Tag: 2015

The Frontier

  By

★★
“A cash and grab story.”

Laine (Donahue) is on the run. From what isn’t immediately clear, but it seems to be something to do with the death of an oil executive. Whatever the reason, she’s staying off the highways and keeping to the back roads. One morning, she wakes up beside The Frontier, a diner/motel owned and operated by Luanne (Lynch), who offers Laine employment, in return for board and lodging. Laine initially rejects the offer, then discovers some other guests are apparently there in the aftermath of an armoured car robbery, which netted them two million dollars. Laine therefore decides it’s in her best interests to stick around, and begins a game of chess with the perpetrators, to see if she can end up walking away with their ill-gotten gains.

Opening in a shot of Laine, lighting a cigarette with her blood-stained hands, the story then unfolds in flashback. The style seems deliberately vague in terms of era; some aspects of this seem right out of the seventies, while others appear to be throwbacks to an earlier, film noir approach. There are definitely elements of David Lynch here – not just in the original title, Thieves’ Highway, also from the dialogue and a sense of lurking evil beneath a thin surface layer of everyday normality. Maybe The Hateful 8, with a group of players of uncertain agenda, forced to interact? You could even claim some Lars Von Trier here, in the way that the movie almost entirely takes place in a single location, often feeling like an adaptation of a play – perhaps one where the buildings are defined entirely by chalk lines, drawn on the stage.

Unfortunately, most of this fails to be as interesting as the sources it’s trying to imitate. The script makes the mistake of thinking that a sheer quantity of duplicity and double-crosses, will somehow make up for there being no particular reason to give a damn about most of the characters. Their obvious lack of honesty, everyone holding the cards close to their chest, makes it hard for the audience to get on board with any of them – particularly Laine, who is clearly intended to be the audience’s focus. Though Donahue, overall, isn’t bad in the role. She delivers an interesting mix of steely determination and street wit that, if not likeable, is always watchable, offering an acceptable twist on the typical femme fatale.

The rest of the cast feel more like standard tropes from that genre: the gruff, brutish thug; the ditzy moll; the fake “gentleman”, and so on, things you’ve likely seen far too often before, and neither the script nor their portrayals do enough to make them come alive. Things meander along to the entirely expected, bloody conclusion promised by that opening shot, and it feels longer instead of shorter than its relatively brisk 88 minute running-time. While there’s some promise here, and signs of talent, it would be a large stretch to say either are fulfilled.

Dir: Oren Shai
Star: Jocelin Donahue, Kelly Lynch, Jim Beaver, Izabella Miko

Calamity Jane’s Revenge

  By

★★
“Talk is cheap. VERY cheap…”

calamityTwo stars might actually be a bit generous, on an objective scale. But I confess to possessing a soft spot for low-budget films made with passion, even if the results fall short. The most obvious deficiency here is the location shooting. Outside of an opening scene with a few ramshackle houses, the entire film takes place in a forest. Seriously, the closest thereafter we get to seeing any other buildings, is two people leaning up against a fence… in the middle of the woods. Maybe they should have called it Calamity Jane: The Wilderness Years, and set viewer expectations appropriately.

It’s a revenge story, which we join in progress, with the husband of Jane (Ryan), no mean legend himself, Wild Bill Hickok, having already been gunned down. She’s now on the trail of the men responsible, who have split up and need to be tracked down individually. Complicating matters, one of the culprits is now accompanied by a kidnap victim, Fay (Gomez), whom Jane initially attempts to leave behind, but eventually agrees to help out. Additionally, Jane is being tracked by the new sheriff of Deadwood, along with renowned tracker, Colorado Charlie Utter (former WWE star Snow, which was an unexpected surprise). Will she be able to finish her mission of vengeance before the forces of law catch up with her?

