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bratz
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Bratz: The Movie (Review)

August 28, 2007By

Bratz: The Movie


2007
Directed by Sean McNamara

Bratz: The Movie is a film about being yourself, which is a contradiction as the toys are polar opposites to the extreme. Combined with the fact the film is chock full of racist stereotypes, pedophilia, and glorification of expensive Sweet Sixteen parties, and you got a film that could get the creators thrown in Guantanamo Bay for crimes against humanity. It is nothing that good ole fashioned terrorism repackaged for the MTV generation and thousands of tweenage girls. Not terrorism that kills, but terrorism that leaves deep psychological scars, the kind that will never heal. Osama wishes he could put out films that hurt like this.

The basic plot is that the high school the Bratz go to is controlled by an ultra-evil girl who keeps everyone divided into cliques. The Bratz span cliques as they are multi-racial and interest girls designed by a soulless mega-corporation with only their passion for fashion to bind them together. The fight to stay friends when torn apart by their other interests is the soul of the piece, and speaks a message of accepting other groups and not staying in your little social circle. This spirit of expressing yourself and individuality and acceptance is completely at odds with the toys, which are practically identical giant-headed clones. Their giant eyes, lips with more silicone than breasts in a porno movie, and ever-bare midriffs make them look like they are some crazed duplication experiment, with only skin and hair hues keeping them apart. That is not diversity and expressing your differences, that is following a trend to the point of marching straight off a bridge. And that’s just where Bratz dolls should be thrown.

Bratz are a toy, but they are also an attitude. An attitude that fashion is more important than anything. That thongs are standard fare for girls of single digit ages. That everyone should have big heads, giant lips, long eyelashes, smaller-than-pixies bodies, and a passion for fashion that exceeds all other skills and desires. To consume. To be superficial. Not what anyone sane should be teaching their kids.

So with the condemnations of the dolls I’ve laid out here and in the previous Bratz encounter, you’d think this film would be the most hated film of all time. Oddly enough, parts of this film weren’t the worst thing that ever existed. There’s a few flecks of gold in the acres of manure. Not much, but they were like beacons in the darkness, guiding us a save path to a swift exit to the film. Only God himself could have braved the evil that are Bratz to implant something good for the good people of the world to get hope from. But aside from those points, the film is as terrible as the trailer makes it out to be. The basic premise is the Bratz go to high school, which is ruled by an ultra-bitch who demands everyone sit with their clique. The Bratz have diverse interests, which ends in them becoming members of their respective cliques instead of staying friends. But we all know girl power and passion for fashion will save the day at the end. Oops, I just spoiled the movie! Not like anyone reading this on this site will care, for we’re not here to discuss the film in a rational manner, but to tear it apart in the only way we know how. Why? Because they made it. We have a passion for crap.

Legend of the Eight Samurai
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Legend of Eight Samurai (Review)

August 13, 2007By

Legend of Eight Samurai

aka Satomi hakken-den

1983
Directed by Kinji Fukasaku

A classic Japanese tale gets a reworking and then is dubbed and imported into America. Like many Asian epics, there are a lot of characters and a complicated plot, which is made more confusing with the bad dubbing. Even worse, this is an adaptation of an epic tale that is condensed into a film so huge chunks of back story are either disregarded or glossed over in less than a sentence. Any movie boasting giant centipedes is worth a look. Unfortunately, the 80’s soundtrack does a wonderful job of dating the film, despite it being a period piece. Originally I thought that the songs were added by the American importers, but with the release of the Japanese language original since I originally wrote this review over a year ago, it has become known that the songs where already added in the original version. It’s a deadly blow, imagine the worst of hair bands and love ballads, more deadly than any martial art. The film loses some of the fun factor as the emotion turns to hating the soundtrack. This version of Legend of Eight Samurai that we are recapping is the full screen original American dub, one day we will try to get a hold of the Japanese widescreen version for comparison.

