GrandpaBunche Reviews

High-Kick Girl! (2009)

A welcome throwback to the golden age of straight-up karate movies.

[9/10 · 25 March 2010]

After the gravely disappointing CHOCOLATE (which disappointed to a dull script and some of the most mechanical fight choreography on record) comes this film featuring a schoolgirl named Kei Tsuchida (Rina Takeda) whose martial skills far outstrip her deeper understanding of the art she's learning. The basic gist of the story is that the girl in question, though only a brown belt, can throw down against karateka of higher rank and smash the living crap out of them in process. Seeking to prove how "strong" she is, the girl "hunts black belts" by going from dojo to dojo and challenging the top fighters, utterly decimating all her opponents. This practice does not sit well with her old school sensei (Tatsuya Naka), who advises her that what she is learning is strictly for self-defense and urges her to change her ways. Ignoring her sensei's guidance, Tsuchida accepts an invitation to join The Destroyers, a group of martial arts badasses from various disciplines, who use their skills as thugs and enforcers for underworld interests. Once she passes their brutal "entrance exam," Tsuchida discovers she's stepped into more than she bargained for when the leader of the gang is revealed to have held a major grudge against her sensei for fifteen years and she is now the bait to lure him to a long-delayed confrontation...

HIGH KICK GIRL's martial arts are stunning and what deficiencies may exist in some of the acting are more than made up for by the electrifying choreography. Takeda is nothing short of amazing in her role, looking like a Japanese Paris Hilton and exuding just the right amount of bullying arrogance when handing out butt-kickings. The film is briskly paced and never boring, and speaking as a longtime martial artist, I recommend this to anyone who has daughters with an interest in practicing. Takeda is a hero guaranteed to pique the interest of girls and young women, offering a refreshing alternative to the cynical marketing scam that is the Disney Princesses. She starts off as a smug, bullying jerk and learns some serious attitude-adjusting and humbling lessons by the end of the story, so there's more to this than just endless fight scene after endless fight scene (unlike CHOCOLATE). The film is also notable for featuring none of the graphic/sadistic gore and violence one might expect from this, and there's also no cursing, nudity or fetishistic fan service that usually goes along with a Japanese flick whose protagonist is seen in a schoolgirl's uniform for most of the running time. If this were given an MPAA rating, I could see this getting by with a PG-13 at worst, and that solely because it contains wall-to-wall fights, but if we lived in the more permissive era before 1995, I bet this would get a PG. In summation, HIGH KICK GIRL is a tougher-than-usual film for kids that solidly entertains from start to finish and maintains a very moral standard throughout. If all the viewer wants is quality ass-kicking, that's certainly to be had here, but the resolution of the character's arc comes as the satisfying icing on a tasty budo cake. And when watching the DVD, don't miss out on the two extra features focusing on Takeda and Naka's skills and their training for the film's fight sequences. There's also a standard "making of" featurette that, like the other extras, is untranslated, but in the case of the features on Takeda and Naka their physical acumen speaks for itself and delights the eye. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010)

Ignore the haters!

[9/10 · 16 February 2010]

With the success of Harry Potter, it was inevitable that more family-friendly fantasy series would come into being and several have come and gone, but Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson books have won acclaim from critics and readers, and now the first film adaptation has hit. I'll cut straight to the chase and tell you that I went into PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF having never read the books, but after what I got when I saw the movie, you can bet your sweet tuchas that I'll be reading them as soon as possible.

As anyone who's ever read Greek mythology can tell you, the Greek gods were a randy lot who spent a lot of time lusting after and seducing mortal women (or, more honestly, raping them, if you read the less-family-friendly recountings of the stories), and the fruits of those unions often became great heroes who slew horrifying monsters. That was back in the days of yore, but now it's the 2000's and the gods are still up to their priapic ways. Young Percy Jackson (the very good Logan Lerman) discovers the hard way that he is the result of his mother's passionate relationship with Poseidon, god of the oceans, and in no time his mundane world of high school angst gives way to potentially deadly confrontations with deities and monsters straight out of Edith Hamilton. Y'see, Percy unwittingly finds himself the chief suspect in the theft of Zeus' thunderbolt, and if it is not returned within a certain period of time, the "Big Three" of the Olympian pantheon, specifically Zeus, Poseidon and Hades, will go to war for supremacy, a conflict that would lay waste to most of the world. So it's a race against time for poor Percy, who must save his mom, the world and his own ass, all while discovering the awesome details and perks of his hitherto unknown birthright. Luckily for him, he's far from the only mythic being or demi-god to be found in the Tri-State area, and aided by his best friend, the "handicapped" Grover (Brandon T. Jackson), and the beautiful and highly-skilled warrior Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario, certain to become a hero to little girls everywhere), Percy embarks on a quest to plead his innocence to the lord of the Underworld and free his kidnapped mother in the process. The way is fraught with danger (that may be a tad too scary for the under-eights) and loaded to the gills with monsters and situations that are sure to delight the mythology-cognisant, all of which adds up to give the audience a rousing, compelling equivalent to a modern day Ray Harryhausen film, and that's a compliment that I do not hand out lightly. It hits all the right mythic notes and that just makes me feel good all over. And how can you not love Uma Thurman as Medusa? I mean, seriously, that rocks! To be blunt: I loved every second of PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS: THE LIGHTNING THIEF and intend to see it again as soon as possible. Oh, and don't walk out when the end credits start to roll...

The Wolfman (2010)

Wait for cable.

[4/10 · 16 February 2010]

This latest entry into the werewolf genre offers little more than a particularly stodgy, sumptuously-shot MASTERPIECE THEATER installment that happens to have werewolves and gory graphic violence (which was easily the best thing about the film). That's all you really need to know, especially if you're familiar with the basic plot of the 1941 original. I won't bother with a recap of the story, except to say that it's the standard tragic werewolf yarn, tarted up with CGI, so here are the pertinent points, both good and bad:

* IT'S DULL. The film has a look and feel that simply screams "period piece" and makes you wonder when the PBS pledge break is going to interrupt the proceedings. The pacing for the first half is turgid and the movie does not come to life until the protagonist visits a gypsy camp in search of answers. The only times the film really kicks into any kind of gear is when the werewolf does his thing, which amounts to a total of less than fifteen minutes.

* IT ISN'T SCARY. When a horror film doesn't provide either suspense or scares, there's a problem.

* ANTHONY HOPKINS PHONES IT IN. The former Hannibal Lecter practically sleepwalks through his performance and even shifts to a completely different accent at one point, eliciting giggles from the matinée crowd. He quite obviously was only there for the paycheck.

* BENICIO DEL TORO IS SYMPATHETIC, BUT KINDA OUT OF IT. As Lawrence Talbot, Del Toro affects the same hangdog demeanor as Lon Chaney Jr. did in the original and we do care about him to an extent, but what is meant to convey tragic intensity instead comes off as being whacked-out on Quaaludes.

* IT'S ALL ABOUT "DADDY ISSUES." The whole film is more about Talbot's deep and well-founded issues with his father than anything else, and once we've twigged to that the story enters allegorical "After-School Special" territory.

* WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO RICK BAKER? Makeup groundbreaker Rick Baker heads the makeup team and comes up with werewolf suits that, while well-crafted, bear a striking resemblance to high-end Halloween costumes. Considering his past dabblings into the lupine, I expected a whole lot better in terms of realism, but I did like the designs.

* AN ANNOYING OVER-RELIANCE ON CGI. As I feared, the CGI effects tend to overwhelm the practical effects and they are painfully obvious to spot. The worst offenders are a digitally-rendered bear and stag that look wholly unnatural to anyone who's ever seen a nature special.

* DANNY ELFMAN MUST BE STOPPED. The former genius of Oingo Boingo returns with yet anther of his many sound-alike scores. Enough with this guy, already!

* IT'S RATED "R" FOR A REASON. In this wimped-out movie climate, it's good to receive a horror film that gives us monster scenes replete with stuff that would never fly in a PG-13 flick.

* THE SCENES OF WEREWOLF VIOLENCE ARE EXCELLENT. Any time there's a werewolf on screen engaging in anti-social activity, the film is worth sitting through. The sequences in the gypsy camp and the London asylum will go down as classics and there is plenty of gore on hand. I'd read that this was a troubled production and that Rick Baker was called in to add more "goodies" to the mix, so I can't imagine what this film would have been like without its high level of blood, guts and savage decapitations.

* THE FEMALE LEAD SERVES VIRTUALLY NO PURPOSE TO THE NARRATIVE. Emily Blunt's role is one of the most thankless in recent memory and her character would have been totally unnecessary if the plot did not require her to fall in love with the cursed protagonist.

* IT'S LEFT WIDE-OPEN FOR A SEQUEL. This was totally expected, but after the rest of the film I could not care less if a sequel comes to pass.

So what we have here is a pretty-to-look-at lycanthropic costume drama with some decent gore/violence and zero scares. The audience I saw it with was quite obviously not satisfied with what they got, and for the first time since I cannot remember when, over half of the audience had gotten up and walked out before the final reel. Seriously, people just got up and walked out in droves. With that in mind, I strongly advise you to wait for cable or give it a miss entirely, unless you are a die-hard werewolf groupie like me. And even as a sworn, lifelong werewolf supporter, I doubt I'll be sitting through this one again. Stick with the 1941 original, and you won't go wrong.

