Tag: seal of approval

Gun Woman

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★★★★
“What is this? A Japanese manga? Or a Luc Besson film?”

nullgunwomanThe above line is spoken by one character to another during one of the more outrageous plot twists – in reality, this is neither, but it’s an accurate assessment of this exercise in excess. It starts with a woman being shot in the shower, the assassin (Miller) and his partner head for Vegas, and on the trip, he tells the strange story of Mayumi (Asami, previously seen in The Machine Girl and the Yakuza Hunter films). A meth-head at the time, she was bought by a doctor (Narita), seeking revenge on Hamazaki (Kamata), the depraved, but very rich, sicko who raped and killed the doctor’s wife, because he blamed the doctor for the death of Hamazaki’s father. The sicko is particularly fond of necrophilia, and makes regular trips to a remote establishment where he can indulge the fetish. The doctor’s plan involves training Mayumi as an assassin, getting her brought into the corpse pleasure park after inducing a catatonic state with drugs, then letting her rampage her way through the establishment to Hamazaki. Oh, and the only way she can get a weapon in, is if the pieces are surgically inserted into her body first. Well, except for the magazine. No surgery needed for that, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

Yes, this is as totally mad as it sounds, and you have to wonder, might there have been an easier way to get vengeance? Mind you, the doctor is hardly any more sane than Hamazaki, with the Hippocratic Oath going right out the window. Anyhow, Asami literally doesn’t say a single word during the entire movie, and is completely naked for almost the entire second half, as she tries to complete the mission, taking out the guards at Club Necro in hand-to-hand combat. This is also rather less sexy than it sounds, because she’s also drenched in her own blood, after ripping the gun parts from her torso. [The doctor kindly informed Mayumi she would have 22 minutes to reach the first-aid waiting outside, before she bled to death from her self-inflicted wounds, so there’s a bit of a desperate time-crunch here.] But it’s still undeniably entertaining,  if you can handle the copious gore, with good performances from all the principals, and a script which comes full circle nicely – the opening killing turns out to be pivotal to the way things turn out as well.

This was definitely more than I expected, though admittedly, after the last few Zero Woman films, those expectations were not much above room temperature. Mitsutake has much the same budgetary limitations, but does a very good job of working within them, to create a movie that knows it has to find something different to stand out, and succeeds in doing just that. Say what you will – you won’t forget this one in a hurry! Asami continues to be among the most impressive of the J-gore actresses I’ve seen, and the news, after the end credits, that Gun Woman Will Return, can only be something to be anticipated by this site.

Dir: Kurando Mitsutake
Star: Asami, Kairi Narita, Matthew Miller, Noriaki R. Kamata

Bloodbath at Pinky High, Part 2

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★★★★
“Pinky violence = serious business”

bloodbath2Following on more or less directly from the events of the first part, this sees Maki the Lone Wolf seeking revenge for the death of Midori as she fought against the principal and his reign of terror. Now in charge is Ranko and her gang, who stepped in to occupy the power vacuum, to “keep peace and good order” in the school – along with hunting down the remnants of Midori’s faction. Ranko captures Maki, but our heroine escapes with the unwitting help of Chiaki, one of Ranko’s Demons, and joins Momonga and Third, the last girls standing of Midori’s gang. Chiaki also allies herself with them, knowing Ranko will blame her for Maki’s escape. But can she really be trusted? And can Maki defeat, not only Ranko, but the hardcore delinquents she has recruited to join her, the very worst drawn from schools across Japan: Rakish O-Gin, Kiriko the Praying Mantis and Rinka the Parasol.

This is definitely better than the predecessor, mostly because it focuses on Maki. As noted in my previous review, she did a better job of capturing the pinky violence attitude than Midori, and we see that again here – the spirit of Midori shows up to guide Maki at various points, and the difference in their performances is obvious. There’s also more going on in terms of storyline and characters. Chiaki has a subplot about an ailing sister who yearns to see Chiaki become successful, and Ranko’s henchwomen are memorable villains in themselves. In particular, Rinka is a pitch-perfect Gothic Lolita, all frilly dresses and dark eyeliner, but carrying an umbrella which is also an automatic weapon. As the onlookers say while she’s fighting Maki:
    A machine-gun parasol? Is she really just a schoolgirl?
    She is majoring in technical subjects...
It’s also impressively gynocentric, with little or no male roles whatsoever, and the ones present are little more than drooling, sex-mad imbeciles, easily exploited for the benefit of the female characters.

