Skyfall

November 10, 2012ByDanny Reid

Skyfall

2012 –
Written by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, & John Logan
Directed by Sam Mendes

Tron, nooooooo!

The formula for a successful James Bond film is tricky. Too serious, too lighthearted, too romantic, too distant, too many people dressed as clowns: all problems the franchise has faced before.

Now we may have run into a new one: too artsy. Sam Mendes, the Academy Award winning director of American Beauty and a half dozen other explorations of the horror of American life, helms the latest Bond excursion, Skyfall. Getting the opportunity to play with a British icon, Mendes delves immediately into doing what he enjoys doing: peeling away the paint to find the rot underneath.

With the cliches of the franchise firmly in place, Mendes decides to throw the accumulated mess against each other and find where the pieces fall when push comes to shove.

	James “007” Bond (Daniel Craig) – Still smarting from all the other dumb crap he’s gone through in the last two films, Bond is brooding and upset. He also gets shot and presumed dead in the pre-title sequence, something that would put a damper on anyone’s mood.
	M (Dame Judy Dench) – The head of British Intelligence’s MI6, she’s getting up there in years, having advised James Bond way back in the day when he was still Pierce Brosnan. She’s a big focus of the plot this time around, as apparently the entire island of Britain has a good old case of the Oedipus complex when it comes to her.
	Q (Ben Whishaw)– Impish little man with a foppish hairdo that puts Bond on trial for the crimes of humanity…I bet no one’s ever made that joke before! Anyway, this little twerp is Dr. Who, Jr. for the most part, except his extreme overconfidence gets the better of him more than a few times.
	Mallory (Ralph Fiennes) – Yes, Voldemort is in this movie. This time he’s M’s superior, so we have someone threatening to take her badge away after one more reckless act. Layers upon layers.
	Eve (Naomie Harris) – Another British spy who hangs out with James during some down time. Also knows the correct response to the ages old riddle of “Shave and a haircut.”
	Severine (Berenice Marlohe) – The villain’s sex slave girlfriend, with all the joy and fun that that entails.
	Diego Silva (Javier Bardem) – One of the greatest computer hackers the world has apparently ever known, he also has questionable fashion taste and social skills. Completely different than me, I assure you. Well, at least the hacker part.

InBad, Movie Reviews

Santo y Blue Demon vs Drácula y el Hombre Lobo

November 6, 2012ByTars Tarkas

Santo y Blue Demon vs Drácula y el Hombre Lobo

aka Santo and Blue Demon vs. Dracula and the Wolfman

1973
Written by Alfredo Salazar
Directed by Miguel M. Delgado

We slept so long our clothes are in style again!

Unlike the prior Santo and Blue Demon vs. The Monsters, Santo y Blue Demon vs Drácula y el Hombre Lobo is a slower paced and more methodological monster film. Instead of celebrating B movie creatures and having monsters inspired by Universal classics, Dracula and the Wolf Man here are more patterned after the Hammer horror films. The creatures are still deadly, there is still a huge body count, and even major side characters die! Things just go real.

Rounders: The Lucha Years

The lower budget causes more sets to be noticeably sets and not real locations. Santo y Blue Demon vs Drácula y el Hombre Lobo tries to offset this by having more things take place indoors or inside of caves. The few brief outside at night shots feature lighting of an unnatural blue, which eerily mimics to bright blue and red colors of the stadium backgrounds during the wrestling matches (which are also obviously on a stage and not in a real stadium!) The use of bright colors even extends to the opening credits, where bright red is the tone of choice. The atmospheric score is largely piano with some organ parts. The bright colors contrast with the black and white Santo films that gave off a more Gothic horror feel. The bright color but serious tones doesn’t match the campy drive-in approach of Santo and Blue Demon vs. The Monsters, moving vs Drácula y el Hombre Lobo in between the camp and the attempts at serious horror. The dichotomy gives an interesting feel to the film, making it just playful enough that you fall into a lull of disarmament, making the deaths of major characters more shocking.

Does Santo y Blue Demon vs Drácula y el Hombre Lobo fulfill the required Santo obligations? We have Santo and Blue Demon both wrestling opponents in matches that the movie shows in full. Instead of a mad scientist, we got a mad Satanist (some would argue that’s the same thing, but fuck those people!) Monsters? Check! Santo dating someone whose family is intertwined with the monsters in a complicated revenge plot? Check! Blue Demon knocked unconscious? Check! References to past heroic deeds of Santo and/or Blue Demon that aren’t from any film? Check! Blue Demon captured by the enemy and rescued by Santo? Check!

