Tag: b

Belle Starr

  By

★★★½
“Proto-action heroine, with a real-life inspiration, and some questionable philosophy.”

There’s something startlingly incorrect about this 1941 film, which makes its heroine, Belle (Tierney), an unrepentant Confederate mansion owner. She regrets the end of the Civil War and joins a rebel group who keep fighting, marrying their leader Sam Starr (Scott), only to find their morality may not quite live up to her own. It’s interestingly even-handed, with neither side being “good” or “bad”; Belle blames the Yankees for the death of her father and the burning of her home, but the leader of their forces, Major Grail (Andrews) is a sympathetic character who carries a torch for Belle. Naturally, given the era, Belle is more of an assistant, loading Sam’s rifles during a gun-battle, rather than firing them herself and it’s remarkable how her hair and dresses remain impeccable, even when she’s livin’ la vida outlaw. However, she’s a fine, independent-minded heroine, prepared to take decisive action to support her beliefs – highly dubious though they may be.

An obvious inspiration here is Gone With the Wind, but it’s also worth noting that Belle Starr was a real outlaw, whose life would make a good story on its own. She did marry a Sam Starr, but he was three-quarter Cherokee, rather than a Confederate officer. There also wasn’t quite the same pure, high purpose to their banditry, though her destiny, as depicted in the film, is close to what happened to her in real life. For some reason, this has not been deemed worthy of a release on DVD – I believe, Bill Cosby bought the rights. :-) But it does crop up on cable, and is worth a look; just leave all modern sensibilities at the door. If you can imagine a German movie which has Ilsa Koch as its heroine, escaping the Allies to join a group of rebel Nazis and continue the war, you’ll be in the same moral ball-park as this feature.

Dir: Irving Cummings
Stars: Gene Tierney, Randolph Scott, Dana Andrews, John Shepperd

Bloodrayne

  By

★★½
“Don’t belief the hype: it’s not that bad.”

Director Boll has a rep as the worst filmmaker ever, making movies based on video games entirely for tax writeoff purposes. But have things got out of hand? I mean, Bloodrayne was in the IMDB All-time Bottom 50 before it opened. So cut him some slack – even though we may be the only folk on this planet who admit to liking bits of House of the Dead. Still, despite a fine cast [any film with Udo Kier is okay by us!], uniformly dire reviews meant we went in to this with low expectations – and made up most of the audience. Ouch. Yet, despite rumours of Madsen being drunk every day, Kingsley refusing to act with Madsen – something leftover from Species, I guess – and Rodriguez’ horrendous attempt at an English accent, this wasn’t entirely terrible.

Not great, sure; but as someone from Britain, I knew right off Rodriguez wasn’t even trying. I think all she did was limit her normal accent – wise for a Hispanic in a setting of Romania, circa 1700. Anyway, she and Madsen are hunting down Rayne (Loken), a human/vampire halfbreed seeking king of the vampires Kagan (Kingsley), who raped and killed her mother. Kagan, in turn, is after three artifacts to protect him from water, crosses and sunlight. Basically, imagine a period take on Blade with less actual imagination and more digital blood. There is certainly potential; Loken looks the part (dig her groovy swords!), as does the landscape.

However, the action borders on the incoherent, provoking little or no sense of awe or excitement. Gossip also states most of the stars signed on about two weeks’ notice, and that would certainly explain their apparent large unfamiliarity with pointy weapons. From the reviews, you’d think this was worse than Plan 9 From Outer Space, yet ignoring the anti-Boll hype, it’s largely only the poor staging of the fights which prevent this from being, at the very least, a credible rental. However, an action film with bad action is like a horror film with bad scares, rendering the other ingredients largely irrelevant.

Dir: Uwe Boll
Stars: Kristina Loken, Michael Madsen, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Rodriguez

Blood Angels

  By

★★★
“Charlie’s Angels take on The Vampire Lestat. At Coyote Ugly.”

I’ve recently seen movies involving vampires who run a strip-club (Vamps), and witches who run a strip-club (Witches’ Sabbath). Now, we have vampires who’re putting on a rave. It’s nice to see creatures of the night who keep themselves busy. Actually, here, they’re not fully-fledged vampires: indeed, the aim of the rave is a ritual to complete the job, give them shape-shifting powers, etc. – generally, upgrade from the shareware version of vampirism. Of course, one of the vamps has a sister (Baruc) turn up – she looks like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, which is fairly appropriate, as she’s definitely not in Kansas any more. And their creator, Mr. Jones (Lamas), from whom they escaped, is keen to reel them back in…

Oh, did I mention the bloodsuckers are all attractive women, and that for some reason, vampirism now includes kung-fu abilities? [Must be v2.0…] Okay, these rarely rise above “fairly crap”, but the attitude is cool, and it’s just another facet of an odd film that also includes: a Japanese guy who wants to be black, an unfunny transvestite, the Necronomicon, a Hunter S. Thompson lookalike and a final five minutes – before the final credits – which are a hip-hop music video. Bizarrely, it largely works, in a post-Buffy kind of way, with a few lines which made us laugh out loud, such as, “I’m sorry to interrupt this very special episode of Touched by a Vampire.” However, whenever the effects go above the basic level…if a script has snakes leap out of a vampire woman’s breasts and attack someone, or a world-threatening demon, your FX studio had better be able to step up to the plate, rather than fall apart.

