Tag: USA

Double Dare

  By

★★★★½
“Zoë Bell, you’re our heroine. Never change.”

The day after watching this documentary, I was clearing out the shed in preparation for our house move. I twisted my back, and thought about giving up, but soldiered on until the job was done – because that’s what Zoë Bell would do. It’s now my life philosophy: WWZD? She’s the main focus here, from working as Lucy Lawless’s double on Xena in New Zealand, through an unsuccessful attempt to break in to Hollywood, and on to a second try, where she’s hired to stand-in for Uma Thurman in Kill Bill. Paralleling this, it looks at Jeannie Epper, a veteran stuntwoman who shadowed Lynda Carter in Wonder Woman. Now nearing her 60th birthday, Epper is still active and seeking work, fighting against the problems of being a female in an extremely male-dominated industry.

The thing that comes over is how delightfully un-Hollywood Bell is, innocent almost to the point of naivety – she’s blissfully unaware of the need, for example, to have head shots, and drops F-bombs with a marvellously casual air. The cameras are rolling when she gets the call telling her she’s got the Kill Bill job, and her obvious, genuine delight at the news, brought a huge grin to our faces, and is completely endearing. It’s to be hoped that Hollywood doesn’t change her in the slightest, and Zoë remains the same, down-to-earth, well-grounded person shown here, who is now even more solidly entrenched among our favourite contemporary action heroines.

I have some concerns there, based on Epper; her contemplation of plastic surgery and liposuction at her age is more sad than anything else, as is watching Jeannie working the phones, basically begging for work, even though she’s a legend in the business. There’s a good heart beating in there (Epper donated a kidney to a friend, for instance), but she has clearly been ground down by her decades in the film industry, and become a lot more cynical and battle-weary as a result. That’s no wonder, when you witness her struggles trying to get equal treatment for women at the annual awards ceremony. It’s a somewhat grim reality-check, warning of the potential perils ahead for Bell in her career.

But aside from the contrast in the two heroines, this is a fascinating study in a side of the business that doesn’t get anything like the recognition it deserves. As one comment I read elsewhere said, “If you liked Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, Zoë Bell is the reason why,” and that sums up the shadows in which stuntwomen work. This film shines a light into that darkness, and both Epper and Bell deserve enormous respect and admiration for putting their bodies on the line, in the name of our entertainment. And while I’m not really a big Tarantino fan, if he turns out to be responsible for bringing Bell to a wider audience, then it’s perhaps the biggest gift his career will have given us.

Dir: Amanda Micheli
Star: Jeannie Epper, Zoë Bell

Salt

  By

★★★½
“See Salt?”

Angelina Jolie is the undisputed US box-office queen of action heroines. With Lara Croft: Tomb Raider‘s $131 million, and the $117 million this had earned to date, she owns two of the top four all-time genre entries (the other two being Crouching Tiger and Charlie’s Angels). While that’s not adjusted for inflation – Aliens would likely come out on top there – it’s still an impressive feat, and there probably isn’t any other actress in Hollywood capable of opening a large-budget action movie on this scale. Even in a supporting role, e.g. Wanted, she has credibility as an action heroine few can match.

Here, she plays Evelyn Salt, a CIA operative who returns from time in captivity in North Korea, and resumes her cover as a company executive. She and her colleague Ted Winter (Schreiber) are called in to interview a Russian defector, and decide if he is telling the truth. He spins a tale of a long-running project, dating back to the Cold War era. Young children were groomed from a very early age to become sleeper agents abroad, leading normal lives without suspicion until the time comes to activate them. That time has now come, with one agent tasked with killing the Russian President, currently on a state visit to the US. Oh, yeah – and that agent’s cover name is… Evelyn Salt.

When Salt can’t contact her husband (Diehl) and the defector escapes from custody too, Salt bolts from the impending custody closing around her and goes on the run. Is it because she wants to rescue her husband and prevent the assassination, to clear her name? Or is she the double-agent claimed? The film doesn’t hold out too long in this regard before committing itself. However, that isn’t the main focus, as the script then swerves in a different direction, and it also turns out that the assassination attempt is not an end in itself, only the start of a more far-reaching, and disturbing, plan to incite Armageddon.

