Tag: 2012

Burlesque Assassins

  By

★★½
“A strip off the old block.”

It’s the mid-1950’s, and Bourbon Sue (D’Lite) is recruited to join the titular group (hehehe… He said, “titular”…), under leader Johnny Valentine (Shanks), and immediately thrown into the heart of a vital mission. There are three codes needed to operate a Nazi death ray, which has been dormant since the end of WW2 a decade previously. But the son of Mussolini, a clone of Hitler and the not-as-dead-as-reported Stalin are convening with the codes in a burlesque club, and it’s up to Sue and the other girls to ensure the weapon is not activated. “Seduce and destroy,” as their slogan goes, and the fate of civilization hangs in the balance – though there’s clearly no rush to save the world, with plenty of time to take in a number of performances at the club.burlesque

I’m kinda ambivalent about burlesque. The basic concept – attractive women undressing – is one I can get behind (hehehe… “behind”…), but having attended a number of shows, while entertained, I found maybe 5% of the acts at all erotic. It feels more to me like a modern dance recital, with limited clothing. And this one’s appeal is probably directly connected to your interest in burlesque; I think my wife probably enjoyed this more than I did. It’s not obviously low-budget, but its limitations are obvious: virtually the entire last two-thirds of the film takes place in the club, alternating between the stage and the dressing room, as Sue and her colleagues try to pry the codes from the axis of evil. It’s pretty limited and quite repetitive in terms of story, despite the makers’ efforts to jazz things up with flashbacks and other cut scenes. I’m not sure burlesque with a plot is something the world really needed, to begin with.

But that said, the actors are clearly having a lot of fun, not least Shanks, who spends much of the film in a wig and dress, though the beard and cigar are a bit of a giveaway – naturally, he’s the one for whom the Hitler clone falls. You get the sense a lot of the other cast members don’t have much cinematic experience, but they get by, largely through putting over their larger-than-life character with stage presence. The action here is definitely played for laughs more than anything; indeed, the whole escapade is tongue in cheek, which renders it somewhat criticism-proof. However, this also caps the impact at a fairly low level, since there can be little or no emotional connection with such a trifle. This can truly be recommended, only if you’re a devotee of old-school ecdysiast arts.

Dir: Jonathan Joffe
Star: Roxi D’Lite, Armitage Shanks, Carrie Schiffler, Dusan Rokvic

Shinobi Girl

  By

★½
“Setting a low standard for Netflix distribution.”

shinobigirlOkay, I’m sure there are worse films on Netflix. Somewhere. But I haven’t yet found them/ Combining cheapjack production values with poor performances and woefully bad attempts at social commentary, the occasional decent fight sequence aren’t able to overcome the very significant negatives. The heroine is Noriko (Hellquist), who is raped by the Wall Street bigwig, Ronald Brooks, for whom she works – and then framed for his murder. She creates a secret identity, Shinobi Girl: as well as seeking to expose the real killer, she acts as the protector of the 99%, hunting down and dispatching the decadent uber-rich. They are led by Brooks’ widow (Fahey),  and commit heinous crimes with no fear of legal reprisal, up to and including orgies of murder and cannibalism (!).

The origins as a web series are obvious, with each of the nine episodes (the finale is in two parts), running 15-20 minutes. Take off “previously on Shinobi Girl“, the intro, opening credits, “next time on Shinobi Girl” and closing credits, and you could probably romp through the entire thing on about two hours. If you have some washing-up or ironing that needs doing, that might work, as you can then ignore the scenes where anyone is talking, because most of the performances here would be challenged by a wet paper-bag. It’s also difficult to accept this was made as recently as 2012, because the video quality is not much better than you’d get off an iPhone.

