Episode 58. Samurai Swordplay: Onibaba

Demon Woman, Demon Hag. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to. However, you slice it up, it comes up Onibaba every time. But before we get lost in the flowing miscanthus, stumble into a pit and plummet to our deaths, only to have our clothes and valuables scavenged, and also have some frank depictions of sex, we have to talk about what we watched this week.

Goodman knocked out seasons 1 & 2 of Netflix's Lupin starring everyone's favorite caretaker from the 2011 French hit, The Intouchables, Omar Sy.

He also watched a couple movies that Dre also saw, including the new Steven Soderbergh ensemble noir on HBO Max, No Sudden Move, starring Don Cheadle, Benicio Del Toro, Brendan Fraser, David Harbour, Kieran Culkin, Amy Seimetz, Julia Fox, Ray Liotta and Noah Jupe (who's in everything these days); and the 2nd movie in the Lone Wolf and Cub series: Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart at the River Styx, which Goodman thinks surpasses the first movie and Dre thinks is equally ass-kicking.

Dre surpassed Goodman, however, because he also watched the Lone Wolf and Cub mash-up for the US/UK markets: Shogun Assassin (in the dubbed, as it was intended).

Then Dre watched Lynne Ramsey's 2012 short film, Swimmer, which is available on YouTube; a John Cassavetes flick starring Gena Rowlands and Seymour Cassel, Minnie and Moskowitz, about a museum curator who falls in love with a parking attendant (as happens); the 2019 horror movie, Saint Maud (which didn't come out until 2021) directed by Rose Glass; Bo Burnham's comedy special: Bo Burnham: Inside; and the Bob Odenkirk John Wick-styled film, Nobody, which Dre plunked down the rental money for.

Dre also read Quentin Tarantino's novelization of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which goes beyond the movie's storyline and has a lot of fun stuff to sink your teeth into.

Then Goodman remembered that he went back to the theaters for the first time since the pandemic (how could he forget?) to see the only movie that could bring him back, F9: The Fast Saga. #thebusterbroughtmeback

Finally, we shift gears and get into Onibaba, the 1964 film by Shindo Kaneto, a masterful, spellbinding, creepy, sensual samurai-adjacent film with a questionable/silly tagline: The most daring film import ever...from Japan! We talk the story, the cast, quote and trivia.

Next week we go full-blown Rza with his film score and cameo in the Jim Jarmusch-directed Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai.

SONG CREDITS:
Theme music: "70s Funk" by Frank Cogliano
Closing music: "This is My Jam" by Will Van De Crommert