Lifer Movies

Species IV: The Awakening

2011-12-12T18:39:00.000-08:00

Title: Species IV: The Awakening
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Sci-Fi, Horror, Action, Drama
Starring: Edy Arellano, Helena Mattsson, Marco Bacuzzi, Marlene Favela
Director: Nick Lyon

Call it my guilty pleasure if you will, particularly if you consider im rarely one to follow a series past the first couple of films, but I do hold a soft spot for this quadrilogy. The debut cult classic hitting all the right notes; a sexy and seductive alien wanting nothing more than to bed you and procreate the alien species. The sequel then delivers much the same, and quite frankly the less said about the atrocity that was the third the better, but this one seems to have snuck under the radar. Another episode in this gory sci fi flick about beautiful women wanting to sleep around. I mean surely for the premise alone most guys would be sold.

But as the films developed, they quickly realised they couldnt just rehash old concepts, and so returning to the tale years later we find ourselves not dealing with aliens but human-alien hybrids; their DNA mismatched leaving them with a terminal illness and personalities where both sides collide. A scientist, fully aware of one young woman's origins wishes for nothing more than to save her from the torment he's bestowed upon her, for inside her mind lies a dangerous killer instinct and whilst fighting her urges, its not just time until her demise shes racing against, but hordes of other hybrids lurking around every corner, just waiting to strike.

Its quite impressive how a simple horror premise can evolve into a concept that feels so much more developed, and 'species,' in all its low budget straight-to-dvd glory is a shining example of that. No longer is it so easy to define in a few words; the new script adding an altogether human aspect whilst never forgetting its origins, show some tits and then someone dies in a gruesome fashion (the tried and tested formula for all budget horror flicks). Though as with the rest of the series, there never does seem to be quite enough sex and violence to truly fill my cravings, but thats not to say they haven't used their time constructively.

Now i'd be lying if I said the acting was great, but Forbes plays a fun character and we have two young beauties to ogle, your preference depending on whether you prefer blondes or brunettes (gimme Azura, yum!). Its not the acting that makes this flick stand out but the script; it always seems to be moving, unveiling some new development whilst dealing with the tricky juggling act of all the different aspects. The time spent since the debut has also worked wonders for the special effects, never abandoning their minimal CGI origins but refining them and improving it to the extent that at times you'd forgive mistaking it for a major cinematic release, finally delivering on one scene that should have been shot years ago, no longer just having it as humans vs aliens but showing us an alien duel to the death. Yes its a budget flick, the dreaded final part to a series milked for too long, but i'll be damned if isn't the best one since the very first more than a decade ago.

Birdemic

2011-12-02T00:56:00.000-08:00

Title: Birdemic: Shock and Terror
Rating: 0.5/5
Genre: Action, Horror
Starring: Alan Bagh, Whitney Moore
Director: James Nguyen

“We'll need something to protect ourselves, here use these coat hangers” (despite the fact we have assault rifles lying around)

There are many people who would call themselves a fan of 'bad films,' and what they usually mean is a fan of films so bad they're amusing. Going into this film on the other hand, you don't need to prepare yourself for some chuckles as much as you do some fairly hefty masochism, as Birdemic tells two different stories. Sure, there's the core story of a budding young romance which turns into a nightmare when acid-pissing eagles begin to explode in their neighbourhood, attacking everyone for no apparent reason, but look beyond that and you'll something more. For in this day and age, anyone with the willpower and a little bit of money can make themselves a film, whether they should or not. I don't have a clue how to work many of the more detailed technical details; how to write computer graphics, construct mechanical props and effects, effectively work lighting or have any experience with sound control, but these little details don't stop everyone, as this director proves.

From a technical perspective, the flick looks like it was made in the 90s (it was actually released in 2010), except even in the 90s they knew how to do things like camera angles that don't bore the shit off you, maintaining a constant background noise rather than intermittently cutting in out and out of the sound of traffic and the like, or use special effects that – ironically – look about as good as it gets for a computer game back then. I will happily go on the record and say that these are probably the worst effects I have ever seen in a film, through all the no-budget trash make-up work, chicken suits and magical bullets, this one really takes the prize home with them. Apparently when asked why the eagles exploded, or why our heroes magically found themselves with machine guns, the director would just respond “cos its a movie!” In fact it's so awful, when the eagles doing the damage realise how shitty they look, they bugger off in shame and leave our heroes to survive. That's how bad they are.

The acting is stiff and wooden, and despite not being helped by the awkward pauses whilst the director switches camera angles, it also isn't helped that there is less talent on display than a secondary school drama class. When you could say with complete sincerity that you could probably do a better job than the lead actor, you know there's a serious problem. The dialogue fares little better with it at times coming across as a beginners foreign language, when you're first learning how to say things like your name, job and hobbies, which seeing as the director/writer is Vietnamese, and apparently vehemently against tampering with his script, might actually be the case! Even at its best it's so mind numbingly bad that it'll have you rolling your eyes at the screen, though on the plus side at least you aren't missing much visually in doing so.

The pacing and plot is drearily slow; what feels like an extensive opening scene of a man driving yields the title credits, looking slapped on using the free editor on a windows 95 with a plain white Time New Roman font, and we spend the first half of the film getting to know our two characters like a bad dating video. Except at least with a dating video they cut to the chase, rather than try to interest us in pointless and irrelevant scenes of you eating and working your boring ass job. Even when the action finally kicks in around the half way mark, he still finds the time to deliver extensive monologues about the hazards of global warming and the horrors of Iraq, delivered in such an obvious and poor way that I'd be far more inclined to start burning CO2 canisters on his doorstep just to see his reaction than make any positive change. The question that burned in the back of my mind going in was simple: is this the worst film ever made, and the answer is no; there is the occasional chuckle to be had amidst this hour and a half of torment, we are given a gorgeous female lead to look at, and it could serve as a useful instructional tool for film-makers wanting to know precisely how not not to make a film, ultimately giving it multiple uses. It may not be the worst, but that ain't through lack of trying.

Hanna

2011-11-30T09:50:00.000-08:00

Title:Hanna
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Action, Thriller, Mystery
Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Cate Blanchett, Eric Bana
Director: Joe Wright

Welcome to one of possibly the only mini reviews i'll write. Why mini you ask? Cos i'm on a motherfuckin' plane! No snakes though. Just grumpy turks. Probably for the best... And so even on my voyages abroad I cant help but be tantalised by this flick on the flight menu - you can take the reviewer away from his pc but you can't the...euhm, I guess I didn't think that one through, but you get the idea - that I have intended to watch for a long time but never got the chance. You see, this ain't our standard popcorn action flick or predictable thriller (ok, its a little predictable) but a tale of a young girl and her voyages into the world of assassins.

But before you get all 'leon' on me, hanna ain't quite done that way around. This isn't a girl entering the world of assassins as much as it is an assassin told to go play in the world once hidden from her. Wanted dead as a baby, she was rescued at the last minute by bond-a-like secret agent to be trained in the harsh winter wilderness to survive the onslaught of those who will do anything in their power to kill both her and her father. For absolutely no reason whatsoever. Zip. Nada. I mean, some vague hogwash reason at the end emerges but really all it does is make me wonder if they didn't try anything whether she wouldnt just grow up as a normal girl. I'm skirting around spoilers now so i'll stop, but suffice to say there are more than a couple of plot holes in this tale, and i'm not just referring to the ability to shoot a moose and rip out its intestines without spilling any blood, or the telekinetic arrow shooting that occurs towards the end. There are points that admittedly might have an explanation in the story somewhere which I missed, but it's all done in such a way as to never readily permit the viewer to know the explanation.

But i'm all for ignoring plot holes, and it's interesting how the rest of the film actually held up. Indeed, I remember it being billed largely as an action flick with some thriller elements tossed in. It seems odd then to say that this alone would have made for a pretty mediocre and uninteresting film. Instead it is Hanna herself that takes the main focus, the acting - and the abilities of our fresh-faced young starlet does surprisingly well at holding up her, rather significant, end of the film - combined with the direction capable of showing a character that is more than just a mindless machine but a young girl, and the humour in taking an assassin shielded from the world and slapping her in the middle of nowhere is not lost on the director.

There is a dramatic element as we come to not necessarily understand or empathise, but simply care for the well being of this young girl faced with an impossible situation. There are snippets of conversation about how shes never heard music or had a friend, drilling home what shes been forced to become as we try to get into her mindset. This is where the films finds its strength and where it finds itself standing out from the crowd. Even at 2 hours it never feels long, and could have easily benefitted from an extended run time, extending the action and further explaining the nuances of the plot. It's just a shame it never quite feels like everything it could have been.

Space Truckers

2011-11-09T23:36:00.000-08:00

Title: Space Truckers
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Sci-Fi, Adventure, Comedy
Starring: Dennis Hopper (Waterworld, Apocalypse Now), Stephen Dorff (Blade, Felon), Debi Mazar
Director: Stuart Gordon

“I emit a low amp electrical wang pulse, designed to drive women wild”

I'm sure everyone has some similar story to this, for this film has in a sense been on my 'to watch' list longer than any other. For some reason one of my memories as a young child involve this film, and more specifically not being able to watch it; my plucky young eight year old self spotting it in the video rental store and showing it to my father, grinning ear to ear only to hear those fateful words. “You're mother would kill me if I let you watch that.” Which on reflection is a little odd, seeing as I'd already skipped my Disney phase and moved onto classics such as “Die Hard” and “The Terminator,” and this is far more family friendly than a film about robots that take over the world. Hell, this is a film about transporting robots so they can take over the world, it's got nothing on the mayhem and violence shown there and instead feels closer to a 'spiritual predecessor' to Firefly in how it all plays out. You see, this really is just a down to earth, honest to god, simple film about a few truckers and their voyage to deliver their cargo from one place to another.

I mean sure, there's cyborg sex and crotch kicking action with the company top dog finding himself the butt of jokes told by none other than captain John Canyon (Hopper), one of the last independent truckers, delivering quip after quip to a viewing audience who quickly realises that even in the space-faring future one thing that'll never change is the decision by truckers to remove every 'optional extra' from their old truck to save money, but always make sure it's stocked with a plentiful supply of beer. The plucky young rookie in Mike (Dorff) acts as his counterpart, the 'heroic' character that as the captain is more than willing to point out, makes him a moron with a lot to learn about truckin,' and joining them all in their voyage to the stars is a young waitress beauty, Cindy (Mazar), who spends most her time in her underwear and is largely only with them because she lost a bet and now has to marry the captain. Accepting a cargo of sex dolls, it isn't too long before they discover that what they're really carrying ain't exactly all that sexy and would probably kill you for thinking about it.

Straddling the line between blockbuster and B-Movie – too well constructed effects for a B-Movie, but too cheesy for a blockbuster – it's budgetary concerns seem to very middle of the road. Stuart Gordon's flicks have hardly ever exactly been high-brow entertainment, and with the likes of Fortress and Re-Animator already under his belt it seems that he has no desire to change his ways; yes some of the mechanical effects look a bit campy and cheesy, yes much of it is overdone and the pacing is pretty intent on making sure even those with attention deficit disorders find themselves enthralled, but it was never intended to be complex. If you dissect all the plot holes, the fact that the robots have the same water cooling system that I have on my PC (seriously, it looks the EXACT same), or the decision to completely ignore the laws of gravity except when it suits him or makes for a cool effect, you'll be robbing the film of its fun, and that's all its intended to be. It's cheesy but ultimately such a fun ride that it's hard to really fault; fans of his previous work, or the similar cheesy works of “Demolition Man,” “Waterworld” or “Spaceballs,” will find this much to their liking.

Hot Blood Sundae

2011-11-07T23:48:00.000-08:00

Title: Hot Blood Sundae
Also Known As: Ice Scream: The ReMix
Rating: 2/5
Genre: Exploitation Horror/Comedy
Starring: Bobbi Billard, Akira Lane, Gelusa Zaripova
Director: John Darbonne

"I got the best broads; boobs... one on each side..."

“What sells better than sex,” the businessman utters, speaking the mind of the director responsible for delivering this cheap, low-budget schlock excuse for a horror film. It's evident from the very premise that you should expect this to be something of a theme, though I should warn you that it goes far beyond simply being an aspect of the plot; it's the main driving force for most of what is actually shot on film. For Ricky – our shop owner with daddy issues – is striving to make his ice cream venture a success when suddenly the idea hits him: sex. Taking his crew of buxom young beauties – actually just aspiring porn stars I believe – he delivers them their new uniforms to exploit their voluptuous curves. “But my boobs won't fit” one girl says. “Exactly” he replies. Suddenly business is booming with guys dropping their jaws as they ask for a sensual strawberry and watching them bend over to scoop it up for them. Adult themed ice cream; what could go wrong? Well, ignoring the fact that the idea would be retarded in real life.

Enter the problem; an ice cream obsessed ranting lunatic with no apparent motive in his string of violent ice cream related killings, one by one taking the lives of all those beauties and turning them into ice cream related goods. This is what I was here for, the sick and twisted gore hound in me wondering how many ways they could creatively kill using this theme, and the answer as I soon found out was “not many.” But at least there's still a comedy aspect, partly delivered in the cop taking home half their stock for 'evidence' but mostly landing squarely on the performance of the young deviant chef, crawling through the air conditioning to watch the girls get changed and delivering his lines in a manner that would have Jim Carrey suing him for trying to destroy his reputation, impersonating his early comedy work so completely and utterly hopelessly that once you realise what he was trying to do, and what it actually turns out as, it does become quite amusing. He may be the comic relief, but you'll be laughing at him and not with him.

I was hoping that this would do for ice scream what “Gutterballs” did for the bowling alley, but ultimately this feels like a poor excuse for a slasher; tossing in a cliché and predictable killer and unimaginative death scenes with badly used fake blood and only really one scene demonstrating any gore beyond the ol' bit o' red. Instead it feels like the director secretly wanted to make a softcore porn film but fearing reactions to it, tried to veil it thinly as 'something more,' tossing around the bare minimum so he could get on with slow-motion scenes of whipped cream fights so randomly placed that you'll wonder whether the director wanted you to scratch your head or masturbate. A good horror film this ain't, but comically there are a few laughs to be had. It's just a shame that when the sheer silliness of a ice cream killer sinks in, it doesn't really find any other ways to keep things going.

The Breed (2001)

2011-11-07T03:26:00.000-08:00

Title: The Breed (2001)
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Action, Crime, Mystery
Starring: Adrian Paul, Bokeem Woodbine, Bai Ling
Director: Michael Oblowitz

Ah the old classic crime format, taking two new cops with different attitudes to the job and slamming them together to watch the consequences as they hunt for the bad guy. Sometimes it ends up (trying to be) comical as in “Rush Hour,” and sometimes it ends up a cheese filled action classic like “Lethal Weapon.” Even rarer are the times it'll touch upon something great such as of “Se7en” or to a lesser extent “Training Day.” But this is a b-movie, so it will clearly need a far more obvious twist; here we have the big black arrogant cop partnered with the placid, cold and calculating officer, chalk and cheese, playing off one another and contrasting as the events unfold, their overt differences helping create the illusion that there are more detailed characters on display than there actually are. Oh, and the straight man also happens to be a vampire, along with the bastard their chasing.

I use the term vampire loosely, seeing as they've only taken a few of their traits; pale skin, strength, fangs, and in the case of the females, looking eternally hot in skimpy clothing, discarding the others as 'only in the movies.' Stakes do nothing, sunlight is a minor irritant – a fact only briefly mentioned in passing and then forgotten for the rest of the film - and they don't need to drink blood, having developed a synthetic one. Not abiding by half the rules is quite adventurous at the best of times, but here it does sound like a bit of a gyp eh? And speaking of eternally hot, Bai Ling makes her presence known, and given that shes developed such a reputation for flashing that it doesn't even register as news any more, it comes as no surprise that she once again fails to keep her clothes on, which despite her approaching her 40s in this flick isn't a bad thing (and how many women can you say that about?)

The black guy tries to play it with a brutish manner but just comes across like a dick without a dumb bro to fist bump. Instead it is the vampire that's oddly is more interesting, demonstrating that less can be more as when he delivers a line with emotion it becomes obvious his intention. But even then, the only one that actually seems to be worth a damn in this department is that very same seductress whose clothes just don't want to stay on, apparently spending the most time in the costume shop as they try to outfit her for something new in every scene she appears.

Despite these characters taking the forefront, there are a whole host of people in this oddball murder mystery; multiple suspects that never quite manages to have you question their every subtle move as with the best in the genre, but since this is only part of the films ambitious style it seems more pertinent that they quickly fill the audience in on the details, using clips of character profiles to deliver any relevant information. It's a practice I'd normally condemn, but given the cliché acting abilities of many of the minor characters and the difficulty in quickly conveying so many whilst still allowing the plot to move forward, it often made itself rather welcome.

And this is impressively where the film truly excels; the plot has been well constructed and put together, despite the issues in the dialogue, and the pacing is quick enough and often quite elaborate; characters often do have their own backgrounds and motives and never quite feel like mere cannon fodder, and when the political motives between humanity and their vampiric counterparts rise to the surface, both distrusting one another whilst spouting messages of peace, gradually it'll draw you into it's little slice of LA that it's created and show you how deep the rabbit hole truly goes. The action, too, is no slouch and is readily capable of drawing comparisons to films perhaps a couple of decades ago, back when they weren't so focussed on using CGI and more was done using stunts, and whilst there are times the budget makes itself known, the fact that it can stand beside them is more than impressive. Almost as impressive as the set designs, which never failed to be marvelously put together, varied in design and making use of the lighting to set the particular atmosphere, and with an adventurous number of locations well beyond the normal. This film ended up being surprisingly fun, doing what major releases attempt to do and doing it all with a limited budget. It certainly not without its flaws, but fans of the likes of the later Blade or Underworld films hankering for more could do well to track this one down.

Hyenas

2011-11-03T11:04:00.000-07:00

Title: Hyenas
Rating: 2/5
Genre: Horror
Starring: Christa Campbell, Rudolf Martin, Costas Mandylor
Director: Eric Weston

You've heard of werewolves and probably seen at least a few of the sub-genre of horror films, but this is one that decides to give it a twist; were-hyenas. Cackling laughing men and women who transform into bloodthirsty beasts leaving behind no trace of their victims, operating from the shadows of a forest in the middle of nowhere, hiding from their prey; a clan of manipulative maniacal beasts with no remorse, hunting down their food like the rabid animals they are, using anything they have at their disposal to give them the upper hand. Which in the case of women can involve making men go “ooh tits” and... eh you get the picture. Actually, come think of it it's not really much of a twist at all, taking the pack mentality illustrated in 'The Lost Boys' and simply replacing the stock footage and groundwork laid out for them in numerous other bad werewolf flicks with that of a hyena; some new CGI work and a different stock sound effect, used to great hilarity when they aren't actually in hyena form, and you're done.

There's little here that distinguishes it from the plethora of flicks of this style; some grizzly gory murders where the final scene of blood gore is left to the imagination, cutting away as the shit finally hits the fan and at best, perhaps just showing us the aftermath later on. There's an alpha female hyena with some frequent hints at nudity (tackling the dilemma of 'what happens to the clothes,' they strip before they transform) though never shown gratuitously, and all the transformations are done using rather generic looking cheap (it is low budget after all) CGI that's neither here nor there – neither laughably bad or resembling anything believable – being quite obviously done, and short of disguising it in the dark some more, could probably do little else with their budgetary constraints. It certainly could have benefited from raising the exploitation stakes, leaving in the gritty detail of the murders and adding more sleaze to the proceedings, for whilst a cheap trick to add interest, it rarely fails to actually make the proceedings more interesting.

There are some cheesy characters amidst the cliche ones; a gang feud between the Mexicans and the... well the dickheads basically (I'm not sure what else they're meant to be except perhaps some throwback to the 70s), and some occasional moments that will make you elicit a halfhearted 'heh' but there is only really one shining light in all this sea of mediocrity, and his name is Briggs. The narrator and lead character in this tale; he plays the role of 'crazy old black guy' to B-Movie perfection; the only man who believes in the existence of these beasts and delivering classic lines uttered by the minds of the audience (when asked why he hasn't gone to the police with his information, he just looks at the man doing the asking as though hes a moron and says 'cos they think I'm crazy'). In this mess of a plot, seeming to meander with pointless characters there only to fill time between (not actually showing us the) deaths, it is him that keeps it all on track, and he does a damn fine job of it.

Ah, crazy old black guys...

Darker Than Black

2011-10-31T06:19:00.000-07:00

Title: Darker Than Black
Rating: 3.5/5 (Kuro no Keiyakusha – 3.5/5 / Ryūsei no Gemini – 4/5)
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Starring: Hidenobu Kiuchi, Christopher Sabat, Jason Liebrecht
Director: Tensai Okamura
Language: Japanese
Duration: (25mins; Season 1: 25 Episodes; Season 2: 12 Episodes; OVA: 5 Episodes)

Looking over this in passing it looked a little like an anime version of the hit US TV show “Heroes,” probably not helped by the fact that it emerged just a year after its first season. The thing is, even though both dealt with the mysterious appearance of people with extraordinary abilities; flight, possession, control over the elements and so on; following a large number of characters coming to terms with their abilities and the ensuing reactions from the public, often kept in the dark as much as possible – though in this case little is known about them anyway – this is about as far from such a show as is possible. Rather than dealing with an overarching continuous story, driven by the characters, this makes gratuitous use of two-episode arcs to steadily explore this world that's been presented to us; this constant fascination with the fabricated world and how everything ties together the real hinge this tale relies upon.

And explaining how all this fits together is no mean feat, nothing is ever as simple as it first seems, but surrounding it all is Hells Gate. This is where everything truly began and the origins of the problems; an area that emerged in Tokyo that quickly had to be cordoned off for unknown reasons, and the subject of study for every nation on the planet. The world now lies divided, no nation quite trusting another in the sharing of any scrap of information they have regarding the mysterious Hell's Gate and the events that surround it. Only the mysterious 'Syndicate,' a global underground faction whose motives remain unknown even by those who work for them, and the members for 'Evening Primrose,' campaigning for fair treatment for contractors, hold activities within multiple nations, for with the Gate's arrival came more than just a mysterious location. The stars in the night sky are all fake, a shroud of bright lights each one corresponding to a “contractor:” an individual possessing an extraordinary ability, so named for the contract they make in using their ability; a compulsion to do something to appease their own mind.

This in itself lends a rather interesting dynamic to the contractors, supposedly without feelings of remorse or guilt, they are intended to make rational and ruthless killing machines, and yet somehow affections can develop over time; guilt can be made as part of their punishment, and due to their sociopathic nature they are only interested in self-preservation with little idea of loyalty, making them something of a loose cannon should a situation ever not favour them. The price they pay for their abilities can often be as high as varying degrees of self harm – persuasive enough to make anyone think twice about using their gift unless absolutely necessary – or as minor as simply eating or drinking something. But as we explore deeper into just what makes a contractor, it isn't long before we realise that they aren't the only 'new evolution' to have emerged; young children known as 'dolls,' completely without all emotion and capable of tapping into a specific element and using that same element all over the world to permit their spirit to arise and observe their surroundings; spirits that can only be seen by contractors. And then somewhere in this jigsaw puzzle of confusion are the moratorium; creatures that somehow fit between the two (though this is isolated entirely to one arc).

Despite this complexity that takes its time to become accustomed to, it rarely becomes overwhelming (except when we come to the finale for both seasons, when once more we are bombarded with vague information, skipping over critical points far quicker than we can take in, and making the whole process frustratingly and unnecessarily confusing), and it notably picks up the pace once there are fewer elements to try and adequately explain, but this most fascinating point to the entire series – this new world rife for exploration – never finds its way to the forefront, instead often merely using it as a simple backdrop to weave these multiple tales that 'just happen' to often include the same characters. There is rarely any details given about the mystery of the gate, making it little more than some poor excuse for an explanation for the changes that have occurred in the world, and some arcs barely feel as though they have anything to do with this new world at all, maybe vaguely making a point about some minor and almost trivial aspect rather than dive to the core of the story. There is the occasional mention of some catastrophe that occurred at “Heavens Gate,” but even this is never elaborated on. It seems they spent all this time creating an original idea to utilise and then never actually bothered to explore it, leaving it quickly feeling rather dissatisfying as you delve deeper and realise nothing new has come to light, and fails to do so until the final few episodes.

With the multiple plot arcs, it naturally occurs that some will be stronger than others,but it felt as though throughout the series there were multiple different writers responsible for their little bit, and they weren't all on the same page; the tone may suddenly shift to a fairly comedic plot, or a more dramatic and less action orientated arc, and this inconsistency never fails to make itself feel painfully apparent. In fact, for a show called “Darker than Black” it often has a decisively light tone, jovial even at times – particularly regarding the detective character – if not quite stretching as far to ever make it play out like a comedy. The one thing that does take precedence, however, is that there is always a long build up to the action; it can't simply cut right to the chase, as much of the interest arises from the multiple factions and how they collide, and even the members of these factions and their relationship to it. If you're looking for a rollercoaster ride of adrenaline filled sequences then you won't be getting your kicks here. It's far too heavily invested in trying to make this impossible situation seem possible; as if to say 'what if?' and then extrapolate plausible results. The contractors are far from invincible, some come in barely more powerful than anyone else, and using their powers intelligently often makes that critical difference in their overall success, and this often makes the combat when it does arrive all the more satisfying as a result.

The animation is for the most part done well, if not demonstrating anything that feels particularly special; the backgrounds rarely feel as though they could benefit from greater detail and the character animations have been well drawn out and feel incredibly distinctive, the quality consistent throughout (and not significantly declining towards the shows end as with some cases). What was done particularly well, however, was the work that went into the abilities and the strange phenomena that occur; the use of light and dark to set the atmosphere, the colour and the effects lending a strange mysterious allure and lending a relative sense of realism to it all. It never feels out of context with the generally serious nature of the show, or too focussed on style at the detriment of breaking the tone that's been created, which in a series where it takes such an important role is very much to its credit.

Many of the vast characters arrive but then leave all too quickly, and there are only a small minority of characters that are actually given the time to develop over the course of the show, with the vast multitude given very minor roles and often don't survive for all that long, and not all of these are particularly interesting to begin with. A large issue with this stems from the simple fact that so many of the characters – even one of the only 'human' characters – are specifically designed to be emotionally stunted. We rarely know what they're thinking let alone display any sense of emotion over the events that occur and this makes it incredibly difficult to truly engage or identify with any particular character, except in those minority of cases where they actually do manage to display some sense of emotion heightened above the normal and often only works simply by being unexpected, and ultimately can make things boring to watch when the story arc isn't up to scratch.

This would have worked far better as a singular long flowing story, or at the least increase the length of time devoted to each one – and indeed does, when you finally reach the second season which follows a singular arc and creates more character empathy in a fraction of the time, and that final five-episode arc of the first season where things finally become explained, both being amongst the series' highlights for it's depth of story and the pacing, even if it finishes in something of a cliché manner – with characters arriving and leaving; another 'Monster' or 'Ergo Proxy' to go along with the rather serious tone the series takes, slowly unfurling more information as it proceeds, but instead it seems as though it wasn't quite sure what it wanted to be. On the one hand, if one plot arc didn't work then it wouldn't drag on for too long, but it seems too complex and too detailed for that to really work; it's too intelligent to simply be a show to shut your mind off to for a while and enjoy, there's too much to think about. There are so many characters to be explored, their nuances and the psychological effect of being a contractor or a doll, not to mention the relationships they have to their organisation and with members of opposing factions. There was the promise of something grandiose and epic here; an entire world just begging for you to immerse yourself in. Why they squandered it all on mediocre stories about uninteresting characters that we'll never see again is simply beyond me.

Death Kappa

2011-10-21T07:06:00.000-07:00

Title: Death Kappa
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi (Comedy)
Starring: Daniel Aguilar Gutiérrez, Hideaki Anno, Shinji Higuchi
Director: Tomo'o Haraguchi
Language: Japanese

Someday, we'll be together, you and me
I'm wearing panties again today
The stars above are all lucky, happy
I'm going to end up putting our secret inside a treasure chest

Sometimes I wonder just how they manage to sell films like this to potential producers; whether they simply say 'It's about a Kappa that destroys stuff' and hope they don't ask for any further details, or if they have to ask them sit down and brace themselves whilst they explain exactly what they want this film to do. At least here they sold it to the right people; the producers who gave us 'Tokyo Gore Police' and 'Machine Girl' are on board, and that for me automatically seals the deal, I'm on board for the ride too. And this is one hell of a ride; this is the sort of B-Movie that makes Troma look like it's being serious; that harks back to Japan's glory days of Godzilla, mocking it as it proceeds. It's completely self aware and everything from the effects work to the choreography of the fights has been done to exemplify that, finding the humour in it all. They've succeeded in making this film thoroughly dreadful, cheapening everything to the point of no return and in exchange they've delivered upon one of the most hilarious films I've seen.

When a pop star realises she hasn't got any talent, she resolves to travel back home to her grandparents so as to look after them like they looked after her as a teenager. Unfortunately their reunion is cut short when a group of speeding teens run over her granny and drive off (don't worry, Kappa gets revenge for her); her final words? “Protect Kappa.” Cut to our mythical creatures specialist and we learn that a Kappa is a wrestling, cucumber loving, goblin/turtle who lives in lakes. And he just happens to love dancing to our protagonists brand of pop, much to the delight of our cute but completely insane scientist. Using her music against her to attempt to capture the Kappa for her research, first undergone by her now deceased grandfather, she sets to work fusing Kappa DNA with humans to create amphibious super soldiers. Well naturally this plan screws up so she detonates a nuclear warhead that must have misfired as all it did was create a monster that springs up to attack Tokyo Godzilla style. Who will save the country? Why that giant Kappa will of course!

Bear in mind that this is a film clocking in at less than 80 minutes and you'll see just how tight the pacing is here. It doesn't spend any longer than the absolute minimum explaining itself so it can get on with the parody, firing pun after pun within this joke of a film. The film is unquestionably divided between the two sections; the opening forty minutes a mini-film that alludes to the more modern brand of Japanese insanity; the 'Machine Girl,' 'Yakuza Weapon' and 'Robo-Geisha' style of insensibility full of obvious slapstick and oddball humour, which you'll either love or hate. It isn't until the second half of the film – or perhaps it would be more apt to call this the 'second film' – that the Godzilla parody gets under way, complete with super-lasers and the crackpot military cocking their heads back and laughing in the control room, plotting and scheming whilst the monster gets to business with wanton destruction. The fact that there are two sides will automatically make this a hard sell, the second half perhaps hitting it's mark more effectively due to the serious nature of the originals (albeit that's not how they're viewed now), but ultimately requiring prerequisite knowledge of two undeniably linked styles separated by time.

