BLISS (2019) **

“I hate to advocate alcohol, drugs, violence, and insanity, but they’ve always worked for me.”

This Hunter S. Thompson quote rattled through my head throughout most of Bliss.  I don’t know if it was intended as a metaphor for how substance abuse influences art or what.  I’m not sure the filmmakers knew, to be honest.

Dezzy (Dora Madison) is an artist who is struggling artistically and financially.  So, she does what anyone would do (or at least druggie painters) and goes out, gets drunk, and buys some weird new street drug called “Diablo”.  This potent pharmaceutical gives her the “bliss” she’s been missing, but it also causes her to occasionally lose track of time and wake up in mysterious places… sometimes covered in blood.  Oh well, who cares?  Especially when whatever she’s doing is causing her to finally put a brush to canvas again so she can finish her masterpiece.

Bliss feels like a horror anthology short that has been expanded to eighty minutes.  (The fact that it revolves around a painting means it could’ve easily been part of a Night Gallery reboot.)  There’s nothing here that couldn’t have been done in half (make that a quarter) of the time.  The big problem is the early scenes of our heroine getting high do very little to endear us to her character.  Imagine being stuck at a party listening to an annoying wasted chick yammer on and on and that might give you an idea of what you have to put up with.  At least she gets naked a few times (once during a three-way sex scene), which takes some of the sting out of it.

Once we finally learn what the drug has transformed her into, it’s a bit of a letdown.  I won’t spoil what happens, but I will say that director Joe (VFW) Begos brings nothing new to the subgenre.  Maybe it was the slower-than-slow burn that came before that soured me on the lackluster conclusion.

Also, I thought it was odd that before the movie began, there was a warning stating that the flashing lights could affect some photosensitive viewers.  However, there is no motion sickness warning for the scenes where Begos strapped a GoPro onto Madison and let her fly around the room, effectively giving the audience vertigo.  He really piles them on too in the final act, and the overall effect is just nauseating.  I guess he thought if the bloodletting wouldn’t sicken the audience, the camerawork would.

UNCUT GEMS (2019) ****

The secret behind Adam Sandler’s success as a dramatic actor is that the characters he plays aren’t too far removed from the ones that come out of his Happy Madison production house.  With a few tweaks here and there, the character of Howard Ratner in Uncut Gems could’ve been your typical loud, abrasive Sandler character.  However, you channel that energy into an absorbing storyline that features some terrific writing and exhilarating direction, and Sandler pulls it off effortlessly.  Compare that to someone like Jim Carrey.  When he tries to do a complete 180 from his usual persona in his dramatic roles like The Number 23, it sort of all falls apart. 

Like Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love, The Safdie Brothers’ Uncut Gems understands how to take the bare bones of an Adam Sandler vehicle and graft it onto an arthouse approach.  In both cases, they elevate Sandler’s game, not only by the writing and directing, but by carefully choosing the supporting cast.  Lakeith Stanfield, Eric Bogosian, Judd Hirsch, Idina Menzel, Julia Fox, and some surprising guest stars playing themselves, all lend Sandler fine support. 

To describe the plot would be a disservice to a potential viewer.  All I’ll say is that Sandler plays a jeweler up to his eyeballs in gambling debts who is trying to duck some very dangerous loan sharks and leave it at that.  The way the Safdies continuously up the ante and raise the stakes (gambling pun not intended, but what the hell) is a marvel of cinematic plate-spinning.  Imagine the last act of Goodfellas throughout the entire movie.  (Which is fitting, since Martin Scorsese was one of the executive producers.)  That’s the level of escalating intensity we’re talking about.  By the finale, your heart will be in your throat as the anxiety reaches its apex. 

This is some bravura filmmaking.

Gambling is another form of addiction, plain and simple.  As someone on the outside looking in, it is the filmmakers’ job to put the audience in the character’s shoes to show them the unfathomable lows and the stratospheric highs that come along with such an addiction.  Rationalizing that the reason everything is going wrong is because your big bet hasn’t paid off yet, so you continue to make bet after bet, hoping for a big payday.  Naturally, the euphoria that comes along with that giant windfall of cash is short lived as the gambler is all-too eager to bet it once again on a “sure thing”.  As an audience member, we are along for the ride as Howard wins, loses, and loses some more, and it is a rollercoaster.

Uncut Gems is a true gem of a movie.  It’s a pure shot of cinematic adrenaline.  Even those wary of Sandler should give it a whirl.  I think he will surprise you. 

STREET GIRLS (1975) ***

When the directors of Silent Rage and Diner team up to make a smut movie, they really bring the smut!  That’s right, Street Girls was directed by Michael Miller, who co-wrote the script with none other than Barry Levinson!  It’s sort of patchy and uneven, but it’s a lot better than Toys.

A good girl named Angel (Christine Souder) quits college and goes behind her father’s back to become a dancer at a topless club.  Before long, she’s graduated from dancing to turning tricks for a pimp and eventually gets hooked on heroin.  Her father (Art Burke) finally comes looking for her and teams up with Angel’s co-worker Sally (Carol Case) to find her.  Once he learns the two are actually lovers, the uptight dad rejects her help.  Trouble brews when Sally learns Angel’s pimp intends to sell her on the white slave market. 

