Justin Robinson's Blog, page 23
December 25, 2013
December 20, 2013
Lifetime Theater: On Strike for Christmas
A lot of the time, especially with Yakmala films, the question that arises is “who is this supposed to be made for?” Ostensible kid’s movies with extended digressions into stygian darkness and kinky sex. A hilarious descent into crushing depression with some amateur ventriloquism. Whatever the fuck After Last Season was supposed to be. In my continuing journey into Very Special Television, that question is hardly ever asked, since the proposed market is right there in the concept. With today’s entry, the 2010 Lifetime movie On Strike for Christmas, I know the answer. Sadly, it’s not what the poor, misguided creative team thought.
Based on the book by Sheila Roberts (I’d say “Holy shit, there’s a book?” except that both of my readers will recall that every single one of the 26 ABC Afterschool Specials I reviewed was based on a book, as was the first Lifetime Theater), On Strike for Christmas is the story of the Robertson clan, a family of liberal, white, upper-middle class twits living in a huge house in beautiful Santa Cruz, British Columbia. Joy (Daphne Zuniga, you remember her as Princess Vespa in Spaceballs), is one of those Type A moms whose idea of Christmas is some unholy combination of whatever madness has spilled from the twin diseased minds of Martha Stewart and Gwyneth Paltrow. She wants Christmas to be PERFECT so she has to do a ton of STUFF and HOW DARE YOU NOT APPRECIATE IT?! She’s upset with her noticeably Canadian husband and sons for not appreciating all these self-inflicted trials she’s subjecting herself to.
It’s okay… I’ll hang the stockings myself right next to me…
Not that I blame her for being frustrated with these dipshits. Other than their thick Canadian accents (the two boys in particular, sound like they just got off a dogsled from Ontario. That’s what Canadians have instead of cars, right? Dogsleds?), teenagers Mark and Jeremy are a couple of insensitive clods who not only take their mother for granted, they seem utterly incapable of feeding themselves. They are either twins or Irish twins, as a consistent theme of the movie is that this is their last Christmas before going off to college (where, presumably, they won’t be allowed home over the Christmas holidays without some work-release permit). Joy’s husband Stephen is a professor at a local college (likely UC Santa Cruz, though I can’t recall it being mentioned by name), who is trying to forge a career as a novelist, which is one of the most selfish things a man can do to a hardworking wife. Joy assigns them errands to help her create the Hallmark Reich Christmas of her dreams, and assumes they can handle basic tasks. As someone who struggles to maintain a proper tree-buying engagement, I can understand both the frustration and the difficulty in so doing. Still, these chuckleheads can’t manage the simplest errands, so it’s pretty understandable when Joy flips her lid. Granted, she could be high strung from the eating disorder implied in the early going, but since this isn’t a Very Special Lesson on that, it’s quietly swept under the rug.
Spying a picket line outside of her local grocery store (a line she refuses to cross, in a bit of welcome conscience), Joy decides to take the title of the movie to heart, and goes on strike. Her demands are threefold: appreciate what she does, acknowledge the need to do their share, and do it. It seems like demands two and three are the same, but whatever. Joy’s strike touches a nerve, and soon every woman in town has joined her. Soon, with a timely assist from a local newspaper article and the internet, it’s nationwide. The strike eventually ends when Joy finally remembers something her grandmother (Julia Duffy) said to the group of griping ladies before the thing began, “Maybe you should all do a little less this year and not expect so much.” It’s the correct lesson to learn, but the path the movie takes to get there is lined with the bones of those slain in passive aggressive fury.
It is abundantly clear from the word go how much this film hates people. In my own family, it is my mother who Makes Christmas Happen, and truth be told, she does a lot of work for little appreciation. Hell, just cooking the dinner for us is a huge undertaking. So I saw what they were doing here. However, the contempt the filmmakers have for people stepping outside their prescribed gender roles permeates every frame. Joy can’t possibly hang the lights on the house without falling off a ladder, and the men can’t bake cookies without setting the kitchen on fire. Everyone, with only the exception of sensible grandma, is shrill, doltish, and unpleasant at all times. I didn’t want these people to have a Merry Christmas. I wanted one of those Axe-Murderers dressed as Santa to pay them a visit.
The director, Robert Iscove, is chiefly famous for She’s All That, a teen movie that seems to grow more bizarre with each passing year, and previous Yakmala entry From Justin to Kelly. On Strike for Christmas actually showed first at a Yulemala program, making it something of a crossover phenomenon, and its director an All-Star. While She’s All That remains watchable (RLC is awesome, shut up), I wouldn’t want to speculate on what Iscove thinks of humanity based on these three selections. However, they have one connection worth mentioning. From Justin to Kelly is ostensibly a musical, albeit one without any good songs. She’s All That features a bizarre dance interlude that makes no sense dramatically and even less sense in context. On Strike for Christmas places a song at the center, using the Christmas Carol “Up on the Housetop” as a symbol for family unity. At the end, there is an extended, and extremely uncomfortable scene, of the family singing it together. Say what you want about Iscove, the man loves his terrible musical scenes.
The Lifetime network believed they were making a lighthearted comedy that the family could watch together: the mothers would learn to maybe tone it down a notch, and the men would learn to maybe do like one thing to help out. Instead, they crafted a movie that will only appeal to people who not only hate the holidays, but hate humanity as well. They can watch this, a grin quirking reptilian lips, feeling justified at the batch of ebola home-brewing in the other room. Thanks a lot, Lifetime.
Filed under: Projected Pixels and Emulsion Tagged: Christmas, Daphne Zuniga, Julia Duffy, lifetime movies, Lifetime Theater, On Strike for Christmas
December 13, 2013
Girls, Guns, and G-Strings: Guns
Yes, there’s a special edition of this.
Guns (1990)
Cast: Erik Estrada gets top billing as the villainous Juan Degas/Jack of Diamonds/Joaquin Diamondez. The funniest part of Estrada’s turn is watching him act circles around most of the cast.