The Country Bears (2002)

All you need to know about this one...

[1/10 · 6 January 2010]

..is that it contains the indelible sight of Christopher Walken performing "The 1812 Overture" via armpit farts — yes, you read that right — for a captive audience of bipedal, talking redneck bears. And Walken is joined in this bit of lysergic lunacy by no less than Elton John, Bonnie Raitt, Alex Rocco, Willie Nelson (!!!) Wyclef jean and Brian Setzer, so it's simply got one brain-trampling moment after another. Yeah, I know it's a kid's film, but what kids were clamoring to see this? Was it made as a tax write-off? But even with those burning questions in mind, it's certainly a truly bad movie, but I sat through it in a state of greatly amused slack-jawed disbelief, so I say see it. Preferably girded with a couple of sixers of beer.

Deadgirl (2008)

Talk about "digging up a date..."

[8/10 · 29 September 2009]

Initially wearing its indie/art-house origins on its sleeve and getting off to a slightly slow start, DEADGIRL is the story of two high school-age friends, Rickie (Shiloh Fernandez) and JT (Noah Segan), both awkward losers, who, while ditching school, go to the local long-abandoned mental institution to drink warm beers and commit vandalism, and in its deepest tunnels they discover a beautiful naked woman (Jenny Spain), covered in plastic and chained to a medical gurney. The boys soon realize that the woman is undead (with no explanation given) and it's a good bet that no one knows she's there, so JT suggests they use the animate, bound corpse as their personal sex slave. Conflicted but definitely not down with that plan, sensitive Rickie urges his friend to leave with him, but JT is a horny adolescent whose urges far outweigh any sense of morality or common decency (or sanity, for that matter), and he knows a good thing when he sees one. They have a falling out and from that point it's clear that their friendship will never be the same, but they agree to keep the dead girl their little secret. But since when were teenagers any good at keeping secrets? Once the dead girl is no longer a commodity known solely to the two friends, things escalate into incredibly warped territory and offers up what may be the most disturbing coming of age story yet committed to celluloid.

Despite its obvious horrific elements, DEADGIRL is at its heart a realistic drama about the fears and disillusionment of adolescence, to say nothing of shedding light on the darker aspects of the young male psyche and how it can run rampant without supervision or guidance, providing a telling allegory about how some young men are raised to view and treat women. Rickie's unrequited love for JoAnn (Candice Accola) is a heartbreaking plot point as he hopelessly pines for her, a wholesome and pretty girl who was his sweetheart during pre-pubescence but now won't give him the time of day and dates a vicious jock. So on the one hand we have sleazy JT getting his hump on with a zombie that's basically a piece of meat, while on the other we have Rickie's exercise in romantic/emotional futility, and while those paths lead to a descent into grisly madness, the film is a strong examination of the agonizing teen years of the heterosexual male human condition. It's all about the having of power or the complete lack thereof, and believe me when I say that it rings all too true.

Sick, dark, twisted, and highly morally questionable though it may be, DEADGIRL is an excellent piece of not-afraid-to-go-there cinema, and comes from out of nowhere to stand right next to the original DAWN OF THE DEAD as my favorite zombie movie. Not for all tastes and definitely not a date movie, this one is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Wandering Ginza Butterfly (1972)

A failed combination "weepie"/yakuza flick.

[3/10 · 12 June 2009]

Meiko Kaji has been great in a number of films, but even she can't save this film from an uninspired script and wholly lackluster direction. The story is a combination of a womens' "weepie" about the protagonist's trials and tribulations after serving a three-year prison hitch, and though the DVDs packaging would lead one to believe it's an action-packed story about a yakuza chick who's very handy with a sword, there is no action whatsoever until the last ten minutes or so, and what little we get is just not worth the uninvolving buildup. I love Japanese cinema and have endured far worse than WANDERING GINZA BUTTERFLY, but its overwhelming mediocrity dooms it to the "I have better things to do than watch this" category. Skip this and check out Kaji in the vastly superior LADY SNOWBLOOD. You won't be disappointed by that one!

Tropic Thunder (2008)

Very funny, and just hand Robert Downey Jr, the Oscar right now!

[8/10 · 14 August 2008]

I'd like to take a moment to suggest the Academy nominate Robert Downey Jr. for Best Actor. Seriously, his performance in TROPIC THUNDER was a comedic masterpiece that deserves recognition and the film wouldn't have been half as fun without him. Oh, wait. Maybe I should review the movie! TROPIC THUNDER is ostensibly a satire of the rampaging excesses of Hollywood and focuses on the making of war movie being shot in Viet Nam that's hampered by a newbie director and its borderline insane lead actors. When the director admits to the film's tyrannical producer that he's lost control of the production, he's advised in very profane terms that the only way to deal with out-of-line actors is to get mean, so, spurred on by a suggestion from the 'Nam vet author of the memoir the film's based on, the director drops the film's five principals off in Myanmar and tells them he's going to shoot a down-and-dirty, semi-improvised bit of footage that'll get the actors back on track putting them to the test in the rough, with minimal crew and supervision. And then the doo-doo hits the fan in all manner of ways, several of which are potentially fatal to all involved.

That's really all I can say without giving away the comedic surprises — you'll note I've taken pains not to discuss most of the cast; you'll discover it all for yourself — but I will say that what starts out as a "Eff you" to Hollywood turns into more or less a straight-up action-comedy about halfway through the movie, and while it's still quite funny its shift in tone and focus is somewhat strange. But that's not much of an issues when you have Ben Stiller as a clueless action star, Jack Black as a manic and unwillingly detoxing comedy star, and a host of others willing to look and act like complete and total morons and assholes, with Downey's balls-out nutjob Australian uber-thesp who's so "method" that he get his skin surgically darkened in order to portray a black character.

Affecting a "ghetto" accent and rocking a theoretically-scary-to-white-folks facial intensity, Downey's a total pisser from start to finish and I have to applaud him for taking a role that if mishandled could have resulted in him being torn limb from limb by irate black people whenever he set foot out of his house. I swear I haven't laughed at anything so hard in a long time and it should be made clear that this is not a blackface role, but is actually a study of a guy who's completely insane and won't drop character — he states that he's there to make a movie and won't go out of character until he records the DVD commentary — even when the plot takes a scary and incredibly dangerous turn.

TROPIC THUNDER is by no means perfect, but it is funny and it gains points for Downey and Ben Stiller's jaw-droppingly un-PC nod to nauseating and offensive allegedly star-making performances that involve actors portraying the mentally handicapped. You've probably heard about the controversy over the film's allegedly insensitive usage of the words "retard" and "retarded" and the protests over its supposed hurtful and mocking intent, but it's quite apparent that the protesters have not seen the film and are aware of the use of the derogatory verbiage out of context. As used in the movie, the offending terms come from the mouths of people we're clearly supposed to see as clueless, self-absorbed egomaniacal assholes, and the way they use the words paints the users of the terms in a highly unflattering light; the film does not mock the mentally handicapped, but it does mock the insensitive Hollywood jerkoffs who exploit them in order to garner critical kudos by turning in "sensitive" and "heartwarming" performances in movies like THE OTHER SISTER, RADIO and I AM SAM.

So take my word for it and check this one out in the theater. Just make sure you don't miss the coming attraction reels (HINT, HINT).

Starship Troopers 3: Marauder (2008 Video)

Far better than expected, but it still came off like a TV episode.

[7/10 · 11 August 2008]

This direct-to-DVD sequel came as a bit of a surprise to me insomuch that it managed to channel some of the spirit of the original film and maintain the anti-military satirical aspect. Casper Van Dein returns as Johnny Rico — looking almost exactly as he did eleven years ago — but he's the sole returning cast member and the new story is crammed to the rafters with yet more pretty, vapid and disposable cannon fodder, returning the viewer to what amounts to "90210 meets interstellar conflict." The effects are a marked step down from the original, but that's to be expected in any sequel, especially one that isn't made for theatrical release, and keeping that in mind the effects on display here do the job well enough. The odd thing though is that the finished product feels like a random episode in a STARSHIP TROOPERS television series, a feeling perhaps bolstered by the presence of ENTERPRISE's former-T'Pol, Jolene Blaylock, and that's by no means a complaint. Her role as captain Lola Beck is a lot of fun and she proves to be every bit as tough as Johnny Rico, something that proves invaluable when she and some assorted members of her crew are marooned on a hostile world after her starship is blown out of orbit and they must make it to a possible rescue site while staying ahead of hordes of murderous bugs. In fact, I would have been perfectly happy if the film hadn't bothered with Johnny Rico's (intentional) one-dimensionality and had given the spotlight over to Captain Beck, something I hope they do should this be successful enough to warrant a sequel.

The only place where the film overreaches itself is in its criticism of religion, especially faith bolstered or found under fire; it's heavy-handed to an eye-rolling degree and is clearly a swipe at Dubya's ruinous administration, especially when the Federation newsfeed informs us that "faith is okay, peace is not," or something to that effect. But, whatever. This is a perfectly enjoyable way to fill an hour and a half, and I welcome further installments if they're half as entertaining.

Red (2008)

Despite a few tweaks here and there, this was very faithful to the source novel and is definitely worth your time.

