Bikini Time Machine (Review)

July 15, 2014ByTars Tarkas

Bikini Time Machine

aka Rewind Time Machine

2011
Written and directed by Fred Olen Ray (as Nicholas Juan Medina)

I traveled through time and now my period is all messed up!

Bikini Time Machine says it all, except no one is in bikinis. But there is a time machine, and a lot of people nude and having the sex while not in their proper time periods, so it all works out in the end. Unless you are a bikini purist, in which case I’ll just have to ask you to leave.

Bikini Time Machine is smart in that it approaches time travels in an interesting format. No one physically travels through time. But their brain’s biorhythmic electrical impulses are sent to the past, which temporarily manifest themselves in physical form, so you can “interact” with the past. I put interact in quotes because thanks to a quirk in the time travel method, a side effect is time travel turns you incredibly incredibly horny, thus most visits leave only the time needed to have sex before the session ends. This is very convenient for a softcore movie! The machine is called a “Memory Experience Generator” by its inventor, Professor Wells. As all the time travelers are women until the very end, it is not mentioned if men would be similarly affected (and as that could have lead to some disturbing scenes if the film didn’t end where it did, it’s probably for the best.) The other thing related to time travel is the whole adventure is monitored by Professor Wells via a video monitor. For scientific purposes, of course!

You gotta get me outta here, pal! Spielberg has my whole family hostage, forcing us to make movies!

	Lara Clayton (Joslyn James) – Owner of the Lost Cafe, surprise recipient of a huge lease bill or else she’ll lose the place. Her desperate attempts to fix the problem are foiled by J.B. Watergate and his son Teddy, until she gets the final laugh.
	Sara (Kylee Nash) – Waitress at the Lost Cafe who gets involved in the time travel fun. Easy going and doesn’t like jerks. Bathtub enthusiast, friend of hippies.
	Professor Wells (Michael Gaglio) – Professor who has invented time travel via projecting your brainwaves into the past in solid form. Hires young ladies to do just that, while he observes their adventures. Is fired for his radical research, but that doesn’t stop him. Obviously named after H.G. Wells, writer of The Time Machine
	Teddy Watergate (TJ Cummings) – Spoiled son of J.B. Watergate, hired by his dad to foil Lara’s attempts to pay off her lease. Feels a little bit guilty, but not guilty enough.
	J.B. Watergate (Ted Newsom) – Ruthless businessman owner of a chain of nudie bars and property all around LA. Wants to put in even more nudie bars, especially one where the Lost Cafe is.
	Purvis (Trish Cook) – J.B. Watergate’s assistant who helps him deliver his lease announcement against the Lost Cafe and warns him that they might still come up with the money.
	Kandy (Jenna Presley) – Student of Professor Wells who is time traveled to the castle, and has sex with the Princess. Which means she has one up on that chump Mario!
	Dean Potter (Sal V. Miers) – Professor Well’s furious boss who enjoys firing people in ways that probably violate school policy.
	Ken (Tony Marino) – Oh, that guy.
	Hippy (Nick Manning) – Just a far out guy who scoped a groovy chick who appeared in his bedroom one fine day. After freeing their love, the choice chick peaced out and our hero is left to wonder if he was wigging out.
	Princess (Sarah Vandella) – Just your normal 1780s princess sitting around waiting to have lesbian sex with time travelers.
	Marcia the Masseuse (Tasha Reign) – Teddy’s masseuse is more than masseuse.

Adjusting the space heater has never been more fun!

InBad, Movie Reviews

Boxer from Shantung (Review)

July 10, 2014ByTars Tarkas

Boxer from Shantung

aka 馬永貞 aka Ma Yong Zhen aka Ma Wing Jing aka Killer from Shantung

1972
Written by Chang Cheh and Ni Kuang
Directed by Chang Cheh and Pao Hsueh-Li

The rise of a gangster from nothing to boss who goes down in a violent orgy of death is one of those classic tales that gets told a lot in cinema. Boxer of Shantung is no exception on delivering the basic story. What Boxer of Shantung does do, is deliver the story in an entertaining fashion that makes you cheer for the hero, even as the trappings of power cause him to abandon some of his principals.

Boxer of Shantung is Chen Kuan-Tai’s first lead role, and he brings such an energy of pride to his laborer character Ma Yung Chen that you know he is going places. As a penniless worker, he argues against the innkeeper treating his fellow poors like second-class citizens. He refuses to do a demeaning job for insulting carriage drivers, nor does he accept charity from a fellow immigrant from Shantung who has gone on to do well. He decrees that he is going to be just as successful as him one day, and soon he gets a little territory, then goes punching his way for more. During his rise, Ma remembers his poor roots and chastises his men for shaking them down for money, choosing instead to target richer districts.

