MISTRESS OF THE APES (1979) ** ½

Pictures of an ape man surface from a remote jungle.  Susan (Jenny Neumann from Stage Fright) goes along with the expedition hoping to find her lost scientist husband.  Little does she realize the assholes who run the expedition murdered her husband and are now trying to put their paws all over Susan.

At first glance, Mistress of the Apes looks like your standard jungle picture.  Let it marinate a while because it soon proves to be exactly the kind of oddball Larry (Creature of Destruction) Buchanan movie that I find so fascinating.  It begins with a really involved and detailed set-up chronicling Susan’s unfortunate miscarriage.  It feels gratuitous and in poor taste but stick with it.  You won’t believe how Buchanan pays it off.

Mistress of the Apes is a good vehicle for the lovely Jenny Neumann.  She has a strong screen presence, holds her own against the grubby male cast, and looks great during her various topless scenes.  Her best scene though comes after the only female ape woman is killed and she suckles the ape baby to gain the tribe’s trust. She even partakes in ape man sex and winds up getting pregnant to keep the bloodline going!  Insane. 

The supporting cast is solid too.  Stuart (Faster, Pussycat!  Kill!  Kill!) Lancaster is a hoot as a grizzled poacher with his sights on getting back at Neumann.  Vampirella herself Barbara Leigh also provides some eye candy as a member of the expedition who is targeted by Lancaster and his rapist cronies. 

The tone of this thing is all over the place.  In addition to the aforementioned miscarriage scene, there’s a nasty sequence in which Leigh is raped, tied up, and has the crotch cut out of her pants.  This is immediately followed by a montage of Neumann cavorting around with ape men and fellating a banana set to the tune of a hilarious song called “Ape Lady” by a band that sounds like a bad Dr. John rip-off.  (The title tune is almost as funny.)  What did you expect from a Larry Buchanan movie?

There’s one way Mistress of the Apes doesn’t feel like your typical Buchanan picture:  The special effects are surprisingly well done.  Then again, it shouldn’t be surprising once you learn they were done by Greg Cannom and a young Rob Bottin.  In fact, they probably look a little TOO good because they lack the goofy charm of the monsters from Buchanan’s other movies. 

SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE (2018) ***

Spider-Man:  Into the Spider-Verse is a feast for the eyes.  The vibrant animation is nothing short of dazzling.  The inventive use of color, comic book panels, and word bubbles makes the film feel like a living, breathing comic book.  Some sequences harken back to the days of ‘60s psychedelia, while others carry the flavor of pop art kitsch of the ‘70s.  

The trade-off is that the plot, characters, and action don’t quite measure up to the film’s ambitious style.  I guess that shouldn’t be surprising that the rest of the moving parts are busy playing catch-up with a movie that looks this great.  Still, it’s excusable, mostly because it’s so much fun.

Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is a teenager who gets bitten by a radioactive spider.  Thanks to a cataclysmic event, there is a rift in the universe and his world is invaded by Spider-Men from various alternate realities.  Among them:  Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson), a down and out, slightly older and overweight Spider-Man.  Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage), a ‘40s style detective Spider-Man.  Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld), a girl power version of Spider-Man played by his original true love.  By far my favorite is Spider-Ham (John Mulaney), a cartoon pig who practically steals every scene he’s in. 

Despite the eye-popping visual style and the wonderful, colorful, and funny Spider-Man variations, the villains are woefully lackluster.  The design on some of them (especially Kingpin) are flat-out terrible.  The movie goes out of its way to stress that this takes place in an alternate universe, as if to let itself off the hook for some of its odd embellishments.  (The dragon-like Green Goblin is just plain stupid.)  However, I can’t help but think the film would’ve been better if it had one finely drawn (in both senses of the word) villain.

Another stumbling block is that Miles just isn’t as compelling a character as Peter Parker.  I mean when Peter got bit by the radioactive spider, it was during a trip to a science lab.  Miles gets bit while spray-painting graffiti.  It just doesn’t have the same pull.  I did however like the twist on the typical Uncle Ben character.

That’s sort of the point though.  Miles is in over his head and needs help from the other Spider-Persons (and Pigs) to save the day.  By the end of the movie, he’s ready for his own solo adventure, but getting there is sort of rocky.  

Spider-Man’s motto has always been, “With great power comes great responsibility”.  Miles’ motto is “Anyone can wear the mask.”  Again, it doesn’t have the same ring to it, but there’s enough of that old Spider-Man charm to go along with the new flavor to make it work.  It must be said, the whole “it takes a village” motif of the heroes banding together was played out much better in The LEGO Batman Movie.

