Tag: 2007

Pink

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★½
“Too many episodes, spoil the broth.”

This has something of an interesting history. It was originally 35 episodes of a short-form web series, shown on Hulu, beginning back in 2007, at the time when they were just starting out. That may seem like a lot of content, but each episode was only three to five minutes long. So what you have here is a compilation of all those episodes into a single movie, running about two hours. And… unfortunately, the result is a complete mess, bouncing around in time without rhyme, reason or purpose. It spends too much time on things which don’t matter much, like silly college shenanigans, while galloping past – if addressing at all – matters which feel more important to the plot.

From what I could figure out (and I can by no means swear to any of this), the basic plot involves Natalie Cross (Raitano). She was brought up by her single father (Tompkins), who was a special forces operative. Or maybe black ops. It’s all very murky. As a result, she basically got Hanna‘d, learning all the skills necessary to follow in her father’s footsteps. Initially, she tries to be her own person, but while at college was recruited to work for a BLOC: a black ops corporation, private military who handle jobs governments want done with clean hands. After quitting, Nate found herself in prison, but is now back on the outside, having been promised freedom if she completes ten assignments.

That would be fine. Except, for whatever reason, the show spends far too much time and effort with college-aged Nate (Matula), which is very much the least interesting thing the show has to offer. Except possibly her “Gother than thou” room-mate, Rhonda, who naturally is the person to show the sheltered Nate the ways of the world. Well, the ones that don’t involve hunting and skinning deer, anyway. But who cares? If I wanted to watch that kind of thing, I would… Well, I guess I would watch that kind of thing. You get the idea. The series only achieves energy after Nate goes to work full-time for her BLOC, and is given a little apprentice, Bunny (a nice nod back to Nate’s childhood pet).

I get that the show was made in bite-sized episodes, and it might have worked better in that format. Or, alternatively, if they had shuffled them around for this feature version, into something closer to chronological order. Instead, the results here resemble somebody having fed the footage through a shredder, and then arbitrarily assembled it back together. It means on occasion, you’ll have adjacent scenes taking place decades apart, and on different continents. There was a time, fifteen or more years ago, when this kind of thing was seen as the future of entertainment on the Internet. The failure of things like Quibi proved otherwise. Based on the evidence here, it’s a mercy that never came to pass.

Dir: Blake Calhoun
Star: Natalie Raitano, Sheree J. Wilson, Kim Matula, Matthew Tompkins

Virgin Pockets

  By

★½
“Don’t take this cue.”

In sports films is, actors don’t necessarily have to be able to play the game in question. But they should be able to fake it – if not necessarily at a level capable of fooling professionals, at least to get it past the casual viewer. When it comes to ball and cue games, I am certainly a casual. Unfortunately, the two players are the core of proceedings here do not look like pro players. They look considerably closer to me, down the pub, after a few pints. The major difference is, they at least do not look pleasantly surprised when they knock in a ball. But when one half of the “sports drama” equation is unconvincing, it puts a lot of weight on the other.

It fares at least somewhat better there. This is the story of veteran pool hustler, Lizzie Monroe (Madison), who avoids the bright lights of the pro tour circuit. Instead, she hustles players in various bars and other establishments, with the help of manager ‘Grace’ Scott (Krukowski), because “That’s where the real money is.” Admittedly, there’s no particular indication of this being true here, with the money changing hands not exactly life-changing. Anyway, Lizzie meets Jordan ‘J.J.’ Jamison (Grace), a younger and rawer player who uses her sex appeal to help her win, albeit with penny ante rewards. An unimpressed Monroe hustles the hustler, but is eventually convinced to become a mentor to J.J, and show her the proper way to play.