Usually when faced with a budget directors have to be a little clever; they use darkness and the shadows to disguise sub-par work, they leave as much as possible to the audience's imagination, using the power of suggestion to get into the audiences mind. Consider that at one point our Kappa and his monstrous foe start playing a game of volleyball; that the vehicles used are little more than remote controlled children's toys and you'll note that this director doesn't exactly follow this line of thought. Neither does he seem to like the idea of CGI, using rubber suits in a perfect homage to the flicks of the 70s – if it wasn't around 40 years ago, it won't be in this film. This is a flick that has so far been very poorly received and this seems to be on the fault of the audience; this isn't just a parody of the classics but destined to be a cult classic in its own right. It's cheap, nonsensical, batshit insane, and this is precisely why you should love it. Bring on the Blu-Ray!

Inseminoid

2011-10-21T02:34:00.000-07:00

Title: Inseminoid
Rating: 2.5/5
Genre: Sci-Fi/Horror
Starring: Robin Clarke, Jennifer Ashley, Stephanie Beacham
Director: Norman J. Warren

One of those classic films lost to the depths of time, 'Inseminoid' is one that has travelled to me through word of mouth; my old flat-mate having heard his friend talk of it after watching it late on the 'Horror Channel,' proceeding to buy it, watch it, and then tell me of it. With a name like this how could it be bad? Combining “Insemination” with the '-oid' prefix to denote precisely what this film is about. Let's be perfectly blunt about all this, Alien – a film about an alien pregnancy – came out in 1979. This – a film about an alien pregnancy – came out in 1981. A team travelling to an alien planet to discover what happened to their previous expedition ends in some mysterious events, like people going nuts and dying from being stabbed in the hand. And it isn't long before one of their number finds their way to getting themselves knocked up by their alien rapist, going nuts with the thought that she's now pregnant, having her mind controlled by the nipper in her womb and setting off to decimate the entire crew. No, it's not the American's trying to cash-in, the Turkish aren't back with their plagiaristic ways, this time, I'm almost sorry to say, the culprits were British.[1]

It also gives you a valuable insight into what might have happened if they chose a lesser artist to design the Alien; it might have looked like a wrinkly fat child with squinting bulbous eyes; maybe if it closed those eyes it'd look like a misshapen penis, but either way it's not all that frightening if I'm honest. There is, however, another critical difference between the way this plays out compared to Alien, a film I should point out that I was not a particular fan of. The reason Alien works for most (and not me) is that so much of it is all about creating the atmosphere for the ensuing chaos, slowly building up the tension until the denouement. If you don't feel this tension, it falls flat. The odds of these renegade Brits concocting something that works in such a manner is unlikely and they knew this going in, so instead they replaced it with plenty of violence to keep things moving. Our characters would divide repeatedly to try and tackle this beast of a woman until dividing meant they would fight her on their own, charging at her solo until finally the last man standing manages to dominate over her. Last man. He'd evidently learnt quickly from the mistakes of others that he'd have a far better chance of survival if he told the bitch to sit down and shut up.

It might not be outwardly misogynistic but there is certainly a clear theme running through the entirety of this film: women are useless. Firstly it's the woman who runs into an alien. That right there would have solved all the violence, but the film is riddled with examples; the strong and powerful woman who when she gets her foot caught and isn't smart enough to twist her foot out of the crevice, now faced with death due to freezing would attempt to cut her leg off despite cries of 'stupid woman, touch the red wire to the blue wire' over the intercom (to restart her suits heating), or the woman who tries to back up the doctor in trying to capture the now insane pregnant woman alive by wielding a futuristic welding device by burning a big hole in the good doctors back. Women aren't just useless in this film, they're a hindrance. It got so bad I wondered if there wasn't going to be some crazy twist where the real alien was all the women, and that the pregnant one was just really bad at being subtle.

It's taken me time to get my way to watching it, and I must admit I feel a little disappointed. Billed as 'one of the best bad films around,' it feels rather middle of the road; it's got a decent pace and some great action scenes where cast members are quite obviously hitting nothing, choreographed to B-Movie perfection. There are some memorable laugh out loud moments; when she gets artificially inseminated with boiled eggs sliding down some plastic tube is an obvious one, but it doesn't quite make it to B-Movie glory. For all these moments of hilarity there are times when it doesn't pan out; it's never quite dreadful but neither is it compelling. It just contently sits in between the two; between trying to be more than it's capable of being and being hilariously bad. The effects are budget yet the blood and gore is used effectively, but the script at times feels written by a child; there is a wise move to have much of the story not include our aliens at all, so as to save on costs, which becomes a major disappointment when you realise how hilarious it could have been if it was about these wrinkly little Asian scrotums doing the massacring. It won't have you on the edge of your seat but won't send you to sleep either, it's a B-Movie that's fine if you want to shut down your brain but don't go expecting much more.

[1] I have done some digging into this, as it seems the time difference is very narrow for a film project to get underway. By the time Alien was released, Inseminoid had already been planned and was to get underway with shooting shortly later. Even 20th Century Fox who produced the original Alien denied the correlation and wished the team all the best with its release. It would seem the plot similarity is a freak coincidence, perhaps played upon slightly during the final moments with last minute changes - source

Jennifer's Body

2011-10-18T00:09:00.000-07:00

Title: Jennifer's Body
Rating: 2/5
Genre: Horror (Comedy)
Starring: Amanda Seyfried, Megan Fox
Director: Karyn Kusama

A film I've meant to look into for a while, Jennifer's Body is undoubtedly a bad film, but it's a special kind of bad film. It's not just a “B-Movie with a budget,” it's one designed to exploit a young starlet – in this case Megan Fox – and laugh at her endlessly as they ask her to actually act and not just stand next to something and bend over whilst a CGI explosion happens in the background. It's an exploitation piece of a different variety; a cruel and elaborate practical joke to be played on her for the whole world to see, the likes of which I haven't seen since someone asked Paris Hilton to make a slasher flick (I am of course referring to “House of Wax,” which got publicity just because people got to see her die). Unfortunately I really should have looked at this a little closer, because whilst the writer seems to realise what a joke looks like, the director – whose last great accomplishment was the atrocity of “Aeon Flux” – doesn't seem to have got the memo. What should have been a special kind of bad instead is just a special kind of awful.

Even the plot is fundamentally, if not flawed then merely retarded. Set in a backwards town called devils kettle, A girl, after learning a band want to rape her, willingly goes off with them in their van to the middle of nowhere, whilst her best friend does nothing, and you know what they do? Possess her with a demon. Well, there might have been some gang rape in there too but mostly just possession. Then the fact that the only girl one stroke shy of cackling at the horrific murders that take place never comes under suspicion just seems silly. She actually comes right out and says it and nobody bats an eyelid, though at least finally our lead thinks something might be up. So much of the film from here on out seems to revolve around Jennifer, her possession, and as the name suggests, her body. Slowly it will build up to a little gore – nothing really special mind – all the whilst she performs minor stripteases that never actually show a damn thing. A B-movie horror that hints at nudity and then snatches it away again? That's just plain wrong, but an entire film revolving around a woman's cleavage without payoff is simply taking it too far.

The sound should bear the brunt of my criticism and I sincerely hope whoever was responsible here was fired and gets a job flipping burgers. Just not my burgers, because he'd probably screw that up too. It was so badly done I thought my sound system was to blame, and after 30 minutes of fiddling I realised that no, it really does sound that muddy, as though portions were recorded using a Dictaphone. After wondering if it was the DVD in my possession, I downloaded another copy, and no, it really is the film. If the sound is bad enough that I can't believe it, then it's pretty freakin' bad. The cast will so often mumble incomprehensibly, perhaps as was demanded by the script, and you wont hear a good portion of whats said (I ended up turning on the subtitles!) Which is often for the best seeing as the dialogue is not just cheesy but disconnected, feeding lines to its cast a generation older than those they're playing by what sounds like that weird uncle everyone has in their family still 'trying to be hip' and be 'down with the kids.' [1]

There are non sequitur lines like 'teenage girl is hell,' 'you're so salty, like soy sauce' and 'he was thin and twisted, like a tree...' Nobody is likeable, our leads consist of a giggling popular whore and a nerd who wades in her wake of acceptance pretending to be like her, mimicking her, just so she can fit in. Characters are given hooks for hands for absolutely no reason, and there is constant talk of love between the nerd and her boyfriend, perhaps the only truly likeable character there is, but it's referred to in a way that makes you want to yell 'your playing a 16 year old! You know love like a hamster knows quantum physics!' There is of course nothing resembling intelligence, tension or atmosphere – though I do appreciate the look of some of the sets that were used – and much of the plot feels slow paced and unenthused, though I'm unsure where to place the blame for this.

In fact the list of stuff it has going for it is pretty thin; the two leads are at the very least attractive, Seyfried holds up her end of the acting with at least some success, actually displaying emotions in a way that doesn't end up in a mental guessing game (plus Megan Fox makes her look REALLY good in this by comparison). Some of the effects, notably the character make up during the horror sequences, is also done fairly well but there's so much emphasis on the CGI; vomiting what looks like crude oil exorcist style and gratuitous displays of 'look I can heal myself' that make absolutely no sense, and this sort of pointless effects work happens a few times, but ultimately it all could have been a lot worse. It does succeed in showing the world what we already knew: that Megan Fox is a talentless bimbo, it exploits her successfully and throws in a couple of jokes but it's brought down by a plot that's just a touch too retarded, and technical issues that should never see its way to a film, especially in the age of digital recording.

[1] That's get down with the kids. Not go down on the kids. You're sick.
[2] Doesn't Megan Fox look like Eliza Dushku in the above photo?

Starship Troopers 3: Marauder

2011-10-15T03:32:00.000-07:00

Title: Starship Troopers 3: Marauder
Rating: 3/5
Genre: Sci-Fi/Action
Starring: Casper Van Dien, Jolene Blalock, Stephen Hogan
Director: Edward Neumeier

And so we come to the last film in my marathon, spurred on by the news of a fourth film in the making, and the one that most will have never seen after the atrocities committed by the first sequel, when in truth this is a budget offering that feels like an actual sequel as opposed to a film with only some vague connection to the original. In fact, you could skip over the second in this trilogy and not suffer for it; no information is gleaned there that is required here. But of course as a straight-to-DVD budget offering, expectations shouldn't be kept too high; the CGI still at times looks fairly atrocious – though certainly nothing on the scale of the last – and the acting is nothing to be impressed by, but it's commendable that despite all the limitations imposed upon the director (also the writer for the trilogy) he still seems to want to do everything in his power to continue in the manner of the original, and not just by welcoming back the return of our hero from the first, now a colonel responsible for a forward base deep in enemy territory.

Going into too much detail would be ridding this film of one of its greater strengths, as like the original the pacing is lightning fast and doesn't always indicate the direction it's to take. It's a film about war after all, and not as simple as a singular mission to be focussed on, instead taking a broader view of the strategies being employed by both sides, as well as the political agenda of those in positions of power – and the corruption at such heights – and how this effects the soldiers fighting, often unjustly punished for their conduct despite impossible situations. There aren't the same scale battles that occur, and the action doesn't occur with the same frequency, but there is constantly the threat of attack providing a sense of tension, and when the war finally does spill out there's no shying of violence; decapitations and budget gore will fill the screen and remind you that war ain't no picnic, especially when the enemy walks on organic knives and has evolved into grenades and flamethrowers.

There is again this socio-political satirical element running underneath all the events that occur, making it far more intelligent than your average B-Movie. This time the message is focussed on the corruption of those in power, often abusing their power for their own agenda and to further their own careers, manipulating the media and only permitting information of their choosing to reach the ears of the general populace, silencing all who oppose the martial law and absolute authority the military holds. There is also a statement about the mixing of religion and authority and the potential dangers of doing so, but the message here seems somewhat vague and not fully realised. On the one hand he uses obvious religious imagery to show how faith can be a source of hope and courage whilst on the other vilifying it as a hazard blinding your otherwise rational judgement, using faith as a justification for actions that puts the lives of those surrounding you in jeopardy, and how it's not through the action of God that humanity perseveres but through the actions of the military, mistaken as divine intervention. The final scene demonstrates this purpose perfectly; a scene of a couple kissing to the destruction of an entire planet; a belief in our own superiority granting us the power of God to condemn and punish at whim. It's not all perfect, but given the constraints given to them I'd be hard pushed to expect much more.

Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation

2011-10-15T03:26:00.000-07:00

Title: Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation
Rating: 1.5/5
Genre: Sci-Fi, Action, Horror
Starring: Billy Brown, Richard Burgi, Kelly Carlson
Director: Phil Tippett

Just as monumental as the debut was, this is a sequel that too should go in the history books for it is no less worthy of being remembered. Never before has such a film managed to be so successful; so incredibly capable of demonstrating the value of a director in a piece of cinema, as I struggle to think of a single sequel that traverses between 'masterpiece' and 'foetid pile of shit' with such speed. There is always the usual problem of 'sequel syndrome,' very few actually living up to their originals but made anyway as a cheap cash in, but here they've really outdone themselves. The director has jumped ship, the funding has been slashed horrifically, and of the original cast we are left with precisely nobody. About the only person who didn't take one look at this project and tell them where they could shove it was the writer, presumably because he had written a good portion of the script already and wanted to get paid, but if it wasn't bad enough that the director wrecks the credibility of one film - apparently not having the faintest idea what it was about - did he have to rip off others in the process?

What you think might take precedence in this film – the war against the bugs – doesn't really, as instead we find ourselves battling a new kind of bug, one that gets into your brain and whilst your body slowly rots away. Rather than feel like an action flick, it feels like they took the basic concept of 'The Thing' and then told you the answer to who it really is less than half an hour before the concept is introduced, and they don't exactly make it difficult for you to guess earlier (could it by any chance be the random people who have been stranded on the planet for months that you found and decided to help?). And then there's that token pretty actress fitting to the first film, hired for her appearance, and boy do they use it. To rip off 'Species,' which wasn't the greatest of films to begin with, though far more entertaining than this exercise in futility, and because clearly every military jarhead has absolutely nothing against fucking everything in sight like a wild dog in heat, and only a true hero of the federation could resist the wiles of a blonde who forgot to put on any clothes.

Yes there is still technically the threat out there, threatening to get inside the base our meat finds itself shacked up inside after landing on a planet that – surprise surprise – can't be conquered with a couple of dozen men, but after taking one glance at the awful use of CGI, failed to be disguised by making everything too dark to properly make out the casts faces, I’m rather glad they decided to try to avoid as much bug special effects as possible and focus on the gore. The glorious B-Movie slasher gore, and one of the few things that wasn't awful, because this film has an incredible shortfall of things going for it; the military decisions are often moronic at best, defying basic common sense (the warriors from “300” were smarter, and that's saying something); all that socio-political commentary has gone out the window (with the exception of maybe 15 seconds at the end deifying a murderer as a hero once he died as a means to entice new recruits); at no point do you actually care for any of the characters unless its to laugh at their ridiculous names (Pvt. Soda anyone? Pvt. Brick?). I wasn't expecting it to live up to its legacy, I was just hoping for some good action sequences and it couldn't even deliver on that meagre request.

Starship Troopers

2011-10-14T17:57:00.000-07:00

Title: Starship Troopers
Rating: 4.5/5
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi
Starring: Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards, Dina Meyer
Director: Paul Verhoeven

There's a joke amongst Neil Patrick-Harris fans that everything he touches turns to gold, and having only seen him with prominent roles in “Dr. Horrible” and “How I Met Your Mother” - the best part of a show often referred to as 'the next “Friends”' - I can't say that it's entirely unfounded. And years since the first time I was mesmerised by this classic tale of bugsploitation, I realise that here too, has had a touch of the man's ability, and even though his role is trivial at best, it again manages to find itself as being an achievement of incredible proportions. There aren't many sci-fi films that manage to find themselves with a half decent budget, and this isn't a director exactly known for this genre of film, yet he never seems to be one to rush into things. There are many faces you'll recognise from later films hidden here; Amy Smart, Denise Richards, as well as the likes of Michael Ironside and others who would go on to moderate success in lower budget affairs, showing careful consideration of the casting, and if you think the plot is going to be any different then you'd be wrong.

It feels as though it's been written, cut, extended, shortened, fixed, modified, and everything else in between to portray the tale of these young recruits throughout their time in the academy right until they find themselves as the veterans. From their completion of their high school lives to the recruiting station and the brutality of a militaristically governed boot camp, and then onwards to the war itself, making the violence preceding it child's play compared to what the enemy will do to you. Throughout all the conquest it never fails to provide plenty of gore, steadily upping the ante at every turn; what starts as a perhaps slightly slow introduction introduces you perfectly to the attitudes and life of modern society, slowly increasing your tolerance for the bloodshed, gradually building ever higher to new climactic conclusions. Boring is not a word in this films vocabulary, and holds a lightning fast pace that still manages to summon strong feelings for the many characters at hand, each with their own personality and sense of patriotism that has you rooting for each and every one of them, beginning to end, in their battle against this deadly enemy.

Fourteen years old is this film now, and yet still so mesmerising is the world that's created; the bugs carefully created through use of CGI and mechanical props and the hostile environment that never for a moment feels anything but alien territory; drawing from his own military experience he summons scenes of the dark aftermath of battle all too easily forgotten in war films, demonstrates both the bad and the heroic sides of his protagonists, the mistakes that can be made and the brief respite one might receive during times of war. It isn't all sunshine and glory in times like these; friends die and become mutilated, torture becomes an all too horrifying reality, limbs get blown off, personal relationships cloud otherwise rational judgement, people receive promotions when their superior dies before their very eyes, and the differences between those in charge and those who are left to do the dirty work take centre stage. And all these elements are what make this a good action film, immersing you in an experience that doesn't ever feel a million miles away from plausibility, but it's what he does on top of all this that makes it great.

Running throughout the entire film is a socio-political message that is made at times so painfully obvious that it borders on satire, and if it had been made today would be hailed as a plausible future for the US, but given that this film precedes the Afghanistan war, it seems downright visionary. During this slow build up he gives us all the information to piece together precisely what has happened to the country over the years; fear of the enemy has resulted in prejudice and animosity for their entire race – if perhaps not entirely unfounded and not understandable – but from this fear leads a hand over of all governmental decisions to the military, for it is the militaristic capabilities that will save our planet. Veterans – or “citizens” – are more than just respected but given special treatment, they're allowed to go into politics, they are allowed to have children, and they are allowed to vote; they become a member of society and not a mere tourist – or “civilian” – of it, and all this gives ample reasoning to sign up for the two year tour required to earn your worth. The best and the brightest in the country in positions of importance, and plenty of fresh meat for the slaughter in the infantry, and he doesn't just leave it at that either.

The result of this absolute martial law infiltrating into the school system; children shown assault rifles by smiling veterans and a derisive hatred for all insect creatures drilled into them from an early age begins the slow cycle of indoctrination into the military regime. The trickle of information from the top never quite reaches the bottom rung resulting in suicide missions that aren't voluntary, the training is always painfully short and entire platoons of men get wiped out in an instant simply because most of them aren't close to being prepared for the horrors of war to befall them, jumping into battle gung-ho believing themselves to be some sort of hero and dying shortly afterwards, spurred on by their hatred for the actions of the enemy in destroying Buenos Aires – did someone say 9/11? Military intelligence constantly underestimating or misunderstanding the enemy simply through arrogance or lack of trying – the hunt for WMDs in Iraq anyone? – resulting in the further massacre of thousands of lives. There is no sugar coating the truth for those looking for it, and when you realise how he equates the middle east as no more than grotesque bugs to be stomped on in the eyes of the modern American, everything takes on a whole new darkness; the moments of triumph turns to disgust as you realise precisely what is happening: we are the barbaric invaders and the instigators of war, and through our own arrogance we believe ourselves somehow superior.

But sadly it isn't quite flawless. The chiselled jaw of our hero and the drop dead gorgeous looks of our heroine whilst perfectly in line with the caricature of the stereotypical vision of “American” citizens, feel chosen for their appearance and not their acting capabilities. Through the script we develop a sense of empathy and attachment to at least the male in this scenario, but given the amount of screen time he receives is not much of a complement and certainly isn't due in any way to his acting capabilities, which are at times non-existent; fine if this was a by the numbers action film, but it isn't. Some of the lines which become repeated are understandable – words spoken by superior officers repeated by those who find themselves in their shoes by the films end to demonstrate the cyclical nature of the military – are rather cheesy and whilst memorable, aren't so for a good reason. There is also the fact that he has apparently used the name of the book on which this is based and twisted it's meaning entirely, if not completely convincingly, certainly soiling the original thoughts running through the novel. But all this is ultimately splitting hairs; if you want a popcorn flick to mindlessly watch and shut your brain off to, this fares as one of the best. If you want something with a little more intelligence to it, well this does that too. In fact, Starship Troopers is probably one of the best Sci-Fi flicks to have ever been made.

Free Jimmy

2011-10-05T18:07:00.000-07:00

Title: Free Jimmy
Rating: 2.5/5
Genre: Animation, Comedy
Starring: Woody Harrelson, Simon Pegg
Director: Christopher Nielsen

Four stoners, five vegans, three mobsters, four hunters and a million reasons to free one junkie elephant.

Sometimes, even when a film succeeds in getting on board a whole host of stars, a film just doesn't seem able to get it's foot in the door; Free Jimmy tells the tragic tale filled with heartache, tragedy, hope, and a whole lot of drugs. This is one animated film that won't be accepted by the family friendly Pixar or Dreamworks industry; in fact they had to travel all the way to Norway to find a company with a sense of humour strong enough to tackle this material. When three stoners agree to join their old buddy in working at a dodgy Russian circus, what they didn't expect was Jimmy; an elephant addicted to crack, who in true style soon escapes from his incompetent captors. Onwards ensues their quest to save Jimmy, but they aren't the only ones with him in their sights; the Lappish mafia, a troupe of Scottish hunters and an extremist animal liberation movement all have their own reasons for wanting him.

The CGI work is obviously an important aspect of an all-CGI film, and whilst I usually try to look past any budget offerings – as this one immediately becomes apparent that it is – but it really is poor, and every so often the shoddy work will detract from the story being told. Which isn't to say that it's impossible to look past it for the majority of the films short run-time, but takes a few moments to become accustomed to the manner the characters move and look; the stoners aren't squeaky clean by any stretch of the imagination, and the rest move with such a lack of realism; such a rubbery manner of motion bouncing around that it at times that it brings to mind “Team America” (and not in a good way), and it doesn't seem to be done for comic effect. I remember watching this before and seemed to have fond enough memories of it, but sadly it doesn't quite work; there are so many groups of characters you'd have loved to see collide but it never really happens. There's enough of them that few really get fleshed out, with the possible exception of a handful who feel like they're the driving force for their troupe.

In fact, for a film with so much apparently occurring; so many different motives for wanting the elephant, not to mention the elephants journey himself, it often surprisingly feels somewhat slow-paced. It keeps moving but it never seems to pick up the pace from the introduction as with most films; we spend so little time with so few characters that we never really get to grips with their motivation in all the chaos, and yet spend so long in trying to move the plot forward that this comedy forgets to put in the punchlines for many of the jokes. In fact the saving grace doesn't come from the comedy at all, but rather from the elephant itself and the little time spent on his struggle with the addiction, somehow taking a break from all the anarchy going on before it to deliver on a silent yet engaging emerging friendship between Jimmy and a moose. It all sounds like such a perfect combination of elements to let the laughs roll – and there is indeed a Norwegian version of this film, using a Norwegian cast and different dialogue which might fare better – but after watching this film for the second time, I can't help but wonder what on earth I saw in it the first time around.

Vahsi Kan (aka Turkish First Blood)

2011-09-25T14:17:00.000-07:00

Title: Vahsi Kan
Also Known As: Turkish First Blood
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Action (Comedy)
Starring: Cüneyt Arkin
Director: Çetin Inanç
Language: Turkish

I'm probably grossly misrepresenting the state of the Turkish film industry with what is now my second Turkish film I've seen, starring the same batshit insane karate king – and fast becoming one of my favourite action stars – and the director who proved that in 'Turkish Star Wars' he didn't have any problems stealing entire plots, soundtracks and footage from other films if it helped him keep his budget down a bit. Well he's back again, and whilst he may not outright steal footage from other directors this time around, this film is known as 'Turkish First Blood' for damn good reason, lifting almost in its entirety the plot from the first Rambo film, right down to the tiniest detail. Even specific memorable lines have been pilfered for this unofficial re-make, cut down to a 70min run time but removing most of what actually explains the plot, I guess assuming everyone had seen the original anyway making actually explaining himself a little redundant.

But either way, that's not important. Nobody watched Rambo for the plot details, they watched it for the action, so let me tell you just how hardcore Turkish Rambo is. Turkish Rambo is so hardcore he'll kick you in the crotch as hard as he can and if he thinks he can get away with it, kick you again when your down for a laugh. TR is so hardcore he'll stand over you with his machete just long enough for you to realise how fucked you are before stabbing you in the face. TR is so hardcore he'll slice his own skin off, just 'cos he can. TR is so hardcore he spends his free time skewering animals and eating them raw, not because he can't make a fire, just because he's hardcore like that. TR is so hardcore that bullets and boulders that would make mincemeat of a mere mortal bounce off him like they never were there to begin with. TR is so hardcore that if you're hot, he might save you, but only if you bathe in front of him first and then agree to wear a skimpy bikini begging your boobs to bounce out. TR is so hardcore he'll kill a bunch of teens for their backpack of food because the fussy bitch on the brink of starvation still refuses to give up vegetarianism.

This is the kind of film that would make Stallone go on a real Rambo rampage if he ever was forced to sit down and watch it, such is the level of the shoddy acting. Nothing makes any sense, traps spring from nowhere and the editing is laughably bad. And this is precisely why you should want to watch this film; it's that kind of 'bad' film that also happens to be unbelievably hilarious to watch. The dodgy sound effects alone will elicit a few chuckles, the use of camera angles (one driving scene poignantly places a camera between the womans legs!) and the occasionally bizarre nonsensical plot (watch out for the zombies!) just put the icing on the cake. It may not be quite as batshit insane as Turkish Star Wars, but at just over an hour long, it's still ram packed with more belly laughs than any comedy I've seen. Having seen the original is mandatory, but if you satisfy that condition then there's no reason more people shouldn't bear witness to just how bad a film can be.

Control Factor

2011-09-25T09:36:00.000-07:00

Title: Control Factor
Rating: 2.5/5
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Starring: Adam Baldwin, Elizabeth Berkley, Tony Todd
Director: Nelson McCormick

Well it's time for some good ol' fashioned SyFy cheese, and with three notable stars present this is one that could easily be one of the better releases; possibly the only Baldwin not related to Alec, and of Firefly/Serenity fame, that chick from Saved by the Bell (and Showgirls, a film I bet she rather hoped everyone would forget) and Tony Todd, the poor man's “Samuel L. Jackson” who has been in more films than I can count, ranging from the respectable to the... well to regularly appearing in SyFy flicks which says it all really. But no amount of acting talent – and certainly at least the two males in this flick held up their end as well as we could hope for – can compensate for the problems if the direction and script isn't up to scratch.

What starts as an ordinary day at the office for John Bishop quickly ends in a nightmare when a rogue gunman barges in laying waste to all that surrounds him demanding to see him, saying he is 'sparing him the horror,' being killed before he could complete his assassination objective. Taking a couple of days off to recover, suspicious happenings start to occur; voices in his head keep telling him to kill his wife, police detectives seem to die before his very eyes, and he seems to be constantly followed by mysterious men. Is he just acting paranoid? Just post-traumatic stress related to the incident? Was Trevor Constantine, his assailant, just crazy or was he genuinely trying to protect him from some unknown force? As he digs deeper into the strange occurrences, he soon uncovers a plot far more sinister than he could have imagined.

If you've seen anything of the sort before, the kind of conspiracy film where it will try to literally twist every obvious snippet of information and turn into something else, literally making it so 'everything is out to get you,' then it isn't long before every damn big twist that's meant to shock you comes as a slap in the face. It's shamelessly stolen elements from “Enemy at the State” and “The Matrix,” both examples of films that actually did the genre well, to transform would could have been tense into yawn-worthy. It's just unoriginal and too damn predictable, and the usual tactic with budget flicks isn't present here; the idea that if you can't do something original, do something cheesy, bloody, gory, and with plenty of hilarious effects. But the problems with the script doesn't end here, it seems to deliberately make things deliberately difficult for our lead actor, randomly shoving into their brains things like the 'emotions of a teenage meth addict.' Well bugger me if that ain't a complex range of emotions to slap into someone’s mind and ask them to act out in their current context. It's as though the director thought at the snap of his fingers the actor should instantly be able to morph his physicality into that of someone else entirely, but usually resulting in little more than excruciating and crippling neurological pain - I'd probably react in the same way if I was in his shoes - and it all might might have fared better if they limited it to one word emotions and not the entire complex emotional range of a stereotypical character.

Given the context of what this Baldwin was asked to accomplish, it's all he can do to try to keep up with just what his emotional response should be at any particular time, remembering what emotions they're bombarding him with at any particular moment, and despite this he still shines above the rest of the cast; Tony Todd only really has a limited acting range but he's entertaining to watch regardless of this, but Berkeley's only acting ability comes from having a complete lack of all emotion. She showed this in Showgirls as we saw the dead eyes of an actress realising where he career is heading and it's no different here, which presents a bit of a problem when we realise her role was actually to evoke some sort of emotional response from the audience. It could have quickly taken a nose dive into the territory inhabited by the abysmal, but fortunately it's saved at the last moment by a fast-paced script. It doesn't take long to kick off and rarely does it slow down, and whilst predictable, it is this pacing that prevents it from becoming outright boring.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

2011-09-22T09:19:00.000-07:00

Title: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Sci Fi/Action/Drama
Starring: James Franco, Andy Serkis, Freida Pinto
Director: Rupert Wyatt

So I know I'm late on this one, now on it's final theatre showing at my local cinema (but all that means is we get the place to ourselves), and whilst still adhering to a lot of classic Hollywood nuances that annoy me to no end, looked interesting enough to warrant a viewing. Firstly there's the fact that it's a prequel for a long loved and well respected film; a cash-in because Hollywood can't think of a new idea any more, albeit at least this isn't just another god-damn remake so it's scores points for not potentially destroying the memory of another classic. Then there's the small fact of the trailer, deliberately showing a high tension knife edge atmosphere and giving the strong impression that this is some sort of monkey equivalent of the Cold War. Except it's really not. For the first two acts there's next to no action whatsoever, having a far greater emphasis on the relationship between man and ape, slowly and subtly showing the cruelty in the world and building up the events and how this tragic situation comes to arise, and that's not all to its discredit.

There is gratuitous use of CGI and most of it has been done to great effect, enough money having been tossed into the works so as to certainly not make it detract from the end result, though there was certainly the sense in my mind that a number of scenes where we were not close up to the apes in question could have been done with far more effect using actual animals. Admittedly there were an awful lot of shots involving the detail on the faces of our oppressed ape brethren that would have been impossible to do otherwise, and others – namely the ending when it all finally kicks off, which if not impossible would have been a feat of enormous magnitude – but that does little to shake the feeling that it wasn't even considered as a possibility, and if there's one thing I can't stand it's the growing attitude that CGI is a quick fix for every problem.