And, more importantly, will the viewer be able to finish this movie, before unconsciousness catches up with them? Because the pacing on this leaves a great deal to be desired, without any real sense of building toward a climax. The film instead ambles its way through the trees, giving you two minutes of action, then 15 minutes of chit-chat. Rinse. Repeat. Forest. It’s not actually badly acted: Ryan has some presence, and Snow is certainly no worse than some others from the WWE who have stepped in front of the camera (looking at you, John Cena…). But the paucity of the resources available also leads to action more befitting a school playground, in which when people get shot, they fall over clutching their chest, without ever any apparent injury. Could the budget truly not stretch to a couple of bottles of fake blood?

On the technical side, it’s has its moments, with some impressive drone (I’m guessing) shots, capturing the epic grandeur of the mountains. These do, however, seem somewhat at odd with the static approach taken for the rest of the film. Couto seems to have tried his hand at various genres over the years, from horror to family films; while I guess he’s to be commended for that, it perhaps helps explains why this feels so generic. If you’re short on budget, you need to make up for this in other, inexpensive ways, from imagination to risk-taking. Unfortunately, Couto appears more concerned with playing it safe, and there’s precious little here that will stick in the viewer’s brain past the end credits.

Dir: Henrique Couto
Star: Erin R. Ryan, Al Snow, Julia Gomez, Adam Scott Clevenger

Body

  By

★★★
“Bah, humbug.”

It’s the festive season, and Holly (Rogers), Cali (Turshen), and Mel (Molina) are bored. At the suggestion of Cali, they head over to her uncle’s fabulous mansion – conveniently, he’s out of town for the holidays – for a little par-tay. Except, it’s not actually her uncle’s house. Worse is to follow, ending with the caretaker (Fessenden) lying, apparently dead, at the foot of the stairs. The three young ladies are left having to decide whether to ‘fess up and face the consequences, or cover up and create an alternative version of events.

According to Wikipedia, the three characters “represent Sigmund Freud’s model of the id, ego, and superego.” I guess that’s something you don’t see every day. Certainly, they’re radically different characters, to the extent you wonder somewhat, quite why they’re hanging out with each other. Cali is prepared to go to absolutely any lengths, to avoid responsibility. Holly is at the other end of the spectrum, convinced they are only making things worse for themselves by committing further crimes. Mel is the undecided voter, and it’s her shifting support which largely drives the second half, as Cali and Holly solicit her support. Who knew teenagers were such sticklers for the democratic process?

bodyIt kinda works, mostly for the dynamics between the trio of leading ladies. At first, Cali’s approach seems sensible, arguably a legitimate way to make the best of a bad situation. However, a change in the scenario shifts things seismically, and even the toughest of her supporters would have to admit an unpleasant streak of psychopathy is opened in her make-up. Evil sometimes wears a pretty face, and Turshen reminded me more than a little of Denise Richards in Wild Things – manipulative and . Less successful, to the point of entire irrelevance, is the boyfriend who shows up and yells for a bit. I suspect, given the slight running time of 75 minutes, his presence may have been a late-added necessity in order to reach feature length.

However, if the ending is probably when the film is most fun, it’s also where the script seems to be weakest. The eventual conclusion would likely not withstand scrutiny, by anyone with even a passing knowledge of forensic investigative techniques. In the film’s defense, that might be the point. Though given one of the girls is supposedly looking to attend law school, her pre-legal knowledge inexplicably appears about the level obtained from a few episodes of C.S.I. On the other hand, Berk and Olsen have done a fairly good job of crafting a story that fits within their resource limitations,

Dir: Dan Berk and Robert Olsen
Star: Helen Rogers, Alexandra Turshen, Lauren Molina, Larry Fessenden

Scherzo Diabolico

  By

★★★
“Hell hath no fury like a pissed-off teenager.”

scherzo-diabolicoIf you go in with expectations based on the poster, you are going to get two-thirds of the way into this and wonder if there was some mix-up. It’s only as the last act unfolds that the image makes sense – though it’s still somewhat of a misdirection. The main central character is actually Aram (Barreiro), a middle manager accountant stuck in a dull job, and an even less fulfilling marriage and family. He has a plan to break the monotony, which involves kidnapping a teenage girl, Anie (Vell), and Aram is plotting the crime with his trademark attention to detail.