The story is a Japanese mythology that originated in China (like many things Japanese, including the Japanese writing scripts (the kanas are simplified versions of the kanji they “borrowed” from China.) The story of a princess, the last of her clan, given eight warriors to protect her, selected without their knowledge. Magic crystals are found by those selected, the crystals created by a dog (thus giving the story its name:Hakkenden or “Dog Warriors.”) Each crystal has a different Confucian virtue, which is only used in this film as the kanji symbol on each crystal (we have gone through the trouble of translating each one.) Takizawa Okikuni (also known as Kyokutei Bakin or Takizawa Bakin) created the version used in this film from 1814 to 1842 (Edo era) a 106 volume story called Nanso Satomi Hakkenden that took 28 years to complete. Almost as long as the Wheel of Time series is taking. The serial was then updated in 1982 by Toshio Kamata in a novel called Shin Satomi Hakkenden. Many of the stars are part of the Japanese Action Squad, a group founded by Sonny Chiba that practiced martial arts and seemed to star in many movies together. In fact, they previously starred in a futuristic version of this very same tale called Message From Space over here (Uchu kara no messeji in Japan) that even featured the same director!


These are the eight who have Confucian Virtue Jewels:

Daikaku (Minori Terada) – (Gi – Duty or Justice.) Loyal sidekick to Dosetsu, hides Princess Shizu at his mother’s house, only to find his mother has been replaced. Killed in the final battle.
Dosetsu (Sonny Chiba) – (Chuu – Loyalty.)Sonny Chiba gained massive fame from the original Streetfighter film, and had a long career before and after, with many ups and downs. His recent inclusion in the first Kill Bill rocketed him back to fame, and lead to many of his films being released again in better editions. Has been seen here before in Sister Streetfighter, which also stars another of this movie’s actors. Killed in the final battle.
Shino (Masaki Kyomoto) – Brother of his sister (well, duh!) who just happens to be in love with his sister (not blood sister) but as she is getting married it is impossible for him. Until her groom-to-be is killed, but then their forbidden love results in her death and his revenge upon his family. Eventually given a crystal and ends up dead in the final battle. (Kou – Filial devotion/piety.) Played Ryo in Cutie Honey.
Female Assassin Keno (Etsuko Shiomi) – An assassin who disrupts Shino’s sister’s wedding in order to kill the groom. Eventually gets a crystal as well. (Rei – Knowledge traditional/proper form. I think they may have altered her kanji character.) Killed in the final battle by a killer who was hounding her the entire movie. Etsuko Shiomi became famous after the Sister Streetfighter films, and was Japan’s only all-around female action star. She retired after marrying singer Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi and now runs marathons under her married name, refusing interviews about her action star career.
Soldier (Kenji Oba?) – A servent of the demons who kills for them, before given a crystal because of his disgust for what he is forced to do. Killed in the final battle. I believe the soldier is played by Kenji Oba (who is credited as Genpachi in the credits.) Kenji Oba was another Japanese Action Club member who also starred in Kill Bill recently. (Shin – Faith.)
Kid (??) – Some kid who lives in a cave with a Big Dude. He gets a crystal, making him awfully close to Kenny territory. Luckily he doesn’t say or do much at all. Killed in the final battle. (Chi – Wisdom.)
Big Dude (??) – A Big Dude who lives in a cave, where there is also a kid. Both he and the Kid are basically tacked on and don’t do much. Not much except die in the final battle. (Tei – Brotherly affection.)
Shinbei (Hiroyuki Sanada) – Shinbei is a punk kid who goes around pretending he is a swashbuckler until he finds out the Princess has a reward on her head, then tries to capture her repeatedly. Eventually forced to be evil, then gets his own crystal after he dies but returns to life and has sex with Princess Shizu. You’ve heard of STD? Well, that was STC, Sexually Transmitted Crystal! Not killed in the final battle. (Jin – Sympathy, inclusive of all virtues. Jin is the top virtue in Confucianism, thus the main hero gets it.)
Vampire Vixens From Venus
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Vampire Vixens from Venus (Review)

August 6, 2007By

Vampire Vixens from Venus


1995
Directed, Produced, and Written by Ted A. Bohus

Vampire Vixens from Venus (not to be confused with Vampire Vixens is the story about seductive alien women who come to Earth to steal brain juices from excited men. After running across it in a random movie rental nine years ago in college, I had been searching for it for years, and thanks to some luck I ran across a copy. Most memorable after all that time was the CGI was literally the worst I had ever seen in a film and may have been one of the first movies with a CGI character. The alien women have their alternate alien modes, which gives us a few instances of alien monsters killing men as well. Topping all of that is the movie’s bumbling cop hero character, who just happens to be British for no real good reason! It all adds up to a bizarre ride for what is essentially a skin flick, but is memorable enough due to the factors that make it so weird.