Somewhat redeeming things is the swordplay, although curiously, samurai weapons seem more common in New York than guns. I also kinda liked the multiple female leads: as well as Noriko and Mrs. Brooks, whose scenery-chewing is, at least, somewhat appropriate, there’s also Brooks’ lead henchwoman, Raven (Van De Water). But good intentions alone aren’t enough to sustain any movie. Our daughter used to make little films with her friend and a home-video camera when she was in her early teens: even discounting parental rose-tinting, I suspect those weren’t significantly worse than this. Maybe I need to dig them out and submit ’em to Netflix as a “web series”.

Dir: John Sirabella
Star: Alexandra Hellquist, Molly Fahey, Mia Van De Water, Aaron Mathias

Ready to Fly

  By

★★★½
“Is it a bird? Is it a plane?”

readytoflyI took some skiing lessons back when I was at university, on the dry slope, but my sole experience of doing it on actual snow was a one-day trip: the real thing is considerably colder, faster and a great deal harder, let me assure you. So, the prospect of whizzing down a ramp, going off the end at 50-60 mph, and flying through the air for the length of a football field or thereabout… Well, anyone who does ski-jumping has my respect – and all the more so when, like the women in this documentary, as well as fighting gravity, they have to go up against the (literal) old boys’ network of the International Olympic Committee, who had succeeded in keeping women’s ski-jumping off the program, making it the sole “men only” sport in the winter games.

The documentary focuses, in particular, on Lindsey Van, who was the first ever women’s world champion, and was one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the, IOC to force them to include ski-jumping in the 2010 Vancouver games. The judge agreed there was discrimination, but refused to make the IOC comply – ironic that, going into the Olympics, Van actually held the record for the longest jump on the hill where the games took place. Lindsey briefly quit the pastime to which she had dedicated her life, in disgust at that decision.

However, she couldn’t stay away for very long, and to date has gone through four knee surgeries and a ruptured spleen in pursuit of her sport, while also struggling to get sufficient funding, in part due to the lack of Olympic acceptance. But the IOC agreed to consider ski-jumping again for the 2014 games in Russia – providing the 2011 women’s world championships are deemed of acceptable standard. Will the fly-girls get their day? Or as one of their former vice-presidents hints, could the committee bear a grudge against the sport, for the embarrassment of the lawsuit with which they were targeted?

To be honest, there’s no particular drama here, since a quick Google will tell you that, yes, women’s ski-jumping is indeed in the 2014 edition, which start next week [making it particularly appropriate to write about this film now]. However, it’s still a solid and generally engrossing documentary, about a sport that certainly deserves more coverage than it has received, though this seems rather too reliant on over-dramatic music, and Nyad’s narration is unremarkable. It’s at its best when not actually on the slopes, presenting Van and her team-mates as people; never mind the jumping, perhaps the most heroic thing is her donation of bone marrow to save the life of someone whom she doesn’t even know. Her low-key approach to that can only be admired.

I’m not a great winter sports person, and my interest in the upcoming Olympics is generally likely to be light. But I think I might just tune in on February 11, and witness history in the making. I’d recommend checking this film out as well, because it’ll probably inspire you in a similar way – though you still won’t be seeing me on a chair-lift any time soon!

Dir: William A. Kerig
Star: Lindsey Van, Jessica Jerome, Alissa Johnson, Diana Nyad (narrator)

Inara, the Jungle Girl

  By

★
“The film that could only be made in South America, where hair-care products are cheap…”

inaraDear god. It has been a very, very long time since I have seen a film displaying such a degree of ineptness, in so many areas. About the only exception is the look of the film, which is nicely lush, allowing the makers to put together the trailer below. It’s a greater work of fiction than the movie itself, because the preview manages to give the impression that the feature its advertising does not entirely suck. In reality, trust me: it does. This is clear within the first 15 minutes, where we’ve had one burbling monologue of sub-Tarantinoesque proportions, two musical montages of absolutely no point, and the worst attempt by an actor to look drunk in cinematic history. I started looking up other reviews online at that point, and discovered, no, it wasn’t just me.