Dona Speir returns as Donna Hamilton, this time with brand new partner Nicole Justin (Miss November 1984 Roberta Vasquez). And Nicole… is totally Taryn. For three movies, I’ve been utterly baffled by Taryn’s character. Was she in Witness Protection? Was she a government agent? What the hell is going on here? Well, in this movie, we finally get the answer. Taryn gets an origin story, only in a tragedy worthy only of Shakespeare and Andy Sidaris, Hope Marie Carlton is not in the film. So instead we get Nicole, a brand new character with Taryn’s past. Carlton is doubly missed since she was the best actress of the bunch and the only one who could deliver a joke to save her life.
Bruce Penhall returns as vest enthusiast Bruce Christian, and to highlight Carlton’s absence, he’s dating Nicole with no explanation. Granted, people seem to be seeing one another with little to no explanation most of the time, so it’s not too jarring.
Cynthia Brimhall is back, and this time her character gets a last name. Edy Stark is no longer a Hawaiian restauranteur, but a singer in a sleazy little Vegas show. Win?
Miss June 1985 Devin DeVasquez plays Cash, the evil and often shiny girlfriend of the Jack of Diamonds. According to the IMDB (which is never wrong) she married Ronn Moss, who you remember as Rowdy Abilene from Hard Ticket to Hawaii. But get this, they married in 2009. I want the story there.
Michael J. Shane brings his particular brand of non-acting to the film as the first returning Abilene — Shane!
Rodrigo Obregon, who has been tormenting our heroines for the last three movies, gets a rare heroic turn as drag queen Large Marge. It’s sort of a cameo, except the only people who get excited are postmodern ironists or continuity-obsessed masturbators.
Lastly, Danny Trejo makes an appearance as Juan Degas’s henchman Tong. And yes, I believe Trejo is supposed to be asian.
Playmate Quotient: We have Speir, Vasquez, DeVasquez, and Brimhall, as well as Miss May Kym Malin as creatively named Kym and Miss January 1971 Liv Lindeland as the same character she played in Picasso Trigger, but this time she’s credited as “Ace.”
IMDB Plot Keywords: nudity, female impersonator, sixth part, nipples visible through clothing, cleavage
IMDB User Lists Appearing On: Bad Movie Fiends (BMFcast) Movies, Worst Movies Of All Time, Girls, Guns and G-Strings: The Andy Sidaris Collection (12 Film Set), 90’s Action Movies: Best and Worst, Owned Movies on DVD
Synopsis: Juan Degas, Vegas-based super criminal, hires chucklehead assassins Tito and Cubby (Richard Cansino and Chu Chu Malave) to commit a murder in Molokai. They want to do it with something complicated, but Degas didn’t get hip-deep in white limos and girls who dance in Whitesnake videos by overcomplicating things. They go to kill Taryn… Nicole. Dammit. It’s Nicole. But the two of them screw up and murder some innocent woman instead. They also kill Rocky (Lisa London) a character from Savage Beach who was only there to provide another set of boobs. It does establish the pall of violence that will hang over this installment, though. The hitmen plant a Jack of Diamonds with a scrawled message “FOR DONNA” on the front. The card is from the Rio casino in Vegas.
Donna rounds up her team in Vegas. This consists of Nicole, Kym, Edy, Bruce, Shane, and the ‘roided up black guy from Picasso Trigger who is only named on a flyer tacked to a wall behind him in one scene. He’s named Brown, which, since that’s the guy’s actual name, isn’t a horrifying instance of racism. We also get Abe and Ace, who previously appeared as an older couple in Picasso Trigger, who now work as magicians at Rio, making them the Penn and Teller of the Sidarisverse.
Tong dispatches two guys to kill Bruce and Nicole. Because this is a Sidaris movie, the hitmen are going to accomplish this in the most convoluted way possible: they get in a glider and shoot at Bruce and Nicole from the air. They don’t wait for their victims to even get out of sight of backup, either. Donna gets fed up with this shit, takes out her rocket launcher, and blows the plane out of the sky. Seriously, do not fuck with Donna.
Donna meets with the Attorney General of Las Vegas, who is also her mother. We get more of Donna’s origin story. Her father tried to stop drug smuggling in South America but was murdered by Joaquin Diamondez. Hey… wait, that sounds like a “Spanish” version of… no. And maybe it’s how poorly Dona Speir is aging with the weight loss, but she looks a good ten years older than her “mom.”
And then, something magical happens. I almost mean that literally. Abe goes into the police station to interrogate a couple criminals, and we get a flashback to that weird hit in Picasso Trigger that went nowhere. One of the agents in the car was Abe’s brother! He wants to know who ordered the hit. They clam up, so Abe uses stage magic to produce a motherfucking shotgun and straight up murders these two guys. Holy shit. That escalated quickly.
Nicole, wearing a black leather bikini, lounges on a crotch rocket in the desert at sunset and suddenly I understand Michael Bay’s entire career. Bruce is there too, wearing a matching leather vest and no shirt. They look like a Bugle Boy commercial. Nicole relates her origin story and it’s totally Taryn’s: she was an orphan who hooked up with a guy working for the mob, the guy got killed, and the AG of Vegas — Donna’s mom — got Nicole to testify, put her in Witness Protection, and hooked her up with Donna. Goddamn it! Where the fuck is Hope Marie Carlton!
The most 1990 thing that ever happened.
The heroes attend a stage show that’s half Edy singing badly and half Abe and Ace doing magic. The show establishes a button-activated trapdoor in the stage. The heroes are more interested in openly staring at Degas, who is also in attendance. After Edy sings, she stops by his table and is catty with Cash. Later, she complains to the heroes about Cash’s overuse of perfume. Degas confirms that Abe killed his men, and Cash suddenly channels April Ludgate, saying she wants “to feel the power of controlling life… and death.” For all the setting up in this scene, I think Chekhov wrote it.
Donna, Shane, and Brown work out in a gym and ninjas attack. You’re reading that right. Two full on, in-the-black-pajamas motherfucking NINJAS attack. And of course Shane is useless. Brown neck snaps one, and Donna, who was changing (of course) in the other room shows up in time to cap the other.
Cubby and Tito kidnap Donna’s mom, murder her driver, and leave a Jack of Diamonds for Donna. They stash Donna’s mom in a winnebago. Degas shows up, reveals his three identities, confesses to murdering Donna’s dad, and then rapes her. It’s not the most pleasant sequence.