I think it’s perhaps less obviously a parody, and that works in its favour. Not that it’s any less subtle; for example, early on, Maki’s method of attack is entirely focused on ripping open the tops of her adversaries. But rather than driving the joke into the ground, the makers let it go, and her fights against the higher-level minions are much closer to what you saw in the seventies. You don’t need to have seen part 1 to follow the story here, and the movie even works on its own, rather than requiring significant previous knowledge of the genre. It may be forty years late, but it’s one of the most-entertaining pinky violence films I’ve seen.

Dir: Toshiya Kominami
Star: Akari Asahina, Yoko Fujimura, Saya Kobayashi, Aoi Hozumi

300: Rise of an Empire

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★★★★
“Faster than Greece-d lightning.”

300riseaI’m going out on a limb here, and predicting that Eva Green is going to be the next great action heroine. She seems very taken by strong female characters, from Morgan Le Fay in Camelot, through Vanessa Ives in Penny Dreadful, and we recently noted her contribution to the marketing for Sin City 2. But this was unexpected. We watched it, purely because we saw and enjoyed the original film, and didn’t expect this one to come anywhere near qualifying for the site. I mean, we were aware of Artemisia – almost a decade ago, Brian wrote a piece for the site, detailing why she’d be a good subject for a movie. However, we were expecting this to be an entirely macho film, likely bordering on the homoerotic, as mercilessly parodied in Meet the Spartans. We certainly didn’t expect her to be so pivotal to this sequel.

Well, technically, it’s neither sequel nor prequel to 300; it’s more of a companion piece, depicting events elsewhere around the same time, and focusing on the naval battle between the Persian forces, nominally under Xerxes (Santo), and the Greek ones of Themistocles (Stapleton). In an earlier encounter, Themistocles killed Darius, Xerxes’s father, which sent Xerxes off the deep end – carefully shepherded there by Artemisia (Green). She is a Greek citizen whose family was slaughtered by their soldiers when she was young, with her being subject to years of horrific abuse. Left for dead, she was rescued by Persians, switched sides and rose through the ranks, now seeing in Xerxes a chance to extract retribution on her former nation. Unlike Xerxes, who was portrayed in the original as Caligula with muscles, Artemisia is smart and resourceful, not making the mistake of under-estimating the Greeks in general, and Themistocles in particular. Indeed, as far as we are concerned, she was much more interesting than the hero, particularly in terms of back-story. She also kicks serious ass, both with a bow and her pair of swords.

As far as general film-making goes, this seems to have built on Spartacus, in much the same way that Spartacus built on the original 300. Indeed, there’s a fairly explicit nod to it, in the casting of Peter Mensah as Artemisia’s trainer, a similar role to the one he played in Spartacus. This means lots of slow-motion and buckets of digital gore, which seems to hit the camera lens more often than it hits anywhere else. It also perhaps means playing faster and looser with history: neither Darius’s death nor Artemisia’s fate are as depicted in the movie. But, hey, when facts conflict with drama, it makes cinematic sense for the former to give way. If what you have here occasionally topples over into video-game style, it rarely looks less than lovely, and if Artemisia wasn’t enough, we get a bonus action heroine at the end, as Queen Gorgo (Headey), leads the Spartan reinforcements into action. Now, will someone please give Green a full-on starring role in which she can kick butt, and tell me where I go to sign up?

Dir: Noam Murro
Star: Sullivan Stapleton, Eva Green, Rodrigo Santoro, Lena Headey

Switchblade Sisters

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★★★★
“S’funny, no-one ever calls them Switchblade Sisters.”

switchbladeThe briskly-moving piece of seventies trash is much beloved by Quentin Tarantino, and I have to agree with him about its merits. While some elements haven’t stood the test of time well, in other ways, it’s well ahead of its era, and there is, literally, never a dull moment here. Initially, the teenage girl gang are the Dagger Debs, a somewhat subservient bunch to their male counterparts, the Silver Daggers, and their leader, Dominic (Brauner). He’s paired up with the Debs’ #1, Lace (Lee), but has eyes for new girl Maggie (Nail), who is soon impressing Lace with her street smarts and toughness.

That doesn’t sit well with Lace’s lieutenant, Patch (Gayle), so named because she lost an eye in an earlier incident. However, Maggie might just provide the opportunity for which Patch has been waiting. The Daggers have their own issues, having to deal with a new gang muscling in on their turf. An attempted ambush at the roller-rink goes badly wrong, with their intended targets aware of the plans, and the resulting carnage leaves a power vacuum, into which Maggie steps. She expels the men, changes the gang’s name to the Jezebels, and teams up with a revolutionary group, who can provide the weaponry she needs for revenge. Patch, however, tries to convince the gang that it was Maggie who betrayed them, having shot the leader of the enemy gang, the only other person who knows the real identity of the traitor.