[8/10 · 11 August 2008]

After seeing the trailer for this a few weeks ago, I decided to read the source novel before going to the movie. Jack Ketchum's novel is a pretty taught thriller that stays very realistic in telling its tale of an old man's increasingly frustrating attempts to get justice for his senselessly murdered pooch, but the book does feature a gratuitous romantic entanglement and a final chapter that could have been completely excised with no loss of the story's narrative power; the final chapter goes on after the real climax to the story and is in fact more of an epilogue than a proper ending, but it unnecessarily gives the reader an all-too-tidy three-way happy ending with an incongruous bit of tragedy thrown in for good (?) measure. Thankfully the novel's problems were carefully considered and left out of the film, even to the point of losing or consolidating some of the minor characters with no harm done to the overall story.

This is a textbook example of exactly how to handle a novel-to-screen adaptation, and I'd wager that author Jack Ketchum is more than pleased with the translation. Brian Cox — always a consummate actor — turns in one of his best performances, and the whole cast is equally game, especially two of the boys involved in the attempted robbery and pet-slaying. And for those expecting a seventies-style vengeance flick filled with wall-to-wall guns-a-blazin', I'd advise you to check your expectations at the door. The pursuit of justice follows very legal steps until it's apparent that such an approach won't amount to anything, but even when it gets rough the story stays completely believable. One of the year's best films, and that's no lie.

Bury Me an Angel (1971)

Only If You Have Nothing Better To Do

[3/10 · 20 June 2008]

Despite its much-discussed feminist slant, this film is a slow-moving, amateurishly-made bore whose trailer is all you need to see of it. Nearly everything worth watching in the full-length movie is found in the trailer, and its punctuated by some of the most hilariously overripe narration in history. BURY ME AN ANGEL sucks out loud, but I give it a 3 out of 10 solely for its idiotic and horrendously-staged bar fight that's less exciting that watching two eight-week-old kittens slapping each other around with their paws. That fight may be pitiful, but it inspires a certain awe when one considers the balls it took to put something so pathetic onto the screen and actually expect people to shell out good money to see it. And let us not forget the incredible turn by star Dixie Peabody; her loony expressions and acting when she gets crazy while reminiscing about her murdered brother are amazing in a way that calls to mind a fusion of Edy Williams and Susan George at their most over-the-top.

Fist of the North Star: The Legend of Toki (2008 Video)

Latest Fist of the North Star Chapter Gives Fans the Finger

[4/10 · 16 June 2008]

The latest of the rebooted FIST OF THE NORTH STAR series has hit, and I have to ask just what the hell do the makers of this series think they're doing. As Elvis Presley once said, "A little less conversation, a little more action," words the filmmakers would have been wise to heed, as this short feature could use a heavy dose of the martial arts violence that made this series a classic over twenty years ago. Much like the majority of the Japanese franchise reboots, this current FIST OF THE NORTH STAR installment is a wimpy and somewhat turgid shadow of its former self, sort of like a once-badassed junkyard dog that has grown fat and lethargic after having its nads cut off and dumped into the veterinarian's trash bin.

This chapter in the continuing retelling of the Hokuto Shinken brothers and their struggle for succession in their fighting art deals with the final confrontation between ambitious, malevolent Raoh and the gentle, pacifistic kung fu Jesus that is Toki, a classic segment in both the original manga and the 1980's television anime series that was rich with characterization, poignant back story, and an unavoidable, tragic showdown between polar opposites who love and respect one another, but only one can survive. It was great stuff back in the days, but this new series reads like a haphazardly abridged version of the famed warrior epic, skipping huge chunks of characterization and plot, even eliminating some of the most action-packed parts of the whole series; Kenshiro's storming of Cassandra Fortress to rescue the imprisoned Toki was the stuff of superhero legend when originally seen, a segment that occupied nearly a whole volume when collected in a paperback volume, and here it's given barely three minutes of screen time and manages to completely eliminate the presence of Mamiya, Raiga, Fuga, and, most egregiously, Rei (if you follow this stuff, you know this is like excluding all of the characters in the original STAR WARS except for Luke, in other words it just doesn't work). Even Toki's cosmic decimation of his would-be assassins comes off as lukewarm (though it is nicely rendered).

And, in an effort to make up for the original run's famous lack of female characters, there's a new character, Sarah, a doctor who accompanies Toki as he wanders the post-apocalyptic wasteland healing the sick. Sarah quite literally adds nothing to the story since she's barely introduced before she trots off into the wastes with kung fu Jesus and we know nothing about her other than that he's a physician who was hanging around the Hokuto Shinken temple for no particular reason.

When we do get to the Toki/Raoh set-to, it's rather uninteresting since the digest version of the story completely robs the sequence of its tragedy, giving us nothing more than two Hulked-out dudes droning on and on about destiny while they blurrily hack and slash at each other. And if you're a Kenshiro fan, there's no reason for you to see this film because Ken's one sequence of fighting has been reduced to virtually nothing, and he can't get involved in Toki and Raoh's business because it's for them to hash out on their own.

So while well-crafted, SHIN KYUSEISHU DENSETSU HOKUTO NO KEN- TOKI DEN is rather lackluster on its own merits, and will be a major disappointment for old school NORTH STAR diehards while simultaneously causing newbies to wonder just what the hell the big deal was when this series was in its heyday.

Kung Fu Panda (2008)

Terrific Kung Fu Epic For the Whole Family

[8/10 · 16 June 2008]

After churning out mostly mediocre or rubbish animated films for years (SHARK TALE, the SHREK sequels, MADAGASCAR, BEE MOVIE), Dreamworks finally manages to release a piece that gets everything right from start to finish. It's apparent from the film's opening frame that a lot of care and thought went into the making of the delightful KUNG FU PANDA, and while the story is certainly nothing new — especially to those of us who live and breathe martial arts flicks — , it tells a familiar tale with a great deal of heart, enthusiasm, and respect for the viewer's intelligence while completely eschewing the anachronistic and largely inappropriate pop culture jokes that worked in the first SHREK and nowhere else since.

Po (voiced by Jack Black) is the fat son of a noodle chef who, though being groomed to take over the family business, has dreams of one day becoming a great kung fu master and hero of the people, but while quite game and enthusiast, he's lazy, clumsy, and has no skills whatsoever. The unlikely wannabe gets his shot at glory when the prophesied escape of the villainous and incredibly skilled Tai Lung (DEADWOOD's Ian McShane) looms imminent and a martial arts master must be named as the sacred Dragon Warrior in order to handle the threat. Po, quite by accident, finds himself awarded the vaunted title, much to the horror and dismay of the diminutive Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) and his balls-out badassed students, the Furious Five, each representing an embodiment of a classical animal-based kung fu style (specifically tiger, mantis, crane, snake, and monkey). All are dumbfounded that a fat load like Po could be the Dragon Warrior and all are at first determined to make sure that he gives up and leaves the temple, but they didn't expect Po's genuine love of what they do to fuel him to give it his best shot. While he's pretty much a washout, Po's girth and enjoyment of his training work to his advantage, and Master Shifu figures out just how to motivate his unwanted new student to greatness, all while his adopted daughter, Master Tigress (Angelina Jolie), seethes at the role that should have gone to her is usurped by one she feels is unworthy. As Tai Lung approaches and Po leaves the temple to accompany his father as the local villagers evacuate before the coming martial apocalypse, the Furious Five advance to stop him, but are unceremoniously handed their asses in a butt-kicking of painfully disheartening proportions. When Master Shifu, no slouch himself, proves unable to defeat Tai Lung — who, by the way, is also his adoptive child, one in whom he is deeply disappointed because he turned to evil — , Po returns to save the day after reaching a philosophical epiphany unwittingly provided by his noodle chef dad, providing the ages-old lesson of "believe in yourself, and you can achieve miracles" for a new generation of movie-going little ones.

I would have had a great time with KUNG FU PANDA even had I not been a devotee to the martial arts, so I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys a fun "hero's journey" or training film (a la the Shaw Brothers classic MASTER KILLER), as well as advising lovers of quality animation to see this on the big screen in order to get the full effect of its visual grandeur. As for the individual points of note:

* The one element of the film that I feared would make or break the film turned out to be quite praiseworthy, namely Jack Black's voice acting. I loved Black in the excellent SCHOOL OF ROCK, but find him mostly annoying in just about everything else he's been in because his approach to comedy often strikes me like he's both trying too hard and is attempting to convince everyone watching that he's as funny as he thinks he is. This time, though, he gives a genuine performance that is full of heart and charm, and the viewer definitely comes to love and root for his character.

* Dustin Hoffman was the last person I would have expected to be able to pull of playing that mainstay of kung fu movies, the seasoned master, but he's absolutely perfect as Shifu, a character whose triumphant martial abilities are reflected in Tai Lung's misuse of his teachings, and Master Tigress' feelings of resentment at being passed over as the Dragon Warrior. Shifu conveys as weary exasperation and sadness seldom seen in a character of this type, and I find him much more interesting than many of the master types found in the literally hundreds of martial arts films that I've seen. He's no Simon Yeung, or even Keye Luke for that matter, but he's nonetheless terrific.

