Tag: 2011

DC Showcase: Catwoman

Video

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catwomanThe character of Catwoman has had a mixed history over the years in other media than the printed page. TV has had the Julie Newmar & Eartha Kitt versions, a nod in Birds of Prey, and a teenage version of the character can be seen in the Gotham series which premiered last month. In film, we had Lee Meriwether in the sixties incarnation then, perhaps most famously of all, Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns [albeit only after Annette Bening, Nicole Kidman and Demi Moore all were linked to the part]. Then, there was Halle Berry’s Catwoman, still talked about in hushed tones as perhaps the worst comic-book adaptation of all time, and which arguably did more damage to action heroines than any other big-budget movie in history. Despite the massive success of the Batman reboot, it took eight years before the character would appear in another film, Anne Hathaway playing Selina Kyle in The Dark Knight Rises.

However, it’s the animated versions – perhaps the nearest medium to the comic book – which are of most interest here. That dates back as far as 1968, when she appeared, voiced by Jane Webb (who also played Batgirl in the show), as part of The Batman/Superman Hour on CBS. A decade later, Melendy Britt pulled the same double-duty as Webb, playing both the heroic Batgirl and villainous Catwoman, in The New Adventures of Batman, another CBS show that began in 1977 and also used the voices of Burt Ward and Adam West, start of the original TV show. But it was the nineties when the form really took off. Batman: The Animated Series was ranked last year by TV Guide as among the top 10 cartoons of all time, and its style was clearly influential on the cinematic reboot of the franchise under Christopher Nolan.

Adrienne Barbeau voiced the character of Catwoman here and in The New Batman Adventures, later in the decade. This marked a shift, with the actresses being used for the role, even if never seen, becoming increasingly high-profile. 2004’s The Batman had Gina Gershon as Catwoman in five episodes, and the feature Batman: Year One had Eliza Dushku, With the third anniversary of the latter’s release this week, what better time to showcase the Catwoman-focused short below, which was originally included as a bonus feature on the Year One DVD. In it, Selena Kyle/Catwoman attempts to bring both a Gotham City crime boss called Rough Cut and his smuggling ring to an end, but stumbles upon a mysterious cargo shipment far worse than just smuggled diamonds…

Beach Spike

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★★
“Shaolin Volleyball.”

beachspikeSharon (Chau) and Rachel (Fu) have a pretty idyllic life, spending their days mostly on the beach playing volleyball, with occasional bouts of clubbing and very occasional work. But this relaxed approach to things is threatened by the Brewer family, who plan to turn the entire seafront into a megaresort, displacing all the happy local beach-bums. Leading the charge is family daughter Natalie (C, whom I can only presume was named by the same model-actress-whatever department to give us Maggie Q), who has a hatred for the “little people” and, along with her sister, kicks the arse of Sharon and Rachel in an early contest.

Through a series of frankly implausible events, and clouded by the blossoming relationship between Sharon and Brewer scion Tim (Law), the future of the resort project hangs on a rematch, the two teams making their way through a tournament to face each other in the final. However, anyone familiar with kung-fu movies will not be surprised to hear the good girls have been getting training from relatives well-versed in martial arts, and they won’t be such a pushover in the second battle.

It’s hard to work out exactly who the audience for this mess is supposed to be. Beach volleyball fans will hate the dreadful CGI, used to portray any protracted rallies, in lieu of actual skill, and likely find the heroines implausibly unmuscled (one in particular looks like she will shatter if dropped). Action fans will find little to remember here either, despite the presence of veteran heroine Yeung Pan Pan as Mrs Tao, and despite an obvious influence being Shaolin Soccer, there isn’t a trace of Stephen Chow’s wit. Even those looking for pleasures of a more exploitative nature will likely get bored, sitting through the lengthy comedic and romantic interludes.

I suppose those fascinated by Acting Performances In A Second Language might get a kick out of the Brewer family, who deliver lines in English about as well as I could in Cantonese. But I think the main intended market for this is a fetish one, and fairly specific at that. If you like seeing women hit in the face by balls, this is the movie for you. No, really. particularly during a competitive montage at the end, where it becomes a virtual barrage of ball-to-face action, including in slow-mo. Otherwise, the idiocy of the plot and blandness of the lead characters overpower much of whatever potential this had, and Wanted: DOA did a much better job with the sport. Probably, this needed either to be taken completely seriously or go over-the-top entirely and head into total parody (like Soccer did). Instead, this does neither, and the end results just sit in front of you like a beached whale for 95 minutes.