The plot is basically Avatar in bikinis. No, wait: that sounds a lot better than this actually is. Inara (Danger) has been raised by her father, after her mother was killed during a jungle operation by mercenary group Asguard. Dad killed the perp responsible – the one with a taste for long, droning speeches rather than action – and his son still bears a grudge against Inara, 18 years later. After her father’s death, Inara is recruited to join Asguard and return to the scene, but on the way there an entirely unexplained (and unshown: trust me, if this film can skimp on any cost, it does) crash leaves Inara the sole survivor. She joins a tribe of local “Amazons” – quotes used advisedly, since they are basically Caucasians with unlimited expense accounts for Target’s bikini department. Discovering the true meaning of life, our heroine switches sides, and joins the natives for a battle against Asguard. This clocks in at a brisk one minute, 40 seconds, or rather shorter than the average WWE Divas match.

Lead actress Danger appears to be a star of fetish sites like RingDivas.com, which offer services such as filming of “custom wrestling matches,” and that may explain why there is little acting demanded of her. However, the rest of the cast are tasked to no greater extent, by a script consisting largely of scenes that begin nowhere, end nowhere and, in between, serve no purpose in developing story or characters. Now, every film might have a couple of these: here, they crop up with such regularity, it begins to feel that Desmarattes is playing some kind of surreal joke, making a native warrioress version of My Dinner With Andre. Sadly, I think it’s pure incompetence. Any time the film has a choice, and can go either towards being interesting or boring, it’s always the latter. And if you’re watching in the hope of some nudity or action, forget it: this fails to deliver anything of note in either category. I don’t use the phrase “worst movie ever” lightly, and have seen plenty of truly terrible offerings, but this certainly deserves to be in the conversation, for both its breadth and depth of awfulness.

Dir: Patrick Desmarattes
Star: Cali Danger and other people. Names redacted: they’ll thank me later.

Bring me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman

  By

★★★½
“Sam Peckinpah would likely approve – as long as he has a console in the afterlife.”

machineWhen not spinning platters as the DJ at a tango club in Chile, Santiago Fernández (Oviedo) likes nothing better than to kill, rob and steal – at least, from the comfort of his couch, as he plays a game just dissimilar enough to Grand Theft Auto to avoid a lawsuit. There is, of course, a huge difference between video-game malfeasance and the real thing, as he discovers after being unfortunate enough to overhear a conversation of local crime boss Che Longana (Alis), in which he makes the titular request, said skull belonging to his ex-girlfriend (Urrejola), who is also an assassin of no mean talent. Caught eavesdropping, Santiago’s escapes execution by promising to deliver her to Longana – a task for which he is woefully unprepared, despite the countless hours of console practice for a life of crime.

While containing nods to the grindhouse era, the style is very much more GTA, with villains being introduced by a still, on which is overlaid their value, and Santiago’s car, as he drives around town, being filmed from behind and slightly above, the standard angle for the genre. Progress is even broken down into a number of missions, whose success or failure is documented by a large on-screen graphic. Yes, it’s undeniably gimmicky; however, at a brisk 73 minutes, including credits, it’s a gimmick which just about manages to avoid overstaying its welcome. My main problem is instead a strong preference for the Machine Gun Woman – she’s never named anything else – over Santiago, because she is exactly the sort of creation, in attitude as much as dress-sense, who would be perfectly at home in a video-game. Brutal and manipulative, she’s simply more interesting than the snivelling hero, who sole redeeming feature appears to be that he loves his Mom.

By the end of the film, he’s the one charging in, with all guns blazing to rescue her – albeit, after he has forgotten to mention a tiny detail on their initial assault against the Boss Level. Still, considering the film’s events unfold in barely a day, it’s a remarkable transformation, even by video-game standards; not least in his ability to hit the broad side of a barn, something notable by its absence early on. That said, it’s still an entertaining and briskly-told tale: Espinoza is very much aware that the “cut scenes” are likely to be of lesser interest to his audience, and whizzes through them to get to the next spurt of action. The results are clearly not intended to be taken too seriously, and shouldn’t tax the attention span of even the most ardent gamer.

