Ashley Argota How to Build a Better Boy Disney

How to Build a Better Boy (Review)

September 1, 2014ByTars Tarkas

How to Build a Better Boy

2014
Written by Jason Mayland
Directed by Paul Hoen

Disney Channel gender-swaps Weird Science and also turns it into a statement about government drones, somehow doing a better job than the Robocop remake. I’m not really sure how that happened, but it did. Probably because How to Build a Better Boy is actually fun to watch, despite it’s goofy origin and Disney squeaky-clean upper class template.

Gabby Harrison (China Anne McClain) and Mae Hartley (Kelli Berglund) are smart over-achieving high school sophomores that finish calculus tests in under 9 minutes (to the annoyance of their peers!) Gabby is 100% focus on her career track and saving the world through being incredibly awesome and smart, while Mae is starting to get distracted by boys. Particularly the star quarterback Jaden, who she tutors in math. Jaden may or may not have feelings for her, but that’s not the problem. The problem is Jaden is currently dating cheerleader Nevaeh Barnes (Ashley Argota), who is 100% focused on how awesome Nevaeh Barnes is and needs Jaden to be her perfect accessory while she becomes Homecoming Queen.

Thus Nevaeh Barnes and her posse humiliate Mae in front of the entire school (and Jaden!), the school having nothing better to do than watch two of the students be sassy to each other. Mae counters by pretending she has an awesome boyfriend who’s Alaskan, thus that’s why no one knows him. Even though everyone knows she’s lying, this puts Gabby on the thinking train and soon she’s scheming to create a virtual boyfriend for Mae. Mae’s dad does video game research, so Gabby’s plan is to hack into his company and use the AI models to create an AI boyfriend. This plan would be clever, except for the fact Mae’s dad secretly works for the government and is creating an autonomous robot fighting soldier/drone. A little obvious plot magic later and suddenly all the traits Mae wanted in a boyfriend are now encoded in this drone, unknowingly to the girls, and the result causes the computers at home to get fried.

The next day at school, suddenly the fake boyfriend Albert Banks has a huge social media profile and is now friends with half of the school. Nevaeh begins mocking the obviously fake profile, when suddenly Albert Banks (Marshall Williams) himself drives up in a Lamborghini. As he’s totes handsome and charming, suddenly every single girl is in love with Albert because he’s emotionally ambidextrous and a boy boy but sensitive and unnnnnhhhhhuuuuhhh and other strange sounds. Albert only has eyes for Mae, and proceeds to become the most perfect boyfriend ever, with picnic lunches and singing Selena Gomez in the park.

InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda (Review)

August 30, 2014ByTars Tarkas

Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda

2014
Written by Matt Yamashita
Directed by Kevin O’Neill

Mom! Dad! Why are you fighting! ::bursts into tears::

Sharktopus was one of the better performing SyFy original movies and helped lead the charge into the fray of combination animals running amok on an unsuspecting populace. As it’s also a Roger Corman production, you know that every last dime is going to get squeezed out of the film. Hence two sequels! Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda is the first of these, essentially the Empire Strikes Back of the trilogy.

But Sharktopus is dead, how can there be another Sharktopus movie? Easy! Thanks to a handy recap of prior events, we learn that Sharktopus was preggers! A shark egg sack is among the pieces of Sharktopus that float out to sea and are quickly caught in a net for a boat being chartered by a Latin America amusement park that has sent it out to find cool stuff in the ocean, and Lorena Christmas discovers the baby Sharktopus 2.0, which she begins to raise.

I’ll make you watch every episode of King of the Nerds, or else!

On the polar opposite side we have another genetically engineered creature built as a weapon with Pteracuda, which has the flight powers of a pterodactyl and the underwater strength of a barracuda. While talk mentions that the US military is probably going to settle on its drone program over these genetically manipulated monstrosities, Dr. Rico Symes is convinced that he can create a creature that is more destructive in air and at sea that can outclass the drones. Things look well, until Pteracuda is almost immediately hijacked and goes berserk.

Good thing she was wearing her life jacket!

