Tag: b

Bring me the Head of the Machine Gun Woman

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★★★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

The Black Butterfly

  By

★★½
“Given she wears purple, wouldn’t a better title be The Mauve Moth?”

short0448Someone is robbing the rich, and using the proceeds to buy rice for the poor. Could it be the drunken beggar (Yeung) in charge of rice distribution, who is cagey about where his new-found wealth comes from? Or the local inn-owner and former martial arts master (Tien), whose efforts at fund-raising have been rudely rebuffed? Closer. It’s actually his daughter (Chiao), whom no-one knows has any skills at all, but has apparently learned them in secret, and goes out at night, stealing valuables in order to fund the charity operations of her beggar pal. Needless to say, their previous owners are less than happy with this, and are seeking the culprit, led by policeman Xi Lang (Yueh). Things are muddied further when a group of bandits, the engagingly-named Five Devil Rock gang (I think I just found my band name!), steal an imperial seal, forcing the Butterfly’s father out of retirement, and her to reveal herself to save him.

There’s really two halves to this film. The first is, for me, more interesting, though it’s rarely less than obvious Chiao is doubled for any acrobatic work: shot of her jumping, cut to stuntman flying through air, cut to Chiao bending her legs slightly on landing. The style is also defiantly old-school and Peking Opera based, which will come across as stagily artificial to modern eyes, and you do have to remember this was made 45 years ago. However, I did appreciate the long-duration takes, and even though the action quotient was lower, the characters, performances and plot were enough to keep me interested: it plays a little like Iron Monkey, one of my all-time favourite martial arts films, and the idea of a female Robin Hood certainly has enough potential.

Unfortunately, the second half, when the bandits show up and dominate things, is rather less succesful, falling back on a number of old clichés of kung-fu cinema, such as the battle between schools. Until the finale, the heroine is largely reduced to a supporting role, ministering to her poor father, for whom the stress has become too much. While she is more active in said climax, it had me rolling my eyes at its extreme example of the trope where the villains have the good guys outnumbered – literally here, a hundred to one – but attack in ones and twos rather than rushing en masse. Here, it’s even more ridiculous, because the good guy minions beg their leaders to go in first (inevitably, getting their asses kicked), so neither side appear interested in using all their forces. While spectacular enough, I suppose, the end result just doesn’t live up to the early potential.

Dir: Lo Wei
Star: Lisa Chiao Chiao, Yueh Hua, Tien Feng, Yeung Chi Hing

Betrayal (Svik)

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★½
“World War Zzzzz”

“I’m a Barbie girl, in a Nazi world…” That’s an equally appropriate summary here, because the heroine in this flick, set in occupied Norway during World War II, was the lead singer of Aqua, famous (or notorious, if you prefer) for a certain catchy pop ditty. She plays – and I know you’ll find this a stretch – a singer, who works in a nightclub, which caters for high-ranking Nazi officers, while she simultaneously works with the local resistance and beds SS Major Kruger (Otto). The Allies are seeking plans of a local aluminium smelting plant, a key cog in the Third Reich’s war machine, so an airstrike can be called down on to it. Local businessman Tor Lindblom (Saheim) partners with Kruger to profit from the industrial operation, and play both sides, until their pet auditor is replaced by one rather less amenable to their embezzlement.

It’s a very shiny, upbeat approach to a thoroughly unpleasant situation, with little or no death for any significant characters until the final reel. The makers seem to want to say something important about Norwegian collaborators of the time – a final caption tells us that even the worst of them received only a light sentence (it doesn’t mention that puppet president Quisling, who is depicted, was executed by firing squad shortly after the end of the war). What exactly that ‘something important’ might be, is largely unclear: that’s in line with the rest of the plot, which could fairly be described as a muddled mess, with the loyalties of the participants apparently fluid and subject to the whims of the storyline.

Which would be tolerable if any of the other aspects were credible, but neither the performances, nor that script, succeed in capturing the interest of the viewer – Nystrom’s lack of acting experience is particularly notable, and she only really comes to life when on the stage at the club, belting out showtunes. There is a nice sense of period atmosphere, which could be described as “neo-Nazi Norwegian noir“, though much like the story, there’s far too much reliance on worn-out stereotypes in lieu of anything else. While slight tension is finally generated at the end, when Eva breaks for the Swedish border, it’s more the last twitch of a dead corpse than anything of significance.