And then, Sidaris embarks on a bizarre mashup of his traditional style and The Untouchables. Cash, dressed in a ridiculous ensemble of tiny cutoffs (with tasseled fringe!) a leather vest, and a top with a ton of metallic, bright, reflective gold, sneaks onto the boat. She goes right past Bruce and Nicole — Taryn never would have missed her, not without the gold glinting blindingly in the sunlight — and totally murders Ace and Abe gangland style. It is seriously fucked up. The heroes show up at the crime scene, and Edy recognizes Cash’s perfume. Instead of mentioning it, she goes to Cash’s hotel room and straight up murders her. It’s the Chicago way.
Donna, using her cargo-transporting knowledge, figures out that Degas’s plan involves gun smuggling through her backyard of Molokai and the hit on Nicole was specifically to draw them away from. Donna is officially done with this bullshit. Nicole and Bruce kill Tito and Cubby in a ladies room. Shane accidentally beats Tong in a shootout, making this the least-dignified way Danny Trejo has or will ever be killed. Donna and Degas face off on stage, while he holds her mom in front of him as a human shield. Donna uses the trapdoor to get her mom out of the way and shoots Degas with four fucking rockets because fuck that guy.
Team!
Yakmala? This is the most violent of all the movies thus far. It’s also my favorite. I don’t know what that says about me. The others had more inspired moments, but in between the highs, they often dragged. Guns moves pretty damn quick. I understand everyone’s motivation and I know what’s going on. That’s pretty high praise for a skin flick.
Filed under: Projected Pixels and Emulsion Tagged: Andy Sidaris, dona speir, G-Strings, Girls, guns, Roberta Vasquez
December 6, 2013
Yakmala: Prometheus
Turns out 3rd Rock from the Sun had it right all along…
As a kid, no mystery of cinema tantalized me more than the elephant alien in the dick chair. You know, from Alien? The doomed astronauts of the Nostromo find him sitting there on the aforementioned dick chair, looking into the shaft at the stars, his chest exploded from the inside. All we knew of him was from the trading cards (in the ‘70s and ‘80s, movies had trading cards, because we hadn’t yet invented fun), which referred to him as The Space Jockey. A truly bizarre name, since I’ve seen Alien more times than I can count, and I’ve never seen a Space Horse or Space Turntables. Anyway, this mystery — who was this? what was this? — fired my young imagination, and started an appreciation for questions in film with no real answers. 33 years later, Ridley Scott decided to answer the question with Prometheus.
Tagline: We came from them. They will come for us.
More Accurate Tagline: Seventeen idiots shot into space. No way this goes bad.
Guilty Party: The guilt here has to be split between two parties. Let’s start with Ridley Scott, a favorite punching bag on the Satellite Show. Alien is a work of legitimate genius, but it’s become abundantly clear that Ridley Scott doesn’t understand it. In an interview, he points out that the eggs are never explained, nor why they explode on “that guy.” If you ignore the fact that the entire film explains exactly those questions to the satisfaction of anyone who can read without moving their lips, Scott is absolutely correct.
We also have to blame Damon Lindelof, one of the film’s credited writers, who apparently took a decent-to-good script by Jon Spaihts, and promptly stupided it up with murky character motivation, gaping plot holes and logic gaps, and some of the worst fake science since Kirk Cameron deep-throated that banana. Damon Lindelof does research with the same care Channing Tatum prepares for a role.
Synopsis: On some planet (that might or might not be earth, Scott apparently was to dumb to decide whether or not a film about the origins of life on earth should begin on earth), some weird Greek statue man gets naked, drinks some black goo, and goes swimming. He almost instantly dissolves, because his mom never told him he needs to wait two hours after eating to swim.
Cut to later. The “scientific exploratory vessel” Prometheus, with its crew of seventeen, zooms toward some distant star. They have a creepy android on board, David (Michael Fassbender) because these movies always have androids in them and seriously, that’s the only reason. Anyway, he wakes everyone up.
There’s a briefing, and it’s revealed that these people have no idea what they’re doing up there. I guess it must pay a lot — which is a relief to resident punk Fifield, who only got into the field of geology for the money. I think he’s mixed up “geologist” and “old-timey prospector.” There’s a VR briefing with Weyland (Guy Pearce in terrible old age makeup because Ian Holm is smart enough to screen his calls), in which he states they’re looking for the origins of human life. He turns it over to “Drs.” Shaw and Holloway, two dangerously insane people who claim to be archaeologists. They talk about these paintings they’ve found all over the world of people worshiping a giant, and the giant pointing to a specific array of stars, which corresponds to a system that has an earthlike planet (never mind that the position of stars is not static). Shaw says that they’re an invitation from the creators of humanity which she calls the Engineers. When Millburn the biologist quite sensibly asks for evidence (it’s the only sensible thing he does in the film), she says it’s what she chooses to believe.
So this rich dude created a ludicrously expensive expedition (based on Fifield’s line) on some crazy lady’s unsubstantiated belief? I’m pretty sure Weyland has bought the Brooklyn Bridge many, many times. Oh, sure, Shaw and Holloway “archaeologists.” Right. Maybe Shaw and Holloway have degrees, but if they do, they’re from the University of Phoenix. Personally, I think they’re a couple backpackers who saw some cave paintings and conned their way onto the ship. Hey, it’s what I choose to believe.
The expedition lands on the planet (called LV-223 and not LV-426, because goddamn it, this isn’t an Alien prequel, it’s just a movie that makes constant reference to the Alien franchise, has some of the same atmosphere, and the planet features the same shit in Alien. But it’s not the same one, okay?), and they head off to a structure. They’re all in space suits because the atmosphere is toxic, and one would think they’re worried about alien pathogens (one would be wrong). Shaw disallows weapons on the grounds it’s a scientific expedition. Hey, Shaw, fun fact: science made guns!
And spacesuits, and chairs..
So they go in, and Fifield instantly maps the structure. They do some readings and determine that the air is breathable, so off come the helmets! You know, the air is also breathable during an ebola outbreak, but we keep the helmets on so we don’t shit out our own intestines. I’m officially done caring about these dolts. They find a decapitated alien, and for some reason, Fifield and Millburn (who, remember, is a biologist) freak out and leave. I would think a biologist would be too busy coming in his pants at the prospect of examining an alien to do much of anything but make his O face, but what do I know?