I confess to being somewhat disappointed, especially after I realized this was written by Kurt Wimmer, who gave us Equilibrium and Ultraviolet [the former was a lot more warmly-received, but I’ll defend the latter to my dying breath as pure adrenalin/popcorn nonsense]. This is rather more restrained, which likely explains why it took nine figures at the box office, yet is also rather less memorable as a result. Not to say it’s “bad”, or anything like that; just that it’s very easy to see it, as originally envisaged, starring Tom Cruise. Pretty much run a global search and replace on the script, changing the lead character’s name [to, oh, I dunno: “Jason Bourne”?] and you’d be there. It’s too generic to be a true classic of the action heroine genre.

Still, it’s entertaining and keeps moving. Credit for clocking in at a brisk 100 minutes, rather than stretching things out beyong what’s necessary: there’s isn’t much unnecessary fat on its scriptual bones, and a refreshing lack of romantic chit-chat. There are a couple of solid action set-pieces, most notably an early, frenetic chase through the streets, and Salt overall has an ability to withstand falls that Wile E. Coyote would envy. Towards the end, she descends a lift-shaft leading to the presidential bunker, without bothering to wait for the elevator, and can also turn a few common cleaning supplies into an impromptu rocket-launcher. These are talents I’m sure we all could use occasionally.

Despite this, and Jolie’s undeniable screen presence, it lacks any truly memorable moments, and has little you won’t have seen before, assuming a passing knowledge with action franchises like Bourne, 007, Jack Ryan, etc. [Worth noting that two entries in the last-named series were directed by Noyce] We sniggered more than once at the way Salt always seems to have a new outfit, even as she runs from the entire weight of federal law-enforcement, and Salt’s husband is never developed enough to justify the pivotal role he plays. However, the ending is left wide-open for a sequel, pointing in a definite direction, presumably in the hope of a franchise emerging. The $162 million this has taken overseas, in addition to the US earnings, make that a distinct possibility, and I would certainly not be averse to the prospect of another helping of Salt.

Director: Phillip Noyce
Stars: Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofor, August Diehl

Whip It

  By

★★★
“Mostly harmless.”

Bliss Cavendar (Page) is stuck in the hickville of Bodeen, Texas: her mother (Harden) coerces her into small-town beauty pagents, but Bliss’s heart isn’t in it. On a shopping trip to Austin, she picks up a roller-derby flyer, and on attending the event with her friend Pash (Shawkat), falls in love with the sport and decides to try out. She has to lie about her age to do so, and also keep her attendance a secret from her parents. Bliss has a natural talent, and helps her team, the Hurl Scouts, previously the doormats of the league, to the championship game against the Holy Rollers, under Iron Maven (Lewis). The confidence Bliss gains is not without its issues however, bringing her in to conflict with her boyfriend and Pash, as well as her parents…

In many ways, it’s A League of Their Own for the modern era, right the way down to the male coach, trying to get his girls to play the game the way he wants. Adversity must be overcome, friendships formed, life lessons learned, etc. These aspects are more like a chick-flick with a roller-derby backdrop, but it does manage to avoid the usual pitfalls of that genre. While skipping over some details of the game, the film does gets the “feel” of roller derby right, with the participants – Lewis in particular – capturing the cheerful anarchy at play, and the way they live for the game [it’s also nice to see Zoe Bell as one of her team-mates].

It’s a bit much to believe she can skip out for an entire season of games and practices, without her parents noticing, and Page is probably too much a physical lightweight to be truly convincing, though that’s disgused well enough you don’t really notice. However, the story is completely predictable, and without giving too much away, even the ending is little surprise at all, and fits in with the generally feel-good nature of this. As warm, fuzzy sports movies go, roller-derby may not be the most obvious choice, yet Barrymore has made a nice promo for the sport, and if the film would certainly have benefited from more conflict on the track, and less soap-opera off it, I certainly can’t claim to have disliked this.