Dir: Tony Tang
Star: Chrissie Chau, Theresa Fu, Him Law, Jessica C

The Gang of Oss

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★★★½
“A Dutch semi-treat”

gang-od-ossI never really think of the Dutch as the organized crime type, but this film convinces me otherwise, based as it is on actual events from just before World War II. Oss is a town in the Southern half of the Netherlands and, it appears, everyone there is on the take one way or another, from insurance scams to larger scale shenanigans, all the way up to the mayor and the local priest. The federal government has sent military police to the town to keep order, but that only rankles the locals, for the cops are Protestants and they are Catholics. Johanna (Hoeks) hopes to escape a life of crime, planning to open a restaurant when her husband, Ties (Schoenaerts), gets out of jail. But it’s not as easy as it seems. Her spouse is happy to pimp her out, and local boss and Ties’s uncle, Wim de Kuiper (Musters), drags him back into his old ways. When Ties tries to force Johanna to have an abortion, she hatches a plan to have him killed by her lover (and client), Jan, although the plan only puts her deeper in the clutches of de Kuiper. But when she discovers just how low he is prepared to go, she decides he and the rest of his cronies are going down.

I really liked Johanna as a character. She’s comfortable enough with her position in life (even if normally, it’s on her back!), but still aspires to rise above her lowly origins – and do so honestly, unlike the rest of the inhabitants. Her husband is basically a Grade-A shit, but she eventually finds the resolve to stand up against him, and take control of her own destiny. Admittedly, you wonder why it takes quite so long, given she’s being forced to act as a prostitute by him – but, on the other hand, she quite happily refers to herself a “Johanna the slut”, and appears to come from a lineage of similarly-inclined women. It’s a nicely grey morality, and the same is true for most of the other characters; outside of Ties, they all have their own justifications for what they do.

I suspect some of the local atmosphere is probably lost outside of Holland – apparently, there’s a particular accent/dialect used, which doesn’t come across in the subtitles at all. And, as noted, it’s just odd to see the Dutch, whom I’ve generally found to be polite and well-mannered almost to a fault, killing each other, being brutal, and generally behaving in a manner more befitting Chicago during Prohibition than the south Netherlands. That’s less the film’s problem than mine, though there isn’t too much here which will be novel to anyone with a working knowledge of American mafia films, though having its focus on a woman, is certainly laudable. That, along with its strong local flavour, are enough to make this worth a watch, though outside of Hoeks’ strong performance, there likely isn’t much of long-term note.

Dir: Andre van Duren
Star: Sylvia Hoeks, Matthias Schoenaerts, Marcel Musters

Cat Run

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★★★★
“More than one way to skin a Cat…”

mcteerI watched this purely on the strength of the sleeve, and wasn’t really expecting too much. Early on, that’s pretty much what I got: a mildly entertaining riff on things like Smokin’ Aces [which I never really liked to begin with]. A pair of Americans living in Eastern Europe, Anthony Hester (Mechlowicz) and Julian Simms (McAuley) set up a detective agency, and offer their services to find a missing woman, Catalina Rona (Vega). However, they don’t realize a lot of rather violent people are also after Cat, because she’s in possession of a hard drive containing some very incriminating footage of an American politician, on which everyone wants to get their hands. The trail bips around from the Balkans to Andorra, London, Luxembourg and probably other places I’ve forgotten, with Mechlowicz making little or no impact, and McAuley shamelessly aping the two Chris’s, Rock and Tucker, to rather too much impact.

Then McTeer shows up, and the film becomes unutterably wonderful the rest of the way.