A storm’s coming, so everyone returns to the ship. Well, everyone except Fifield and Millburn, who have gotten lost. Man, they really should have mapped… oh. Yeah. Um. Anyway, David brings back some black goo, and Shaw brings back the alien head. They do some genetic testing and determine its DNA is identical to a human’s. This is despite being much taller, having superhuman strength, different skin and eyes. So, you know, not identical. Meanwhile, Holloway, who it must be mentioned is an archaeologist, is depressed because no one is alive in the ruin. Did he miss that day in archaeology class? Does he think that the ancient Sumerians are still around? Anyway, David poisons him with black goo because reasons. Fifield and Millburn encounter an obviously dangerous snake monster that proceeds to initiate a threat display and attack Millburn (the biologist) several times while Millburn tries to make friends. Yeah, I think the entire crew are con artists, head trauma survivors, and escaped mental patients. Anyway, Millburn dies and Fifield gets turned into a zombie.
The crew goes back to save Fifield and Millburn, but fail because everyone is a dunce. David finds a sleeping Engineer in the main chamber. Holloway also is having a bad reaction from the black goo, and when they try to get him back on the ship, Vickers — oh yeah, there’s this character Vickers who serves no real purpose — points a flamethrower at him and explains that quarantine exists for a reason. Holloway thinks he’d be better off getting set on fire, and when Vickers obliges, Holloway hilariously starts screaming. Man, he regretted that fast.
Shaw learns she’s been knocked up and three months along, despite only having had sex ten hours before. She thinks maybe she should get it taken out, but David and the others would rather put her in a freezer and deal with it later. She breaks out and runs to the surgery machine, which is bafflingly only calibrated for men, officially making it worse than having an actual human doctor on staff. She requests a “caesarian” despite actually needing an abortion, because Damon Lindelof still hasn’t grasped that words mean things. Anyway, the machine disembowels her, removes the mutant squid baby, and staples her up.
The Fifield zombie shows up and kills some people while Shaw staggers into a room and finds that Guy Pearce is alive and on the ship, and I don’t care anymore. Someone kill these people. Guy Pearce and David are going to meet the living Engineer. They invite Shaw along, and she’s just had surgery, so she’s up for a walk. At this point, the captain of the ship (Idris Elba), who has never actually left the ship, suddenly knows everything about the purpose of the installation. So he’s a sorcerer or something.
They wake up the Engineer, and he decapitates David and murders the last couple people, and decides to fly away. Once again, for no real reason, the captain decides to ram the alien ship because fuck ships. Vickers ejects, for all the good it does her. The alien ship crashes and starts to roll like a wheel because this is a comedy, and Vickers forgets that “left” and “right” are things, and is crushed.
The Engineer goes to kill Shaw, but she feeds it to her squid baby. Then she and David find another ship and fly away. Finally, the Engineer births something that’s almost an Alien because this movie isn’t done shitting on a classic until the credits roll.
Life-Changing Subtext: Not only is my ignorance as good as your knowledge, it’s better.
Defining Quote: Shaw: “It’s what I choose to believe.” This line is such a perfect storm of stupidity, it deserves to be deconstructed so when future generations gather around their trash fires to hide from the robot masters, they can learn of the dumbest fucking thing a supposedly sentient human wrote down.
Okay, let’s take the line at face value. Shaw’s a scientist (according to the script, anyway). This is literally the last thing a non-incompetent scientist would ever say. Science is about learning things, not picking stuff out of a hat and deciding “yep, that’s about right.”
Yet it’s even insulting to religion. See, it’s impossible to “choose” to believe anything. You either believe it, or you don’t. That’s how belief works. If you’re “choosing” you know in your gut it might not be right, and thus, you don’t really believe it. So this line manages to be completely moronic from the perspective of both reason and faith, which might be the first time anyone has ever achieved that.
Standout Performance: Fassbender is usually singled out here, and while I am a fan of him in general, he really has nothing to play in this shitsnack. David makes zero sense, like everyone else in this movie. I’m going to give this to the dick-snake monster, who really does a good job of conveying that it’s not to be trifled with, even if Millburn was too much of a cretin to know it.
What’s Wrong: The standard stuff of it being too long, the characters and plot being riddled with holes, you know the drill. What’s more interesting to me is how this particular movie uniquely fails, at how Scott and Lindelof are so incompetent, they actually find a brand new way to be imbeciles. Prometheus goes out of its way to create logic gaps. It’s not just that someone gets lost; it’s the guy who mapped the caves. It’s not just that someone tries to make friends with the penis snake; it’s the biologist. It’s not just that someone is upset everyone’s dead, it’s the archaeologist. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Scott and Lindelof were trolling people who can count past ten.
Flash of Competence: It’s a very pretty film. Also, it takes place during Christmas, which is a great throwback to the ‘80s where every other movie took place at Christmas for no reason.
Best Scenes: Every single easily preventable death. From Millburn making friends with the obviously hostile snake monster, to Vickers forgetting that she can run in two whole dimensions, and of course any time the movie goes out of its way to paint its characters as idiots.
Transcendent Moment: I noticed something in this run through. When David wakes everyone up, he informs Vickers they’ve been sleeping for over two years. Later, when the captain decides to ram the alien ship, he tells Vickers she can get to a lifeboat, where she has two years worth of supplies. Or, put another way, “not enough.” He condemns Vickers to a slow starvation/suffocation death just so he can go out in the most metal way he can think of.
And the best part? She gets on the lifeboat. Jesus Christ, these people are idiots.
You all deserve slow, painful deaths.
Prometheus is a modern camp classic, though unfortunately at a smidge over two hours it’s too long to be truly fun.
Filed under: Projected Pixels and Emulsion Tagged: Damon Lindelof, dolts, dunces, idiots, imbeciles, morons, prometheus, ridley scott, Yakmala!
November 29, 2013
A Now Fear This Roundup
I’m planning to spend most of this week digesting, and frankly, that gets in the way of long, rambling, and expletive-filled reviews. Fortunately, in the three years Now Fear This has been alive and well, I’ve written forty-three long, rambling, and expletive-filled reviews. So this Thanksgiving, if you’re looking for something terrifying to watch that maybe you haven’t heard of, browse through this list of (mostly) horror gems.
