Bratz: The Movie
Bratz: The Movie
2007
Directed by Sean McNamara
Bratz: The Movie is a film about being yourself, which is a contradiction as the toys are polar opposites to the extreme. Combined with the fact the film is chock full of racist stereotypes, pedophilia, and glorification of expensive Sweet Sixteen parties, and you got a film that could get the creators thrown in Guantanamo Bay for crimes against humanity. It is nothing that good ole fashioned terrorism repackaged for the MTV generation and thousands of tweenage girls. Not terrorism that kills, but terrorism that leaves deep psychological scars, the kind that will never heal. Osama wishes he could put out films that hurt like this.
The basic plot is that the high school the Bratz go to is controlled by an ultra-evil girl who keeps everyone divided into cliques. The Bratz span cliques as they are multi-racial and interest girls designed by a soulless mega-corporation with only their passion for fashion to bind them together. The fight to stay friends when torn apart by their other interests is the soul of the piece, and speaks a message of accepting other groups and not staying in your little social circle. This spirit of expressing yourself and individuality and acceptance is completely at odds with the toys, which are practically identical giant-headed clones. Their giant eyes, lips with more silicone than breasts in a porno movie, and ever-bare midriffs make them look like they are some crazed duplication experiment, with only skin and hair hues keeping them apart. That is not diversity and expressing your differences, that is following a trend to the point of marching straight off a bridge. And that’s just where Bratz dolls should be thrown.
Bratz are a toy, but they are also an attitude. An attitude that fashion is more important than anything. That thongs are standard fare for girls of single digit ages. That everyone should have big heads, giant lips, long eyelashes, smaller-than-pixies bodies, and a passion for fashion that exceeds all other skills and desires. To consume. To be superficial. Not what anyone sane should be teaching their kids.
So with the condemnations of the dolls I’ve laid out here and in the previous Bratz encounter, you’d think this film would be the most hated film of all time. Oddly enough, parts of this film weren’t the worst thing that ever existed. There’s a few flecks of gold in the acres of manure. Not much, but they were like beacons in the darkness, guiding us a save path to a swift exit to the film. Only God himself could have braved the evil that are Bratz to implant something good for the good people of the world to get hope from. But aside from those points, the film is as terrible as the trailer makes it out to be. The basic premise is the Bratz go to high school, which is ruled by an ultra-bitch who demands everyone sit with their clique. The Bratz have diverse interests, which ends in them becoming members of their respective cliques instead of staying friends. But we all know girl power and passion for fashion will save the day at the end. Oops, I just spoiled the movie! Not like anyone reading this on this site will care, for we’re not here to discuss the film in a rational manner, but to tear it apart in the only way we know how. Why? Because they made it. We have a passion for crap.
Categories: Movies, Ugly Tags: Bratz, Chelsea Staub, Janel Parrish, Jon Voight, Logan Browning, Nathalia Ramos, Sean McNamara, Skyler Shaye, totally racist, toys to movies
Legend of Eight Samurai
Legend of Eight Samurai
aka Satomi hakken-den
1983
Directed by Kinji Fukasaku
A classic Japanese tale gets a reworking and then is dubbed and imported into America. Like many Asian epics, there are a lot of characters and a complicated plot, which is made more confusing with the bad dubbing. Even worse, this is an adaptation of an epic tale that is condensed into a film so huge chunks of back story are either disregarded or glossed over in less than a sentence. Any movie boasting giant centipedes is worth a look. Unfortunately, the 80′s soundtrack does a wonderful job of dating the film, despite it being a period piece. Originally I thought that the songs were added by the American importers, but with the release of the Japanese language original since I originally wrote this review over a year ago, it has become known that the songs where already added in the original version. It’s a deadly blow, imagine the worst of hair bands and love ballads, more deadly than any martial art. The film loses some of the fun factor as the emotion turns to hating the soundtrack. This version of Legend of Eight Samurai that we are recapping is the full screen original American dub, one day we will try to get a hold of the Japanese widescreen version for comparison.
The story is a Japanese mythology that originated in China (like many things Japanese, including the Japanese writing scripts (the kanas are simplified versions of the kanji they “borrowed” from China.) The story of a princess, the last of her clan, given eight warriors to protect her, selected without their knowledge. Magic crystals are found by those selected, the crystals created by a dog (thus giving the story its name:Hakkenden or “Dog Warriors.”) Each crystal has a different Confucian virtue, which is only used in this film as the kanji symbol on each crystal (we have gone through the trouble of translating each one.) Takizawa Okikuni (also known as Kyokutei Bakin or Takizawa Bakin) created the version used in this film from 1814 to 1842 (Edo era) a 106 volume story called Nanso Satomi Hakkenden that took 28 years to complete. Almost as long as the Wheel of Time series is taking. The serial was then updated in 1982 by Toshio Kamata in a novel called Shin Satomi Hakkenden. Many of the stars are part of the Japanese Action Squad, a group founded by Sonny Chiba that practiced martial arts and seemed to star in many movies together. In fact, they previously starred in a futuristic version of this very same tale called Message From Space over here (Uchu kara no messeji in Japan) that even featured the same director!
These are the eight who have Confucian Virtue Jewels:
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Vampire Vixens from Venus
Vampire Vixens from Venus
1995
Directed, Produced, and Written by Ted A. Bohus
Vampire Vixens from Venus (not to be confused with Vampire Vixens is the story about seductive alien women who come to Earth to steal brain juices from excited men. After running across it in a random movie rental nine years ago in college, I had been searching for it for years, and thanks to some luck I ran across a copy. Most memorable after all that time was the CGI was literally the worst I had ever seen in a film and may have been one of the first movies with a CGI character. The alien women have their alternate alien modes, which gives us a few instances of alien monsters killing men as well. Topping all of that is the movie’s bumbling cop hero character, who just happens to be British for no real good reason! It all adds up to a bizarre ride for what is essentially a skin flick, but is memorable enough due to the factors that make it so weird.
The film has some crude humor, but for the most part is just silly and doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously, which is a boon for these sci-fi sex movies. Some of the jokes are groan-inducing, while random silly things such as a guy in the town always dressed like Elvis are just fun (especially since the Elvis guy looks like an 80-pound weakling.) The creature effects here appear to have the same general style as other Ted A. Bohus films such as Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor or Nightbeast, but I haven’t seen any of them so I can’t compare further.
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Categories: Movies, Ugly Tags: CGI trainwreck, J.J. North, John Knox, Leon Head, Leslie Glass, Michelle Bauer, softcore, Ted A. Bohus, Theresa Lynn
