Author: Jim McLennan

Belle Starr

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★★★½
“Proto-action heroine, with a real-life inspiration, and some questionable philosophy.”

There’s something startlingly incorrect about this 1941 film, which makes its heroine, Belle (Tierney), an unrepentant Confederate mansion owner. She regrets the end of the Civil War and joins a rebel group who keep fighting, marrying their leader Sam Starr (Scott), only to find their morality may not quite live up to her own. It’s interestingly even-handed, with neither side being “good” or “bad”; Belle blames the Yankees for the death of her father and the burning of her home, but the leader of their forces, Major Grail (Andrews) is a sympathetic character who carries a torch for Belle. Naturally, given the era, Belle is more of an assistant, loading Sam’s rifles during a gun-battle, rather than firing them herself and it’s remarkable how her hair and dresses remain impeccable, even when she’s livin’ la vida outlaw. However, she’s a fine, independent-minded heroine, prepared to take decisive action to support her beliefs – highly dubious though they may be.

An obvious inspiration here is Gone With the Wind, but it’s also worth noting that Belle Starr was a real outlaw, whose life would make a good story on its own. She did marry a Sam Starr, but he was three-quarter Cherokee, rather than a Confederate officer. There also wasn’t quite the same pure, high purpose to their banditry, though her destiny, as depicted in the film, is close to what happened to her in real life. For some reason, this has not been deemed worthy of a release on DVD – I believe, Bill Cosby bought the rights. :-) But it does crop up on cable, and is worth a look; just leave all modern sensibilities at the door. If you can imagine a German movie which has Ilsa Koch as its heroine, escaping the Allies to join a group of rebel Nazis and continue the war, you’ll be in the same moral ball-park as this feature.

Dir: Irving Cummings
Stars: Gene Tierney, Randolph Scott, Dana Andrews, John Shepperd

The Nest

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★★★★
“Aliens Assault on Precinct of the Living Seven.”

Despite influences all over the place – Assault on Precinct 13, Aliens, Night of the Living Dead, The Magnificent Seven – Siri takes and runs with them very effectively. Laborie (Farès) is a career soldier, tasked with transporting an Albanian gangster to his trial; but the convoy is ambushed, so she and her men hole up in a nearby warehouse on a deserted industrial estate. However, it is being robbed by brothers Santino (Magimel) and Nasser (Naceri), plus their crew – and the attackers have also followed them, intent on rescuing their boss. Can they survive until help arrives?

It’s a well-constructed story, with some thought going into the explanations. Part of the thieves’ preparation was to black out cellphones in the area, and the film takes place on Bastille Day, so fireworks drown out the gun-battle. The violence is also nicely realistic; when people get shot, they stay hit; fans of the game Counterstrike will particularly enjoy this. But the rest of us should too. Laborie is a serious action heroine, who takes no nonsense as she takes charge, wielding authority and her assault-rifle with equal proficiency. And the tension mounts inexorably, as the faceless enemy close in, cutting off the space to those trapped within.

The ending is arguably a little weak, and there is the occasional dip into cliche – Laborie gazing at a photo of her kid, for example. However, on the whole, this is a fine, well-crafted piece of entertainment, which beats up most similar attempts to come out of Hollywood lately. Siri has since headed that way (he directed Bruce Willis in Hostage), and one hopes the studio system does not dilute his undeniable eye for action. Give him Resident Evil 3, with Farès alongside Jovovich, and we are so there. :-)

Dir: Florent Emilio Siri
Stars: Nadia Farès, Benoît Magimel, Samy Naceri, Anisia Uzeyman

Alias: season five

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★★★
“And they all lived happily ever after. Except for the ones who didn’t.”

Our once-favourite TV show walks off into the sunset – literally – and we are confirmed in our belief that it is very, very hard to keep interest in a series going past the third season. Especially if you’re creator JJ Abrams, who was missing, presumably making the very Alias-like Mission Impossible III; he didn’t even return to write or direct the season finale. It was, on the whole, a credible stab at trying up loose ends: Rambaldi, the question of whether Sloan was good or evil, Syd’s relationship with her mother, and the real identity of Vaughan, about to be revealed at the end of season four, when he and Sidney were in a car-wreck. This led into the main arc of the series, a hunt for ‘Prophet 5’, a shadowy organization intent on the usual things shadowy organizations want. As opposed to, say, the Alliance, the Covenant, K-Directorate, SD-6, etc…

There was also Garner’s pregnancy, which was written into the show, but obviously interfered hugely with any action sequences. Gone were the days when every episode would include Sydney running; in the first half of the series, we were lucky to see her in any kind of motion at all. As an alternate, we got Rachel, in a similar position to that once occupied by Sydney – believing she worked for the government, but actually not; she got sent on assignments in Syd’s place. With Vaughan also out of action for most of the series, another new agent, Thomas Grace, joined the team, but the kindest thing you could say about either was that they were forgettable. The aim was, presumably, to have them replacing S+V, but with the show ending, they became irrelevant.

