THE CHAMPAGNE GANG (2006) *

Four surfer girls make a killing stealing booze and cigarettes from liquor stores and selling them on the black market for a big mark up.  In the process, they wind up accidentally ripping off the local kingpin.  Instead of being angry, he is impressed by their tenacity and proposes a partnership.  He’ll bankroll their gang and help train them properly so they can knock off a bunch of drug stores (in exchange for a percentage of course).  Predictably, it doesn’t take long before the girls get in over their heads and get the attention of the local law.

The Champagne Gang is allegedly based on a true story.  Even if it was a complete fabrication, the idea of scantily clad girls becoming hardened criminals is certainly appealing.  The ladies in the cast look great and all, but unfortunately, there isn’t a real actress among them.  They recite their dialogue rather saying it with emotion, which prevents their characters from really clicking with the audience.

Look, I’m a sucker for a heist flick, especially one that feature hot girls in the cast.  Too bad this always feels like bare bones treatment in search of a movie.  It’s one thing to have a low budget with inexperienced actresses, but even master thespians would have trouble overcoming the threadbare script and the thin characters.

Plus, the heists themselves aren’t expertly executed either.  I mean, if it’s one activity that cinema can make into a thrilling experience, it’s a well-executed heist.  In this flick, there’s a robbery that merely involves one of the girls endlessly banging on a safe with a pickaxe. 

Since we never care about the characters and there’s no fun or suspense during the heists, what are we left with?  Sure, the girls are easy on the eyes, but that can only carry the movie so far.  We do get an inexplicable cameo by 3000 Miles to Graceland’s Bokeem Woodbine as a rock star though. 

Director Daniel Zirilli went on to direct movies starring Steven Seagal and Dolph Lundgren. 

BARON BRAKOLA (1967) ** ½

The vampire Baron Brakola (Fernando Oses) rises from the grave searching for the reincarnation of his lost love Rebeca (Susana Robles).  Naturally, El Santo handily defeats the Baron.  Afterwards, El Santo’s professor friend tells him about the Baron’s past where centuries ago, he vied for the affections of the beautiful Rebeca with El Santo’s ancestor, The Silver-Masked Caballero.  

Seeing El Santo (though it might’ve been another actor entirely) wearing a Zorro-inspired outfit in the flashback scenes is enough to make this one memorable.  The sword fight scenes are kind of cool, although I much prefer the Mexican wrestling to the swordplay if I’m being perfectly honest.  I’m more about turnbuckles than swashbuckles, you know what I mean?  Generally, this wouldn’t have been so bad if the flashback didn’t take up half the dang running time.

Meanwhile, back in the present, Brakola returns and disguises himself as El Santo’s next opponent.  He almost bites El Santo in the ring, but luckily, the professor is there to scare him off with a cross.  El Santo then follows Brakola back to his mansion for the final showdown.

The cool opening scene set in a decrepit mansion where the undead Baron rises from his crypt sets the mood nicely.  It almost looks like they reused the set from Santo vs. the Vampire Women.  There’s even the same painting of Rebeca hanging on the wall! 

In addition to his big match with the Baron, El Santo’s other wrestling scene is a real slobberknocker.  It’s a tag team match where the fists fly furiously, and the body slams occur at a steady clip.  El Santo also has a great brawl with the Baron in an empty auditorium as the vampiric villain frantically trades lefts and rights with our masked hero.  There’s even a brawl during the flashback that goes on for quite some time.  (We get an obligatory dance number during the flashback too.)

There’s a good amount of action here, even if the fights that occur outside of the ring get a bit repetitive.  That’s mostly because El Santo is always battling Brakola.  Maybe if he had an army of henchmen for El Santo to go up against, it would’ve added some variety.  Still, for all its faults (the draggy middle section being chief among them), Baron Brakola contains all the rubber bats, lap-dissolve transformation scenes, cobwebbed crypts, and neck biting you’d expect from a Mexican vampire movie, and for that, I can’t completely write it off.  

AKA:  Santo vs. Baron Brakola.  

THE CURIOUS FEMALE (1970) **

The great earthquake of 1969 turns Los Angeles into an island.  In the year 2427, the world is ran by a “Master Computer” that outlaws sexual morality.  The swinging rebels of the future gather to watch underground sex films from the 20th century and have orgies.  First, they watch a faux-silent movie called The Vacuum Salesman. 

