Category Archives: Ugly

Killers on Parade (Review)

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Killers on Parade

aka 夕陽に赤い俺の顔 aka Yuhi Ni Akai Ore No Kao aka My Face Red in the Sunset
Killers on Parade 夕陽に赤い俺の顔
1961
Written by Shuji Terayama
Directed by Masahiro Shinoda
Killers on Parade 夕陽に赤い俺の顔
Killers on Parade is a dark comedic flick that features a group of gimmicked hitmen and women as eventual adversaries to our plucky hero, who is on a mission to bring down a corrupt construction firm and the newspaper editor that is attempting to blackmail it. The plot is less important than the colorful characters that are part of the Downtown Killer Club. Killers on Parade is set in a garish comic book world filled with colors and items that bother to label themselves so you know what they are. The villains have gimmicks and costumes that leave you with no doubt as to their gimmicks and roles, and scenes are shot to play up common film locations. While things are overtly goofy, there is enough danger seeded to try to raise actual stakes, but this factor doesn’t seem to have aged well enough to make it to modern day without seeming like a distraction instead of an integrated part of the show.
Killers on Parade 夕陽に赤い俺の顔
The Murderers 8 present as a united front, but are fiercely competitive, though follow a sense of honor when being assigned jobs, preventing others from interfering and disrupting all their down time. Despite all the characters having day jobs, all they seem to do all day is hang out with each other and get into marksmanship competitions. The Murderers 8 include (please excuse the lack of names for some, they just didn’t get their name mentioned out loud!):

  • Hong Kong, a Yakuza gangster stereotype in black suit, who is the most dangerous of the group.
  • Senti, a gun champion.
  • The bespectacled Doctor, who handily always carries around a black bag that says “Doctor” on it in English.
  • Sergeant, a former soldier.
  • An Older Guy who appears to dress as a shrubbery cutter.
  • A Sports Guy who wears jerseys and during the final battle, a full football uniform and helmet.
  • Scarf Guy, whose gimmick is he has a scarf (Okay, they didn’t have time to give everyone personalities!)
  • Nagisa (Kayoko Honoo), the lone female killer who often dresses in red and has a pet goat named End. She ran off from home to be a killer, but is starting to grow disillusioned with the lifestyle.

The overall tone is comedic with random bursts of song, providing a send up of the then-recent spate of neonoir/borderless action flicks in Japanese cinema, dosed in wonderful technicolor and layered in sensible silliness. Things seem to make both perfect logical sense in universe, but are also ridiculous when you stop to think about them. The killers demonstrate their marksmanship by shooting at an apple on a kid’s head before the credits. Later they have another shooting competition at the race track to see who gets the new contract.
Killers on Parade 夕陽に赤い俺の顔
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3 Seconds Before Explosion (Review)

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3 Seconds Before Explosion

aka 爆破３秒前 aka Bakuha 3-Byo Mae
爆破３秒前 3 Seconds Before Explosion
1967
Screenplay by Hideichi Nagahara
Based on the novel by Haruhiko Oyabu
Directed by Motomu Ida (as Tan Ida)
爆破３秒前 3 Seconds Before Explosion
3 Seconds Before Explosion uses the basic war treasure plot we’ve seen from flicks such as Black Tight Killers, but dials back the ridiculousness to try to become more James Bond than anything else. Yabuki (Akira Kobayashi) is the secret agent hero who fights to solve the case, which contains a bunch of kidnappings and treasure hunting in between the random action scenes.

At this point Akira Kobayashi was at the height of his popularity, having helmed multiple series for Nikkatsu, even becoming a pop star along the way. When you work through Nikkatsu’s Borderless Action films, you’ll see him just as often as Joe Shishido pops up, sometimes alongside Joe Shishido. While Shishido may have the fake cheeks that somehow made ladies swoon, with his natural good looks and bad boy charm, Kobayashi is much better suited to play a suave secret agent type that would have a numerical code name. When each actor walks into a nightclub scene and stands around smoking, Shishido looks like he’s sizing up the room to beat everyone up while Kobayashi just looks so cool he make everyone else look like rabble.
爆破３秒前 3 Seconds Before Explosion
The comparison to Black Tight Killers bears repeating, because not only is there a war treasure, but people related to those involved in hiding the treasure are kidnapped. This time the villains are part of an international gang lead by a rapist German named Galen (Galen the German??), and the treasure belongs to the made up new nation of Rabaley. This switch from the treasure being ostensibly owned by Japan lowers the stakes, because nobody cares if a fake nation gets a random treasure. In fact, you might cheer for them to not get the treasure, because I hear Rabaleans are a bunch of jerks. Allegedly. Please don’t invade me, mighty Rabaley!
爆破３秒前 3 Seconds Before Explosion
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Sugarbabies (Review)