While expecting copious nudity – “Lesbian Vampire Spank Inferno”, as Chris put it – there is surprisingly little: like the attacking breasts, perhaps a side effect of having a gay director? Looking back, there were more topless guys than gals, but at least it wasn’t an outright gayfest like David DeCoteau would’ve done. However, I imagine, say, Fred Olen Ray would have had a different vision! Co-writer Lisa Morton also basically disowned it, but while this may be light-years from her concept (the original title presumably went, because no-one had a clue what it meant), this is still more fun than anticipated.

Dir: Ron Oliver
Star: Siri Baruc, Leah Cairns, Lorenzo Lamas, Shawn Roberts

Black Mama, White Mama

  By

★★
“A P-movie: Prison, Philippines and Pam Grier.”

The biggest shock this has to offer is likely the opening credit, “based on an original story by Joseph Viola and…Jonathan Demme“. Yep, future-Oscar winner Demme, director of Silence of the Lambs, came up with this story, though if truth be told, it’s largely a ripoff of The Defiant Ones, which also had a black/white pair of prisoners escaping jail chained to each other. Here, it’s moved to the Philippines, where revolutionary Karen (Markov) and drug-lord moll Lee (Grier) are both wanted by their respective parties, albeit for entirely different reasons: Karen to help broker an arms deal, Lee because she stole forty grand. While being transported to the city, the two break free and head off across country, encountering nuns, drunk drivers, lecherous handymen and dogs – dressed in skimpy prison tunics, naturally…

Actually, if they’d stuck to this unwilling pair and their bickering, that gradually turns from animosity into mutual respect, the film would likely have been a damn sight better. You can see why Grier became a star, and Markov’s screen presence is almost equally obvious. However, the film instead diverts its energy into subplots involving the rebels or Ruben (Haig), a local slimeball who agrees to track the escapees. Both subplots seem more like excuses for bad T&A, largely involving ugly Phillippino actresses. Ditto the lengthy shower scene near the beginning – while our heroines are still in jail – though it shows the prison staff are equally as sexually frustrated as the inmates. Of course, it ends in a massive gunfight on a dock, between all interested parties. It’s cheap, campy and passes the time, albeit only just.

Dir: Eddie Romero
Star: Pam Grier, Margaret Markov, Sid Haig, Lynn Borden

Blood Gnome

  By

★★
“BDSM, invisible monsters and Julie Strain. Who could ask for more? Well, actually…”

If you’ve been thinking, “What I want is a cheap monster movie set in the fetish community,” this one’s for you. Crime scene photographer Daniel (Bilancio) discovers his video camera can see ugly little creatures, which have been slaughtering S+M fans as they engage in their games. Turns out they belong to Darlinda (Walton), an evil dominatrix who keeps a tentacled monster in a box; it gives birth to the little critters, and she uses the placentas to make a drug. Can he convince others of their existence before his girlfriend (and nice dominatrix, contradiction in terms though that may seem) Divinity (Pursley) gets eaten at the big S+M party? Which, despite a sleeve to the contrary, is actually the only scene in which Strain and the Porcelain Twinz appear.

Trying to get others to take a threat they can’t see seriously, rather than thinking you’re mad, is a neat concept. Unfortunately, it’s only used in a couple of scenes, and instead we get any number of bondage sequences which, unless you’re into that kind of thing, will likely prove extremely tedious. Darlinda does kick butt to a surprising degree (which is why it’s included here) – according to the making-of documentary, Walton is a stuntwoman, though her other IMDB credits appear to be zero. The creators cheerfully admit to its “microbudget”, and I suspect the DVD commentary is probably more interesting than the film itself. Certainly, the lack of explanation offered for almost anything is disappointing, though the gore, toothed monster vagina, and copious breasts do fully justify the movie’s R-rating.

I love cheap films that make up for in imagination and with what they lack in budget – after all, that quality costs nothing. As its inspired title shows, Blood Gnome is not totally bereft in these departments, but the over-riding interest in leveraging events into an S+M setting, for no visible reason, hampers and damages the result considerably. Change that, put some more thought into the script, and the fun B-movie trapped here might just have clawed its way out.