Rather more successful was Renée Rienne (Élodie Bouchez), an interestingly ambivalent freelancer who straddled the line between working with Sydney and opposing her. We were also pleased to see the return of Anna Espinoza, a classic enemy from early on who, in an unsubtly rehashed plotline, gets turned into Bad Sydney. Enthusiasm for the show wasn’t helped by a long hiatus after Thanksgiving, but things rebounded as the show galloped towards its conclusion where the bad guys largely got their come-uppance. We’re sorry to see the show end – it leaves primetime TV without an action-heroine show – and there will be a little void in our lives as a result. But we’ll always have the DVDs of Series 1+2.

Star: Jennifer Garner, Michael Vartan, Victor Garber, Ron Rifkin

Guardian of the Realm

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★★★

“Why do villainesses get all the best clothes?”

They may be good girls or bad…

Despite a male hero, this qualifies since the very significant second lead and the villain are both female, with the former, in particular, worthy of our attention here. It’s set in the near-future where the group CORE, including agents Josh Griffin (Levy) and Alex Marlowe (Dempsey), keep humanity safe by executing demons that pop through portals from the dark side. However, an occult sect have unleashed a higher-level demon, Virago (Piryan) into this world, and she must be stopped before an upcoming total eclipse will allow her to blow the portals between the realms wide-open, and take the world down, Titanic-style.

Director/co-writer Smith appeared in both Guyver movies, and you sense that’s the kind of feel he’s going for here, combining martial-arts and rubber suits, in a world running just below the surface of ours. But according to his bio, he’s also done special effects on everything from Contact to Xena, and perhaps the latter’s influence can be seen in the statuesque Piryan, who would certainly have given Lucy Lawless a run for her money. The result is a mix of the highly-effective and the less-impressive. The moment where Alex’s true nature is revealed is just fabulous: among my favourite moments in any film this year. There is also a nice sense of ongoing history, though this is not developed as much as in, say, Witchblade. I got the sense of this being a fragmentary corner of a universe much larger than the film, perhaps due to budgetary limitations, could portray – a TV series would be very welcome.

…but the thong remains the same!

On the other hand the CGI, especially at the finale, is not up to the tasks demanded of it; the world-threatening apocalypse looks too often like a bad video-game. I wasn’t really impressed with Levy either, who lacked the required presence for a lead. The main problem, however, is a first half that drags horribly. After Virago is freed, she basically vanishes, and it’s almost sixty minutes before she does anything of significance. The film doesn’t really develop the back story, or do much with the characters during this time either, and it’s pretty tedious, with little action to keep you interested.

Things do perk up significantly later on and, must say, Virago is definitely a nominee for the Best Costume of 2006, while Alex’s thong gets almost as much screen-time as she does. The action is well-staged with Dempsey kicking ass in a manner befitting a grown-up Buffy. However, and a minor spoiler, it’s Griffin that ends up taking on Virago – sadly, not in the cool costume – even though it’s clear that Marlowe is the better fighter. If the makers cut 25 minutes out (the current running-time is 110), this would be a much tighter, more effective work with a claim at cult status. As is, it’s still an interesting rental, but one whose potential isn’t quite realised.

Dir: Ted Smith
Stars: Glen Levy, Tanya Dempster, Lana Piryan, Ronald Quigley

Kite

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★★★½
“Leon, if Matilda had been adopted by Stansfield, instead of Leon.”

Concerns about some content here means Kite has had a tortuous release in the West. First time out, in 1998, it was shorn basically of all explicit sexual content: given the potentially underage nature of the animated heroine, Media Blasters didn’t want to be hit with a kiddie porn charge – laughable though that may seem for a “cartoon”! – and played it very safe. Subsequent releases over the next six years restored first much, in the “Director’s Cut”, then all (“Special Edition”) the footage, but the OAV* might just work better without the sex. It’s hardly as if I finished it and thought, “Y’know, what this really needs is some sequences of the heroine getting molested.”