Phew. Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff going on here, and in comparison to the basic plotting of many of its exploitation brethren, that’s one of the joys here. It’s also full of memorable characters, with even the minor members of the girl gang given little quirks and foibles, which help turn them from caricatures into people. In many ways, it feels like an American take on the pinky violence movies that Japan was also making in the mid-seventies, but Hill – who deserves a place in action heroine history, for his part in turning Pam Grier into a star – really amps up the female empowerment here. That’s especially true in the second half, after the Debs declare their emancipation: it’s a communal arc of independence, as they discover what they can do, culminating in a running gun-battle through the streets against their enemy. Can’t put it any better than Maggie does at the end, as she’s being led away, drenched in someone else’s blood, by the police [not much of a spoiler: crime never pays in this kind of film, fun though it might certainly be!].

“Let me give you some advice, cop. You can beat us, chain us, lock us up. But we’re gonna be back, understand? And when we do, cop, you better keep your ass off our turf, or we’ll blow it off! Ya dig? We’re Jezebels, cop – remember that name. We’ll be back!”

If that gets your juices flowing, and leaves you keen to slash the seats at the local drive-in [probably not a good idea, since it’s your own car you’ll be carving up], then this slice of prime cheese will be ripe for your platter.

Dir: Jack Hill
Star: Joanne Nail, Robbie Lee, Monica Gayle, Asher Brauner

Cleaners: season one

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Cleaners★★★★
“Girls, guns and cars. Well, one car, anyway…”

Crackle is the streaming content subsidiary of Sony – it has been around for a while, but we only became aware of it last December, when a new widget popped up on our Apple TV. Think of it as a little like an advert-supported version of Netflix; you can watch for free, whenever you want, but you have to “pay” by sitting through commercials (during which the FF option on your remote is disabled. Bastards!). The library of movies and shows offered is based around that studio’s library, and has a number of entries for action heroine fans. Bonus points, not just for having Run Lola Run, but in the subtitled version; they also have Ultraviolet: Code 044, the anime spin-off from Milla Jovovich’s action-horror film, though that is only available dubbed. We’ll get to that later, I imagine, but the first thing to leap out at us was this original series, about a pair of female assassins. It’s certainly not to be confused with the Samuel L. Jackson movie or Benjamin Brett show.

The two heroines are Veronica (Chriqui) and Roxie (Osment, straying far from her Hannah Montana roots). Both are hit-women, working for “Mother” (Gershon), but that’s about all they have in common: Veronica is serious and almost OCD about her work, while the much younger Roxie is a party animal who shoots first and asks questions… Well, almost never. Mother insists they work together on this case, much to both their chagrin. This particular mission involves the repossession of a classic car from its current thuggish owners. The car is then to be driven to Point B, without stopping for any reason. Naturally, that doesn’t quite work out, and they discover an autistic boy, unconscious in the trunk. Turns out, locked in his brain is the key to $57 million dollars. Mother wants him. His dad, currently serving 20 years, wants him. FBI agent Barnes (Arquette) wants him. His mother (Missi Pyle) wants him. Now, they all have to go through Veronica and Roxie to get him.

Cleaners2There are six episodes, but they’re barely 20 minutes each, discounting adverts, and by the time you remove the credits, and “previously/next time on Cleaners” sections, it’s basically a single feature. Maybe I’ll get round to editing it together in exactly that fashion. There’s a hint of Tarantino in the fast-paced dialogue, as the characters snark back and forth at each other – my favourite line was Roxie’s response, after Veronica had expounded on some topic: “Jesus! What did you have for breakfast? Wikipedia?” Leyden throws on large helpings of style, which is something of an acquired taste: in the first episode, it seemed more of a chore than a pleasure, but as the show wore on, he either restrained himself better or we grew used to it.

The episodic approach doesn’t leave much opportunity to pause for breath, each part having to fit in advancing the storyline, developing the characters and, typically, an action set-piece, involving guns or hand-to-hand combat. For instance, the first episode has Roxie tricking her way into the thugs’ house, and opening the back door so Veronica can join her for a full-out assault. It’s a structure which makes for a copious volume of action overall, and these are both well-shot and assembled – the art of editing fight sequences is something I think is often overlooked. It looks like Chriqui and Osment both handled more of their own work than I’d have expected, though credit should also go to Osment’s stunt double, Mandy Kowalski.

