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cyberbu//y (Review)

cyberbu//y

aka Cyberbully

2011
Directed by Charles Binamé
Written by Teena Booth

cyberbully
Nothing can ever go wrong now that I have a computer!

cyberbu//y is an ABC Family original movie presentation designed to teach America about the dangers of cyberbullying. It’s also the most hilarious movie about the internet since Cyber Seduction: His Secret Life. There are so many goofy things going on it is hard to keep track. But we will try, because we are TarsTarkas.NET – cyberbullies!

cyberbully
When Goatse strikes…

Join us as we watch a teenage girl’s life be destroyed by the internet! Keep in mind teenage girls get their lives destroyed all the time, usually due to Jennifer being a bitch. Damn you, Jennifer! Why you gotta be a bitch all the time? Don’t be talking to Justin in math class!

cyberbully
Oh my god Becky look at her butt. Her butt is so big that she needs 2 cars. One for her…and one for her butt.

Can Linsay’s fragile mind handle the harsh social complexities that is the modern internet? Or will she be destroyed, body, mind, and soul, snuffed out like a candle in the wind. The internet wind.

cyberbully
And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the LORD thy God hath given thee, in the siege, and in the straightness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee.

Taylor Hillridge (Emily Osment) – This Taylor’s not so swift. Your average girl with an internet connection, except Taylor takes everything so serious that even the slightest deviation can cause tears to flow like monsoon rain. Can Taylor stand up to the cyberbullies? Or will she be cyberdefeated?
Samantha Caldone (Kay Panabaker) – Taylor’s best friend and the embittered former partner of a jock, who loved and left her, causing Samantha to freak out at the slightest mention of jocks. Then Samantha goes even more crazy. So we got a Taylor and a Samantha, and there is an evil girl at school named Lindsay. Lindsay Lohan used to date a Samantha, and if we pretend Taylor is Taylor Swift, this all begins to make sense. Now…who is Kanye West in this scenario?
Kris Hillridge (Kelly Rowan) – Taylor’s mom who is totally channeling Judith Light. But she’s no Angela. Mom spends most of the film being unaware of anything, then the last thirty minutes overcompensating by becoming the most productive mom ever. Even then, she only wins by luck.
Scott Ozsik (Jon McLaren) – Scott is the cute jock who has eyes for Taylor, causing Samantha to go nuts with rage. For once, the jock is not a bad guy. That much. Until he goes to college and joins to Alpha Betas and goes up against the Tri-Lams!
Cheyenne Mortenson (Meaghan Rath) – Taylor’s black friend because we needed to throw in some diversity. Bails the second Taylor becomes a liability. There is no famous Cheyenne to go with my Lohan/Swift/Sam theory, unless you count Cheyenne Kimball, who I have never heard of. So let’s pretend her name is Kardashian
James Petitious (iStock Photo) – He’s so real, a guy who cares about girls feelings and reads the poetry that girls put up on their pages. There are so many signs this guy is fake he should be named James McFakefake. My vote for Kanye West.
cyberbully
The Internet…made me….Avril Lavigne!

The Model Solution (Review)

The Model Solution


2002
Directed by Edward Holzman

The Model Solution is about the tough as nails business of running a modeling agency and having sex and doing girls and making love. But mostly having sex and doing girls and making love. It’s from the Indigo Entertainment family of films, which were noted for bigger budgets, higher quality, better scripts than the average softcore productions coming out as the millennium changed. The Model Solution is no different, an entertaining film even if you ignore the sex scenes, largely due to the likeability of Sebastien Guy, who makes everything watchable. One of the amazing things is how many of the actors are going by different names than they are usually credited by. It’s like everyone drew an alias out of a hat and used that. Besides the main cast aliases, Kimber Lynn is Kimberlee Castaic, Katie Lohmann is Katie Lohman, April Flowers is Diana Espen, Sasha Peralto is Sasha Rochelle, GiGi Erneta is Gigi Erneta, and Kimberly Fisher is Kimberly Kay. I’d make a flow chart, but I’m lazy.