Dir: Drew Barrymore
Star: Ellen Page, Alia Shawkat, Marcia Gay Harden, Juliette Lewis

Run! Bitch Run!

  By

★★
“Grindhouse par excellence. Not convinced this is entirely a good thing, however.”

I can certainly appreciate where the makers are trying to go with this one. Two Catholic schoolgirls, selling Bible door-to-door to raise funds for their educational establishment. Unfortunately, they knock on the wrong door: this is actually a whorehouse, run by the psychotic Lobo (Tahoe), who has just killed one of his hookers. The two are kidnapped: one is killed, while the other (Lyone) is left for dead, naked, in the nearby woods. She is taken to hospital, but has only a single thought in her head: revenge. Stealing a nurse’s uniform, she checks out, intent on taking our her wrath on Lobo and his no-less depraved sidekicks.

Particularly if you’ve seen the (thoroughly NSFW) trailer, you’ll know where this is heading, and it’s not a pleasant place. While entirely successful at evoking the grindhouse atmosphere, with its mix of sleazy, ugly sex and grimy violence, it also succeeds at being remarkably.. Well, boring is the word I’d use, and that’s close to an unforgivable sin as far as exploitation cinema goes. The pacing just seems off: it takes too long to get to what we actually want to see, which is these low-life scum getting their come-uppance. While the film does eventually deliver (Lobo’s fate will have you shifting uncomfortably), I must confess, my interest had waned well before that point.

The main problem, I think, is there is no emotional connection with the heroine. While there is an attempt to build her character early on, it’s not successful. A film like this largely stands or falls on its central performance; while Lyone is laudably game, she doesn’t have the acting chops to get the audience over on her side, and so the torments she undergoes have little or no impact, and neither does her revenge. The best grindhouse flicks achieve that connection on an almost visceral level, taking you to dark places you generally don’t want to go, and this only brushes against the edges there, making its flaws all that more obvious.

That said, I am still somewhat interested in seeing Guzman’s next work. Whatever his talents may lack elsewhere, the man has an undeniable eye for a title, and this one may even lack the grammatical issues found here. Coming soon: Nude Nuns with Big Guns.

Dir: Joseph Guzman
Star: Cheryl Lyone, Peter Tahoe, Ivet Corvea, Johnny Winscher

Alice in Wasteland

  By

★★
“Washing-up proved marginally more interesting.”

Ok, that brief is a little harsh, but it is true to say by the end, I had opted to double-task, and was watching this while I stood over the sink in the kitchen. It wasn’t as good as I expected: I was hoping for something along the lines of Faster, Pussycat, and instead got a turgid, over-extended crime drama. While it has all the right aspirations, the yawning chasm between that and its execution would require several days’ trip by mule to cross. Alice Wynn (Sondrup) is part of an armored-truck robbery, only to find herself double-crossed and left for dead by corrupt cop Jill Robbe (Beisner). Alice vows to recover the loot and take revenge on Robbe, and won’t let anyone – examples include her late mother’s boyfriend, psychotic pimp Ramrod or his Swedish assassin – stand in her way.

It’s not as good as it sounds, with the low-budget impediments and a largely amateur cast providing almost permanent blocks to success. About the only thing it shares with Faster, Pussycat is a complete lack of actual nudity – and unlike that, this doesn’t make up for that shortcoming in charisma. There are some amusing moments, such as adverts for a non-dairy product called “Pusé Whip”, or a film called Kill Jill, yet most of the individual scenes seem to solve little purpose except to get you to the next one – they’re just not very interesting on their own.

I did quite enjoy the two leads, with both Sondrup and Beisner surpassing the minimum necessary “Oomph” for their roles – the final scene together is perhaps the best thing about the movie (save the Swedish assassin). However, I don’t come into films expecting “the minimum necessary,” and when the other aspects largely fall short of even that mark, I have to confess that disappointment, and a resulting decision to get on with some housework, were the result. I’m left with the feeling that some things are perhaps best left to the professionals.