Because the story is interesting enough on its own. Sawa is a teenage assassin, basically mind-controlled by her foster father, Akai: he’s a cop who uses her to mete out vigilante justice to paedophiles, etc. [This is ironic given their relationship, the nature of which even the edited version makes fairly clear.] She meets a young man, Oburi, in much the same situation, and their growing relationship threatens to disrupt the status quo of everyday slaughter. And, “slaughter” is the word, since Sawa’s weapon of choice is bullets that first penetrate the victim, then explode. Cue more irony: in America, even animated teenage sexuality is entirely verboten, but teenage, paint-the-walls-blood-red carnage? Bring it on.

The action is certainly intense, well-animated and directed, though perhaps excessive. Even after falling from a building, through the road, down to the subway – then being blown up, flying back into the air and blasted through an apartment window, some BandAids are apparently all the medical attention Sawa requires. This conflicted badly with the gritty realism of the story, and I also hated the doodling sax soundtrack, which sounded like something rejected by Abel Ferrara for Driller Killer. Otherwise, though, it’s generally impressive and stylish, with a downbeat approach that is refreshing, as well as some spectacularly messy violence.

* = Original Animation Video, a common “straight to video” anime format. It’s only 50 minutes, about standard length for such things. A live-action version, directed by Jorge + Javier Aguilera, produced by Rob Cohen & Anant Singh, was announced earlier this year, but no release date has been scheduled. And No Doubt’s video for Ex-Girlfriend borrowed heavily from Kite – the bathroom assassination is re-staged, almost shot-for-shot, as this video shows.

Dir: Yasoumi Umetsu
Star (voice): Kotomi Naruse, Shingo Oyamada, Goro Shibusawa, Tatsuo Matoba

The Doll Squad

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★★
“Less an inspiration for Charlie’s Angels than the early works of Andy Sidaris.”

To describe this as eagerly anticipated would be… well, wholly wrong, actually. I’ll tell you how long the DVD has sat on our shelf: I bought it on honeymoon; we got married in July 2002. Not exactly required viewing, then. And having seen it, I can see why: while not as bad as we feared from the trailer, it’s remarkably dull. Mikels claims the concept was stolen by the creators of Charlie’s Angels, but going by the execution here, the word he’s looking for would appear to be “rescued”, not stolen. Sabrina Kincaid (York) assembles an all-girl team to find and take out the evil mastermind who’s blowing up American rockets. Quite why they must be girls is never quite explained; it’s down to Big Bertha, the government computer that assigns missions, and apparently values fashion sense over ability.

It’s really the middle where this falls apart, among near-endless scenes of the team running around an island in jumpsuits and white, high-heeled boots, getting captured, escaping and running around again. This is, as it sounds, remarkably dull, and outside of Sabrina, no attempt is made to give any of the other members any significant character traits. That’s a shame, especially since you’ve got Tura Satana, one of the most memorable action heroines of all time in Faster Pussycat. Here’s she’s reduced to a pastie-wearing cypher, who provides the film’s entire, insignificant skin quota. If you’re hoping this film makes up for in nudity what it lacks in most other areas, you’ll be disappointed.

There are some minor pleasures to be had: York isn’t bad, and her team has no qualms about dropping someone, then adding a bullet or two for good measure [Though this isn’t necessary when you feed them high-explosive liquor] And the soundtrack is perhaps the best thing about the film, being 91 minutes of Grade-A, seventies cheese. However, on the whole, this is more a chore than a pleasure, and Mikels doesn’t do much here to redeem his name as one of the poorer B-movie directors of the time.

Dir: Ted V. Mikels
Stars: Francine York, Michael Ansara, Sherri Vernon, Tura Satana

Million Dollar Baby

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★★★½
“The harder they come, the harder they fall…”

The problem with boxing films is that it’s very hard to avoid the obvious cliches. Kid from the streets, initially seen as hopeless, eventually convinces a trainer to take them on, and struggles towards the goal of a shot at the big time. Million is no different, for the first two-thirds at least. Then, there is a sudden, unexpected swerve – or would have been unexpected, if our son hadn’t ruthlessly spoilered it, by wandering in and telling us of a scene in Scary Movie 4 which spoofed it. Thank you, Robert. :-) This shifts the movie in a radically different direction, though also divorcing it entirely from the action heroine genre and robbing it of at least half a grade, since reviews here center around such aspects.