As this stars Sebastien Guy like The Sex Substitute and The Sex Substitute Two, I consider this the unofficial third Sex Substitute film, where instead of accidentally substituting for sex therapists, the character has branched out into the world of modeling. And as Sebastien Guy left the world of softcore films to become an actual model, real life validates my theory. That is why TarsTarkas.NET is the number one website about theories of The Model Solution. And if I see any more Sebastien Guy films, I’ll just add them to the Sex Substitute canon somehow. That’s how we roll here. Girl for Girl, I will fit you in somehow!

Director Edward Holzman helmed the classic late night Cinemax flick Friend of the Family, and produced a lot of the Indigo Entertainment archive. He’s also listed as producer on Corporate Fantasy and some other Mystique Films.

Jack Spencer (Sebastien Guy as Scott Duke) – The CEO of Models, Ltd., a company that provides models (as opposed to polar bears) and our main character, who is too busy enjoying life and working hard to enjoy life and work hard. Wait, that doesn’t make sense…but it does. Hmmm…
Steve (Jason Schnuit as Dave Veleo) – friend of Jack, who gets dumped right at the beginning of the movie and has an adversarial relationship with Jack’s secretary Emma, who we all know he’ll be dating by the end of the flick
Emma (Holly Hollywood) – Jack’s secretary, and owner of a secret crush on Steve, but she works with too many beautiful women to have enough confidence to do anything about it. Holly Hollywood is also in The Erotic Misadventures of the Invisible Man.
Rebecca Knight (Kim Yates as Kim Laurel) – The CEO of Knightware Apparel, and the big client Jack is trying to snag. She’s also a big lesbian, as that factors into the plot.
Caroline Cross (Regina Russell) – Jack’s ex-girlfriend who now runs a rival model agency, Nuance. She competes with Jack over Rebecca Knight’s business, popping up at inopportune times. Regina Russell is a softcore veteran and is also in The Mummy’s Kiss, Bikini Airways, and a cameo in Bikini Girls from the Lost Planet.

Community Swingers

Community Swingers (Review)

Community Swingers


2006
Directed by Jeff Bay

Community Swingers is a softcore flick from Torchlight Entertainment, and it is from the large large group of pictures Torchlight dumped onto the world the last half of the aughts. If you have seen any of these films, you will note that they are light in plot and heavy in long long sex sequences. Oddly enough, Community Swingers differs from a lot of them, as it is not directed by Francis Locke (instead, Jeff Bay is credited, and let’s pretend he’s Michael Bay’s brother because, why not?) and there are not many scenes shot either in the desert or at the local hotel near the desert. But it retains many of the hallmark signatures that have come to define Torchlight films, including the ever-present music of Blade Simpson. He’s better than Sword Family Guy, but not as good as Katana SouthPark.

Community Swingers is not a good film. It is barely a film. The sex scenes are long. And I mean LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG! They go on forever! Stringing the sex scenes together are a few bits of actual plot, most of which is in scenes that last only a few minutes (or less than one minute in one example.) The plot itself is very simple and is resolved by someone just answering a question. So very simple. As the script was probably one page single-spaced in Word, all the sex scene padding was needed to hit the running time. The actresses in the film aren’t bad looking, the extra characters also don’t look terrible. The sets must have had a budget of less than $1000, and there are technical problems like the ever-present boom mike. The boom mike has more scenes than most of the actors. There is little information about the film online, no real cast list, and no real release date. The 2006 date is a guess based on the DVD release, but there is a 2003 copyright claim in the credits. Looks like we’ll have to call in the Scooby Gang to solve this mystery!