But that said, the manner in which the apes were animated, with no lack of help from the script, is such that it humanises them to the point that we sympathise with them, grow fond of their individual characteristics; the bruiser in Buck, the gorilla, or the elderly looking Orangutan signing “apes are morons.” The acting is otherwise largely mediocre – though I quite liked LaBine and Hewlett in their minor roles, and then John Lithgow shines like a diamond in the rough as the protagonists father stricken with Alzheimers, proving once again why more people should be begging him to join their next project – with little sense of emotion coming through, but the relationships formed between the apes, and watching Caesar as he grows up is done with such success that it's hard not to be drawn in. And so when the uprising actually occurs, we don't find ourselves siding with our own species, nor is there even a balance between the sympathy factor because when you get down to it (with the exception of our lead, his partner and his father) everyone in the entire film is a bit of a dick. So who do we side for?

We side with the apes, the benevolent race that manages to show more compassion in sparing lives they could easily take, and offering their fellow warriors-at-arms to have the pleasure of killing that one dude who was a particular asshole towards them. On reflection I should have expected that they would try to simplify matters and create a clear cut good guy and bad guy scenario; either we were going to root for the humans to massacre the animals who use their intelligence to toy with us, or they were going to take the direction they ended up with, that the human race probably doesn't deserve to survive, but it's still an odd conflict of interests. You're sitting there cheering on the apes to bash someone's head in all the whilst conscious of the inevitable consequence that you're also rooting for them to slap a dog collar on you, prod you with a stick and yell at you to 'dance bitch.' It's like they're trying to evoke some sort of Stockholm Syndrome on the audience, striving to get them to root for their captors and develop an intimate bond with them and if that was genuinely their intention then they've done it quite successfully, but I'm still not sure I like it; it still feels a little disconcerting.

There are two sides to every coin and here it's no different; there's still the tired clichés and predictability working against them, but despite all this it's a joy to watch in action. The finalé is more than just a festival of explosions but well designed with the apes demonstrating their new found knowledge; the battle for superiority in the prison like sanctuary right up to the final fight for their freedom is carefully calculated, and with the gradual build up is given enough weight to actually evoke an emotional response. This film can't be the last in this franchise, the story barely feels as though it's begun; there is still a virus on the loose and you just know that the new home they've made for themselves won't remain untouched; super-smart apes just being left alone a short drive away from San Francisco? No, this is just the beginning; the introduction to the real battle for the planet to take place. A deadly virus is about about to become a global pandemic and the apes are now free. Tensions will rise and the stage has now been set. If this is what they accomplished with an introduction then what could the next film be capable of? If there isn't a sequel I’ll eat my hat.

Exte: Hair Extensions

2011-09-21T17:51:00.000-07:00

Title: Exte: Hair Extensions
Original Title: Ekusute
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Horror
Starring: Chiaki Kuriyama, Ren Osugi, Miku Satô
Director: Sion Sono
Language: Japanese

Capping my marathon of a man I've been intending to watch more of for far too long already comes the film I couldn't not end on; now getting sufficiently dark outside that the atmosphere for a horror film feels appropriate, and starring the ever-welcome presence of Chiaki Kuriyama whose work constantly seems to find itself in my collection (albeit most, if not all, pre-date this blog), this infamous film sounds like it just has to be a comedy. When hair extensions start terrorising a small town, it's all the police can do to track down the culprit; a deranged hair obsessed maniac who stole a body from the morgue for her beautiful hair which mysteriously seems to constantly grow. He soon realises that she isn't quite dead but her hair still lives on, angry over the brutal manner in which she was killed, re-living the experience in those that wear locks of her luscious hair for their own vanity and often killing them in the process. Of course nobody suspects a thing, because its fucking hair, and dead hair at that. But this is Sion Sono were dealing with here, and somehow he's managed to turn what should be a goofball parodical comedy, and indeed certainly does start out like one, into something else.

In fact, it's fairly impressive what he actually manages to accomplish with such a premise; there are a number of horror scenes that are surprisingly well done without merely relying on gratuitous bloodshed, quite possibly a first for this director who usually seems to have difficulty in making a film without at least a few pints thrown about at some point, and instead focusses far more on CGI and what can be accomplished with its usage. He's been fairly careful not to over do it here though; where ever possible in creating the backdrops or in many of the appropriate scenes he's spent the time and effort into utilising actual hair, monstrously devouring its victims, only relying on the CGI for when the hair takes on a genuine life of its own, rapidly growing or receding, or getting under the skin of our unwilling targets, striving to get under our own at the same time. This minimalist usage is more than just expected as the only feasible way to accomplish such tasks, but actually done well – something I say increasingly rarely as time goes by – and as a result is fairly successful in achieving its goal.

But if you read any of my other reviews for this director, you'll have noticed the recurrent theme of not being able to leave any genre film alone, incessantly dabbling in other outside influences and bringing them into his work, and here the situation is no different. There is some comic relief to the horror proceedings – though I should re-iterate that this is in no way a comedy – largely stemming from our hair obsessed maniac's antics, well utilised to lend some downtime from the at times rather heavy atmosphere, but it's really the dramatic side that lends this sense of overwhelming weightiness. When a stylist-in-training, Yuko, finds her niece farmed off to her for the weekend, it's all she can do to look after the child, but it soon becomes apparent that she gets abused at home leading to a confrontation with her sister, and a slow bond to develop between the two. There are mentions of Yuki's dark past, and the relationship between her and her sister never really gets thoroughly explored; outside of the joys of watching her and Mami, the abused child now under her care, there is also plenty of wiggle room to show the manner she gradually overcomes the consequences of her mistreatment and comes to trust the aunt now watching over her.

This aspect is still done remarkably well – in fact it was done better than the horror was, which is perhaps a little worrying – but it simply feels wasted, like there's really two entirely different films here that just happen to intersect in the final moments. As a preceding experiment for the masterpiece, “Love Exposure,” you can see him toning things back from this but rather than gently flow from style to style, this plot thread lasts for as long as the core story does, and with a two hour run time and no shortage of options for expanding on the side plot, I do wonder if they wouldn't fare better as shorter individual films. As it stands we get snapped out of the horror atmosphere and into a moving drama, only to be thrust back into the horror side of things and necessitating the build-up of the atmosphere all over again, and this is where the film ultimately falters. It's fairly tragic considering how well both aspects were done, but the two threads are both different enough and strong enough in their own right that simply slamming them together does not a masterpiece make.

Suicide Club (Suicide Circle)

2011-09-21T12:48:00.000-07:00

Title: Suicide Club (Suicide Circle)
Rating: 3/5
Genre: Crime, Drama, Horror
Starring: Ryo Ishibashi, Masatoshi Nagase, Mai Hosho
Director: Sion Sono
Language: Japanese

Continuing my day exploring the work of the man I currently consider the 'next Takeshi Miike' comes one of his earlier, and still best known works. Famous for it's opening, where we see a rather disconcerting and blood-laden scene of 54 happy go lucky high school girls, chatting, laughing, and jumping in front of trains. You heard me correctly; within in a few minutes you'll know precisely if you're too squeamish to deal with the contents of this low-budget flick – although the graphic scenes don't take precedence as in most horror films – as it treads its course of exploration of the little discussed subject. Following the police as they dig deeper into the mystery surrounding a suicide of this quantity and the ensuing chaos; copy cat 'clubs' following suit in this dangerous new fad sweeping the teens of city, obscuring the heart of the issue. Mysterious websites and elusive music allude to a darker and more serious matter; a hidden revelation that is causing otherwise mentally healthy citizens from all backgrounds want to end their own lives, and it's all the police can do to uncover it's true cause before it's too late.

Sadly, it simply isn't all that good. There's definitely a big dollop of many of Sono's trademarks, from the use of blood, humour, and the manner the film is presented – the use of timestamps and juxtaposing music for example – but he's come a long way as with this piece he doesn't quite manage to pull it all off. Rather than the comedy acting as a comic relief to lighten a harrowing atmosphere, it's used in the same manner as I would expect of many of the other horror comedies prevalent in Japan, and as such we instead tend to find ourselves waiting for the next splatstick punchline, particularly following such a shocking opening scene that sets the blacker than black comedy atmosphere, which sadly comes all too few and far between. There is a large cast that we never really get to know very well making any attempt to evoke sympathy for their situation fall completely flat, and ultimately our lead protagonist feels like it could have been just about anyone, so long as they succeed in actually getting us to the next plot point.

That said, in terms of content it's nothing if not ambitious. There's an underlying social commentary about this problem that is plaguing Japan; already holding one of the world's highest suicide rates, it's one that I find a fascinating subject ripe for exploration and yet I remain largely oblivious to (outside of the pressures of 'harakiri' that reputedly still exists to some degree); that these 'suicide circles' actually exist, discovering and finding each other online to create a pact that enables the bolstering of confidence for those who wish to end their lives but don't have the courage to go through with it alone. It's a subject I'd be eager to explore independently but information remains scarce outside of their native Japan, and one that this film seems to have little interest in really going into any notable depth with. Everything is of course fictitious, but the idea that a group of young teens can simply jump up and go “you know what would be fun? Lets all go kill ourselves,” whilst humorous, has no semblance of even attempting to explain a realistic possibility for the underlying problem that exists.

The 'mystery' element to the suicides can be simplified to discovering who, how, and why they are occurring; the 'who' is made blindingly obvious in the opening few minutes and borders on the frustrating as nobody else seems to figure it out until the end; the 'how' comes right at the end but largely just feels like semantics by this stage, and the 'why?' Well that I'm still puzzling over. A few cryptic clues get left during the films course, but even after they've tried spelling it out for me I can't piece it all together; it comes across as a poorly explained metaphysical concept that even children can understand and makes everyone want to kill themselves. Which on second thoughts, perhaps it's better than I didn't have more than a vague clue of what they're babbling about, but I still can't shake the nagging feeling they cut the final ten minutes off the film and slapped on some dancing pre-teens in their place, leaving me sitting there questioning whether that was really it. There are moments of genius slipped in all this blind ambition fumbling around in the dark, and this is unquestionably why the film has gained a cult following; die hard Sono fans will have watched this already, but the rest of you can probably find the best bits and save yourself from watching at least 80 minutes of this 90 minute film.

In fact, I've saved you the effort of searching.

Note: There is a little known sequel called "Noriko's Dinner Table" which apparently clears up some of the issues here, but that film will have to wait for another day.

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

So I decided to write up the main 'purpose' or 'cause' presented us by the film. Obviously this is a pretty major spoiler but there are few contextual references that might be lost on a non-western audience. The ultimate question given is “How is your connection to you?” This mindfuck of a grammatically incorrect statement does make a little bit of sense when it's explained a little more; essentially the point being made is that we have a emotional connection to those around us, and their loss affects us in a very real way; when someone dies, those connections between individuals still exist, but in our day to day lives we have a lack of empathy for others (as shown by the man and women who cut or take off their wedding rings), and are so devoid of emotion and focussed on trying to become emotionally involved in people through the internet or on TV (there is a VERY obsessive 'idol' scene in Japan). So the statement is quite literally saying how well do you feel you know and care about the real and tangible relationships in your life?

There are lots of imagery regarding animals; the chicks, the sequence where they 'break out the egg' covered in blood and the numerous animal tattoos; this all alludes to the Shintoist belief in reincarnation, which essentially gives the idea of suicide a new context; that death is really just the beginning of a new life. But this is the bit I have difficulty with; connecting this imagery to the notion of how well you know yourself. The idea is two-fold (or I'm misreading one idea); that we've become desensitised to the plight of others and by killing ourselves are reminding them that they should give a shit about other people, and in turn get reincarnated as a creature with a small brain capacity in the delusional belief that the animals give a shit. Tell that to the Honey Badger. Maybe I'm missing that final link. Maybe I'm over thinking it. Maybe the whole point was that kids think they'll be happier as a bird or a cat, oblivious to the fact they might end up a maggot in the ass of animal with poor rectal hygiene. I just don't get how one comes to the conclusion that because they're not constantly worrying about others that they should kill themselves, how does that solve anything?

Cold Fish

2011-09-21T08:31:00.000-07:00

Title: Cold Fish
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Dark Drama/Thriller
Starring: Denden, Mitsuru Fukikoshi
Director: Sion Sono
Language: Japanese

In case you missed my review of Sion Sono's “Love Exposure,” it was one of the greatest discoveries I made last year (and let's be honest, at four hours long I wouldn't blame you) and so when I heard news he was following up with a two and a half hour lesson in the tropical fish trade, based on a true story (albeit loosely), I knew I needed get my hands on it. When Mitsuko, the daughter of the mild mannered tropical fish store owner Nobuyuki Syamoto and his wife Taeko, is caught shoplifting, it is fellow – albeit far more successful – tropical fish store owner Yukio Murata that convinces the owner of the store being robbed to let her off, and quickly his forceful nature results in the two men carving an uneasy rapport. Quietly agreeing to let Mitsuko work at Yukio's shop, he soon finds discussions beginning to arise of him being invited to the business as a partner with him and his wife, Aiko, but it isn't long before the veil is lifted and Yukio's true nature is revealed. Selling fish off for an extortionate price and lying about their true value, anyone showing suspicion at his practices soon finding themselves being made 'invisible,' but now that Syamoto knows, is it already too late?

He seems to be developing a knack for creating something unconventional; the genuinely genre hopping Avant-Garde nature of his last offering and now something that seems to defy classification altogether; sort of a strange hybrid of the naturalistic and gore-tastic comedy moments derived from the Japanese Horror/Comedy scene, the slow descent into madness of Kubrick's “The Shining,” the gritty finalé of Trier's “Antichrist,” and yet in piecing together these specific elements together he forms more than simply a patchwork quilt of genres, flowing seamlessly to lend a film entirely unlike anything I else I could name. If there was, however, but one guarantee I could give you about this film, it's that you shouldn't go into this expecting some light viewing for this is not a popcorn flick; it might sound relatively simple but it's ultimately all down to what's being said and done, the necessity for coercion and confidence in business, of relationships and how they falter, and this is where the films beauty truly lies.

As we tread the depths of their lucrative business we become tangled in this spiders web of lies and deceit, never truly sure of who can be trusted. Everyone harbours a secret or two and yet remain unable to speak their mind, trapped in this world with Murata's faked smile lying in the middle of it all. It's complex with each character becoming more detailed as we are struck by a constant influx of information, better defining where they stand in the context of the film. It's such a simple plot but it's so immensely detailed that it never feels slow, using their relationships to explore the consequences of mental and physical abuse; of the dependency others have on one another, the responsibility that comes with that dependency and the benefits of holding complete trust in another along with the consequences of losing that trust; and ultimately the film focusses on the the ill fate of a man who never truly learned what it meant to be independent, for as depraved as Murata's mind may be there are still life lessons that can be learned from him.

But that's not to say that he doesn't know how to play his audience, and this spiralling overwhelming sense of depression could quickly become too overwhelming if not for the occasional comic relief; Murata's business partners' simple minded driver the most obvious example of this, often seen chuckling to himself or acting completely oblivious of the atrocities being committed before his eyes, or Murata and his wife as they joke about their latest victim whilst they butcher him in preparation for making him 'invisible.' The actor's involved never fail to do a remarkable job of the impossible script laid out before them, genuinely feeling as though they've stepped into the role they're intending to play and never as though they're unsure of their feelings in any of the difficult situations that arise. Despite how quickly characters come (and in some cases go) and situations can arise they always manage to give it a sense of grounding, tethering it to believability and lending much of the films eventual impact, and pivotal to it all is the magnificent performance of Murata himself who from the very outset draws our suspicion in his outward façade of boisterous upbeat energy.

It may not be a horror film but if you've seen anything else of Sion Sono's work you should prepare yourself for no shortage of blood; graphical images of dead bodies litter rooms, blood covering the walls like some sort of sadists artwork fantasy; rape becomes devalued as something that 'just happens,' and as we follow our protagonist through this maze where a wrong turn could mean you're next in the body bag he steadily ramps up the anté, building up elegantly to breaking point. It's graphic but never merely gratuitous, always serving a purpose in the context of the film. To call this 'dark' doesn't quite cut it; that final scene is so unflinching in its unwavering desires, that when it finally hits you just how successfully the viewer has been desensitized to the proceedings, it becomes so sickeningly difficult to watch and – much like the finalé for Takeshi Miike's “Audition” – his vision never flinches and the camera will never shy away. There is no happy ending to be found, only a sickening poetry; a cyclical ending that could easily just be another beginning in this depraved tale. Who knew the tropical fish trade could be so bloodthirsty?

Gutterballs

2011-09-15T21:38:00.000-07:00

Title: Gutterballs
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Horror/Comedy
Starring: Alastair Gamble, Mihola Terzic, Nathan Witte
Director: Ryan Nicholson

Continuing my days interest in B-Movies is a slasher constructed on a mere $250K that sets to take everything to a new extreme in every aspect imaginable. Whilst slasher's aren't usually my style of choice, this is one that I couldn't pass up the opportunity to see; is there nudity? You can bet your bare ass there's no shortage of that here; male? Female? Bloody? Clean? It's got the lot. Is there gore? At a kill every ten minutes, each more gory and inventive than the last, there sure as hell ain't no shortage of blood as victims are maimed, tortured, maimed a bit more, given a shiny wax coating and then put on show. And don't think it lets up on the swearing either, with a reputed 500+ f-bombs during the course of the film, that's an average of one swear word every 11 seconds, this is a film set out to offend in every way. Brace yourself for graphic depictions of rape, impromptu transvestite operations, and trust me when I tell you that you probably don't want to know half the uses they come up with for those bowling pins.

Set in a bowling alley, two rival teams are bowling against one another, but tensions run high. When a fight breaks out between the two groups, the owner throws them all out telling them to return after-hours tomorrow to play their match, but the four “jocks” decide to set out to get their revenge on the cause of the argument, Lisa, first. By gang-raping her. Soon ensues a massacre by the mysterious “BBK” as both sides fall prey to a foe who seems less intent on getting revenge as they are at simply killing everyone. The dialogue is largely pointless, the plot no more interesting than any other slasher – though there is some interesting use of the environment – and none of the characters in the entire film are even remotely likeable, which probably helps in the long run as it isn't long before you start cheering the anonymous BBK in his violent escapade. There are flaws in the humour which when not reliant on a gory slapstick tries for a “Porky's” sense of juvenility but at best succeeds in not being an annoyance, the level of angry swearing at one another quickly becoming grating, needing some filtering out from the viewers end to recognise the occasional snippet of actually interesting dialogue. But since when did anyone watch an exploitation flick for the plot?

You could easily mistake it for an 80s slasher, such is the way that the set is made to be so immersive, the classic rock soundtrack and cinematography immersing you in an experience torn straight from the Grindhouse era; the only two clear indicators of its true origins being the gratuitous content on a level unheard of at the time and the rather amusing Canadian accents (trust the canucks to do a US-style slasher well eh?). This film is nothing short of an exercise in bad taste, and is only for those who don't just need a 'strong stomach' to deal with such exploitative excesses but instead revel in them, laughing maniacally as they allow their inner sadist to take over. It's films like this that make me chuckle at those who thought the likes of 'Antichrist' was graphic. Give it 20 minutes. If you're enjoying yourself after the first use of a bowling pin, it'll only get better. If you're repulsed, you can rejoin the other 99% of humanity.

Plaguers

2011-09-15T17:44:00.000-07:00

Title: Plaguers
Rating: 3/5
Genre: Sci-Fi/Horror
Starring: Steve Railsback, Alexis Zibolis, Bobby James, Noelle Perris
Director: Brad Sykes

“In Space, Nothing Stay's Dead Forever”

It's a strange feeling when you realise your film watching mood is swinging towards the 'bad' category; is it some form of morbid curiosity at how bad a film really can be? Maybe a sort of challenge to succeed in making your way through from beginning to end? Certainly there is some love for the hilarity involved in the terrible acting and cheap special effects, but whatever the reason, in 'Plaguers' I thought I'd found a real corker. Whatever the name doesn't tell you, and the cliché cover image doesn't indicate, the first ten minutes or so of the film will; it's set in space, there are mutant zombies that want to tear you apart for no apparent reason, and apparently the future is largely populated by attractive women and lazy men who have difficulty keeping their dick in their pants (so no change there). But what you might easily miss at first glance is that actually, against all odds, it ain't half bad.

When a ship travelling back to Earth comes across a distress signal, they decide to board looking for survivors. Uncovering four scantily clad women, they do what any heterosexual males would do; invite them aboard, feed them, make them cry and then watch them sleep calling 'dibs' on which one you get to sleep with. Shame they're actually seductive space pirates, albeit perhaps not the most capable pirates, but it isn't long before they take the crew hostage and conquer the ship, discovering a mysterious alien green orb energy source. Taking a good sniff at the green ooze and shoving her pretty face a little too close to it, she soon mutates into a hideous – well, hideous from the neck up at least – mutant zombie, and soon the entire crew, along with the pirates, find themselves needing to work together in order to survive the new menace that threatens their lives.

There's no sex scene, which for a B-Movie (particularly one containing so many 'starlets' to be shamelessly exploited) almost seems like a critical element that's missing, but it never feels like it really needs one. It's pacing is quick enough that you aren't kept waiting too long for things to get interesting, and the cast are introduced quickly enough that you get a basic grasp of who they are and what their job is on the ship before boredom sets in. You've barely matched names to faces before the action gets under way with everything from nonsensical space babble, plot-holes, cat fights, mutant zombies chasing you like they want a hug, laughable CGI work and the mysterious green orb that looked like it was lifted from “Heavy Metal” to the point that I kept expecting it to suddenly start talking, telling people that it's name was Loc-Nar and that it was the sum of all evils.

The only sensible plot points come lifted from 'Alien' (albeit it should be pointed they are ultimately very different films), the acting comes in at about the same grade as that dodgy porno from the 70s with an opening line of “I'm the plumber, you called me about a hole you need to fill,” and the budget does nothing to help matters; the sets looking unanimous and uninspired, the CGI downright atrocious and only the make-up effects go half way to redeeming themselves. But the acting, despite being almost unanimously awful, still allows you to care for some of the characters; the good doctor who seems to have drawn inspiration from “Data,” from Star Trek and “Bishop” from Aliens and morphed them both into one comparatively well acted package, or Sadie the sadist, maliciously stabbing people and cackling in a manner that – acting or not – you can see is just enjoying her role and so you can't help but chuckle along with her. And that is the critical point in why this film works,; that the cast are clearly aware that they're making a bad film and rather than try to defy the odds and create something “good” from their budget, they're simply having fun with it all. This is precisely how B-Movies should be done, and so long as you don't go in expecting anything more than an hour and a half of campy, cheesy, gory fun, then Plaguers won't disappoint.

The Devil's Rock

2011-09-12T23:33:00.000-07:00

Title: The Devil's Rock
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Drama, Horror
Starring: Craig Hall, Matthew Sunderland, Gina Varela
Director: Paul Campion

The more low-budget films I watch – particularly horrors, though this could be simply because there seems to be so many of them being made these days – the more I seem to find evidence to support what is fast becoming my golden rule for the genre: Keep it simple stupid. The more complex a film on a tight budget tries to be, the more sets are needed, the more characters need to be properly introduced and the less detailed the outcome becomes. This flick, released just a couple of months ago from the small island nation of New Zealand, is about as simple as it comes with only one set, three characters, and a car-full of gory props that have gone into its making. And whilst it may carry a plot that is a far cry from anything original, it is in its dramatic execution that it finds it's strength, constantly providing a sense of claustrophobia in its surroundings, a sense of horror at the atrocities that have occurred there and a constant mental battle to deduce the motives of the characters.

Set just a day before the D-Day landings in Normandy, it is the task of our small New Zealand task force to eliminate the gun installation planted on a small island off the coast of Guernsey in the channel islands, hoping to distract the German forces from the real attack to come. It is to this island that sees our Captain Grogan discovering and infiltrating an underground bunker upon hearing the tortured cries of a woman held captive within it's dark depths, but inside is far more than he bargained for. As he bears witness to the death and chaos that surrounds him inside these walls, he discovers the last living German soldier inhabiting the island, Colonel Klaus Meyer, as well as the true nature of the work carried out at the installation. Dabbling in the occult, he has brought forth an entity from the bowels of hell intended as a weapon to be used in the war, and it is only through an uneasy alliance between the two that she can be banished back to whence she came.

As dark as the material might be, and as gory some of the props on display from the outset are shown to be, this is not your standard horror fare. It's neither psychological in its nature nor are there many sequences of action; its dark, dramatic and crawls along at a slow pace, carefully making the smallest of details significant as we question the characters, constantly left curious as to what will happen next. A vast amount of the film is quite cerebral in its subtlety, making great use of mental banter between the two parties with the element of distrust running through their uneasy alliance at their demonic foe, both parties constantly trying to maintain control of the situation – and their uneasy alliance – whilst conscious of their far more deadly enemy nearby. There are parallels drawn to the two men on opposite sides of the war yet not altogether that dissimilar, with an ambitious yet powerful subtext questioning the moral ambiguity of any action carried out during times of war that doesn't go unnoticed or fail to make its point known.

By keeping it all simple, and spending time focussing on the smaller details, the director has succeeded in creating a truly immersive experience. The capabilities of the few actors on whom the film hinges never betrays the artists vision and the use of set and limited lighting create a genuine atmosphere that never lets up, only to show the aftermath of the demon's rampage in a manner that the largest scale horror films would be proud of and adding gravity to the situation at hand. But sadly there is one drawback to this film; the at times vague explanations for the plot. The ideology of the occult feels wafer thin and is never truly explained; the details of what the eventual plan for this dabbling is left open to a certain degree of interpretation (albeit this could be for good reason, the German Colonel refusing to let their plans be known even at this stage) and the inherent lack of originality in the prospect of Nazi's conjuring demons all hinder what could have otherwise been one of the more impressive horror films to have come out in recent years.

Star Wars 4 ½: The Holiday Special

2011-09-12T19:58:00.000-07:00

Title: Star Wars 4 ½: The Holiday Special
Rating: 1/5
Genre: Adventure, Comedy
Starring: Mickey Morton, Art Carney, Harrison Ford, Peter Mayhew
Director: Steve Binder
Producer: George Lucas

In celebration that Star Wars has finally made it blu-ray (even if it comes butchered once again), I thought it was time for me to reveal the much coveted 'seventh film,' though calling it a film might be a little bit of a stretch. Released a year after the original Episode IV, it features all your favourite characters; Solo, Chewie, Luke, Leia, C-3PO and R2-D2 all make appearances, along with plenty of celebrity appearances from people at the time I largely have no idea about. Following the story of Chewie and Han's quest to get to Chewie's home and family on Kashyyyk and celebrate life day, they fall under attack by the Imperal Empire. Much of the story, however, actually takes place on their forest homeworld with Chewies family trying to while away the time and not focus on their worries about where Chewbacca might be, or the fact that Imperials are raiding, with what I would best describe as 'comedy sketches,' despite there being no comedy involved whatsoever.

There are the occasional points where things begin to look promising, but give it but a moment and you'll realise that every time it's just a section of footage from the film. Sometimes they even use the same piece of footage multiple times. You see, 'special' is indeed the right word to describe this. Special like that kid with down syndrome down the street we would probably mock behind their back if it wasn't all too depressing and quite frankly not that funny. Special like Einstein's theory of Special Relativity we all wish we spent longer trying to figure out so we could go back in time and make sure this never happened. Special like the look of Chewbacca's family whom the film centres upon; the most normal of them all, Malla, Chewies wife, looking much like a slightly shorter version of Chewie with lipstick slapped on her; his slightly retarded (or should I say 'special') looking son Lumpy and his downright 'herp derp' level of 'special' father, Itchy. And I wish I could say I was making these names up.

There's just so much here that falls under 'wrong;' the look of a horny senile wookie fantasising over Diahann Carroll; the decision to resuscitate Greedo for the background of a Tatooine sketch; the big fight scene where not a single shot is fired (probably a result of the budget and the fact that it seems nobody in the department could manage their spending in a way that might make everything a little less shitty to look at) resulting in a storm trooper jumping off a balcony; the decision to give us a sneak peak into the character of Boba Fett before he had been cast, thereby forcing the use of animation that looks worse than the cheap crap used by kids TV at the time. It's as though nobody thought, just for a moment, a story focussing on three wookies and their wookie-ookies (read: wookie cookies. There really are some 'special' writers involved here) as they potter around worrying about Chewie and watching shitty programs that at their best have the youngest one clapping like a seal, might be a little difficult to pull off with a small budget and that niggly little problem that most of the core characters don't speak English.

None of the cast look particularly happy about being there; Harrison Ford constantly seems like he's gritting his teeth as he says his downright dreadful lines, grimacing in the place of a smile as he wonders how on earth they convinced him to do this crap, and presumably with the amount of make-up on Hamill he couldn't hide his thoughts even that badly. Even the big finalé, the celebration of Life day itself that had you curious from the start, turned out to be the most overrated celebration I've ever heard of. Spoiler alert: all that happens is you put on a red robe and bark at a tree. Or perhaps that was Wookie for “shut the fuck up Leia, who told you that you could sing?” And as if to add insult to injury they end it all with a few short clips of Episode IV to finish it all off with, right after the most nauseatingly disappointing ending – even coming after the preceding atrocities – as if to say 'hey, remember how awesome this film was before we started raping your memory of it?' This is a work that is so painfully bad that even George Lucas (yes, we're talking about the same man who proudly created 'Jar-Jar Binks') upon seeing it aired on TV for the first and only time ordered every copy to be burnt and for everyone involved to never speak of it again. Which they seemed all the more happy to do, doing everything in their power to erase the memory of creating the foetid turd of an aptly named 'special.' When the adverts still left in from the bootleg copy in your possession are hands down more fascinating to watch than the show itself, you're in trouble.

Tucker and Dale vs Evil

2011-09-06T02:51:00.000-07:00

Title: Tucker and Dale vs Evil
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Horror/Comedy
Starring: Tyler Labine, Alan Tudyk, Katrina Bowden
Director: Eli Craig

Whilst there are a few directors whose previous consistency has meant I constantly keep an eye on their works, the list of actors and actresses that fit the bill seem to be far smaller, but making the cut comes the cast of Firefly/Serenity. My curiosity at what they have next lined up has seen me getting through the mediocre “Sarah Conner Chronicles” for Summer Glau, and attempting to watch pieces of “Desperate Housewives” because Nathan Fillion joined the cast (THAT was horrendous), so the prospect of a cast member – Alan Tudyk in this case (Wash from Firefly) – doing something more in tune with my tastes is something I couldn't pass up. Things only get better when you notice co-starring is the infamous face of Tyler Labine, perhaps better known as the only reason to watch “Reaper,” and together they form the terrible duo known as Tucker and Dale primed to uhh...do up their holiday home. And no that's not a euphemism.