If you’ve seen any films from this genre, you can probably figure out how this is going to go. Eventually, there will be dissension in the ranks, J.J. will go her own way, and the mistress will end up facing off against her student. Give yourself two points, since that’s exactly what happens. To get there, however, you have to sit through an awful lot of pool montages, accompanied by music from mediocre punk(ish) bands – presumably friends of the director, likely sourced from the local scene in Erie, Pennsylvania where this was made. It’s filmed almost glamour style: with many shots of our leads’ cleavages and butts leaning over the pool table. Can’t say I minded, and yet…

Because, cheesecake aside, the pool is probably the least entertaining thing about this. You never get to see much apart from random shots, so there’s absolutely no sense of ebb and flow or contest progression. Rather than the humdrum mechanics of playing the game, what I did find interesting was the psychology of hustling, and the strategy of how you can lure someone in, to take all their money. The best sports films transcend the game they’re about, to tell a story which can resonate, even if you aren’t a fan. Only occasionally does this spend long enough away from the table to be capable of simply engaging the viewer. And inevitably, a few minutes later, you’re back to enduring another montage of unconvincing players making simple shots. 

Dir: Paul Gorman
Star: Marie Madison, Chexy Grace, Jeremy Krukowski, Shannon Solo

Closure

  By

★★½
“The truth is out there. Somewhere.”

Surprising to see a rough, occasionally nasty slice of rape-revenge was funded by the British government, through the National Lottery scheme. Not that I’m complaining: it’s preferable to period nonsense or kitchen-sink dramsa depicting inner-city life. But I would not typically have expected something as unrepentantly exploitative to get money from such a source. The film kicks off when Alice (Anderson) and her boy toy, Adam (Dyer) are on the way home from a party. A road rage incident leads to him being savagely assaulted, and her being gang-raped, leaving both of them severely traumatized by their experience. Interestingly, it’s Alice who is the one most intent on finding the perpetrators and taking revenge.

Turns out her recently deceased father was a soldier, who taught her not to turn the other cheek, and left her a weapon with which she can carry out her vengeance. This makes her considerably more interesting a character than Adam, who now mopes around smoking weed and suffering from erectile dysfunction. Alice locates one of the attackers, Heffer (Calf), and sets her plan in motion. However, things become increasingly complicated, first with the presence of his daughter, and the discovery that his participation in Alice’s sexual assault was not as purely predatory as it seemed at the time. She begins to understand that retribution can be messy; on the other hand, Adam is becoming more gung-ho about the process, and refuses to back down from his revenge.

I guess these two sides of the coin, and their contrast, are key to the film’s message, though the sudden way in which it ends might leave you wondering if there’s any genuine message intended at all. Maybe it was all the fulfillment of some weird, albeit understandable, Gillian Anderson fetish for writer-director Reed (there are a couple of scenes which lean towards that interpretation). She is certainly the best thing about this, and her journey from predatory cougar through to literally predatory cougar would have been worth following. Dyer continuing to get roles remains a mystery, not least because he was at least five years older than his supposed 23-year-old character here, and can’t exactly make up the deficit in acting ability.

“Do you know what they did after they finished with me? They laughed.” That’s Alice’s chilling explanation of why she’s so hell-bent on making Heffer and his colleagues pay. While I did appreciate the way the rapists were neither your stereotypical yokels nor yoofs, being middle-class and middle-aged, it’s really only when Anderson is on screen that this movie shows credible signs of life, Anderson again proving that she is considerably more than Dana Scully. Even here though, the film manages to fumble things in a final act which feels a severe cop-out, albeit after we are treated to the site of Alice sticking a gun where a gun is not normally expected to go. Take that mental image with you, the next time you buy a lottery ticket.

Dir: Dan Reed
Star: Gillian Anderson, Danny Dyer, Anthony Calf, Adam Rayner 
a.k.a. Straightheads

Silent Dove

  By

★★★
“Flips the bird at the bad guys”

While obviously cheap, and occasionally laughable, the straightforward nature of this helped it remain generally entertaining. It’s not over-burdened with unnecessary plot complexities and this gives it a clarity of focus that works to its advantage. Dove (Atkins) is an assassin for the mob, but her boss, Teddy (Mensoza) wants her and her handler father (Sanford) out of the picture. So he begins setting Dove up to fail, giving her bad intel on a job, hoping that will lead to her death. She survives the unexpected scenario, so on her next hit, Teddy “forgets” to mention the presence of a young child, whom Dove ends up shooting as well as her target. That gives Teddy the excuse he needs to unleash his dogs on her and her father. But Dove is not going to be easy to eliminate, especially after Teddy makes it considerably more personal than business.