The film has some crude humor, but for the most part is just silly and doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously, which is a boon for these sci-fi sex movies. Some of the jokes are groan-inducing, while random silly things such as a guy in the town always dressed like Elvis are just fun (especially since the Elvis guy looks like an 80-pound weakling.) The creature effects here appear to have the same general style as other Ted A. Bohus films such as Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor or Nightbeast, but I haven’t seen any of them so I can’t compare further.

Arylai (J.J. North) – Leader of the Vampire Vixens from Venus, helps guide the team on their mission to steal excited male brain chemicals. Blonde actress, but an orange alien, and the only member of the team who seems all there upstairs. Shot by a Space Cop. J.J. North is a B-Movie actress probably best known for Bikini Hotel, Hybrid, or Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfold, but hasn’t been in films since 2000. Her real name is Janey Jaye North. No joke here, just saying.
Shirley (Theresa Lynn) – The dumb member of the Vampire Vixens team, but kudos to the moviemakers for not making her the stereotypical blonde. Instead, she’s full redhead (though her alien self is lime green.) Shot by a Space Cop. Never having achieved much in the B-movie roles she was cast in (except maybe Orgasm Woman in Howard Stern’s Private Parts), she seems to have disappeared from the entertainment industry around 1999.
Omay (Leslie Glass) – The third member of the Vampire Vixens from Venus, the sultry brunette who can’t always get her holoprojector working. Her alien form is a deep red. Shot by a Space Cop. A former Penthouse Pet turned adult actress, Leslie Glass sadly died of cancer in 2000.
Detective Oakenshield (Leon Head) – The inexplicably British detective of the local police force, who is not only head detective but head klutz. Solves most of the case due to his British brilliance. Leon Head seems to have never worked again, except in the Chinese film So Close??? Somehow I think they made a mistake, but I’ll check it out next time I watch the film.
Shampay (Michelle Bauer) – Another Penthouse Pet, but Michelle Bauer is a B-movie queen. Over 100 films, and still going strong. Here she is the not-so-secret fourth member of the Vampire Vixens from Venus. Eaten by a Space Cop.
Jack Meov (John Knox) – The new partner to Detective Oakenshield is in fact an undercover member of the Intergalactic Patrol. But don’t tell anyone, as that is the secret ending of the film. Whoops! Shot by Oakenshield.

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Transmorphers
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Transmorphers (Review)

July 30, 2007By

Transmorphers


2007
Directed and Written by Leigh Scott

Transmorphers! Morph than meets the eye! Wait a minute, that’s the theme to Transformers, not Transmophers, another in the long line of “mock”busters from The Asylum. We previously encountered them in the first Dragon Slayers team-up with FantasyFilmscapes.com in the movie Dragon, which was mysteriously named similar to Eragon. In addition to having elements similar to Transformers, Transmorphers borrows from several famous science fiction movies, the most obvious will be The Terminator and The Matrix. We’ll point out the rest as the references happen. Before we can get to the plot, first we must address the disk. Simply put, the Transmorphers DVD shipped with an incomplete movie. Large swaths of the film are out of sound sync, and many effects are incomplete. Guns shoot silently or no lasers exit the end. CGI at times is embarrassingly bad. In fact, the film is so bad that The Asylum went back and completed the film and fixed the sound problems, and any new DVDs are supposed to have the completed film. Well, I’m not about to track down another copy of the film to play Russian roulette to see if I got a corrected version. Transmorphers was filmed under the title Robot Wars, but everyone working on it pretty much knew it was going to get a new title that would sound familiar to a certain big budget film coming out.

Ignoring those major flaws, how is the film? Actually, it is pretty entertaining. Giving the budget constraints and time spent on the film, it was amazing what was produced. Writer/Director Leigh Scott gives a few tidbits of information from his interview on YourVideoStoreShelf.com about production for The Asylum and why he won’t be working for them anymore. Scott is known for creating a large bulk of The Asylum’s mockbusters and for going on message boards and arguing with irate watchers of his films. As for now, humanity is driven underground thanks to an invasion of alien robots.