At first, it all appears that everything has gone perfectly to plan, and Aram’s life changes for the better in a range of ways. The victim is released and returned to her family, alive if hardly undamaged by the psychological trauma of her ordeal, and Aram enjoys the fruits of his efforts. That includes a promotion at work, and an affair with a young woman in the office. It appears to have been the perfect crime. Except, there was one tiny flaw, which opens the door for Anie to take vengeance for what she went through. While the monster which Aram created, may still look like a young, innocent girl, he’s going to find out, her heart is now in a very dark place indeed.

My two main issues with the film were the pacing and a tendency to keep information back from the viewer that should have been revealed. With regard to the latter, for example, there’s one key fact about the identity of his victim which is withheld, for no particularly necessary reason. I’m also unclear on a couple of story points: the length of Anie’s abduction, and why she goes after her first two victims, on discovering who was responsible, rather than directly for Aram. It does also grind to a halt in the middle, with the actual kidnapping and its immediately aftermath, which is a bit of a shame, since the first half does a good job of setting up the situation, and the second half provides an solidly chilling payoff. Not least the final shot, which suggests Aram won’t be the end of the matter…

Bogliano makes particularly good use of classical piano music, which also plays a key role in the plot in a couple of ways – the non-spoiler one is Aram’s childhood ambitions being dashed by his stubby little fingers. The tinkly tunes forming a stark counterpoint to the callous and chilling brutality as it unfolds. Both leads give solid performances too, with Vell certainly having the bigger character arc. There’s enough potential here to leave me interested in tracking down the director’s other efforts, but the problems noted above stop this from being more than an interestingly flawed effort. The less you know going in, likely the better for the experience.

Dir: Adrián García Bogliano
Star: Francisco Barreiro, Daniela Soto Vell, Milena Pezz, Jorge Molina

Iron Girl: Ultimate Weapon

  By

★★½
“Post-apocalyptic soft-porn sci-fi soap-opera.”

irongirlHaving used my entire quota of hyphens for this review in that tag-line, what do we have here? I could remember virtually nothing about the original, even though it was only a couple of years ago we reviewed it. Seems to have ended up with the same vaguely mediocre rating though. The problem here, however, is mostly one of pacing. After a brief flurry of impressive activity at the beginning, there’s not much happening on the action front for about an hour, and what takes its place falls short of adequate entertainment.

It’s the same setting, with Japan’s technocracy having imploded, and the country now a slew of little fiefdoms, where bandits and bounty hunters roam the land. Chris (Asuka) is the latter, trying to raise enough reward money so she can buy a device that will restore her memories. She was unconscious and suffering from amnesia when found by fellow bounty-hunter Kento (Iwanaga) and his sidekick, Miriya (Kishi). Now, with the aid of her nifty cyborg suit ‘n’ sword, she’s taking out the leaders of the Sparti gang, who are less than impressed with her work. So, they lure here away from the peaceful settlement where she lives, and while she’s out, get medieval on the scientists and others who are there. This doesn’t exactly discourage Chris, obviously.

In between the opening, where she saves a brothel from harassment, and the final assault on the Sparti headquarters, there’s not much going on. You get a fair amount of Chris using her sexuality on men, then whacking them in the crotch, to the extent this begins to feel like a Japanese version of Ow! My Balls! [or a Japanese game-show; you decide] This could be a commentary on the male gaze, except the film itself is obviously extremely interested in that perspective of Asuka, as evidenced by the gratuitous shower-scene. There’s obviously some unresolved sexual tension between her and Kento, and she has her own sidekick to fend off, a lecherous guy wearing aviator goggles, who provides broad comic relief. It’s all not very interesting, unfortunately.

The action scenes do seem a little better, with Asuka making a greater impression this time – experience does matter, it seems. If there’s nothing quite as memorable as the opening fight, where she traps an opponent’s sword with her high heels(!), the film delivers some fairly decent battles in the final chunk. Chris works her way up the Sparti chain of command, until facing someone (thing?) who may be her equal in terms of technological enhancements. It’s likely no spoiler to say the film does not end with the heroine recovering her movies, instead setting things up for a third entry in the series. I guess I’ll be watching it, and imagine by the time that happens, I’ll have forgotten all about this second movie, just as much as I did the first.