Dir: Akon Gundersen
Star: Lene Nystrom, Fridtjov Saheim, Gotz Otto, Kare Conradi

The Bullet Wives

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★★½
“A heavily-armed version of The First Wives’ Club.”

According to the film’s introductory narration, Thailand now has about three women for every man. This has led to many men both having an “official” wife, while also keeping a mistress, and not exactly being secretive about it – when the wife dies, the mistress gets “promoted” to replace her, which has obvious implications for both parties. In order to protect their rights, the eives form an association, the FCWI, which stands for First Class Wives International. Not to be outdone, the mistresses do the same thing, with the ECWI (Economy Class Wives International). After two members of the former are gunned down on a stretch of highway, the two groups seem set for a fiery and murderous collision between the wives and mistresses.

Except, it doesn’t really happen until the very end. Even at a brisk 77 minutes, there are way too many scenes of the two groups sitting around chatting, getting information from a guy who is selling to both sides, and deciding not to attack each other quite yet. Some of the technical aspects are also remarkably awful, given what appears to be a professional production in other ways – the audio, in particular, appears to have been recorded on a cellphone [which reminded me of another weird aspect; the informant’s cellphone appears to be right out of the 1980’s, the size of a brick, while everyone else has modern ones]. And since it appears the cast are almost entirely models, rather than even model/actresses, the performances are largely uninspiring, though Punnakan as first wives’ leader Jittra, does hold the viewer’s attention nicely when on-screen.

What also worked for me, surprisingly well, were the action choreography and cinematography. However, for that to happen, you must accept that the former is clearly intended to by hyper-stylized rather than in any way realistic. Once I understood and accepted that, I was able to enjoy those for what they are, and the camerawork is nicely fluid and, occasionally, truly beautiful, as when there’s a slow zoom out with the camera going up, over a bathtub containing a dead body. It’s moments like that which will keep you watching, through the severely tedious sitting around and feminine bickering.

Dir: Kittikorn Liasirikun
Star: Metinee Kingpayom, Nussaba Punnakan, Manassavee Krittanukoon, Naowarat Yuktanan

Blubberella

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★★
“Not quite the wholesale disaster this might seem…”

This will only make sense, or be in any way entertaining, if you’ve seen Bloodrayne 3: The Third Reich: because it’s basically the same film, with a really fat chick (Hollister) replacing Natassia Malthe. And when I say, “the same film,” I mean the same storyline, same actors playing the same roles, and same scenes in the same locations. Really, I suspect this must have been made at the same time, with Boll simply swapping out Hollister for Malthe every other take. As there, the heroine is a half-human, half-vampire, who finds herself involved in a Nazi plan to take the powers of vampirism and turn them to their own ends. Except here, it is, of course, a spoof – and one so extremely broad, the makers of those Epic Movie flicks would have been cringing on occasion. Fat jokes, gay jokes, Nazi jokes… No easy target is left unstoned, paved with deliberate anachronisms like Segways and Internet dating.

And yet, even if it took us two sessions to get through this, I can’t bring myself to hate it, not least because of Hollister, who goes at things with gusto. It’s clear this is an actress who does not get to play the lead often, least of all in an action flick (though for obvious reasons, the action can kindly be described as “limited”). Even if this is a parody of one, both her and Boll deserve credit for breaking down one of the taboos seen everywhere in body conscious Hollywood. There are moments here which are just surreal, such as a dream sequence where Blubberella plays a game of Risk with Hitler (played by the director!) and Fletcher in blackface. WTF? No, really: WTF? There’s also a lengthy scene parodying Precious, which is unsurprising, considering it’s about the only other film I can think of where a morbidly obese woman is the heroine.

I probably have a higher opinion of Boll than most people: when he avoids making video-game films, the results can be really good [Darfur and Rampage both kick ass]. However, comedy really isn’t his forte, and too much of this ends up missing its mark, most often through being over-played in one way or another. Rather than a shot-for-shot remake of a film that wasn’t exactly a huge success, Boll and co. might have been better off with a broader spoof of superhero films, which would have given them a bigger palette for their unsubtle satire. That said, I will admit that I did laugh, and laugh out loud, more often than I expected, and it’s a hell of a lot better than Boll’s last attempt at “offense humour,” Postal.

Dir: Uwe Boll
Star: Lindsay Hollister, Brendan Fletcher, Michael Pare, William Belli

Brave

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★★★
“Brave, but too much heart?”

