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InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Haywire

January 4, 2013By

Haywire


2012
Written by Lem Dobbs
Directed by Steven Soderbergh

Why is the hallway all lime green all of a sudden?

Versatile director Steven Soderbergh has a cinematic talent and creative desire that he will work in almost any genre at any level of funding. Soderbergh also has a realistic view on his output, he knew he was in a creative funk at one point (and used one of his own films to help inspire him to greatness) and knows he will get jaded at film directed again, so is setting his eyes on becoming a painter. But before critics with even snootier voices begin tearing into his work, it’s still our time! Haywire is Soderbergh’s action spectacle, a femme fighter basher that gives us some great fights. Continuing Soderbergh’s trend of using nontraditional actors, MMA fighter Gina Carano making her major film debut (she was previously in the DTV flick Blood and Bone, was an American Gladiator as Crush, and is featured in the video game Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 as Natasha).

Oh, honey, that’s not how you apply foundation!

Opening with an on the run Mallory Kane meeting Aaron at a diner, Kane quickly ends up beating him up, as he’s assigned to take her in. Now in a stolen car, she relates her tale to her hostage Scott, letting us into her recent escapades in Barcelona and subsequent betrayal in Ireland. Though fleeing from every law enforcement branch in the country, she remains calm and collected while trying to evade her pursuers.

Haywire‘s greatest strength is the choreography, but unfortunately I’ve seen things that may Haywire look like a snooze in the park. Haywire does excel at showing just how brutal violence is, especially physical violence in close quarters. Mallory Kane battles several men in claustrophobic situations, either trapped or led to an isolated area. Kane doesn’t back down from the fights, either out of a sense of desperate survival or a sense of duty to track the one man who escaped the raid on a hostage situation.

I’m just gonna take a big smoke on my phallic symbol…

Mallory Kane (Gina Carano) – Our heroine, former marine, and private military agent who goes on the run when she’s framed for murder and flagged as wanted. There is lots of looking and slightly squinting eyes by Gina, it is called acting. It’s probably even a method acting, under the great Franz von Lookensquint.
Aaron (Channing Tatum) – Fellow agent who also works for Mallory’s employer, is sent to go get her when she goes on the run.
Kenneth (Ewan McGregor) – Kane’s former husband and her employer, though she’s leaving his business.
Paul (Michael Fassbender) – British agent who is teamed with Mallory in Ireland…where’s she’s betrayed. Will turn out to not be a big fan of ladies’ thighs…
John Kane (Bill Paxton) – Kane’s father. The two aren’t close, he’s retired military and spends his time writing long military fiction. It is unknown if any of his books are about bughunts.
Rodrigo (Antonio Banderas) – Spanish agent who doesn’t like Kane and her team playing in his pool. There is more going on than that, though…
Hi, yes, I recently bought your Automatic 2000 garage door opener, and I think there may be a problem…
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Beware

January 2, 2013By

Beware


1946
Written by John E. Gordon
Directed by Bud Pollard
Beware
A black cast Race Movie made entirely to give an excuse for Louis Jordan to play his jazz for over half the running time, Beware succeeds marvelously in it’s goal, because Louis Jordan is awesome. Everything else, though, is freaking terrible! The flat actors seem pulled from community theater, and occasionally fumble their lines, but the scene continues as if nothing happened.

Louis Jordan is joined by his Tympany Band, at this time the line up is: William Davis on Piano, Joshua W. Jackson on Sax, Aaron Izenhall on Trumpet, Carl Hogan on Guitar, Jesse Simpkins on Bass, and Eddie Byrd on Drums. Also credited is The “ARISTO-GENES” Girls Club, who did some of the dancing.
Beware
An interesting feature is aside from Jordan and his band, all of the adult black characters with authority are light-skinned. The Dean, the Professor, and even love interest Annabelle are light complexion. Even more odd, the villain, Charles Ware the Third, is the lightest skinned of them all! The students and minor characters like a guy at the train station are generally darker. I don’t know if there was a conscious effort to cast a more lighter main cast (some of the all black cast films do things like that, Oscar Micheaux did is constantly in his films) or just the film stock has degraded to point where everyone is lighter skinned.

Director Bud Pollard’s first flick was Girls for Sale (1927), a precode white slavery “epic” that he cowrote and codirected. But as John Donaldson at the Classic Horror Film Board detected, there was a bit more to the story. Girls for Sale started out as a German film called Das Frauenhaus von Rio and was advertised as Rio’s Road to Hell, until Brazil’s government go offended and suddenly the title was just Road to Hell. It played at least once with live action nude models (which I think was a stage show that was ripping off the “sex education” films like Mom and Dad) I honestly can’t tell if this film still exists.