However, it’s the characters which engage the viewer and keep them coming back for more. The two leads have a nice chemistry, bouncing off each other, and there’s a real sense of development as the show progresses. Initially, the pairing feels like Grumpy Cat being forced to socialize with an energetic puppy, but they both come to appreciate the other’s strengths, and the marginal tolerance becomes more based on respect. It’s a similar dynamic to the one we saw in Violet & Daisy, almost a big/little sister relationship. I do have some doubts about the plotting, which has too many convenient coincidences to be convincing. For instance, I sense that any such series of events with the massive body-count depicted here, would get a lot more traction than the solitary FBI agent who appears to be on their trail. However, this never destroys the energetic, pulpy and B-movie feel which permeates proceedings, and by the time the sixth episode finished (in a hail of gunfire, naturally), we were sad to discover, that was all there was.

For now, anyway. Because, the good news is, another series has been commissioned, and started shooting in January, so will hopefully be out later this year. I say “hopefully,” since Sony abruptly shut down Crackle in the United Kingdom at the start of last month. Fingers crossed that this isn’t an indication of wider problems for the company, because this is definitely a show that deserves a wider audience. You can watch the show online at crackle.com; it was apparently also released on DVD through RedBox, but a quick search of Ebay failed to locate a single copy. [Plenty of the Jackson/Brett versions….]

Dir: Paul Leyden
Star: Emmanuelle Chriqui, Emily Osment, David Arquette, Gina Gershon

Cat Run

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, on its 10th anniversary

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KillBill_TWBA_DarthSolo_3D2★★★★½
“It’s mercy, compassion, and forgiveness I lack. Not rationality.”

Today marks the 10th anniversary for the release in the United States of Kill Bill, Volume 2, completing the saga of The Bride and her quest for vengeance over the man who stole her daugher, killed her husband at the altar and left her in a coma. In honour of this date, we watched the assembled compilation known as Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair. While this has never officially been released – despite regular claims by Quentin Tarantino that he was about to start work on it – the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles was allowed to show it in March and April 2011, its second public screening since the Cannes Film Festival of 2004 (there was one at the Alamo Drafthouse).

This helped lead to bootleg editions circulating through the usual sources online, where fans edited the previously-released versions together, to simulate Tarantino’s vision as closely as possible. Of course, these aren’t perfect, if QT’s claims of an extended anime sequence are to be believed. But I’m not inclined to wait around any longer – it’s entirely his own fault I still have not bought a copy of either film, even though they are certainly iconic in our genre. So, how does the combined version play? And a decade after the saga came to its bloody conclusion, does the story still hold up? [Note. This will be less a standard review than a series of feelings.  If you want a review, I refer you to the ones written at the time for Volume 1 and Volume 2.  I suppose I should also insert a spoiler warning for the rest of this piece. Though if anyone reading this hasn’t seen both films already, you pretty much deserve to be spoilered!]

killbill1In terms of content, there isn’t much alteration, with the only real change, a small but significant cut at the end of Volume 1. What’s removed, is Bill’s line, “Is she aware her daughter is still alive?” This means neither audience nor heroine know this, until she shows up at Bill’s house for the final confrontation. [I have to say, her daughter certainly doesn’t seem like a four-year old either.] Rather than substance, the biggest difference for me was stylistic: the overall balance seemed more even, as a single entity, than seen as two separate pieces months apart. Volume 2 seemed excessively talky on its own. While that’s still the case, it’s to a significantly lesser degree, being balanced directly by the first half, where The Bride engages in actions, not words. Indeed, the only person she kills in the second part is Bill, a sharp contrast to the pile of corpses left in her wake during its predecessor. His death still feels somewhat rushed, and it’s a shame the original ending – a swordfight between Bill and Beatrix, clad in her wedding dress, on the beach – couldn’t be filmed, because the production went over time.

My viewing of the film now is also altered, by having seen over the intervening decade, more of the movies which had influenced Quentin, in particular Lady Snowblood and Thriller: A Cruel Picture. I’ve not been a particular fan of this aspect of Tarantino’s work, since the whole City on Fire/Reservoir Dogs thing; I find it gets in the way of enjoying his films, if you’re frequently being reminded of other movies. This kind of homage still works better when it’s slid in more subtly, for example Vernita Green’s pseudonym for her new life being Jeanne Bell, likely a reference to the actress who was the star of the 70’s blaxploitation pic, T.N.T. Jackson. [And, of course, Green’s daughter is called Nikita…] I have to say, QT’s foot fetish seems a lot more blatant now than it did at the time. The most obvious case is when The Bride is trying to regain control of her toes in the back of the Pussy Wagon, but Sofie Fatale’s feet also come in for some attention. Again, perhaps subsequent knowledge plays into the viewing experience.