When Satanists do the wave…

One thing Santo y Blue Demon vs Drácula y el Hombre Lobo does different is the police don’t believe Santo’s crazy story. In any other film, Santo would be called in to deal with the monsters and the police would give him leeway to do whatever he or Blue Demon want. Here, the police laugh at their outlandish tales of Dracula and the Wolfman. Haven’t they paid attention for the last 20 Santo films???

When will Blue Demon find…his endless love???

	Santo (Santo) – Santo is friend to all…wait, that’s not right. Santo is that famous wrestler you may have heard of. Perhaps. He’s once again dating a girl whose family is cursed with monsters seeking revenge. Heck, one time Santo dated the Swiss Miss girl and had to kill Count Chocula, Frankenberry, Boo Berry, and even Yummy Mummy.
	Blue Demon (Blue Demon) – Blue Demon is friend to all Santo. He’s another famous wrestler you may have heard of. Blue Demon once again plays second fiddle to Santo, despite being in the title. Poor Blue Demon…
	Drácula (Aldo Monti) – Dracula is in Mexico because that’s what he does and he’s been dead dead for 200 years, but is brought back to life by the power of Satan. And revenge. Now, he’s got the evil eye for Santo and Blue Demon, and anyone who makes fun of his cape!
	El Hombre Lobo/Wolfman (Agustín Martínez Solares) – You can’t have Dracula without the Wolfman, so here he is, ready to join his life partner in evil doings.
	Rufus Rex (Agustín Martínez Solares) – This wolfman’s got nards, and swagger, as he runs around in human form as Rufus Rex and seduces Laura Cristaldi to her peril.
	Lina (Nubia Martí) – Santo’s girlfriend. Professor Luis Cristaldi is her uncle, Laura Cristaldi is her cousin, and Rosita is Laura’s daughter. All are cursed. CURSED!!!
	Eric (Alfredo Wally Barrón) – Just your average Satanist who brings Dracula and Wolfman back to life to steal their gold or something.

All these boxes are filled with more Santo sequels!

InGood, Movie Reviews

Wreck-It Ralph (Review)

November 5, 2012ByTars Tarkas

Wreck-It Ralph

2012
Written by Phil Johnston and Jennifer Lee
Additional Story Material by John C. Reilly
Directed by Rich Moore

Nostalgia is really hot right now. So are movies that have good stories. Disney combins the two to bring us Wreck-It Ralph, and the video game movie world will never be the same. Okay, I’m exaggerating, but Wreck-It Ralph is still a great flick. Beneath the Pac-Man ghosts, first person shooters, and sitdown racers is a tale of finding your place in the world, becoming a better person while still accepting yourself for who you are, and working for a better life.

There will be spoilers, so if you hate spoilers, get the heck out of this review!

Wreck-It Ralph is the first Disney animated film I’ve been excited about for years, except maybe Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue. It’s a video game world featuring characters you grew up with playing in minor roles. But they’re just flavoring for the real story. Before Wreck-It Ralph is an awesome short called Paperman, which is a cute love story and a neat meld of 2D influence in CG animation.

	Wreck-It Ralph (John C. Reilly) – The villain of the Donkey Kong-styled arcade machine Fix-It Felix, Jr., a machine that has been active for 30 years at the local arcade. Ralph’s job is to destroy the building, when the player fixes using Fix-It Felix, Jr. Over the decades, Ralph has become increasingly depressed and angry at his lot in life. An anniversary and a confrontation with the other denizens of his game cause him to act out, in essence have a midlife crisis and go looking for respect. And for that he needs a medal like the one Fix-It Felix wins every day.
	Fix-It Felix, Jr. (Jack McBrayer) – Titular hero of Fix-It Felix, Jr., possessing a magic hammer that fixes anything with a simple whack. But it can’t fix Ralph’s hurt feelings, and Felix is forced to go after the game-jumping Ralph to prevent his own game from being unplugged.
	Sergeant Tamora Jean Calhoun (Jane Lynch) – Tough as nails squad leader from the FPS Hero’s Duty. Joins in the hunt for Ralph when he inadvertently brings a Cy-Bug from Hero’s Duty to the racing game Sugar Rush. Is programmed with the most tragic back story ever.
	Vanellope von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman) – Racer in the sitdown racing game Sugar Rush. Is a pariah in the game because she’s a glitch, which means she often de-rezes or jumps around within the game. Glitches cannot leave the game, if it is shut off she will die. None of the other citizens of Sugar Rush are fond of her due to her glitch status.
	King Candy (Alan Tudyk) – Ruler of Sugar Rush who controls the racing to determine which racers are available that day, and also enforces the anti-glitch mentality. Has a dark secret.