The trappings of power are dangerous, and when you play the game of thrones, you play for keeps, even if the game is being a local boss in olden China. Each move leads Ma Yung Chen increasingly in conflict with the Axe Gang, their champions and boss at first seeing him as a distraction to their main rival, Boss Tan Si (David Chiang Da-Wei), but eventually focusing on Ma Yung Chen with their entire gang army.

The action starts slow in Boxer from Shantung, but builds and build until the end, where Ma Yung Chen is battling the entire Axe Gang by himself. This slow burn action may have fallen out of favor in our ADD/hyperediting modern reality, but it still works for me. The fight scenes are worth waiting for, Chen Kuan-Tai is a powerful force, and the choreography incorporates all the random objects around the landscape into the melees. With each bump into the Axe Gang, Ma Yung Chen battles both more dangerous members and just plain more and more members of the Axe Gang.

InBad, Movie Reviews

Zapped (Review)

July 7, 2014ByTars Tarkas

Zapped

2014
Teleplay by Billy Eddy, Matt Eddy, and Rachelle Skoretz
Televison story by Rachelle Skoretz
Based on the novel Boys Are Dogs by Leslie Margolis
Directed by Peter DeLuise

Disney’s Carrie!

Disney Channel blasts out another original movie with Zapped, wherein a teenage girl discovers her cell phone has the power to control boys. Chaos ensues as things go inevitably wrong, and soon young Zoey Stevens (Zendaya) learns a valuable lesson about family and not mind controlling vast amounts of people.

Overall, the characters are charming and well cast. Zendaya seems far more comfortable reacting to all the weird things going on around her than participating in them herself. She spends so much of her interaction with gross boy antics stretching out her muscles making disgusted faces, it starts to become hilarious. You can tell she’s just having fun as everyone acts crazy all around her. Chenelle Peloso is one of those perfect talky best friend characters who wears a hat that’s in almost every teen movie (yet I’ve never seen one in the wild). Spencer Boldman is far too cool for school, someone who already learned everything, so spends his day playing the faux rebel. Special performance bonus go to Emilia McCarthy as the villainess Taylor Dean, who just hates that darn Zoey Stevens for stealing her man and her dance reputation and basically everything. McCarthy spends the whole film chewing the scenery being fun to hate and it’s awesome. She’s joined by sidekick Yuki (Louriza Tronco), Taylor’s toady who thinks she’s her BFF, and Taylor constantly slams her for saying ridiculous things (sometimes deservedly, sometimes not!)

Yes, we were hanging out in this bathroom for hours waiting for you to come in!

Young Zoey Stevens (Zendaya) grew up with it just being her and her mom for so long that she barely remembers anything different (the reference to her father is he once gave her a castle music box, it’s implied he passed on). She lives most of her life on her cell phone, using apps for everything. We open with her mother’s wedding to her new husband, Ted Thompson, who comes complete with three rowdy boys and a dog (Adam, Zach, Ben, and the dog Humphrey). Things hit a full Brady Bunch as the boys repeatedly cause huge messes, starting with splattering Zoey while she’s giving her maid of honor speech.

They Live the App!

Things don’t get better at her new school, as the boys there are all pre-divided up into cliques: the gamers, the skateboarders, the stinky guys, the shirtless muscleheads. Special consideration given to a guy known as The Tripp (Jedidiah Goodacre), who refers to himself in the third person in between farting on people. The only people not insane is her new BFF for life, Rachel Todds (Chenelle Peloso), and the single non-disgusting boy in the school, with the neo-leftist name Jackson Kale (Spencer Boldman). Think James Dean crossed with Edward the vampire, with Jackson Kale wearing his sunglasses inside, in the dark while watching a film strip. Of course he’s the love interest, calling Zoey “Smart Phone” as he quickly picks up on her habit.

This movie has gone to the dogs! Ha! I kill me! No, wait, don’t kill me! It was just an expression. I stole it from ALF! No, please, NOOOOOOOOOOO*– **BLAM BLAM BLAM**

InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Species: The Awakening (Review)

July 3, 2014ByTars Tarkas

Species: The Awakening

aka Species 4

2007
Written by Ben Ripley
Based on characters created by Dennis Feldman
Directed by Nick Lyon

The Species franchise transitioned from femme fueled Freudian nightmare to direct to video science fiction dreck so quickly that by installment number four materialized – Species: The Awakening – I had long ago put it on my lower priorities list. There, Species 4 sat, until one day I restumbled across it and decided to try it out. After all, I will get an answer to what 1902 is! (That’s the number that the camera panned to ominously at the conclusion of Species III, thus it must mean something!)

Species: The Awakening continues the premise of the prior installment in stating that there are already members of the alien Species living amongst us in hiding. While in Species 3 they were all surviving offspring of Eve or the astronaut guy from Species 2, here they were created in a lab in Mexico that does the same research that created the original alien creature in the first film. Except now in a much more safe form, in that they only kill a lot of people instead of every person.