It’s the kind of film which would be quite easy to pick apart. The relationship between Dove and her father, for example, is so scantily drawn, you wonder why they bother at all, and there is also an odd flashback sequence to Dove being tortured. Was this some kind of origin story? It’s purpose is never made clear. There are gaffes and mistakes to be found, if you try. After killing the child, Dove’s gun suddenly vanishes between shots, and later there’s a bizarre moment where she sews up a wound in her arm through a bandage. As you do…? Most of the mobsters are hardly convincing in their roles, lacking the necessary sense of threat you’d expect from them, and quite why Teddy feels so compelled to get rid of Dove, since she’s clearly more competent than any of his operatives, is not explained to any satisfactory level.

And, yet…. Probably the biggest compliment I can give this is, if I made a girls-with-guns flick, it would probably look not too dissimilar to Silent Dove. For example, the script is not lumbered with any unnecessary romantic angles. Atkins’s performance, while so low-key as arguably capable of being called flat and disinterested, somehow seems perfectly fitting for her role, capturing someone who appears to be emotionally dead inside (which may be part justification for the flashback sequence?). Though relatively long, at 105 minutes, there didn’t feel as if there was any real amount of slack, in the way of unnecessary scenes, and it has at least one memorably imaginative kill, involving a significant quantity of sulphuric acid.

The bottom line is, I was always kept watching, and was never bored, even if it was generally fairly obvious where things would end up. It more or less does, though there’s a pleasant final twist that I did appreciate. Filmed in ten days on a budget of $15,000, the makers have put the whole thing up on YouTube, and I’ve certainly seen far worse movies given away for free there.

Dir: Paul Dupree
Star: Chelsee Atkins, Johny Mendoza, Gary Brumett, Malcolm T. Sanford

Sick Nurses

  By

★★★½
“Nurse Fetish will see you now…”

This is certainly an odd animal. It takes place in and around a Thailand hospital, where one of the physicians, Dr. Tar (Jarujinda), has a lucrative side-scam in selling bodies to… well, if it’s not clear who, there appears to be sufficient demand for them. He is in cahoots with a group of seven nurses, but one of them, his girlfriend Tahwaan (Wachananont), finds out he is having an affair with her sister, Nook (Rujiphan). After she threatens to go to the police, Dr. Tar and the other six nurses kidnap and kill Tahwaan. However, her spirit comes back from the grave, to take brutal vengeance on those responsible for her death. Naturally, the peeved ghost starts with the characters who bore relatively minor culpability, working her way up to Nook and the not-so-good doctor.

Yeah, if you’re into nurse uniforms, this is pretty much an all-you-can-eat buffet of attractive young women wearing these. Even outside that, there are plenty of scenes of them wearing less clothes than everyday expectations. Though, in line with general Thai morality, there’s no actual nudity – even when one of the victims takes a lengthy shower, she does so with her clothes on. Kinda weird, and the “grindhouse” tag here should be read as referring to violence rather than sex. For the meat of the film are extended stalk and slash sequences, in which Tahwaan – or, at least, a malevolent entity taking her form, with darker skin – pursues her targets relentlessly.

Sadly, the final dispatch is typically off-screen, a contrast to Western horror where the kill typically provides the money shot. Here, there is instead good, twisted imagination shown in the lead-up to those points, such as her ability to “control” her victims, or strangle one with her hair. The peak moment is likely the sequence4 where one woman’s lower jaw drops off, then her tongue falls out and is eaten by her cat, a scene which definitely upped the grade here by an extra half-point. Whatever you say about Tahwaan, she has clearly put some effort into planning the demises of those who wronged her.