Dir: Kenichi Fujiwara
Star: Kirara Asuka, Hiroaki Iwanaga, Asuka Kishi, Ryunosuke Kawai

Sorrow

  By

★½
“Coherence. It’s vastly over-rated.”

sorrowEven given my tolerance for small budget and independent films, this was a chore both times I watched it. The first time, I got half-way through and gave up. Returning the next day, I decided to give it another chance, and started from the beginning again. While I did make it all the way to the end on the second occasion, this is one of those cases where I reached the end, and was actively irritated by the fact I could have spent the time doing any number of more interesting, productive or fun things.

It starts with the aftermath of a shoot-out at a house, which leaves the cops picking over multiple dead bodies – including one of their own, killed by a booby-trap – and the sole living witness, Mila Sweeney (Vasquez) in hospital with a shoulder wound. She absconds from there, because in one of the inexplicable pieces of plotting, the cops don’t bother to keep an eye on her there, and it’s up to Detective Ana Salinas (Mars) to try and reel Mila back in. Alongside this, we get a series of flashbacks (except, you have to figure out what’s a flashback and what’s current, entirely on your own), depicting events leading up to the shoot-out, which saw Mila have the misfortune to knock on the door of a house occupied by a nomadic trio of psychopaths, Dale (Martinez), Hersey (Etuk) and Gambit, who welcome the delivery of fresh meat.

The rest of the film judders back and forth between the heroine’s efforts to escape her captivity, and her post-shootout quest for vengeance, yet also wobbles between portraying this from Mila’s perspective and those of the perpetrators. It’s as if the script – also written by director Loredo – couldn’t figure out what angle or approach to take, and ended up going for a half-assed attempt to cover them all. This is one of the reasons why hard experience has shown me that it’s a warning sign when any low-budget film is written by the same person directing it. This approach largely removes the opportunity for an outsider  to look at the script with a critical eye and go, “Hang on. That won’t work.”

You can see what Loredo is going for, and I can’t deny the obvious passion here. It’s just a shame that there is virtually nothing else good enough to retain your attention. In particular, occasionally good performances are wasted because the script is horrible at its most important and basic job: telling a coherent story. The viewer is left thrashing around trying to put together the pieces, and while not impossible, this is a task where the director needs to be someone more like David Lynch, rather than a rookie trying her hand at directing a feature for the first time, especially one who appears to this she is Quentin Tarantino.

Dir: Millie Loredo
Star: Vannessa Vasquez, Melissa Mars, Eric Martinez, Mary Etuk

StalkHer

  By

★★
“Stalk is cheap.”

As high concepts go, this one is impressive. Serial killer Jack (Jarratt) breaks into the house of his latest intended victim, Emily (Fairfax), a middle-aged nurxe in the hospital where he works as a pharmacist, whom he has been quietly stalking. Expecting no problems, Jack is in for a surprise; Emily is waiting with a tazer. Jack regains consciousness to find himself tied to the chair, and facing someone who may well be his superior in terms of well-concealed psychotic intentions – not to mention, previous body-count.

This is the kind of story that’s more interesting in where it’s going than in how it gets there. The way it ends, opens up a broad swathe of possibilities, most of which would likely be more fun than watching the two foul-mouthed leads interacting. [It’s certainly undeniably Australian in its harsh and copious bad language!] For, truth be told, neither Jack nor Emily are particularly likeable, and you’re are left watching their verbal sparring without any genuine emotional investment. There is some resonance, due to Jarratt having also played a serial killer in the two Wolf Creek films, but some of the plot developments here seem artificial and forced for the sake of the ending, rather than flowing naturally out of the characters.