* And speaking of terrific master types, Randall Duk Kim's ancient Master Oogway is the finest of this breed since Yoda first showed up in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980), before his mystery and wonder were permanently flushed down the toilet in the cinematic Montezuma's Revenge that was STAR WARS: EPISODES I-III. This centered, contemplative figure is a tortoise who's every slow movement conveys both his advanced age and now effortless mastery of his art, as well as his wisdom and connection with the natural world around him. He's even Shifu's master, and Shifu defers to his decree when Oogway pronounces Po to be the Dragon Warrior; Shifu has his doubts about that, but in the end Oogway is proved right beyond the shadow of a doubt. Truly beautiful in every way, I wish Oogway had more screen time.

So don't wait for KUNG FU PANDA to hit DVD or cable. Go see its plethora of visual storytelling wonders on the big screen as it was intended, and I highly doubt you'll be disappointed.

Deadlier Than the Male (1967)

A terrific 007 knockoff that should have been part if the actual Bond series

[9/10 · 6 June 2008]

Back in the 1960's when the world went nuts over the exploits of James Bond, filmmakers all over the globe flew into action and released a slew of imitators in hope of cashing in on the secret agent zeitgeist. There were seemingly hundreds of Bond imitators unleashed upon an innocent movie-going public and the majority of them sucked out loud, being cloyingly and unfunnily campy at best or downright boring at their worst — the Derek Flint movies, OUR MAN FLINT (1966) and IN LIKE FLINT (1967) being among the best of the lot — so finding a gem amongst that misbegotten subgenre, the so-called "spy spoofs," is a rare occurrence. DEADLIER THAN THE MALE isn't just a rare gem, it's an downright treasure of the genre and it came from out of nowhere to make my list of all-time favorite espionage thrillers.

Top oil company executives have been dropping like flies, horribly and creatively done in by a pair of mouth-watering assassins: cold, Teutonic Imma (Elke Sommer) and sunny-but-sadistic nympho/kleptomaniac Penelope (Sylva Koscina). As the body count rises, British secret agent Bulldog Drummond (Richard Johnson, a good ringer for Sean Connery) is called in to investigate and must figure out who the murderesses are and, more importantly, why they're on a killing spree, resulting in Drummond's efforts placing him and his randy nephew, Robert (Steve Carlson), square in the killers' sights. To say any more would give away much of this thoroughly entertaining adventure, so I'll shut up right here and now. Just take my word for it that if you're a fan of Bondish thrills, an enthusiast for "chicks who kick ass" movies, or even a casual observer, you won't go wrong by seeking this one out.

DEADLIER THAN THE MALE shamelessly set out to ape what made the earlier Bond films so much fun and possesses all of the elements that we've come to expect from the 007 series, so much so that one could have easily taken an unproduced Bond script, crossed out the words "James Bond," replaced them with "Bulldog Drummond," and no one would have been any the wiser save for noticing Richard Johnson (heh, "Dick Johnson") filling in for Sean Connery. No lie, it's got everything you need to make a decent James Bond flick:

* An interesting plot that takes the hero on a globe-trotting adventure.

* Hot chicks, this time being much more clever than just about any Bond Girl you can name.

* A cool car; Drummond drives a Rolls and puts it to brutal offensive use.

* A memorable title song, sung here by the Walker Brothers, the guys who performed the 1966 #1 chart-topper "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore."

* The hard-to-achieve spot-on balance of thrills and humor; the laughs here are genuine and played totally straight, with Sylva Koscina's kooky and homicidal Penelope stealing the film.

* A cool/weird lair for the chief baddie.

* Kickass fights; the ass-whuppin' found here is better than anything found in the entire 007 series, with the exceptions of FROM Russia WITH LOVE (1963), ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (1969), AND CASINO ROYALE (2006).

* No over-the-top gadgets that allow the hero to win without really trying, in other words technological superpowers.

* Kinky torture.

In short, it's all good and I had a big, satisfied smile on my face when the film ended.

Other than stumbling across it and reading many reviews touting how good it was, DEADLIER THAN THE MALE further piqued my interest with the presence of Elke Sommer, one of the rare Aryan types who gets me going. Her beauty was compounded by a genuine sense of humor and great comedic chops as proved in A SHOT IN THE DARK (1963), the second and best of the Inspector Clouseau comedies, and she turned up frequently in sixties flicks that required a hot piece of Eurotrash who could actually act, perhaps most notoriously in the howlingly-bad must-see all-star disaster THE Oscar (1966). And as if Elke wasn't enough to get my attention, she's aided by Sylva Koscina, a Croatian cutie probably best known to film goons as Iole in the Steve Reeves peplum classics HERCULES (1958) and HERCULES UNCHAINED (1960), a character I've carried a torch for since I was but a kid.

Unlike most of the legion of Bond clones, this one delivers in spades, even as the actual series began to suffer under its perceived need to outdo itself, becoming an excessive self-parody by virtue of sacrificing the plot in favor of spectacle and gadgets while the scripts became more ludicrously fantastic and convoluted. I'd even go so far as to say that DEADLIER THAN THE MALE is actually a hell of a lot better than the two Connery Bond films that came out right before and after its release, namely THUNDERBALL (1965), a slow-moving bloatfest worth seeing mostly for a great villain, and YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (1967), the first of the insanely over-the-top Bonds that blends spaceships, assault helicopter fights, offensively stereotypical western male fantasies about Japanese women, and — I kid you not — ninjas to form what amounts to a listless travelogue with would-be clever dialog. In every way, DEADLIER THAN THE MALE is the Bond film that should have been a part of the series rather than those two lackluster entries, both of which used to hold a fond place in my younger Bond fan's heart, but now stand revealed in my eyes as nothing more than examples of a franchise operating on autopilot and following the theory of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Why sit through either those for the umpteenth time when you can add this overlooked classic to your Netflix queue?

Macon County Line (1974)

Overrated hicksploitation "classic"

[3/10 · 5 June 2008]

After having heard about how great MACON COUNTY LINE is and how it's one of the undisputed classics of the 1970's drive-in/"hicksploitation" genre, I finally saw it for myself and was quite surprised by a few things. When taken at face value, MACON COUNTY LINE reads like a tense, suspenseful cautionary tale about being in absolutely the wrong place at absolutely the wrong time, but the actual film comes up lacking for a number of reasons:

1. The movie clocks in at 88 minutes and the actual conflict between the sheriff and the innocent travelers doesn't actually occur until roughly the last twenty minutes, by which time I had checked my watch more than once. And when it finally does go down, there's no chase since the trio's car has broken down; the trio holes up in an empty houseboat, so they're stuck there waiting for the sheriff to pick them off.

2. There were several times when I found myself wondering if the movie even had an editor; during the film's 88 minutes, much of the running time is spent on endless sequences meant to drive home a feeling of local color but those segments just drag on interminably, and the attempts at humor simply lay there like a dead raccoon. Except for the bit with the barking whore.

3. The heroes' mischievous nature is meant to be endearing, but their boorish and potentially dangerous behavior toward others was off-putting. The only reason I sympathized with them at all during the sheriff's crazed meltdown was because I knew they were innocent of the crime, and while they deserved some sort of comeuppance for their earlier transgressions, they certainly didn't warrant cold-blooded execution at the hands of Jethro Beaudine.

4. The wholly gratuitous sex scene between Chris and Jenny brings the movie to a complete halt and does nothing whatsoever to advance the plot, offering a small helping of the nudity that was more or less mandatory for exploitation fare of the period. You simply will not care when the sequence begins, and may even fast-forward through it like I did.

5. While we come to know and like the Dixon brothers as a kind of lower-rent Duke Boys (only minus the bows-and-arrows and the General Lee), Jenny is a cipher of a character who's there only so there can be a female among the heroes, and a female that you just know will eventually get naked for reasons previously discussed. I found her utterly superfluous to the story and genuinely feel the film would have benefited immensely from her total non-inclusion; the only suspense that Jenny's presence could have generated would have been the possibility of her getting raped by the crazed sheriff, but while he was crazed over the death of his wife, he wasn't that crazy. That particular female element in hicksploitation would later be famously immortalized in the far superior JACKSON COUNTY JAIL (1976).

But while I found MACON COUNTY LINE to be a vastly overrated disappointment, I was intrigued by Max Baer, Jr's portrayal of Sheriff Morgan. In sequences not dealing with his harassment of the innocent trio, Morgan is seen as a devoted family man who has a friendly rapport with the citizens of his town, and longs for nothing more than to spend quality time with his son. Far from the psycho cop he's often described as, Morgan is all too understandably human, control freak flaws and all, and I found it impossible to hate the guy, even when it's revealed that he'd rather his son not associate with the black kids who play basketball across the street from the military school; Morgan's racism comes across not as the stereotypical burning hatred usually found in a southern-fried exploitation flick, but rather as the result of being a product of his time, culture, and the accepted status quo. His explanation of his views on the subject to his son is more segregationist than flagrant "lynch them g-damned n****rs" bigotry, and considering the tropes common to this genre that comes as a surprise since exploitation filmmakers certainly never had any problem with creating outright, mustache-twirling villains of the vilest order; the quintessential example of a balls-out psychotic racist asshole villain would undoubtedly be William Sanderson's incredible Jesse Lee Kane in FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE (1977), and when compared to him Sheriff Morgan is certainly no villain. A hardassed control freak driven to violence by irrational grief, yes, but a villain per se? I don't think so.