Because whilst on the surface this appears to be a slasher film – and there are no shortage of them, comical ones or otherwise – this still manages to take a fresh twist on the classic style. Tucker and Dale may appear to be stupid hill-billy’s living in the middle of nowhere, intent on renovating their newly purchases wooden shack of a holiday home, but to the outsider they could look like frightening serial killers, hell bent on causing death and destruction at every turn. Such is the view taken by a group of college kids who bear witness to these ungainly creatures dragging off one of their friends, unknown to them that she had hit her head falling from a rock. As they begin to plan their attack to rescue her, further mishaps ensue and one by one, the young teenagers kill themselves at their feet of their enemy, and its all Tucker and Dale can do hide the evidence and salvage the dream of their home.

Comical deaths are nothing new but accidental comical deaths is a twist that doesn't frequently seem to be utilised; that there is no real 'evil' in this story – well, not until the end anyway – and that both sides are just as scared of each other lends itself to some great situations as they misread the situation and act only to escalate it all. Some of the jokes tend to be fairly obvious before the punchline finally emerges, but worse than that is the construction of the trailer, spoiling a large number of the best parts in rapid succession – I'd hence suggest avoiding it like the plague – even if it's still quite amusing to watch them a second time. It also seems a little inconsistent with large sections almost completely void of comedic presence as it spends it's time either building up to something or working on the finalé. If not for the presence of Labine, who seems capable of elevating the acting abilities of those around him and is rightly is given the largest proportion of screen time, then much of the film could have descended into flat out boredom.

There is more to the film than just comedy though, and the premise whilst at times silly never comes across as wholly unbelievable. The red-necks never come across as anything but human, and the other characters – the whole two others we get to know anyway – have enough of a back story to seem like actual people and not just gore scenes waiting to happen, even if they rarely add much to the proceedings beyond their required plot advancement and a pretty face. The contrast between what seems normal to one group but deemed frightening to the other is worked well to slowly escalate the situation and not emerge out of nowhere. Ultimately this film is largely about the often obvious and slapstick comic timing between our two leads and this is where it summons it's strength. If you can endure the bad then in this unlikely pairing you'll find plenty of good.

Planeta Bur

2011-09-04T19:41:00.000-07:00

Title: Planeta Bur
Translated Title: Planet of Storms
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Sci-Fi, Adventure
Starring: Vladimir Yemelyanov, Georgi Zhzhyonov, Gennadi Vernov
Director: Pavel Klushantsev
Language: Russian
Release Date: 1962

One of those films that has been on my list to watch for far too long – in fact this one can even be timed to the date I first reviewed “The Star Dreamer” and discovered Klushantsev's genius – and my interest is all down to how the film is constructed. It wasn't only the Americans that were dreaming of space during the cold war, and this man's work became widely known and hugely successful in the USSR, but knowledge of him outside his home country often seemed limited to only a select few. Called inspirational by the special effects wizards that would make both 'Alien' and 'Predator;' techniques developed here would be used again to great effect by Kubrick's '2001;' entire scenes stolen by B-Movies to come; this film is an integral part of any legacy Sci-Fi films have to leave behind and once you start watching it, it isn't difficult to see why.

When Earth's first voyage to the planet Venus doesn't go as planned and their fuel supply ship is destroyed by a stray meteorite, the remaining two ships – the landing supply ship and the radio communications ship – are left with one of two options; wait in orbit for four months, hoping to survive any incoming meteorites, or attempt to land on the planet and await the backup fuel supply ships return from there. Taking their chances on the planet, once again, things never quite go according to plan and the three man glider intended to guide the main supply craft down crashes in a hostile environment, but not before scouting out a safe landing location for the rest of the crew. Amidst this alien world, this group of seven – six men and a humanoid robot – bravely scout out the lost crew members in the hopes that they might re-unite and await for help to arrive together.

It certainly isn't a particularly long film at only 75mins, and neither does it perhaps sound like it yields the most fascinating plot, but all the interesting points comes in the little details, and certainly watching 'The Star Dreamer' first has yielded an increased interest in many scenes that you may otherwise take for granted, instead forcing yourself to look on in amazement and remind yourself that this was created 50 years ago. There are certainly aliens that look more comical than creative; some sort of bearded octopus and swarms of 'Barney the Dinosaur' spring to mind, but the crux of the effects outside of the creatures are nothing short of incredible. He tosses people up into zero-gravity conditions like its nothing, hover-cars held by no visible wires, plants wrap their tendrils around our heroes and grip tightly on (none of this actor holding onto the prop and pretending – even toddlers aren't convinced by that crap), fish swim around the crew as though it was actually filmed underwater (an impossibility at the time), the robot moves convincingly – even if in design it does look a great deal of influence was taken from the earlier US film “Forbidden Planet” – and even the planet landscape looks distinctly alien.

But there are more details than just how meticulously he planned the effects, stretching out into the plot itself; everything from the mission itself to the little details all makes sense, and is a far cry from unintelligent. Questions are always raised about the possibility of life on alien planets but how many films start discussing the consequences of evolution on a singular race inhabiting multiple planets? The idea that through common ancestors planets were not populated through terraforming but from gradual evolution to grow accustomed to the conditions on the new planet? A concept that in our desire to make a world suitable for us we forget that over generations evolution may well make us suitable for the planet, and this isn't the only question of its kind raised in this films short duration. It's difficult to recommend this film as it's likely not to appeal to many; there may be a few action sequences but is by no means an action film; there is certainly a touch of drama but it never feels like its in focus; nor does it feel like the focus is solely on philosophising; and there's little mention of the USSR and no Capitalist or America bashing so it can't even be considered propaganda material. It is simply a feast for the eyes for fans of classic cinema and all Sci-Fi fans curious as the origins of modern cinema. There can be no question of it, Klushantsev was a legend of his time and his work goes on criminally under appreciated.

Four Lions

2011-09-04T15:02:00.000-07:00

Title: Four Lions
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Black Comedy
Starring: Riz Ahmed, Adeel Akhtar, Kayvan Novak, Nigel Lindsay
Director: Christopher Morris

I hate repeating myself, and when random files decide to become irreparably corrupt and important work goes missing, I'm faced with the option to either rewrite what was already written or let it fade from memory. This time I'm doing things a little different; this is a film that ought to be better known and it would be tragic if nothing was said on the matter, and so I invite you to read my first ever Speed Review. Timed by my clock to be written in the space of no more than half an hour, I will boldly adventure into the land of grammatical mistakes, passages that I'll despise in a few days time and bold metaphors that will in all likeliness make very little sense. It is this bold challenge that I undertake in order to represent an even bolder film; for it wasn't only Richard Ayoade of “The IT Crowd” that decided to take up directing with the actor playing Denholm Reynholm (the Boss from the first season), as well as having the likes of “Brass Eye” and numerous comedic shows on Radio 4 under his belt but now this man has decided to tackle a subject that for years has been considered nigh on untouchable.

Where Islamophobia still runs rampant on the streets; fear of bombings and the shock waves of the 9/11 tragedy can still be felt, and where any anti-Islamic sentiment ranges from “not politically correct” to outright racism, this man laughs in the face of adversity as he brings to us the tragic tale of five jihadists hell bent on 'blowing something up innit.' Now a major concern going into the film is how 'brit-centric' it would be; set in London and following characters who are all British born Muslims – one extremist is even a convert – it would be very easy to make religious jokes and centre the comedy on rather more British themes, alienating much of the audience, but this never really happens. Instead it takes something of a more realistic view; that for every stereotypical criminal mastermind there must be the moronic antithesis (especially if the masterminds die at the end of their plan) and these brave soldiers rank upon the most idiotic of them all.

From possibly the most easily suggestible and idiotic of the bunch, Waj, who still learns of the Qur'an from a book entitled “The Cat Who Went to Mecca,” to the most radically violent of them all, who thinks the best target for them to attack would be their local mosque; they all have their own different ideas on how best to martyr themselves and make their names go down in history, but it is only the unoffical ringleader of this band of hapless heroes, Omar, who manages to organise and direct their efforts. More than just the straight man to those that surround him, he acts as the voice of reason and the consciousness for the collective; it is through his drive that anything really gets done at all, and its all he can do to keep them out of trouble for long enough to not get caught prematurely. But by the time the third act begins to dawn, everything begins to take a slightly more serious turn and of them all, it is his lone intelligent voice that becomes the most frightening.

As we witness his life outside of the extremist group we see what he is leaving behind; a stable job as a security guard and a loving wife and young child, both of whom he speaks of his intentions openly with and the manner they believe in his actions, supporting him as though he is acting somehow in their best interests, it hammers home the gravity of their situation. The others can be almost forgiven as we learn in their simple minded childlike innocence how they seem to have succumbed to peer pressure and don't truly understand the reasons for carrying out their extremist actions, and as the film draws to a close, what we have learnt of the characters thus far continues on to its inevitable tragic conclusion. There may be nothing prophetic or revelationary contained here but neither it is quite as simple as it all may seem at the outset, and by treading along the knife edge of a risky subject and still managing to often find humour in the situation without directly targeting religion, he is doing nothing but inviting others to follow suit. This film manages to play with fire and still succeeds in not getting itself burnt.

The Inbetweeners

2011-08-27T09:16:00.000-07:00

Title: The Inbetweeners
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Comedy
Starring: James Buckley, Blake Harrison, Joe Thomas Simon Bird
Director: Ben Palmer

“So smelling like an industrial accident in a Lynx factory and
looking like the world's shittest boyband, we hit the town.”

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past three years, or perhaps are simply not from the UK (I'm not sure how wide a release it's been given but suspect my American brothers won't hear of it until they announce they're ripping it off and creating a sub-par US version, don't even get me started on the latest atrocity known as Shameless US, ugh) then you'll have at the least heard of the tragic plight of these four school boys, muddling their way through at the bottom rung of the social ladder in their noble sexual conquests. There's the one who pretends to know everything there is to know about sex, Jay (James Buckley); the hopeless romantic, Simon (Joe Thomas); the complete and utter nerd, Will (Simon Bird); and the lovable happy moron Neil (Blake Harrison), each character bringing something unique to the table and allowing for comedy to emerge by the truckload. And for those aware of the series, they've tried to up the ante for their big finish, with more sex, booze, mishaps and chaos then ever before; more penises and bare asses than the boobs and booty that they so long for, and unless your humour reaches the upper echelons of what's deemed acceptable then you might want to approach this one with caution.

With a opening cameo between Anthony Stewart Head, Will's father, alongside Will himself, things looked to be shaping themselves up to be rather promising, but it was not all to be. The plot is about as tired and predictable as they come, feeling like little more than an episode stretched out to breaking point. It all starts off with them deciding to take a boys holiday to Greece, filled with all the partying they can muster. It's the classic way of extending a show into film territory; toss in a new location, a couple of new characters, a break up, make-up, and then they get the girls. It's all about as horrifically overdone and cliché as it sounds; the budget has gone to work in the locations and the number of new characters being introduced, but none of them add anything more than a new direction for the stars to find humour, leaving any time they spend trying to flesh them out as more than two-dimensional objects for affection coming off flat and unenthusiastic. We know precisely how the film is going to end barely before it really starts to begin, and at times this causes it to become painfully dull.

Fortunately this film carries the same ace up its sleeve that made the show such a joy to watch; it's crass, crude, witty, often childish and yet it never fails to make its comedic impact (if you thought 'American Pie' was bad, oh boy...) Much of the comedy derives from just how hopelessly tragic their situation is but in equal proportion is the manner it lets you reminisce over yourself at that age; I see more than a touch of Will in my own youth (including parents creepily enough); one of my close friends is a spitting image of what would happen if Neil and Simon combined, and everyone must have known a 'Jay' growing up (mine was named James Angove and yes he was a bit of a tosser but still seemed to have friends). It may make slight caricatures of the classic characters we all once knew but it never quite loses its footing on reality; it never strays into the realm of unbelievability, at least until the very end when the posse of lovable yet completely self-absorbed and misogynistic morons actually get the girls without growing up first. There's little here that feels particularly clever and yet that's part of it's charm; the inherent simplicity of it all belying the difficulties in packing in so many hilarious situations in sequence. There aren't many guarantees in life but tried and tested in my packed out local cinema, that this film will have you in stitches is one of them; competent enough to stand on its own merits but just falls short of the greatness the show had to offer.

War God

2011-08-04T09:10:00.000-07:00

Title: War God
Also Known As: Calamity / Zhan shen
Should be Known As: Guan Yu Vs. The Aliens
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi, (Comedy)
Starring: Ming Lun Ku, Hsin Tang, Ling-ling Hsieh
Director: Hung Min Chen
Language: Taiwanese

Once again I have succeeded in plundering the depths of the unknown to emerge triumphant with a B-Movie classic to rank along side the infamous “Turkish Star Wars” in style; so cheap and hilariously awful that it makes the old Godzilla flicks look like a triumphant masterpiece of special effects; so poorly written that you wonder just what the writer was smoking when he came up with this idea (it was made in the 70s after all). In fact, the very premise of a film involving the legendary warrior of the Han Dynasty (China), Guan Yu, doing battle with Aliens was thought so ludicrous that it couldn't possibly actually exist. And yet, through the power of the internet, a more than 30 year old VHS rip with full subtitles has emerged to prove once and for all that not only was the film created, but created in style.

It spends some time setting up the final battle in the terms of plot; a scientist directing space research at a local R&D facility struggling to maintain the balance of his family. His mother having died a long time ago, he tries his best to look after his tearaway sister, spending her days going slightly over the speed limit on her scooter rather than studying, with little help from his father obsessed with finishing his perfect wood carving of the deity and war god Guan Yu. Four years in the making, conflicts emerge when our scientists faith in the research he is carrying out contrasts his fathers belief in Guan Yu and his willing to protect the citizens of Hong Kong, but when the Earth comes under attack by malicious aliens on a quest to demolish all technology, it soon falls onto the shoulders of the faithful to resurrect his warrior spirit and save the world from destruction.

Fortunately once this back story is set-up, the action really begins to take hold; armies of scientists wielding their latest inventions to battle the giant alien menace are quickly thwarted and the epic battle we all came to see gets under way, and constituting almost half the film, it is beyond any shadow of a doubt epic. The man/fly hybrid aliens emerging first, wreaking their havoc upon everything in their path, using their unusual weapons as they strut their stuff in Hong Kong, whacking random buildings and kicking others, demolishing them as though they were made of a cardboard, paper maché and polystyrene (errr...). Until the final twenty minutes when all hope is lost, a very dodgy looking Guan Yu finally arrives to stumble around with the aliens in their unwieldy outfits and make things explode out of context. In fact, Guan Yu seems better at demolishing the city than the aliens did, but that's beside the point; Guan Yu cares not for the citizens, only for battle and hitting things with the wrong end of his weapon to prolong the battle!

Half the subtitles may have been cut off and even when they aren't, the Chinglesh translations don't always make an awful lot of sense but that doesn't matter. It's freakin' Guanzilla – the Chinese answer to Godzilla – and you shouldn't be watching this expecting something deep and meaningful. I will never fall on the side that religion can triumph over science but the effects here are what makes everything so worthwhile. It's so poorly done that you can't help but roll over onto your side and wipe the tears from your eyes as you see the aliens pull some weird sort of bizarre disco moves; when they first exercise their power by teasing milkmen by making their bottles float and fall over; when you can see where the helmet has fitted on their bodies clear as day. With all the explosions that their lighter fluid will allow and bizarre nonsensical lightning and laser effects, this is a B-Movie Monster flick to rank up there with the best. So you thought you'd seen it all? I bet you ain't seen Guan Yu impale an alien with a block of flats!

Crazed Beast

2011-08-03T18:06:00.000-07:00

Title: Crazed Beast
Original Title: Kurutta yajû
Rating: 2.5/5
Genre: Crime, Thriller (Comedy)
Director: Sadao Nakajima
Starring: Tsunehiko Watase, Jun Hoshino, Takuzo Kawatani
Language: Japanese (Mockdubbed)

I like to think that I succeed in doing my part in uncovering forgotten films of the past wherever I can, whether better left forgotten or not, but with this one I feel as though I've really outdone myself; a 70s rarity that is somewhat surprising it even managed to find its way to a DVD, even if it never left the country, which means you better believe it doesn't come with subtitles. In fact, there are probably no subtitles for it in existence and not the interest in creating them, but don't let this minor quibble trouble you for where there is a will and a potentially mentally unstable film nut there is a way. Submitted to the nicely titled “My Uploads Are Total Fucking Failures And No One Loves Me” (MUATTFANOLM) competition on the source of most of my depravity, the torrent tracker Cinemegaddon, it is the masterpiece of the infamous “Muchacho” who sees no reason to let a language barrier stop him from making his own dub to resurrect a film from the past.

Of course making your own dub of a film you can't understand can come with its own set of problems but fortunately the script isn't one of them. In truth, there doesn't seem to be a great deal to the plot; when a pair of criminals find themselves on the run from the law, they hi-jack a bus and try to escape using whatever means they can, whether pretending to have a bomb or forcing small children to pee on their pursuers. The bus remains full of mysterious passengers, each of them harbouring dark secrets and as tensions rise, the truth gradually emerges causing an unrelenting source of friction between the hostages and their malicious and yet incompetent captors. In truth, the script was superbly written; the lines always seem to make sense in the context of the film to maintain a coherent feel, to the point that you sometimes stop and wonder just how far off the mark they really were. The only drawback of the dub is the comparatively low audio quality and the lack of voice actors; limited to nothing more than himself and the only person he could rope into reading with him: his wife.

It may not be that this version ever becomes known further than a select few CG members and those who stumble upon this post but know that I cannot fathom any way that this could have been improved with the original subtitles. The film was produced on a low budget, limiting the capabilities for action sequences and yet it never quite reaches the heights of the campy cheese of the exploitation genre, which simply means that it's neither laughably bad or genuinely good. It sits firmly in the middle, and whilst there are some incredible laugh-out-loud moments where the joke within the dubbing and the characters expression combine in perfect unison, they arrive too sporadically to truly save this from monotony. With the exception of this dub there's little here that feels well done, and whilst this may be the interesting start to a new trend; where old films are breathed new life by film fanatics with far too much time on their hands, it's hit and miss nature makes it inherently hard to recommend.

Creature from the Hillbilly Lagoon

2011-07-28T02:20:00.000-07:00

Title: Creature from the Hillbilly Lagoon (aka “Seepage!”) (2007)
Rating: 2/5
Genre: Comedy, Horror, Sci-fi
Starring: Andrew Vellenoweth, Tanith Fiedler, William DeCoff
Director: Richard Griffin
Duration: 86 mins

“It Turns Rednecks Into Deadnecks”

Out on “Hillbilly Lagoon,” when they’re not skinny dipping, a group of college students collect data from the water with their wheelchair-bound professor. One of the students gets bit by an unseen fish, but they decide to dismiss the whole ordeal (even though he’s slowly developing gills and webbed fingers!). Meanwhile, a group of hillbillies are being killed off by a giant half-man/half-fish creature in ways too horrible to imagine (beer can stabbing, anyone?). Eventually the fates of these two groups intertwine, some are not at all as they appear, and a diabolical evolutionary plot to turn the world’s population into fish-people is unveiled. But will our heroes be able to foil this evil scheme AND destroy the creature from the Hillbilly Lagoon?

Well, before I start analyzing this $11,000 experiment in tripe, I suppose I’ll give y’all a little course in what I like to call “the natural history of fish-men movies.” We can obviously tell just by the title that Griffin’s creature feature riffs on the classic ‘50s 3D monster movie Creature From the Black Lagoon, but it is only just one of many films that showcase a maniacal, amphibious humanoid with the hots for sweet poon. The legacy of the last great Universal monster has spawned numerous fry including Island of the Fishmen (1979), Creatures From the Abyss (1994), Sting of Death (1965), and a whole bunch from Roger Corman: Creature From the Haunted Sea (1961), Humanoids From the Deep (1980), and Demon of Paradise (1987). You’d think this’d become an official horror subgenre by now, right? And I bet you’re asking if Creature From the Hillbilly Lagoon is worthy to be alongside such cult classics, huh? You see, the answer is twofold: it definitely has the campy-ness of every other “gill man” movie, but it doesn’t have that special quality about it to make it timeless.

CFTHL is waist-deep in campy, B-movie tomfoolery laced with ridiculously half-assed science fiction exposition. The hillbilly characters sport the most forced and stereotypical Southern accents since H. G. Lewis’ Two Thousand Maniacs, but succeed at spouting fantastic laugh-inducing, moronic one-liners I won’t dare spoil for potential viewers. Funny though, not a single character used the phrase “something fishy’s going on here.” Also along the ride we are subject to some T&A shots (as well as some male butt shots for the ladies), colorful characters (or should I say caricatures?), and a pretty awesome-looking creature (giving us a clue as to where the money went). So yeah. CFTHL pretty much follows all the conventions of your typical fish-man flick. The only exception being the film’s climax which is exponentially more goofy than the preceding 70 minutes that one can’t help but wonder if the filmmakers just stopped caring about what little story they had to begin with. Regardless, the epilogue cleverly pays homage to H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” so effectively and so humorously that one instantly forgets the retarded climax and leaves the movie with a little regained satisfaction.

Despite everything that works for this movie, Creature From the Hillbilly Lagoon contains nothing at all memorable enough to ensure a cult following or any kind of special recognition, so I couldn’t possibly recommend this to anyone who might be interested in something like the aforementioned fish-men movies instead. However, if dirt cheap stink bait is what you’re looking for, then I can’t help but recommend this movie in a double feature with the Polonia Bros’ ichthyological schlock fest Splatter Beach released the same year.

Highschool of the Dead

2011-07-25T19:28:00.000-07:00

Title: Highschool of the Dead (HotD)
Rating: 2.5/5
Genre: Anime Series, Action, Horror,
Director: Tetsuro Araki
Language: Japanese
Duration: 25mins (12 Episodes)

The first time I've heard of an anime zombie flick and it would seem to me that the creators had come up with an untapped source for something original; with Madhouse (Black Lagoon) on animation, known for not being shy when it comes to graphic details, and a promising 18 sticker, I was looking forward to a classic Romero “Dawn of the Dead' theme with a touch of “Elfen Lied” thrown in; no shying away from good ol' fashioned gore but with a plot to back it all up. My expectations were undeniably high, and perhaps part of the reason for my apprehension was the subconscious knowledge that they might be too high. Which they were. Rather than meeting my hopes, the most concise summation of this short series would be “Resident Evil” meets “Gantz,” and assuming you're aware of both of these, that's pretty much all you need to know about this series; it's got shitty fan service up the wazoo, and whilst it does indeed get gory, the plot straddles between laughably bad and non-existent and the whole thing is a cheesy as all hell.

When a zombie outbreak hits the world, it's a small rogue group of Tokyo high schoolers, 2 guys and 4 girls with oversized breasts, that find themselves banding together in a mismatched party working together to survive against the onslaught in front of them. As the series progresses they find themselves moving from location to location, trying to find survivors amidst those who have lost their sanity. It never goes into any more depth or comes up with a story any more creative than this basic movement and hunt for better weaponry and transport; other sensible staples of the zombie genre such as concerns over food and water, or dissent within the group never come into the fold lending a rather superficial feel to it all. Without any real conclusion being drawn, it's all just a mindless vehicle for the action, even going as far as to steal a key track from “28 days later,” as if to joke 'hey we can't come up with an original plot, why should we bother with an original soundtrack either?'

Often it'll try to be serious, struggling to retain a dramatic horror atmosphere where every action has serious repercussions – even though it never actually does – but then it gives us a plot that's stolen from better films but with fewer details, I guess hoping we'd figure most of it out from said better films so they could spend more time travelling a bit closer towards Hentai territory for those who are interested in animated porn but fear being labelled “that weird guy.” On the flip side it spends so long being one long bad B-Movie joke, where your ability to suspend disbelief is given a thorough work out, that any attempt to be serious may as well come with sitcom laughter track. It never really seems to know what it wants to accomplish and so as a result actually accomplishes very little. Despite many of the details being poorly explained, the actual plot itself is very easy to follow for the simple fact that not all the much happens over the course of the series, much of it dragged out by long speeches and melodramatic death scenario's for nameless characters, fan service, unnecessary re-caps that sometimes take up a third of an episode, and of course, the action sequences themselves.

The fan service is a major part of the problem, quickly becoming quite ridiculous. I'm not on the side of those that despise it's very existence and campaign loudly for its complete removal any more than I'm thinking we should replace the pretty young starlets from most Hollywood blockbusters with fat transvestites with faces like a baboon's backside. I like to look at attractive women, animated or otherwise, but when the deliberate choice of angles prevents you from seeing what's actually happening; shots where the path ahead is barely visible but large and centre screen is a shot of a girls underwear wiggling as she runs forward, or where they need to make an escape on laundry day, just so they can spend the rest of the episode with slightly more of their breasts on show, well it all becomes too much, and if you think it'll die down at all as the series progresses, don't. It only gets worse (one episode for example is all about 'bath time'). The fact that it tries to get the audience to take it seriously then spends a good time showing us tits that look they're made out of jelly bouncing up and down uncontrollably and making a 'sproing' sound as it goes manages to completely undermine much of the horror atmosphere, turning it into a bad sex comedy in the process. Though yes, occasionally it does come off as genuinely amusing as your ability to suspend disbelief at the scenario's that occur falters and you can't help but think, seriously?

A brief glimmer of hope gets dangled early on that this could become character driven once we we're allowed more time for the characters to really develop, but this gets shot down after a couple of episodes where we realise they were almost as fully fleshed out already as they were ever going to be; the gun nerd really is just a gun nerd, the blonde nurse never escapes the stereotyped dumb blonde shell and the kendo champion barely says anything worth listening to unless its with her blade. As the lead breaks away from the pack with another cast member we may be given brief insight into their past but it never leads up to anything or has any consequence in future episodes, everything far too readily resolved by that episodes conclusion. Instead they try to compensate by gradually adding new characters to the mix but since they never really do anything with them, it feels like something of a futile effort and a cheap trick to try to maintain interest.

And yet my interest is maintained and I still find myself finishing the series thanks largely to the one thing that they manage to get spot on; the action. Whilst not this production companies finest work, it's still a far cry from being badly done, with the sequences only improving as the series progresses. Much of it is still filled with the ridiculous superhuman feats of jumping and manoeuvring around the zombies like no high school kids should be able to do; learning the use of weaponry faster than should be possible and conveniently stumbling upon items to make use of in the upcoming battles and lend variety to the proceedings which all typify the action in other anime series, but it's the finer details that they excel at. The consequences of using loud weapons to draw attention, the use of their surroundings and the facial expressions on the characters, each given their role to play not too dissimilar from an RPG with their defined roles and attributes. Whilst perhaps I wonder if it wouldn't have made a better video game than a series, much like Gantz, it is this saving grace that prevents it from being the atrocity it might have been.

The Road

2011-07-15T00:19:00.000-07:00

Title: The Road
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Sci-Fi, Drama, Thriller
Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee
Director: John Hillcoat

Based on a book of the same name, this film now a couple of years old was initially one that didn't seem all that interesting, yet still I found myself with a copy in my possession. The notion of a post-apocalyptic wasteland seemed more a subtle twist to the same story of the love between a father and son with all the usual Hollywood fare, but as I began I realised that this is a film that was not afraid to do things a little bit differently. The names of many of the characters are never divulged, and neither is the cause of the apocalypse that has wiped out all the life on earth, both clearly done purposefully in reflection of their solitude; the notion that the audience doesn't need to know because ultimately it doesn't matter. In this wasteland that was once teeming with life, all thoughts are on survival, and as important as it is to have food and water, the message conveyed is that to truly come out the other side with your humanity intact, you need to be able to extract hope wherever you might find it.

My fears at the uninspiring emotional dialogue were largely right on the money and rarely does it manage to strike a strong emotional chord; the relationship between the two lead characters, the man and his son, is rapidly established but rarely feels built upon; the backstory involving the man's wife whilst necessary to establish their past, feels stretched out throughout the first half of the film where a simple prologue would have sufficed, temporarily removing you from the situation at hand rather than immersing you fully in their plight, and it is perhaps only in the final moments that the film manages to evoke any real sympathy. The hazard of taking an inherently unidentifiable situation and extracting realistic character portrayals was never going to be an easy challenge and whilst never done poorly – both lead actors performing admirably in their roles with Mortenson's infamous tendency for method acting in particular working wonders here at bringing the situation to life – is a hurdle that because of the dialogue never truly seems to be overcome.

Fortunately this cyclical repetition of the same hashed out lines whilst often hammered home a little too hard only constitutes part of the story, and it is the notion that they are on the brink and battling for their very survival that rescues this film from monotony through the events told, the characters reactions to them and perhaps most importantly, the questions raised about the morality of those actions. They aren't entirely alone in this world, and the more we explore it with them them more the crushing despair of their situation sinks in; all the usual depravity from thieves who will kill you for a can of beans to those who have given up finding canned food and now resort to cannibalism lend a genuine sense that humanity can only be pushed too far, and that even the most kind man when fearing for his own survival may descend and lose their moral compass. These aren't the characters typified by 'Mad Max' either, but filled with self-loathing and resentment at what they've been forced to become, with some who have descended so far in the past few years to not realise the horror of the atrocities they commit, whilst many others choose to take their own life rather than face the reality of what they must do to survive.

This bleak outlook on the future mankind may have in store at the end of the world has rarely been brought to life so vividly as it has here; with a small budget they've managed to create a plethora of locations, each different from the last, complete with dilapidated buildings, caves, underground bunkers, and everything else you could expect to discover on such a lengthy journey. Always covered in ash under a stormy sky, the unrelenting biting coldness that surrounds them is emphasised by the minimal use of colour, which whilst not entirely in greyscale, retains a constant dull and dreary atmosphere that encapsulates everything within it. This only adds to the vivid contrast when something bright appears that there is still beauty in Earth's decaying ruins, and that as difficult as it might be to see, that there is still the faintest glimmer of hope. It may not get everything right, but as a realistic post-apocalyptic vision it must rank amongst the best.

Star Fleet: The Space Quest For F-01

2011-07-13T04:43:00.000-07:00

Title: Star Fleet: The Space Quest For F-01
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Animation, Action, Sci-Fi,
Director: Go Nagai
Language: Japanese (English Dubs)

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away... well the 80s in Japan – which back then might as well have been another galaxy – the ripples of Star Wars, and the western film medium in general could be heard resonating and rattling the barely occupied skull of Go Nagai. This is a film that by its very concept alone should have made its way to cult classic status decades ago, and if not for its origins probably would have, but instead for too many it's destined to be 'just another weirdass Japanese flick' despite feeling about as Western as they come, heavily ripping off Star Wars throughout whilst making use of puppetry that comes straight out of Gerry Anderson's (Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Stingray, Thunderbirds) 'how to' guide. Back when it was first released it was a flop in Japan and it only received acclaim when it hit the shores of the US/UK, but it's short lived nature has since meant it's faded from memory, and it's about time it was re-introduced for my generation.