Dir: Ernesto Díaz Espinoza
Star: Matías Oviedo, Fernanda Urrejola, Jorge Alis, Francisca Castillo

Teenage Bank Heist

  By

★★★
“Solidly acted and directed TVM, but the script definitely holds everything back.”

Recent high-school graduate Cassie (Cobb) works at a bank alongside her mother (Quinlan), bickering about the usual things, such as whether to go to college or not. This mundance existence is suddenly interrupted by a robbery: Cassie is stunned to realize the raiders are actually some of her school friends. When they realize this, the girls are forced to take her along, and she discovers the cause of the crime – the father of one (Thomson) has been kidnapped while on business in Mexico. Meanwhile, Mom is tracking down her kidnapped daughter, FBI agent Mendoza (Blasi) is also on the hunt, and one of the girl gang has her own plans for the ill-gotten gains, which doesn’t involve any ransom.

I wavered between 2.5 and 3 stars for this, but finally opted for the latter, because of the sheer volume of strong female characters: only one of the seven main characters is male, which is a rarity. The pacing is good, the film hitting the ground running from an intriguing opening scene, before flashing back to the lead-up to the robbery, and there pretty much isn’t a dull moment thereafter. Obviously, the TVM format imposes certain limitations on content, but the movie works within these fairly well, and the performances avoid most of the usual pitfalls and make the girls into fairly well-rounded, rather than irritating characters. Credit particularly Augie Duke as “bad girl” Marie, who has a fiery intensity that’s fun to watch.

So, why was I being indecisive, all the way down in the 2.5-3 star range? It’s the plotting, with a number of elements that are utterly implausible, particular with regard to the crime and how the FBI would handle circumstances. For instance, after getting surveillance footage of a crime, would they allow a witness unsupervised access to it? Do agents meander off to follow said witness out into the desert on little more than a hunch? There are a bunch of similar moments, where it’s necessary to suspend disbelief for plot reasons, not least the ending, which certainly had me raising a sardonic eyebrow and going “O RLY?” If these don’t damage the movie irreparably, they certainly weaken its impact significantly. And that’s a shame, as its strengths still certainly make it worth a look.

Dir: Doug Campbell
Star: Abbie Cobb, Maeve Quinlan, Cassi Thomson, Rosa Blasi

GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling

  By

★★★★
“A thoroughly satisfactory snapshot of a pop-culture element from another era. “

It has now been almost a quarter-century since GLOW was cancelled in 1990, and there still hasn’t been anything quite like it on television in the Western world: a pro wrestling federation entirely populated by women wrestlers. The brainchild of David McLane, and funded by Pia Zadora’s husband, the owner of the Riviera casino in Las Vegas, GLOW was a marvel of eighties low-budget television, mixing self-effacing comedy (it depicted McLane as having his office in a phone booth) with larger-than-life characters such as Matilda the Hun, and of course, wrestling matches. This documentary tells the story of the federation’s rise and fall – largely through the eyes of the women, as McLane and Matt Cimber, the show’s director, both declined to be formally interviewed (which is a shame, as it would definitely have provided another dimension for the film).

It’s a fascinating story, of something which probably never should have worked, but succeeded in a way that remains unmatched. Almost all the women had no wrestling experience, but were trained under Mando Guerrero (the brother of late WWE superstar Eddie) to develop skills that, from the relatively brief clips shown, weren’t much worse than certain current WWE divas I could mention. The stars didn’t just work together, but also roomed together, with rules governing their behaviour, more reminiscent of A League of Their Own than late-eighties Las Vegas! They don’t hold back on their distrust of Cimber and his often dubious motivational methods, insulting the women, but respect the fact they were allowed input into and control over their characters, which were often just larger-than-life versions of themselves. There’s also cringe-inducing footage of a match where one of the wrestler seriously damaged her elbow, proving again the fallacy of “wrestling = fake”.