What helps enormously are the three characters at the core of the film: trainer and gym owner Frankie (Eastwood), ex-fighter and general gym handyman Eddie (Freeman), and the thirty-something hillbilly waitress Maggie (Swank), who comes to the gym to learn the pugilistic arts. All three have their burdens, Frankie in particular, who blames himself for everything bad that happens to anyone he knows. Yet somehow, they fit together like crazy paving and become more whole as a result; it’s fascinating to watch, and much credit is due to all three actors. The fight scenes are well staged too. Swank looks the part – she was The Next Karate Kid, after all – as she makes her way through the ranks, ending up facing champion Billie the Blue Bear (Rijker – on the left in the pic, and in reality, 37-0 as a kickboxer, 17-0 as a boxer), and there’s little glamourous here.

You get some feeling for the appeal of the sport, and the commitment it demands, though the freak nature of the incident which drives the final third seems lazy writing. Despite a weak script, the performances, particularly Eastwood, lift this above and beyond. Recommended if you want a more thoughtful approach, and are prepared for action more to be a catalyst for drama, rather than a purpose in itself.

Dir: Clint Eastwood
Star: Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman, Lucia Rijker

Mr. and Mrs. Smith

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★★★
“Patience is required, but decent fun when it gets going.”

Just imagine Jennifer Aniston watching this film: every time Ange appears on the screen, or gazes lovingly at Brad, Jen shrieks maniacally, “Die, sluuuuuut!” Such thoughts will keep you entertained during the sluggish first hour – you’ll need them, while you wait for the characters to realise what we know from the start: Mr. and Mrs. Smith are both assassins, now targeted by their respective agencies. For that is when the fun finally starts, not the overlong lead-up, where Brad + Angelina can only sustain the plot’s conceit (that – tee-hee! – they don’t know each other’s real jobs) by abject stupidity that flies directly in the face of their characters. She’s supposedly a top-level assassin with 300+ kills to her name, yet doesn’t notice hubby’s Batman-sized lair beneath the potting shed? Puh-lease…

But, must say, I enjoyed the action, which is directed with imagination – for example, Jolie abseiling down a building using only her handbag, provoking a rare “Wow!” from this jaded fan. Jolie is just right: it’s difficult to imagine the other options (Kidman, Zeta-Jones, Blanchett and, um, Gwen Stefani) doing as well. And the sniping banter between husband and wife has a particularly enjoyable sense of irony when its punctuated by… er, actual sniping. Some might say this both glorifies and trivializes the whole issue of domestic violence – and watching them brawl their way round the house before, naturally, tearing each other’s clothes off, it’s hard to argue. Yet at its best, this takes the “War of the Sexes” to a whole new level (she works for an agency that’s mostly women; he, for one that’s largely guys), and that angle could certainly merit more exploration.

We don’t know whether the Smiths are “good”, “bad” or independent contractors, an interesting approach (we have no moral compass beyond their actions), yet disappointing. For another weakness is that the villains are merely faceless minions, when the genre needs a Big Bad for the climax – the obvious one here is the people that ordered the terminations. Liman, whose Bourne Identity was also about a killer with a contract on his head, might appreciate this more than most, and word is two such endings were shot, just not used. Still, I suspect that the sequel – likely inevitable, given this was one of 2005’s top ten at the US box-office – could very well be more fun than the original. At least we’ll have all the tedious set-up out of the way.

Dir: Doug Liman
Stars: Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Vince Vaughn, Kerry Washington

The Molly Holly Interview: From Hair to Eternity…

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Wrestlemania is the centre of the professional wrestling universe, and the list of women who’ve fought there is like a Hall of Fame for the sport over the past 25 years, with names like Wendi Richter, The Fabulous Moolah, Luna Vachon and Chyna. Wrestlemania XX in 2004 is widely regarded as one of the best ever, and part of that night saw Victoria beating Molly Holly for the women’s title, a result that led to Molly getting her head shaved in the middle of the ring at Madison Square Gardens.

How did Nora Greenwald, a former Subway employee, end up there and a two-time WWE women’s champion? Unlike certain “divas” (hello, Candice Michelle – though as she’s the advert spokeswoman for my employer, I’d best say no more!), Nora actually worked her way up. After training under Dean Malenko and Jeff Bradley, she wrestled at small events on the independent circuit in Florida before getting signed to World Championship Wrestling in 1999, where she was part of Randy Savage’s Team Madness. She eventually broke away from Savage, feuding with Madusa, but was released by WCW in the summer of 2000.

