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InMovie Reviews, Ugly

The Teenie Weenie Bikini Squad

November 22, 2012By

The Teenie Weenie Bikini Squad


2012
Written by Dean McKendrick
Directed by Fred Olen Ray (as Nicholas Medina)

Teenie Weenie Bikini Squad
Did I leave the Bikini Frankenstein machine on?

Whenever there is trouble, and it is double (double-Ds, that is!), the Teenie Weenie Bikini Squad will be there! Three girls solve cases and bust bad guys while wearing outfits that will make you blush…if they bother to wear outfits, that is! Charlie may have his angels, but those films were terrible and let’s not even talk about the reboot series. The Teenie Weenie Bikini Squad does more than just be a Charlie’s Angels knockoff with a title borrowed from a hit novelty song, it’s also a commentary on the decline of the Playboy enterprise.

The Tony Tefler character and the Playpen magazine and empire are clearly based on Hugh Hefner and Playboy (duh!), and they lampoon both Hef’s old age and his dalliances with a series of younger women (seen most famously on The Girls Next Door show, but also pretty famous without the show.) In the beginning, Hefner arose from his magazine creation beginnings to become a free speech advocate, largely due to photographing naked women being considered obscene in many parts of the US back in the furious 50s. Playboy grew into a classy and hip thing that world-minded trendy people read while listening to jazz and hosting serious parties where the civil rights movement and women’s lib were discussed by people in berets. At least that is how I imagine the 60s and 70s, though there was probably awesome music and piles of drugs. Playboy even had their own TV show.

Teenie Weenie Bikini Squad
YOU vaccum the living room!

But the rise of the moral majority, Reagan’s America, the resurgance of conservatism, it threw that hip stuff out the window. In addition, there was also the rise of pornography, in the 70s porn films were playing in mainstream art house theaters. Things came crashing down, the rise of the video culture and late night cable took some of the wind out of the sails. Playboy became replaced by men’s mags such as Maxim and their copycats in the 90s, while at the same time they were losing out online as porn became freely available with but a click and a lie about being over 18. Playboy lost the innovation it had, it’s place as the figurehead for a movement eclipsed.

Is there a place for classy pictures in the age of internet pornography? I’m sure there is, but by not getting ahead of the game, Playboy is fighting an uphill battle. The reality show boosted their stock more than anything recently, but that ended like all good things must. And with it, Playboy’s current cultural impact. It remains to be seen what the future of Playboy will hold, especially as Hefner clocks up there in years and will eventually clock out. Playboy always hold a fond memory for millions of pervs around the world. I remember even buying an issue of Playboy for the article, an interview with Jesse Ventura right after he was elected governor.

Teenie Weenie Bikini Squad
On the guy’s shirt?  Elvis!

The Teenie Weenie Bikini Squad hits all of the notes that critics of the Playboy brand have been hinting at. From the producer who wants to make more harder stuff, to the legions of ex-girlfriends of Hefner, to even Hef’s viagra usage, the points are all laid out. Fear not, as the film is not overly preachy, the Hefner character is even the victim, despite being portrayed in an unsympathetic light. If anything, that makes The Teenie Weenie Bikini Squad more realistic than many episodes of Law & Order.

The Teenie Weenie Bikini Squad is another Synthetic Filmwerx joint! Werx it if you got it.

Teenie Weenie Bikini Squad
Occupy Teenie Weenie Bikini Street!