It all feels like it came out of a four year old's toy box; an X-Wing with a broken nose (the infamous 'X-Bomber,' because calling it an X-Wing would be too obvious) and another ship from Star Wars or Star Trek tossed in for good measure; crewed by Luke and Leia figurines complete with Leia's long-term nanny, the Wampa ice creature from 'Empire Strikes Back,' who fight along side Shaft and a guy resembling those trolls with funny hair that evidently got put in there by mistake, with all the personality of that robot from 'Buck Rogers' that went “Beedy Beedy.” On the other side of the war lies the head honcho; a barbie doll wearing a viking helmet, with her right hand man, an odd assortment of various aliens from various other TV shows – largely Star Wars, Star Trek and He-Man – and her private army of giant praying mantis assassins wielding ray guns. Seriously.

The plot isn't all that much better at convincing anyone they've just ripped off the preceding half decade of western TV and film either. Shortly before the turn of the third millennium the EDF's outpost on Pluto is demolished by a gigantic alien battle cruiser, the evil commander Makara making Earth aware that unless they hand over the mysterious F-01 that they can expect the same fate, but their own data banks fail to find any reference to the elusive F-01. Setting into motion the secret X-Project – the X-Bomber – to tackle the superior force, on their journey their passenger Lamia reveals that she believes herself to be F-01, with as yet to emerge supernatural powers that would allow her to rule the universe (*coughJEDIcough*). With half the crew calling bullshit but the commander saying 'fuck it, its worth a shot,' they concoct a devious plan to use her to end Makara's tyranny once and for all, discovering the secret of F-01 in the process.

The members of Star Fleet's Earth Defence Force (EDF, or 'rebels' really) and the 'X-Bomber' whose crew the story revolves all sport American accents with the occasional European one thrown in; a bad English accented General or a French accented pilot ironically screaming “She eez heet” (given their undeserved reputation at sucking in fights) spring to mind, whilst the enemy, the Imperial Empire (no seriously, that's what they're called), largely sporting a fake Russian accent that can only be referred to as one of the most accidentally racist things I've ever seen. But with this aside, much of the technical aspect was well done; the movement from the puppets is a match for anything Anderson himself could have come up with; there are more demolished ships, planets than you can shake a stick at – all done hilariously badly as per the time – and the soundtrack rarely fails to complement the story, despite clearly being constructed on a very tight budget.

At under 90 minutes, it moves with such a lightning pace that never feels the need to explain itself more than what's needed to get the gist of the story – which isn't admittedly too difficult to follow – making as much use of their time to ram head first into the next scene of unintentional comedy, and whilst half the humour would be removed by explaining any of the bizarre events that occur, you can rest assured that there are plenty of scenes ripped out of Star Wars like a hungry lion after the still beating heart of a dinner that isn't quite dead yet. And if you thought that metaphor was strange then you clearly haven't seen anything like this before. There is is a careful line the likes of Tarantino and Rodriquez have tread between respectful homage and plagiarism, but not since Turkish Star Wars have I witnessed such gratuitous plagiarism, and yet if it wasn't so hilariously bad and accidentally racist it probably would have never seen the light of day. This must make its way to the top of the pile of films that are so downright awful that they'll have you in stitches from start to finish. And if that doesn't seal the deal, Brian May (Queen) loved it enough to make an epic 8 minute cover it with Van Halen, the drummer from Reo Speedwagon and a few others, even naming the album in its honour. Unseen by many, to those who remember it it shall forever live on.

Sinful

2011-07-13T03:18:00.000-07:00

Title: Sinful (2006)
Rating: 2/5
Genre: Drama
Starring: Misty Mundae, Erika Smith, Ronnie Kerr
Director: Tony Marsiglia
Duration: 73 mins

Lilith has been dealt a rotten hand in life: a traumatic childhood, a horrible job, a husband who can’t get an erection, and an insatiable longing for a child she isn’t able to conceive. Next door to her lives the perfect couple, Aisha and Sam. They seem to have everything Lilith doesn’t: a healthy sex life, a positive outlook, and a baby on the way. Lilith seems to share a special, unexplainable connection with her neighbor; but when put into perspective, it is only an unwholesome jealousy that leads Lilith deeper and deeper into a self-created fantasy world that evokes underlying violent tendencies in her workplace and home.

Sinful was helmed by independent filmmaker Tony Marsiglia who had previously made such softcore flicks such as Lust for Dracula, Sin Sisters, and Dr. Jekyll & Mistress Hyde. These films also feature the acting talents of possibly the cutest actress in all of B-filmdom, Misty Mundae, who, aside from numerous softcore comedies/spoofs, stars in many a cult movie including Shock-O-Rama, Bite Me!, and The Screaming Dead. Along for the ride is Erika Smith, who has occasionally costarred with Mundae (as Erin Brown), like in the Polonia brothers’ party flick Splatter Beach, and is also credited in Sexy Adventures of Van Helsing, Bachelor Party 2: The Last Temptation, and Crimson. Now that we know the kind of personnel we’ll be dealing with in Sinful, it’ll be a surprise to know that Marsiglia’s feature is a much more mature offering than the blood’n’tits monkey business of the majority of Shock-O-Rama Cinema’s/e.i. Independent Cinema’s kinky catalog (not that Sinful doesn’t have blood or tits, mind you, but “tasteful” blood and tits).

Sometimes when a film is this appealing on the surface, I can’t help but do my research about the production. Sinful was shot in four and a half days on Super 16mm, and looks absolutely gorgeous for such time/technical restraints. However, following up on the production I found that life seemed to take a big duce on this movie: locations were lost, what would have been pivotal characters were thrown away, and at one point the cops came in and shut the whole darn thing down. Not to mention the character of Sam was to originally be played by a dwarf (now that would’ve reeled me in a lot sooner!). But like so many a film, perseverance ultimately prevailed, for better or worse. Sinful moves at a snails pace; and in a 73 minute movie, you can’t afford to loose your audience so quickly. Scenes that would normally be psychologically intense end up seeming just plain awkward (which may or may not have been the intent in the first place, but I’ll still consider this a drawback). One wonders what a much better film this’d be if Marsiglia’s pesky storm cloud above his head would have called out sick.

All is not lost from these behind-the-scenes misfortunes. Quite the contrary. Sinful is a unique entry in all of its filmmakers’ résumés. As stated before, the look of this film is quite beautiful. The use of lights and color is a great example of professionalism on such a little film, making the scenes have a very appropriate dream-like quality that helps blur the lines between Lilith’s reality and her obsessive fantasy world. The driving force of this movie, though, is the cast of characters; and while all the actors are beaming with charisma, Misty Mundae and Erika Smith have an undeniable on-screen chemistry. It also helps, I’m sure, that these two ladies of cult cinema are totally adorable in their own right. Despite that Sinful isn’t the slasher movie the cover art depicts it as, we are treated to a few ace gross-out scenes, all of which in one way or another involve abortion or miscarriages. Yuck! In the end, this film leaves a disturbing taste in one’s mouth.

Unless one’s in the mood for a quiet, surreal, and psychological character study, I can’t really recommend this to anyone who is a fan or potential follower to the typical works of Marsiglia, Mundae, or Smith. These three have many movies under their belts that are a hundred times more fun, a quality this movie doesn’t have. Though, like I’ve already said, Sinful is a mature breakaway from the usual stuff we pay attention to these people for and is worth a viewing, even if out of “sinful” curiosity.

Charlie’s Death Wish

2011-07-12T01:55:00.000-07:00

Title: Charlie’s Death Wish (2005)
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Action
Starring: Phoebe Dollar, Ron Jeremy, Randal Malone
Director: Jeff Leroy

After her sister was murdered by thugs in a jail cell, gun saleswoman Charlie (Phoebe Dollar) spends every waking moment investigating the culprits and plotting her violent revenge. What turns out behind her sister’s murder is a large criminal organization led by a drug lord (Randal Malone) that has Hollywood in the palm of his hand. Left to deal with all this mayhem is good cop Rosenberg (Ron Jeremy), who is sympathetic to Charlie’s vendetta but isn’t exactly crooked enough to allow her a pardon. If that wasn’t enough, an eccentric documentary filmmaker does his best to expose the corruption of the LAPD and the 2nd Amendment as he incidentally gets himself in the middle of what he dubs the “Deadly Dixie Chick Killer” murders. These characters and events all lead to nothing but action and carnage… and there can only be one winner.

Before I start raving about this little flick, let me tackle the unbelievably cool cast. This film is the brainchild of writer/producer/actress Phoebe Dollar (my personally favorite scream queen) and writer/director Jeff Leroy. Not only being viciously independent filmmakers, these two have a long and continuously developing history together with collaborations including the shot-on-video classic Hell’s Highway, Alien 3000, and Werewolf in a Women’s Prison, to name but a few. Also on the roster is legendary adult film star Ron Jeremy, who is no stranger to low-budget, non-adult films (Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger Part IV, Andre the Butcher, Slaughter Party). To up the ante for underground credibility is the involvement of Randal Malone who’s credits also include Evil in the Bayou, The Curse of Lizzie Borden, and this year’s (2011) epic showdown Dahmer Vs. Gacy. If you haven’t already passed out from all this awesomeness, prepare yourself for special appearances by Guns ‘N Roses’ Dizzy Reed, LA Guns’ Tracii Guns, and Motorhead frontman Lemmy. Yes, you read correctly, LEMMY!

With that out of the way, let me just say that I have always been a huge fan of low- to no-budget horror films. I love the spirit and the ingenuity that are always passionately put into these movies. But I never once conceived that this same DIY passion could be generalized to action movies. Charlie’s Death Wish completely blew me away. It’s got gory gunfights, car chases, and priceless humor; but what really sets this movie apart from others that share such a low budget, and what really got me cheering at my screen, were the exploding miniatures. I mean, c’mon. When was the last time anyone saw miniatures put to such good use recently in B-movies? Director Leroy has a knack for these things, and there is no better way to get action fans going than with explosions. However, fans of Dollar’s and Leroy’s horror stuff are not left in the dust, as this movie provides an ample supply of red goo from start to finish.

Charlie’s Death Wish also has some very creative elements that are a bit more subtle. For instance, set design isn’t particularly something B-filmmakers are altogether concerned with (unless you count bloodied walls and cobwebs); but the interiors of the drug lord’s mansion are impressively dressed, though not entirely convincing (this IS a small-time flick, after all). And along with the violence, the soundtrack gives this movie a jolt of energy, including the haunting and tastefully used Charles Manson ballad “Look at Your Game Girl” that definitely compliments the mood of CDW. The no-so-well-known supporting cast does a decent job of filling out the rest of the characters, and the story itself is engaging and exciting.

Charlie’s Death Wish is a criminally underrated and little seen B-movie that literally gives a big “fuck you” to the Hollywood film industry. If you don’t mind films that operate on low production value, CDW may just be a cult nerd’s “wish” come true.

Super

2011-07-11T03:47:00.000-07:00

Title: Super
Rating: 4.5/5
Genre: Action, (Black) Comedy, Drama
Starring: Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page, Kevin Bacon
Director: James Gunn

When I first saw the advert for this when viewing 'Submarine' and '13 Assassins' recently, I was instantly drawn into the concept. Constructed on a the B-Movie budget of merely $2million you can toss aside any notion of CGI effects or elaborate set-pieces; taking the gritty realism of the cult classic "SuperGuy," the campiness and classic-comic-inspired effects of the old Batman flicks and toss in some "Dr. Horrible" brand of clumsy comedy from our hapless hero and you aren't all that far from the recipe that makes this so unique. It is our bumbling protagonist in Frank (Wilson) whose life is turned upside down when his recovering drug addict wife (Tyler) is “kidnapped” - albeit willingly – by the local drug baron Jacques (Bacon), and when the Detective (Henry) refuses to help, he turns to the only person he knows could help, God, to give him a sign. Emerging in the form of the budget TV show starring the Holy Avenger (Fillion), he realises his calling as a superhero. Creating the alter-ego 'Crimson Bolt' and soon being joined by Libby, the comic book store clerk and her sadistic sidekick alter-ego 'Boltie,' he sets off with his trusty monkey wrench to fight crime, battle evil and get his wife back!

It never loses sight of realism; this isn't a 'Kick-Ass' clone where things conveniently fall neatly into place; another 'Batman Begins' where he has an infinite amount of money at his disposal. Much of what makes this so entertaining is just who Frank D'Arbo really is; a big, clumsy, passive guy whose been humiliated his entire life, is the very definition of what society would call a 'loser,' and is unsure now where to turn. The fact that he never feels anything more than an ordinary man in a costume, determined to do what he can to change the world; that issues such as how you even go about finding crime take centre stage is something that no big-budget contemporary will ever have. And in keeping with this realism is the well deserved 18 rating; armed with a monkey wrench which he isn't afraid of using, it would defeat the purpose of the film if no blood was shed and so in another bloodthirsty display that shows his signature style of brain bashing mayhem, this altogether different breed of film is no less gory than his last.

But none of this would make it a memorable film without throwing in the combination of a well written and thought out script, neither trying to be too clever in the use of twists yet still managing to create an engaging story brought to life by the all-star cast. Roping in Nathan Fillion and Gregg Henry from his work in 'Slither' to fill minor roles, finding the unlikeliest of superheroes in Rainn Wilson and still finding the time to give the show stealing sidekick in Ellen Page and the comedic bad guy played by Kevin Bacon plenty of screen time to let themselves shine. Their simple yet vivid roles, none of whom are belittled as mere caricatures for good or evil, never feel anything less than human and so quickly they manage to draw empathy for their situation, creating the much needed emotional impact that drives the more serious moments of the film. It'll make you laugh and it'll make you cry; Super is the best film of its kind since 'Save the Green Planet' and you'll probably never have even heard of it.

Resident Evil 4: Afterlife

2011-07-10T22:34:00.000-07:00

Title: Resident Evil 4: Afterlife
Rating: 3/5
Genre: Action, Horror
Starring: Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, Wentworth Miller
Director: Paul W.S. Anderson

Sometimes I get strange glares when people see this saga nestled in my DVD collection; how can I so openly slander mainstream productions when have known atrocities such as this on my shelf? A film that you know is going to be filled with cliché cheesy dialogue, have all the plot of a baby book and a B-Movie sensibility that seems confused as to whether it wants to try to ride with the big Blockbusters or say 'fuck it' and make something SyFy would be proud of. And that's largely my point; you know exactly what you are going to get – assuming this isn't your entry point to the now four-film long series, with a fifth reported on the way – and as awful as much of it glaringly is, it never fails to disappoint the fan in me. There are more zombie creations, more butt-kicking action, Claire Redfield is back to complement the newcomers and everything interesting has been stolen and regurgitated from elsewhere. It's dreadful and I should hate it with every fibre of my being, and yet for some reason it's still so compelling to watch.

It quickly ties up the loose ends left by the last film, Resident Evil: Extinction, in the opening sequence; the destruction of the Umbrella corp's Tokyo facility, whilst simultaneously introducing the nemesis of the entry. In her first confrontation she barely manages to survive, finding herself injected with the anti-virus, isolating and negating the effect of the T-Virus on her body. It isn't long before Alice finds herself travelling to Alaska to discover Arcadia along with the fate of those she helped escape in the last, only finding Claire without memory of who she was. Hoping her memory would soon return, she flies off to try and uncover any remaining survivors, coming across a few stragglers held up in a prison facility in LA, zombies surrounding them preventing any escape to the real Arcadia; a ship travelling the East coast offering refuge to survivors. With only a matter of time before the zombies burrow into the building, it's time to make a run for it to the only place offering them the hope of salvation.

The new zombie creations are essentially less intelligent versions of the 'super-vampires' from Blade II – not necessarily a bad thing but no points for originality – and the main enemy feels lifted straight out of the Matrix; he moves like Agent Smith, talks like Agent Smith, wears his glasses, carries the same gun placed in the same place in the same suit. Short of dying his blonde hair or casting Hugo Weaving in his stead, there's little they could do to make the match any closer. It even comes complete with bullet time; slow motion effects galore as we see every punch, body throw and cheesy grin. The CGI work has gone into overdrive to extend what would otherwise be rather short action sequences, but whilst becoming annoying, they do allow for a refreshing break from the frenetic whose-hitting-who style of changing camera angle twice a second I abhor. The use of CGI isn't just slapped on everything though, for whilst much of the background is intricately designed for the impressive scenery (especially when considering the budget), much of the less extravagant zombie army have gone back to the glorious B-Movie days of make-up abuse.

There may not be the witty one liners of past entries and there are more plot holes than a block of swiss cheese – a little clarification on certain issues wouldn't have been unwelcome – but it never makes it all that hard to simply shut your brain off from thinking, and the characters all feel somewhat welcome in the context of the film. We have Alice (Jovovich) herself, now no longer with her ridiculous superpowers making everything seem like a walk in the park and relying on the abilities of Claire (Larter) and Chris Redfield (Miller of “Prison Break” fame) more extensively (when it suits her). Apart from the obvious eye candy we get some nice shots of Crystal (Barnfield), we have the super douche Bennett (Coates) to draw our hatred, offset by the oddly likeable black guy Luther (Kodjoe). It always feels like something is happening, even if a lot more time is spent running as a result of Alice no longer being the semi-immortal creation of before, and whilst at times lacking in straight-up action sequences, it never quite feels slow. This is the most expensive entry to the series, though at $60million is still hardly the most extravagant kid on the block, but the increased expenditure feels justified. Apart from being shot in 3D, there are so many more locations to detail; the Tokyo base, Alaska, LA and the final set aboard Arcadia. Haters will still hate, but fans of the series can rest easy in the knowledge that all told, this is probably the best entry since the first. Which admittedly still isn't saying all the much.

13 Assassins

2011-07-06T20:44:00.000-07:00

Title: 13 Assassins (Extended Version)
Genre: Action, Drama
Rating: 3.5/5
Starring: Kôji Yakusho, Takayuki Yamada Yûsuke Iseya
Director: Takeshi Miike
Language: Japanese

When this was showing at my local indie cinema, I just knew that it was only a matter of time before I went to go see it. Reviving the stagnating 'chanbara' genre (that samurai flicks to most people) of the 60s, he starts to work bringing the old '63 classic back to life. Without taking the same modern twists expected from the likes of 'Azumi' and 'Chanbara Beauty,' this is more than a simple action film but a period drama with as much in common with Kurosawa's classics as it does contemporary offerings, going to great lengths to make sure the audience is aware of the context the film finds itself in. With the Edo period of Japan coming to a close, the country has long since been in a state of peace but the next in line for the Shogunate of the powerful Akashi clan, Naritsugu, threatens to change all that; malicious and bloodthirsty, he longs for a re-emergence of the war times that lay behind them, using his subjects as little more than toys for his amusement. It soon falls upon Sir Doi, senior advisor to the Shogun, to assemble an army of assassins to prevent his reign from ever emerging.

This set up to the final battle, in finding samurai willing to take up open arms against their master as well as the planning of the attack itself takes up a good first half of the film and, despite some impatient shuffling from the audience around me, was done in a manner than genuinely invokes the spirit of the classic films before it; the depravity of Naritsugu made apparent from the outset setting forth this rollercoaster momentum for the film, only accelerated by the powerful opening of the samurai Mamiya making his opinion known by performing Harakiri (killing yourself by slicing open your own stomach). It sets the scene, reminding history buffs of the events at the time without losing those not up to scratch on their Japanese history whilst doing more than just villify the enemy but also set the stage for our heroes to stand up for their samurai code and do right by their country, yet sadly character development is not one of this films strong suits.

Whilst difficult to convey such a large cast in a short period of time, the target, Naritsugu, never seems to be able to decide on which way to play the character; at times he hints at being more than just a mindless wake of devastation and suffering, offering some sort of explanation for his actions that never seem to fully pan out in the context of the story; he's not the rampant madman with a thirst for blood, showing restraint in many situations, nor is he the cold calculating killer to be wary of, content in causing pain on whim. He's more than anything just a man without a conscience or emotion, and once his bloody introduction is dealt with, does little to maintain the sense of villainy about his character. There's the comic relief, influenced by more modern works, that arrives in the form of the beast hunter whose very presence lends a distinct juxtaposition to the way the samurai view life, and then the role of Shinzaemon; the brave warrior who is once described as 'not being the strongest or best fighter, but an opponent who will never back down from his beliefs,' making him the ideal candidate to lead the assault. Of the other 11 assassins, chief guard to Naritsugu, and Sir Doi, senior advisor to the Shogun who orders the attack, we are given some sort of brief background to less than half and still nothing really feels fleshed out.

Whilst you'd think given his past work the action would form the highlight, it actually often feels less poignant than the build up. Whilst the tricks our assassins use in demolishing a village in an attempt to level the playing field plays off like the best action films have to offer, utilising superb set-pieces and merging real-time action with CGI in an indistinguishable manner many Hollywood contemporaries should look to for pointers, it soon degrades into mindless sword-slashing, with only the beast hunter lending any variety to the proceedings. That's not necessarily to say that the swordplay was badly choreographed, but due to the problematic build-up of our cast we find ourselves somewhat detached from those we're meant to care about as they kill those we aren't, until they meet an emotionally underwhelming demise at the forces overpowering them. It's all done to excess, and whilst pleasing to those thirsting for some blood in the mud, has too long a build up for action hounds and lacks a certain sense of finesse to the end result that kept me fascinated by the classic 'Lady Snowblood' or the infamous 'Lone Wolf and Cub' saga.

Instead this films real strength is in the not-so-subtle subtext; the very notion of what it means to be a samurai. How much is influenced by his personal belief is in question, but there is one pivotal – at least to my mind – scene where Naritsugu explains that samurai are losing their way, and by acting maliciously he's really keeping them in line and on their toes, using fear to promote their unwavering devotion to their master. It all makes an odd sort of sense as the plot thickens and we bear witness to the immense difficulty in finding those who have not succumbed to the decaying values the samurai once bore; who show the spirit to do right by their country and not sit idly by, demonstrating this unwavering loyalty to their master that would permit them to not only take another's life in line with their belief, but die themselves in trying to uphold it. Where the Shogunate is falling to corruption and a life can be taken in the blink of an eye, the emphasis on their reason for fighting is one that can never be made too apparent. Whilst no means without its flaws, Miike remains remarkably consistent in his reworking of a masterpiece that neither surpasses nor offends the classics.

Submarine

2011-07-06T20:42:00.000-07:00

Title: Submarine
Genre: Drama
Rating: 3.5/5
Starring: Craig Roberts, Yasmin Paige, Sally Hawkins, Noah Taylor, Paddy Considine
Director: Richard Ayoade

Picked for a number of film festivals including Sundance, Berlin and Toronto, it isn't long into the film that I understand the reason why. Anyone whose spent any time observing the films these festivals have helped promote will have noticed a format many of them follow; a family with relationship problems, often a romantic interest and a style of cinematography that attempts to 'break from the mold' provided by Hollywood to fall slap bang into another one, using the revelationary idea of attempting to make this all the more naturalistic and as such provide pitfalls and peaks to keep you guessing despite eventually reaching the expected conclusion. Truth be told if I hadn't noticed the directors name – best known for his role as 'Moss' from the show “IT Crowd” – I probably wouldn't have bothered at all, but with his comic timing at the helm there's always hope.

That said if you're expecting a comedy then you can think again for here he's flexing his creative muscles, and whilst the occasional laugh out loud comedic moments certainly succeed in lightening the mood, often emerging from the awkward situations Ayoade seems to revel in creating, much of the plot takes a somewhat darker turn. Dredging up the past, he succeeds in creating a snapshot of life during that turbulent time where you're exploring your own sexuality; the quest to lose your virginity amidst a sea of misinformation from peers with no more of a clue than yourself, parents struggling to find a way to broach the subject and the notion of romance thrown in the middle. Yet this is no standard love story, playing out more like a tragedy as we are given the internal monologues explaining his decisions that often end up in disaster, and yet everyone involved always manages to remain endearing to watch, evoking our sympathy, and keeping us hoping for the best whilst expecting the worst.

The show is often stolen by his two parents; the mother thirsting for the passion of her past by re-igniting an old flame that threatens their marriage whilst her marine biologist husband seems to calmly take the most devastating news without raising a word in anger, both bumbling through their relationship whilst awkwardly trying to advise their son in matters of love. Presenting a vision of the future for our young protagonist, Oliver, he finds himself spiralling towards without control, desperately doing all he can to be the best boyfriend he can whilst questions of the strength of his parents marriage are constantly plaguing his thoughts. He treads the line between coming off as merely an idiot to be laughed at and a caricature with a surprising capability considering his young age, and where much of the film rests firmly on his performance, he carries it to the conclusion in a manner that can only attest to his acting experience, never coming off as anything but an apt portrayal of a young teenager.

But as was mentioned at the start, it still seems to fall into that conventional format that whilst alone implies nothing bad about the end result, makes it difficult to shake the feeling that there's little here that hasn't already been done before, and it's here that I find fault. Despite this, it seems pertinent to point out that this is still his debut as a director and an avenue he's expressed interest in exploring, and it is with first efforts that often people flounder as they learn from their mistakes; Wook-Park had three full-lengths under his belt before becoming known for 'Joint Security Area;' Aronofsky's 'Pi' was a mere prelude to the landmark 'Requiem for a Dream,' and both now rank amongst my favourite directors. Already he shows a confidence in his abilities that suggests that if this is anything like what we can expect from him in the future, then surely the best is still yet to come.

Real Time - Siege at Lucas Street Market

2011-06-24T12:30:00.000-07:00

Title: Real Time - Siege at Lucas Street Market (2001)
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Thriller
Starring: Brinke Stevens, Michael Cornelison, Larry Coven
Director: Max Allan Collins
Duration: 71 mins

Consisting of raw security camera, police, amateur, and news footage Real Time tells the story of two small-time criminals, Frank and Bud, who hold up a convenience store. After accidentally killing a police officer who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, a would-be simple robbery turns into a full-blown hostage situation. The hostages include a mother and daughter, a businessman, a troubled teen girl, the store clerk, and a pregnant woman who seems to know more than she’s letting on. What follows is a “real time” account of the negotiations between the crooks and the police as well as the drama within the store.

Real Time is a bit of an oddity. It is a movie not only made for the DVD market, but made specifically to take advantage of the DVD as an interactive medium. Have you ever wondered what that ANGLE button on your remote control is for? I’ve certainly never had to use it. The manual might not admit it, but it was made for this very movie. From start to finish Real Time is completely multi-angle. Meaning that at any point in the movie you can press this button and see the current scene from a totally different point of view. Whether it be from the security cam to news coverage, from the police video to an amateur recording from the adjacent building, Iowan filmmaker and author Max Allan Collins gives you the power to direct this movie yourself. Every viewing could be different from the last. This feature is usually used for sporting events or concert performances, but now Collins’ innovation brings this feature into the entirety of his third full-length film.

Nowadays, the “found footage” method of filmmaking is running amok, especially after the popularity of the most recent blockbuster Paranormal Activity. Real Time came out when the subgenre of sorts was still relatively young. Despite the increasing popularity of this technique and the inventiveness of Collins, a storytelling jack-of-all-trades, Real Time never really had a long-lasting life outside of the specific fanbases of Troma, actress Stevens, or Collins himself. This is a shame because besides being one hell of a DVD release, it is also a very watchable film. While this may not have the edge-of-your-seat thrills of The Blair Witch Project or [REC], Real Time will still keep you in your seat ‘til the very end, sucking you in just like any breaking news broadcast of this kind. Also what we see a lot in more recent “found footage” movies is that the filmmakers go out of their way to make sure the viewer absolutely knows this is (faux) raw footage by using exaggerated handheld camera movements or gratuitous video malfunctions. Collins spares our intelligence of these insults and concentrates on the actual story; a very appreciated decision.

In my opinion, Siege at Lucas Street Market could easily be adapted into a stage play, if it hasn’t already. As the title implies, the narrative is kept entirely “real time,” a continuously running story. All the takes are very long, as in a play, and one even wonders if this could’ve been shot in a single run through. The convenience store itself is a very great example of set design. If it weren’t mentioned in the DVD’s supplemental features, I would’ve thought this was shot-on-location at a real mini-mart. The acting may range from amateurish to local theatre fair, but featured is a unique ensemble of interesting characters with great chemistry. These, as I’ve always said, are the ingredients for a good movie. And the addition of legendary scream queen Brinke Stevens (The Slumber Party Massacre, Teenage Exorcist, Nightmare Sisters) doesn’t hurt either, eh? Lastly, throughout the first half of the film there is constant radio play of mock oldies/rock/pop songs that subtly correlate with the action onscreen (though you might not be able to pick this up right away). It’s this attention to detail that sets Real Time apart from a lot of these shot-on-video/direct-to-video films, regardless of any drawbacks inherent with such a low budget.

Though the running time may be a bit on the short side, Real Time is fast paced, fully engaging, refreshingly innovative, and addictively voyeuristic. Even though this may not fool you into thinking that this crisis actually happened, and the acting that holds this movie together may not be the best, Siege is a fun watch and was a personal favorite of mine in high school. The real treat, though, is having this on Troma DVD. That way you can wholly appreciate the effort put into this little thriller without it eating up a lot of your time.

Sucker Punch

2011-06-24T06:33:00.000-07:00

Title: Sucker Punch
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Action, Adventure
Starring: Emily Browning, Jena Malone, Abbie Cornish
Director: Zack Snyder

Almost universally slated by critics, despised as little more than misogynistic and plotless drivel; an excuse for Snyder to pack in as many ridiculous set pieces of pretty young things doing slow-motion stunts against an unrelenting array of inexplicable demonic creatures chosen for their style than for any more sensible purpose. Basically it delivers on everything I could have asked for and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. What were people expecting? The man who made what I'm told is a good graphic novel the bland drivel of Watchmen? Who carved a career by having a bare chested, oiled up guys with oversized CGI muscles scream “This is Sparta” in 300? His first feature film where he's given writing credit and you were expecting Inception? Don't get me wrong, this definitely appeals to only those with a specific mindset; if you have a penis and want to shut your brain down for an action film, then like the endless 'Resident Evil' and 'Fast and the Furious' sagas, Sucker Punch is a film that will deliver on precisely what it promises. Nothing more, nothing less.

As with the recently reviewed 'Source Code,' the concept that revolves around fantasies within fantasies is bound to draw unjust comparisons to 'Inception' once again, but it's really only a means to an end. Our lead protagonist in Baby Doll (Browning) committed to a mental hospital after accidentally killing her sister in a rage against her step-father and recent sole-custodian following the death of her mother, he pays the local warden (Oscar Isaac) who runs the institute from the shadows to make sure she has a lobotomy from the doctor due to arrive in five days. Retreating from the world into her fantasy of a burlesque club - even in her own fantasy she can't envisage a pleasant situation, perhaps reflecting the level of trauma within her own mind - where the other residents dance for guests first in public, and then 'pleasure them' in private. It is in this fantasy that the doctor (Carla Gugino) becomes her dance instructor and the warden the evil master in control of the club; a fantasy world reality that is surprisingly coherent with the reality set up at the outset.