10 Favourite Lines from The Whole Bloody Affair

  • Vernita Green: Black Mamba. I shoulda been motherfuckin’ Black Mamba.
  • O-Ren Ishii: The price you pay for bringing up either my Chinese or American heritage as a negative is… I collect your fucking head. Just like this fucker here. Now, if any of you sons of bitches got anything else to say, now’s the fucking time!
  • The Bride: Those of you lucky enough to have your lives, take them with you. However, leave the limbs you’ve lost. They belong to me now.
  • The Bride: This is what you get for fucking around with Yakuzas! Go home to your mother!
  • The Bride: I want them all to know they’ll all soon be as dead as O-Ren.
  • Budd: That woman deserves her revenge and we deserve to die.
  • Pai Mei: What if your enemy is three inches in front of you, what do you do then? Curl into a ball? Or do you put your fist through him?
  • Elle Driver: I killed your master. And now I’m gonna kill you too, with your own sword, no less, which in the very immediate future, will become my sword.
  • The Bride: Before that strip turned blue, I would have jumped a motorcycle onto a speeding train… for you. But once that strip turned blue, I could no longer do any of those things. Not anymore. Because I was going to be a mother.
  • Bill: You’re not a bad person. You’re a terrific person. You’re my favorite person, but every once in a while, you can be a real cunt.

killbill2What hasn’t changed is the sheer, unadulterated awesomeness of the fights, as jaw-droppingly brutal and intense as they were ten years ago. Yuen Wo-Ping certainly cements his position as the most inventive and effective martial arts choreographer in history. Though this version has the entire House of Blue Leaves fight in colour, the arterial spray becomes so obviously excessive, as to reduce its overall impact. Much love must also now go to someone barely known at the time, now carving out her own niche: stuntwoman and Thurman double: Zoë Bell. Bonus fun is now had, watching the battles and going, “Zoë… Zoë… Uma… Zoë… Uma… Zoë.” [That’s probably fairly close to the correct ratio!] The anime sequence depicting O-Ren Ishii’s early years is still fabulous and lush, revenge foreshadowing The Bride’s. You can see why, in 2006, Tarantino floated the idea of further films in a similar style, telling of Bill’s and Beatrix’s origins. Although, like all the other Kill Bill sequels he has floated over the years, Quentin’s mouth appears to be moving much faster than any actual production.

The combined version does probably run about 30 minutes too long, with Volume 2 in particular need of tightening up. It doesn’t so much reach a climax, as approach it as a limit. Bill’s burbling on about comic-book superheroes is one of those cases where Tarantino’s voice becomes louder than that of his characters (see the first half of Death Proof for a long, drawn-out example of this, perhaps the most self-indulgent dialogue in a filmography largely driven by self-indulgent dialogue). I also remain somewhat skeptical in regard to the deliberate misorder of Beatrix’s revenge. O-Ren Ishii is the first actually killed, according to The Bride’s list, yet we begin with her encountering Vernita Green. While that made some sense when the film was in two volumes, providing a spectacular encounter to end the first half, that’s less the case here. I’ve never found a satisfactory explanation for quite why Green wasn’t simply #1 on the list. But I guess, messing up the timeline is just what Tarantino does.

However, let’s cut to the chase – with the elegance of a pissed-off bride wielding a Hattori Hanzo sword. This remains one of the finest examples of action heroine cinema to come out of mainstream Hollywood, and arguably, hasn’t been matched in the ten years since. And it’s not purely for The Bride: O-Ren, Vernita, Elle and GoGo all deserve acknowledgement as memorable characters, any of whom could stand on their own. Even as someone who can generally take or leave most of Tarantino’s directorial work – I think he’s a better screenwriter – I can’t deny what he crafted here is an undeniable, four-hour classic of the genre.

“The lioness has rejoined her cub, and all is right in the jungle.”

Gallery: Volume 1

"Beats up 2003′s other Hollywood action heroines, the lame Tomb Raider and Charlie’s Angels sequels, without even breaking a sweat."

Gallery: Volume 2

"When this film works, it does so extremely well, with moments – and a good number of more lengthy sequences – that are just about perfect."

Dangerous Lady

  By

★★★★
“No luck of the Irish to be found here.”

dangerousladyBased on the debut novel by British crime writer Martina Cole, this depicts the life of Maura Ryan (Lynch), the only daughter in her family, whose brothers are making a push for increased power in the underworld of 1960’s London, much to the disapproval of the Ryan’s matriarch (Hancock). Leading the push is Michael (Isaacs), who has more than a touch of Ronnie Kray about him, being both homosexual and a borderline psychotic. Maura falls in love with Terry Patterson (Teale), and is shocked to discover he’s a policeman. When he comes under pressure from colleagues to use their relationship, he ends it – unaware that Maura has just become pregnant. She is forced to have an abortion, which leaves her insides looking like they’ve been weed-whacked, and vows she’s going to show him, by becoming every bit the gangster peer of her brothers. But the path to the top is littered with dead bodies, of foes, friends and family.