There's been a lot of misleading stuff written about MACON COUNTY LINE over the years that paints the film as considerably more than it is, and as a curious student of the grindhouse/drive-in genre you may be intrigued by its rep, but bear in mind that much of its legend may be heavily colored by fond nostalgia, and that's why the ready availability of such oft-cited "classics" on DVD can be the genre's own worst enemy. If truth be told, seeing is definitely not always believing.

The Machine Girl (2008)

Bloody terrific!

[10/10 · 4 June 2008]

If you, like me, are fed up with movies that promise heaps of action, gore, and blistering violence but then wuss out in every possible way, allow me to direct you to THE MACHINE GIRL, a live action Japanese offering that is so balls-out crazy and over-the-top across the board that it brought an ear-to-ear smile to my face. I was intrigued by this film's trailer when I saw it several months ago, so when I stumbled across the movie itself while DVD shopping the other day I figured I'd take a chance on it, and, hoo-boy, am I glad I did. I've frequently decried the crappy quality of many recent action flicks from the Land of the Rising Sun, but this one gets a solid 10 out of 10 for its unfailing intent to give the bloodthirsty audience exactly what it wants. And then some! It's the goriest film I've seen in who knows how long, and as per what you'd expect from the Japanese it's barking mad in its over the top carnage and violence; no bullshit, I had exclaimed "Holy $#!+!" no less than three times before the movie was even five minutes into its running time.

A sterling example of the tried and true "you killed my brother" revenge genre, THE MACHINE GIRL takes the story of a high school girl named Ami (Minase Yashiro, in her film debut) who seeks retribution for her younger brother's murder at the hands of a pack of sadistic bullies and sends it clear into the stratosphere of mayhem-laden ass-whuppin' by rendering the sanguinary set pieces as impossibly and cartoonishly spewy as is possible to depict, all while maintaining a brisk pace that barely allows viewers time to catch their breath. The character development is minimal at best, and once the heroine's motivation is established, it's off to the races. To put it as simply as the film does, Ami tracks down the bullies and metes out justice accented with geysers of blood and entrails, losing her left arm in a one-two punch of a tempura deep-frying and a samurai sword dismemberment along the way, eventually replacing her missing limb with a fully functional assault helicopter's machine gun — complete with a seemingly endless supply of rounds — and, near the film's climax, a chain saw originally wielded by her garage mechanic ally.

And as if that isn't enough, the cowardly jerkwad who leads the bullies is revealed to not only be a spoiled Yakuza prince, but also the heir to a clan of ninja descended from the legendary Hattori Hanzo himself, so we also get modern day ninja action thrown into the mix for good, extra-stupid measure. It's an orgy of bloodshed, creative demises, loony superheroics, and a complete disconnect from reality in one of those worlds where the police simply do not exist until well after the participants in the mayhem have bled out, and I thoroughly enjoyed every frame of the damned thing.

As you've probably gathered, THE MACHINE GIRL is unrelentingly excessive, but the film is so crazy that it soon veers into outright parody of its own genre and is frequently hilarious because it's all played totally straight, with heaps of ass-kicking and violence committed by a cute schoolgirl in one of those now-fetishized school uniforms. And what's not to love about a film featuring the return of the favorite weapon of all us martial arts movie buffs: the venerable "flying guillotine?" And, yes, there's more than a bit of a debt owed to both PLANET TERROR (2007) and ARMY OF DARKNESS (1992), but I had more fun with this movie than both of those flicks combined (and I liked both of them to varying degrees). And just so we're absolutely clear on this, Peter Jackson's DEAD ALIVE (aka BRAIN DEAD, 1992) still gets my vote as the goriest film ever made — or that it's even possible to make — but THE MACHINE GIRL gives it a damned good shot at the title, and it's entertaining as hell. Take my word for it and put THE MACHINE GIRL at the top of your Netflix queue immediately!

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Unnecessary Sequel

[4/10 · 2 June 2008]

Don't fall for the hype. I've certainly seen far worse films, but this strictly-for-the-money entry adds little to the Indy franchise and I'd bet it's only been welcomed as much as it has solely because it's a new Indy flick and the fans are so hungry for any new meat that they'll accept just about anything. That said, I did go into it with absolutely zero expectations thanks to my outright loathing of the last installment in the series — 1989's execrable INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE — and as a result of that mindset I may have been more forgiving of the new film's faults than I would have otherwise;the movie is by no means a great film, but it is an acceptable time-waster and I didn't hate it for three primary reasons:

1. Harrison Ford is back in form and he definitely is the Indy we know, love, and root for, world-weary and exhaustedly resigned as ever. Good to have him back, and I like that they acknowledged his age; after the movie I asked a friend who's a doctor for her medical assessment of how many times Indy would have died from injuries sustained during the story, especially when taking his age into account, and she stated at least eight.

2. The return of Marion. Though she wasn't given much to do other than do a little bit of sniping at Indy and smile like a loon while mooning over him, I felt very strongly that she was one of the major factors that made RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK as good as it was and her presence would have elevated the film even if it was INDIANA JONES AND THE DISCOUNT MATTRESS SALE. I'm even willing to bet I wouldn't have hated LAST CRUSADE as much as I did if Karen Allen were in it (I'll be totally honest and admit I've been in love with her since I was thirteen and first saw her as Katey in ANIMAL HOUSE). I totally bought Marion and Indy having broken up and carrying a mutual torch, and it made my heart light to see their obvious affection for one another, an affection that finally gets to express itself again. Even if this is the final Jones flick I'll be satisfied because the hero not only got the girl once and for all, he got the best girl once and for all.

3. Much to my surprise I liked Indy's son, Mutt (played by Shia LeBeuf), quite a lot. He'll never replace Indy, but he is okay and can most definitely hold his own in a fight, with fists or swords. Plus I like that he named himself Mutt while his dad took his moniker from the family dog. Nice touch. And while Shia LeBeuf's other roles have seen him in the kind of parts that make me want to punch his face in like it was an overripe cantaloupe, he's the polar opposite of irritating here, but despite the rumblings of possibly launching a series with him taking over as Indy's successor I think it would be a monumentally bad idea to place the franchise upon Mutt. Part of the audience believing in Jones as strongly as it does hinges upon him being clearly seasoned by years of both practical experience and decades of hardcore study, and Mutt has neither, being barely out of his teens and never having finished school. So if they do give the adventures of Mutt Jones a green light, it would probably be advisable to show him gaining some hard-earned wisdom during the course of his exploits, along with him bagging copious amounts of late-1950's/early-1960's tail as possible. The screen needs more than James Bond hogging up all the chicks, so I say why not turn the son of Indiana Jones loose? His dad found his way into many a tight, secret place, so why not Mutt?

But as for the things I didn't really care for, my quibbles are relatively minor: I'm sick of fifties-style commie bad guys with "moose and squirrel" accents, and I didn't feel the sci-fi angle fit in well with the Jones ethos; while Arthur C. Clarke's assertion that there's no difference between magic and a sufficiently high level of technology may hold, the sci-fi didn't fill me with the same sense of wonder as the Ark or the Sankara stones (I won't even mention the Grail because it looked a wooden egg cup). Indiana Jones' adventures into the fantastic and arcane invariably bring faith, Judeo-Christian and otherwise, into the mix and while the era has shifted into the 1950's, the time when UFO's entered into the American popular consciousness and culture, the alien tech and unknowable mystery thereof didn't hit me in the same way that the power of deities did, but maybe that just because I'm a lifelong mythology/legends geek (always remember, kiddies: one man's religion is another man's mythology). But what the hell do I know? the sci-fi angle may work for you, so bon appetit.

If this is indeed the final adventure of Indiana Jones then so be it, and when all is said and done at least it wasn't as bad as it could have been, although I can honestly say that my movie-going life would have been totally unaffected had I chosen to give it a miss.

Under One Roof (2008–2009)

The most offensive sitcom of the past five decades!

[1/10 · 17 April 2008]

How does one reconcile the simultaneous feelings of being appalled and fascinated? I honestly do not know, and thanks to an accident of channel-surfing I must now ponder that question.

I hadn't heard word one about it this series, but I came across it while flipping around the channels last night and was horrified by what I witnessed. At first it looked like just another of the terrible "black" shows vomited onto the airwaves by the MyNetwork — formerly the UPN, so that should give you a clue as to what kind of programming I'm bitching about — but as I watched, a mind-altering tableux unfolded within the stale framework of a "fish out of water" comedy along the lines of Who's the Boss?, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Aire, or The Beverly Hillbillies. In the space of one half hour I beheld a parade of ethnic stereotypes so egregious that it made me wonder if I'd fallen into an alternate universe where they still allowed this kind of pre-1960's minstrelsy to flourish, and had somehow found a away to resurrect Stepin Fetchit in the form of Flavor Flav.

Mister Flav plays Calvester Hill, a cartoonish, over-the-top hip-hop caricature who has recently gotten out of jail after taking the rap to prevent his "good" younger brother from ruining his much more promising life after crashing his car. Once out, Calvester calls in the favor owed him by his brother — who is now a bourgie real estate gazillionaire with a white wife — and promptly moves into his brother's mansion, thereby bringing his streetwise ways and sensibilities into conflict with what is perceived as his brother's disconnect from his own "blackness," as well as opening the door to his thuggish pals and former fellow prison inmates. In the first episode, Calvester must fend off the unwanted presence of "Pumpkin" (Tiny "Zeus" Lister), a hulking violent offender who protected Calvester during his days behind bars, who now seeks payback in the form of post-incarceration prison-style man-on-man lovin'. Yes, you read that right: a sitcom that seeks to wring laughs from a gargantuan black man set on raping his former cellmate, and said former cellmate's outlandish efforts to avoid being sundered by a huge wedge of ebony soul pole.