The rest of The Curious Female is devoted to the second smut film the futuristic people watch called The Three Virgins.  It’s about a man who uses a college computer dating service to find a virgin.  Pearl (Charlene Jones) is an African American with an abusive home life.  Joan (Bunny Allister) is engaged to a med student who’s sexually frustrated because she wants to wait for marriage.  Susan (Angelique Pettyjohn) is a stacked tease.  Occasionally, we cut back to the future where the perplexed moviegoers ask questions about the characters’ antiquated sexual views.

It almost feels like the futuristic wraparound footage was added to pad out the running time. Either that or it was unfinished, and the filmmakers just cobbled something together at the last minute to create a releasable product.  It’s probably the later because one of the futuristic women comments that there’s a reel missing from the film because “the producers ran out of money”!

It’s ironic that the slapdash, silly sci-fi framing device is more entertaining than the swinging ‘60s scenes of computer dating and sexual misadventures.  These sequences just aren’t funny or sexy.  At least the futuristic stuff has a certain cheese factor to help make it watchable.  It also doesn’t help that the film gets progressively worse as it goes along.  It especially turns sour once the girls begin losing their virginity, which is the exact opposite of what you think should’ve happened.  The opening credits sequence in which the groovy title track plays over pastel colored images of pussycats and nude women is a lot of fun though. 

Joan’s mother gets the best line of the movie when she tells her daughter, “I want you to be a virgin, but I don’t want you to be a hermit!” 

AKA:  Curious Females.

TRA-LA-LA-LA-LA LA-VOLTA: GOTTI (2018) * ½

Gotti was directed and co-written by actors, which tracks because it’s filled with scenes in which the performers are given showy, blustery set pieces that allow them to wear an assortment of period clothes, a variety of old age make-ups, and silly wigs.  Some individual scenes work, but there’s no dramatic through line connecting them.  It’s all scenery-chewing, would-be Oscar clips in search of a movie.

Gotti wants to show us the rise and fall of notorious crime boss John Gotti.  Gotti is played by John Travolta, who is clearly invested, just underserved by the slapdash screenplay.  Major incidents in his life are shown (like the death of his son), but are quickly forgotten almost as soon as they are introduced.  The narrative hops back and time through the years, seemingly at random.  It feels more like a collection of deleted scenes than an honest to goodness plot.  The framing device, with his son visiting the cancer ridden Gotti in prison is also forgotten at random in favor of more Mob movie clichés and made for TV level theatrics.  

Travolta’s performance alone makes it watchable.  He singlehandedly prevents the film from being as bad as its reputation, but even he can’t keep it afloat.  His real-life wife, Kelly Preston plays Gotti’s wife, and it’s an extremely underwritten role.  She probably only took the role because she wanted to work with her husband once again, or more likely, because no one else would.  Stacy Keach has some good moments as an elder Mob statesman and Gotti’s mentor, and old pros Pruitt Taylor Vince, Chris Mulkey, and Leo Rossi (who also co-wrote the script) appear as assorted Mafioso.  

Some amusement can be had from the horrible usage of pop songs that play over certain sequences.  Many of the needle drops are bizarre and they seldom fit the action onscreen.  (Like the inexplicable use of the theme from Shaft.)  I did like the Christmastime Mob hit set to Elvis’ rendition of “Silent Night”, which means only one thing… Guys, Gotti is a Christmas movie!

TRA-LA-LA-LA-LA LA-VOLTA: THE FORGER (2015) ***

John Travolta stars as an art forger who is serving time when a gangster arranges for him to be released from prison so he can take part in an art heist.  Since his son (Tye Sheridan) is terminally ill, he needs a big score to help pay the doctor bills.  Besides, he’s not doing his son any favors rotting in jail.  Travolta’s crotchety father (Christopher Plummer) isn’t too happy with the situation, but when the chips are down, he pitches in to help his desperate son.  While Travolta is preparing to replicate a priceless Monet, he tries to appease his restless son by granting him a series of wishes.  Eventually, the three men wind up bonding over the thrill of the heist.

You might be put off just by Travolta’s appearance in this one.  He looks almost as corny as he did in Killing Season.  He’s got silver streaks in his hair, a little goatee, and he speaks in a halfhearted Boston accent.  Despite that, he gives a fine performance in this surprisingly effective little caper picture.  Travolta has a lot of chemistry with Plummer, who pretty much steals the film.  Sheridan also does a solid job and refuses to rely on cheap theatrics to gain sympathy from the audience for his condition.