Pollard dabbled in all sorts of exploitation fare, from race films like The Black King (1932), It Happened in Harlem (1945), Beware, and Tall, Tan, and Terrific (1946). He made at least one Yiddish language film, Victims of Persecution (1933), and an Italian language film, O Festino o la Legge (1932). He’s probably best known for Alice in Wonderland (1931) and The Horror (1932). Pollard would even appear on film in The Road to Hollywood (1947), which is a collection of Bing Crosby shorts packaged and renamed to cash in on his Road to... flicks, with Bud Pollard hosting the interstitials. You can watch it for free at Archive.org. Heck, you can even watch Beware there!
Beware
Beware is a quick way to pass the time and filled with lots of cool jazz. Though in this day and age you can just download tons and tons of Louis Jordan tunes, turning Beware more into an interesting artifact of the time. What will people say of Katy Perry: Part of Me in 60 years?

Louis Jordan/Lucius Brokenshire Jordan (Louis Jordan) – “The King of the Jukebox” was one of the greatest musicians of all time and deserved better films than Beware. But you got to make lemonade with whatever weird fruit life throws at you. Jordan deserves books written about him that a blurb on a website won’t fill. In this film, he is a Ware College alumni named Lucius who disappeared right before Louis Jordan appeared on the national stage.
Annabelle Brown (Valerie Black) – Athletic instructor at Ware College and former mutual college crush of Lucius Jordan. But that jerk Benjamin Ware the Third ruined everything. You never see her do any athletic instruction.
Benjamin Ware III (Milton Woods) – Heir to the Ware family fortune and guardian of the Ware College fund…which he says is broke, but that’s a lie! Ware wants Annabelle as his bride, but she knows he sucks and refuses. Thus, Ware will burn down everything unless some jazz singer saves the day…

Beware

InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Live a Little, Love a Little

January 1, 2013By

Live a Little, Love a Little

1968
Written by Michael A. Hoey and Dan Greenburg
Directed by Norman Taurog

Someone’s too excited about Elvis’ naked body. Then again, anyone being excited at all about Elvis’ naked body is a scary, scary thing.

Elvis Presley, the King of Rock and Roll, starred in 31 motion pictures between 1956 and 1969. He did it because he loved movies, and his management loved money. Every movie rolled out with a tie-in album that promised a lucrative pot of gold, and while Mr. Presley desired to be another Brando, his management fashioned him instead as a low rent James Dean. A rebel with a cause, and that cause was a bag covered in dollar signs.

I’ve been watching through the Elvis filmography the last couple of months, half because I find dated cultural artifacts fascinating and half because I’m a total glutton for punishment. The films he’s mostly remembered for are big gaudy musicals like Jailhouse Rock and Viva Las Vegas, but these are, politely, the tip of the iceberg.

It’s always an awkward love triangle when there’s a Darren involved.

Usually he’s a pretty typical character: race car driver/airplane pilot/bon vivant who is a part time singer and a bit of a sex machine who gets himself in a bit of trouble.  If I told you there was a film where Elvis was fighting his brother in the Civil War, would you be surprised? One where he was mistaken for a spy and chased around the world? One where he plays a Native American in redface? One where he plays a dual role and both Elvises chase around a bunch of sexy bumpkins through the Appalachians?

And I’m only listing out ones that I’ve seen. For all I know, there’s an Elvis movie out there where he plays a giant poodle. Hell, this one comes close.

I’m not going to write about every Elvis movie for TarsTarkas.Net, but I wanted to highlight a few of the most unbelievable. Because maybe if someone believed me when I talk about these films, if someone else knew the pain involved in just how bad some of these are… maybe they won’t be quite so painful.

If you stick with me through these reviews, you may pick up on the fact that most Elvis films have a view of women that nowadays is considered slightly more mature than those held by most cavemen.

Greg Nolan (Elvis Presley) – Not a driver or a flyer this go around (though he does own a rockin’ dune buggy), but a photojournalist. He also, of course, knows kung fu.
Live a Little Love a Yowza Bernice Bernice (Michelle Carey) – A dippy chick who is known by a range of different names by her many male acquaintances. She drives Elvis nuts, but we’ll touch more on that below.
Live a Little Dick Sargent Harry (Dick Sargent) – Bernice’s ex-husband. Or is it current husband? I don’t know, he keeps showing up to annoy Elvis, and is about as square as square can be.
Live a Little Sterling Holloway Milkman (Sterling Holloway) – Okay, so the milkman doesn’t have a whole lot to do with the film, but it’s Sterling Holloway! He was a twerpy character actor from the 1930’s onward. Look at how old he is!
Albert (Brutus) – Albert is Bernice’s Great Dane who seems just as obsessed with the man as Bernice is. Albert is played by Elvis’ own Dane, Brutus. Et tu, Elvis?