Sandy Banner (Brandin Rackley) – The main investigator of The Teenie Weenie Bikini Squad, Sandy will always get her man in the end, even if it means he gets her in the end first!
Jasmine St. James (Michelle Maylene) – The youngest member of the squad who is an expert at under cover and being under the covers. Becomes strangely excited about her undercover model career.
Nikki Resnick (Kylee Nash) – The Teenie Weenie Bikini Squad member most likely to believe Weekly World News headlines. Yeah, I made a reference to a dead publication in a review of a movie that mocks another dying publication. It’s called “being awesome”!
Benny (Mike Gaglio) – The boss of the Teenie Weenie Bikini Squad, and a real slave driver. Benny needs to learn that there is a time for work and a time for vacation.
Tef (Ted Newsom) – Tony “Tef” Tefler, owner of Playpen magazine and noted scumbag. But he’s a scumbag with money and bad things are happening against him, so he’s the client. Cue “The Client” appearing below his picture ala Burn Notice. I have said it before, and will say it again: Ted Newsom rules.
Laura (Kelli McCarty) – Tef’s top photographer, former Playpen girl, and former flame. She both despises her former lover and wishes she had his attention again.
Mo (Beverly Lynne) – All the best bartenders are named Mo(e). Another former Tef flame and Playpen girl who now works in an out of the way part of his empire, and is unacknowledged to her resentment.
Frank Devlin (Evan Stone) – The jerk who manages the Playpen Club. He’s desperate to escape his contract with Tef to start his own hardcore company, but he’s stuck tight. Unless Playpen goes under…
Rico Martinez (Tony Marino) – Oh. That guy.
Burt (Nick Manning) – Frank’s goon who does his breaking and entering work. Also does entering work for explicit videos. High five, that was a joke worthy of an ALF rerun!
Dancer (Jade Starr) – Are we human, or are we dancer?
Teenie Weenie Bikini Squad
This Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire remake is weird!
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Samantha’s Sexy Summer

November 20, 2012By

Samantha’s Sexy Summer


2006
Written and directed by Francis Locke

Samantha's Sexy Summer
Can you hear me now?

Another Torchlight Picture that takes place mostly in the middle of the desert! Except they have ditched the random archaeology or photography themes and instead are using a vacation theme. National Lampoon’s Desert Vacation. But don’t worry, this has all the Torchlight Picture/Francis Locke motifs:

  • The desert
  • A run-down hotel
  • A long shower sequence in the run-down hotel
  • Sex scenes bordering on 15 minutes long
  • Dialogue in-between said sex sequences bordering on 2 minutes long
  • Music by Blade Simpson

The pair of women in Samantha’s Sexy Summer have more silicone and collagen injections than an entire baseball team of Tiger Woods mistresses. And since the both play their identical twin sisters, it’s a quad dose of fake boobs!

Samantha's Sexy Summer
Feel the sexy summer!

Samantha (Tabitha Stevens) – a desert-obsessed vacationer who is sort of searching for the friends she’s meeting there along with Raycene, but they keep getting distracted by all of their lesbian sex.
Raycene (Frankie Dashwood) – Brought along with Samantha to the desert where they both search for their identical twins and Marty. If they can keep their hands off each other!
Marty (Jourdain Lefue) – Marty once had a fling with Samantha in the desert, forming Samantha’s new-found desert fetish. Now he’s back with Samantha and Raycene’s sisters.
Dean (Tabitha Stevens) – Samantha’s twin sister who is totally identical to Samantha in every way, including tattoos. The only difference is Samantha wears her hair down instead of a pony tail!
Raycene’s Twin Sister (Frankie Dashwood) – Raycene’s Twin Sister never even gets a name, and never wears clothes. The only difference between the siblings is her hair is up while Raycene’s is down.
Samantha's Sexy Summer
If you ask “Can you hear me now?” one more time, I’ll hunt you down and gut you!
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Cat Girl Kiki (Review)

November 16, 2012By

Cat Girl Kiki

aka 萌えキュン＠MOVIE 猫耳少女キキ aka Moekyun@Movie Nekomimi Shojo Kiki

2007
Directed by Akiyoshi Sugiura

Everything seems cool until you see her giant kitty litter box!

The Akihabara Trilogy are in essence fetish movies for lovers of girls in costumes. Legend of the Doll and Pretty Maid Cafe are also not very interesting films, and barely even worth mentioning beyond the titles. Cat Girl Kiki, however, has an extra spark of dark what the fuck that makes it memorable, even though it’s completely awful. Cat Girl Kiki will suck the joy out of you and make you question life.

I’m not sure they told Yui Kano anything about her role before they glued cat ears to her head and started filming.