It wasn’t long before Vince McMahon came calling, and Nora’s new character, Molly Holly, made her debut on Raw in November. Molly briefly held the WWE hardcore title after a victory at Wrestlemania X-8 in 2001, and beat Trish Stratus to win the women’s crown the following June. Though she lost the belt back to Stratus later that year, she had a second title run from July 2003 through to February 2004 – in the 50-year history of the championship, only a handful of women have held it for longer.

But after Wrestlemania XX, perhaps Molly had nothing left to prove. Disenchantment with her use by the WWE grew – and it’s easy to see how, the women’s division entering one of its downturns, where wrestling ability became secondary to other, more superficial skills – and in April 2005, she requested a release from her contract. Since then, she has released an interview DVD, Shootin’ the Crap, and appeared at various independent events around the country. It was at the Impact Zone Wrestling show in Tempe, AZ, that we got to sit down with Nora, and talk about her career, her life, and her future plans…

What have you been doing since leaving the WWE?

Every day is totally different. I have so much stuff going on it’s ridiculous. I feel like I’m busier now than I was when I was travelling full-time. I’ve got lots of projects – my main income right now, is that I’m involved in real estate investments. I own a few properties, so I have tenants that I have to manage. I go to gymnastics every Wednesday; I go to a public-speaking club called Toastmasters on Mondays; I do massage therapy on Thursdays – I took a course so now I’m doing that at a spa. My church has a lot of fun things going on too: I just went downhill skiing for the first time in about 15 years.

Do you miss anything about life in the WWE at all?

I miss all of the people backstage. A lot of the crew were good friends, and I never get to see them – the people on TV are my friends too, but I can flip it on and see what they’re up to. It’s the guys behind the scenes – I miss them so much, and I never get to see them, because they’re not on TV. That’s what I miss most: the people that I worked with. I don’t get to watch it as much as I would like to: I try to talk to Devari, keep in touch with what’s going on. I also speak to Shelton Benjamin and Trish Stratus, and usually get my info directly from them.

Some wrestlers grew up knowing this is what they wanted to do, but you kinda fell into it…

Yes, the closest thing to being a pro wrestler was I wanted to be an American Gladiator for a while. I liked the look of the female body-builders, and thought they were really cool. I did powerlifting when I was 14-18 years old, but as far as being a pro wrestler, it wasn’t a childhood dream – it wasn’t even an adult dream. When I started wrestling it was for fun, not necessarily thinking that I was ever going to be on TV.

When did you start thinking that you could make a career out of this?

There was a girl named Malia Hosaka, who worked with me on the independent scene, and she knew some of the people behind the scenes in WCW, and she started to say “Hey, you know we could make a lot more money than in the minor leagues.” So we started pursuing that together. It was actually a while after, that I got signed but that was the first time, with Malia Hosaka – she put it into my head that we’ve got a good thing going here, and we could probably make a career out of it.

It was a big step moving from the indie circuit into WCW and appearing in the arenas with Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage. How did you find that?

It was amazing. Those are people I watched, growing up as a kid, and then there I was in storylines with them – I mean, I got to slap Hulk Hogan across the face! It was like “Wow!”, just an amazing thing. The first time it really hit me what was happening was, I was in a limousine leaving the arena, and I’m looking around: it’s Gorgeous George, Madusa, Macho Man, Sid Vicious and myself. They all looked so famous, and had the muscles and tans and the pearly-white teeth and I thought, “I can’t believe I’m in a limousine with these people.” It just didn’t feel like I was supposed to be there, it was more like I was watching it in a movie, that I was behind the camera. That was the first time I realized that this was a big deal.

As fans we only see the front-part of the show. Is there anything you were surprised to learn about that goes on behind the scenes?

I guess the one thing that really surprised me is that part of me was still a fan. I’m watching the show, and not realising that the people on TV were not always what they were backstage. There were a few people that I thought to myself that I really did not like, and then when I met them in person, they were so friendly and so mild-mannered, I just thought, “Wow, I was fooled.” and I couldn’t believe I was fooled. Because I do pro-wrestling, I put on that act myself, but I was just shocked at how nice everybody was!

Do you prefer playing characters that are like you, or those that are not like you?