InBad, Movie Reviews

Django Unchained

December 31, 2012By

Django Unchained


2012
Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino
Django Unchained
There will be SPOILERS for Django Unchained below the fold. If you don’t want to get spoiled, please read one of our many other fine reviews and come back later. Thank you.
Django Unchained

InMovie Reviews, Ugly

The Woman Knight of Mirror Lake

December 27, 2012By

The Woman Knight of Mirror Lake

aka 競雄女俠秋瑾 aka Jian hu nu xia Qiu Jin

2011
Written by Erica Li Man and Checkley Sin Kwok-Lam
Directed by Herman Yau Lai-To
The Woman Knight of Mirror Lake
To say that The Woman Knight of Mirror Lake was a disappointment would be a sad understatement. The biopic of famed femme revolutionary Qiu Jin is about a remarkable woman in a dangerous time, but the entire narrative suffers through flashbacks and a lack of establishing just what the heck is going on. I am familiar with the history of Qiu Jin because she’s interesting, but I still had trouble following the historical who’s who of revolutionaries, both real and consolidated/fake. Unfocused and scattered, The Woman Knight of Mirror Lake jumps from revolutionary speak to scenes trying to depict how women got it tough to speeches about Chinese patriotism to battle scenes involving people the audience has never met. The zig-zagging prevents a good narrative that we can follow, and the flashbacks serve no purpose and don’t correspond to what is happening in the present. It’s like they read about the narrative technique in a book and decided to do it just because it sounded cool. Herman Yau Lai-To has directed some cult classics in years gone by, but his extreme nature seems to have been neutered for bigger paychecks, and along with that, any attempts to do things creatively.

The Woman Knight of Mirror Lake is a very patriotic film. Most discussions on the ills of society end up running into the narrative that China is lead by weaklings, so that’s why everything sucks. And at this time, China was essentially carved up by foreign powers, humiliated, and reform attempts had just ended in disaster. But instead of showing how the failures justify the repeated revolution attempts (there were literally dozens over the years before they took), we just jump to the next problem of women not being able to travel due to children, or Japan restricting what students can say, or Qiu Jin’s husband being an entitled douche.
The Woman Knight of Mirror Lake
Beyond the script not following a story arc that makes it easy to follow, the individual scenes themselves are messes at times. The most notable is near the end of the film where there is an attempted assassination of a local governor. The setup and subsequent fight seems to last forever, and it’s filled with unknown people fighting unknown people. Worst of all, we all know the conclusion, because it was in the beginning of the film! This is like worrying if Obi-Won Kenobi is in any trouble in a Star Wars prequel.

Qiu Jin (Crystal Huang Yi) – Independent female who won’t be caged. Uses her skills at the brush to fight for freedom with essays and poems. Eventually becomes allied with ever more armed revolutionaries and is caught up in the fervor, and captured for execution as a traitor.
Li Zongyue (Anthony Wong Chau-Sang) – Qing official who is present during Qiu Jin’s trial and is an old family friend. Has to reluctantly go along with her downfall.
Xu Xilin (Dennis To Yue-Hong) – Historical revolutionary whose attempts to assassinate a local governor end with the government cracking down on his group with deadly force.

The Woman Knight of Mirror Lake

InBad, Movie Reviews

Enthiran

December 24, 2012By

Enthiran


2010
Written by Shankar, Sujatha Rangarajan, Madhan Karky
Directed by Shankar
Enthiran
In 2010, Endhiran exploded onto the scene, focusing the world’s eyes onto the Tamil film industry for what may have been the first time. Of course, many of the eyes then left just as fast, but Endhiran did succeed in exposing people to something they would never watch otherwise and getting a lot of new fans for Indian cinema in general. Endhiran is the classic love triangle combined with father-son angst, resulting in the biggest Oedipus complex you ever did see. All neatly wrapped up in SciFi flavor, which helps give us some cool visuals and the most ridiculously awesome action sequences that fill the last half hour.
Enthiran
Endhiran was released simultaneously as the dubbed versions Robo in Telugu and Robot in Hindi, smashing records with ease. Rajinikanth is the superstar of Tamil cinema and is one of the most famous actors in India. It is hard to believe that he was 60 when Endhiran came out. He’s paired up with an equal in superstar statues, Aishwarya Rai, who is often cited as the most beautiful woman in the world.
Enthiran
Though the fantastic action shots are what gained the film exposure, Enthiran is about much more than that. Enthiran is a love story. A love story of both a couple (Vasi and Sana), and also a father and son love story between Vasi and his creation, Chitti. Vasi pours his whole being into his work, to the point of avoiding all contact outside of it. This rightfully ticks off Sana, who feels the jilted fiance. Despite creating what is arguably a life, Vasi also spends a good chunk of the film trying to make up to Sana for ignoring her all the time.
Enthiran

Vasi/Dr. K. Vaseekaran (Rajinikanth) – Brilliant scientists working on robotic AI, attempting to create a robot that he can sell to the military to save human lives. Vasi’s faults begin to manifest themselves as the robot Chitti experiences
Chitti Babu (Rajinikanth) – Robotic creation of Vasi, named by Vasi’s mom after what she would have called a hypothetical sibling of Vasi. Chitti starts out a a friendly robot eager to please, but as he learns more about humanity and is given emotions, there is a breakdown into chaos.
Sana (Aishwarya Rai) – Vasi’s long-suffering fiance, who puts up with him ignoring her while he’s engrossed in work. But she does have a line and Vasi blunders over it occasionally.
Dr. Bohra (Danny Denzongpa) – Vasi’s former mentor who is working on a competing robot project, thus he begins sabotaging Vasi’s creation without Vasi’s knowledge. Unlike Vasi’s noble goals, Dr. Bohra is creating robots to destroy.

Enthiran

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