Now, we at TarsTarkas.NET respect when filmmakers take risks. I love it when things happen that are completely different and a director or writer goes against type to try to make something new and magical. And while Cat Girl Kiki could have just been a fun romp with a guy and his magical cat girl having adventures, instead we get a look at a deeply disturbed individual and what happens when you read too much manga and do nothing else.

Psst! I’ll slip you a $20 and some catnip if you break me out of this joint!

Now, it is impossible to discuss the film properly without spoilers, so expect everything to be revealed as I put this film on blast.

Kiki (Yui Kano) – Kiki is a cat girl who appears first as a kitten adopted by Yoshiro, and morphs into a cat girl the next morning. Thus Yoshiro has to teach her how to be human. Too bad he didn’t teach her how to actually exist, because she doesn’t. Spoilers! If anyone is seriously upset over spoilers over a cat girl movie, get a life. Yui Kano is a seiyu. I don’t know what that is. I don’t want to know what that is.
Yoshiro Takagi (Teruaki Uotani) – A loveable loser. Well, not really, he’s more of a pathetic loser with a large collection of prominently displayed porn mangas, costume fetishes, and feline fetishes. His girlfriend cheats on him because he’s so boring, and he withdraws into a freaky fantasy world. A real hikikomori.
Yuka Sanada (Minami Aoyama) – Girlfriend of Yoshiro who decides she needs someone else’s penis inside her. Yet they end up together in the end. Minami Aoyama is a Japanese porn star that you probably saw in Confinement Chair Restriction Trance. Which I think is a subgenre of electronic music…
Shingo Noda (Katsuya Kobayashi) – Yuka’s friend and bathtime fun partner, unfortunately their bathtime fun happens while she is dating Yoshiro, which sends him into a spiral of despair and delusion. Katsuya Kobayashi was also in Kamen Rider Kabuto: God Speed Love and Linda Linda Linda. I would be derelict in my duty to not mention he looks creepy.
Anime. The movie.
InGood, Movie Reviews

When Nature Calls (1985)

November 14, 2012By

When Nature Calls

aka The Outdoorsters


Directed by Charles Kaufman
Written by Charles Kaufman and Stan Weisman

I find this gag to be ‘bearable’.

“How many people remember that Eleanor Roosevelt had great tits?”

Seven years after Kentucky Fried Movie, a different group of filmmakers decided to basically do the same thing: a theatrical experience that was a parody of the entire theater going experience. You get fake trailers, fake theater announcements, fake concession stand ads (here’s a hotdog doing another hotdog doggy style! brilliant!) and a feature presentation that makes mockery of a big hit.

It doesn’t help us much now that the object of the film’s scorn, the series of Wilderness Family movies in the late 70’s, are pretty much forgotten now. Those were a series of film where the dad took everyone out into the woods where they were much happier without the technology. And, you know, other people.

They use most of the film’s run time to skewer this, but rather than settle for a simple parody, they mixed their approach with the Airplane gag-a-minute philosophy, and while there are a lot (a lot) of misses, it still works out since the people in front of the camera seem to be having such a good time.

Baby Bullets (N/A) – A baby buggy that gets to reenact gangster movie cliches. It’s funny. Because it’s a baby.

Yeah. And this is the trailer they start with…
Gena (Cheryl “Gates” McFadden) – The future chief medical officer of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” plays Gena in a trailer entitled Gena’s Story. This involves a lot of pokes at ‘female pictures’ that Meryl Streep probably would feel comfortable in. It also involves dancing around in her underwear, uh, if that’s your thing.
Marty (Matthew Adams) – The third and last trailer parody is probably the deepest of them all, which ain’t saying much. This satire of Raging Bull involves a great deal of swearing, which is all bleeped out (because bleeping is much funnier than uncreative profanity). I think the title of this segment is apt (Raging Asshole) and it wisely doesn’t overstay its welcome.
Greg (David Orange) – The lead and madman who kicks off the plot of our feature, The Outdoorsters. Greg one day decides his city job (in “Shanghai, 1913” which looks suspiciously like 1980’s New York) and take his family out into the wilderness where they can build a life. He’s completely self delusional and narrates this movie which only seems to feed into his madness. But, hey, check out that physique and kinky scarf.
Barb (Barbara Marineau) – Greg’s wife who thinks he’s crazy. She also will not make love to him, resorting to sticking mice traps in her pockets for whenever he gets frisky.