I’m sure some of you are used to softcore films that have plots, actual actors, and charming qualities, but forget all you know or think you know. This is the world of Community Swingers! Not everything is bad, Nina Dolci’s acting is amusing and completely inconsistent (a good director could probably get a great performance out of her) and some of the sex sequences pull of their jobs of being erotic or hot, even if they get bogged down by the length. Though I can’t in good conscience give this high marks, I wouldn’t hold back people from watching it, I would just inform them as the what they would encounter when watching, which might even let them enjoy the film more if they don’t expect it to be something that it isn’t. As for the film, let’s get started swinging around the community!

Elaina (Mindy Vega) – Elaina enjoys the simple things. Nice clothes, condo lounging, reading Playboy, wearing bikini tops, having lesbian sex with any girl that moves, theorizing about the neighbor, and being converted from her homosexuality via dating someone rich. Mindy Vega runs her own webcam site, so Google her name if you want to see some stuff.
Jackie (Nina Dolci) – Jackie is Elaina’s best friend and occasional lover. Jackie also pounces on the men, especially male strippers, her dream date. Jackie also doesn’t put up with nonsense and likes to get to the bottom of things, but always believes in the worst of people she doesn’t like. In a dark alleyway, you would want Jackie in your corner against any and all that would stand against you.
Lance Taylor (Frank Anthony) – An artist who makes art by making a lot of noise.
Boom Mike (a boom mike) – The boomiest mike of them all becomes a major star in Community Swingers, as he stalks and lies in wait to pounce on the two female leads, ready to attack when the least suspect it! Look out, ladies!

Executive Koala

Executive Koala (Review)

Executive Koala

aka Koara kacho

2006
Directed by Minoru Kawasaki
Written by Minoru Kawasaki and Masakazu Migita


Executive Koala is a animal-suited joint from Japanese cult director Minoru Kawasak. His start in movies begane with low budget direct to video junk, but his genius became apparent even with some of the trash, as good jobs on manga films such as Maboroshi panty vs. Henchin pokoider lead to him getting financing for The Calamari Wrestler. He also gained fame with kaiju fans for The Monster X Strikes Back: Attack the G8 Summit, even if most didn’t like it. One of Minoru Kawasaki’s favorite themes seems to be putting anthropomorphic animals in human settings, be it wrestling squids, goalkeeper crabs, or wrestling beetles, Minoru Kawasaki just loves it. And so must someone, as the films kept making money for a while, but by Neko Ramen Taisho things had slowed down and he’s been less active recently with wacky fun films. I guess the market for animal suit films is the first to go when the economy implodes.

The focus here is on Executive Koala, the film about a koala who is an executive, as the title states, quite clearly. He also might be a murderer, and there is a lot of weird memory things going on. It’s a pretty good memory loss thriller, with a mystery that slowly unravels as we go along. The presence of the animal suits turn what is a Lifetime movie level script and elevate it into something memorable. We can all agree that Cyber Seduction would have been ten times better had the lead character been a wallaby.

Kawasaki’s exploration of genres with his unique convention of both parodying them with visuals, but playing it mostly straight, give his film an added quality that gave him a deserved cult following in the US. So let’s get going, shall we? Mustn’t keep the cult followers waiting…

Keiichi Tamura (???) – Just your regular desk job koala stuck in middle management of a pickle company. Spends most of his day being sweaty, shy, guilty, and weak-willed. His wife Yukari is long missing, and his new girlfriend Yoko is said to be murdered. Keiichi may also have a dark side coming out. We shall see!
Yukari (Elli-Rose) – Yukari is Keiichi’s missing wife. But Keiichi has begun to move on, even as rumors swirl that he murdered her. Then things happen… Elli-Rose (エリローズ/Eri Roozu) is a Japanese model/actress who also does DJ work.
Yoko Abe (Elli-Rose) – Yoko Abe is Keiichi’s new girlfriend. She totally doesn’t look like Yukari, just what are you implying? And it definitely isn’t a plot point!
Detective Ono (Hironobu Nomura) – A suspicious detective who follows around and harasses Keiichi, while his partner Kita seems less interested.
Mr. Kim (???) – Keiichi is given the job to babysit/keep happy the owner of Korean company Bae Foods, to help with a business deal. Mr. Kim has an assistant named Yu and owns Momo the flying squirrel. Practices Sinanju, a Korean martial art that’s actually the fake marital art from The Destroyer novels.
Convenience Store Frog (???) – Yes, even frogs are forced to be register jockeys in Japan. Luckily, this frog knows a thing or two about everything, and slips helpful notes into Keiichi’s bags.
The CEO of Rubbles Pickles Co. Ltd. (???) – Great, every time I invest in a company, they elect a rabbit as CEO! It’s crazy. And they squander the company profits in an attempt to get their hands on Trix!