Our lead Miranda Hollander (Helena Mattsson) is one just creation of this group, a young woman who doesn’t even know she’s the product of alien DNA technology, living a quiet life as a blooming academic with a bright future ahead of her. She’s raised by her uncle Tom (Ben Cross), who unbeknownst to her but beknownst to us, helped create her before abandoning the research because of moral quandaries. But once she gets sick and begins reverting back to Species form and goes on a killing spree, he now needs to reconnect with his former partner in order to save her life.

InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Steal My Heart (Review)

June 30, 2014ByTars Tarkas

Steal My Heart

aka 캐치미 aka Kaechimi aka Catch Me

2013
Written and directed by Lee Hyeon-jong

Let’s jump back down the well of Korean romantic comedies again with Steal My Heart! It’s got super star Kim Ah-joong, it’s got Joo Won, it’s got a director who hasn’t done much before, how can it go wrong? Unfortunately, that’s what we need to find out, because it doesn’t go right. Instead of a great film, we just get a film that squanders all opportunities to better itself. If there is anything I hate most of all, it’s a film that wastes potential.

Police profiler Lee Ho-tae (Joo Won) was having a good day, having just figured out the routine of a serial killer plaguing the area and leading a stakeout to catch him. One hiccup is the suspected kill is ran over (twice!) by a hit and run driver, which turns into a joke hanging over Lee Ho-tae’s head to the point where people are saying the car solved the case and not him (why no one seems too happy that a guy who murders people is off the streets nor that Lee Ho-tae did all the work finding him is never explained). Lee Ho-tae tracks down the car and driver to save his career, the only hitch being the driver is Yoon Jin-sook (Kim Ah-Joong), who he knew ten years ago as Lee Sook-ja when he was dating her.

Through a series of misadventures and attempts to protect Yoon Jin-sook (and that she’s sick with a cold, probably the only time in movie history a character will cough and not be dead by the end of the film!), she ends up staying at Lee Ho-tae’s place, while he finds out more and more about how she’s a master criminal thief. They attempt to make amends by returning some of the art she’s stolen, all while staying one step ahead from the rival Detective Oh (Baek Do-Bin), who keeps getting assigned the cases that Yoon Jin-sook committed. But Yoon Jin-sook knows she has to answer at some point for the things she’s done.

A cop vs. criminal romantic comedy is one of those obvious opposites attract scenarios that you’d think this would be a hit out of the park. Especially with Korea producing a few good heist flicks recently. But instead, things are so by the numbers that Steal My Heart never rises above the material to say much of anything. Yoon Jin-sook is far to sympathetic as a criminal, and far too eager to go to jail for her crimes when caught. Lee Ho-tae is powerless before the woman he used to love before fate intervened and he thought he lost her, and now finds out he barely knew her at all.

InGood, Movie Reviews

Snowpiercer (Review)

June 28, 2014ByTars Tarkas

Snowpiercer

aka 설국열차 aka Seolgugyeolcha

2013
Story by Bong Joon-ho
Screenplay by Bong Joon-ho and Kelly Masterson
Based on Le Transperceneige by Jacques Lob, Benjamin Legrand, and Jean-Marc Rochette
Directed by Bong Joon-ho

2013 saw three of the best directors of Korea produce English-language films. First was Kim Ji-woon with The Last Stand, an entertaining but forgettable Schwarzenegger comeback vehicle. Next was Park Chan-wook and Stoker, an amazing coming of age story covered in Hitchcock influences. The finale was Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer, which would have been an amazing capstone. Unfortunately, history repeated itself in the Weinsteins ruining everything, delaying the film and demanding a bunch of cuts and added narration. After a bunch of arguing, Snowpiercer got a limited run uncut in America, but by that time it had already hit BluRay in several foreign markets.

Having now seen the film, I have no idea exactly what would have been cut, as most of it was essential. Almost the entire film is in English, so this isn’t a case of people that would be turned off by subtitles. The only thing I could think of was to alter the film fundamentally to try to remove some of the class warfare aspects, which would only serve to protect the upper class and ruin the film by eliminating most of the motivation to revolt. The delay probably cost Snowpiercer a huge percentage of its audience, which will in turn be used as more evidence that films like this just don’t work as releases and lead to less good films getting releases. I hate to be pessimistic, but this has happened before and will happen again.

Shelving this film was all bunk because Snowpiercer is damn amazing. It’s better than Stoker, and Stoker was one of my favorite films from 2013. Not only is it a fun science fiction adventure with a unique premise, but it deals with the struggle of class inequality and revolutions against tyrannical governments. As the world lies frozen due to adverse effects from attempts to combat global warming, the only life left is on the unstoppable train known as Snowpiercer, which travels the world on an endless loop journey once every year. It has now been 16 years since the world froze, and things on the train aren’t very well.

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