Teaming up with the four other girls; Sweet Pea, Rocket, Amber and Blondie, they resolve to do whatever is necessary in order to escape, and it is during her dances that our Baby Doll loses herself to the music and finds herself retreating even further into the depths of her own mind; the fantasy she has created to protect herself still too traumatic to embrace, but with the aid of her guardian angel, wise man, and the father figure she never had who comes to her aid, helping her by explaining what must be done in order to obtain her freedom; the five items she shall need: A map, a fire, a knife, a key, and a mystery item that will involve a grave sacrifice. With the help of her fellow dancers, she dances seductively to disarm the men who stand in her way and obtain the items she needs to escape, retreating into the depths of her mind to find the strength to fight her battles against the onslaught of personal demons she must face, each set-piece a metaphor for her dance and the meaning behind it. And a dragon. Can't forget the dragon.

The title isn't as random as you might initially think; the manner they dress and the variety of outfits ranging from sailors to strippers; the number of fetishes included to titillate the male audience whom it obviously subscribes to intended as an allure to bring them out for the visual eye candy whilst the real 'Sucker Punch' lies standing right in front of them. Think about it, a plot that revolves around women oppressed by their male counterparts, forced into this inhospitable situation and turning around, rising up and fighting back for their freedom. Degrading towards women? The core plot would suggest otherwise, but I expect many of the female persuasion would have difficulty looking past the skimpy outfits we've long since become desensitised to, but this was was never really a film intended for them. Whether or not it truly succeeds in managing to have its cake and eat it too; playing on males fantasies whilst simultaneously preaching of female empowerment is one that you'll have to decide for yourself and an argument that has been raged since 'Female Prisoner' in '72; 'I Spit on Your Grave' in '78, and now revived here, but the fact that this is a point so many seem to have overlooked and had to be pointed out explicitly by a director often known for his style over substance I think says more about the average viewer than the director.

All arguments of the potential misogyny of the film aside, the plot may have something of an ace up its sleeve, and whilst not quite as idiotic as some try to make it out to be, it all ultimately only exists for one purpose: special effects. This has always been Snyder's forté and the main reason he still finds work and here he has found a vehicle to really outdo himself; by allowing “Baby Doll's fantasies” to take flight, really he's allowing his own ridiculous ideas to come to life with no need to make all that much sense of the situation, only the quest to obtain the item tethering it to the first layer of fantasy; sword battles with undead giant samurai, WWI steampunk creations and fire-breathing dragons complete with all the firepower these little girls can carry to wield against an array of demonic entities tied together with a wafer thin plot. No time is wasted building up the characters, and perhaps whilst some sort of tie-in with her 'complicated past' which is briefly mentioned then immediately forgotten within the set-pieces; using what she's learnt from each of the other characters - fabrications of her own mind don't forget, little more than internally conflicting opinions; the voice of reason, turbulent relationship with her sister and fearful self all arguing amongst each other but fighting for a common goal - to overcome her own personal demons and fight to escape the hellish situation she finds herself in would have gone a long way in creating some sense of character empathy, you also have to stop and remind yourself of the source. This is Zack Snyder. He isn't known for smart or subtle, he does ridiculous, over the top, mindless popcorn flicks for men, and he does them like nobody else, so park your brain at the door, sit back, and enjoy the ride.

Source Code

2011-06-23T16:56:00.000-07:00

Title: Source Code
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga
Director: Duncan Jones

It wasn't all too long ago that I first saw the film “Moon,” debut effort from this director now only on his second bout with recognition and once again managing to produce a concept that is nothing if not intriguing; his chops before delivering upon one of the best sci-fi films to emerge in recent years and evidently returning for something perhaps a little more palletable to a mainstream audience was still something I couldn't pass up. Telling the story of Colter Stevens (Gyllenhaal) of the US Air Force, suddenly awakened inside the body of another man aboard a commuter train opposite the enigmatic Christina (Monaghan), it isn't long before he has his life whisked away from under him from an explosion that decimates the train. Coming to once again in a mysterious capsule, he finds himself conversing with one Colleen Goodwin (Farmiga) who tells him of his mission: to be sent into the body of this man for the last eight minutes of his life and discover the identity of the bomber. This begins a spiral as we not only struggle to identify the man responsible for the terrorist action, but also of Stevens and the perplexing situation he finds himself.

There is much to applauded here and there doesn't seem to be a weak link in the main cast; Monaghan manages to get a sense of her character across in her painfully brief sequences and Gyllenhaal proves that whilst he now rolls with the big boys, that he isn't a braindead actor incapable of displaying complex emotions. The script, too, deserves a large amount of credit for facilitating all the proceedings; the turbulent plot is brought to life by the actions of our protagonist whose actions never feel idiotic, even when they don't work out as planned, or betraying the idea that he is a captain of the U.S. Air Force and hence somewhat adept at thinking on his feet. It's intelligent without ever feeling pretentious or overly complex and manages to tread this fine line, remaining simple enough that the scientific element never becomes a distraction that often causes films such as this to falter.

But much of my disappointment, and indeed likely the reason it'll never manage to quite make it as a sci-fi classic is because of the somewhat cliché ending. It does make sense if you think about it for a few seconds – though certainly those who aren't particularly scientifically minded may need someone to help explain the concept of parallel universes to them – but because we are drilled so much the ineffectiveness of trying to change the future by entering the past, that when suddenly it happens you're overcome by a mixture of relief for our hero's improved situation and anger at the fact that they've deliberately told you one thing only to go back on it; the overdone romantic plot line to try and make it fit with every other big budget film these days never given time to develop and, whilst this is not particularly unwelcome, I do wonder why they didn't do away with this thread altogether, only really held together by the fact that Monaghan can't be on screen without somehow managing to be enchanting to watch.

It's not difficult to see how this is going to draw all the 'Inception' comparisons before too long; both involving delving into the psyche, altering the past to affect the future, (and both having come out within a year of each other for those who have difficulty remembering films further back), but in truth they play out as rather different films. The former is intricately detailed with subtle hints and suggestions to keep you guessing, Source Code on the other hand is rather simple by design. As with all sensical sci-fi (as opposed to talk of Dilithium Crystals and Holodecks) it's based largely on current scientific knowledge with just a few gaps filled in to explain what might happen, and this never really drags down the story which – much like his last film – simply uses the medium to deliver upon a twist on an old style; the classic murder mystery given added depth by the manner in which it all unfolds, constantly revealing new information and showing us the same characters from whom we draw our suspicions. Almost as much 'Poirot' as it is your standard thriller, whilst it falls short of what I had hoped from him, veering towards the territory of clichés and convention, he does little to dissuade me from the fact that this could be one of the most exciting new directors to emerge in a rather long time.

Teenage Hooker Becomes a Killing Machine

2011-06-22T08:51:00.000-07:00

Title: Teenage Hooker Becomes a Killing Machine
Rating: 2/5
Genre: Crime, Drama, Sci-Fi
Starring: Dae-tong Kim, So-yun Lee
Director: Gee-woong Nam
Language: Korean

This has to rank as one of my most unusual DVD acquisitions; found sealed amidst a sea of my friends collection of martial arts flicks and bad Blu-Ray blockbusters this oddball sticking out like a sore thumb. Consequently it was watched and then when it was all over, rescued from being flung across the room in the vague direction of the bin like a frisbee. This isn't exactly the easiest film to understand and whilst the title is rather apt, it alludes to low-budget gory promises perhaps reminiscent of the plethora of Japanese counterparts being produced that is never fulfilled. This film is Korean, and calling it 'a little strange' would be like referring to the works of David Lynch as 'unusual,' with all the Eraserhead oddities intentionally implied by such a comparison.

You'd think such a title would leave very little room for manoeuvre; how can you make a film about a teenage prostitute who turns into a killing machine all that complicated in no more than an hour? A teacher whom our whorish protagonist is in love with – unrequited love – and offers 'special' treatment at no cost, who in turn upon the discovery of her pregnancy kills her and her child with the assistance of three 'brothers.' Enter the scientists who discover her butchered corpse and decide to reassemble her using mechanical components because they can; the blood no longer pumping through her veins as she arises as a walking corpse wishing little more than to get vengeance on those who were responsible for her demise; a plot that all sounds none too complex except this mindfuck is about as far from your standard gore flick as it's possible to be, and that really is confusing.

The decision to use a teacher in particular feels like a rather critical point the director intends to make, sending a message about the deviancy and psychological trauma; toying with the emotions of the very generation below them that they are intended to guide and teach (particularly in SE Asia, teachers are seen as more than people in the classroom but guides for their students during the years under their care). There are a plethora of long speeches; a soundtrack that cuts from rock n' roll to lengthy opera pieces; a strange interpretive dance segment; and odd demonic lighting and cackling from the teacher acting as some sort of evil overlord. There is an odd parallel hinted at between man and machine; the humans 'programmed' by those above, and the ability to act like a machine free from remorse being merely the freedom from this programming, becoming capable of thinking independently; the subtle hint that she was human all along and that somehow him killing her was really a gift. But really, now it feels like I'm giving him more credit than he's due.

There certainly is some sense of artistic direction behind the bizarre events, but – like Lynch – he feels no need to ever explain himself properly and I'll be damned if I can figure it out. It is this allusion to making sense that separates this from Lynch's work which often begs for you to come to your own conclusion rather than the directors, and thus this inherent lack of an explanation makes so much of it come across as little more than weird for the sake of being weird, lacking the hilarity of many of the Japanese' offerings as well as the profound revelation of the greater artistic visions. This confusing message simply gets lost in all the overly long and repetitive sequences of nonsensical points and somehow it's main strength as a film (and not a societal reflection or argument) falls back onto the rather basic plot line, which without all the gory fun makes this hour long oddball an inherently difficult one to recommend.

Red Cliff

2011-06-13T01:08:00.000-07:00

Title: Red Cliff
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Action/Drama
Starring: Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Fengyi Zhang
Director: John Woo
Language: Chinese

There are few things I despise more than being told to piss off and wait for an undisclosed amount of time whilst the director rakes in the money and prepares to tell you how it all ends, a major reason why I stalled watching this two-part film that can only really be described as 'epic' in nature, but amongst them are excessive cuts detrimental to the story. If a film is lengthy it should deserve that run time, and many a great film is long simply because it has a lot of story to tell; Love Exposure managed an impressive four hours and yet the pacing there is anything but slow. There is an abridged version of this film that managed to cut everything down to a little over two hours dubbed the 'international version,' perhaps fearing peoples response to the four-and-a-half hour run time, but even if it takes you two separate sittings, watching the first part to return a few days later for this re-telling of one of the bloodiest and perhaps most fascinating wars in human history, then it is well worth the effort. Personally, it took me two snack breaks and a 30 minute interval.

As the name implies, this epic tale revolves the infamous battle for Red Cliff; the seasoned war veteran and Prime Minister for the Han Emperor, Cao Cao, convinces the young emperor that there are rebel forces led by Lui Bei and Sun Quan to the south and in order to quash the uprising should take their superior numbers and conquer the land by force. Lui Bei, with many loyal generals under his command stands his ground but their overwhelming numbers soon force them from their land and they are given little option but to send their chief tactician, Zhuge Liang, to forge an alliance with Sun Quan. Joining at the riverside stronghold of Red Cliff, Zhuge Liang and Sun Quan's viceroy, Zhou You, embark on a war with the treacherous Cao Cao; a dangerous game involving spies, assassins, biological and psychological warfare, precision tactics, and plenty of bloodshed before either side can claim victory.

Each character has their own distinct personality and method of doing battle; Zhang Fei's 'Gimli-like' approach involving a number of amusing moments where he roars or charges head first into the enemy unarmed, punching people with his fists as he runs; Sun Shung Xiang's glee as she taunts the men who thought her incapable of battle by beating them at their own game; or Gan Ning's almost complete absence of honour having originally been a pirate now loyal to the young Sun Quan. There isn't a single character who hasn't been given considerable research and there is time devoted to developing them, if perhaps – dare I say it – a little more could have been done to show us the rest of the cast; Guan Yu for example, rarely being seen outside of battle. Even the three kingdoms themselves are given their context, with each leader displaying a unique approach to dealing with situations as they arise, governing three wholly different states and with their own concerns.

But the behind the scenes affairs are of course only one side of the story, and no slack is given to the long and arduous battles that are steadily built up through the dialogue. Each general, as already mentioned, has their own way of doing battle and this comes through strongly in the choreography, and unlike perhaps films such as 'Troy' where we were only really concerned with seeing Achilles do battle, there are enough characters on display such that it never really gets tiring. And yet, this in itself isn't the highlight; the manner in which the battles are conducted are instead so ingeniously portrayed; half 'Kagemusha' and half '300,' it combines an element of stylised action sequences with enough emphasis on the details; the formations, tactics and trickery employed to give their side the edge whilst maintaining an odd façade of honour that allows you to employ assassins but let fearsome warriors walk out of respect.

The tale of Red Cliff, and in particular the pivotal character of Zhuge Liang who I've ranted about through other means on how much of a freakin' tactical genius he was, was one that I knew vaguely; the names used in 'Dynasty Warriors' telling pieces of this saga – both derived from the book “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms” written way back in the 14th century and in itself with its own inaccuracies stemming from fact that its been over a millennia since the events occurred – but here it is given so much more life, consolidating the finer points with a clarity that if he decided to continue with other parts of the book would have me queueing first in line. When I went into Kurosawa's well regarded 'Kagemusha,' I was looking for something grandiose in scale; something with as much to do with the battle as the scenes behind it; the devious plotting and conspiracies, plans executed and occasionally gone wrong. I wanted the sense of realism that I was actually there, transported across the lands through time and invested in the lives of the unique characters that I understand at least to some degree and lending weight to the events of the battle; tactics gone awry, responding to traps lain and then the ensuing counter-reactions. Where Kagemusha stumbled, Red Cliff does not. This naysayer has been dubious of Woo's work since he stopped collaborating with Chow Yun-Fat but with Red Cliff he has his masterpiece, and sadly too few people seem to have noticed.

Carnival of Souls

2011-06-12T01:38:00.000-07:00

Title: Carnival of Souls
Rating: 2.5/5
Genre: Horror (apparently)
Starring: Candace Hilligoss
Director: Heck Harvey
Release Date: 1962

Returning to my education in the origins of horror comes this intriguing little number; starring a female lead, Mary, who drives the story forward with only a little intervention from a small cast; it's uncommon notion particularly in this period of time in the US's short but turbulent history, portraying an independent woman who bluntly mentions her lack of desire for a man and her desire to work and live for herself rather than as a housewife as was still largely considered normal. And perhaps this is where part of the horror was intended to emerge from; the very notion that a woman would not want to obey a man, though whilst I think it would certainly have raised a few suspicious eyebrows at the time, the inherent lack of horror atmosphere is perhaps more down to how the genre has developed from its far more subtle origins to this rather dated offering.

Though there is something of a motif regarding how women drive; within the opening minutes we see a woman crash on a straight bridge followed by the survivor driving in a manner that is perhaps one of the few genuinely frightening moments, the thought that she might have actually been allowed on the roads, the majority of the plot revolves around the aftermath of the incident. Randomly deciding to take a career change and become a church organist, as she works within the church despite being of little faith and lives in a large house with the landlady, the elderly Mrs. Thomas, and next door to the horny git Mr. Linden, she begins to see visions of a ghostly man haunting her, drawing her curiosity to a mysterious abandoned carnival...

Now, Mary could be a classic case for a psychological mystery to invest yourself in, but she never quite manages to provide that draw; her strength of acting doesn't succeed in fascinating the viewer in the role, still somewhat feeling stuck in the mindset of the era. The script makes sense, and even many of the bizarre unexplained moments that occur on occasion slot into place by the end, even if it never quite feels like a mystery to be solved as much as it does nonsensical and poorly explained by the occasionally badly mixed volume levels, the background music obscuring the dialogue already rendered 'noisy' as a result of the low budget and time. The acting might not have felt particularly special, but the inherent desire to immerse the viewer in the world – there are none of those car scenes where the background shows its clearly not them driving for example – through any means at their disposal has resulted in a number of clever tricks and use of camera angles that by modern standards renders it almost indistinguishable from its bigger budgeted brethren.

I can't in all conscience call this a bad film, despite my occasional negativity towards it, as by the conclusion more details have sunk in and the intelligence behind it all has slowly begun to rise to the surface. Indeed a number of films feel indebted to this work. Not only is this an early example of a now cliché twist, a landmark in how to display the psychological torment of a protagonist within the horror genre, at the time more concerned with apocalypse and monsters, but it also pre-dates the likes of Romero's “Dawn of the Dead,” who created his zombies in much the same manner as the ghost used here. The problem lies in dated conventions that no longer apply; interactions and situations that have long since stopped really occurring. Carnival of Souls is an important historical precursor to many of the great horror films of the coming decade and beyond, but its antiquated feel has long since been bested.

Burlesque Massacre

2011-06-06T03:23:00.000-07:00

Title: Burlesque Massacre (2011)
Rating: 2/5
Genre: Horror, exploitation
Starring: Crystal Swarovski, Timothy Whitfield, Olivia Bellafontaine
Director: Timothy Whitfield
Duration: 82 mins

Burlesque dancer Crystal and her co-workers take a relaxing retreat to her brother John’s suburban home in Burbank, California to train for their upcoming burlesque tour. However, Johnny boy has a little trouble getting a long with his one-night-stands. Seems he likes killing them. On the bright side, this should work out perfectly with Crystal’s secret plan for murdering her fellow dancers. Add a little incestuous brother/sister action on the side and we’re looking at a pretty busy weekend for these siblings. But how long will it be before their malicious plot turns around and bites them in the asses? Let me just say that you’ll be subject to a lot of tassel-twirling and bathing rituals before that happens.

Burlesque Massacre emerges from the current “grindhouse revival” wave that’s been sweeping the horror world since the Rodriguez/Tarantino 2007 double-feature. By now I would normally be saying that this recent trend is starting to get old, but what I like about it is that it opens up the gateway for filmmakers to make ridiculously violent and sleazy movies for us to enjoy as an alternative to the unoriginal, rehashed big-budget films saturating our local theaters. Whitfield’s movie offers fans everything they loved from films like The Gore-Gore Girls and Hard To Die but on an even more minute budget. That means it’s shot-on-video using scratchy film camera effects to make it look as if it’s been sitting in a vault for 30 years. Luckily, this effect actually does work to some degree, but it’s used so sporadically that often times you forget this movie’s trying to do that “retro” thang. Big deal though, right? It delivers the right amount of goods here.

Burlesque Massacre, as implied before, contains rampant nudity and el cheapo violence. The former content is usually rare in most flicks at such an essentially homegrown level of filmmaking. It usually seems like no-budget auteurs are often afraid of stocking their movies with such lovely ladies. So even though it is a film about showgirls, it definitely ain’t no tease! The generally tasteless depictions of incest, molestation, lesbian rape, and necrophilia can attest to that (as well as significantly trashing up this already trashy movie). The violence, on the other hand, leaves much to be desired. I understand that on a small scale gore effects are a hassle to deal with sometimes, but mere strangulations is the usual cause of deaths here (though we do get to see a nice nether region stabbing, so it’s not a total lost).

Technically, this movie is typical of shot-on-video entries. The acting is very sub-par (but who’s paying these gals to act, right?). The suspense is totally shot dead from the get-go for two reasons: we are told who the killers are at a very early point; and the mask that John wears looks like it was bought at a Halloween outlet store. I don’t have much gripe about the second reason as this makes Burlesque Massacre rise to a higher altitude of sleaziness, but as a horror film there should still be SOME suspense retained. Lastly, the music is very good. The score itself compliments the goings on quite well, and the songs laced throughout do kind of have a fitting, burlesque flair about them. Lots for our ears to enjoy.

I do have one major warning for all of you that are possibly considering to view this exercise in sordid thrills: it does not star Cher nor Christina Aguilera. I know, I know. This is not the blockbuster musical you missed out during last Thanksgiving. But fear not! At least you won’t have to witness a 66-year-old strutting her surgically altered, has-been self on a three story screen. Burlesque Massacre is available on DVD and video on demand, and be sure to catch Whitfield’s upcoming film PhotoGRAPHIC later this year if you’re so inclined.

Blood Moon Rising

2011-05-31T12:52:00.000-07:00

Title: Blood Moon Rising
Rating: 2.5/5
Genre: Horror/Comedy
Starring: Laurie Love, Neal Trout
Director: Brian Skiba

It certainly seems like Grindhouse flicks are becoming all the rage; first Planet Terror and then Machete, but this hints at something that Rodriguez' offerings didn't: the complete and utter absence of a respectable budget. Mimicking the film reels used in the old 70s offerings, the time period this is also set in comes complete with all the drug abuse, random sex scenes and fake blood exploding everywhere. This should have been something glorious; a film not as much mocking the past but re-creating it in all its nonsensical glory. Vampires, Demons, Werewolves and Zombies coalescing in a whirlwind plot that somehow involves a cursed book that opens the gates of Hell so the Devil – a vampires father, who in turn happens to be the great great grandmother of our female protagonist – desperately trying to use a oddly shaped pendant to prevent hell on earth.

Our first time director (at least this is his first full-length release) has clearly a decent understanding of the style and admirably avoids CGI unless absolutely necessary, being impractical on the given budget to do it any other way, and despite looking out of place maintains an intentionally cheap feel that doesn't betray the cheesy vision he's created. The problems largely stem from the fact he takes it all a little too far, not differentiating between the tasteful and the annoying; the editing looks hacked with with a butchers knife, complete with reels getting lost and spinning out of sync, cutting all too abruptly and jarringly away from the sleazy rock and roll soundtrack. The volume levels are painfully mastered with entire sections of dialogue lost, and any attempt to adjust the volume yourself are met with a sudden transition to loudness ensuring that certain pieces of the already nonsensical puzzle are forever lost.

Fortunately the piece is brought back from the brink by the large cast capable of lending a touch of humour to the proceedings; from the geek with his guns and comic book obsession, trying to act the macho hero but often letting his female companion do the lions share of exploding heads, a cameo appearance from Ron Jeremy along side bike riding vampires, Jamaican stoners and bike gangs that are really just out to have fun; the fact that nothing seems to make any sense can quickly be forgiven given the fact that it all allows for these amusing scenario's to emerge. At times it is certainly annoying in how indiscriminately he pieced the product together, but at no point does this ever feel slow or without its idea's to toss about.

The Witch Who Came From the Sea

2011-05-31T07:19:00.000-07:00

Title: The Witch Who Came From the Sea
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Horror, Thriller, Exploitation (Psychological Drama)
Starring: Millie Perkins
Director: Matt Cimber

Well known film critic Mark Kermode once described this as one of the unsung gems of the video-nasty era – films deemed too psychologically harmful for viewing by the general public, resulting in a ban. Oddly, it feels wholly undeserving of this status; usually emerging as a result of being horrifically violent and showing depictions of subject matter on the extreme end, the only perceivable reason for this film being banned is the core plot, hinging on the psychological trauma of our protagonist who was sexually abused as a child. Much of the violence is implied rather than specifically seen; this is no “I Spit on Your Grave” but rather almost a companion piece in a similar vein but focussing on her mental stability and just how ill she truly is.

The plot never seems all that stable – a good reflection on our leads mindset perhaps – and seems to sway as we learn more about the bloody murderous events that unfold and the constant implications of how she is connected but never given a clear answer as to why. A lot has gone into this film, and despite the occasional dodgy looking effect that could only have been considered appropriate in a 70s flick, there's a surprising amount of thought that has gone into this script; symbolism galore in the occasionally cryptic dialogue, the truth behind her fathers demise, the significance of Venus the Sea Witch and of the mermaid all pieces of this elaborate puzzle we are given to figure out the details of her condition, often given context through the use of flashbacks where she is forced to re-live her past and allow us a snippet of what caused the damage that we observe now.

Much of this couldn't have been possible without Millie Perkins allowing herself to be subjected to such a daring role, frequently displaying nudity – if often not in an erotic but a naturalistic manner; she just happened to have her tits out – and requiring her to play an almost “The Shining” lead role, treading along the knife edge of sanity and occasionally sliding down. Really, this barely feels like a horror film at all, once again given the title more for it's implicit content rather than the explicit and lending a very different tone to it all; more than a traditional revenge film this is a character driven story of how her life has been impacted by her childhood, now manifesting itself in the present, and going in expecting anything more gruesome will likely end in disappointment for this is one video-nasty that feels like it was misplaced. Yet whilst there is unquestionably more to this film than your average nasty of the era, it never quite manages to find its way to the peaks set by others; it doesn't quite keep you guessing enough, and much of the symbolism by the films conclusion becomes all too obvious. A misunderstood gem of the era that nearly forty years on it still finds difficulty in finding its audience, given more harsh a treatment than it truly deserved and yet, this is not to be remembered as one of the classics.

Repo! A Genetic Opera

2011-05-30T17:51:00.000-07:00

Title: Repo! A Genetic Opera
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Musical, Horror, Sci-Fi
Starring: Alexa Vega, Paul Sorvino, Anthony Head, Sarah Brightman, Paris Hilton, Bill Moseley
Director: Darren Lynn Bousman

With a whole host of stars in this one, it seems rather impressive that it snuck under my radar, and even if musicals aren't usually my genre of choice, with the director responsible for a good portion of the Saw saga (Saw II-IV) it would certainly appear as though this was not to be a typical affair; expect no shying away from gore – even if it never takes precedence – and a devilish plot that would rob this film of one of its greatest assets if I went into too much depth. Set in the dystopian near future, where organs can be bought for a high price and then brutally repossessed should you fail to make your payments; where cosmetic surgery has gone to a new extreme in must have necessity, springs this tale of the corporation responsible for such actions, GeneCo, and it's dark past. With the Repo man, Nathan, (Head) hiding his true identity from his sick daughter (Vega), he desperately searches for the cure whilst tackling with his debt to Rotti Largo (Sorvino), GeneCo's head and founder to whom he shares a shameful history.

There is always a fundamental issue with musicals and one that is often the point at which they stumble; it's not enough to find someone who is capable of bringing their character to life through acting, but they also need to be able to sing as well, and the number who can successfully do both limits options incredibly quickly and makes casting all the more essential, and here they haven't quite got everything right. For anyone whose seen the infamous singing episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” they should realise that Anthony Head (who played “Giles the Watcher” there) is a perfect choice and fits into the role of the repo man like nobody else could. Sarah Brightman, playing 'Blind Mag,' despite having little acting experience is a professional mezzo-soprano perhaps best known for performing in “The Phantom of the Opera,” so quite readily steals the show and seems vastly underutilised in the end result, and it is their two performances in particular that showcase everything this should have been, promising an epic experience you'll never forget.

But then there's Alexa Vega. The cute young starlet that I recognise the name from, recognise the face from somewhere and then midway through it hits you; that girl you just called cute was the child star you last saw in “Spy Kids,” and then suddenly comes the nausea (even though research shows she's the same age as me); that lump forming in your throat in the memory that only becomes easy enough to swallow when you hear her crackling voice sing some angst-riddled pop-punk with such reckless abandon that someone at some point must have told her she didn't sound awful, and all you want to do is gag her (again, making you feel a little bit like a paedo rapist) and pray that she takes the hint. Even Paris Hilton puts her to shame; the director smart enough to make any time she needs to sing last as short a time as possible, and to disguise her face enough so that you don't auto-groan whenever she arrives resulting in her actually delivering a shockingly good performance in her minor role. There were certainly worse choices for Vega's part – Miley Cyrus for some reason springs to mind – but that doesn't exactly make her appearance any the less problematic.

Bousman is certainly deserving of some commendation, and despite a run of mediocre films shows that perhaps somewhere in the brain of his are some interesting ideas in waiting, along with the balls to actually back them up. This could have been the greatest musical since “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” and in its elaborate conception; the tangled web of a plot interwoven so quickly, never becoming confusing yet remaining unpredictable, there is no question that this will still see a growing cult status in the coming years simply for its novelty value. Mashing together the worlds of “Blade Runner” and the aforementioned “Rocky Horror” like nothing else that has come before it, it ultimately becomes hampered by some rather inconsistent performances and a dreadfully unmemorable soundtrack.

Note: Apparently this is a comedy. I honestly didn't realise; It's certainly not overly serious in tone but if there was a joke somewhere in all of this, I missed it. Unless the joke was Vega of course.

Confessions

2011-05-26T18:48:00.000-07:00

Title: Confessions
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Dark Psychological Drama/Thriller
Starring: Takako Matsu, Yoshino Kimura, Masaki Okada
Director: Tetsuya Nakashima
Language: Japanese

A film that got critical acclaim at the Toronto Film Festival, and last years Japanese entry to the Oscars, we don't get far into the half hour long opening monologue before it's revealed that this isn't going to be one with a happy ending. The power of her words on the class she teaches as she unveils her decision to resign and the slow gradual dying down of the jovial atmosphere as she explains herself and the gravity of the situation begins to sink in; her young daughter of just four years old has died, and two members of her class are responsible. Told through a series of confessions, we learn of the pain she's endured in raising her child as a single mother and the pressures placed upon her to guide her young students, and as her revenge is revealed, the impact she has on the lives of those under her care responsible for her daughters death and their own plight slowly rise to the surface.

It would be easy to peg this as another revenge story; a Japanese offering to a traditionally Korean dominated genre, but whilst it certainly has this as a focal point for the plot, the real message isn't quite that simple. Rather it plays a difficult game of highlighting the growing problems of student/teacher relationships and the line they must tread; students now fully aware that their actions have little or no consequences until they come of age, as well as the issues of what their teachers must do for them – the cliché tale of a teacher saving a child from her plight, last seen in 'Precious,' turned on its head as this becomes the expectation of them – both do little but empower them and enable them to act free from repercussions, and here this is taken to its extreme logical conclusion: the ability to take life. This exploration of the value of life, and of death and the manner in which it affects different people is really what lies at this films core; the three all profoundly affected by the child's demise and reacting in the only way they can, even if innocent people get caught in the crossfire, and as we learn more of the characters motivation, come to understand the bitter humanity of it all.

Taken from the perspective of one, there are indeed evil students that deserve to be punished for their actions, but even this simple notion gets more complex when we dig a little deeper and understand the psychological difficulties laid in their path and the adult issues thrust upon them at an age where they are unable to cope. Every despicable action is a reaction to some previous event kept hidden from those around them as they disguise their true feelings, wearing a metaphorical mask to face the day, and this altogether human motivation gives the tragic tale far more weight than had they simply been portrayed as villainous. Picking a side thus suddenly becomes a more tricky decision; do we side with the teacher maliciously acting out her revenge? Or the murderous child desperate for the attention and approval or his mother?

At times the overbearing atmosphere begins to slowly grind on you, the idea of comic relief is not one that it seems this director really subscribes to, and with all the constant revelations that are uncovered it could have done with some small glimmer of hope to give you a breather before it drains your energy with its harrowing mood once again. The acting from the two youngsters with no past experience was staggering in how well they portrayed their complex characters and I can't imagine how much work must have gone in preparing them for this role, and Matsu, playing the role of the teacher, does nothing to hold the piece back. Even the relatively minor role of one of the students girlfriends, played by Hashimoto Ai, seems to have been given careful consideration not only from the actress portraying her but from the writers and direction in displaying a realistic character that once again feels perhaps a little all too close to the truth to not be worrying.