That setup is bad enough, but the icing on the cake is the parade of broad ethnic clichés. The black people present are either "buppies" or hip-hop "playas" and blaxploitation stock characters, complete with pimp walks, gold chains, and flamboyant threads, and as for the other races about the only offensive stereotype not present was a Jew with a gigantic hook-nose and Smith Brothers beard who controls all aspects of the media and lusts after hot, blonde shiksas. But the true standout here is the Chinese cook (Emily Kuroda) who yammers in embarrassing pidgin English and sports fashions seemingly designed by Mao Tse-Tung. I know she's an actor and is looking to earn some cash, but this isn't the way to do that and maintain one's dignity. And as I predicted nearly twenty years ago, without Public Enemy and Chuck D, Flavor Flav has degenerated into the living embodiment of the classic minstrel show "coon." I say this while speaking as a lifelong black person, so please don't think I'm saying this out of any attempt at using ethnic slurs for my own amusement.

But, you may ask, is any of this funny? The answer to that is an unequivocal "no." I'm not alone in my assessment, as can be found in online articles. As for me, I plan to regularly tape this atrocity, just so I'll have it for posterity; no one believes me when I tell them about Homeboys in Outer Space (1996-1997), a show I wish I'd taped just to prove how extra-stupid it was, and I won't make that mistake twice.

Soldier Blue (1970)

Proof that you can't have your cake and eat it too.

[3/10 · 2 January 2008]

When Sam Peckinpah's superlative THE WILD BUNCH (1969) opened the door to outrageous displays of graphic cinematic ultra-violence, it did so with a talented (if whisky-marinated) hand guiding the camera and had a compelling story with characters who had actual depth, but in no time flat there were scores of imitators that fell far from the benchmark set by Peckinpah's epic, and SOLDIER BLUE definitely falls into that category.

SOLDIER BLEW, er, BLUE tells the story of foul-mouthed New Yorker Cresta Lee (Candice Bergen) a blonde proto-hippie chick who's been "rescued" from two years of "captivity" among the Cheyenne and is now being sent to a fort where she'll be reunited with the fiancée she only wants to marry for his money. Also on board the wagon she's traveling in is a shipment of government gold, cash the Cheyenne need to buy guns with, so in short order the soldiers are wiped out and Cresta flees to the hills, accompanied by Honus Gant (Peter Strauss), the lone surviving cavalryman. Calling Gant by the snarky nickname "Soldier Blue," Cresta demonstrates that her years among the "savages" was time well spent, outstripping Gant in survival skills, common sense, and sheer balls, and over their journey toward the fort they must persevere against the elements, a band of hostile Kiowa, an unscrupulous trader — played by Donald Pleasance, here giving one of his most ridiculous performances, and that's saying something — and, in the tradition of many previous western-set romantic comedies, each other.

During the course of their misadventures the two opposites are inevitably — and predictably — attracted to each other and eventually end up getting it on — while Gant has a freshly- treated bullet wound that went clean through his leg, no less — in what was surely the only conveniently located cave for at least a twelve mile radius that wasn't filled with rattlesnakes, mountain lions, or who knows what, to say nothing of the Cheyenne, who could have done something really spiffy with such a primo apartment (there I go, thinking in NYC real estate terms again).

Realizing that their love could never flourish outside of the cave, Cresta leaves Gant and makes it to the fort by herself only to discover that the moron in charge won't spare a couple of men so they can rescue Gant; the regiment needs all available personnel to launch an attack on the nearby Cheyenne village, and once Cresta gets wind of that she slips past her obnoxiously horny hubby-to-be and makes a beeline straight to the Cheyenne to warn them of what's coming.

What happens next is what gained the film its infamy; it turns out that all the wacky misadventures and squabbling were all just a lead-in to a hideous reenactment of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre, an orgy of rape, torture and general sadistic evil perpetrated in the name of "keeping the country clean," and almost forty years after its release this sequence still disturbs and nauseates for its sheer cruelty. Children are trampled beneath the hooves of charging horses or impaled on bayonets, unarmed people are beheaded — a nice effect, I have to admit — women are stripped and pawed by gangs of slavering brutes, then raped and mutilated — in one truly sickening instance a naked native woman puts up too much of a fight, so her rapist instead decides to cut off her breasts, which we thankfully only see the start of before the camera moves on to chronicle some other hideous act — and scores of innocent people are shot and dismembered, their compone nt parts impaled on pikes and waved about in victorious celebration or kept as the most ghoulish of souvenirs. No joke, this scene would instantly garner an NC-17 rating if released today, to say nothing of possibly spurring Native American interest groups to riot in the streets over the incredibly exploitative manner in which the atrocities are depicted.

I'm all in favor of westerns that don't shy away from honest portrayals of how the west was won, or stolen if truth be told, but this film has no idea of what kind of movie it wants to be; one minute it's a heavy-handed pseudo-hippy lecture about how the treatment of the natives was totally effed up (well, DUH!), then it's a light-hearted battle of the sexes farce wherein Cresta proves herself five times the man Gant is and manages to look hot in her tasty red calico poncho (with no undies), but that all goes out the window when Donald Pleasance shows up with an unintentionally (?) hilarious pair of buck-toothed dentures and our heroes must figure out how to escape from his murderous clutches in a sub-plot that goes nowhere, all of which culminates in the aforementioned apocalyptic climax. Any one of those tacks would have been okay for a coherent film, but the end result is a slapdash mess that milked the horrors of its final ten minutes for all they were worth in the film's promotion and poster imagery.

But by trying to be all things to all audiences, SOLDIER BLUE ends up as an incoherent, preachy Mulligan stew of presumably well-intentioned political correctness, but if they were going to tell the story of the Sand Creek Massacre, wouldn't it have been a good idea to have some Indian characters who were more than just walk-ons with Murphy Brown acting as their mouthpiece? We get to know absolutely nothing of the people who get wiped out solely for what appears to be a crass ploy to lure gorehound moviegoers into seeing "the most savage film in history." If you, like me, were intrigued by the provocative ads and reviews that shower almost endless praise upon it for its "daring to tell it like it was," take my word for it and let SOLDIER BLUE slowly fade into cinematic obscurity.

Quick-draw Okatsu (1969)

Excellent woman-warrior story.

[10/10 · 2 January 2008]

I love me a good "woman warrior" movie, and this one delivers strongly in both story and hard-earned ass-kicking. No two ways about it, dear readers, this one came from out of nowhere to earn a place among my all-time favorite samurai flicks.

This second in the LEGENDS OF THE POISONOUS SEDUCTRESS series is not a sequel to 1968's FEMALE DEMON OHYAKU, instead starting fresh but once more starring Junko Miyazono in the lead. This time around she plays Okatsu, the adopted daughter of a master swordsman and next in line to inherit the head position in her dad's hardcore dojo, easily edging out her disappointment of a brother. (As you may know, back in the feudal days Japanese women weren't given much respect, so Okatsu's publicly-stated status speaks volumes for her prowess before we even see her kill anybody.) The incredibly classy Okatsu looks like every geisha fantasy come to life and her demeanor is that of a proper Japanese lady, so it's only a matter of time before an ambitious magistrate/shamelessly evil scoundrel takes a shine to her. Taking time out from his heinous abuse of the local peasants and farmers, the douchebag approaches Okatsu's dad about wanting her hand in marriage, but, knowing full well what a bastard the magistrate is, dad turns him down flat, thereby setting in motion an escalating series of exceedingly tragic events that inevitably force Okatsu to drop the geisha-cutie crap and get down the business of serious killing. Aided by the mysterious wanderer Rui (Reiko Oshida), Okatsu's journey of vengeance is a painful one, and the resulting film is a classic of the genre.

QUICK-DRAW OKATSU takes its time in setting up all of its characters and situations, so when the story really gets going the viewer is emotionally invested in Okatsu's plight, something helped immeasurably by star Junko Miyazono. Her poise and "normal person" good looks sell Okatsu's believability, and I don't know if she's a trained kendoka, but she handles a sword with commanding presence and deceptive ease. Equally good is Reiko Oshida as Rui, the more visually-archetypal of the two swordswomen, looking somewhat butch in her shabby traveler's garb and resembling Sanpei Shurato's classic manga hero, the apostate ninja Kamui.

But before you rush off to rent this flick I think it's only fair to warn you that this is one of the films that formed the template for the genre that would become known as "Pink" or "Pinky Violence" flicks, basically softcore porn that displayed acres of skin and reveled in torture and cruelty, more often than not directed at the female characters. They eventually grew to become quite bloody, sadistic, and downright distastefully misogynistic in their obligatory rape sequences (an element that also mars many of the samurai flicks of the period), but as QUICK-DRAW OKATSU was one of the prototypes, things don't go so stomach-turningly out of control here. Yes, there's the requisite rape and torture — a scene in which some villains attempt to perform a crude abortion on one character against her will will have you wanting to dive into the screen and kick ass yourself — but there's no nudity shown and the swordplay bloodshed doesn't even come close to the arterial excesses found in the LONE WOLF AND CUB series (what does?). Oh, and did I mention that none other than Lone Wolf himself, the exquisite Tomisaburo Wakayama, turns up as a quirky bounty hunter? (He did a lot of fun character parts before gaining screen immortality as the "Babycart Assassin.")