28 Weeks Later: A lesser film than its predecessor, though it still has plenty to recommend it.
Attack the Block: Aliens attack a London slum, and it’s up to an embryonic street gang to save the day.
Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon: A mockumentary on the making of a supernatural serial killer in the tradition of Jason, Freddy, and Michael.
Breakdown: Kurt Russell vs. JT Walsh. Nuff said.
The Brood: Having kids never seemed so fun and easy in this Cronenberg classic!
Brotherhood of the Wolf: Possibly the finest horror romance period piece kung fu action flick ever made.
Bubba Ho-Tep: Elvis and JFK fight a mummy in a Texas rest home.
Centurion: Extremely sexy people battle it out in Iron Age Scotland.
The Changeling: A truly creepy and atmospheric ghost story.
Chillerama: Highly offensive and extremely funny horror comedy anthology.
The Company of Wolves: Neil Jordan’s fairy tale phantasmagoria that’s probably his way of dealing with sexual abuse.
Deep Rising: A creature feature in the tradition of the best b-movies.
The Descent: A modern classic of survival horror so scary it barely even needs its monsters.
Dick: A comedy about Dick (Nixon).
Dog Soldiers: Werewolves hunt British soldiers through the Scottish highlands.
Fido: The story of a utopia or dystopia. Or zomtopia.
The Ghost and the Darkness: Building a bridge is tough when you’re dealing with two of the worst serial killers in history who also happen to be lions.
The Gift: A creepy Southern Gothic gem from the minds of Sam Raimi and Billy Bob Thornton.
Ginger Snaps: Lycanthrophy serves as a metaphor for puberty for a pair of gothy Irish twins.
Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed: A symbol-happy sequel with a stunning twist.
Gremlins 2: The New Batch: The anarchic sequel/parody of the horror blockbuster.
High Tension: A French extremism homage to classic horror of the ‘70s
The House of the Devil: An ‘80s homage so loving it’s a wonder I didn’t dream it.
Insidious: An eerie gore-free ghost story from the guys behind Saw.
Joe Versus the Volcano: A sweet romantic fantasy about the importance of dreaming big.
May: An indie dramedy gone horribly awry.
The Missing: An Apache sorcerer kidnaps a girl to sell her into slavery, Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones to the rescue.
The Mist: Though adapted from a Stephen King novella, this is one of the best Lovecraft movies ever made.
Mute Witness: Hitchcockian yarn about a mute girl targeted for death by Russian snuff film makers.
My Boyfriend’s Back: It’s a one joke picture, but you gotta admit the joke is pretty funny.
Outlander: Alien Jesus + Vikings vs. Dragon.
Predators: Basically an episode of Deadliest Warrior with fucking Predators.
Rare Exports: A truly original Christmas horror film.
Series 7: The Contenders: An early satire of reality television.
Session 9: This whole goddamn movie is haunted.
Splice: Why you should never use metaphor with your mutant.
The Strangers: Lock the doors, bar the windows. Doesn’t matter. They’re already in the house.
The Stuff: Are you eating it, or is it eating you?
Teeth: A young woman makes friends with her mutation. Say cheese!
Them!: ‘50s atomic horror classic about giant ants.
The Thin Blue Line: An Errol Morris classic that doubles as a terrifying horror story.
Trollhunter: The best found footage movie ever made.
Tucker & Dale vs. Evil: Ingenious hicksploitation parody that gives us The Texas Chain Saw Massacre from Leatherface’s point of view.
Enjoy your terror!
Filed under: Projected Pixels and Emulsion Tagged: 28 Weeks Later, Attack the Block, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, Breakdown, Brotherhood of the Wolf, Bubba Ho-Tep, Centurion, Chillerama, Deep Rising, Dick, Dog Soldiers, Fido, Ginger Snaps, Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, High Tension, Insidious, Joe Versus the Volcano, May, Mute Witness, My Boyfriend's Back, Now Fear This, Outlander, Predators, Rare Exports, Series 7: The Contenders, Session 9, Splice, Teeth, The Brood, The Changeling, The Company of Wolves, The Descent, The Ghost and the Darkness, The Gift, The House of the Devil, The Missing, The Mist, The Strangers, The Stuff, The Thin Blue Line, Them!, Trollhunter, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil
November 27, 2013
Extra #1: From Fear to Fiction
As a Thanksgiving treat, we present the full audio of Clint and Justin’s panel at the Long Beach Comic & Horror Convention, “From Fear to Fiction,” in which they discuss how they and other writers mine irrational fears, childhood scares and adult anxieties for stories. Justin also discusses his fear of clowns and ear-slugs. Panelists: Clint & Justin.
Click here to listen or subscribe on iTunes.
Filed under: Transmissions Tagged: Clint Wolf, Everyman, From Fear to Fiction, Justin Robinson, Zombie Ranch
November 22, 2013
Now Fear This: Deep Rising
I’ll admit, the poster does not fill one with confidence.
If you’ve seen Die Hard, you know that it’s the crowning achievement in not only cinema, but of western civilization, outpacing such popular choices as the printing press, the microchip, or The Oinkster’s legendary Doomsday Prepper Burger. If you haven’t seen Die Hard, what the fuck are you sitting here reading a blog for? Go find the manliest guy you know, the one whose fridge only contains beer, condiments, and a ham brining in Mexican Coke — he will have Die Hard on blu-ray. Watch it and you can come back later. Anyway, like anything great that somehow manages to be successful, Die Hard spawned legions of imitators. Executives have told stories that for a decade after, every single movie pitch was “Die Hard in a [blank],” such as “Die Hard in a Navy ship” (Under Siege), “Die Hard in a train” (Under Siege 2: Dark Territory), and “Die Hard in Air Force One” (Air Force One). In fact, one executive knew that the whole trend had reached critical mass when she heard the pitch “Die Hard in a building.” I could write a whole blog post on what makes Die Hard incredible (hell, I might just do that one of these days), but I actually want to talk about one of the most fun, bizarre, and just plain bonkers of the Die Hard riffs, the 1998 b-movie Deep Rising.