Probably also nuts.
Bambi (Tina Marie Staino) – A teenage girl who loves her teddy bear too much. And when she finally meets a real bear, it’s love at first site.

She becomes his honey! :rimshot:
Little Billy (Nicky Belm) – Little Billy is what all parents worried their kids would become in the 80’s– an entrepreneur without a conscience. We start the movie with him deciding the fates of a bevy of prostitutes, and soon find him creating peep shows for elephants out in the woods. He’s a brat, but, oddly, probably the most sane of them all.
Weejun (David Strathairn) – Yes. Future Academy Award nominee David Strathairn. He plays an Indian (or at least a man who thinks he’s an Indian) who becomes friends with the family as they rough it in the wilderness. He has much to teach them, especially in the arena of bobcat wrestling.
InBad, Movie Reviews

Eega

November 13, 2012By

Eega

aka ఈగ aka Naan Ee aka Eecha aka Makkhi
Eega
2012
Written by Janardhan Maharshi and S. S. Rajamouli
Directed by S. S. Rajamouli
Eega
Eega is the best movie of 2012, and I will argue this fact until you are blue in the face and die and are reincarnated as a fly. And I’ll be right, because Eega is a rocking awesome flick that keeps you entertained and has fun with it’s crazy story.
Eega
The concept of Eega is so utterly brilliant I am surprised it isn’t used more in films from countries where belief in reincarnation is more mainstream. But beyond the general idea of revenge lasting beyond the grave because the victim is reincarnated, which far too often is just depicted as boring old ghosts, Eega takes that and turns in into an awesome tale where the murdered victim reincarnates as a fly, and must take down a powerful and evil man while one of the weakest creatures on the planet. Flies are even used as a punching bag by bullies, as they say things like “what was that, a fly?” when hit or other such taunts. But a fly can be powerful, especially when backed by the intelligence of a human and the benefits of a micro artist fashioning tools and weapons for the insect.
Eega
Eega literally means fly, and when Nani is reincarnated from an underdog in love to an ultimate underdog, his hero arc is at one of the lowest points in cinematic history. How many heroes come back from being killed off in the first act? Only Bill Cosby and Patrick Swayze! But Nani returns in fly form, and his revenge builds from irritation and protecting the woman he loves to vengeance upon the man who ended his life because he stood in the way of getting said woman.
Eega
Eega was filmed in Telugu (as Eega) and Tamil (as Naan Ee – the name I first heard of this film as), and later dubbed into Malayalam (as Eecha) and Hindi (as Makkhi). All of these words can be seen flashing on the screen during the final musical number.
Eega

Bindu (Samantha) – A visual design sculptor that does micro art as a hobby. Bindu works for Project 511 charity helping educate underprivileged children. Nani has the hots for her, and she’s spent the better part of two years teasingly ignoring him and his advances as part of a long term game of hard to get. But this has tragic consequences when the night she finally professes her love is his last on Earth… Samantha also goes by Samantha Ruth Prabhu and has become one of the top South Indian actresses recently.
Sudeep (Kiccha Sudeep) – A corrupt businessman and womanizer, Sudeep even killed his wife for her money, though he’s not beyond using her memory as emotional manipulation. Sudeep enjoys killing his enemies beneath his bare feet, feeling the life drain out of his targets. Sudeep is the living embodiment of Gaston from Beauty and the Beast.
Nani (Nani) – A nice guy hopelessly in love with Nani, though she secretly likes him back. Nani donates the tiny paychecks he earns from his firecracker business to her charity just to get excuses to talk to her. Nani is his stage name, his birth name is Naveen Babu Ghanta. Also Nani is so close to the word Naan Ee it makes his choice as star be even better, even if Nani is only in 1/3 of the flick.
Nani Fly Form (CGI) – “Come into my parlor” said the spider to the fly. The fly then kicked his spider butt! That fly was Nani, who has reincarnated in fly form to take down the man who killed him and save the woman he loves. And Nani the fly taunt Sudeep by wiggling his fly butt throughout the pic!