Johnson makes for a great Spider-Man.  I can’t help but think he would’ve made a great live-action Spider-Man.  Same goes for Cage as the wily private eye Spidey inspired by Humphrey Bogart.  The movie really belongs to Mulaney.  Spider-Ham needs his own solo series like yesterday.  Also, be sure to stay after the credits because if THAT is where they’re going with the sequel, then we’re in store for something truly special in a few years’ time.  (I don’t want to spoil anything.  All I’ll say is THAT guy playing THAT guy is perfect casting.)

Speaking of casting, having Lily Tomlin play Aunt May was another sheer delight.  Why didn’t anyone think to cast her as Aunt May sooner?  She’s absolutely perfect and should’ve been playing the role since day one.

Oh yeah, and this is the first Marvel movie with a Stan Lee cameo after his passing and… yeah… it kinda got to me.

Spider-Ham gets the best line of the movie when he says, “I frolic.  I dance.  I do this in my pants!”

HEREDITARY (2018) *

Hereditary made a big splash at Sundance.  The buzz surrounding the film led to several rave reviews.  It even made a tidy sum at the box office.  Me being me came late to the party and just watched it one lazy evening on Netflix.  

I had purposefully stayed away from the previews.  I wanted to go into it as cold as possible.  All I knew is that Toni Collette had a fucked-up family and that’s about it.  I don’t know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this.  

As it turns out, Hereditary is one of those movies where nothing happens for long stretches at a time.  Everyone speaks in whispers and the soundtrack drones on and on, lulling you into a zombie state of sleep. Then… WHAM!!!  There’s a big noise indicating some sort of alleged horror has occurred to wake you up.  You’re then forced to rewind and figure out what you missed, only to learn you really didn’t miss all that much. This happened to me at least twice during the first forty minutes of the film. 

Hereditary is also one of those movies where you think it’s almost over, but then you press the INFO button on your remote and are dismayed to learn there’s a whopping forty minutes left to go.  It moves at a fucking snail’s pace for over two goddamn hours while you wait for something… anything remotely scary or horrifying to happen.  The final reel, which features some of the dumbest shit this side of a Japanese horror flick, is a total joke.  Seriously, did this thing need to be 127 freaking minutes?  I think not.

I went into the movie cold.  Even though I pretty much hated it, I’ll spare you the plot rundown.  I won’t spoil what it’s about, or even what happens.  Then again, there’s not a whole lot to spoil because not a lot happens to begin with.

I can in good conscience say that Collette is quite amazing.  I wouldn’t be surprised if she got nominated for an Oscar as she is completely off the rails.  Whether chewing out her son at the dinner table or having a wicked case of sleepwalking, she takes things to 11. 

The problem is that no one else in the cast comes close to matching her.  Gabriel (End of Days) Byrne barely registers as her sad sack husband.  Alex Wolff and Milly Shapiro are both thoroughly irritating as her unlikeable children.  Then again, maybe that was on purpose.  I guess the filmmakers wanted the audience to hate them as much as Collette’s character does.

THE CHINESE STUNTMAN (1982) **

Bruce Li quits working at a karate school to sell insurance.  Meanwhile, a greedy movie producer plots to kill his biggest star and collect the insurance money.  Bruce’s crooked boss is in on the scheme and lures him into brokering the deal.  Bruce, unaware of the producer’s sinister intentions, goes along with it.  Bruce befriends the star, who is impressed by his karate background, and promptly hires him to be his stunt double.  Since the rest of the stunt team is in cahoots with the producer, they try to not only eliminate the leading man, but Bruce as well.

The insurance angle is certainly novel and assures that you probably won’t completely forget this one.  However, none of it really works.  I mean there’s a reason why insurance fraud isn’t a common plot point in chopsocky films.  The scenes of backstabbing intrigue on the movie set is equally inane.  Bruce does what he can, but the fluky plot and the lethargic pacing keeps The Chinese Stuntman from ever really cutting loose. 

There are a lot of film-within-a-film fights, but they don’t advance the plot, and ultimately mean very little in the long run.  Because of that, they act more like padding than anything else.  We do get a great scene where Bruce comes back to visit his friends at the karate school and they try to beat him up.  He attempts to diffuse the situation by saying, “Come on, guys!  Let’s talk about insurance!”  Yeah, because there’s nothing like a good insurance pitch to make trained fighters lower their defenses.  

The funniest scene though is the movie star’s lengthy love scene set to an instrumental version of “Hotel California”.  Unfortunately, this scene goes out of its way to make sure his partner doesn’t show her breasts, which is a tad frustrating.  Later, when there’s another chance for nudity, the actress’s boobs are completely blurred out!  What the hell?  