Kunoichi (Review)

Kunoichi

aka Kunoichi Ninja Girl

2011
Directed and written by Seiji Chiba

A woman working the fields and tending to her baby is ganked by a neck rope thrown by an unseen kidnapper. Thus is the world of Kunoichi!

As you probably know by now, TarsTarkas.NET is a fan of martial arts films, particularly female martial artists. And as Rina Takeda is one of the up and coming women taking the films to the new decade, we’ve been following her career closely. From High-Kick Girl! to KG – Karate Girl, Takeda has matured as an actress and martial artist. And Takeda has taken on more and more projects, keeping herself busy. But Kunoichi is a step back in the quality department, and I was disappointed at the final project.

Kunoichi is marketed as a period martial arts piece. We know it won’t be a giant spectacle, and I fully expect a low-budget affair. It’s set in the woods, a familiar place for fans of low budget films, as that way they have an excuse for no extras running around. And permits are easier to get for running around in the middle of nowhere (if they even bothered!) But Kunoichi is surprising in how low budget it looks and feels. It’s a martial arts film with barely any martial arts. That’s not what I signed up for! The only decent fight is around the 40 minute mark, and is over with 10 minutes to go on our hour-long film. Besides a few teases of fighting and some kicking, there is little else, and nothing that is choreographed for more than one move. Disappointing is an understatement.

Stop for me, it’s the CLAW!

Director Seiji Chiba has put out numerous low budget films in recent years. Alien vs Ninja garnered some praise, and probably made funding of Kunoichi easier. But while Alien vs Ninja was a mix of comedy and action, Kunoichi is stoically serious in tone. You don’t get the sense that anyone is having fun here, and that hurts the film as well. I don’t expect Giggles Ninja Girl, but one or two goofy things wouldn’t have hurt.

And once again, we don’t need no stinking subtitles!

Kisaragi (Rina Takeda) – She’s just a Koga clan ninja getting kidnapped and then killing the kidnappers after a while. No hurry.
Shimotsuki (Mitsuki Koga) – The serious Iga clan kidnapper who is good at martial arts and dressing for his gig on The Black Pearl. Mistuki Koga is an accomplished martial artist who has appeared and done stunt work in many films, including Godzilla, Mothra, Mechagodzilla: Tokyo S.O.S.
Hizuki (Masanori Mimoto) – An Iga clan braggart and annoying kidnapper, who gets kicked in the head many many many times until he is dead. DEAD. Spoilers.
A Mysterious Man (Yuichi Sato) – This guy just shows up and frees the women, then starts goofing around and giving women to some Leprosy Guy. He’s like an internet troll in real life. What a jerk! There is frustratingly little about Yuichi Sato the actor online, except he might be part of a boy band called PureBoys. That name sounds too perverted to be used in the States, even though it’s probably the most vanilla thing ever.
Leprosy Guy (Kentaro Shimazu) – This crazy Leprosy Guy just gotta hump! Doesn’t matter who or what. OF course, he turns out to be B-movie mainstay Kentaro Shimazu. Why wouldn’t he be? See him also in Machine Girl, RoboGeisha, and Mutant Girls Squad.

Sexy Soccer

Sexy Soccer (Review)

Sexy Soccer

aka Sing gum zhook kao aka 少女足球

2003
Directed by Dick Lau Tin-Sze

Warning, this movie has a lot of puns. A lot of bad puns. A lot of bad puns that don’t translate well so things might sound weird. Just go with it!