I prefer to play characters that are like me – the baby face Molly Holly, with the Spike Dudley gimmick, when he and I liked each other, that was my favorite time. Although if I were to choose a character that was not like me. it would be something really loud and obnoxious and funny: aome clown character or something that’s a little bit over the top and funny or goofy. I’m not particularly funny or goofy, but I think that would be fun to do.

Do you get much input into your characters?

Sometimes – usually they’ll give you a basic idea of what they want, and it’s your job to make it your own or to try and make sure the fans can connect with that character. I have chosen all my own costumes; I wear whatever I want to. When I first became Molly Holly, they said, just make your outfit like Crash’s. So I looked at his and thought, how can I do a female version of that. I took some clothes I already had, and sewed some stuff on to make it look like Crash’s.

You wrestled with both WCW and WWE. Would you say there were major differences between the two?

As far as my wrestling career, there was no women’s division in WCW. The positive of that, is that when I wrestled in WCW, I got to choose my opponents; they would say, “Can you find somebody to wrestle you for this TV taping”. I’d be like, “Ooh, yeah”, so would take my friends who I’d wrestled on the indies – Brandi Alexander, Lexi Fyfe, Dee Dee Venturi, people that I came up with. I thought, here’s my opportunity to pay them back for all they’ve done to help me; I would bring them in and we’d do a Saturday night TV taping for WCW. So it was fun: even though there wasn’t a women’s division, that we still got to do matches on TV. With WWE, there was an actual women’s division, there was a little more structure, there were more storylines, and a larger group of women that all knew how to wrestle which made it easier.

What did you think when you first saw the Molly Holly action figure?

I was ecstatic! I heard rumours they were going to make one. And they came to the show, the Jakks Pacific people came, with a prototype doll and they showed it to me, and I was like “Oh, my gosh!” and had my picture taken with the little doll. I mean, that’s every kid’s dream to have an action figure of themselves. But it’s really a bizarre thing to see a little doll that looks just like you, that people can buy in the store.

I actually went to a toy-store when I heard they were out, to go get them, and there were some kids looking at the wrestling figures, and they had their Triple-H, and all these ones that I was next to. And the kids were looking for the guy wrestlers, and without them turning around to see who I was, I said, “Hey, why don’t you get that Molly Holly doll?” and they go, “No – she sucks!”

Do you find yourself getting recognised in the supermarket?

No, I work really hard at not being recognised. I rarely wear any makeup – I’m a horrible dresser! But I wear hand-me-down clothes or thrift-store finds – I don’t. Every now and them, someone will look at me, and feel they recognise me from somewhere but they don’t actually come up to me and say, “Are you…” They just look at me like they know who I am. But it’s pretty rare that someone will come and ask me.

[This is true. We were doing this interview in a room full of wrestling fans, waiting for the IZW show to start. Only one person appeared to recognise Nora – and, personally, if I’d been asked to guess, I’d have pegged her as perhaps a kindergarten teacher rather than a two-time WWE women’s champion! :-)]

What do you feel is the highlight of your career so far.

Wrestlemania XX. Getting my head shaved at Madison Square Garden was definitely the highlight of my career. What can you do to top that, y’know? There’s nothing more shocking. It was my idea, and Vince McMahon was nice enough to let me do that. I had mentioned it months prior, and it kind of got lost in the shuffle for a while there, but a few last-minute decisions allowed that to happen. Nobody really knew what was going to happen on the show and a lot of my relatives were very upset. They didn’t know that I was okay with the idea of getting my head shaved and they were like, “Oh, that Vince McMahon – how dare he treat her like that! She worked so hard for him!” They were really upset, but I had to tell them later, no, it was totally fine: it’ll grow back!

Did you ever have any qualms or doubts?

No, I had no second thoughts about it. My Mom’s a breast cancer survivor and she had her head shaved for chemo, maybe a year before I did the Wrestlemania thing, and she looked totally fine with no hair. So I thought, shoot, if she can do it, I can do it – let’s give it a try.

Your Christian faith is an important part of your life, which makes wrestling seem like a strange destination. Did you have any problems reconciling the two?

I think that Christians have a place in every occupation. If Christians only worked at churches, then we wouldn’t really know much about Christ! So I really feel that this was a great place to be a Christian and still be in the entertainment industry. As far as any conflict, there’s always things on the show that I absolutely hate – I think if I had kids, I would never let them watch this.