Ninja, a Band of Assassins (1962)

Ninja shenanigans from back in the days.

[7/10 · 2 January 2008]

If you came of age around the same time I did, you no doubt remember the spate of lousy American-made ninja flicks like ENTER THE NINJA (1981), REVENGE OF THE NINJA (1983), NINJA III: THE DOMINATION (1984), and the nearly indescribably boring and Swedish-made THE NINJA MISSION (1984). I have no idea why the boom happened, but Ninja were every bloody place for about five years, infesting television, comic books, bestselling adventure novels, and other media, (though their absence from pop music is conspicuous, but I guess that area of entertainment was already awful enough during that decade) and their general craptasticness and ubiquity earned them a place in my heart right next to uncontrollable projectile vomiting or being on the receiving end of a perfectly executed kick to the nuts.

Even by the admittedly over-the-top standard of skills seen in any garden variety martial arts flick, the cinematic/pop culture exploits of the ninja were exceptionally cartoonish and juvenile, rendering the fabled masters of assassination and espionage into caricature and stripping them of much mystery and respectful fascination. Even the excellent LONE WOLF & CUB movies suffered from such crazy theatrics, but those films got away with it by having the sense to be completely gory and insanely ultra-violent, unlike any of the American entries that starred boring rent-a-ninja Sho Kosugi.

With all of that in mind I approached the recent US release of SHINOBI NO MONO with some trepidation, but as it starred one of my favorite chambara actors, Raizo Ichikawa — best known as the red-headed ronin Kyoshiro Nemuri — and was described as being the first film to take the ninja seriously and treat him in a realistic manner, I was willing to give it a chance.

The film is the first in a series about real life ninja/thief Goemon Ichikawa, described in some circles as a Japanese analog to Robin Hood, although to the best of my recollection Robin Hood didn't meet his end by being boiled alive in a vat of oil. Anyway, after a somewhat tedious first third of the film in which we must endure far too much exposition regarding the film's various intrigues, we get down to Goemon's adventures as a top notch soldier and ninja who is charged with killing an asshole warlord (Tomisaburo Wakayama, real-life brother to Shintaro Katsu of ZATOICHI fame, and ten years away from screen immortality as LOne Wolf) while having an affair with his commander's sexually-neglected wife. The affair turns out to be more than it seems, as does Goemon's master, and when the doody hits the fan Goemon goes on the lam and hides out in a whorehouse, there finding love with a sweet prostitute. He gives her the money to buy her freedom so they can retreat to a secluded home in the woods and start anew, but Goemon's past catches up with him and he's forced into accepting an assassination mission or else the lives of his loving wife and unborn child will be forfeit.

Once you get past the turgid first act, the flick's a lot of fun in an old school way, and the ninja skills/martial arts are surprisingly realistic, featuring none of the superhuman looniness I would have expected. The fights and ninja stuff were choreographed by Masaki Hatsumi, a doctor of natural healing techniques as well as being the 34th Grandmaster of Budo Taijutsu and founder of the Bujinkan Dojo, an all-around thoughtful badass who knows his stuff, so there's an intimate intensity to the combat that allows the viewer to worry about Goemon as a human being whose skin is the only thing separting his guts from the cold and dusty ground.

The cinematography is reminiscent of a lower-budgeted and perhaps rushed Kurosawa wannabe, but the film looks great and is definitely a fun way to spend 116 minutes. I enjoyed it enough to want to see the next installment, so TRUST YER GRANDPA and rent it.

'Gator Bait (1973)

Swamped!

[2 January 2008]

'GATOR BAIT is a post-DELIVERANCE backwoods revenge pic that takes place deep in an unnamed bayou, a forbidding environment best avoided by those who don't know its ways, and utterly at home in this seemingly limitless swamp is Desiree Thibodeau (the unbelievably hot Jennings), a barefoot Cajun trapper — in the skimpiest of outfits, including a pair of Daisy Dukes that pretty much doesn't have a butt, and a potato sack blouse that allows occasional glimpses of her mouth-watering assets —who poaches the local wildlife to provide for herself and her younger brother and sister. Desiree's activities are illegal but overlooked by the local sheriff who doesn't care because her family has hunted the swamp for generations, so he figures she's got the right by virtue of ancestral territory. Unfortunately his moron of a son, apparently the town's only other cop, has other ideas, and along with a slow-witted hillbilly pal he lays in wait to catch Desiree in the act and offer her a choice of going to jail or having sex with him and his buddy. The would-be sexual extortion goes terribly wrong, however, as Desiree eludes her pursuers after lobbing a bag full of poisonous snakes onto their swamp boat; as the stupid cop shoots at the snakes, he blows holes into the boat's hull, and accidentally shoots his homeboy in the head. Panicking, he returns to town and claims Desiree killed his friend, so the sheriff rounds up the dead guy's outrageously inbred redneck relatives and sets off into the deep swamp to apprehend Desiree. Operating under the false impression that the poacher is a murderess, the rednecks can't wait to get their hands on her, both to hand out their own brand of justice and get a piece of her swamp-living self.

That's the setup, and from there viewers are taken deep into a swamp virtually untouched by man and made witness to a game of cat and mouse so over-matched that it's like what would happen if a bunch of great white hunters had the incalculable stupidity to mess with Tarzan on his own turf. Desiree may not have the jungle lord's near-superhuman capabilities, but she's plenty smart and knows her way through the bayou like it was the back of her own bootyless shorty-shorts, so it's just a matter of time until she's done killing those gurk- gurks one by one.

During the course of all of this we learn a lot about Desiree's antagonists and swiftly realize just how vile and sleazy they are. The patriarch of the redneck family has a love/hate relationship with his sons, all of whom are at least mildly retarded or just plain mentally ill, and even disciplines the perpetually-horniest of his brood with a bullwhip when he catches the lad attempting to nail his own very willing sister in the mud near where she was hanging the laundry. (Dad wasn't all that irritated about the boy wanting a piece of sis, but was seriously irked at the possibility of the voluptuous girl getting knocked up and squeezing out another dimwit.) The other redneck son holds a personal grudge against Desiree for having had the gall to cut off his manly equipment years earlier when he tried and failed to rape her, and now wanders about with his sawed-off double-barreled shotgun serving as an ever-rigid and potent surrogate penis.

With all of this mess going on there's plenty of bad taste to go around, and once the hunt for Desiree gets underway things go from very bad to that much worse when, after searching for her home for days, the inbred posse locates the place just after our heroine has left on a three day hunting trip. The bad guys stage a home invasion that begins with them abusing Desiree's tongueless little brother, and her nubile jailbait sister ends up in the lusty hands of the sheriff's son and the two inbred brothers. What happens then doesn't go where you'd expect, and is in fact far worse; no joke, when that bit of business happened I actually exclaimed "Oh my God!!!" and I'm pretty hard to shock. It's not graphically depicted, but the idea alone really gets to you, so keep this in mind before sitting down to watch 'GATOR BAIT with your girlfriend.

Which brings me to the oft-cited sentiment that 'GATOR BAIT is one of many exploitation flicks held to be a feminist statement. Lemme tell ya, buddy, the makers of this film simply set out make a movie about a scantily clad hottie who kicks ass on the people who messed with her and her family, but I strongly doubt that capital F feminism was intentionally involved in the creative process. Think about it: you have fine-as-hell Claudia Jennings, a woman for whom the wearing of clothing should have been a punishable by law, traipsing about the fen in gear that shows off her priapism-inducing assets for all they're worth, despite the fact that such gear is in no way conducive to the rigors of marshland hunting and trapping. Desiree is not so much a feminist role model as she is a fantasy wild woman/jungle girl updated and transplanted to a sweltering southern bayou, and as a lifelong fan of such characters I have no problem with that. But don't hand me that feminist over-analysis horse-hockey; Desiree's a forest spirit fantasy made flesh — hell, she even looks like an anthropomorphic fox — and to say otherwise is a more than a tad disingenuous.

Yôen dokufu-den: Okatsu kyôjô tabi (1969)

A major disappointment after its predecessor.

[3/10 · 2 January 2008]

This third installment in the LEGENDS OF THE POISONOUS SEDUCTRESS series is a major disappointment after the excellence of its predecessor, QUICK DRAW OKATSU. It's pretty much a remake of the previous film, even starring Junko Miyazono as a master swordswoman named Okatsu, but not the same character she played before (?); at the end of QUICK-DRAW OKATSU our heroine was a wanted fugitive, so wouldn't you expect a film entitled OKATSU THE FUGITIVE to be a direct sequel, especially since the film that came before it was a hit and the Japanese are not by any means sequel shy?