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Sugarbabies

Sugarbabies Lifetime
2015
Story by Becca Topol and David DeCrane
Screenplay by Becca Topol
Directed by Monika Mitchell
Sugarbabies Lifetime
First they sugared the daddies. I said nothing, for I wasn’t a daddy. But then they came to sugar the babies. And I was like, “Seriously, Lifetime?” This is the third film they’ve shown this year where young, nubile girls decide the best way to pay tuition is to get it on with older men for buckets of cash. It’s like the college girls banging old dudes for tuition money films are racing the Unauthorized 90s TV Show Story films for who can flood Lifetime’s airwaves the most! We’ve seen it with Suger Daddies and with Babysitter’s Black Book, and now we dip into the pool for a third time.
Sugarbabies Lifetime
Sugarbabies runs a lot of the same numbers as we’ve seen before. Hardworking and smart Katie Woods (Alyson Stoner) arrives at the university and excels at classes, but her working class background means she can’t afford to pay for an expensive but competitive interning opportunity. Luckily for Katie, she’s made friends with Tessa Bouillette (Tiera Skovbye), a wannabe model who is living the high life thanks to an older (and married!) man paying all her bills. We see her initiate Rochelle Cranston (Sarah Dugdale) into the Sugar Babies website (cheered on by fellow sugar bowl enthusiast Sasha (Eva Day)), and thanks to being at the right place at the right time, Katie is introduced to the rich and charming James Smith (Giles Panton) by Tessa.
Sugarbabies Lifetime
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Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards! (Review)

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Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards!

aka 探偵事務所２３ くたばれ悪党ども aka Tantei Jimusho 23: Kutabare Akutodomo aka Detective Bureau 23: Down with the Wicked
探偵事務所２３ くたばれ悪党ども Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards!
1963
Screenplay by Gan Yamazaki (as Iwao Yamazaki)
Based on the novel by Haruhiko Oyabu
Directed by Seijun Suzuki
探偵事務所２３ くたばれ悪党ども Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards!
Detective Bureau 2-3 is a light-hearted action film, filled with plenty of comedy bits and trucks full of yakuza running around like video game mobs. This is before Seijun Suzuki went full fever dream, but he does have fun sending up the not very original undercover plot and having plenty of side action and goofs to fill the running time. At times it feels like a Keystone cops vs Keystone yakuza film, as trucks full of gang members armed with random blunt objects drive around in circles chasing after their prey, and dozens of cops run around and try to arrest them all. That’s just flavor for the Joe Shishido being a hero plot, but the trucks full of yakuza (and the musical numbers) are far more memorable than the central story.

The goofiness sort of works against the serious parts, we open with a Pepsi truck ambushing a weapons deal, Sakura and Otsuki gang members are massacred by the armed thugs riding the truck, and some poor Pepsi gets spilled when bottles are shot during the firefight. I guess those bottles won’t be getting the nickel refund! Was there a refund for glass bottles in Japan? The scene seems ridiculous, but the results are fatally real for everyone who is targeted. Only one witness survives, a guy named Manabe (Tamio Kawachi), and he’s suspected of being one of the attackers. The police have him stashed away in their precinct, and outside Sakura and Otsuki gang members wait in their cars, armed with rifles. Don’t worry, they all have the proper permits that say they are going hunting and are just waiting there before they go hunting, which is sort of hilarious. It would be even more hilarious if this wasn’t reality in various open carry states where morons carry AK-47s in public and scare people, and the cops can’t do anything.
探偵事務所２３ くたばれ悪党ども Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards!
The police know Manabe is dead if the mob gets him, and they don’t have enough evidence to hold him forever. So Captain Kumagaya (Nobuo Kaneko) has an idea, he calls on noted Detective Hideo Tajima (Joe Shishido). But to keep everything off the books and confusing in case of leaks or bad ends, Detective Hideo Tajima is given a gun and a permit, all under the fake identity of Ichiro Tanaka. He uses his skills to drive Manabe away from the waiting goons and causes enough of a scene (thanks to a timely cement truck blocking the yakuza vehicles) that they escape, and is instantly recruited to join Manabe’s gang.
探偵事務所２３ くたばれ悪党ども Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards!
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Whiskey Business (Review)