Really, Deep Rising is a lot more than a mere Die Hard imitator, though it shows its love in a variety of ways, from a cat-and-mouse through soulless corporate surroundings to a reference to the centerfold John McClane used as a landmark. Trying to pitch it as the sum of several movies would only result in whiplash, yet its DNA can be seen quite clearly, like looking at a motel comforter under a black light. The film sets us up with the three-man crew of a battered boat transporting a multinational team of mercenaries on a shadowy errand in the middle of the South China Sea. Meanwhile, a luxury cruise ship is in the middle of one of those parties that precedes some sort of Occupy movement. A thief prowls the ship, only to get caught in the middle of her heist and locked up. And that’s when the ship is yanked to a sudden halt and chaos ensues. By the time the mercenaries show up, the cruise ship has been turned into a drifting ghost vessel hosed liberally with blood. There’s not a body in sight. After some tense conflict between the transport crew and the mercenaries, they find a few survivors who are babbling about something loose on the ship. And that’s when the tentacles show up.
Yep, Deep Rising morphs into a glorious creature feature, as the different characters, all with their own shady agendas, try to get off this cruise ship without being turned into poop. The monster design is a triumph, with just enough scientific-sounding hokum to give it plausibility by the admittedly lax standards of a b-movie. It has enough mobility to chase our heroes through narrow corridors, enough strength to make intimidating dents in steel bulkheads, and enough teeth and mouths to make Freud distinctly uncomfortable. It even succeeds in the “fate-worse-than-death” category, which is often overlooked in monster design, as the beastie’s victims remain conscious through their digestion.
It’s not 10,000 years, but it’s something.
The challenge for any movie made in the late ‘90s, when studios were obsessed with CGI but the technology was not yet there, was the temptation to sacrifice suspense on the altar of FX porn. The best creature features are the ones that reveal their monsters bit-by-bit, building to an epic reveal. Think of the exemplars of the genre: Alien, Jaws, and The Thing. When CGI made it possible to see the monster in every phase of the film and do things no animatronic could do, many filmmakers abandoned the blueprints that decades of experience had provided. Now the monster was shown in the first frame, with numerous lingering shots of writhing tentacles and glabrous mouths. Director Stephen Sommers (of The Mummy, another great b-movie of the era) wisely keeps his abomination in the shadows for most of the first half. This is fortunate, as some of the FX (the green-screening especially) have not aged well, though the gift of this brand of CGI is that it resurrected big monsters from the small-monster era between when stop motion went out of fashion and raptors getting all up in our nation’s kitchens.
Technically, the T-rex is the recovery, but I can’t resist posting this.
I’m still shaking my head over how the hell Sommers assembled his cast. Treat Williams is the lead, Captain John Finnegan of the transport ship, and the kind of beleaguered everyman action hero Harrison Ford (the original choice for the role, evidenced by his “I’ve got a bad feeling about this” quip) pioneered and Bruce Willis perfected. Williams has turned in one excellent performance (Critical Bill in Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead) but has spent most of his career unjustly pigeonholed as the poor man’s version of someone else. If I had to explain Treat Williams to a nerd of today, I’d say he’s Nathan Fillion that never got the cult following.
Because it’s a Sommers film, Kevin J. O’Connor is on hand as the weasely comic relief, playing Finnegan’s sidekick. The mercenaries are almost all solid That Guys from the late ‘90s, from Wes Studi has head bad guy Hanover, to Jason Flemyng, Clifton Powell, Cliff Curtis, and Djimon Hounsou. Anthony Heald shows up as the designer of the cruise ship, and since the only thing more certain than Sean Bean being killed is Anthony Heald betraying the hero for personal gain, he is the designated arrogant, sniveling traitor, the Burke, if you will. Lastly, as the thief, is Famke Janssen, and she merits special mention. Not just because late-‘90s Famke Janssen is ridiculously gorgeous (she’s still ridiculously gorgeous, but this was her peak), but because her character serves as more than just The Girl. She is given her own motivation and is not part of any of the established sides. She had a purpose on the ship, and when she’s thrown in with the others, she doesn’t disappear into a wailing millstone dragging the men into the earth. Much could be made of the climactic scene where she has to cock Finnegan’s shotgun for him, but the subtext was so obvious as to render it text.
When I announced I was reviewing this movie, I got a couple extremely enthusiastic responses. Not enough to signify a cult, but enough to renew my faith that this is a film that deserves an audience. I’ve only gone over the bare bones. I haven’t mentioned the scenes and moments that came up in these discussions with other fans, including some incredible karmic justice and a truly fantastic ending. I’ll leave you with this: if you thought Die Hard could be improved with the addition of Cthulhu, this movie is for you. If you don’t think that, you are a sad person and we probably shouldn’t speak further.
Filed under: Projected Pixels and Emulsion Tagged: b-movie, creature feature, Deep Rising, Die Hard, Now Fear This, now what, Stephen Sommers, Treat Williams
November 15, 2013
Revisiting The Shield
See, because justice itself is broken.
Late in my recent binge-rewatch of the early-mid aughts police drama The Shield, I social mediaed, “The Shield is underrated.” A friend of mine who likes to start pop culture debates instantly responded: “How can you say that? It was critically acclaimed!” He’s right, The Shield has a solid critical reputation as a good-to-great show. And yet, it is not just underrated, but highly, extremely, and criminally underrated. Watching the show in a single stretch convinced me that it was far better, deeper, and more consistent than it appeared when I consumed it week to week in its original run. Put simply, the story of Vic Mackey and the rest of the cops in the fictional LA barrio of Farmington is a staggering achievement in serial art and is one of the greatest television shows of all time.
For those who haven’t watched the show (and seriously, go watch it now, it’s fucking incredible), The Shield is a gritty, caffeine-addled Shakespearean drama about the true measure of sin and the ultimate fate of those who try to claw their way out of urban hell. Also, there are cops and shit. Detective Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) is the leader of the Strike Team, a corrupt anti-gang unit, and the kind of male anti-hero that pops up in nearly every acclaimed show in the previous decade. Episodes split time between the various characters in the station (called the Barn, because, you know, Farmington) as the lurid cases of the day come in and the guilty (and often innocent) are brutally punished. On one end of the scale, Vic and his guys are the action heroes, the ones everyone looks up to, while secretly they’re as bad or even worse as the criminals they’re bringing in. On the other end of the scale, Claudette Wyms (CCH Pounder) and Dutch Wagenbach (Jay Karnes) have a more cerebral approach to crimefighting, and are regarded as awkward nerds at best and tacit traitors at worst.