InGood, Movie Reviews

You Pet

November 2, 2012ByTars Tarkas

You Pet

aka 너는 펫 aka Neo-neun Pet

2011
Directed by Kim Byeong-gon

It’s time once again to dip our toes into the water that is Korean romantic comedies. You Pet has a slight twist, in that it is a Korean film but is based on a Japanese manga (Yayoi Ogawa’s Kimi wa Petto, which was also the basis for the Japanese tv series of the same name.) The translation into a distinctly Korean film is handled pretty well, you definitely will know the country of origin. Playing the lead is TarsTarkas.NET favorite Kim Ha-neul, who somehow always manages to be in entertaining romantic comedies. It’s like she was created in a lab after decades of testing, sort of how Disney produces their child stars. Playing opposite is Jang Geun-seok, who is one of the biggest studmuffins in all of Asia. You’ve probably heard of him, and his whole Prince of Asia designation, so I won’t go into much detail. Their individual charisma and chemistry together help elevate You Pet into a great piece of film. And that’s the most important thing, because the concept behind You Pet requires the leads work well together to keep it from becoming very disturbing.

It is important to note that like all romantic comedies, You Pet and Korean romantic comedies in general exist in an idealized world, where relationships fall into more easily defined categories and people don’t carry baggage associated with just living a life. Very attractive people will be alone for years and years because of the tiniest of flaws making the repellant to everyone of the opposite sex, and unattractive people just don’t exist (except for the occasional wacky character). Heck, even the extras in You Pet are almost all young professionals who look straight out of a talent agency. Even Eun-I’s parents look younger than they are, and appear ever-fleeting, less they age up the film.

You Pet does buck a bit of the trends by taking the established order of things and bending it on its ear. Instead of presenting the traditional want of landing a rich man and living happily ever after, You Pet‘s master/pet relationship between Eun-I and In-ho subverts things, but in a family-friendly way. Now, Korea may be modern and filled with people rapidly keeping up with today’s fast movie world, but it is also a land full of traditions. And these start to collide with the modern thinking when it comes to two people of the opposite sex living together while not in a relationship. Just having a male-female relationship that isn’t lovers and isn’t best friends can muddy the waters, and things get very cloudy very quickly, but a good cloudy. And while a safe outside the box approach to old traditions vs. modern life isn’t the most risky thing in the world, it does help reflect times changing, and I applaud films that try to do interesting things as opposed to playing it safe and boring. While many of Korea’s romantic comedies are sugar-coated fluff, some of them do confront relationship expectations in their own friendly-faced way, you just won’t get things like Happy End.

	Ji Eun-I (Kim Ha-neul) – Ji Eun-I is a fashion magazine editor who spends most of her free time working and the rest of it being unsatisfied with loser chumps, to the point where she’s given up on dealing with men who do nothing but disappoint. But as her work life gets more hectic, her home life gets more complicated when Kang In-ho ends up living with her, and she decides to use him as a pet to make up for what is missing in her life. Kim Ha-neul is also in Too Beautiful to Lie, Dead Friend, My Tutor Friend, and My Girlfriend Is an Agent.
	Kang In-ho (Jang Geun-seok) – Free spirit ballet dancer who cannot dance with a partner anymore due to guilt over the partner he injured (hmm…subtext much??) He is perpetually without money and prepping to choreograph a big show. But needing a place to live turns out to be more than he thought when he ends up at Ji Eun-I’s apartment after her brother moves him in. He agrees to be a pet in exchange for being able to stay, but their relationship soon becomes more complicated than master and pet.
	Cha Woo-seong (Yoo Tae-joon) – Representing the traditional good rich guy who swoops in and Prince Charmings the girls of Korea. Cha Woo-seong is Ji Eun-I’s former crush who reenters her life to try to make her his wife, despite not seeing her for years and not talking to her when they did know each other. Cha Woo-seong is so set on trying to be the classic good guy that he ends up being just weird. And that’s weird for a film where a guy is a pet.