But the most touching part, which gives the film an emotional heart not often seen in documentaries, concerns “Mount Fuji”, a.k.a. Emily Dole, a Samoan and former shot-putter, who was part of the roster. However, her weight (over 300 lbs) caused her health to deteriorate, and when she was located during filming, she was unable to walk, but still spoke very fondly of her time with the girls. One of the GLOW wrestlers, inspired by the documentary, organized a reunion, bringing women together who in some cases hadn’t seen each other for twenty years. I won’t say any more than that, but let’s just say, it’s been a bad season for allergies here in Phoenix. :) It’s a fine ending, that wraps up the loose ends and completes this in more than adequate fashion.

Dir: Brett Whitcomb
Star: Mount Fiji, Tina Ferrari, Ninotchka, Big Bad Mama

Girls Against Boys

  By

★★★½
“Despite the director’s name, not really a chick flick. Thank you: I’ll be here all week.”

Shae (Panabaker) is not having the best luck with men. Her older boyfriend just dumped her, to try to get back with his wife, and a night where she drinks to forget ends up with her being raped in the stairwell of her apartment building. Fortunately, there to lend a helping hand is Lu (LaLiberte), a barmaid who turns out to have a dark side. A really dark side. As in, when Shae is reporting her rape. Lu takes the desk sergeant to a motel, handcuffs to the bed, sticks a gun into his crotch and pulls the trigger. When the authorities prove about as useful as they usually are in this situation, Lu helps Shae take revenge on the bastard who raped her. Then his friends. Then the ex-boyfriend. But when Shae finds a guy who might actually not be a total douche-bag, Lu is still thoroughly unimpressed.

Almost from the start, the film is playing, more or less openly, with the question of Lu. Is she real? A projection of Shae’s violent revenge fantasties? Or, in the end, does it matter all that much? This has been compared to Baise-Moi, which I haven’t seen, but the vibe I got from it was more Ms. 45. That’s true in several ways: the New York setting, the way the violence escalates from “legitimate” targets to the innocent, and even a key scene near the end, taking place at a Halloween party. Here’s it’s as if Lu exists to give voice to the situation, in a way Zoe Tamerlis’s character couldn’t voice. However, Panabaker isn’t generally as good in her role, and we really don’t sympathize with her as much, perhaps because her problems are, to a degree, of her own making.

Several things here do fall into the “very good to excellent” category. The throbbing electronic soundtrack, with added Joy Division and Donovan, is highly effective. LaLiberte is excellent in her role as the unfettered voice of violent rage, perhaps no better, than when she’s telling Shae the story of how her father started selling her for sex to his friends when she was five. And the cinematography is occasionally awesome: there’s one shot involving a mirror, near th end, which is simply breathtaking – to the point that I rewound it, purely so I could enjoy it once more. The story has been criticized for being thin, and that’s fair comment, since there is rather too much footage of the heroines going from place to place. However, if you can ignore the lurid advertising and largely misleading trailer, going in with few preconceptions of what to expect, it’s a decent, chewy piece of thought-provoking grindhouse.

Dir: Austin Chick
Star: Danielle Panabaker, Nicole LaLiberte, Michael Stahl-David

Escape (Flukt)

  By

★★★★
“Memo to self: Scandinavian women were bad-ass.”

14th-century Norway, not long after the Black Death has decimated the population. Signe (Andreasen) and her family are on the road, seeking a new life, when they are attacked by bandits. Signe is captured and taken to their camp, ruled by Dagmar (Berdal); she was expelled from the nearby town, whose inhabitants thought she was a witch. Signe isn’t the first girl abducted to give the matriarch a family; there’s also Frigg (Olin), a younger girl whom Dagmar is inducting into the ways of the clan. But Frigg is not there yet, and help Signe to escape: needless to say, an enraged Dagmar and the rest of her gang, are soon hot in pursuit, chasing them across the chilly (and beautifully-photographed) wilderness.