Whenever conversation turns to the greatest television shows of all time, four titles are consistently named both by critics and fans: The Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men (I quibble with two of those selections for different reasons, but this isn’t what I want to talk about here). The Shield is often unfavorably compared to The Wire, due to the fact that they were both cop shows that were on at the same time with the latter consistently getting the nod because of its realism as though this were the only criteria that matters when judging scripted television. The Shield is actually more of a sibling to Breaking Bad, since both shows are ultimately about choices and morality. The Shield takes this theme a step farther into the paradox at the heart of the question of free will.
Vic Mackey’s story starts at a different phase than Walter White’s, which is where the paradox begins. When the series begins, Mackey is already highly corrupt, and it’s more or less an open secret in the LAPD. He’s a walking excessive force complaint, he takes payouts from drug dealers and gang bangers, he plants evidence he needs, and is happy to beat a confession out of a suspect. He’s so bad, the LAPD has put an undercover Internal Affairs officer on the team, and in the pilot’s stunning twist, Vic murders this man — a cop — in cold blood. In essence, The Shield picks up at the moment in which Vic violates his last inviolate principle, and the next seven seasons are him dealing with the fallout of that act.
It doesn’t look like that at first blush, and especially not when watching the show once a week over the course of seven years, but that is the singular moment when Vic chooses to murder this man, that he consigns himself to hell. A hell of his own making. In fact, after the second season, Vic stops being actively corrupt. Oh, he’s still a brutal, racist asshole who cuts corners, but that makes him like, what 99% of the LAPD? He stops his most egregious sins, though he keeps committing crimes. Why? Because he’s trying to cover up what he already did. He’s already stuck in the spiral with no escape. This is the central paradox inherent in The Shield’s sophisticated understanding of morality. You can make the choice to do evil, as Vic (or Walter White) did, but after that initial choice, you’re trapped. You have to keep doing evil or you will suffer the consequences of your previous actions — death or imprisonment. In essence, the exercise of free will robs you of free will. It’s a fascinating story device and one that bears incredible, bitter, and incredibly bitter fruit throughout the show.
If Vic was a flat villain, he would make no sense, either realistically or more importantly, thematically. So it’s of vital importance to remember that his morality makes twisted sense in the first season. One of the cornerstones of his method of crime prevention is that he picks a single drug dealer and takes a cut of the man’s earnings. That guy can operate freely. Every other pusher gets the full force of the law. Vic’s a pragmatist in this case. He understands that he’s not going to eliminate drugs from the hood, but by creating a monopoly, he can drastically reduce violence and line his pockets in the process. As the show moves along, the team engages in more questionable activities, each one crossing a line that the others thought was inviolate. Because once you cross one line, the others become that much blurrier.
This line is first referenced by Shane Vendrell (Walton Goggins doing some of the best acting anywhere, let alone on TV), who was the only other team member fully complicit in the cop’s murder. He is shattered by the act, because there is no worse crime to a police officer than the murder of another police officer. Vic pushed Shane over that line, and as Shane’s character unravels over the course of seven years, it always comes back to that moment. Shane is what I call a golem — he is a character whose inner life has been shaped by another, but at the end, the creator cannot control his progeny. Shane spins out of control and it’s all Vic’s fault. As Shane leaves Vic’s close orbit and Ronnie enters it, we see Vic once again shaping a golem for his own purposes, and when Ronnie offers his chilling opinion on the murder of a fellow police officer, it’s clear Vic picked the wrong horse when he backed Shane.
The show finds Shane’s echo in the character of Dutch. He is presented as a socially awkward, arrogant, and a wee bit racist in that condescending way only middle-aged rich white people can be. At a couple points (including one moment that manages to be one of the most disturbing on the show) Dutch peers into the abyss and each time he recoils in horror, but the hint is that Dutch himself is a golem. Instead of Vic’s poisonous mentorship, he’s nurtured by Claudette, the show’s moral center. She turns Dutch into not just a better detective, but a better man, and keeps him from falling into the abyss that fascinates him.
During my rewatch, I indulged in some serious geekery by creating an alignment chart with different characters for each of the nine classic D&D alignments. It was fun assigning people, and yeah, it didn’t always work perfectly, but the surprising thing was how well it did work. I ended up with Claudette at Lawful Good and Vic at Chaotic Evil, and the show agreed somewhat when it cast the two of them as the two sides of justice. It’s tempting to talk more about this, but I’d like to avoid the worst spoilers if I can.
The amazing part is that I’ve rambled on and not even touched upon the canonization of St. Lem, the moral rise and fall of David Aceveda, what Billings represents (easy to see if you imagine him on The Wire), and the various uniformed cops. The Shield is an incredibly rich viewing experience and appears to be somewhat forgotten in the world of great television. And if none of this convinces you, two final points. The first is that I ranted about endings not long ago, and The Shield boasts the greatest one in history. The second is that Kurt Sutter, the showrunner of Sons of Anarchy cut his teeth as one of the main writers of The Shield, and the world of SAMCRO and the Barn are one and the same.
And in the interests of full disclosure, a good chunk of the series was shot within blocks of where I grew up.
Filed under: Projected Pixels and Emulsion Tagged: best show ever, cops, LAPD, Michael Chiklis, Rampart, Shawn Ryan, The Shield
November 8, 2013
Girls, Guns and G-Strings: Savage Beach
Pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?
Savage Beach (1989)
Cast: Dona Speir and Hope Marie Carlton are back as frequently-topless agents Donna and Taryn. Between Picasso Trigger and this one, they’ve both lost a significant amount of weight and it does not look good. This could be a mark of the the times, with the softer bodies in vogue in the mid-‘80s giving way to the more toned looks of the early ‘90s, or they both could have developed drug habits and eating disorders which were also in vogue in the early ‘90s.
John Aprea, who played Salazar a.k.a. the titular Picasso Trigger, returns as Captain Andreas.