To some extent, this is just a variation on the common Asian trope of the long-haired ghost girl. The twist here is that we are on Tahwaan’s side, especially once we find out the truth behind her death. It’s definitely a novelty to have someone seeking revenge for their own murder, rather than the more common in our genre, some kind of sexual assault. The plot is clearly nonsense; nobody notices any of the earlier victims are missing, for example, and I’ve no clue what the “13 o’clock” stuff was about. Yet I can’t deny, I found myself having an increasingly fun time, as things escalated, growing more bloody and twisted. Nook shows some fight before eventually allowing the “heroine” to reach her inevitable final target of Dr. Tar. It’s likely no spoiler to say, the confrontation doesn’t end well for him, though perhaps not quite as I wanted.

Dir: Piraphan Laoyont, Thodsapol Siriwiwat
Star: Chol Wachananont, Wichan Jarujinda, Chidjan Rujiphun, Kanya Rattanapetch

Vexille

  By

★★★★
“Breaking the lockdown”

In the second half of the 21st century, Japan closed its borders, after a schism between it and the rest of the world over the development of advanced androids by robotics pioneer Daiwa Heavy Industries, which the United Nations wanted stopped. For a decade no foreigner has been allowed in, and no-one knows what the country is now like. Then evidence arises that makes government agency SWORD embark on an “off the books” mission, to insert a team into Japan. It doesn’t go well, and before long the only member left active is Lt. Cdr. Vexille Serra (Kuroki). She discovers the country is now run by Daiwa, and things are… not what you’d expect. She links up with the head of the anti-Daiwa resistance, Maria (Matsuyuki). But time is running out for them, and the rebels are forced to mount a last-ditch attack on Daiwa’s island headquarters, in the hope of preventing a similar fate befalling the rest of the world.

I was surprised to find how far back this was released, because the animation doesn’t feel 14 years old. It’s a slick combination of CGI and cel work, that looks particularly good in motion – and there’s no shortage of that. The other thing the film does well is balance the plot and the action. The central idea here, that Japan reverted to the state of sakoku, which isolated the country from 1639 to 1853, is intriguing – if a bit implausible – and the story delivers a few unexpected twists on its heels. However, it never topples over into grinding philosophical discussions about the meaning of life, what it means to be “human”, etc. and so is a marked improvement over some anime shows about androids [certain Ghost in the Shell incarnations, but I am particularly looking at you, Mardock Scramble!]

Instead, it uses the scenario as a jumping-off point for a number of wonderful set pieces. Firstly, an initial assault on a Colorado mansion which reveals the evidence of Japanese activity, and ends in a giant fireball to rival all giant fireballs. Then there’s a chase through a docks, between a super-powered motorbike and several mecha suits. And finally, there’s a long, extended attempt to get into Daiwa’s headquarters. This involves a full-speed race through service tunnels connecting it to the mainland, while pursued by “jags” – rogue nanotechnology, whose form and behaviour are not dissimilar to the sandworms from Dune. It is all great stuff, and the soundtrack, produced by trance DJ legend Paul Oakenfold, helps drive things forward.

Vexille and Maria are definitely the two main characters, so there’s no doubt that it deserves to be included on the site, and they have rather more success getting into Daiwa than the male members of the resistance. There’s no much background on the heroine; she has a relationship with another member of the team, its commander Leon Fayden (Tanihara), and his capture by Daiwa is about all the motivation provided. Or necessary, to be fair. Providing you aren’t looking for something deep and meaningful, but enjoy a good high concept, and watching things whizz past at a high rate of speed, this is a solid success as a slick piece of entertainment.

Dir: Fumihiko Sori
Star: Meisa Kuroki, Yasuko Matsuyuki, Shosuke Tanihara, Takaya Kuroda

Appleseed Ex Machina

  By

★★★½
“The Deunan wears Prada.”