	Dr. Rico Symes (Robert Carradine) – Dr. Rico Symes is the amoral genius creator of Pteracuda, doing the whole project in secret to the world and his own company. Symes must then stop his creation after it is hijacked, but refuses to stick his neck out while doing so. He founded Symodyne, which we know is bad because all companies that end in -dyne are evil! Not only that, but Dr. Symes kidnaps Lorena at gunpoint and drags her into his unmarked white van. Robert Carradine is awesome here, he is like an evil Lewis Skolnick on steroids!
	Lorena Christmas (Katie Savoy) – Not a Ph.D., hired directly out of college by her uncle, who owns the aquatic theme park. Raises the new Sharktopus from a newborn, and recognizes its intelligence, and was trying to condition it to be nonviolent. I wonder if she’s named after Dr. Christmas Jones from The World is Not Enough.
	“Ham” Hammerstein (Rib Hillis) – Leader of the security team hired by Dr. Symes as insurance in case something goes wrong with Pteracuda, and the only member to make it through the opening sequence alive. Weirdly loyal to Dr. Symes for most of the flick until he’s betrayed one too many times. Enjoys harpoon-based weaponry.
	Sharktopus (CGI) – Sharktopus is really Sharktopus 2.0, either Son of Sharktopus or Daughter of Sharktopus. It doesn’t really matter for movie purposes. Just how Sharktopus got pregnant in the first place is not addressed. Raised in a theme park, Sharktopus is unable to throw off its created purpose as an alpha predator/weapon, and thanks to a control circuit lodged in its head, is sent out to fight Pteracuda.
	Pteracuda (CGI) – Designed as a replacement/improvement of drones, Pteracuda is hijacked and soon is killing lots of people, leading its creator to go to extreme methods to hunt it down. Which means it fights Sharktopus! The hacker who takes control wants Pteracuda to attack a nuclear power plant.

Seconds before the kiss

InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence (Review)

August 23, 2014ByTars Tarkas

Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence

1993
Written by Larry Cohen
Directed by William Lustig and Joel Soisson

The final chapter of the Maniac Cop trilogy is a disappointing finale that fails to live up to the standards of the prior two films, but does sort of make up for it with the last reel and the simply crazy stunts. While Maniac Cop 2 was Frankenstein meets The French Connection, Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence is Bride of Frankenstein meets The French Connection!

Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence had a lot of problems getting made. The original script from Larry Cohen focused on Santería rituals and had a black detective lead character. Funding for the film require presale rights money from Japanese distributors, who were very happy with the prior two entries and were mysteriously dragging their feet on this installment, but wouldn’t give the exact reason. When the suggest was made to bring back white actor Robert Davi, suddenly the Japanese distributor was on board for funding. So…yeah. That meant the script had to be heavily rewritten to switch out the character, thus changing some supporting characters. They started shooting with only 70 pages of script (which is ~70 minutes of film, but probably less), not enough for a full feature. The producers were frantically trying to add pages as production went on, and an increasingly distracted and annoyed William Lustig (who was also working on a different film as producer at the same time) was losing interest in Maniac Cop 3. This eventually lead to him leaving production and Joel Soisson stepping in to film the scenes needed to pad out the running time. Which means the Frankenstein theme extends to the film itself!

The padding is obvious in a few cases, scenes seem to go nowhere or go on far longer than they should, and a few others are repetitive and just repeat the same information or give us extra evidence certain people are jerks. It becomes a distracting mess, and Maniac Cop spends most of his time hanging around a hospital killing whoever stands in the way of saving his promised bride, another cop who was shot in the line of duty. She’s supposed to be resurrected as his bride, but he keeps characters from pulling the plug on her, which is sort of weird. Maybe the Santería priest who brought Maniac Cop back from the dead needed some time to recharge?

I saw Maniac Cop 3 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in their Bay Area Now 7 program, under the Invasion of the Cinemaniacs! heading, specifically the part curated by Jesse Hawthorne Ficks of Midnite for Maniacs, who hosted two William Lustig triple features (a sextuple feature?) spread across two days. All three Maniac Cop films screened on Saturday night, while Friday featured Maniac, Vigilante, and Hit List. William Lustig returned for the second night of screenings and gave some more entertaining Q and As, some of which is peppered into the Maniac Cop reviews.

Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence again takes place soon after the prior entry. The dirt is barely shoveled into Matt Cordell grave before he’s raised again by a Santería priest, who needs the Maniac Cop for “dark days” ahead. What exactly those dark days are, we will never know, because nothing like that happens.

InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Hit List (Review)

August 20, 2014ByTars Tarkas

Hit List

1989
Story by Aubrey K. Rattan
Screenplay by John F. Goff, Peter Brosnan, Josh Becker, and Scott Spiegel
Directed by William Lustig

Hit List takes the vague premise of Vigilante, but heavily rewrites it for late-80s/early-90s direct to video action. It’s less dirty and gritty, with more wise guy quips and an optimistic tone. But shades of Lustig’s themes are there. The system is still broken, criminals are running free and they can’t be contained by the courts, and our heroes will have to step in and do what the system won’t. Hit List was made for Cinetel Films, best known here for their constant stream of SyFy flicks. Lustig had previously made Relentless for them, which had become one of the top-grossing DTV films of 1989 and even had a limited theatrical run.

Hit List has another amazing cast – Lance Henricksen, Rip Torn, Jere Burns, Charles Napier, Harold Sylvester. Weirdly, the success of the film being funded rested entirely on getting Jan-Michael Vincent to play the lead. Also weirdly, according to William Lustig, Jan-Michael Vincent was often drunk on set, Lustig joking that Vincent could barely stand up straight for many shots. The script was rewritten several times, including reworkings by uncredited writers Josh Becker and Scott Spiegel.

I saw Hit List at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in their Bay Area Now 7 program, under the Invasion of the Cinemaniacs! heading, specifically the part curated by Jesse Hawthorne Ficks of Midnite for Maniacs, who hosted two William Lustig triple features (a sextuple feature?) spread across two days. Hit List screened after Maniac and Vigilante, while the next night was all three Maniac Cop films. William Lustig himself was in attendance, and did some entertaining Q and As. Lustig is very charismatic and shared stories about filming and some of the actors/producers of his films. I’ve included some of what he mentioned in the reviews.

The supporting cast and the stunts are the things to focus on for Hit List, because everything else just doesn’t work right. Lance Henriksen is just amazing as the crazed hired assassin Chris Caleek, who also is a women’s shoe salesman (a deadly Al Bundy?) That tidbit makes Harold Sylvester’s appearance more fun, as he was a regular in later seasons on Married With Children as Al’s coworker Griff. Henriksen spends his undercover time wearing gigantic glasses and flirting with old ladies, but quickly switches gears to firing guns and having a mean look on his face. He also sports a huge tattoo across his back.

InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Maniac (Review)

August 18, 2014ByTars Tarkas

Maniac

1980
Story by Joe Spinell
Screenplay by Joe Spinell and C.A. Rosenberg
Directed by William Lustig

Maniac is an infamous film, a violent slasher that is almost entirely focused on the killer. The film faced criticism upon release due to violence against women, but became a hit and has gone on to become a genre classic. The film is far more complicated than just a simple slasher film. Co-written by and starring Joe Spinell, Maniac is disturbing, but well-crafted and delivers suspense and terror in a way modern horror has shifted away from.

I saw Maniac at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (yes, Maniac was screened at a museum!) in their Bay Area Now 7 program, under the Invasion of the Cinemaniacs! heading, specifically the part curated by Jesse Hawthorne Ficks of Midnite for Maniacs, who hosted two William Lustig triple features (a sextuple feature?) spread across two days. Maniac screened with Vigilante and Hit List, while the next night was all three Maniac Cop films. William Lustig himself was in attendance, and did some entertaining Q and As. Lustig is very charismatic and shared stories about filming and some of the actors/producers of his films. I’ve included some of what he mentioned in the reviews. What I like about screenings like this is I would probably never just watch Maniac on my own. Horror/slasher films aren’t really my bag, but to see it as part of a screening group like this makes it just fit in. Watching film is all about expanding your horizons, because you never know what you will discover when you leave your comfort zones. I try to follow that philosophy at TarsTarkas.NET, hence part of why we cover such a diverse range of global cinema.

Maniac follows Frank Zito as he embarks on a crusade of terror in the streets of New York City, stalking and slaying women, then scalping them and dressing mannequins up in their clothes, with the scalps nailed to the heads. Much of the film is Frank following the various women and the ladies responding in terror, the tension building as their attempts to escape become dashed again and again. In between we see Frank breaking down in his apartment, conflicted by his compulsion, but unable to do anything to stop it. Frank has issues about his abusive dead mother. In a conversation with photographer Anna D’Antoni (Caroline Munro) in the film’s loose plot narrative, Frank talks about photos as a way to preserve the women forever. Frank’s talks with Anna are about as normal as he gets, but the facade can’t last long and soon he’s breaking down and hallucinating his dead mother is attacking him in a graveyard. Frank’s demons are his ultimate undoing, his destructive force turning upon himself.