There’s not a great deal here which you haven’t seen in a million other dramas about organized crime, be they set in America with the mafia, or Hong Kong and the triads. The whole “trying to go straight and make an honest life” thing is certainly not new, and strapping a skirt on, isn’t enough to make it so. It’s really the performances which make this work, and the acting is top-notch. Among the men, Isaacs is outstanding, going from zero to brutal in the blink of an eye, and you certainly get the notion of someone who was turned into what he became (Cole doesn’t explicitly snort derisively at “born that way”, but it’s certainly implied abuse as a youngster by another mobster is behind many of Michael’s problems). He’s a bundle of conflicting emotions: fiercely loyal to family members, but capable of savage brutality to anyone who betrays him, or whom he considers a threat.

But it’s Lynch and Hancock who are the driving force here, and both are excellent. The latter was a veteran of 40-plus years in plays, films and TV, and portrays Mrs. Ryan as being a loving mother, but one who gradually comes to the conclusion that they are beyond her control, Michael in particular. However, by the time she has realized this, she’s helpless to do anything much about it, except bar Michael from the house, even though that causes her pain, probably only a mother can know. Lynch plays Maura with very much the same streak of stubborn steel. As the show develops over its 50-minutes episodes, she becomes someone who won’t let anyone, least of all her family, tell her what to do, because she has seen the consequences of those bad decisions. She may not be right, but if she isn’t, at least it’s her own choice. You can’t help rooting for Maura, a victim of circumstance, as she negotiates the tricky life of a woman in the era, especially one in an area certainly not exactly female-friendly.

It’s slightly disappointing that we don’t get to see Maura go all Scarface on anyone; despite the cover picture, I’m not certain I recall her pulling the trigger at any point. However, that didn’t dampen our enthusiasm  for a solid slab of television drama, and we were sad to reach the end and realize that there were only four episodes – it’s an idea which could certainly have sustained a full season. I’ve now acquired a few of Cole’s books, and look forward to reading them in due course.

Dir: John Woods
Star: Susan Lynch, Jason Isaacs, Owen Teal, Sheila Hancock

American Horror Story: Coven

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★★★★
coven1“When witches don’t fight, we burn.”

While few shows on television are more twisted, perhaps the most bizarre thing about American Horror Story is that the creators of the franchise, Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, are best known for that paragon of liberal smugness, Glee. It’s hard to think of two series more diametrically opposed, with AHS being deliciously mean-spirited, in a way much closer to Murphy/Falchiuk’s previous show, Nip/Tuck, but adding a far greater degree of viciousness. To steal a line once aimed at Margaret Thatcher by Denis Healey, AHS could fairly be accused of “glorying in slaughter,” as it romped through its first two seasons, set in a Los Angeles haunted house and New England lunatic asylum respectively. The stories it told were independent, albeit with a number of actors who appeared in both, playing different characters. Most notable among these was Jessica Lange, who showed exactly why she had won two Best Actress Oscars.

The third season ramped things up to a whole new level, and also became one of the most gyno-centric shows on television. The setting moved to New Orleans, and a school called Miss Robichaux’s Academy, which is actually a front for the education of young witches. The headmistress is Cordelia Foxx (Paulson), living in the shadow or her mother, Fiona Goode (Lange), who is the “Supreme”, a position which she will do anything to retain. However, Goode increasingly feels threatened, not only by the current batch of pupils, but also her own mortality, since she has recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Another problem is the opposition of a coven of black witches, led by Marie Leveau, a bubbling animosity which escalates after Goode digs up the infamous Delphine LaLaurie, a brutal and unreconstructed racist, and another immortal, buried alive by Leveau in the 19th century.

Goode’s struggles to retain control are just one half of the story: there are also the pupils themselves, who are gradually discovering their own powers and what that entails. There are five of particular note, ranging from teenage brat movie star Madison Montgomery (Roberts), to wild child of the woods, Misty Day (Rabe). The latter is obsessed with, in looks and behaviour, Stevie Nicks from Fleetwood Mac – who has been rumoured for decades in urban lore to be a practicing witch. While that was amusing on its own, in one of the most amusing bits of stunt casting I’ve ever seen, the real Nicks turned up in a couple of episodes, playing herself. As mentioned above, Goode fears she’s on the fast track to being replaced as the Supreme, so for the girls, simply surviving to reach the “Seven Wonders” – the test to determine who has what it takes to replace the incumbent – will be tricky.

coven2“In this whole, wide, wicked world, the only thing you have to be afraid of, is me.”