The concept of a middle-aged, almost matronly female serial killer is intriguing, and could have become an amusingly sharp contrast to the lurid excess of Nurse 3D. Alternatively, Jarratt could perhaps have followed in the footsteps of John Waters’ Serial Mom, in which Kathleen Turner played an insane housewife, whose victims were chosen on the slightest of pretexts, e.g. failing to separate properly their recyclable garbage. Instead, while the poster proclaims the film to be “inappropriate, funny, romantic,” I can’t honestly say it made the slightest ripple as far as the second and third categories are concerned. Even the first comes up short, not least because it includes inserts of sequences that are only taking place in the characters’ minds – on more than one occasion, I was disappointed by that realization.

It’s Jarratt’s first time as a director, and although he has plenty of experience in front of the camera, it’s a remarkably “safe” project, especially given the subject matter, and comes over almost entirely as a stage-play unfolding in front of the camera. The script is also by a first-time writer, Kristijana Maric, and I can’t help suspecting the whole project would likely have been better served with longer track records in both departments.

Dir: John Jarratt
Star: Kaarin Fairfax, John Jarratt

The Girl King

  By

★★½
“Queen of Arts”

girlkingThis isn’t the first biopic about Christina, Queen of Sweden from 1632 to 1654. Most notably, Greta Garbo played the role in 1933’s Queen Christina, though one sense the focus here is rather different. Certainly, she’s an interesting character, the only child of King Gustav II Adolph. She became queen at age six on his death, then was brought up as if she were a prince, taking over actual rule on turning 18. She caused major ructions with the established order with her plans to end the Thirty Years’ War, educate the population and turn the capital city, Stockholm, into the “Athens of the North”. It didn’t help her case in a strongly Protestant Sweden and a very fraught religious time, that she was influenced by Catholic writers such as René Descartes. Nor her reluctance to marry, or the (according to this telling) passionate relationship with one of her ladies-in-waiting, Ebba Sparre (Gadon).

This focuses on the period between her 18th birthday in 1644 and abdication a decade later – she left the throne to her cousin, turned Catholic and headed off to live the rest her life in Italy. The film suggests this was largely a reaction to an enforced separation from Sparre, which is depicted as causing Christina a breakdown. [The mentally-fragile apple depicted, apparently didn’t fall far from the tree. Her mother was barking mad, who preserved her husband’s embalmed corpse for two years after his death and, again per the movie, made Christina kiss it good morning and good night] That seems a little too trite of an explanation, for someone who spoke nine different languages and was as much driven by admiration for her “virgin queen” predecessor, Queen Elizabeth I of England, as any passion.

It’s more successful in documenting the struggle between Christina and the nobles who had no interest in an educated underclass, or even peace, the loot “liberated” from enemy countries being a major source of income. Mind you, the peasants aren’t necessarily interested either: an amusing scene has the monarch about to quote Marcus Aurelius to them, when she’s interrupted by an offer of free beer from a rather more down-to-earth adviser. The tension between a high-minded – possibly too high-minded? – queen and the realities of 17th-century European politics, would have benefited from additional exploration.

It would likely have been preferable to a rather uninteresting love affair, one which seems to say more about 21st century sexual politics than anything at that point. While I generally liked Buska’s performance, there were a couple of points I felt like I watching a modern teenager, rather than one of the most well-educated women of her time. I have to think there was rather more to Queen Christina, than the slightly-unstable lesbian portrayed here, but the true depth of that character only occasionally pokes its head over the large dresses and even larger wigs seen here.

Dir: Mika Kaurismäki
Star: Malin Buska, Sarah Gadon, Michael Nyqvist, Lucas Bryant

Intruders

  By

★★★
“An R-rated version of Home Alone“

intrudersSince the death of their father, brother and sister Conrad and Anna (Riesgraf) have been each other’s companions. Virtually sole, in the latter’s case, as Anna suffers from severe agoraphobia, which means she hasn’t left the house for a decade. After Conrad dies of cancer, her only visitor is Meals on Wheels delivery guy, Dan (Culkin), who dreams of escaping town, but lacks the means. In a moment of empathy, Anna offers him a slab of cash: he declines, but after mentioning it in the wrong place, three criminals, led by J.P. (Kesy), decide to pay the house a visit. They’re expecting Anna to be at Conrad’s funeral, unaware of her condition. They are even more wrong about how helpless it makes her.