This new Okatsu is again the blade-proficient daughter of a swordsman, and when her father threatens to expose the vicious corruption of a local magistrate he's tortured in an attempt to get him to reveal the whereabouts of a written document of the magistrate's offenses. When he won't talk, his wife and daughter are hauled in by the bad guys and the wife is thrown to six hardened criminals for a bit of gang rape (which thankfully doesn't occur, but she does get alarmingly manhandled), and after that moment of extreme bad taste dad kills his wife and then himself. Unfortunately Okatsu then falls victim to the evil magistrate and is raped, then thrown into a basement dungeon. With the aid of her sleazy fiancée, she escapes — killing several swordsmen in the process — with the document hidden in her mother's elaborate (and very pointy) hairpin and sets out to avenge her parents, not realizing her fiancée is in league with the bad guys. After that the film becomes a lackluster and very much by the numbers samurai revenge flick that could have been written with little or no effort by anyone who's ever seen one of these things, and ends up a staggeringly generic item that will be forgotten about five minutes after the title that reads "The End." That's a real shame because the level of quality found in QUICK-DRAW OKATSU lead me to expect a hell of a lot more from all involved, and after this I can see why the series stalled out. T

Golgo 13: The Professional (1983)

If ever there were a film that should have spawned a franchise...

[10/10 · 2 January 2008]

This anime adaptation of Takao Saito's long-running manga classic is one of my all-time favorite action movies, animated or otherwise, and I'm at a loss to explain why so many dyed-in-the-wool anime junkies despise it (cruise the internet and you'll see what I mean).

Duke Togo is the world's greatest assassin-for-hire, better known as "Golgo 13," and if you're on his list you might as well dig the hole because there is no way, repeat, NO WAY you will elude him. Once he's hired, it's your ass. Togo's adventures take him across the globe, and his skills with weaponry, hand-to-hand combat, and damned near anything else a human being could master are constantly put to hair-raising tests. Though lacking in actual meta-human superpowers, Togo could nonetheless be considered a superman, so with that in mind it's seldom in doubt that he'll come out on top in any given situation, so the suspense lies in seeing just how the hell he's going to pull off the often impossible assignments he chooses to accept. All of this information is old news to readers of the venerable manga series, but it's given the most cursory noting in the feature, seen briefly in a C.I.A. transcript at the film's beginning, but it's vital to suspending one's disbelief and once past that we're immediately thrust into Togo's violent world.

Gazillionaire industrialist Leonard Dawson throws a birthday party for his son, Leonard Jr., aboard his private cruise ship, a lavish ceremony in which he names his son heir and successor to his empire, but Dawson's elation is shattered when his son is surgically shot through the forehead with but a single bullet, killing him instantly. The assassin: Duke Togo. The senior Dawson, now nearly insane with grief, launches an all-out war against Golgo 13, employing the most vicious and lethal professionals that his bottomless coffers can procure, including horrific ex-military sociopaths, crooked intelligence officials, and an unspeakably terrifying monster of a man who rightly goes by the moniker "Snake," all while Togo hops the globe carrying out other "jobs." Togo must stay one step ahead of his assailants, each as hard as he is, and figure out how to survive one Christ Almighty perfect storm of graphic violence. And there also lurks the mystery that spurs the plot: exactly who wanted the junior Dawson murdered, and why?

Loaded with more action than most films have any right to possess, Golgo 13 is a breathless kick in the ass that fans of old school James Bond and other such espionage will simply eat up. I first saw it on an untranslated VHS tape in 1986 and I've been a staunch supporter ever since, sharing it with as many people as I can convince to give it a chance despite its reputation as a bomb. I think it may come off a tame when compared to the later excesses in Japanese animation, such as post-apocalyptic slug-fest filled with showering viscera, city- leveling psychic children and titanic robots, female ninjas with poisonous naughty bits, and the ever-popular spectacle of sailor-suited schoolgirls having their every orifice explored by the tentacles and other bits of demonic rapists just before they explode in a torrent of offal and demonic DNA, but Golgo 13 has all of them beat for sheer quality entertainment that even your parents might dig.

Super Dimension Fortress Macross (1982–2002)

Perhaps the best of the space opera anime genre.

[9/10 · 2 January 2008]

In the year 1999 a city-sized extraterrestrial battle cruiser crash lands on Earth, and over the next decade scientists and engineers repair its damage and refit it into a hybrid of human and alien technologies. What the Earth-folks don't realize is that the ship has been tailed by an entire armada of heavily armed space battle cruisers who seek to claim the ship and its secrets for themselves. The aliens, called Zentraedi, are a formidable race of giants who have been bred for warfare, but as they approach their presence triggers a booby trap on the downed space-fortress — called the Macross — that plows through them with a devastating energy weapon. Thinking the Earth fired upon them intentionally, the Zentraedi retaliate, thereby launching Space War I. Realizing that it would probably be a good idea to move the conflict off of the Earth (which has just gotten over a long on-planet war), the captain of the Macross orders the use of the ship's untested "fold" system to warp the ship to the dark side of the moon; the warp is initiated, but it brings the small city that had grown around the Macross with it, plus, to the horror of all involved, they find themselves just outside orbit near Pluto (that's what you get for messing around with technology that you don't know how to operate!). And as if that isn't bad enough, the fold system has completely vanished, leaving the ship's crew and the now-rescued inhabitants of the city no alternative but to make their way back home using only conventional engines. And as the Macross crawls back to the Earth, the enemy fleet is not far behind...

That's the basic setup, but what makes Macross stand out from the plethora of alien invasion space operas that came before it — most notably the classic Space Battleship Yamato (1974) — is its focus on the human element of its story, becoming in essence a soap opera in sci-fi drag. Nearly every character is in some way flawed, and despite the military experience held by many of them, that experience frequently proves moot in the face of deep space combat and technologies that they simply do not comprehend. The ostensible hero, sixteen-year-old stunt pilot Hikaru Ichijo, comes of age during the course of the narrative and we follow him through every awkward step, tracing his evolution from prodigy civilian airman to ace space-fighter, as well as seeing him swallow his reluctance to kill once he joins the United Nations Space Navy (annoyingly dubbed the "UN Spacy" for short). Hikaru's also at the center of a love triangle that sees his emotions split between a cute Chinese girl who ends up going from waitress to pop idol overnight, and his by-the-book career military commanding officer; this triangle is milked for all it's worth and is the primary reason that the series proved so popular with female viewers, along with the romantic trials and tribulations of the rest of the voluminous cast.

Another thing that sets the series apart from the cliché template is the pan-cultural scope of the cast. The hero may be Japanese, but the rest of the characters run the ethnic gamut, the bridge crew alone being comprised of a couple of Russians, an American or two, an Italian, and a black chick. This was very refreshing at the time, with the then-most-contemporary multi-cultural cast of characters being found in the various incarnations of Cyborg 009, but each member of that international team was drawn in the most broad of ethnic stereotypes. Not so with Macross, which didn't make a big deal ou t of the characters' ethnicities and saw only the Chinese character standing out because of her frequently-worn Hong Kong-style dresses and hairstyles.

And while the show certainly has a contingent of fans who revere it for its space battles and transforming mecha, I have to say that I love it most for starting things off on a footing that allows the viewer to think they know exactly where the story's going to go and then consistently pulling the rug out from under them. The love triangle plays out in a way that sees all three participants change and grow, the B-characters go through some serious drama involving the tragic casualties of war and the possibilities that can blossom between even the most bitter of enemy rivalries (let's hear it for Max and Millia!!!), and even the enemy aliens prove to be far more than just stock evil world-conquerers when their strange and ancient history proves that there really is something to the universal nature of basic "humanity."

Super Dimension Fortress Macross is easily the most well-crafted and intelligent of the space operas from the 1980's, both in terms of narrative and visual impact, and totally raised the bar on how such material can and should be handled. In fact, the only serialized alien invasion show to come along since that even comes close is Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995), a series that wears its Macross influence on its sleeve but somehow comes up a lot less satisfying. If you can get your hands on the Animeigo boxed sets of the original uncut and subtitled Macross series — avoid the sequels and the not bad Americanized version, Robotech — do yourself the favor and check them out, starting with episode number one because the whole thing's one long story told in thirty-six chapters. Even if you're not an anime fan I urge you to give this stuff a chance. Space operas seldom get any better than this, and Super Dimension Fortress Macross sure as hell beats the three recent Star Wars atrocities.

Fist of the North Star: The Legend of Yuria (2007 Video)

The horrors of post-apocalyptic super-powered martial arts warfare seen from the heroine's point of view

[6/10 · 20 May 2007]

Anyone who's ever seen Fist of the North Star will tell you that the female characters were pretty much there solely to be rescued or serve as sacrificial lambs, so this made-for-DVD place holder (until the next theatrical feature) beefs up the role of Yuria — rechristened "Julia" in the English version, presumably to distance her name from sounding like a urinary reference — and adds further details to her covert role as the last general of the Southern Cross Fist (if you aren't well-versed in this series, don't ask; it's a long story). However, while admirably fleshing out Yuria's role the writers have rendered much of the mystery and surprise of the tale's events moot by having her serve as a behind the scenes manipulator whose actions create a whole new level of pointless retroactive continuity.

This is the first truly "girly" Fist of the North Star story, and as a result much of the insane fighting, violence and showering gore is absent, attempting to make the viewer feel guilty for enjoying the carnage that they wanted to see in the first place, and while not boring this is not what a fan of the series would want. And for those who know this stuff, this DVD recounts hero Kenshiro's origin, bits of the Rei storyline, and sets the stage for the next film, Toki's heartbreaking battle with the ruthless Raoh. Now, that's a film I want to see!