I suppose you could read any number of metaphors here, more or less obvious, for other groups who have been oppressed due purely to their nature. But any such thoughts are far from a factor in our enjoyment of the show, which succeeds largely as the result of some brilliant performances. Beyond Lange, you’ve got fellow Oscar-winner Kathy Bates as LaLaurie, in a role which licks Misery into a cocked-hat for sheer unpleasantness. There are two further Academy Award nominees: Angela Bassett plays Leveau, while Gabourey Sidibe is Queenie, one of the new girls, whose main talent is that she can project whatever damage she does to herself, on to another person. She stabs herself, you get cut. It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out she’s going to be capable of defending herself against whatever life – or Fiona – can throw at her.

But it’s probably the scenes between Lange and Bassett which sealed this show as one of our favourites of the year. They have an electric intensity which is completely compelling, with a seething undercurrent of distaste, mixed with grudging respect, because each knows the other is equally as powerful. Circumstances eventually lead to them having to join forces, as a company of witch-hunters seek to take them both down. That it’s not a comfortable partnership, just adds to the fascinating dynamics of power, and it’s another aspect where the show shines. Beyond the performances, which are generally excellent, it’s the intrigue which helps make the show so watchable: it delivers a perpetually-shifting dynamic of alliances and enmity, like Dangerous Liaisons on meth. Oh, and anyone can die at any time – usually, nastily and bloodily. However, in many cases, that’s more a temporary inconvenience than anything, and it’s not so much death which is to be feared, as what might happen to your immortal soul thereafter.

I would have to admit, a possible weakness in the show is an excess of plot threads, which tend to whizz in and out, without truly adequate resolution, as proceedings gallop on to the next. As well as the witch-hunters, there’s Leveau’s minotaur-esque lover, the religious neighbours,  and a story involving the resurrection of a boyfriend, that doesn’t quite go as planned. There’s enough raw material here for far more than the 13 episodes screened, but on the whole I’d far rather have over much crammed in to a show, than feel it’s spread too thinly. I’d probably also confess to some disappointment in the way the show ended, which wasn’t near the memorable bleakness of the preceding versions. Okay, if it wasn’t quite everyone joining hands to sign Kumbaya, I certainly expected a higher body-count, and less sense of dawn bringing a brighter future.

“This town ain’t big enough for the both of us. War is coming.. and you’re gonna lose.”

Still, these are minor quibbles, and it was a joy to watch something which played, at times, like a very, very pissed-off version of Charmed, but could also transcend just about anything you could predict or expect. It weaved fable and fact together beautifully – both Leveau and LaLaurie were real characters from New Orleans’ past – and provided some of the best and most interesting roles for women on television this year. Maybe it appeals to the submissive in us all, but it seems there’s nothing quite like an evil bitch, who has both the power to back it up, as well as the intelligence to know how to use it, and in Fiona Goode, we got to enjoy one of the best villainesses in the recent history of the medium. Lange is flat-out awesome, and can only be enjoyed as such.

There was certainly no doubt about the show’s mass popularity. Although some hardcore fans grumbled over the dark humour occasionally injected into proceedings, e.g. LaLaurie’s horror at the notion of a “negro” President, it can’t be argued that this version proved a significant improvement, ratings-wise, over its predecessors. They averaged 2.8 and 2.5 million viewers, but season three upped season two by more than 50%, with four million on average, and reaching a peak of over 5.5 million. A fourth edition was already commissioned, well before the third even reached the half-way point. It will no doubt move on to a new location and era once more [the details are vague – Lange is apparently working on her German accent!], yet it’ll be hard-pushed to match this season for either intensity, or its abundance of strong female characters.

Dir: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon and others
Star : Jessica Lange, Sarah Paulson, Emma Roberts, Lily Rabe

American Horror Story cast

Gravity

  By

★★★★½
“Run Sandra Run”

GRAVITY2013 was perhaps a landmark for women in action films. with the top slot at the American box-office going to Jennifer Lawrence in Catching Fire. But also present in the top five was this, which kicked Katniss’s arse for critical acclaim, snaring 10 Oscar nominations to Fire’s… Well, none at all, actually. That’s probably a little starker contrast than is accurate – they are respectively 97% and 90% Fresh at Rotten Tomatoes – but it is interesting to compare the two films and their approach. In Gravity, the sex of the lead character simply isn’t very relevant: you could switch it to being a man, and you wouldn’t need to change much, not even the name – Ryan Stone. I’d be unsurprised if told that, like Salt, this was originally written for a male lead. Indeed, it also fails the infamous Bechdel Test of feminism, passing none of its three criteria – though this says more about Bechdel’s uselessness than Gravity, I feel (Run Lola Run also goes 0-for-3, and it’s not the last thing it has in common, as we’ll see).