I was immensely stoked for Brave on a number of levels. First, Pixar kicks ass. With the exception of the underwhelming Cars and its pointless sequel, the quality of their work speaks for itself: Monsters, Inc is close to the finest animated movie of all time. Secondly, genuine action heroine films for the whole family are rare, to the point that they can probably be counted on the fingers of one hand over the past 25 years. Thirdly, it’s Scotland. Y’know, where I’m from. It’s the bit at the top of England. I feel I should mention this, because Pixar had originally tabbed Reese Witherspoon to voice the teenage, Scottish heroine, Merida. Fortunately, scheduling prevented this, and Pixar ended up with an all-Scottish lead cast.

I also note the somewhat troubled production: despite two names getting directorial credit, this wasn’t a co-direction. Mark Andrews replacing Brenda Chapman as a result of what Chapman called “creative differences.” This was certainly an embarrassment to Pixar, who had long been criticized for their very male-dominated output, and had made a big fuss about Brave, not just featuring a female heroine, but also written and directed by a woman. The problem, according to Andrews, was that the story was unfocused. He said, “Whose story it was – whether it was Merida or her mom’s story or Merida choosing which parent she was going to be more like – these things weren’t working.” Chapman was unimpressed, telling the NY Times, “To have it taken away and given to someone else, and a man at that, was truly distressing on so many levels.”

Does this impact the final movie? It’s hard to see how it couldn’t, either through a compromise of the original vision, or as a result of the realization, mid-way through production, that it wasn’t working. Not that it’s alone – many Pixar movies have had bumpy journeys to the screen. But in this case, the end result was greeted with muted box-office success. It seems odd to describe a movie that grossed $235 million as a disappointment, but Brave showed a lot less “legs” than most Pixar films. Almost all have gathered total US box-office receipts four times or better than their opening “wide” weekend. Brave’s multiplier, of 3.56, is ahead of only the woeful Cars 2 (2.89) in studio history.

Not to say it’s bad, because it certainly isn’t. Pixar have an absolute and complete handle on the technical aspects: even in 2D, this is the best-animated (if not necessarily the “best animated”) film of 2012. The landscapes are lush to the point of seeming photographic, the characters are richly-detailed, down to the last red-haired ringlet on Merida’s head, and in motion, you remember why Pixar is #1. And there are plenty of moments where everything comes together. Witness the sequence below, depicting a contest between three suitors to win the hand of Merica. It is filled with 100% pure awesome, climaxing with the heroine’s declaration, “I am Merida, and I’ll be shooting for my own hand,” before she literally bursts out of the confines of princessly expectations.

The problems are more with plotting – basically, the issue described above by Chapman is still present. The story starts in one direction, looking suitably action-oriented. It’s difficult to provide any specifics without giving spoilers – there’s a major plot-point not even hinted at in the trailers, which certainly surprised me. But I can see that it abruptly changes direction in the middle, going in a much less satisfactory direction, that seems almost to push Merida into the background of her own story. Even the climax relies less on any innate abilities of our heroine, such as her much-touted archery, or even her temperament, more the fortuitous toppling of a large geological entity [I doubt the film would have sold quite as well had it been named “Lucky”].

This conclusion is set up by the sort of happy compromise that is only deemed acceptable by both sides in fairy stories – anyone who has had a teenage daughter can vouch for this. I also have some qualms about the arranged marriage subplot that drives the first half of the film, which is depicted as little more than a “You’re going to do your homework, young lady, whether you like it or not” kind of way, which seems facile and dubious, even for a Disney-produced cartoon. And the introduction of “magic”, for the first time in a Pixar film, allows for the sort of convenient story developments that does nothing but weaken the overall structure. It’s not even a magical universe, instead, it’s more or less a one-shot deal, necessary to the plot.

It does fairly well in avoiding the Scottish clichés: one haggis joke, a random act of indecent exposure, and a soundtrack which oozes wannabe tartan are about it. The lack of any romantic love interest for the heroine is delightfully refreshing, and the lead actors all do a very, very good job in their roles, bringing their characters to life beautifully, to a degree that you can’t imagine any other voices coming out of their mouths. [I repeat: Reese Witherspoon?] It’s not boring. but fails to engross in the way that the better Pixar movies invariably succeed in doing. I got to the end entertained, but without any real sense of investment in Merida or her fate. Put bluntly: I just didn’t care about her, and the film succeeded mostly as a commercial for the Scottish Tourist Board. As a dramatic entity on its own merits, this falls somewhere between Brother Bear and Freaky Friday.