That’s probably the movie’s biggest strength.  It could’ve easily taken that character and his family situation and turned into a cloying and maudlin melodrama.  It’s refreshing that Travolta, in an effort to reconnect with his son, makes like a criminal version of the Make-A-Wish foundation as he tries to make three of his biggest dreams come true.  Again, it ends predictably with Sheridan’s final wish being to take part in the family heist.  Even then, the performances are strong enough that it feels more of an organic conclusion and less a contrived machination of the screenplay.  The film is probably less successful when it focuses on the planning and execution of the heist itself, but in its character driven moments, The Forger is the real deal.

TRA-LA-LA-LA-LA LA-VOLTA: KILLING SEASON (2013) ***

John Travolta stars as a foreigner wandering in the woods near Robert De Niro’s cabin.  De Niro is an ex-soldier who was stationed in Serbia during the war.  When his car breaks down, Travolta fixes it, and De Niro dutifully lets him spend the night.  He soon discovers it was all a ruse, and the man isn’t who he claims to be.  

This sets up an extended First Blood meets Most Dangerous Game face-off between the two.  Travolta hunts De Niro in the woods, with each man only armed with a bow and arrow.  Throughout the next few days, the tables will be turned again and again, with each man managing to briefly get the upper hand on his tormentor.

The cat and mouse games between the two men are well done for the most part.  It’s just that the tables get turned so often that it becomes a little implausible after a while.  Even when the action is kind of chasing its tail, the fireworks between the two performers are genuine.

Directed by Mark Steven (Ghost Rider) Johnson, Killing Season sometimes veer into the realm of torture porn.  (There’s a lemonade waterboarding sequence.)  However, these moments help give the picture a memorably nasty streak.  We also get one arrow wound that’s as grisly as anything in a Jason movie.

Despite its excesses, Killing Season is almost always effective.  It’s an interesting project.  You wouldn’t naturally think an action drama like this would be an ideal platform to bring together two legends of the silver screen, but it somehow works.  

De Niro is particularly great.  There’s a phone conversation with his son (Milo Ventimiglia) in which the things that aren’t being said are just as important as the few words he speaks.  He also handles himself capably enough in the action-centric second half of the film.

Travolta is saddled with a terrible haircut, a beard and no moustache, and a Boris Badenov accent.  Due to his incredible skill, he’s able to make the character work.  It could’ve just been a Nic Cage style performance art piece, but Travolta’s flamboyant exuberance is a nice counterbalance to De Niro’s quiet introspectiveness.  The scene where they get drunk together and listen to Johnny Cash is worth the price of admission alone.

Killing Season is also noteworthy for having the same exact ending as Creed 2.  It even features the same actor, Milo Ventimiglia!  Except instead acting alongside Sylvester Stallone, it’s Robert De Niro.

THE COLONY (2013) ***

When the Big Freeze happens, it drives the few remaining survivors into underground bunkers.  Their biggest threat is the common cold.  With their numbers dwindling and supplies running scarce, Bill Paxton takes it upon himself to shoot anyone who gets sick, protocol be damned.  Leader Laurence Fishburne tries to put him in his place but must leave basecamp to investigate why a nearby colony has gone radio silent.  There, he and his team discover things have gone horribly wrong.

After seeing so many post-apocalypse movies that take place in the desert, it’s refreshing to see one that takes place in the snow.  Director Jeff Renfroe sets a nice atmosphere in the early going and gives Fishburne’s trek through the snow a decent amount of suspense.  When the big twist occurs halfway through, the plot veers more and more into horror territory.  This section is the weaker half, although only slightly.  That’s mostly because it’s here where the film stops being a post-apocalyptic survival movie and becomes another variation on a modern zombie flick, albeit a sporadically effective one.  

Fishburne does a fine job, giving a sincere performance.  He easily slips into his role of leader and has a nice rapport Kevin Zegers in their scenes in the frozen tundra.  The movie really belongs to Paxton.  Like many of his villainous roles, he’s not really the “bad guy”, but more of a self-righteous asshole, which I appreciate.  He has his own reasons for doing what he’s doing, and you kind of sympathize with his actions, if only because they are coming from a place of knee-jerk survivalist mentality.  What I liked about the movie was that Zegers keeps giving Paxton opportunity after opportunity to redeem himself, and he always proves to be an asshole.  You have to admire that kind of stubbornness, even after the apocalypse.  

AKA:  The Colony:  Hell Freeze Over.