Eega

InBad, Movie Reviews

The Zodiac Fighters

November 12, 2012By

The Zodiac Fighters

aka 十二生南 aka Dragon Zombies Return aka Shi er sheng nan

1978
Directed by Hau Chang

Zodiac Fighters
50 Shades of Grey wishes it was this daring!

Polly Shang Kuan Ling-Feng began her career In 1966 with the United Film Corporation, and was quickly and began studying martial arts. When director King Hu needed a new starlet for 1966’s Dragon Gate Inn (one of the films that helped usher in the modern wuxia films) with Cheng Pei-Pei still under contract at Shaw, Polly was his choice. Polly played a female swordmaster disguised as a man, a role she would be accustom to playing. Often it is hard to figure out what gender Polly is supposed to be in many of her films! 18 Bronzemen, probably her most famous role in the west besides Dragon Gate Inn, also sees her disguised as a man. In 1973’s Back Alley Princess, she was a woman who spent the entire film playing a man, and won the Golden Horse award for Best Actress. 1978’s Little Hero saw her playing a man, and 1977’s Fight for Survival saw her playing a woman who started to become a man thanks to some kung fu, causing her to need to learn a different kung fun style to revert back.

Zodiac Fighters
I have to stay in this cave for a year? But there’s no bathroom, there’s not even a corner!

In some of her earlier roles such as A Grand Passion, The Bravest Revenge, and A Girl Fighter, Polly was regularly cast as a female out to avenge her murdered father. If you stacked the bodies of all of Polly’s murdered fathers in her older films, you could climb to the moon and probably kill her moon father, causing her to seek moon revenge, which wouldn’t seem out of the ordinary by her later films. By the late 1970s, Polly was making some of the most awesome films to come out of Taiwan. Most of these were weird variations of martial arts films packed with comedic tones and funny situations. You don’t watch these films to see expertly performed Eagle Style, you watch it to see wacky costumes, ridiculous fights, and insane situations.

Unlike many of her contemporaries, Polly did not have Peking Opera training, but according to the one biography online that has been copy/pasta’ed everywhere, Polly eventually got black belts in taekwando, karate, and judo. I will point out that none of those are Chinese martial arts. Polly left film in the 1980s and moved to the US. Rumor is she runs a restaurant in LA, but no one has said which restaurant! Polly could be serving you catfish in black bean sauce right now! Or even denying you the ability to sit at your table until the rest of your party arrives… She has appeared occasionally in enough interviews that you can see pictures of her now if you so desire to Google it.

Zodiac Fighters
It’s time for Popeye Style Kung Fu!

So this all brings us to Zodiac Fighters, a film where we have people dressed up as the various Chinese Zodiac animals running around doing kung fu styles in the manner of the animal they are dressed up as. We have a few extra bad guys with different animal suits who show up near the end, and a sequence involving rubber sharks that you have to see to believe. Zodiac Fighters is crazy and freaking awesome, a great martial comedy. Unfortunately, it is also hard as heck to get a hold of. I had to bribe a guy dressed like a moose. Or maybe he was a moose. In any event, I now have a copy, and some moose has a bunch of caramel corn.

I’d like to tell you I did all this research and identified all the random actors, but that would be a lie. I just did what the few of us who watch these films do and went to the source, this Cast Photos Page that is used by every reference source out there, even the HKMDB! So now you know the terrible secret of all us obscure movie bloggers.

Zodiac Fighters is so beloved among cult world cinema fans that it was even featured as one of the Polly Shang Kuan films we talked about in an Infernal Brains Podcast! There is even an even harder to find sequel, called either Zodiac Fighters 2 or War of the Zodiacs depending who whoever wrote the cover of the bootleg with a Sharpie. It does not feature Polly Shang Kuan, but does feature most of the animal actors, little people in dog costumes, and the giant octopuses seen in Little Hero. War of the Zodiacs should probably be called War of the Props Left Over From Other Films.