Dir: Mark Andrews + Brenda Chapman
Star (voice): Kelly Macdonald, Emma Thompson, Billy Connolly, Julie Walters

Big Tits Zombie

  By

★★½
“A better trailer than a movie.”

There seem to have been a spate of these recently. Not just zombie flicks – though there’s been no shortage of those – but zombie flicks set in or around strip clubs. This is the Japanese take, and follows more or less the expected pattern of such things, combining nudity, violence and self-awareness in varying degrees. At least initially, this is definitely leaning towards a 70’s, grindhouse aesthetic, but after a few minutes, that aspect vanishes, and never really returns. Instead, it’s a fairly straight-forward tale of a motley crew of stereotypical strippers, e.g. the money-hungry one, the intellectual one (who quotes George Bataille), who work at a pretty crap club in a spa town, but who find a tunnel leading across the street, which brings them to a book of dark magic and a well containing an apparently infinite supply of zombies.

It takes its time getting that far, and given the title, it’s a lot more restrained in terms of nudity than you might expect. It’s clearly not intended to be taken seriously, and does seem to be riffing on the genre (another of the alternate titles is Hot Spring Zombies vs. Strippers 5). At one point, a character says, “Must be a cheap movie. They’re big recently. Like some girl fighting zombies with a sword” – perhaps a reference to Onechanbara, which is also echoed in some of the costumes. But the make-up is largely bargain-basement stuff, and so are most of the FX, with obvious wires at some points, and an over-reliance on unconvincing digital work.

The real problem here, is likely that it tries to be too many things, and ends up being not all that good at any of them. It’s a fairly poor zombie flick, and certainly can’t hold a candle to the uber-gory genre entries also coming out of Japan in the past few years. As noted, it’s pretty tame for a movie set where it is, and none of the more traditional aspects of cinema (characters, performances and script) are interesting enough to make up for those shortcomings on the grindhouse front. It doesn’t exactly outstay its welcome, at a brisk 73 minutes, and can be commended for that, and certainly being aware of (and, largely, not giving a damn about) its limitations. However, like many of its kind, the sizzle is considerably better than the steak.

Dir: Takao Nakano
Star: Sola Aoi, Risa Kasumi, Mari Sakurai, Tamayo
a.k.a. The Big Tits Dragon

Blood on the Flat Track: The Rise of the Rat City Rollergirls

  By

★★★★
“The best of the recent docs for the novice to the sport.”

In contrast to Brutal Beauty, this succeeds to a far greater degree is in putting over the attraction of roller derby. The first couple of films seem aimed more at the devotee, and it was more or less taken as read that already you liked it, or were at least somewhat interested. Here, I think even the more casual viewer will find themselves sucked in. They may or may not want to go any further, but the doc does a much better job of explaining the entertainment to be found, both for participants and spectators. The sheer sense of fun that is found at the best roller-derby events [or even, to be frank, the crappy ones, which we have also attended!] is a good deal more palpable here than in the other films, which concentrated on personalities to a greater extent than the sport. That isn’t the case here, and to an outsider, the results are likely better for it.

Not that there is any shortage of said personalities, such as the mother and daughter who both take part in the sport, or the three sisters who have been roller-skating virtually their entire life, and are feared across the entire Seattle league. There are, admittedly stories about romance and marriage included, but even these have a close connection to roller-derby, like the guy who proposes after his girlfriend became part of the championship-winning team [I can relate to this, having proposed to my wife immediately after the Arizona Diamondbacks won the 2001 World Series!]. I also enjoyed the insight into the different teams, like the Sockit Wenches (right) or the Derby Liberation Front, and the different ways in which they both perceive themselves and are perceived from the outside. Each has a different group personality, which of course, attracts other like-minded individuals, reinforcing that aspect of the team.

In common with the rest of the films, it covers a period of time rather than necessarily any particular sequence of events, mostly around the 2006 season, where the Wenches were trying to dethrone the reigning champion DLF. There’s enough footage of actual bouts that you can understand the skill of the participants, and the danger inherent in the sport. It’s frank in admitting that sex appeal is part of the draw, especially for the male audience, but I can attest that the film is also correct when it states that after about 15 minutes, that simply isn’t important. With its host of likeable players, it’s no surprise that the derby scene in Seattle continues to prosper, with the fed holding the national record for single-event attendance, having pulled 6,885 to a show in June 2010.