The soundtrack is beautifully worked with musicians from Boris to Radiohead all lending their touch to the proceedings, and is always perfectly suited like very few soundtracks are capable of being – comparisons to Clint Mansell's work with Aronofsky's “Requiem for a Dream” leap to mind – and the cinematography, whilst occasionally overusing slow motion effects and CGI, rarely fails to make its point. And yet, for all its good intentions, it does little to continue the train of independent thought. It hasn't left that mark on me that most great films do; that constant afterthought, questioning and pondering the information presented to me, mind still reeling from the revelation that I've just uncovered. Indeed, the message here, and there is a rather profound message here, doesn't feel like much of a revelation at all. The notion that there is an inner depravity of the human mind; our obsession with tragic events in the media and the focus on negativity over the good in the world and how all this affects the younger generation, but when everything is finished, this question that is posed has beyond all doubt already found its answer.

Mosquito Man

2011-05-19T07:03:00.000-07:00

Title: Mosquito Man
Also Known As: Mansquito
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Sci-Fi, Horror
Starring: Corin Nemec, Musetta Vander, Matt Jordon
Director: Tibor Takács

The first Syfy film in a while, probably the first of a few; starring that dude from “Raging Sharks” and a girl from “Planet Raptor,” that, now in her 40s is no longer the prettiest thing around, still manages to make ravaging a guys neck and drinking their blood look pretty hot. It all kicks off when were introduced to some experimental research, testing various specimens to see if they can kill off mosquito's infected with a deadly virus by sticking them in an irradiation chamber with some silly putty and a bit of water for the dye to run into. Well as usual the research is going too slowly so they invite a man on Death Row to the party, and in the ensuing escape attempt, blows himself up getting this blue silly putty all over him, along with a dangerous blast of radiation, and by the powers of bad science, we have MOSQUITO MAN!

Then with this dodgy bit aside, its all down to our Detective to hunt down and kill this man whose suddenly turned into one ugly overgrown insect, all whilst watching his wife – also caught in the explosion but only just – gradually turn into a mosquito as well. From here on out, it's actually pretty damn good. There is still the context of it being a made-for-TV SyFy flick, so of course we can't exactly expect miracles but it certainly ranks amongst the better I've seen. The effects are still budget but done relatively tastefully using a suited man for much of it to great effect – far greater effect than had they abused CGI, though certainly there are points where it is used – and considering its SyFy source, there's a shocking amount of violence and some pretty good make up work done on our monsters snacks.

But yes, it does at times feel a little bit too much like an homage to “The Fly,” particularly in its characteristic use of the morphing sequences which occur here with relative frequency, and certainly we are given far too many action scenes involving cannon fodder shooting at his armoured plating with handguns (and not a single one of them thought 'fuck that, I'm getting out of here' upon seeing their gunfire harmlessly bounce off) that eventually they become a little tiring, but the critical point here is that the plot for the most part makes sense. It doesn't come up with some whacky solution, or deviate with multiple side plots; there is a genuine interest in the slowly transforming girlfriend, and there are only really these three characters to be concerned about. It's not original or clever; it's SyFy, and in this case, it's pretty fun to watch.

Terracotta East Asian Film Festival Special: Foreword

2011-05-11T06:47:00.003-07:00

With the frequent talk of Wacken and Maryland Death Fest, it somehow seems oddly fitting that I lose my 'festival virginity' to a three-day excursion devoted entirely to films from East Asia. This film festival has delivered on premières in almost every genre from nearly half a dozen countries and guest stars offering valuable insights into their work, and with more films on offer than most working men can watch, I offer my countdown on eight of the films on display along with the following lessons I've learnt as a result: Tak Sakaguchi shouldn't expect a career in singing any time soon, merchandise stands will empty the contents of your wallet and when Rina Takeda misses her high kicks, bones get broken. It may not have the thousands of attendants than music festivals achieve, but this simply means I should be all the more grateful, and so I offer my thanks to Terracotta distribution, the Prince Charles Cinema and all the volunteers involved in making it a success and allowing me to be a part of it.

Child's Eye

2011-05-11T06:47:00.001-07:00

Title: Child's Eye
Rating: 2.5/5
Genre: Ghost Horror
Starring: Shawn Yue, Ka Tung Lam, Jo Kuk
Director: Pang Brothers
Language: Chinese

Terracotta East Asian Film Festival: #8

For those who aren't aware of their body of work, they've risen in recent years as the Chinese Horror champions, bringing a touch of psychological 'Ju-on' like scares to the screens most notably with 'The Eye,' (as well as The Eye II and III, but lets not dwell on the negatives for too long) which to the unobservant could easily slip into some 'best of J-Horror' lists. Child's Eye sounds a little like it's trying to cash in on the name even though it has nothing to do with their past work; telling the tale of six friends stranded on holiday in Bangkok, Thailand, riots having closed off the airport, and they are granted little choice but to hole up in a dilapidated hotel. They aren't there long when mysterious events start happening; things begin moving of their own accord and soon three of the party all mysteriously disappear, and the shifty hotel owner knows something but refuses to discuss the matter.

If you've ever seen the aforemented 'the Eye' or 'Ju-on: The Grudge' then in terms of the ghost that if you hadn't twigged, is made abundantly clear in the opening moments haunts the residence, is standard Asian fare; the long straggly hair and dirty, sticky substance all over her loose fitting clothes and the other effects that come along with it. The acting does as is required, with the protagonist, largely only needing to go from place to place and is given little room to show her prowess, and only the hotel owner really delivers on a noteworthy performance in straddling the line he has to tread so as to arouse our suspicion but not give too much away. It doesn't do anything to break the mould for the most part but the use of lighting and effects is never short of astounding; the manner movement will catch the corner of your eye but never quite come into the forefront, and the use of flashes of images to surprise you and attempt to make you jump out of your skin has rarely felt sharper and the use of 3D here has clearly gone to obvious work. There are points where the music doesn't quite fit, being too sudden and loud early on to give it anywhere to build up to, but the rest of the cinematography makes this shortfall a minor issue.

I initially liked this film, but as time wore on it graduated to 'well its alright.' Now I've thought about it a bit more, thought about the revelation ended on and the voyage taken to get there and I feel rather cheated. There are enough loose ends to give a hairdresser a field day; there are half man half dogs whose creation are left to your imagination – the mental images I can conjure from this are worse than half the actual film – and a twist that clearly aims for an empathetic 'you assumed wrong' strike but when it hits, that initial wave of shock as you reel back in understanding for the sad reality passes once you realise that actually, it's still all a little bit messed up. Their flair for creating horror out of every scene has never been sharper than here, but they forgot that one element that made it work: simplicity. It gets too complex too quickly; a slow and tense build-up whilst you're pondering what on earth is going on is never all that effective, and it's not helped that the film leaves so many questions unanswered. So why is it a 2.5 "meh" and not lower? Three cute Chinese girls in very short skirts. 'nuff said.

Tiger Factory

2011-05-11T06:46:00.001-07:00

Title: The Tiger Factory
Rating: 3/5
Genre: Drama
Starring: Fooi Mun Lai
Director: Woo Ming Jin
Language: Malay

Terracotta East Asian Film Festival: #7

Malaysia isn't exactly a country well known for its output of cinema, and little research on the matter shows that wikipedia has a list of all the major theatrical releases from this part of the world. Quite frankly, if wikipedia can make this list, then it's not exactly big business, and one glance at this film and you can quickly ascertain that the budget it was shot on wasn't exactly through the roof. In fact much of it initially comes across as somewhat amateurish with its use of handheld camera and the lack of editing of the scenes, but oddly, here this works in its favour. It's stark minimalism in the script yields a very realistic 'fly on the wall' feel; as though its less about telling a story as it is showing the life of our lead, and the very unapologetic manner it displays her life and the hardship is forced to endure, allowing each painful point to be drilled home in a slow and grinding fashion.

Ping Ping is a young migrant worker from Burma, forced to work two jobs – one at a restaurant and another at a pig farm, artificially inseminating pigs for breeding – all despite being heavily pregnant, pressured by her aunt and sole guardian in the belief that working is good for the child. In an effort to save up enough money to pay a local human trafficker to get her out of the country for a better life in Japan, she suffers setback after setback when her savings and passport is stolen and her under the table deal with a rival pig farm worker, selling semen from their prize pig is discovered, landing her without work. After delivering a still born birth, her relationship with her aunt takes another twist as we learn of her business in selling the offspring to new parents, and making the decision to be inseminated and try for another child to earn her passage abroad, learns more still more truths about her aunt.

Sadly, this minimalist motif employed also results in providing some major drawbacks, most notably the complete lack of a musical score for emphasis at key moments coupled with the inexperience of those involved; it never really gains any momentum, even as the end approaches, and despite the dark themes evident from the outset they are never really given the opportunity to show the gravity of her plight. The coldness of what would seem atrocious is evident from the complete lack of emotional response; it is a business venture and treated as such in an entirely detached manner; a father is chosen based on his health and is paid for his work; clients haggled with for the product of this lucrative business, but there is little contrast – only coming in the form of a few short scenes with Mei and Kang – to lend weight to the lows by showing the mundane nature of the highs.

There are also certain aspects of Malay culture that were never explained to a Western audience where a simple caption would have sufficed, meaning there were points where you had to make certain assumptions, and it really could have done with just a few short scenes to connect some of the dots. Had the direction and acting had been expressive enough to back up the story, it could have easily resulted in a thoroughly immersive and moving experience, but it never quite got there. It remains a fascinating and believable insight into what life might be like living in the depths of depravity as a Burmese migrant worker, forced into a inhumane situation in order to escape, but ultimately has a short-lived appeal.

Man of Vendetta

2011-05-11T06:45:00.001-07:00

Title: Man of Vendetta
Original Title: The Destroyed Man
Rating: 3/5
Genre: Thriller
Starring: Myung-min Kim, Ki-joon Uhm
Director: Min-ho Woo
Language: Korean

Terracotta East Asian Film Festival: #6

A staple diet for Korea with a plethora of thrillers emerging each year, but often failing to find that elusive element to make the stand out from the crowd. They've managed to get the details down to perfection, but as a result too often does it all come across as predictable, having seen a film bearing too much resemblance already. Such is the case here; comparisons to the well known film 'The Chaser' seem as apt as any other, particularly in the manner the game of cat and mouse is played out between the victim and the man who always seems to be just one step ahead of him, with both making use of every ounce of cunning they can muster so as to outfox the other and bring themselves one step closer to their eventual goal.

When a pastor, Young-Soo's, daughter is captured and a ransom demanded, Young-Soo makes every attempt to give in to Byeong-Chu, the kidnappers demands, but problems emerge when he is followed by a police detective and both Byeong-Chu and his daughter disappear without a trace. Eight years on and the hunt for her still goes on; the detective constantly harassed by the mother, the only one of the two still with hope as Young-Soo denounces his faith and now lives in bitter despair until the day he receives a phone call from the kidnapper. Suddenly his energy is renewed and he struggles once more to amass the ransom amount, hunting down his prey constantly one step ahead of him, his rage and lust for revenge building as he destroys his own life in his unrelenting quest to rescue his daughter.

I should point out that there's little here that feels like it was done particularly poorly; the music and direction doesn't feel at fault, rather it all falls down when we realise that there's nothing particularly original being offered. There are 'twists' as the plot develops but the majority of the time you know what's coming a fair time before it occurs, the worst occasion resulting in a tedious 15 minutes where he exhausts all options before falling back on the inevitable. The only glimmer of genuine unpredictability comes from our kidnapper, Choi (Ki-Joon), who manages to tread that odd line between seeming almost devout in being a good person before betraying that notion with a malicious and sadistic enjoyment that ultimately goes into creating a character that is inherently difficult to predict.

There are enough monumental events that occur that easily could have spent more time detailing the characters and how they react to the given situation; we spend plenty of time with our reformed pastor, learning how his life has changed but the character never truly comes to life, and not in the least is the child herself, given a painfully absent part despite being a pivotal piece to the puzzle. Eight years is a long period of time, and more to the point spans the majority of her life. The element of 'Stockholm Syndrome' that at one point is hinted at is never given any time to develop; her captor is certainly not a man someone would choose to be dependant on but is nonetheless the only guardian she is likely to have ever known. Her abused life in confinement, segregated from all others feels ripe for exploration; the snippets of her relationship with her captor providing highlights in the end result but swept aside for the tired tale told too may times before. If you've already made your way through “The Chaser” and “Oldboy” and are still hungry for more then this is a suitable follow-up, but otherwise there are better places to start.

Yakuza Weapon

2011-05-11T06:44:00.001-07:00

Title: Yakuza Weapon
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Action, Comedy
Starring: Tak Sakaguchi, Cay Izumi (Robogeisha)
Director: Tak Sakaguchi, Yudai Yamaguchi
Language: Japanese

Terracotta East Asian Film Festival: #5

Following on that brand of action – and based on a manga, so you know this ones gonna make no sense – is a film directed and starred in by Tak Sakaguchi, swordsman and martial arts man, director of the previously reviewed 'Samurai Zombie' and star of 'Versus,' which in itself is already a stamp marking what you should expect. There isn't an awful lot of bloodshed focussing more heavily on stylised action that is only possible in cinema; any sense of plausibility goes out the window as soon as the opening shot paying tribute to Rambo involving using enemies bullet's to light the tip of his smoke whilst staring them down, gently parodying them with tongue firmly placed in cheek, and it doesn't exactly get any better from here. I could list a plethora of other manga-based action flicks that have emerged in recent years but the style has become so prevalent that I could be here all day, so the only one I'll mention is 'Yatterman.' Such is the odd brand of ridiculously over the top comical events that I have to compare it to Miike's acid-trip of a family film to get my point across.

Working as a mercenary in South America, Showo Iwaki (Sakaguchi) receives word of his fathers death back in his home country of Japan. Once exiled for his disapproval of his fathers traditional manner of doing things, he returns once more to continue his clans legacy only to discover that his death was at the hand of the ruthless businessman, Kurawaki, and once right hand man of his fathers in order to inherit the business for his own personal gains. When their first bout lands them both on the brink of death, Iwaki awakens to discover an M61 Vulcan cannon replacing his right arm and a rocket launcher embedded within his left knee, and with the support of two loyal friends and the fiancée he left behind, seeks out Kurawaki to end things once and for all. But Kurawaki has one more trick up his sleeve; Iwaki's former best friend, Tetsuo, has been coerced into joining him and stands in the way of his bloody retribution.

Much of the issues stem from the same place as the best parts; Tak himself. He was clearly the focus throughout and he still manages to portray his unique style of 'clumsily cool' that never fails to be entertaining to watch, but the script itself wasn't as strong as felt it could have been. There are certainly points which will have you in stitches, not in the least succeeding in exploiting literally every orifice of a woman by placing a weapon inside it, having a guy wield her naked body like the strangest pair of nunchucks I've ever seen, as well as taking obvious inspirations a step further. The cannon fixed to his arm as in 'Machine Girl' occasionally malfunctions, the 'Lone Wolf and Cub' fight scenes riddled with witty puns, and the elaborate plans concocted by the evil corporation (all reminiscent of a martial arts film I can't quite place) are ignored as he decides to do his own thing, but a lot of it didn't feel all that special. There were pacing issues that meant the finalé turned out to be about an hour away from the actual finalé, and the way it was directed felt a little like "Tak vs. the World." And if he sucked in it, the film would have been an actual disaster. Good job he's still awesome really...

KG: Karate Girl

2011-05-11T06:43:00.003-07:00

Title: Karate Girl
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Martial Arts, Action
Starring: Rina Takeda
Director: Yoshikatsu Kimura
Language: Japanese

Terracotta East Asian Film Festival: #4

If there's one thing we can learn from the film 'Serenity' it's surely that watching cute 5ft nothings beat the snot out of blokes twice their size is always going to be entertaining. Thus emerges my interest in Karate Girl; starring the young Rina Takeda chosen less for her acting abilities and more for her knack for breaking body parts - at only 19 she already is a black belt in karate - and performing all her own stunts without any CG or wires, this is clearly where the focus is. The legendary black belt of Kurenai Sujiro was passed down from generation to generation along with the teachings of his own form of karate, sworn to protect the belt from those who wish to use its status to their own advantage. Maliciously stolen by Tagawa Shu, he kills the current owner and of the two daughters – the last in the bloodline – leaves one for dead whilst taking the youngest to train as an assassin. Ten years on, the eldest daughter Ayaka (Rina) has kept up with her training, and now working at a cinema, draws the unwanted attention of Shu when a youtube video of her tackling two thieves at her work goes viral, along the realisation that real belt is still in her possession...

Still only her second full-length film, the acting abilities of those involved is thoroughly awful but given to them for their abilities in karate rather than acting talent, is nothing particularly unexpected and is fortunately of little consequence to the heart of the story, and the inexperience of the cast never dwelt on for long enough for it to become problematic. Impressively it never degrades into plot-less drivel; the story is simplistic enough and maybe a touch generic but it allows for a comparatively slow-pace to accommodate the action. The opponents, too, aren't just cannon fodder to be kicked around but capable of putting up something of a fight – being real life practitioners themselves – and whilst at times the slow build-up feels excessive, resulting in periods lacking in actual action, it succeeds in adding gravity to the situation; the abilities of the opponent they must face, and as a result the pay off is often worth waiting for.

The entertainment here is less in the actual story being told and all to do with watching her perform, and whilst it's all been choreographed of course, it's left raw and unpolished, and this lack of squeaky clean perfection only serves to make it feel all the more realistic. Takeda is clearly the focus of the film and there is an odd beauty in watching her do what she does best, but as impressive as she is, it is after all little more than a vehicle for displaying her talent. This automatically creates a rift between those looking for a martial arts spectacle and those wanting an action film; the two sides don't collide all too often here and thus finds itself only really being of interest to a small niche group. It's might be no 'Tony Jaa' epic but thus far this is certainly the path she is treading. Don't go in expecting as much a film as a showcase of sparring matches and you wont be disappointed.

Revenge: A Love Story

2011-05-11T06:43:00.001-07:00

Title: Revenge: A Love Story
Rating: 4/5
Genre: Dark Romantic Thriller
Starring: Juno Mak, Sola Aoi
Director: Ching-Po Wong
Language: Chinese

Terracotta East Asian Film Festival: #3

The Chinese have a growing cinema industry that still stands in the shadows of the Eastern giants of Korea and Japan, largely seeming to focus on Action and period drama's; thriller's have always seemed to be the main territory of South Korea and they have gained acclaim for it as a result, which altogether makes this a pleasant surprise and not without its twist on the conventional style. When the altogether not the brightest street bun vendor, Kit (Juno Mak), sees Wing (Sola Aoi) in passing it's love at first sight, and he can't help but seek out the young mildly mentally disabled woman. Love quickly blossoming between the two, it isn't long before their world comes crashing down around them; taken into custody by the police, it's all they can do to frame Kit as the violent mass murderer known as 'The Dissector,' and stall his bloody vendetta against them. As the horrific truth they so desperately tried to cover up comes to light, we learn of his relationship to the policeman and the pain they have forced him to silently endure.

There isn't an awful lot of speech between the two unlikely lovers but there never needs to be; they feel as suited to one another in both their mental difficulties as it's possible to be, and the bond that is formed never feels anything less than genuine. A large part of this is down to the completely unexpected mesmerising performance by Sola Aoi (if you weren't aware of her past as a Japanese porn actress, then this wouldn't give you any hints otherwise) who seems to have shed her skin and been reborn anew, proving herself as more than her background would suggest, capable of tackling difficult roles and pulling them off like so few can. It's likely she was amongst the very few who would even be willing to go near such a delicate role, and yet that beautiful innocence she portrays throughout that gets torn down with such brutality manages to propel the film forward and serves as a constant reminder of why Kit is completely incapable of letting it go.

And yet, rather than coming across as a glamorisation of the notion of revenge, as is the norm, it takes a far more ambiguous approach; as much as we root for the man avenging the abuse dealt to his lover, as the story develops it becomes apparent that the more sensible action would be to move on and enjoy the time they have left with one another rather than tread the deadly spiral that can only end in tragedy. The enemies on the other side aren't painted as black and white as morally corrupt policeman but altogether human and clearly affected by the situation they find themselves in, knowing that verbal apology will not end the feud that has been started and acting out as one in order to protect their own lives. The action delivered is often bloody and realistically shot with minimal use of music, letting their actions speak for themselves without outside interference and the budget neither feels constrained nor as excessive as the Korean contemporaries it competes against. It all could have easily fallen into that realm of B-Movie banality, but instead it strives for a sense of poetry in the tale being told, and whilst it never quite reaches those heights this, difficult to watch underdog remains a harrowing yet beautifully bittersweet tale that ranks amongst the best thrillers I've seen for years.

Helldriver

2011-05-11T06:42:00.003-07:00

Title: Helldriver
Rating: 4.5/5
Genre: Action, Horror, Comedy
Starring: Asami, Eihi Shiina, Yurei Yanagi, Kazuki Namioka, Kentaro Kishi
Director: Yoshihiro Nishimura
Language: Japanese

Terracotta East Asian Film Festival: #2

From the director of Tokyo Gore Police, he's once again returned to prove that as a master of special effects ranging from the ultraviolent to the bizarrely ultraviolent, he's returned with a tale so devilish it would make Sam Raimi (Evil Dead Trilogy) blush. There's no real way of evading the issue, it's clear that this film is only suitable for a niche audience. It knows it's targets well and shows no remorse or consolation for those that don't see the attraction; no accommodation for those with different taste, so if you've seen any other Japanese offering in this vein you may have something to expect, otherwise let me break it down a bit further. If you thought Braindead needed more fake blood; that Versus pacing was only just fast enough; that Battle Royale participants should have made better use of the dustbin lids and flowers given to them, then this roller coaster ride of ridiculous situations is one of the best zom-coms in years.

It's plot is wafer thin and ridiculous to an extreme, but in a sense reminds me of the way Shakespeare did things. Now, I'm not really comparing to the two – the two are incomparable – but much in the same way Shakespeare took well known stories and then worked around them, adding satirical elements and focussing on other aspects of the play (such as the dialogue), Nishimura has done precisely the same thing. Yes, there's a badass hero who must travel to the inhospitable wasteland long since sectioned off for being populated by zombies to kill, and yes it's nothing we haven't all seen before in countless other zombie films, but he never feels the need to spend long explaining it all because he simply doesn't need to. Kika is abused by her mother and uncle – who ate human flesh even before they became zombies – and when a meteor falls through her mothers chest, she rips out Kika's heart to try and fill the void, and fortunately with the aid of the zombie virus in the meteor, succeeds, creating the horned zombie menace as a consequence. Kika is saved at the last minute and given a robotic heart that also powers a chain-sword (half chainsaw, half sword) and together with a group of zombie hunters, are commissioned by the government to hunt down and kill the zombie mother.

The satirical element of his previous film is still on display in this largely unoriginal setup given a few twists; the fact that the zombie horn is an awesome drug to snort, or the whole 'zombies don't die unless you cut off the horn' rule being used liberally to create some of the more amusing situations from zombie golf to whacky races. Despite that, many of the comedic elements are replaced with a more horrific undertone; no witty puns shortly or after a death, it's rather unapologetic in the manner the death scene in itself often is the joke. There are scenes where you literally have to squint through the gushes of blood to see the cackling zombie in the background as someone tries to gather limbs that have recently been detached from their body. "Gory" doesn't quite get the emphasis across, but with these films it takes more than fake blood to make an excellent film, it takes creativity in its use, and this is where they really excel.

They must have called up the mighty demons of Gordon-Lewis' art of splatstick on this affair, because barely five minutes passes without some new ridiculous event occurring that'll have the gore hound in you in stitches. The Zombie Queen (Eihi Shiina, still probably best known for playing the lead in Miike's 'Audition') manages a sadistic laugh that is somehow infectious as you join her in her bloodbath, and rarely will the pacing slow down from it's crack-riddled frenetic pace. The focus is all on the action and the effects work is visibly budget but nothing less than you would expect from a man who forged his career supplying the bizarre; many of the nameless zombies are given their own persona, from the thuggish zombie brute to one great showdown with a tribute to the 'Braindead baby.' More than simply a good successor to the likes of Machine Girl and Versus, but Helldriver finds itself somehow near the top of the pile.

Gallants

2011-05-11T06:42:00.001-07:00

Title: Gallants
Rating: 5/5
Genre: Martial Arts, Action, Comedy
Starring: Leung Siu Lung, Chen Kuan Tai, Teddy Robins, Wong Yau Nam, (MC) Jin Auyeung, J. J. Jia
Director: Clement Chang
Language: Chinese

Terracotta East Asian Film Festival: #1

Coming in at my top spot comes this Action/Comedy from a newcomer to the film scene. His first feature film, it was in the Q&A sessions afterwards that the director revealed his inspiration: watching Teddy Robin Kwan (who plays the elderly master) jamming with his old band; a group of pensioners complaining about the stock market, transition instantly into teenage rockers, if only for the few minutes the song lasted. And with Bruce Leung and Kuan Chen (made famous for a plethora of work with the Shaw Brothers) re-uniting for the first time in decades, these two retired martial arts masters of their mid-60s prove they still remember how to throw their punches. I very nearly didn't bother seeing this one; a bunch of martial arts masters I've never heard of, now well past their prime with an unknown director and a small budget all sounds like its shaping up to be a fan just as pleased to find work as the two ageing actors with few calls from their agents of late, which just makes the end result all the more surprising.

Opening with our unlucky protagonist, Cheung, we are showed how his life has turned from being the high school bully to the bottom rung of the ladder at a real estate firm. Tired of his constant mistakes, he is sent to a remote village to settle a real estate dispute, and it isn't long before the locals start picking on the new guy. Saved by an elderly man called 'Tiger,' he follows him to the source of the attention; a small tea house run by both himself and another known only as 'Dragon,' waiting for the day when their Master Law should emerge from his thirty year coma. When his begging of them to teach him Kung-Fu results in disaster, he continues with his job only to learn the source of the dispute; the very man he used to bully now an avid up and coming kung-fu practitioner for a rival teacher seeking the deeds to the Tea House. Caught up between the two ageing men he's quickly come to respect and the real estate dispute, just as old rivalries are re-kindled Master Law returns from his absence, and it isn't long before he finds himself aligned with the ageing trio in a martial arts brawl to settle things once and for all. Sort of.

Really this only tells half the story as there is so much that occurs; so many relationships within this huge cast, from the side plot of the love interest in the girl under Tiger and Dragon's care, the eccentric geriatric master who doesn't realise how long he's been out and the berating of his two elder pupils as though they were still reckless children; everything's been thought out to perfection so as to show so much development in so many characters and such a large number of plot developments that never seem to go in the direction you expect. There's no clear cut 'enemy;' the battle is between those who have accepted the change in times and those who still cling to the ways of the past, and there are points to be taken from both sides. Cheung, desperately wanting to learn Kung-Fu to rebuild his confidence eventually comes to realise there's more to it than simply knowing how to fight, just as his rival learns there's more to it than fighting his opponent (despite Master Law's cries of “Kung-Fu is fighting. If it's fitness you're after, go ride a bicycle”) as he comes to terms with the idea of honour.

And yet, after all these intricacies in both what is said and what isn't, they still find the time to maintain an Action/Comedy pace; with the reunion of martial arts masters and stellar choreography, the battles feel like a homage to the films of past without simply being a rehash of old material, filled with philosophical lessons and morals on the self that never get too weighty or pretentious, largely down to the constant reminder of just who's often delivering the lessons. This review couldn't be complete without a word on the show-stealing presence of Teddy himself; his eerily convincing performance oozes humour with every unapologetic word, every time he refers to himself as 'Ben' when trying to pick up a woman a fraction of his age and every time he slaps someone for no good reason. If you're not a classic martial arts fan then this is merely one to watch, but if you are, then this becomes unmissable.

Chinese Erotic Ghost Story

2011-05-03T22:28:00.000-07:00

Title: Chinese Erotic Ghost Story
Original Title: Yuk lui liu chai
Genre: Comedy, Exploitation
Rating: 2.5/5
Starring: Ben Ko Chu, Chun Chung, Siu Wan Hung
Director: Kin-Nam Cho
Language: Chinese

It's always a little tricky to think how these sort of films should be rated; from the title it's apparent that they aren't perhaps the most creative when it comes to titles, though if nothing else it certainly is an accurate one, with perhaps some mention of how batshit insane the bizarre events of the actual film are being the only thing missing. It all kicks off rather normally; Chu is introduced as the debt collector working for an asshole of a King with a beautiful mistress, two beautiful daughters and an even prettier wife, whilst he's stuck with a woman who sleeps 20 hours a day and spends the remaining four awake eating. Caught in the embrace of one of the King's daughters he's punished with the task of entering Satan's Temple and stealing the statue that resides there, only the statue isn't merely a statue but embodies the ghost of Judge Lu, keeper of the dead and master of manipulating stuff. Taking pity on Chu's life, he bestows upon him wealth, gives his wife a pure heart (which somehow means she can get her pretty behind back in the kitchen) and Chu the gift of wisdom, and most importantly, gives him Magic Dick. Magic Dick is a 13 inch long, 3 inch round flying penis, capable of pleasuring a woman a mile away (it can fly off) and will frequently converse with Chu on what he should do next. It's around this point that everything really kicks off.

There are always good points and bad to any film, and in this case the good ones are exceptionally good, surpassing all expectations only for the the bad to bring it all right back down again. The biggest problem is easily the fact that the subtitles are bloody awful. It seems quite apparent that they never really intended for this film to leave the country – exploitation flicks generally aren't well publicised until decades after their release and the biggest turds have risen to the top of the bowl for our enjoyment – and as a result a lot gets lost in the waves of typo's and non-sequitur responses, though admittedly after a while you become somewhat accustomed to the worst of it, and the humour is derived from the events and expressions more than anything else. The film clearly looks like it was constructed on a budget, evident from the set designs that would look more at home in a theatrical production and a picture quality that reminds me of the old VHS days, but really this only adds to much of the humour, and its this that is its strongest selling point.

The absolute hilarity of our clumsy oaf of a protagonist and his tiny penis trying to arouse his wife whilst she'd rather sleep or read a magazine, and asks him simply to finish and not wake him, not to mention the other antics they find themselves a part of; the glee in magic dick's face, played by a bald Chinese man if I forgot to mention that, as he gets his way with a woman, jumping up and down, screaming 'left left right right' as he struts his stuff, spitting out a load of man milk from his mouth when he's spent. There are also some messages of morality embedded in its wise words, from the classic 'be careful what you wish for,' and 'power corrupts' as the denouement starts to rear its head, as well as words no respectable film would dare suggest, like “once a whore always a whore.” The problem with all this is that humour is often derived from the events and as it continues, the joke of a giant talking penis that can fly, and all the trouble sleeping around can cause starts to wear thin, and by the half way mark the laughs have almost stopped completely leaving only the promise of more tits that keeps you going. Like 'Tampon Tango' and 'Hausu,' this is a work of true insanity, and despite all the good and the bad, is one of those few films that do what few dare. Or would ever think of for that matter.