Bruce Penhall makes his first of many appearances as Bruce Christian (he was Hondo in Picasso Trigger as well, and since I can’t for the life of me remember who the fuck Hondo was, this feels like a first appearance), a CIA agent who is blond. Yep, that’s his main character trait.
Sidaris favorite Rodrigo Obregon returns, this time playing Filipino revolutionary Martinez. He has the same Wile E. Coyote luck in this film as well.
Al Leong, who you remember as the evil Asian henchman in literally every awesome movie from the ‘80s plays Fu, an agent who… shit, I don’t even know.
And finally, we have this movie’s Abilene, Michael Shane, playing… wait for it… Shane Abilene! The movie seems bored with the whole idea of Abilenes, and Shane is only in a few scenes. And… wow. I don’t know if they found this guy in a head trauma ward, or if he’s totally fried his brain on anabolic cocaine, but his acting is truly incredible. He delivers every line like he’s reading it from a children’s book his overmatched mind can scarcely comprehend, and he hopes everyone around will explain it to him.
Playmate Quotient: Other than Speir and Carlton, Patty Duffek returns as Pattycakes, but it’s really not much more than a glorified cameo. Miss April 1986 Teri Weigel plays the hilarious Anjelica (more on her later). Weigel’s career path is a little odd, since she went from Playboy to schlock to hardcore porn. I’m not saying she made the right choice, but hey, it’s a living.
IMDB Plot Keywords: gold, bare chested male, cleavage, mini dress, no panties
IMDB User Lists Appearing On: Best of Girls With Guns Movies, My film database, My Grindhouse, DVD Collection, Films set in Hawaii
Synopsis: Sidaris movies have been marked with overly complex plots, but he kind of turned a corner with this one. The plot is relatively simple, but everyone’s motivations are murky as hell. Also, there seems to be a lot more nudity.
The plot hinges on a shipment of gold looted from the Philippines by the Japanese during World War II. A freak storm wrecked the ship carrying the gold, and it’s been assumed lost for forty years. Somehow, a bunch of people have found it, and there’s some hilariously byzantine spycraft floating around to sort of explain what’s going on. It’s probably easiest to explain by running the factions down. I’m pretty sure Sidaris was making this up on the day of shooting.
The United States government shows up in the form of Naval Officer Captain Andreas and CIA spook Bruce Christian. When they finally find the island, Andreas notes that the Japanese “picked one hell of a savage beach to crash on” and it’s awesome. There’s some needlessly complex stuff in the beginning when Christian replaces the Navy guy who’s supposed to be there, which I guess was to make us think he was evil? I don’t know. They want to get the gold back to the Philippine government…
…who is represented by Martinez. He, however, is also shady. He’s actually some kind of revolutionary, and he and his girlfriend Anjelica spend most of their scenes together indulging in a) softcore grinding and b) the kind of Communist ranting that only exists in the mind of Glenn Beck. Also, neither one of these people looks remotely filipino, leading me to believe Sidaris might not understand geography.
The Japanese government wants to return the gold, but their agents are immediately replaced with two guys (Al Leong and the wonderfully named Eric Chen) who turn out to be working for Anjelica and possibly Martinez. The best part is that Al Leong karate fights one of the real agents, played by James Lew. Lew was a Chang Sing in Big Trouble in Little China and, as you know, Leong was a Wing Kong in the same movie. If you don’t know what this means or how awesome it is, go watch Big Trouble in Little China and get back to me about how you wasted the ‘80s.
Then there’s The Warrior, this elderly feral Japanese soldier who’s been living on the island since the war. He will fucking kill your ass with a katana.
Donna and Taryn blunder into this hornet’s nest when, on a humanitarian aid mission to deliver medicine to sick kids, a storm forces them to crash land on this very island. Proving Sidaris’s commitment to all things mammary, there’s a scene where, no shit, both women take their tops off while flying an aircraft through a storm. Taryn previously had revealed a bit of her origin story that either her father or grandfather had disappeared during the war, and I’m sure that’s not going to come up or anything. Shane had also previously given them a ton of guns in a scene in which he communicated entirely in double-entendres that would have been cut from a porn movie for being too obvious.
Eventually, the various factions converge on the island. Periodically, they’re haunted by either piercing pan flute music (or randy saxophone solos during Martinez’s two upsetting sex scenes). I kept hoping that the cameraman would pan out to reveal Zamphir and Clarence Clemons trapped on the island too, but no such luck.
Anyway, there’s a huge battle over the gold. Donna and Taryn are quickly captured (by the Americans, which is just odd), but the Warrior frees them. He seems to have a connection with Taryn, and if you’re super slow and can’t work it out, don’t worry, the movie will go to a dark fucking place to explain later. Taryn blows up Martinez with an explosive arrow, Al Leong and his team are massacred, and the Warrior is killed, but not before revealing his origin story… and hoo boy. It’s like Sidaris turned the script over to Andrew Kevin Walker and was like, “hey, you wrote Se7en and 8mm, howzabout you add a scene to my titty movie!”
Three guys from the original Japanese shipwreck survived. They were chilling on the island when a lifeboat of Americans washed up onshore. Not ones to shirk their duty, the Japanese ruthlessly butchered the American soldiers. And we see it. The whole bloody mess. While he’s relentlessly stabbing a dude over and over, the Warrior looks into the soldier’s eyes (he and Taryn have the same eyes, see), and vowed “never to kill those eyes again.” He took a photograph from the guy of the guy and his wife and kid just in case he’d ever need to prove it or something. The other two Japanese guys, consumed with guilt, killed themselves, leaving the Warrior to hang out. Yeah. Sidaris basically trolled every kid jerking it to this movie and might have created one or two weird fetishes while he was at it.
Anyway, they do the wrap up, and of course Taryn has stolen some of the gold because she’s a fucking klepto.
Yakmala? Savage Beach, with its relatively serious subject matter and bizarre tonal shift, almost seems like Sidaris groping for respectability. You can’t have a lighthearted movie that essentially is only a boob vector, and then turn it into a deep meditation on the nature of guilt. On that level, it might actually qualify.
Filed under: Puffery Tagged: Andy Sidaris, bizarre tonal shifts, boobs, dona speir, G-Strings, Girls, guns, hope marie carlton, Savage Beach
November 3, 2013
Chatting with Sherri
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/rithebar...