Dir: John Lechago
Star: Vincent Bilancio, Melissa Pursley, Ri Walton, and Julie Strain (but only just…)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (film)

  By

★★★
“If at first you don’t succeed…”

Buffy may be the only successful TV series based upon a failed film. A critical and commercial flop, creator Joss Whedon just wouldn’t let it lie, and finally got the mix of drama, horror, comedy and action he wanted in the show. The movie is a different matter, and has not aged well. The SoCal culture now seems incredibly dated, and Swanson takes too long to become the sympathetic heroine essential to the film. It also has no idea what to be: for a comedy, large chunks are not funny (despite classic lines involving coat-racks and clapping); if it’s a horror movie, it’s a lame one, with vampires largely as threatening as harvest-mice; and if you want social satire, you’re far better off with Clueless or Heathers.

The supporting cast help rescue the uneven material, with Sutherland as the guru whose near-impossible task is to convince Buffy of her mystical calling. Hauer plays a Euro-vampiric nemesis impeccably, but top plaudits go to Paul Reubens. About as far from Pee-Wee Herman as imaginable, he gets one of the finest death scenes in cinematic history. The cast also includes future Oscar winner Hilary Swank, Natasha Gregson Wagner, David Arquette and uncredited roles for Ben Affleck and Ricki Lake. Ironically, the part played by Seth Green, werewolf Oz in the TV show, ended up on the cutting-room floor.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect is comparing this incarnation to v2.0 from five years later. No Scooby Gang (bad), no Angel (good), no cool dustings when the vampires are staked (bad). On the whole, it’s about what you’d expect after an interesting concept from a rookie film writer has been chewed up and spat out by a corporate studio. Hard to say which is more miraculous: that Whedon got another chance, or that a corporate network didn’t do worse still.

Dir: Fran Rubel Kuzui
Star: Kirsty Swanson, Luke Perry, Rutger Hauer, Donald Sutherland

Blue Crush

  By

★★★
“Life’s a beach, especially if you want to surf more than the Internet.”

The marketeers screwed up: aimed at teenage girls, our daughter refused to see it, on the grounds – Hollywood, please note – that their bikini tops and bottoms didn’t match in the poster… Anyway: Anne Marie (Bosworth) sees her ticket to stardom in a surf competition on Hawaii’s North Shore. But she has to come to terms with waves bigger than she’s ever faced before; a rebellious kid sister (Boorem); a dreadful job as a hotel maid; and, inevitably, the guy who wants to spend quality time with her on dry land (Davis), while her friend Eden (Rodriguez) tries to keep her focussed on surfing.

We’re firmly behind Eden on this one, since it’s only in the water that the film comes alive. Much credit to cinematographer David Hennings, who does an excellent job of capturing the power and intensity found in the unfettered ocean. The film needs this, as otherwise, there’s not much in the way of conflict – everyone turns out to be nice, even Anne Marie’s rivals in the surfing contest.

As is, it’s not bad, just easily predictable: maybe they should have tossed in a shark, or a giant octopus, or something, simply to spice things up a bit. A slight romance and flashbacks about a bang on the head are well short of realising the potential to be found in the magnificent Pacific setting. While there’s hardly anything new in its painfully obvious storyline, it will certainly inspire new respect, both for the sea, and those who challenge it armed with little more than a plank.

Dir: John Stockwell
Star: Kate Bosworth, Matthew Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Mika Boorem

Bikini Bandits: Freeze, Motherfu***rs!

  By

★★½
“More is less. Much less.”

Bandits started as a hugely popular short – confusingly, titled Episode 7 – on Atomfilms.com. Its success led Grasse to churn out a number of extremely loosely-connected ‘sequels’ (also on this DVD), as well as 50-minute feature (sold separately) The Bikini Bandits Experience, featuring the late Dee Dee Ramone and Corey Feldman. The basic idea is grand, and is established in the original short, where bikini-clad, gun-toting babes rob a convenience store (which stocks some beautifully surreal imaginary products, not the least of which is ‘Beef Flaps’), kidnap a clerk, and lasciviously kill him. It is politically incorrect on almost every conceivable level, and on its own, is an undeniable guilty pleasure of the highest level.

Unfortunately, the rest of the series is no more than a sequence of tired rehashes, shuffling the Bandits into other settings (the desert, an Amish community, 1776), and there is no sense of development, progression or innovation at all. What was initially trashy fun becomes pointless through repetition – the final entry, Bikini Bandits Under the Big Top is just woeful. Grasse’s lurid directional style, which also packed a wallop for the first five-minute chunk, is one-note to the point of inducing a headache – I dread to think what the long version of Experience would do. It may be unique, but it’s still sad to see such a fine concept flushed down the tubes so relentlessly. And yes, that’s exactly how the title appears on the sleeve.