But Gravity certainly deserves coverage here, every bit as much as Alien – another film where the gender of the hero is largely irrelevant.  Admittedly, in some ways, it’s the very antithesis of what we now associate with “action film”, most obviously with an average shot length claimed in a number of places to be about 45 seconds. I’m not sure the math on that quite works out, and it’s certainly boosted by its amazing opening shot, which runs well over 10 minutes. But in an era where the dreaded “MTV-style” of editing has hampered many a genre entry e.g. a number in the Resident Evil franchise, this is truly a breath of fresh air, with Cuarón happy to let things unfold in front of us, rather than jazz things up with frenetic and pointless cutting, that doesn’t generate tension and excitement less than confusion. Of course, that’s Cuarón’s style: his previous (and excellent) Children of Men had a couple of similarly spectacular long shots.

Stone (Bullock) is a mission specialist, whose debut flight into space is to carry out maintenance on the Hubble. She’s on a spacewalk with shuttle commander, Matt Kowalski (Clooney), when a devastating storm of debris strafes them, knocking out their comms with Earth and leaving Stone tumbling through space. Though Kowalski, with the aid of his jet-pack, brings her back, the shuttle is toast, and there’s no option but to head for the International Space Station, hoping it will provide a safe haven and means of returning to Earth, before both Stone’s air hits empty, and the debris completes another orbit and blasts them once more. However, before getting inside [SPOILER], they get hung up on deployed parachute cords from a module attached to the ISS, and Kowalski cuts himself loose, drifting off in to space. This saves Stone from immediate threat, but she’s now utterly alone and [END SPOILER] facing an escalating series of predicaments, requiring her to dig deep into her inner resources, both mental and physical.

gravity2More than once, I found myself holding my breath, as the heroine fought against the implacable foe of a brutal, unforgiving environment. That’s the first element this has in parallel with Lola, which also had no human adversary. There, it was time which was the enemy, and that’s an aspect here too, with every 90 minutes bringing a new barrage of destruction. But the main thing this has in common is the heroine’s initial dependence on a paternal figure (her true father in Lola) for rescue from their difficult situation. It’s only when that support is removed, and she is thrown back to surviving entirely on her own merits, that the film blossoms fully. For the first 30 minutes, this is little more than space opera heroics, with Clooney being Clooney and some eye-rolling clichés: Kowalski is on his last mission, and another member of the crew has a picture of his family taped to his spacesuit. Yeah, that’ll end well. Still, extremely nice visuals – stunning, to the point this is one of those rare films I will buy on BluRay – are enough to get us through to the last hour, which is basically woman vs. space, and is absolutely compelling.

B-movie critic Joe-Bob Briggs once declared, “The first rule of great drive-in movie-making: Anyone can die at any moment.” By this metric, Gravity is a great drive-in movie, because Ryan’s survival is, often literally, dangling by a slim thread. Whether she’s bouncing around like an interstellar crash-test dummy, running out of oxygen, or bailing out of a space-station on fire, the peril is right there, and it’s Stone finding ways to deal with it that help make her one of the best heroines in mainstream cinema of the past few years. Cuarón, mercifully, doesn’t give her a romantic interested, no boyfriend or even a child back on Earth as motivation for survival: she explicitly says at one point, “No one will mourn for me. No one will pray for my soul.” And it doesn’t matter.  Indeed, that’s a big part of her transformative journey, going from someone who relies on others, uncertain of her own abilities, to being completely self-assured and single-minded. She wants nothing but to live – not for a man, or her offspring, just for herself.

Her final words are a simple, “Thank you”: it’s not clear to whom they’re addressed, since it has been made clear, Stone isn’t religious. Perhaps it’s gratitude for her rebirth: I suspect it’s no coincidence that there are scenes and shots here, which appear consciously to echo a caterpillar emerging from a cocoon, or a turtle struggling out of the egg. Bullock’s performance is beautifully understated, which is exactly as needed for the scenario – what’s the point in hysterics when there’s no-one around to see them? – and over the course of the film, she goes from a somewhat annoying, dependent second banana, to someone in whom you are fully invested. With her survival highly uncertain, right until the final frame (hey, cameo appearance by Arizona’s own Lake Powell!), I’m not certain how much repeat viewing this might have. It’s possible knowing the outcome may degrade the tension which is certainly one of the film’s strongest suits. However, even discounting that, there’s an awful lot here to like and appreciate, Cuarón has likely become one of those few directors whose name alone is enough to get me to watch, but everyone involved here deserves enormous praise for their work in crafting a memorable piece of cinema.

Dir: Alfonso Cuarón
Star: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney

gravity3