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Whiskey Business

Whiskey Business
2012
Written by Jed Elinoff, Scott Thomas
Directed by Robert Iscove
Whiskey Business
Pauly Shore making moonshine on a CMT made for tv movie? How can you say no? The best part is how I taped this and then forgot about it, yet as soon as I found the recording on my hard drive I instantly watched it, because you just have to watch it, even if it is years too late. Yes, Country Music Television makes tv movies now and again, and not only is Pauly Shore being all Jersey Shore in hillbilly land, but there is Tanya Tucker running around, and Dukes of Hazzard alum John playing a corrupt sheriff who is anti-moonshine. That’s some inspired casting, right there.

The movie is dumb as heck and seems to let Pauly Shore improvise half of his dialogue while the scenes play out. But it’s also dumb fun, because Shore’s character begins to grow on you. I am of the often controversial opinion that Pauly Shore is entertaining at times, so your mileage may vary. Some may be shocked because this review of a Pauly Shore movie will be positive, but please try to keep it all in stride…
Whiskey Business
Nicky Ferelli (Pauly Shore) is a mob boss scion who spends his days working out and spraytanning, and his nights partying it up and making flavored drinks. The only thing keeping him from being a reality show cast member is the lack of a stupid nickname. He has no intentions of taking over the family business, but his dad has other plans, sending him out with enforcer Dino (Ari Cohen). Dino feels that he is the rightful heir to the family, and plans to kill off Nicky, which goes awry as Nicky escapes by hiding inside a truck. But he’s now framed for murder and alone in Tennesse, where he’s promptly robbed of his shoes and left to run through the woods. Avoiding potshots from an angry moonshiner with a gun, Parnell (Brad Borbridge), Nicky is helped by bar owner Jess (Cynthia Preston) and sort of adopted by Trina (Tanya Tucker), giving him a place to stay and food. He ends up helping Parnell (who is Trina’s stepson) and his moonshine, coming up with a scheme to flavor it with fruit so it doesn’t taste terrible.
Whiskey Business
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Babysitter’s Black Book (Review)

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Babysitter’s Black Book

Babysitter’s Black Book
2015
Written by Richard Kletter and Michele Samit
Directed by Lee Friedlander
Babysitter’s Black Book
Lifetime Channel’s Babysitter’s Black Book is the timeless tale young, innocent girls who go from the Babysitter’s Club to the Redlight Special Club, and then get a heaping helping of consequences and lessons learned. The girls deal with the new-found freedom and sense of thrills from getting lots of money, but having to look the wives in the eyes and hide everything from their parents and the school, while the drama bomb is about to go nuclear. The big question is which cast member will wind up either dead, or worse than dead. That answer is sort of left up to the viewer, as the fates aren’t as catastrophic as the typical Lifetime girls gone prostitute film (such as Sugar Daddies), but they still aren’t things your normal teenage girl wants to happen to them.

Ashley Gordon’s (Spencer Locke, Detention) school business project “Family Buddies” is basically a super version of the Babysitter’s Club repackaged as helper buddies/tutors for overworked parents. Her friends all earn money as employees, there is Janet Moss (Lauren York) the sporty girl, Gilli (Steffani Brass) the arty girl, and Rachel (Angeline Appel) the all-around star who the dad’s all seem to love. Hm… Yes, Rachel has taken it upon herself to expand Family Buddies’ business model, and soon ropes Janet into helping as well. Rachel and Janet are the more sexually experienced girls, while Gilli and Ashley are more reserved and have no intention of going along with their schemes (but don’t tell them to knock it off, either).
Babysitter’s Black Book
Ashley is the overachieving scholar about to become valedictorian (beating the rival girl, rich bitch Harper (Ashley Dulaney)), and worried about college admissions essays. That becomes small fries when the bombshell of her mom’s business failing and her parents raiding her college fund happens. Desperate for money (she doesn’t want to go to… GASP… COMMUNITY COLLEGE!), Ashley lets herself get seduced by the promises of dad Mark (Ryan McPartlin), who promises to help with books and tuition to his expensive alma matter, and all she has to do it let him go to pound town on her. After Mark tries to control her life and she drops him, Ashley is now in on Rachel and Janet’s sex for money business model. Gilli tries to go along with it, but ends up unable to do so and flees with her dignity.
Babysitter’s Black Book
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