I think this is probably my favourite of the various incarnations of Appleseed. It may not be the best characterization, the best animation, or the best plot. But I think in overall terms, the combination is the most successful. In all the others, you can typically point to one of those three areas as being at least somewhat deficient. Here, if none are outstanding, they’re all solid and competent. It may help that legendary Hong Kong director John Woo was one of the producers. If you didn’t know that, you could probably tell from the early scene in which Briareos crashes through a church’s stained-glass window, a gun blazing in each hand. “All that needs is some white doves in slow-mo,” I thought. And, lo, later on, the birds in question do appear – and are even necessary to the plot, which is probably more than Woo managed!

The story here begins with the latest in a series of terrorist attacks, carried out by cyborgs. It turns out they are not acting of their own free will, but are being “puppet mastered” into their actions. Worse, the human residents of Olympus now appear to be joining in, baffling Deunan (Kobayashio) and her colleagues in ESWAT. Viewers, however, will likely be quicker to figure out the cause there, given the rather obvious mentions of a hot new piece of wearable technology called Connexus, which simply everyone who is anyone is now sporting. Meanwhile, a new kind of soldier biodroid is being developed, basied on Briareos (Yamadera), designed to possess the talents of humans or cyborgs, but without the negative traits. After Briareos is injured, Deunan is partnered up with one, Tereus (Kishi). This freaks her out, because he looks just like Briareos, before his cybernetic upgrades. Meanwhile, Olympus leader Athena (Takashima) seeks to leverage the terrorist attacks to gain support for her plan to create a worldwide security network.

There’s a lot going here, yet the script manages to keep the elements clear and moving forward without confusion. There’s a sweet spot in SF between the simplistic and the over-complex, and this hit it better than most. The animation is a tad short, however. Weirdly, what stood out as defective was the hair, which didn’t move in the way it should. Either that, or I guess, after the apocalypse, hair lacquer is not in short supply. In general though, the technical aspects were competent enough and occasionally better than that. Perhaps due to Woo’s involvement, it feels a perfect candidate for a live-action adaptation, though the budget would need to be well into nine figures. I’d go with Ruby Rose as Deunan and Dave Bautista as Briareos. Change my mind. :)  Oh, and the tagline? Yeah, some of Deunan’s outfits in the film were indeed designed by Miuccia Prada. She has been running the family’s clothing company since 1978, and was a fan of the previous film. A very well-dressed action heroine indeed…

Dir: Shinji Aramaki
Star (voice):  Ai Kobayashi, Kōichi Yamadera, Gara Takashima, Yūji Kishi

Beach Volleyball Detectives

  By

★★★
“So, illegal underground beach volleyball matches?”

The above line of dialogue is a perfect litmus test for what you’ll think of this. If your reaction is a derisive snort, this pair of hour-long items – I have qualms about calling them anything as high-minded as “feature films” – is probably not for you. And I cheerfully admit, snorting is probably the default, and understandable, reaction. If, on the other hand, you are giddy with anticipation at the very thought, then I probably cannot recommend it highly enough.

It’s one of those cases where the title pretty much explains the basic idea. Three young, photogenic members of the Foreign Affairs Department, led by Haruka, get paired up with Wakana, a equally young and photogenic visiting policewoman from Hawaii, after they discover blueprints for a mini-nuke, capable of wiping out everything in a 100-mile radius. To find those behind the scheme, the four law-enforcement officials have to go undercover at the training camp for an international volleyball tournament, and figure out which of their opponents – Chinese, Russian or Indian – are after the blueprints.

This manages to be incredibly tacky, while also remaining remarkably chaste. There is no actual content here which would be worse than PG-rated. But it’s all shot in a way that resembles Russ Meyer in heat: focusing on the actresses’ erogenous zones, sometimes to the exclusion of everything else in the frame. Which makes sense, considering the director’s filmography includes what I can only presume are far more explicit titles, such as her debut, Chronic Rutting Adultery Wife. And who can forget Miss Peach: Peachy Sweetness Huge Breasts? Meanwhile, the writer is Takao Nakano, who gave the world – and this site – Big Tits Zombie.