Zodiac Fighters
The Secret Society of People Dressed as Animals Who Aren’t Furries is ready for battle!

I promise I won’t start quoting lyrics from Talk to the Animals or start wondering what would happen if we could walk with the animals, or possibly even grunt and squeak and squawk with the animals. Because that would just be easy and predictable, and we aspire to a higher standard of lame jokes at TarsTarkas.NET!

Zodiac Fighters
I’m the biggest Shark Week fan in the world!

East Sea Dragon/Polly (Polly Shang Kuan Ling-Feng) – A professional mourner who becomes mixed up in intrigue and thus spends a year learning Dragon Kung Fu in a magic cave, thus then becoming East Sea Dragon. She must then track down the other 11 zodiac sign fighters from the cave and defeat the evil Tiger Shark, because, he’s evil!
Heartbreak Girl (Yee Hung) – Manipulative lass who uses wide-eyed do-gooders to fight for her family’s honor. Despite breaking so many hearts it earned her a new name, she still uses people like East Sea Dragon to do her bidding.
Tiger Shark (Lo Lieh) – Evil jerk with a seafood evil theme, he’s like if a Long John Silvers restaurant came to life and was bad to the bone. The fishbone. Has shark weapons, goons dressed as crabs, the whole nine yards.
Pan Sing (Ngok Yeung) – Good scholar/fortune teller who East Sea Dragon runs into along the way in her quest to take down Tiger Shark. He joins on along with Polly’s old mourning buddies because they got nothing else going on. He will use his brain to figure out things that the audience figured out much earlier in the film. Ngok Yeung shows up in Dwarf Sorcerer and The Legend of Mother Goddess.
The Five Elements (various) – Besides the sea-themed goons, Tiger Shark also employs these five guys based on the five elements – Fire, Wood, Water, Air, and Gold. They are very colorful and have very complex fight moves, but are easily fooled (you might say they are lead by….FOOL’S GOLD!)

The Other 11 Zodiackers:

Rooster (Weng Hsiao-Hu) – The first of the crew they located, Rooster is off crowing in a field and helps East Sea Dragon locate the rest of the signs.
Rat (???) – This Rat guy has the power of digging tunnels and biting people with his rat teeth!
Ox (???) – Ox has the power of the Ox, which is not impressive enough that I noticed what it was. Maybe it was the power of being bought for the game Oregon Express!
Rabbit (???) – Probably the most memorable costume, we got a chick fighting in a fluffy bunny rabbit outfit. And she has a carrot-shaped flute that she plays during musical numbers. Rabbit also has the power of riding toy sharks, which comes in handy during the final battle, believe it or not!
Snake (Wu Feng-Hsien) – Snake is an entertainer at heart and also a fan of walking like an Egyptian, from the looks of her dance moves.
Horse (Gam Sai-Yuk) – Horse has all the power of the Horse, and can even talk like famed horse Mr. Ed.
Ram (???) – Ram enjoys fighting other members of the zodiac crew, because they all love to fight each other all the time. Some real anger management issues going on in this crew.
Monkey (Wang Tai-Lang) – Another entertainer, he uses his monkey skills to earn money as a street performer before being drafted into the ranks of the Zodiackers! Wang Tai-Lang specialized in playing characters named Monkey. Yeah.
Dog (Lee Keung) – When your special powers are biting people on the ankles and peeing on them, maybe you need some new special powers. Just saying. His weakness is rolled-up newspaper!
Pig (Cheng Fu-Hung) – We can’t have a pig zodiac without him looking vaguely like Zhu Bajie from Journey to the West. Cheng Fu-Hung is also in Island Warriors, Fight for Survival, and Fantasy Mission Force.
Tiger (Sek Fung) – Tiger has the most human zodiac costume of them all, and seems like a leader even though he’s subserviant to East Sea Dragon.
Zodiac Fighters
Something’s happening here. What it is, ain’t exactly clear…
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