Seriously: I don’t think I can remember a movie dragged up so much by a single performance. She plays Helen Bingham, an uber-polite, ultra-violent assassin who starts off on Cat’s tail, but is the victim of a double-cross herself, which turns out to be a very, very bad move for the perpetrators. While Bingham owes a clear debt to the other Helen – that’d be Mirren, in Red – the script gives this character much more room to blossom. The Oscar-nominated McTeer sinks her teeth into the role with gusto, not least in a hellacious brawl with Karel Roden, but every scene with her is a joy, such as her asking the victims of her work, “Do you need a moment?” before offing them. If you can imagine a cross between Mary Poppins and Anton Chigurh (and I appreciate, that’s not easy!), you’ll be in the right area.

There are other delights, not least Tony Curran as an extremely irritable rival Scottish hitman, who meets an extremely messy end. As a Scot, this kind of heavily stereotyped portrayal can be irritating – I’d happily stone Mike Myers to death for his crimes in the area – but Curran gets it right. [Besides, he’s allowed slack after his portrayal of Van Gogh in one of the most memorable of Doctor Who episodes] But the main improvement is that the focus of the film becomes Bingham, rather than Vanillaman and his annoying sidekick. It just goes to show that, even when a movie is clearly not to be taken seriously, as here, it can still be an enormous help when the characters do.

Dir: John Stockwell
Star: Scott Mechlowicz, Alphonso McAuley, Paz Vega, Janet McTeer

Sket

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★★★
“A Gun for Jennifer, UK edition”

“I saw my dad beat the fuck out of that woman, day in and day out. She was pathetic. Not once did she swing back, not once. The only way you’ll survive is to become like them. Otherwise you’ll end up like our mothers.”

sketPurely coincidental that I viewed this not long after A Gun For Jennifer. The films share some common themes, despite 15 years and a couple of thousand of miles between them (not to mention the French poster on the right, which is a lot more riot-y than the movie itself). In both, a “new girl in town” finds herself harassed by a couple of sleazeballs, only to be rescued by a gang of women. While initially reluctant to join them, they give the heroine a sense of belonging, sadly lacking in the rest of her life, and she’s drawn in to their illicit lifestyle. However, there’s always someone tougher out there, meaning tragedy and the death of someone close to you, is never far away when you’re on the mean streets of the big city.

Okay, it’s a little bit of a stretch to call them identical, but I felt definite resonances, despite the hell which is North London, standing in for New York [I lived in London for over a decade, albeit in Sarf London – which as everyone there knows, if far superior to the Norf]. As for differences? The women here are also younger, heroine Kayla (Foster-Barnes) maybe 15 or so, when she arrives with her elder sister Tanya from Newcastle. After being harassed on a bus, she falls in with Danielle (Hartley-Miller) and her gang, who look out for each other, since no-one else will. But Tanya has the misfortune to cross paths with violent drug dealer Trey (Walters), paying the price for interfering in his business. With Kayla capable of turning him in to the police, Trey tries to tidy up the loose end, forcing the young girl on the run, as she vows revenge. Kayla finds a willing accomplice in Danielle – and, perhaps, a surprising one in Trey’s girlfriend, Shaks (Steele), who has her own agenda.

There are some elements here which do stretch disbelief somewhat (where are the authorities? Or even her father, who barely shows up, even after the loss of a daughter) , but the performances help overcome this weakness. Hartley-Miller, in particular, is entirely convincing, creating a character you’d cross the street to avoid, yet still with the sense she’s a victim as much as a perpetrator. Steele is also very good, perpetually giving the sense that she’s analyzing the situation like a chess-master: the scenes where Danielle and Shaks face off are wonderfully intense, and I’d have liked to see more of them. Foster-Barnes isn’t quite there, apparently suffering from a bad case of Resting Bitchface, although her character has been through enough, it’s kinda understandable.

A little heavy on the grime soundtrack, the plot also wanders off occasionally in directions like vengeance on an ex-boyfriend, that turn out to be nothing but a needless diversion. But it’s still a solid enough attempt at exploring an under-explored area of female culture, particularly in the UK.  Oh, yeah: in case you’re wondering, the title is an epithet for a sexually promiscuous woman. It was originally “Sketel,” and is Jamaican in origin. Never say this site isn’t educational.

Dir: Nirpal Bhogal
Star: Katie Foster-Barnes, Emma Hartley-Miller, Riann Steele, Ashley Walters