It also turns out that, much like the Force and duct-tape, beach volleyball has a light side and a dark side. These are, respectively, White Sand Beach and Black Sand Beach. This mystical philosophy may help explain the superpowers on display here. For instance, the Indian team can levitate, the Russian player can turn into multiple mirror images of herself, and the Japanese and Chinese have a whole slew of super-powered moves, up to and including “Intercontinental Ballistic Missile No. 1”. I should mention, all these different nationalities are played by Japanese ladies, though in deference to her cultural heritage, the “Russian” does wear a headscarf. The Chinese are defined by their frequent spouting of Socialist dogma, such as “Go ahead and vote on it, you silly democratic people.”

The execution is woefully inept, The matches play like a low-rent version of Shaolin Soccer, right down to the ball turning into a dragon, a result of the appropriately named “Dragon Spike” move. Except, here, the CGI might barely have passed muster in the 1980’s. What passes for “combat” is hardly any better, if at all. Yet this incompetence actually becomes part of the trashy charm, and there’s a surprising amount of plot here. Our heroines have to handle not just their enemies, but also betrayal from within, and jealous fights between Haruka and Wakana over the attentions of their coach, with the help of a Yoda-esque monk, Harlequin. It’s all undeniably goofy, yet I was amused and entertained – likely more than I should probably admit…

Dir: Yumi Yoshiyuki
Star: Arisu Kagamino, Sakurako Kaoru, Chihiro Koganezaki, Kaori Nakamura

Undead Pool

  By

★★★
“Buffy the Zombie Slayer goes for a dip.”

I strongly prefer the alternative name (as given in the credits below, though in some territories this was also known as Inglorious Zombie Hunters) – it’s one of the finest exploitation titles of all time, both describing exactly what the film is about, while simultaneously reeling in the potential viewer. Certainly beats something which sounds more like an Asylum “mockbuster” version of a certain, snarky Marvel superhero. If the product itself doesn’t quite live up to it’s own name, this mostly a case of, really, how could it?

New transfer student Aki (Handa) has the misfortune to arrive at the school on inoculation day, and ditches class to the stress of her new situation, so doesn’t get her jab. This turns out to be extremely fortunate, as the supposed “vaccine” turns out to be the plot of an evil scientist, and those injected with it – both students and teachers, the latter receiving a particularly strong version – turn into flesh-eating zombies. Despite Aki’s strong aversion to water, she finds some allies in the shape of Sayaka (Hidaka) and her colleagues on the girls’ swimming squad, because it turns out the chlorine in the pool negates the effects of the compound. It’s up to them to defend themselves from the hordes, and also resolve the murky nature of Aki’s previous history, which turns out to be not entirely disconnected from current events. Oh, yeah: there might be some lesbian canoodling as well. Just so you know.

The zombie aspects in particular are well-executed: energetically messy, with plenty of blood and a sense of self-deprecation that helps to counter-balance negates the obviously low-budget approach, most apparent in the rubbery nature of the severed limbs, flying through the air. It’s as if the film is saying, “Yeah, we know we’re cheap, come along for the ride anyway.” It helps that the zombies retain some of their pre-infection character, rather than being just mindless flesh-eaters. For example, there is the maths professor who continues to mumble about a problem involving apples, while wielding an inexplicably razor-sharp yard-stick around. Mind you, this is a school which leaves chainsaws lying around, and than there’s also Aki’s spiked swim-fins [which looks and acts like the iron fan beloved of martial arts flicks]

There is, as you’d expect, copious fan service – though the title does at least explain the swimsuits, which are likely less gratuitous here than in, say, D.O.A. This is probably the least interesting aspect, and I was reminded of Fred Olen Ray’s comment that nudity is the cheapest special effect. The finale, where Aki reveals one particularly startling special talent, likely doesn’t stand up to scrutiny either: quite how she acquired the skill is never adequately explained. While there was still enough here to keep me entertained, this mild recommendation should come with a caveat that I’m significantly more tolerant of low-budget goofiness than most people.

Dir: Kōji Kawano
Star: Sasa Handa, Yuria Hidaka, Hiromitsu Kiba, Mizuka Arai, More
a.k.a. Attack Girls’ Swim Team vs. the Undead