Dir: Lasse Jarvi and Peter Schuermann
Star: Roxane Sondrup, Michelle Beisner, Major Mandolin, Adam Ryan Villareal

Blood: The Last Vampire (live-action)

  By

★★★
“Half-human, half-demon takes on her own kind. Haven’t we seen this before?”

The animated version was one of the first reviews I wrote for the site, and I didn’t like it much – the fifty-minute running time allowed for hardly any development of scenario or characters at all. The feature fares a good bit better in these departments, though suffers from some horrendous editing styles and a couple of monsters which appear to have strayed in from a Playstation game (and I am not talking Playstation 3 here, either). The basic plot is retained. Saya (Gianna) is a half-demon with a grudge, intent on taking out Onigen (Koyuki), the one responsible for the death of her father. Working under the loose guidance of The Council, she is inserted into a school on an American air-force base in 1970 Japan. American girl Alice (Miller) has been added; Saya rescues her, and the two end up on the run, pursued both by Onigen and more regular forces.

This wasn’t as bad as the reviews led me to expect, and Gianna goes a good job of capturing the permanently-peeved expression of Saya. There are certainly lots of fights, with Corey Yuen doing his usual solid work, though the cutting of these early on, renders them almost incomprehensible. Seriously: you have almost no idea who is doing what to who. However, that seems to change in the second half; there’s a very solid battle in the forest between Saya, her mentor, and an endless horde of minions, and the final battle between the heroine and Onigen certainly doesn’t lack for spectacularity…er, -ness. Or something.

Going against this, Alice’s presence seems no more than a sop to the international market, because she serves little or no purpose to the film otherwise. There’s also a thoroughly unsatisfactory sequence where Saya fights a flying monster on a truck, perched precariously in a gorge: it’s both incoherent and very badly-rendered, a combination that would shame a SciFi original movie. That said, it kept me entertained and awake, which is more than some films (coughSnowbloodcough) have been able to do this month. If Gianna wants another stab at an action heroine flick, I wouldn’t object.

Dir: Chris Nahon
Star: Gianna, Allison Miller, Liam Cunningham, Koyuki

The Haunted World of El Superbeasto

  By

★★★★
“Suzi-X Marks The Spot.”

Rob Zombie has had an interesting career, to say the least. From the early days as the front-man of heavy-metal band White Zombie, through his own solo work [heavily influenced by B-movies], and then on into his movies. That started with the fairly-crap House of 1000 Corpses, then the better Devil Rejects, and then his remakes of the first two Halloween movies, which were ok, as remakes of horror classics go. And then there’s The Haunted World of El Superbeasto, an animated feature which I stumbled across on cable. Well, actually, Chris did: “I Tivo’d a movie for you,” she said. And, surprisingly, she stayed for the entire thing, and appeared to enjoy this animated feature. Which is odd, because it has much the same gleeful, excessive insanity as Bitch Slap, which she walked out on.

Based on a comic-book series, the focus is, at least, theoretically, El Superbeasto (Papa), a masked luchador and part-time exploitation film-director, whose opinion of his own talents is certainly not modest. Superbeasto gets involved with the the evil plans of Dr. Satan (Giamatti), who kidnaps foul-mouthed stripper Velvet Von Black (Dawson), because if he marries her, he’ll get all the powers of the devil. El Superbeasto and his sister Suzi X (Moon Zombie) have to stop Dr. Satan, before he can destroy the world. And it’s thanks to the latter that this film effortlessly slides into GWG territory. Imagine a soft(ish) porn version of those insurance ads with Erin Esurance kicking butt. Except, with far larger breasts, much more gore and a sidekick of a horny, transforming robot. Er, ok: not really like those insurance ads at all, then.