[It doesn’t seem to be available to stream online for free; we found it on Netflix. ]

Brutal Beauty: Tales of the Rose City Rollers

  By

★★½
“Too much ego and not enough doughnuts.”

For the next entry, we leap forward to 2009, and Portland – a city which all we know about, we learned from Portlandia. And, on that basis, of course it’s a city which has roller derby, where it sprung, virtually fully-fledged to four-figure crowds. This is less of a landmark doc, in that it doesn’t cover the beginning, middle or end. It’s basically a year or so in the lives of the participants in the Rose City Rollers, which is the Portland league. It covers both their local season, and then, once that’s over, follows the travelling team, the Wheels of Justice, first as they head down to San Francisco to take on their hated rivals, then over to Denver for the regional championships.

S’okay. The problem is there’s very little here any fan of the sport won’t already know about, or have seen before, and not enough to draw in anyone else. Is it heretical to say that roller derby chicks can be stereotypical in their individuality, just as much as those in the mainstream they profess to detest? That is the impression that comes over here, and a couple of the women are… Well, to be honest: really annoying. I guess there’s a certain kind of extroverted type who will be attracted to roller-derby. But simply because you strap on wheels and give yourself a fake name, doesn’t necessarily stop you from being an irritating bi… Well, let’s just say: I don’t care in the slightest what kind of tattoos you get, and move on, shall we? As for “Roller derby saved my soul”, even as a fan of the sport, I reckon that counts as going overboard. What next? “Roller derby cured my tumour”?

It’s a shame, since when concentrating on the sport, the documentary is decent enough. There’s a great explanation of the rules involving donuts [incorporating a plug for the city’s famous Voodoo Doughnut store!], and they also provide a better insight into the separate and largely distinct roles of jammers, pivots and blockers, as well as the different skills needed for each. In contrast to some other leagues, the theatrical fights and things like the punishment wheel are nowhere to be found in Portland. However, it’s not long before we’ve abandoned derby and are back at watching one women yell at another through a bathroom door. As an insight into the appeal of the pastime, it’s a good deal less than satisfactory.

[This one can currently be seen on Hulu without a subscription being needed.]

Dir: Chip Maloy

Below the Belt

  By

★★
“Captures the true spirit of independent wrestling on the road. Especially the tedium.”

Rosa Rubinsky (Baff) is working as a waitress at a wrestling venue, when her swift dispatch of an over-affectionate coworker gets her noticed by a promoter (Bechler). He convinces her to try out, under the watchful eye of Mildred Burke [playing herself – she held the Women’s World Championship for about 20 years], and after some initial shock, discovers she likes the theatrical sport. Despite never having been outside the state of New York, she goes on the road, along with a set of other women wrestlers, and they travel up and down the East coast, putting on shows, though Rosa is still deemed too “green” to get in the ring. That changes after she meets the current women’s champion, Terrible Tommy (O’Brien, another genuine wrestler of the era). A bout for the belt is arranged, in which Rosa – known now as “Rosa Carlo, the Mexican Spitfire” – will take on Tommy for the title.

Inspired by the recently-republished novel, To Smithereens by Rosalyn Drexler, in turn inspired by Drexler’s brief career in the squared circle as “Rosa Carlo”, when she wasn’t hanging out with the likes of Andy Warhol, this certainly captures the non-glamourous side of the business well. If you’re used to the WWE and its divas, the women here will seem like they come from another planet, not exactly the skinny supermodels now near-exclusively seen: I don’t know about you, but Terrible Tommy sure put the fear of god into me, and some of the others have faces that could stop a clock. However, it just doesn’t make sense for Rosa to make her debut in a title match: from what I know of wrestling, you have a long apprenticeship before you get that far, and instead of ring action, this leads to lots of scenes in cars, as the women drive from city to city, interspersed with semi-random wrestling footage that makes no sense and serves no real purpose.

And then there are the montages… I didn’t realise this was a musical. Ok, the characters don’t sing, but it seems like every few minutes, there’s a song over a cinematic backdrop, to the extent that it goes beyond good, to bad, and then right through to a surreal point where it almost, but not quite, makes sense again. Negatives like that do outweigh the moments of truth, such as the promoter giving Rosa her ring-name despite her loud protests, or the comment that “Old wrestlers never retire.” This one is more a curtain-jerker than a main event.

Dir: Robert Fowler
Star: Regina Baff, John C. Becher, Annie McGreevey, Jane O’Brien