Astroboy Fuhrer ZZZ
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Astro Boy – Fuhrer ZZZ (Review)

July 9, 2007By

Astro Boy – Fuhrer ZZZ


1962

Astro Boy is a Japanese manga/anime created by Osamu Tezuka in Japan in 1951. He is one of the most recognizable faces in cartoons, not just manga. A string of projects have been created over the years, including the popular 1960’s cartoons that spread Astro Boy throughout the world. What is of most interest to us now is the 1958-59 live action TV series on Japan TV developed by MBS. In 1962 they released either a continuation movie or a string of TV episodes that follow the Fuhrer ZZZ story in the manga as a movie, which still circulates today in bootleg format. Thus, we got blurry scenes, no subtitles for the Japanese, and little or no information about the film or any of the actors. We don’t even have an accurate array of the character names, especially since the Peg Leg guy doesn’t even get a name in the manga this is based on! But it is a good window into Japanese TV of the late ’50s and how it was turning into the groovy 60s with superheroes and other fun effects. And where else are you going to see a kid dressed up as Astro Boy fighting villains? Certainly not on Cnn.com!

As stated before, the film has no subtitles, so certain things are inferred by actions or deduction. There is precious little information about this film anywhere. There isn’t even a definite explanation on where it came from, if it is some TV episodes strung together or a movie sequel to the TV series. The series dates from 1958-59, but the few sources date this film as 1962. That could be an error, or a movie could have been strung together from episodes a few years later to capitalize on the cartoon series. Or maybe a sequel movie was greenlit. What is important is we don’t know.

In addition, I am not that familiar with Astro Boy the cartoon, so many of the characters I had to look up their back stories. It also matters that this TV adaptation doesn’t have some of the main characters from the comic, and uses its own versions of some main characters as well. So the Roll Call is as accurate as possible, but TarsTarkas.NET does not guarantee accuracy. But we did the best we could, and this should be the best review of the Astro Boy Movie to ever hit the net. We can’t even locate an imdb.com entry (but that is not unusual for a film here.)

InMovie Reviews, Ugly

The Swamp of the Lost Monster (Review)

July 2, 2007By

The Swamp of the Lost Monster

aka El Pantano de las ánimas aka Swamp of the Lost Souls

1957
Directed by Rafael Baledón
Mexican Cowboys meet the Creature from the Black Lagoon! That’s essentially the plot, except there is a murder mystery thrown in and, of course, the Scooby-Doo ending. Hey, did I spoil things? Not really, but before I reveal who the villain is I will give some spoiler warnings, I guess, despite the fact it is really obvious to anyone who hasn’t replaced their brain with a moldy turnip in the past year. But the reason to watch this film isn’t the mystery, it is the crazy cowboy vs. monster action!
The Swamp of the Lost Monster

This imported schlock is brought to us by the king of importing trash from Mexico, K. Gordon Murray! (hereafter called KGM) We have previously encountered some of his imports with Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy and Night of 1000 Cats, and there are at least two more of his films in the pipeline. He is also responsible for the classic Mexi-trash Santa Claus getting distributed in the US.
The Swamp of the Lost Monster
TarsTarkas.NET strives to give a diverse range of the movies we cover, and up until now the only western film featured was the Marx Brothers epic Go West. Western Horror is a genre that hasn’t received much love, its few entries include Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter and Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (which usually played on a double bill, but I’ve only seen the former with Joe Bob Briggs commentary.) There are also a few dinosaurs and cowboys films such as Valley of Gwangi and The Beast of Hollow Mountain. Finally, one can’t talk about western cross-genres without mentioning the Gene Autry serial The Phantom Empire, where our favorite singing cowboy fights the evil people of Mu. There is also a companion movie to Swamp of the Lost Monster, filmed in 1958 entitled El Grito de la Muerte (literal translation – The Cry of Death) and imported by KGM as The Living Coffin. It is again a Western Horror, starring Gastón and Pedro D’Aguillón, with a copout ending. I have not seen it so I do not know if Moonlight the horse appears.
The Swamp of the Lost Monster
Obviously, due to the monster design, this is a quick attempt to ride the coattails of the 1954 movie Creature From the Black Lagoon. Just change the setting and people won’t know or care! Plus it is in color, even if it is washed out color, and that is one up on the original film. Thanks to redubbing, several of the characters have vastly different names than their Mexican counterparts. In addition, the print of the film looks like it was stored in the bottom of a porta-potty for a few weeks, with the grimy yellow tinge and the overall scratchiness. Some of the Turkish films have better prints, and they had the army trying to wipe them out. But for us, we only have each other to save us from the Gillman knockoffs that try to terrorize us. From a look at these monsters, a three year old could take them out, so we jump from frightened to laughing hysterically. That’s what I look for in a good film, so at times this is charming.

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