Zombie was responsible for the Werewolf Women of the SS faux-trailer in Grindhouse, and brings much the same gleeful approach to proceedings here. Indeed, we first see Suzi-X kidnapping the head of Hitler, which is kept alive in a jar (as in They Saved Hitler’s Brain), and then has to escape by fighting her way through a massive pack of Nazi zombies (that’d be from Shock Waves). Carnage ensues, as it pretty much does, any time Suzi-X is on the screen, which is a lot – she gets far more of the action than El Superbeasto does. Proceedings culminate in a lengthy, slo-mo catfight, entirely necessary to the plot, between her and Von Black, while the soundtrack cheerily informs us that “It’s OK to jerk off to cartoons – the Japanese do it every day – so rub one out for the USA…”

Yeah, the soundtrack. By comic due Hard ‘n’ Phirm, it’s certainly worthy of note, providing a sardonic commentary throughout. Witness the play-by-play as Suzi-X takes on the Nazi zombies, or as it bemoans the shameless ripoff of Carrie which is the finale. An appreciation of genre – particularly, horror movies – of the past eighty years or longer, will also help, as will as realizing this is not to be taken at all seriously. It’s definitely not for kids, or the easily offended: copious female nudity, violence, swearing and generally questionable attitudes. It reminded me of Ralph Bakshi cartoons, such as Fritz the Cat, just much more tongue-in-cheek.

If anything, it may be a little too hyper and frenetic. We ended up taking a break in the middle, and chilling out with coffee and muffins before returning for the second-half. Throwing together everything but the kitchen sink as far as style, content and approach goes, it remains a thoroughly entertaining piece of trash cinema. While the supposed hero is actually not very interesting, and largely unlikeable, Suzi-X is a fabulous action heroine, whom I’d enjoy seeing more of [not that there’s much you don’t see of her here, if you know what I mean, and I think you do…] Check out the clip below for some idea of what to expect.

Dir: Rob Zombie
Star (voice): Tom Papa, Sheri Moon Zombie, Paul Giamatti, Rosario Dawson

Whiteout

  By

★½
“CSI: Antarctica. Only, without the actual, y’know, interest…”

“Oh, look,” I said to Chris. “Whiteout is just starting. It’s about a US marshal investigating a murder in Antarctica. Let’s take a look, shall we?” And, of course, the first thing we see is Kate Beckinsale bending over in her underwear, as she undresses to take a shower. I haven’t heard her eyes whirring as they rolled in her skull like that, probably since the first 20 minutes of Bitch Slap. I’ll have to sit through a few Ghost Whisperer episodes to make up for that. God forbid, maybe even stay awake for one. The sad news is, that was probably the most memorable moment in a film which, on balance, is marginally less interesting than the weather phenomena name-checked in the title.

After an incident in which she blasted her dirty-cop partner out of a high window, Carrie Stetko (Beckinsale) takes refuge in a post at the South Pole. A body is found out on the remote ice, and turns out to be part of a research team – though their camp is nowhere in the area. Stetko gets a call from one of the remaining members of the team, and goes to meet him at a remote station, only to find him dead and be attacked by a masked figure with an ice-axe. Shortly afterwards, she meets UN security agent Robert Pryce (Macht); initially suspicious, it turns out they have to work with each other and find out what is going on, as a massive storm heads towards their base, forcing the early evacuation of everyone else on it.

Memo to the makers. A crap, non-thrilling “thriller” doesn’t get any better because it’s dumped in a frozen wasteland, even if that means you can add interminable sequences of people shuffling between buildings while holding on to ropes. Chunks of this make little or no sense: after Stetko is attacked by the ice-axe wielder, she inexplicably fails to investigate at all, even though he must still be on the base, as there’s nowhere much else to go. This kind of logical flaw plagues the film, and wastes what might have been a good idea – especially if they’d gone with two female leads, as in the comic-book which inspired it. The whole thing is entirely forgettable. Unfortunately, I suspect Chris probably won’t let me do so for quite a while…

Dir: Dominic Sena
Star: Kate Beckinsale, Gabriel Macht, Columbus Short, Tom Skerritt

Angel of Death (2009)

  By

★★★½
“A star is born? Well, at least a potential one.”