InBad, Movie Reviews

Santo el Enmascarado de Plata y Blue Demon Contra los Monstruos (Review)

November 1, 2012ByTars Tarkas

Santo el Enmascarado de Plata y Blue Demon Contra los Monstruos

aka Santo and Blue Demon Against the Monsters

1970
Story by Jesús Sotomayor Martínez and Rafael García Travesi
Screenplay by Rafael García Travesi
Directed by Gilberto Martínez Solares

The most popular hair salon in Transylvania…

When it’s night time and fright time, and things are going bump in the night, the monsters come out to play. A whole football team full of monsters! Luckily, the world has Santo and Blue Demon to do what they do best: Kicking monster butt!

Santo films started out like Cerebro Del Mal where they were more low key and just science fiction influenced capers. Santo played more of a supporting role at first. Many of the Santo films that followed would feature influences from horror flicks of the drive in, as Santo battled female vampires, zombies, a spooky wax museum, and stranglers. But by the time Santo fought the Martians, the Santo films were emulating the 1950s and 60s American B movie pictures that were lighting up the night skies at drive ins across North America. Santo would become more science fiction, engaging in spy episodes, running around with famous comedians, and even battling a famous movie monster or two. Influences would continue, and Santo el Enmascarado de Plata y Blue Demon Contra los Monstruos is no exception, the large amount of classic movie monsters present shows a clear influence from the Universal Monster movies.

It’s hard for a super-intelligent brain alien like me to find a girl, what with being an abomination against nature and all…

Even though there are influences, there are differences and odd themes. Wolfman, Vampire, and Cyclops all have big ears for some odd reason. And the Cyclops acts like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, acting as a surrogate for that missing member. Mummy barely appears in the film, wandering around and acting lazy. He also needs to eat a sandwich. Frankenstein looks like he’s tripping on mushrooms, which I think might have been how the film’s concept was dreamed up. The mad scientist Dr. Halder also has some green thugs that are called zombies but some sources, though I just dubbed them Frankenthugs. The large amount of monsters adds energy and a fast pace to the film, as it rushes to try to give everyone enough screentime, and the pace is rather quick for a Santo film.

According to Jim….lives again?!?!?!

Unfortunately there is a lot of cost cutting in this flick, it’s obvious what little budget there was went towards setting up the monster lineup. Most of the sets are sparse, and there is only one real scene that feels like it takes place at an actual place. There is even an extended sequence at that location that is obviously a stage play filmed for some other reason, and added here for padding and flavor. Santo and Blue Demon Against the Monsters features lots of shots that are shot in the daytime but set at night. Normally movies get around that by applying a blue filter to the movie, but that must have cost too much because they didn’t bother to do it all all.

Director Gilberto Martínez Solares was one of the best directors of early Mexican cinema, working often with Tin Tán, but his star began to fade and he soon was directing schlock like this and even worse things after. Though I think the Santo films and Santo el Enmascarado de Plata y Blue Demon Contra los Monstruos in particular are important features on the Mexican cinema landscape, they aren’t considered quality work, and Solares must have been phoning it in as his trajectory waned.

The Vampire is too cheap to turn the AC on during July!

Despite the budget woes and quality issues, Santo and Blue Demon vs the Monsters still ends up being a fun flick, and is among the Santo films you should see first just to get your toes wet. If you can handle Santo and Blue Demon punching their way through a castle filled with people in bad masks, you are ready to expand your journey. This is one of the easier titles to get, and is visual enough that even if your copy is minus subtitles, it won’t be a big loss.

No, keep your eye on the BALL, not the bat! Ball, BALL!!