Big Sky also used agoraphobia as a plot point, but where this works better, is it uses this as a starting point, rather than becoming the defining characteristic of its heroine. We get an indication, not only of where her condition came from, but how it has affected her in other ways. That helps fill things in after the big reveal, where the tables are suddenly turned on the home invaders, and the hunters become the prey. It’s somewhat disconcerting, since this comes almost out of nowhere and leaves you going “Huh?” for a bit, until things are explained. Better not reveal too much there: let’s just say, this trio of robbers are not the first to enter the house and get what they deserve, instead of what they want.

Originally known as Shut In, before a competing (and larger-profile) film with the same name forced a title change, you do have to wonder if less would have been more. The story eventually unfolding here is rather more convoluted than necessary, except for the desire to provide Anna’s mayhem with moral justification. It isn’t needed, assuming you agree that if you invade someone’s home, your right to life is immediately severely curtailed. You’re Next was better in this area: it didn’t bother with any imperative; for its heroine, all the motivation she needed was her own survival. I’m also not quite sure about the layout here – it’s the same problem we saw in Sweet Home, where it feels as if a floor-plan would help figure out how the various pieces fit together.

However, if you’re looking for a darker version of To Catch a Predator, with additional (mercifully, staged) violence against a budgie, this should be satisfactory. Riesgraf is best known for her work as Parker in Leverage, and you could almost speculate on this being some kind of prequel to the show. It would make for a rather twisted shared universe, to be sure…

Dir: Adam Schindler
Star: Beth Riesgraf, Jack Kesy, Rory Culkin, Martin Starr
a.k.a. Shut In

Full Strike

  By

★½
“Shaolin Shuttlecocks”

fullstrikeThis mediocre sports comedy seems to want to do for badminton what Shaolin Soccer did for the beautiful game. However, it falls short on just about every level, delivering little more than a shallow series of cliches. Former champion Ng Kau-sau (Ho), a.k.a. “Beast”, was drummed out of the sport ten years ago for anger management issues. However, her love of the game never died, and is rekindled when she bumps into a trio of former armed robbers, led by Lau Dan (Cheng). They have reformed and taken up the sport, under the tuition of an alcoholic former star, Master Champion Chik.

This is much to the consternation of the locals, who believe “Once a thief, always a thief.” They set up an opposing team, with their own coach, and both sign up for the Fantastic Five Asia-Pacific Badminton Tournament in Macau. Meanwhile, Lau Dan’s old buddies are trying to lure him back into a life of crime, and are plotting a raid on the Macau casinos the same night. What are the odds? About the same as both teams making it to the tournament final and facing off in a climactic showdown. Which, in this kind of film, is probably close to 100%.

There are a bunch of problems here, starting with the lead character, who isn’t exactly sympathetic. Let’s just say, her nickname is justified. The film then diverts into a middle section which seems almost to forget about her, being more concerned with Lau Dan. The height of the comedic stylings on view is when Master Champion Chik throws up, delivering the longest and grossest projectile vomit scene since The Meaning of Life. I will admit, I actually laughed. Still, it gives you a new appreciation for the true genius of Stephen Chow, who makes this kind of “plucky under-dog” comedy look easy. He combines plot, characters and, yes, jokes with grace into a consistent whole.

This never achieves anything like the same degree of cohesiveness, lurching uneasily from broad comedy to heartfelt drama. Then we reach the tournament, which covers most of the film’s second half. This involves a contrived version of badminton, requiring teams to substitute personnel half-way through the game. Why? The sole reason is, because the plot demands it. There’s no sense of escalation here either, unlike Shaolin Soccer. If you’ve seen one slow-motion shot of a shuttlecock crossing marginally above the net, or landing just inside the line, you’ve seen… The last 20 minutes of the movie to be honest.  The idea here isn’t without potential, and most of the personnel involved here have proven their talent elsewhere. The actual end product, unfortunately, falls well short of delivering.

Dir: Derek Kwok and Henri Wong
Star: Josie Ho, Ekin Cheng, Ronald Cheng, Tse Kwan-ho