After making an undeniable impact strapped to a car bonnet in the second-half of Grindhouse, Zo…Hang on, let me find the right key on the keyboard… Ah, there we are… Zoë gets to do some actual ‘acting’, rather than playing a stuntwoman called Zoë Bell [Way to go, Tarantino!] Thios started as a web-based series of ten episodes, but is now available on DVD, which is how we watched it. Bell plays Eve, an assassin whose personality radically changes after she is stabbed in the head. She starts to see one of her victims – a young girl – and as a result, decides to go after those who ordered the death. Needless to say, her manager and handler Graham (Poth) is not impressed by this sudden burst of morality, and neither are those who have now become her target, including up-and-coming gangster boss Jake Abel, who sends his minions out to take care of her before she takes care of him.

As an action actress, Bell is unquestionably better at the “action” part than the acting. Not that she sucks at the latter, but one senses she needs more experience with regard to the thespian side of things. This is her first time having to carry a film while playing a character, and thst sometimes is obvious – it’s particularly interesting to contrast Bell and Lucy Lawless, who turns up in a supporting role as Eve’s next-door neighbour. The script also fails to make a convincing case why she makes the switch – maybe it’s the head-injury, but that’s a bit too deus ex machina to work well, and as this barely runs 70 mins, it’s not exactly something they needed to cut out.

Still, this is all redeemed by some excellent action, with Bell (obviously) doing all her own work. She has a short, compact fighting style that looks great on the camera, and there’s a real sense of hardcore energy to it, that makes them fun to watch. Having seen her start off by getting stabbed in the skull, and literally walking away, establishes Eve nicely as an unstoppable force, who can take a licking and keep on ticking. Wisely, Etheredge appreciates that without a stunt-double, there’s no need for quick cutting, and gives the viewer a chance to appreciate her skills. The result is an entertaining B-movie that will hopefully lead to bigger and better things for Bell, who might just become a genuine star down the road.

Dir: Paul Etheredge
Star: Zoë Bell, Brian Poth, Jake Abel, Justin Huen

Full Disclosure

  By

★★★
“Perfectly-acceptable time-passer, helped by a solid cast, yet feels like a wasted chance.”

Ward (whom we’ll watch in anything, as payment for the enjoyment Tremors has given us) plays John McWhirter, a hard-bitten journalist with a fondness for the bottle, who is still trying to put behind him an incident when he was a young radical, that led to his friends being sent to jail for long terms, while John escaped doing time. He’s looking into the murder of an industrialist by Palestinian terrorists, when said friends show up, asking him to hide a woman (Ticotin) from the authorities for a few days, describing her as an activist in Shining Path, a Peruvian rebel group. Turns out she’s not who she seems, and it also turns out John had more to do with his friends’ arrests, thirty years ago, than it initially appeared. With enemies in the FBI, led by Robert Lecker (Plummer), an ally in the CIA, and a female assassin (Miller, right) out to tidy up all the loose ends, McWhirter has to decide whether to do what’s right, what’s easy, or what’s best for himself – and those might be three mutually exclusive options.

This dates back to early 2001, and it’s probably unlikely that a film like this could be made now, because it’s just too sympathetic to terrorists. Similarly, it’s too naive to stand up to close scrutiny in these more cynical days, and the idealistic actions of McWhirter seem at odds with his character. That said, the performances are generally good, with the likes of Virginia Madsen and Kim Coates showing up to support a solid B-movie cast. Miller’s callous approach to her work is particularly memorable in the finale, when she is torturing John, to get him to divulge the location of the fugitive. Despite such elements, however, the pieces here could certainly have been re-arranged to provide something less forgettable: potential for a remake, perhaps? Instead, what we have here feels too much like a TV-movie, though the ending has a surprise that will likely survive longer in my mind than the rest of it.

Dir: John Bradshaw
Stars: Fred Ward, Rachel Ticotin, Christopher Plummer, Penelope Anne Miller