Dir: Steve Grasse
Star: Heather McDonnell, Heather-Victoria Ray, Cynthia Diaz, Betty San Luis

Bandits

  By

★★★½
“Bad Girls – the musical.”

Not the Billy Bob Thornton/Bruce Willis vehicle of the same name, this German film is several years older. Four girls, in the titular prison band, seize the chance to escape when playing at a police function. With freedom comes unexpected fame, thanks to a tape sent to an unscrupulous record company executive. There is plenty of potential for a Natural Born Killers-style hack at the media, manafactured celebrity: the Bandits could go after the exec for exploiting them, he could encourage the cops to shoot the fugitives and increase sales, etc. Von Garnier largely avoids this, in favour of unsuccessful chick-flick emoting, and a slightly surreal approach, like a long-format pop video. Add an irrelevant subplot in which the Bandits take a hostage, play with him for a bit, then dump him, and it’s clear the script is embarrassingly weak.

Fortunately the rest of the film holds the script up, aided by Von Garnier’s good visual style – albeit one perhaps more appropriate for MTV (one scene is in danger of turning into Fame!). The characters, too, deserve better, a fascinating mix of archetypes: the tough girl, the slightly mad oldie, the ditzy sexpot, etc. They could easily slump into shallow cliche, and it’s a credit to the actresses that they don’t. The music is a key element, and isn’t terrible, though personally, I’m a long way from going out and buying the soundtrack. In the end, all the elements combine with the unstated potential to create an engaging failure. Could have been, should have been, yet there’s still enough to make it worth a look.

Dir: Katja von Garnier
Star: Katja Riemann, Jasmin Tabatabai, Nicolette Krebitz, Jutta Hoffman

Black Scorpion

  By

★★

Roger Corman is a man without shame – and that’s in no way intended as an insult. He simply utilises any resource to the best of its ability, as is shown by the three versions he’s made of Not of This Earth, in 1956, 1988 and 1995. Black Scorpion similarly showcases his ability to take a thin storyline, basically little more than a Batman clone, and parlay it into two movies made for Showtime and a TV series. Even if the results proved steadily more lacklustre, such industry can only be admired. Present in the movies, but absent in the show, is former model Joan Severance, veteran of The Red Shoe Diaries, and she certainly cuts a striking figure – like most Roger Corman films, the film sells itself as much on the sleeve as plot, characters or talent. It’s your basic costumed vigilante, driven to operate outside the law following the death of a loved one, possessing cool gadgets and a neat car with which to fight crime.

The main problem with this film is an inability to decide whether to take itself seriously; there’s no consistency in tone, not least between hero and villain. Darcy (Severance) plays it all dead straight in her role as a suspended cop, but the villain is a Darth Vader clone called The Breathtaker who, with his army of “wheezing warriors”, wants to make everyone in Gotha…er, the City of Angels breathe like him. Now, in Batman, Adam West also took it seriously, but with such an air of scenery-chewing to his deadpan, that it enhanced the whole effect. Here, the opposites cancel out, leaving something whose tone is decidedly herky-jerky. There are decent moments, however, a lot of them coming from Saturday Night Live original member Garrett Morris, who gets his performance just right as Darcy’s mechanic. He comes up with toys such as a computer that requires all commands to be prefaced with “Yo!” – more of this wit would have been welcome. We also liked the villain’s wrestling henchwomen who insisted on being tagged-in before they can fight.

However, the movie stumbles badly out of the blocks, a lengthy prologue making for sluggish viewing. All the set-up would perhaps have been better off placed as flashbacks throughout, rather than in one lump at the start. We could then have got to the meat – Scorpion kicking butt – from the get-go, rather than having to wait 35 minutes for the titular heroine to appear. The action scenes are nothing special, save for the amusing way Scorpion’s high heels suddenly become flat whenever she is required to do more than stand still. Presumably her boots possess the same technology as her car, which mutates from a Corvette into a Porsche at the touch of a “Yo!” – they also, somehow, give her the ability to clear tall buildings with a single bound, proving that Corman’s collection of DC comics is broad indeed.

Of course, the one area where Corman can actually surpass the Dark Knight is sex. Hence, two scenes in a strip-club (set on different days, but conveniently for the budget, with the same stripper on stage!) and the fanboy-service sequence of Black Scorpion, in costume, seducing her cop partner. Word is, it was actually performed by a body double, which seems odd given Severance’s previous history. While mostly plodding, the overall result is not totally dreadful, passing 92 tolerable minutes – though we were anaesthetising ourselves with plenty of rum-soaked pineapple throughout. However, there’s very little here to justify a sequel, or explain the need for a spin-off TV series; that we ended up with both, is proof of Corman’s talents in the field.

Dir: Jonathan Winfrey
Star: Joan Severance, Bruce Abbott, Rick Rossovic, Garrett Morris