It’s a straightforward story, effectively told, and held together by very good performances from the two leads. It would have been easy for Signe to become some kind of teenage Rambette, but her transformation from plucky but inexperienced daughter into someone who can credibly take on a bunch of crypto-Vikings is well-handled. She hardly ever goes hand-to-hand with them, avoiding the obvious issues of size and strength, in favour of guild and wits. In the other corner, Dagmar, while being a complete bad-ass bitch, who looks like she would rip you head off for us, if she found herself short of a goblet, is given enough backstory to turn her into something of a sympathetic character, which is more than you can say for most villains in this kind of survival flick.

Of course, there are inevitably points where the characters behave in ways that are more necessary for the plot, than perhaps the most logical course of action. However, I can’t say those irritated myself or Chris too much – and she’s usually far less lenient of such things, especially in action heroine movies, where I want to give the film the benefit of any doubt. The action scenes are well-handled, and the deaths each pack more wallop than you’d expect, with the way in which they’re staged enhancing the emotional impact. It’s more than a little reminiscent of Pathfinder, another Norwegian film, made in 1987, which was also set in medieval times, and concerning a young boy abducted by a savage tribe [it was remade by Hollywood a couple of years ago, transplanting the story to North America].

However, the mother-younger daughter-older daughter triangle here adds a significant new angle, and clocking in at a brisk 82 minutes, there’s hardly an ounce of fat in the form of wasted moments, on its lean Scandinavian frame. What few such pauses there are, you can just admire the lovely Norwegian scenery.

Dir: Roar Uthaug
Star: Isabel Christine Andreasen, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Milla Olin, Kristian Espedal

Kill ‘Em All

  By

★★★
“Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start.”

Evil mastermind Snakehead (Liu) kidnaps eight of the world’s top assassins, and transports them to a bunker in his Bangkok lair, where he makes them fight each other to the death, laughing maniaally all the while. Why? Because he’s an evil mastermind, that’s why: it’s what they do for amusement, rather than watch reality shows or potter around in the garden. After the numbers have been whittled down, Som (Siripoing, who played the mother in Chocolate) blocks the gas system used by Snakehead to enforce discipline, and leads an escape from the killing chamber. However, Snakehead had a lot more minions who need to be defeated before she and Gabriel (Messner) finally get to the boss level.

If that plot summary is terser than usual, that’s because there is much less plot than usual, in what is not much more than a thin, if occasionally clever, contrived excuse to slap together a series of fight scenes. As such, logic doesn’t enter in to it much. For example, is there some kind of employment scheme to which evil overlords can subscribe, which provides faceless henchmen willing to go to their deaths in droves? And if so, why not just get them to fight each other for your entertainment? The motive which spurs Snakehead to spend considerable time, effort and money on his scheme – not, it eventually is revealed, for the first time – is completely opaque, and few of the assassins come over any better, with little time or effort put into their characterization. Case in point: Gabriel tries to commit suicide just before his kidnapping, but it comes out of nowhere so has absolutely no emotional impact.

No, this is all about the martial arts, and in this aspect, the film does deliver – albeit more in quantity than quality, without the level of invention seen in, say, The Raid: Redemption. The different styles on view from the participants do give a decent degree of variety, and The Kid (Man, who also did the fight choereography) showcases some impressive moves. There’s certainly no shortage of action, to the extent that this feels more like a video-game with occasional cut scenes to move the plot forward, than an action film with set-pieces of martial arts. However, while tasty enough during consumption, it still ends up being entirely unfilling, and is like a Chinese meal which leaves you hungry, 15 minutes after eating it.

Dir: Raimund Huber
Star: Ammara Siripong, Johnny Messner, Gordon Liu, Tim Man