Another botched opportunity for WTF lunacy occurs near the end.  That’s when the Odd Job lookalike henchman shows up, complete with razor blade hat.  Not only that, he’s accompanied by a little person who acts as his Mini-Me sidekick.  Like most of the winning moments in The Chinese Stuntman, it’s nothing more than a little throwaway bit.

AKA:  The Chieh Boxing Master.  AKA:  Counter Attack.

OASIS: SUPERSONIC (2016) ****

I wasn’t really a fan of Oasis till I saw them on a triple bill with Spacehog and The Black Crowes.  From then on, I was sold.  Even before that, I was sort of mesmerized by the offstage antics of the brothers Gallagher.  Their volatile relationship almost always preceded the band, and the agitated pair’s interviews together were often hilarious and fun to watch.

Oasis:  Supersonic chronicles their rise as one of the greatest bands of the ‘90s.  An ordinary documentary would’ve been content to show the band’s rags to riches story through talking head interviews and performance material.  Lucky for fans of the band, and lovers of documentary cinema, this is anything but ordinary.

Instead, we get an amalgam of insightful, vastly personal home movies and electrifying concert footage.  Throughout, the band members are heard on the soundtrack in brutally honest and revealing interviews that act as a firsthand account and oral history of the band’s formation and rise to stardom.  The way the home videos and new audio is synched together gives the illusion that the band is coming together before your very eyes.  It’s like you’re a fly on the wall witnessing the birth of Oasis.  

You couldn’t have asked for a better script.  The brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher, who are at once explosive and confrontational, but also immensely loyal and supportive, grind out numerous gigs in relative obscurity.  One fateful night, they meet the head of England’s hottest label, who signs them on the spot.  In a matter of months, they take the world by storm, touring the globe, and selling millions of albums along the way.  Director Mat Whitecross blends all the footage and audio together in such a way that it makes it feel like you’re seeing it unfold as it happens, which is fascinating.  

Whitecross doesn’t shy away from the darker side of the band.  Their drug use, excess, temper, and propensity for fighting is not shied away from.  We see them acting cocky and brash, with attitude to spare in interviews.  We see some of the various personnel changes, and a bit of Liam’s habit of walking off the stage in the middle of gigs, but Whitecross chooses not to portray the band’s ultimate downfall.  Instead, he ends the movie when the band is at their zenith, playing a massive concert for a quarter of a million people.  

Maybe it’s better that way.  Many lesser movies would’ve been happy to trot out the sordid details of the band’s demise.  Lesser documentaries would want to assign blame for the implosion of the band.  To pick apart what exactly went wrong.  Not only does Oasis:  Supersonic choose to end on a high note; it makes you feel like you were a part of something.  In short, this is one of the best documentaries I’ve seen in a long time.

Noel gets the best line of the movie when he says, “I want the severed head of Phil Collins in my fridge by the end of the decade!”

AKA:  Supersonic.

1313: COUGAR CULT (2012) **

I never turn down a chance to see the three greatest Scream Queens of all time, Linnea Quigley, Michelle Bauer, and Brinke Stevens in a movie together.  The fact that it’s from David DeCoteau, the director of their iconic Nightmare Sisters certainly doesn’t hurt.  Having just sat through DeCoteau’s jaw-dropping Bigfoot vs. D.B. Cooper I figured I’d give this a shot.

Quigley, Bauer, and Stevens star as a trio of witches who turn into literal cougars.  They lure three college boys to their mansion under pretense of giving them jobs as live-in servants.  Really, they want to use the boys as sacrifices in their black magic rituals.

Like Bigfoot vs. D.B. Cooper, there are a lot of scenes of shirtless guys.  Unlike that film, the scenes where they flop around on the bed while dreaming, massage each other, hose themselves off poolside, and of course, take showers, are vital to the plot.  You see, the cougars must constantly keep an eye on them because they must perform occult rituals over the boys’ bare chests and… oh... who am I kidding?  It’s all as gratuitous as ever.

1313:  Cougar Cult starts out promising enough, but it all goes downhill pretty quickly.  The endless shots of the shirtless guys, which was so over the top and fun in Bigfoot vs. D.B. Cooper, just feels repetitive here as DeCoteau fails to give them a unique vibe.  Because of that, the seventy-three-minute running time feels a lot longer. 

I also wish the trio of leading ladies had more to do.  It’s great to see them, and they all look smoking hot, but it’s far from the best use of their talents.  Having them speak in “scary” voices for much of the final act certainly didn’t help. 

The most memorable thing about 1313:  Cougar Cult was the hilarious effects.  (I hesitate to use the term “special”.)  When Linnea, Michelle, and Brinke turn into cougars, it’s nothing more than a picture of a cougar pasted over their face!  Seriously, it looks like an Instagram filter or maybe an emoji sticker.  It’s truly pathetic, but also quite funny.