Isola

2011-05-03T03:36:00.000-07:00

Title: Isola
Rating: 2/5
Genre: Psychological Drama, Horror
Starring: Yoshino Kimura, Yû Kurosawa, Ken Ishiguro
Director: Toshiyuki Mizutani
Language: Japanese

It's been a while since I've seen a good Japanese horror, and with Isola promising on some good ol' fashioned supernatural scares I thought it would be great for a go; a serious flick about the terror a girl with multiple personalities can wreak. Well, Isola broke her promise. The first warning should have come when it rather worryingly pieced together disjointed footage showing the wreckage of the Kobe Earthquake, the aftermath of which is where the events take place, but if that wasn't enough, the fact he doesn't understand the concept of colour correction and left it all looking slightly more yellow than it should have (and seeing as this one came from the DVD and was not a ripped version, there can be no real excuse) should have been the last straw. In fact, this shouldn't really be referred to as a horror at all; at no point does it make any attempt to scare you and nothing truly horrific ever really happens.

Following the story of Yukari, a psychic still trying to find herself after suffering contempt for her abilities, travels from Tokyo to Kobe in the hopes of somehow be able to lend assistance. It isn't long before she discovers a child psychiatrist who unveils her difficulty in dealing with a child and her multiple personality disorder, Chihiro. Taking an interest in her split personality and finally finding someone with whom she might genuinely be able to help, she quickly learns of her less friendly side, but this is not what frightens her, it is the 13th personality known as Isola which draws the most attention. Not spoken of by the other personalities and treated as a vengeful spirit by other students, as she explores the origins of this personality with the assistance of Dr. Manabe she learns the truth behind the entity known as Isola.

As it all is slowly unveiled, certain elements become initially confusing (though with the exception of one bemusing line, is easy to figure out in the following moments) in this detailed but ultimately linear plot. There can sadly be mistaking what the director is suggesting actually happened, no subtlety or ambiguity as to whether it really was a spirit or if it was all in their minds. In fact, the simple point that we have a 'Japanese Prof Xavier' reading peoples minds left right and centre is just assumed and never really explained, and at some point – though I admit it is hard to pinpoint precisely where – it stops being far fetched and starts being completely ridiculous, more likely to induce a chuckle as your slightly bemused self takes in that, yes, that is what the director is suggesting, than it ever manages to come close to eliciting a scare.

It doesn't even feel fitting to truly refer to it as a 'dark' drama, for whilst that's certainly the atmosphere obviously shot for with the overwhelming use of the darkness and dated ethereal effects to try to maintain the tone, it doesn't really succeed. The momentum is off and as a result it never really manages to immerse you in this dangerous world, nor even get that sense of danger across. The pivotal character of the child psychiatrist mysteriously is forgotten half way through, and even Chihiro whom the film was meant to centre around is decidedly absent for long stretches when the second half reveals that actually, there are two other characters we should also be spending a bit of time on. This had the potential to be epic in scale with a realistic lead in the psychic, drawing our attention and evoking our empathy as she struggles to save this girl with a mysterious and dark streak, but we never really see any of that; we only see glimpses of a fraction of her personalities and learn nothing of the psychics past. For all it could have been, all it really succeeds in being is a fragmented film that couldn't find its way.

Robo-Geisha

2011-04-28T11:27:00.000-07:00

Title: Robo-Geisha
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Action, Exploitation, Horror, Comedy
Starring: Aya Kiguchi, Hitomi Hasebe, Takumi Saitô
Director: Noboru Iguchi
Language: Japanese

Sometimes you get a craving for something cheesy and filled with blood, and if you've never had this craving then you can probably dismiss this review already, assuming the cover work didn't already turn you off. There are two main schools of thought on the matter these days; the “Saw” and “Final Destination” method of finding new ingenious ways of killing you, and my personal preference, the far more comical “what the living hell” method of finding the most bizarre ways of letting their characters find divine retribution. In the past few years there are two names that have earned themselves a well deserved reputation for their depraved minds, the special effects designer Yoshihiro Nishimura known for thinking up the infamous 'crocodile killer' and 'human chair' for Tokyo Gore Police and Noboru Iguchi, best known as the man who conceived 'Machine Girl,' and it doesn't take him long to come up with another concept to sink his teeth into. This time? Robotic Geisha Assassins.

Much of the plot is standard fare with an evil steel manufacturer taking an interest in our protagonist, Yoshie's, incredible natural ability to beat the living shit out of people, and so naturally decide to abduct her and her older sister so they can put various bits of steel in every orifice and set them to work killing people, training them to use her feminine wiles to seduce men before impaling them with something sharp. Or shrimp. Whatever works. As she learns more of the people she is to kill and the reasons why her employers want her dispatched, she slowly comes to realise the horrific truth behind the organisation, but with her sister held captive she is coerced into submitting to their whim, or not. Thus with the assistance of the other abducted girls grandparents, she embarks to save her sister, destroy the evil corporation, and kill any assassins that stands in her way. In a nutshell, get kidnapped, learn they're evil, kill them. Simple. Sort of.

As I mentioned before the highlight of this partnership is that you have the winning combination of a director who made a name in porn before horror and has brought along most his pornstar buddies for the ride – before anyone asks, no, I have no idea if his porn is as weird as his horrors – and possibly the only man who could breathe B-Movie life to all the insanity their twisted minds can concoct, and from the rip-roaring introduction filled with all sorts of carnage too hilarious to spoil, it would seem that the worthy successor to Machine Girl has arrived just one short year later. The finalé, too, does little to disappoint throwing in new tricks with the old and taking the level of gore cheesiness to new extremes in the form of buildings that bleed and the show stealing presence of the Tengun assassins, scantily clad and disguised with their phallic shaped masks, licking their lips in anticipation of the carnage they're about to wreak.

The problems arise from this middle section of the film between the all-out action romp introducing the characters and the big finish, where the explaining of the plot takes hold and simply seems to drag on too long. In a film with so many ridiculous effects going on, creating an incredibly simplistic plot would be actually preferable to convoluting it with a hefty 'does she love me? Does she not?' backwards and forwards between the two sisters that very quickly gets tiring, and the emotional impact strived for in some of the more drawn out periods just seems out of place. Lets be honest, I'm watching a film full of young Japanese porn stars about Robot Geisha Assassins, trying to find a serious dramatic thread to run at its core seems like something of a lost cause. That said, there's plenty to keep your attention for most of its runtime and anyone whose seen films of this nature before know exactly what to expect, and whilst low on blood they make up for it being high on spontaneity. They simply fell into that trap of overcomplicating what should have been a simple plot.

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Sword of the Beast

2011-04-26T12:01:00.000-07:00

Title: Sword of the Beast
Original Title: Kedamono no ken
Rating : 4/5
Genre: Action, Drama
Starring: Mikijiro Hira, Gô Katô, Shima Iwashita
Director: Hideo Gosha
Language: Japanese
Release Date: 1965

Minister: Wait! We're not connected at all. Why kill me?
Yuuki Gennosuke: No, we are connected, because I'll see you in hell!

There seems to be no shortage of Japanese films set in the feudal era, and it was a complex time with events coming thick and fast; clans ruling the lands constantly fighting with one another, ronin wandering the streets and bandits making a nuisance out of themselves, and yet throughout it all are the samurai themselves. Courageous and holding their honour up high, fighting for the betterment of their clan with complete self-sacrifice, and never doing anything that would harm an innocent life. It is this erroneous dramatisation that made this film sound so intriguing, for here it is clearly not so black and white. When found amidst corruption, treated as little more than slaves to do the bidding of their master or die trying, trying to navigate a system where the power and status is held by virtue of inheritance, it is the samurai who dream of a reform that allows them the opportunity to prove themselves and they must constantly question whether their actions are that of a noble samurai or simply that of a beasts.

When Gennosuke, a retainer constantly put down by the counsellor in his charge finally revolts in the hope of climbing the societal ladder, the result results in the death of his master. Quickly realising his solitude in his revolt for reform he escapes the clutches of the other samurai and heads to the mountains in the hope of living as a ronin in the wilderness, but Misa, the counsellors daughter, is not to make life easy for him. Swearing a vendetta she travels with fiancée and once Gennosuke's friend Daizaburo, taking with them the best sword under their command to the mountains and hunt him down like the wild beast he's been forced to become. Gennosuke, teaming up with a local thief, travels high up in the mountains in the hope of panning for gold in the clans territory – a crime punishable by death – but they soon happen upon Yamane and his wife, Taka, working for a rival clan who had similar ideas...

Whilst the action does little to detract from the story, it is not for this that you should watch this film, there are plenty of others that deliver on that front. It is for the innate complexity of the situation, and how quickly what were once clear relationships can become muddled when you understand the nature of the other person, their desires, and how strongly it often conflicts with the circumstances they find themselves pressured into. And as we witness our protagonist, Gennosuke, constantly question his own beastly nature we call into question those that surround him and realise that in this world where honour is everything, deep down it is only him who is not a beast; the corrupt counsellors willing to kill others to advance their own careers, the bandits and thieves striving to take what isn't theirs, the samurai who are ordered to fetch and must obey or the three hunters driven by the counsellors daughter's blind instinctive rage and must not go against the grain for fear of retribution.

I was always suspicious of how the feudal era of Japan has been portrayed in more serious dramatic adaptations, conscious of how honourable an era where hara-kiri is common place and war between clans is the normal state of affairs could genuinely be. This is certainly not the period piece that would entice everyone, and I don't mean that in a rather derogatory manner implying that the fantastical illusion of the era is something that many wouldn't want shattered, but rather that as we steadily uncover more details about our characters past we learn that nothing is ever as simple as it seems. Neither as well known as the “Lone Wolf and Cub” saga, nor revered as much the work of Kurosawa, Gosha has delivered a little known classic that lies more than a shade closer to the truth, and it is for this lesson in humanity that it should be remembered.

Swing Girls

2011-04-21T04:42:00.000-07:00

Title: Swing Girls
Rating: 4.5/5
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Starring: Juri Ueno, Yûta Hiraoka, Shihori Kanjiya, Yuika Motokariya, Yukari Toyoshima
Director: Shinobu Yaguchi
Language: Japanese

It wasn't all too long ago that I saw Juri Ueno in “Turtles are Surprisingly Fast Swimmers,” and it would be the perfect lie to say that she enchanted me enough there to seek out more of her work. Of course that wasn't true. I had no idea she was in this until a few minutes when I started pointing and going 'hang on,' but I can't say that her presence was anything but a delightful surprise in watching a film I'd clearly just downloaded for the cover of Japanese school girls in suggestive poses and whacked on from my bed, too lazy to really check what film it was that I was watching. Sometimes this is a recipe for disaster as I have things on my computer that I honestly have no idea what I was thinking when I downloaded (actually, it probably isn't too far off from this), but this wasn't to be the case here; I was sold on the promise of Japanese school girls and a dollop of Jazz. What I wasn't expecting was discover one of funniest comedies I've seen in a very long time.

Remedial Maths. Casually gazing out the window to the brass band leaving on their journey to support the baseball team and they're stuck inside, until a chance offering comes by in the form of the brass bands caterer, arriving late. Snapping up the chance they agree to deliver the lunches to the team only to accidentally end up poisoning the entire band, except for the clumsy cymbal player, Takuo. Now in need of an entire new band, Takuo ends up looking after the class who only really want to get out of maths class and turn them from delinquent slackers to a Swing Jazz Band, though this only how the journey begins. Whilst there is a large cast to wrap your head around, there are really only the four lead girls whose faces you really have to remember; the rest of the ensemble have relatively minor roles, allowing more time to be spent fleshing out those few rather than the many; the shy but gifted Kaori; the fickle Yoshie; weight conscious Naomi and the playful lead, Tomoko.

But what really makes this journey work is that the cast themselves undertook a journey; there are no overdubbed performances, no miraculous transformations from zero to hero, and a lot of that is likely down to the directors decision to actually have the large cast perform the music on camera given only the training they could fit in around during filming, approximately 5 months. With a cast of – then – complete unknowns the atmosphere comes off more like a 'band camp' with the chemistry between much of the cast likely built up as a result of actually going on this exploration of the genre shining through as they react to one another. They enjoyed themselves in creating this film, and that's not easy for a director to fake from such a large cast, and that's all there really is to it. In less than two hours we get senile screaming old women, punks that write cheesy love songs, wild boar attack montages and a full fifteen minute concert performance. Somewhere between Spinal Tap's antics and School of Rock – without the tiring presence of Jack Black – sits Swing Girls, and the end result is more than equal to them both.

Ellie

2011-04-21T00:19:00.000-07:00

Title: Ellie (1984)
Rating: 2/5
Genre: Comedy, Exploitation
Starring: Sheila Kennedy, Shelley Winters, Edward Albert
Director: Peter Wittman
Duration: 89 mins

An invalid, backwoods farmer is a month into his marriage with Cora when she persuades him into making out a will (what’s the worst that can happen, right?). Well, the very next day they are out on a picnic with Cora’s three sons, her conspirator lover, and the farmer’s nubile, young daughter Ellie. While Ellie is being distracted by a motorcycle ride, Cora rolls the wheelchair-ridden farmer into the lake, drowns him, paints the whole thing as an accident, and collects on the will. However, sweet little Ellie is too smart for such an excuse. Abandoning her purity and innocence, she lures Cora’s sons one by one to their deaths with her luscious, tender body and playful giggles. With the local sheriff too love-stricken with Cora the gluttonous career widow to do his job properly, Cora and Ellie break out in a battle of wits to see who’s revenge will be exacted first. Oh yeah, and this is all a comedy. Go figure.

If exploitation films are the oddities of the cinema world, then “hicksploitation” films are the oddities of the exploitation world. Maybe it has something to do with the popularity of such Burt Reynolds movies as Smokey and the Bandit, Deliverance, or White Lightning. Maybe it goes back further to the man who may have helped invent it, Herschell Gordon Lewis, and his films Two Thousand Maniacs!, Moonshine Mountain, and This Stuff’ll Kill Ya! Whatever the starting point, this pseudo-genre sure has a lot of titles under its Confederate flag belt buckle. Ellie may not be a film that really stands out among the rest, but it sure is one head-scratching obscurity.

The character of Ellie is played by none other than Penthouse Pet of the Year, Sheila Kennedy. Seems about right. Joining her on the screen is veteran actress Shelley Winters, who has dabbled in some exploitation flicks herself in Roger Corman’s Bloody Mama and Poor Pretty Eddie - that is, when she’s not starring in more professional films like The Poseidon Adventure, Night of the Hunter, and Pete’s Dragon. Oddball ensemble, check. These two, as well as the rest of the cast, portray rural American folk most stereotypically: Kennedy is your typical blonde, country bumpkin; the three sons are nothing but none-too-bright, flannel-and-overalls-wearing good ol’ boys; and Winters is a textbook “evil stepmother.” Nevertheless, the character of Cora’s lover brings a humorous performance and one heck of a mustache, and the preacher character provides some much needed comic relief from the mostly bland brand of comedy showcased here.

I won’t say that Ellie is devoid of any interesting scenes. Quite the contrary, there are a number of unforgettable moments sprinkled throughout this movie: Kennedy’s sexy photo shoot scene; the sheriff’s expression of lust for Cora on the floor of the police station; and the completely unexpected, climactic mud-wrasslin’ session between Kennedy and Winters. Truly a sight to behold, the latter. Almost worth sitting through the previous 85 minutes. At this point, I don’t know if I’m making this movie sound amazing or tedious. I’d say it’s more on the tedious side. But don’t you worry because there are 5 or 6 original country tunes performed by Charley Pride and Atlanta (who?) that are catchy as the dickens, especially the film’s theme song.

Let’s see… we’ve got a Penthouse Pet baring it all, a Hollywood legend rolling around in the mud like a pig, several scenes of attempted rape… all taking place in the boonies, you say? Hot damn, I think we’ve got ourselves a hicksploitation film here. Maybe not a definitive hicksploitation film, or even a very good one, but at the very least you won’t be demanding back a lost hour and a half.

Minimoni The Movie: The Great Cake Adventure!

2011-04-18T06:10:00.000-07:00

Title: Minimoni The Movie: The Great Cake Adventure!
Original Title: Minimoni ja Movie: Okashi na Daibōken!
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Comedy, Musical, Adventure
Starring: Mari Yaguchi, Mika Todd, Ai Kago, Nozomi Tsuji, Ai Takahashi
Director: Shinji Higuchi
Language: Japanese

When most bands announce a change in the line-up they have a press release, or mention it in some official capacity. A lot of smaller bands don't even do that, they simply place it on their website and let the fans discover the change in their own time. Minimoni (a J-pop band formed amongst some of the members of the well known “Morning Musume”) clearly had other ideas as the 'story' of how the band leader left and the woman who would replace her is all depicted in this hour long film. Apparently. In reality I think they let themselves exaggerate the events a little too much, and if this really is anything remotely resembling how it happened then they should all be tested for LSD. As the title alludes this really seems to be about their great cake adventure, not that I'm really complaining as some sort of J-pop 'Some Kind of Monster' flick wouldn't be half as much fun.

With their current line-ups second year anniversary rapidly approaching, the MiniMoni cake shop run by the bossy one, cakes baked by the tom boy-ish one and served by the clutz twins, is preparing by baking an elaborate castle cake to celebrate, but trouble is brewing. The shop is broken into by the evil Fairy Queen who despises all cakes and orders her fairy minions to turn them all to stone, but bring back the castle cake because that might be fun to live in. Discovered when the alarm goes off, they panic and drop their fairy dust and - no it doesn't turn them to stone as you might think, but – turns them into miniature CGI characters. They're also broken into by a cat burglar trying to steal their secrets, but nobody seems to care and she ends up joining the group anyway. On commences their great journey to find the Evil Fairy Queen and with the help of a friendly fridge and an army of gingerbread men, invade the castle to get back whats rightfully theirs.

With none of them actually being actresses it was probably a wise move to keep their actual screen time to a minimum, probably the reason for turning them all into short CGI creations to blend into their 'childrens TV' level of CGI surroundings, which oddly enough works in helping you reminisce back to your childhood (or at the least mine). The plot is all over the place and makes nigh on no sense, like a child trying to force pieces of a puzzle to fit without much success, and yet it's still fun; it still manages to make you forget your age and start giggling to their cutesy oddball antics. I think it's already evident that this film has a pretty niche market that for most reading wont apply but its sheer absurdity and nonsensical nature means that you don't need to be a fan to watch it. In fact, I imagine this would make excellent stoned viewing...

Battle for Los Angeles

2011-04-18T03:09:00.000-07:00

Title: Battle for Los Angeles
Rating: 2.5/5
Genre: Sci-Fi, Action
Starring: Kel Mitchell, Nia Peeples, Dylan Vox, Theresa June Tao
Director: Mark Atkins

“I can tell you one thing: they don't come in peace”

Not to be confused with the recently released big-budget atrocity that was “Battle: LA,” this conveniently titled and released within the same month comes from the king of cheese, the SyFy studios. With the big budget version being so awful it wouldn't be surprising if this never really got noticed, but for me this is a test for my hypothesis; that a bad big budget action can be improved by a removal of most of the budget, forcing their work into the path of dreadful CGI effects and sets that look like someones back yard and into that much sought after territory of 'hilariously bad.' It's quite surprising just how well this manages to do that, and not only because the last time I saw the lead role is when I was a teenager lounging about to 'Kenan and Kel' on Nickelodeon, and he does look mighty odd in full army gear.

Normally they strive to work with whatever information they garner from the original so as to pilfer and make it look as much like it as possible so that when it gets released a month earlier, people watch it by mistake, but it seems they didn't manage to get all that much intelligence this time around – not that there was a huge amount to give – so instead they've taken as many clichés as possible and packed them in. No stopping at just cliché lines but the script, which is oddly one of its greatest strengths, is filled with twists and turns that will make you laugh and wonder how you missed that homage; from the Star Wars swordplay with the remotes; Alien's high pitched scream; Terminator's rampage; Sand Worms from Dune, to the opening footage which look like 'Independence Day' before the Director threw a fit and asked them what kind of moron would believe those effects. Even the smaller ships have been poached for this story, except the dogfighters have no shields and are incredibly weak making for some great scenes of an old man shooting one down with his revolver, or tossing debris into its path and watching it crash and burn.

Quite frankly they often don't feel too threatening with their continued use of non-lethal EMP weapons and large armored craft that can be destroyed by a middle-aged woman with a sword, and all this serves to keep the tone light so you can appreciate the subtleties of Kel's “Oh shit what we gonna do” face, or the eye candy desperately rooting around in her bag of tricks for which weapon she fancies using. Jokes such as the Reeses Pieces loving alien emerge but altogether feel too few and far between, and whilst there are some excellent moments it feels like they're tied together by filler intended to hop from one joke to the next as quickly as possible; it simply doesn't flow as well as it should have, but cheesy acting, bad CGI and everything else aside, this film is still better than the film it's intending to mimic, and not only because we actually win by the time the credits roll.

Stalker

2011-04-13T03:31:00.000-07:00

Title: Stalker
Rating: 3/5
Genre: Sci-Fi, Mystery, Drama
Starring: Aleksandr Kaidanovsky, Anatoli Solonitsyn, Nikolai Grinko
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Language: Russian

Tarkovsky might be a name known to many, or it might just be the select few who have spent any deal of time exploring classic Sci-Fi films, but regardless of how well known he is, he is often praised of something of a 'Russian answer to Stanley Kubrick' with the infamous “Solaris” being his “2001.” But it's not Solaris that has drawn my initial attention but this overlooked work which I already know something about having played through the series of games that draws heavily from this piece, but if you're under the illusion that anything more than the environment is to feature here then remove that notion before you get too far. This is intelligent, philosophically thought provoking and superbly detailed in it's subtle suggestions. It's also over two and a half hours long and mostly filled with prolonged images of three balding Russian men walking through a field. Take from this what you will.

The tale follows the path taken by our Stalker as he leads a small group of people, to the infamous and semi-mythical place known only as 'The Room.' Deep in the heart of the Zone, a place that is rumoured to have been created by a meteorite but for all the talk of advanced alien technology the mystery of how it came to be is never unveiled, it promises to give anyone who enters their deepest and innermost wish in the near future, but approaching this miracle room is not a straight-forward affair. Indeed, you cannot simply walk on up to the room for the short journey is full of traps and pitfalls; invisible 'portals' that send you in circles, small isolated patches of violent wind and other more inherently dangerous traps that can only be imagined. It is for this reason that the Stalker is hired as a guide to carefully traverse the land he has come to learn and respect, giving the last chance of hope to those who have nothing left.

It is through the eyes of these three characters that we get involved in the deep metaphysical philosophy; the nature of your inner desires and whether we genuinely know what we want to wish for, and even if we did, whether we would even have the foresight to realise that such a wish is unlikely to grant us happiness in the long term. It is, as the film describes, a place for the wretched with no hope. The long shots into the dead eyes of our main protagonist as he desperately seeks to help someone and prove his life has some form of worth, and he isn't the only one without any sense of hope. These three are already dead, and it's only the promise of The Room that gives them any incentive to continue on. The problems arise from just how long it spends in divulging these sequences; this is minimalist beyond minimalism, and with such an weight on the little dialogue that is spoken a lot of it becomes lost in translation. There is so much to be explored but instead it poses the question and lets the viewer ponder upon it themselves; there's no exploration of the questions posed within the film itself, and this is pretty disappointing.

That's nothing against the view of the actual backdrop itself, or the cinematography which for all its pacing issues is rarely short of impressive. The manner the decaying ruins surround them, the haunting feeling of a world that was once brimming with life but now reduced to the remnants of what people left behind in their fit to escape and leaving nature to return to its normal overgrown state, dominating over what once was. The same is true for the design of the traps, and whilst incredibly simple in its use of effects remains startlingly effective, one tunnel scene in particular somehow fabricating tension out of thin air. It's simply the pacing that becomes overwhelming. At least 2/3rds of the film is not spent furthering the story at all, but showing us long rolling footage of their surroundings. There are in fact a very small number of shots and you can spend minutes doing nothing but rolling past a decrepit river or watching a man lying in the grass. I can understand the necessity for maintaining the immersion and respect that he wanted to leave plenty of room to interpret events and appearances, but this just becomes pretentious. Personally, for something designated a 'classic,' I thought it was pretty disappointing.

Turtles Are Surprisingly Fast Swimmers

2011-03-26T06:46:00.000-07:00

Title: Turtles Are Surprisingly Fast Swimmers
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Starring: Juri Ueno, Yu Aoi
Director: Satoshi Miki
Language: Japanese

It may have been a while since I last dived into this directors work, having previously been enchanted by his gentle brand of comedy in “Adrift in Tokyo” and “Instant Swamp,” and this trademark style is once again at play here. Following the story of Suzume (literally translated as 'Sparrow') and her mundane life as a housewife, she feels her life descending into monotony; conversations with her husband degraded to nothing more than “have you fed the turtle,” her childhood friend often too busy to visit and no other events to break up her to day to day life. Stumbling upon a wanted poster for spies, she decides to call and apply for the position hoping for a little bit more excitement, and what follows turns her life around in an entirely unassuming way.

The comedy isn't as obvious as many others, even compared to his own works this feels somewhat tame in the lack of individual punchlines or specific moments, but instead it maintains a constant light and 'fluffy' tone, largely brought about by the rather simple idea of trying to be as inconspicuous as possible whilst being introduced to the secretive world of spying, even though very little in the way of actual spy work ever happens. Instead, much of the plot feels parodical of the spy genre, particularly given the fact that the couple that teach her aren't really that good at blending in and seem to stick out wherever they go, and when the police decide to start a hunt for these spies – who really haven't done anything at all wrong at this point – it all feels rather jovial and inconsequential; like adults who never really grew out of playing children's games.

You could even go as far to say it defies the normal conventions a film strives for given that there is no real climax but rather a distinct anti-climax. As our protagonist spends the course of the film determined to be as unnoticeable as possible, our normal format involving an interesting sequence of events seems replaced by non-events of little note at all, with any tension emerging from attempting to make them as unmemorable as possible with all the fervent devotion as you could hope for. And this could all fall flat if the characters themselves didn't fill this void and keep things interesting to watch; the couple who have been in the game so long that they know all the tricks of the trade and yet still manage to be clumsy, sporting shirts bearing the USSR's 'hammer and sickle' and behaving like an old married couple, to the ramen salesman reknowned for his “so-so” ramen, and all the other small parts dotted around with their own small roles to play.

But none of it could have worked if it wasn't tethered together by the performance by Juri Ueno who is worth watching if only for her adorable sneer of 'reh-reh-reh-reh' when she successfully accomplishes an act displaying pointless spy skills, like getting a dog to stop barking at her. Her constant sincere questioning of precisely how one would go about certain mundane actions in a completely 'ordinary' way; what do you order on a menu that's so unmemorable the waitress can't remember who had what? How do you drive in a completely normal way? What does the unassuming average housewife buy when grocery shopping? it's this element that makes the film work, and the more she overthinks such tiny details the more the most inconsequential event seems to be given gravity, and when something of note occurs she must use what she has learnt to make sure nobody remembers who she was. It all sounds rather bizarre but serves to create a certain atmosphere or mood, more than anything that'll have you in stitches, and this is what Miki seems to excel at. It's not his best work I've seen (in fact, it's probably the most disappointing of all three), but certainly serves as good fluff to float off to.

Moon

2011-03-24T19:49:00.000-07:00

Title: Moon
Rating: 4.5/5
Genre: Sci-Fi, Drama, Mystery
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey
Director: Duncan Jones

Some know me as something of a sci-fi fan but I seem to belong that dying breed of those who enjoy intelligent sci-fi, which always struck me as a little puzzling given the wealth of possibilities open for exploration and yet rarely utilised. Increasingly I find my interest is more readily captivated by novels and films gone by than the increasingly prevalent tendency to rely upon action and special effects to make themselves known, which is all precisely what made this sound so intriguing. Following the tale of Sam Bell (Rockwell), an astronaut left in isolation aboard a lunar base in charge of maintaining the operation of He3 harvesters used to supply the Earth with its growing demand for energy, he soon falls prey to a crash which leaves him incapacitated aboard his rover; his form of transport across the moons desolate surface. Awakening back aboard the base without memory of what took place, he quickly escapes to explore the crash site only to discover that he may not have been the first Sam Bell to reside aboard the Lunar Base.

I first saw Rockwell perform in “Hitch-Hikers Guide,” another Sci-Fi film where he played a role of an entirely different nature, and naturally his choice of the lead role in a film where he also happens to be the only role felt worrying for a first time director but any fear is quickly put to rest when we start exploring the two clones; the three year old Sam Bell injured and tired from his long ordeal made all the worse by the slow discovery of the truth behind the operation he's been a part of, played off against the far more headstrong and aggressive week old Sam Bell having yet to be weathered and worn down by the unending loneliness on the lunar base. Between the efforts of the director and actor, two distinctly similar and yet different characters emerge and the effect of prolonged loneliness and isolation and the toll it takes upon someone, along with the exploration and reflection of their own identity, becomes all the more apparent given that subtle contrast.

The closest we come to another character is the AI that co-inhabits the house, Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey) who in a true “HAL9000” homage is not as he seems either; more than a simple robot but torn between his programming or 'orders' from the company that constructed him and his friendship – and I do mean this in every Wall-E and Blade Runner sense of the word – to his human companion, and despite moments where we suspect him of maliciously hiding secrets from Sam, and times where his inhumanity become apparent in the repeated phrases and inability to lie, it ultimately only serves to further the emphasis that this is the closest thing he has to a friend aboard the base.

The continuity throughout the film is nothing if not impressive; the subtle differences between the characters and developments that occur later in the film hinted at throughout but never in such a manner as to make it obvious, adding a certain sense of plausibility to the proceedings as we uncover new information and revelations alongside our 'two' protagonists. And with a soundtrack composed by Clint Mansell, a man who rarely makes a misstep and for whom based on his work with Aronofsky this seems like a natural fit, he performs in a manner that if not reaching the memorable peaks of “Requiem for a Dream” certainly does nothing to hinder his growing reputation.

When I try to think of other films to put this into context I find myself reverting to the classics; 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, THX-1138, and without exaggeration this is the league it finds itself in, with only perhaps 'Gattaca' or 'Man From Earth' from recent years coming close to the heights of what this accomplishes. With all the focus of late being on action, the essence of what makes sci-fi interesting is lost; it's not all explosions and lasers but an exploration of what the future may hold, and its this plausibility that has always fascinated me; not simply taking for granted all the new technology at peoples disposal but how that technology has impacted the sociology of society – or not as the case may be – and the humanity of their situation; Blade Runner's philosophising about the point at which AI becomes human, or THX-1138's defiance of a society designed to keep the safe to the point of patronisation. And constructed on just $5 million this film proves once again that no measure of special effects or explosions can match up to a team that know what they're doing. Jones' portrayal of the future is not a positive one, nor is it a dystopian one. It lies in that certain shade of grey, that like this film, feels all too human.