	Santo (Santo) – Santo the great hero braves all the evils that threaten the good people of Mexico. And also threaten relatives of his girlfriend, which happens far too often to be a coincidence. Santo must be seeking these girls out just so he can beat up monsters! What a freak…
	Blue Demon (Blue Demon) – Santo’s best buddy in fiction if not reality, Blue Demon is captured early on in Santo el Enmascarado de Plata y Blue Demon Contra los Monstruos and replaced by an evil double.
	Otto Halder and Gloria Halder (Jorge Rado and Hedi Blue) – The brother of the evil Dr. Bruno Halder and his daughter, Gloria, who Santo is dating.
	Dr. Bruno Halder (Carlos Ancira) – A mad scientist who has gone crazy with rage and unleashes monsters upon the world, because he’s a jerk or something. He doesn’t really have any motivation besides being evil. But isn’t that motivation enough?
	Waldo (Santanón) – Loyal servant of Dr. Halder and also a hunchbacked little fellow, like every film needs. Famed actor Santanón is best known for being Stinky the Skunk in another Monstruos flick. Maybe not really best known, but I declare it so now.
	The Mummy/La Momia (Fernando Rosales) – A very lazy mummy who is just there for most of the flick.
	The Cyclops/El Ciclope (Gerardo Zepeda) – Cyclops acts like a Gillman, but with big ears! This suit is left over from La Nave de los Monstruos (Ship of Monsters). Gerardo Zepeda also played one of the three zombies/Frankenthugs. He played goons and thugs in dozens of movies, including Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy
	Frankenstein/Franquestain (Manuel Leal) – Even Frankenstein (or Frankenstein’s Monster for you purists!) joins the fun of getting punched by Santo and Blue Demon! Manuel Leal played the lead evil zombie Satan in The Mummies of Guanajuato
	The Wolfman/El Hombre Lobo (Vicente Lara) – The Wolfman took time off from begging for change at a highway offramp to menace Santo and Blue Demon.
	El Vampiro (David Alvizu) – Even vampires are trying to get into the fun, especially vampires with big Spock ears like someone “borrowed” just that element from Nosferatu.
	Sonia the Vampire Woman/La Mujer Vampiro (Elsa María Tako) – The Vampire spends his time making vampire babes like Sonia here, who always walks around in her bra and panties and also tries to seduce Santo. There is another briefly seen vampire lady named Fabiola (Yolanda Ponce) but she does nothing important.
	Evil Blue Demon (Alejandro Cruz/Black Shadow) – Blue Demon is captured and replaced by an evil duplicate who does evil stuff that is evil. Until Santo kills him! Spoiler… Though the credits are a bit hazy, it is believed that Alejandro Cruz/Black Shadow played the Evil Blue Demon duplicate.
	Ship of Monsters Saucer Man (???) – This Invasion of the Saucer Men-style brain alien is another refuge from from Ship of Monsters, though all he does in this film is stand around in Dr. Halder’s lab and look weird. An important job!

Will Santo and Blue Demon defeat the monsters? I’m on the edge of my seat!!!

InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Ferocious Female Freedom Fighters (1982)

October 31, 2012ByDanny Reid

Ferocious Female Freedom Fighters

1982

Directed by Jopi Burnama & Charles Kaufman

Well, this is fun.

“Have you ever heard that little voice inside you say that there’s more to life than slamming another woman to the mat with incredible force?”

We continue our journey through the depths of Troma’s catalog this week with Ferocious Female Freedom Fighters, which contains two reliably Troma staples:

The movie’s cover is a beautiful, buxom woman who appears nowhere in the film.
The movie rips off a better known source but sprinkles in a lot more self congratulation and jokes about bodily functions.

Here we have the minds behind the scenes ripping off Woody Allen’s What’s Up Tiger Lily? If you don’t know that movie, a simple summation should suffice: Allen took a Japanese spy film and dubbed new dialogue and sound effects over the action.

That’s a pretty great way to make a cheap movie. Charles Kaufman seized upon this and decided to do the same. Since Charles Kaufman is the man who wrote and directed When Natures Call and not the man who wrote and directed Sleeper, the results are less than stellar.

Litmus test time: here’s the film’s signature joke. “What is brown with holes in it?”

If your response was “Swiss shit”, congratulations, that’s right. Now tell the joke about a dozen more times and you’re basically reenacting a large portion of the film.

That violates copyright laws. You could go to jail. (But I won’t tell.)

	Bambi (Eva Arnez) – This is the main character. She doesn’t want to fight. But she does.
	Barney (Barry Prima)– A kung fu fighter who talks like Elvis and fights kung fu. These are deep characters, you see.

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