I also wish the jokes were funnier.  As it is, the cougar effects are easily the funniest thing about it.  Still, there was at least one dialogue exchange that was good for a laugh:

Shirtless Guy #1:  “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth!”

Shirtless Guy #2:  “Gift horses don’t eat people!” 

BIGFOOT VS. D.B. COOPER (2014) ** ½

David DeCoteau’s Bigfoot vs. D.B. Cooper offers us one of the oddest, obscure pairings of on-screen adversaries in cinema history.  I mean everyone knows and loves Bigfoot, but will anyone under fifty even remember who D.B. Cooper was?  Something tells me today’s audiences would have a better idea who D.B. Sweeney is. 

Anyway, the movie begins with an eleven-minute pre-title scene of our hero Bernie (Jordan Rodriguez) walking shirtless through the woods.  In real time.  DeCoteau’s attention to detail in this scene is almost Warholian as we see every blessed step of his journey.  There’s no payoff or anything.  It’s just an excuse for DeCoteau to show off Rodriguez’s chiseled abs.

This is almost immediately followed up by a nine-minute scene of two other shirtless guys jogging.  After their jog, they change clothes.  That is to say, they change their shorts.  I don’t even think they bothered to pack a shirt.

Hot off the heels of that perplexing scene there are not one, not two, not three, but FOUR consecutive scenes where guys strip down to their underwear and pose with guns in front of a mirror.  Oh, and did I mention Bigfoot has been voyeuristically watching them the whole time?  This movie is amazing. 

If you’re wondering what D.B. Cooper has to do with all this, fear not.  The narrator, Bernie’s present-day self, tells us all the sordid details of Cooper’s daring mid-air heist in between the scenes of guys walking around in their underwear.  Oh, I guess I should tell you the narrator is played by none other than Eric Roberts.  I have a sneaking suspicion that Roberts’ narration was taken during the same recording session as the one for DeCoteau’s A Talking Cat.  That is to say, DeCoteau just recorded a phone conversation he had with Roberts and put it into a movie.

Did I mention the characters have all congregated in the woods for a pre-wedding turkey shoot?  That is supposed to explain why the guys walk around in their underwear holding rifles.  It does not explain why supposedly seasoned hunters would venture out into the woods with their guns ready to hunt and not wear camouflage, let alone a shirt.

Seriously, the shirt budget for this movie was virtually nonexistent.  

There’s more.  A lot more.  There’s a long shower scene where a guy spends a long time washing one specific part of his anatomy.  There’s a scene where a guy goes looking for another guy and says, “Morgan…” about 128 times in a span of eight minutes.  There are shots that alternate from day to night in the same scene, just like an Ed Wood movie. 

Bigfoot vs. D.B. Cooper is not a good movie in a traditional sense.  Like at all.  However, I must give DeCoteau credit.  He shamelessly projected his cinematic obsessions onto the screen and committed to it like few others have ever dared.  Say what you will about it, but it’s all his.  Only DeCoteau could make it, which is the sign of a true auteur. 

There is barely seven minutes of plot in the seventy-six-minute running time.  You also have to wait until the seventy-minute mark to finally see the confrontation between the two titular characters.  Some may feel cheated because of that.  Then again, the revelation that Bigfoot’s mythology operates on werewolf logic is almost worth the wait.  

One thing I try not to call directors out on is self-indulgence.  I mean why make a movie unless you can indulge yourself?  This might be the most self-indulgent movie of all time.  Never before has someone’s cinematic fetishes been so brazenly displayed for the world to see.  You have to admire that level of confidence.  

Alfred Hitchcock had his blondes.  Russ Meyer had his impossibly busty women.  David DeCoteau has guys with rock-hard six packs in boxer briefs.

Let’s face it.  Women in these movies have been crassly objectified for years.  It’s about time the guys were too.  

I guess what I’m trying to say is that this is quite possibly the greatest gay bigfoot voyeur movie of all time.  

If we are judging Bigfoot vs. D.B. Cooper on the merits of what conventional pundits consider to be “good”, it would be a One Star movie, if not lower.  If, however, we are judging it as a director working at the height of his powers, shamelessly giving in to his desires and putting it all out there for the world to see, it’s a Four Star deal, easily.  So, we’ll split the difference and call it ** ½.  

Bigfoot vs. D.B. Cooper exists in a realm where Star Ratings don’t exist.  It must be experienced to be believed.  I don’t know if I can quite call it “The Next Plan 9” or anything, but it’s certainly one of the most unforgettable cult movies I’ve seen in recent memory.