So I tried to share my faith more on a personal level. with the people backstage, and the fans after the shows instead of really bringing that out on TV. I’m just playing a character on a TV show: that’s my job. And so my faith and my acting weren’t really linked, except that it gave me a lot of opportunities to meet a lot of different people. Just the challenges of the job helped strengthen my faith as well: you really need God to help you get through that, without major mental issues!

Did you ever think about wrestling abroad, where women’s wrestling is taken more seriously, such as in Japan?

I don’t like Japanese women’s wrestling. I’m not tough enough for that. I think it’s brutal, I think It’s violent. I’m not really into violence – I like comedy and I like entertainment, but when it comes to actual brutality, I’m just not into it. I wish I could say I respect what they do: I respect their dedication, and their love, but I could never be that dedicated. These women, that’s their life, from the time they’re young to they retire. It’s just way too challenging for me! I have had a few offers to wrestle, in Japan and Italy and a few different places, but I just really enjoy being healthy. I wake in the morning, and my elbows work, I can turn my head – it’s fantastic! So I don’t have a strong urge to get beat up in the near future.

I don’t want to say I’d never go back, because you just never know. Maybe six months, a year down the road, something could happen, where they really want me to be a part of, and I might say, “That actually looks like fun”. But right now, I’m doing special guest refereeing and stuff on the indie scene. It’s fun to be a part of that, because on the independents, everyone has such a passion and heart for what they do. They’re not doing it for the money, they’re doing it because they love it, and that’s really a fun thing to be a part of.

Looking back, is there anything in your career that you’d do differently if you had the chance over again?

There’s lots of regrets, but none that you’d see on television. Most of my regrets were just, if there was a person in management that I didn’t like, or I felt was treating me poorly, instead of keeping it to myself, I would talk about it in the locker room. And I regret doing that because, it just brings negativity where there doesn’t need to be negativity. That’s my biggest regret: not keeping a positive attitude backstage.

Finally, if you were running a federation, and had to pick five women wrestlers to be in it, who would you choose?

Ooh! That’s a good one. Jazz, Nidia… [pause] Victoria… [long pause] Gosh, two left. The last two are going to be tough. Gail Kim…and… it’s such a toss-up. There are so many that I just don’t want to, oops, forget!

Well, we can leave the fifth one blank…

[Laughs] Yes, let’s do that!

[Many thanks to Nora Greenwald for taking the time to speak with us; thanks also to Chris, Justin, Steve and Robert for their assistance. For more information on Nora and her future plans, keep an eye on the website: www.nora-world.org, and we also recommend her DVD, available through noradvd.com]

Bloodrayne

  By

★★½
“Don’t belief the hype: it’s not that bad.”

Director Boll has a rep as the worst filmmaker ever, making movies based on video games entirely for tax writeoff purposes. But have things got out of hand? I mean, Bloodrayne was in the IMDB All-time Bottom 50 before it opened. So cut him some slack – even though we may be the only folk on this planet who admit to liking bits of House of the Dead. Still, despite a fine cast [any film with Udo Kier is okay by us!], uniformly dire reviews meant we went in to this with low expectations – and made up most of the audience. Ouch. Yet, despite rumours of Madsen being drunk every day, Kingsley refusing to act with Madsen – something leftover from Species, I guess – and Rodriguez’ horrendous attempt at an English accent, this wasn’t entirely terrible.

Not great, sure; but as someone from Britain, I knew right off Rodriguez wasn’t even trying. I think all she did was limit her normal accent – wise for a Hispanic in a setting of Romania, circa 1700. Anyway, she and Madsen are hunting down Rayne (Loken), a human/vampire halfbreed seeking king of the vampires Kagan (Kingsley), who raped and killed her mother. Kagan, in turn, is after three artifacts to protect him from water, crosses and sunlight. Basically, imagine a period take on Blade with less actual imagination and more digital blood. There is certainly potential; Loken looks the part (dig her groovy swords!), as does the landscape.

However, the action borders on the incoherent, provoking little or no sense of awe or excitement. Gossip also states most of the stars signed on about two weeks’ notice, and that would certainly explain their apparent large unfamiliarity with pointy weapons. From the reviews, you’d think this was worse than Plan 9 From Outer Space, yet ignoring the anti-Boll hype, it’s largely only the poor staging of the fights which prevent this from being, at the very least, a credible rental. However, an action film with bad action is like a horror film with bad scares, rendering the other ingredients largely irrelevant.

Dir: Uwe Boll
Stars: Kristina Loken, Michael Madsen, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Rodriguez