InMovie Reviews, Ugly

The Choking Game (Review)

August 11, 2014ByTars Tarkas

The Choking Game

2014
Teleplay by Jen Klein
Based on the book Choke by Diana Lopez
Directed by Lane Shefter Bishop

Just massaging my neck really really really tightly!

Lifetime is the fertile crescent of exploitation drama, and The Choking Game is yet another entry into the canon. Once again, a dangerous teen fad threatens the lives of everyone and everything, particularly our main character Taryn. The fad is teens choking themselves, by which they get a brief high when fresh oxygen rushes into their brains. This method has been around for ages, I remember people talking about it when I was in grade school back in the 14th century. But thanks to the power of people writing books about it, and then promoting their books by showing up on news program scare segments, things have taken a life of their own. Unlike things like rainbow parties, people actually do choke themselves, and like much of what teenagers do, it is pretty darn stupid.

The choking game is presented by temptress Nina as the ultimate way to be in control, because if you are in control of your breathing, you are in control of your life. Plus the oxygen high boost gives you lots of self-confidence without the problems that drugs and alcohol bring to the table. It’s basically the perfect way to get high, provided you don’t do it over concrete and fall down and hit your head like a scrub. The way the choking and trust aspects are handled in the film, you could subscribe all sorts of sexual subtext to it, making Taryn and Nina’s secret also a lesbian relationship. Perhaps an alternate title should have been Blue is the Chokest Color

A scene from The Craft is breaking out here!

The biggest problem with The Choking Game is it takes a while to get going. We spend a lot of time with Taryn listening to her complain about her life before we get to the choking. When it does get going, it gets pretty fun, even if it is heavy handed (with multiple characters giving multiple speeches about how Taryn changed, most notably Ryder at the party). The Choking Game handles social media well, showing it’s presence with some popups, but not having it be the focus, just an aspect of life.

Forget those facts and things, we’re here for the Lifetime trainwreck spectacle, so let’s bring on the life ruining! It’s choking time! (SPOILERS below for those of you who worry about being spoiled about a Lifetime choking movie!)

At least the choking game is more fun than Scrabble!

	Taryn (Freya Tingley) – Taryn is a typical high school senior dealing with the pressure of being a high school senior with not a lot of bad things happening in her life, thus it’s the worst life ever! Taryn doesn’t have anything in her life figured out, and doesn’t even know what she wants to do after school. She does brag that she’s totally been to third base, for real. She enthusiastically embraces choking and the choking lifestyle, even as it destroys her life. For some reason she plays Tauren when playing World of Warcraft.
	Nina (Alex Steele) – Nina is the mysterious new girl with a secret, the secret being she loves to choke herself 24/7. She trashes high school culture in a way that throws Taryn for a loop, but makes her instantly attracted to her. It’s all choking, all the time with Nina, and soon Taryn, as Nina introduces her to a whole new world. Nina’s mom is single and on a date with a different guy each night, leaving only frozen dinners and no attention.
	Elena (Beverly Ndukwu) – Taryn’s best friend who also has plans for Taryn to be her roommate in college. Advice: never be roommates with your best friend. Elena begins to freak out when Taryn begins spending all her time with Nina and not Elena.
	Heidi (Peri Gilpin) – Taryn’s over-bearing mother who is over-bearing out of concern and not because she’s manipulative or anything. Heidi raised Taryn as a single mother and feels guilt over Taryn being a latchkey kid for so long. I did appreciate how they made her more three-dimensional than usual. Is married to Will (Ray Galletti), who is constantly trying to get her to not be so hard on Taryn.
	Ryder (Mitch Ainley) – The guy Taryn has been crushing on forever, now newly single and interested in Taryn, though neither one bothers to ask the other out. You know Taryn and Ryder are made for each other, because they both have useless Y’s in their names!
	Courtney (Ferron Guerreiro) – Courtney is the coolest girl in school, and she is always seen with a pack of girls following her as she snarks on the GPs (the General Population, aka the not-cool kids). Courtney is also way into choking herself because she really has low self-esteem.

Look, play the choking game all you want, but make sure you win, dammit!

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