakest took 19613 newtons of pressure. According to this site, "excellent" grip strength is 141 pounds of force which is about 627 newtons. So, the ninja has hands about 31 times stronger than even the strongest person. https://www.topendsports.com/testing/tests/handgrip.htm

Interesting theory about the V-8 juice, but she was so strongly coming onto him that I just thought of it as more of a playful gesture. At the time, I actually thought it was foreshadowing for blood to be spilled for a moment. Paul’s home stories are sooooo crazy, that as hilarious/weird as that is, it’d be like wayyyy down on the list. Another one that’d also be way down on the list yet still funny that just came to mind for no reason was the signed Arliss Hat. But, yeah man, Paul has the craziest childhood stories and young adult misadventures (how I’d classify his desk-less, duty-less job where he was ordered to have lunch with Brittany Spears. I’m assuming Paul stories are a Howdies category. More omissions that just came to mind: -Police Baton: there’s a moment when a cop spins the baton for a sec at the cemetery fight and has the sound effect of an elaborate nunchucks display. But, more to the point, these cops know this ninja survived point blank shot gun blasts and machine gun fire and they’re trying to fight “him” with a stick?! -Police Response Time @ Golf Course: Since the ninja is still at the golf course and how fast he is, we must assume this small town has been able to deploy roughly 50 cops and a helicopter within 2 minutes. Uh, not possible.