Hong Kong Category III sex films have gotten cheaper and cheaper. Sexy Soccer represents a last gasp of actual money in a production, films post-2003 seem to be done for 1/10th of the cost of this film. Sexy Soccer sees such things as extras, location shooting, and characters that number more than five. This is from Dick Lau Tin-Sze’s company (probably an alias), and the films he produced decreased in quality and used many of the same actors. It’s like watching them go from real movies down to community theater to dinner theater.

But it’s so damn awful! My goodness, so awful… A large portion of the film comprises of these girls playing soccer, and it’s obviously that they spent more time filming these scenes than the entirety of gym classes during their school years. Bumbling around the soccer field is not believable, but that’s not really the point of the film. The point of the film seems to be watching Matthew Ng Ting get it on with a variety of girls. As Matthew Ng Ting is not very attractive, the film treating him like some sort of lust-inducing superstud is laughable. The situations, the contrived plot, and the weird asides all add up to a wacky film. But at least it is somewhat entertaining. You do wonder what sort of weird thing will happen next. It’s…odd. And since some other films made soon after are just wretchedly bad, Sexy Soccer deserves more praise than it’s going to get. But it’s so damn awful!

The music is not bad, but I like surf music. If you don’t like surf music, than the soundtrack of the film will drive you bonkers! Actors credited that don’t seem to be in any other film include Tong Tong, Cheung Wing, Kam Bing-Man, and Siu Yau. Just which of them are which actresses/actors, I don’t know. And if any of the ??? actresses below show up in other films, again, I don’t know. We’re just chock full o’ knowledge here at TarsTarkas.NET!

Rolando Lo (Matthew Ng Ting) – Rolando is a soccer coach who just can’t win. Until he comes up with an idea to win win win. Also he has sex with like 5000 women in a matter of days. Imagine how many STDs this dude has. Matthew Ng Ting appeared out of nowhere to suddenly star in close to 25 Cat III sex films, then vanish just as quickly. Probably in a dumpster. A sex dumpster!
Pulls (Carmen Yeung Ga-Man) – Pulls has cotton balls in her mouth for some reason, I guess to make her more whiny or something. Odd character choice, but let’s go with it! Carmen Yeung Ga-Man was in a whole slew of Cat III films for a few years (including Sex and the Central), then suddenly disappeared, then suddenly reappeared as a singer, and was even linked to Eric Tsang in the tabloids. She has disappeared again.
Nina (Au-Yeung Hoi-Suen) – Nina gives Rolando the idea to get a team full of bouncy girls to distract the other soccer players. She even agrees to join his team if he finds someone else to be on it. That random promise put her down a road to becoming a soccer superstar. Au-Yeung Hoi-Suen/Vinny Ouyang was in a few random Cat III films during the first half of the Aughts. This was probably the best one of the lot. She also shows up briefly in Drink, Drank, Drunk before vanishing into obscurity.
Little Twin (???) – The legendary Rolling Queen of bowling. You may have heard of her, she’s very famous. You haven’t heard of Little Twin? You must be new around here, then! Kingpin was based on her life. And then Little Twin decided after a battle of riddles to conquer the world of soccer. Look out, soccer!
Big Twin (???) – The pool playing sister of the family, who is obviously related to Little Twin. I’m convinced the same actress played both parts and the scenes were achieved with digital trickery! That actress? Lindsay Lohan!
Ironan (Grace Lam Nga-Si) – Ironan? Was her name supposed to be Ironman? Iron-Nan? Iron on? Who know? In any event, she’s an auto mechanic recruited to the team as a goalie.
Mysterious Bonus Player (???) – Mysterious Bonus Player shows up in the background of a few of the soccer matches, rounding out the Friendly Balls team. But just who is she? Why does she only have one line? Why does actress Au-Yeung Hoi-Suen shove her out of the shot for one scene? These are the mysteries that try men’s souls.