The pendulum of quality swings wildly back and forth throughout Street Girls’ seventy-minute running time.  However, the sheer abundance of nudity is enough to propel it along.  These girls are naked onstage, backstage, in the bedroom, in the bathroom, on the street, and in the sheets.  The wildest moment is when an auto mechanic john wants Angel to take a golden shower.  (At least he provided her with a pair of goggles.) 

Despite the overall grim tone and grimy nature, the film still manages to show sensitivity towards its gay characters and their relationships.  Yes, there are some gratuitous stereotypes on display.  However, Street Girls pays more attention to their relationships more than a lot of the smut films of the era. 

The good performance by Carol Case (in her first and only role) as the likeable Sally certainly bolsters the movie whenever it starts to veer off course.  She sort of resembles Cybil Shepherd and has a lot of screen presence.  Souder (again, in her only film role) is also memorable as the little girl lost, Angel.  The male cast members aren’t nearly as convincing though.

The weakest scenes involve Angel’s father on his quest to find his lost daughter.  These scenes play as sort of a forerunner to Hardcore (but not nearly as good) and honestly, bog the picture down.  Luckily, he doesn’t hog the spotlight too much.  Whenever the film focuses on Angel’s slow descent into the scuzzier aspects of her profession, it’s damned fine ‘70s sleaze.

Oh, and did I mention the great blues soundtrack, performed by none other than Muddy Waters!

Angel’s pimp gets the best line of the movie when he tells Sally, “Turn that holy-hole into a money hole!”

AKA:  Crackers.

PERSONAL SHOPPER (2017) *

Before the movie begins, there’s a little title card stating that it won the Gran Prix at Cannes.  Well, it sure as shit didn’t win the Gran Prix at Monaco!  Man, this is one slow moving flick!  Halfway through, the going got so rough that I began getting a little antsy.  I was so tired of waiting for something to happen that I had to play the movie on 1.5x speed.  Much to my surprise, the thing actually started moving SLOWER.  What the hell?

Kristen Stewart stars as an American working in Paris as a personal shopper for a rich woman.  When she isn’t busy shopping, she’s trying to communicate with the spirit of her dead brother.  Something threatens to actually happen when she starts receiving strange text messages from an unknown caller.  Could it be a wrong number?  Or could they be coming from her dead brother?  Will you care? 

Slow burn thrillers are not my favorite, but I can usually stomach them if they eventually catch fire.  Personal Shopper on the other hand is one wet matchstick of a movie.  Every now and then, there’s some Paranormal Activity-level stuff with Stewart stumbling upon a spirit.  Mostly though, it’s just a collection of long scenes of her sitting around and looking at her phone.  Which is weird, because so was I by the time the film was over.

If you thought K-Stew’s Twilight movies were bad, wait till you see this one.  It’s one of the most half-assed horror flicks ever made.  I should’ve known this was going to be bad because it was from the director of Boarding Gate, Olivier Assayas.  Did he want to make an indie drama about class division?  Or did he want to make a ghost story?  Or did he just have two different ideas and decided to cobble something together and pass it off as “art”?  Who the fuck knows. 

K-Stew probably took this job to broaden her indie cred and help shed her Twilight image.  Luckily for us, she also sheds her clothes in two scenes, and has an OK masturbating scene too.  Those brief moments are the only reasons you’d ever want to watch it.

DARK RIDER (1991) **

A small desert town is on the verge of becoming “the next Las Vegas”.  A shady businessman named Sandini (Joe Estevez) comes into town and offers to buy up several local businesses.  When the store owners refuse, they are murdered by Sandini’s thugs.  The sheriff (Doug Shanklin) does what he can, but without proof, he is unable to touch Sandini.  But as a black-clad motorcycle-riding vigilante, he can do plenty to thwart his schemes.  

Dark Rider is one of those movies that is just too low budget to adequately pull off what it’s trying to do.  I admire some of the quirky touches and more outlandish moments, but it almost always comes up short from really delivering, due to the meager finances behind it.  I mean you know you’re in trouble when the sheriff character just has a little tin star pinned to his shirt the whole time and always wears K-Mart brand clothes instead of a policeman’s uniform. 

One of the things I liked about it was that it was a shamelessly modernized western.  Instead of the railroad coming through town, it was the prospect of gambling that caused the money-grubbing villains to stick it to the townsfolk.  Instead of wearing a Lone Ranger mask and riding a white horse, our hero wore a helmet and rode a motorcycle.

There’s an occasionally clever bit here and there, but for the most part, Dark Rider is slow moving.  The action gets repetitive in a hurry and the plot chases its tail for most of the running time.  Because of that, it feels more like a TV pilot than an action movie.  (The toxic waste subplot that crops up late in the game feels like the second “episode”.)

Estevez equips himself as well as can be expected in the villain role.  He’s not exactly menacing or anything, but he certainly tries.  The big problem is that Shanklin makes for a dull hero.  He kind of looks and acts like a less charismatic version of Swayze… Don Swayze.  Probably the best performance comes from Pulp Fiction’s Duane Whitaker who briefly shows up as a crazed motorist who has a run-in with the sheriff in the opening scene.  This sequence has some spark to it, and the rest of the film struggles to recapture that sense of fun.  When it relies heavily on the cat-and-mouse between Shanklin and Estevez, Dark Rider runs out of gas. 

CALIGULA REINCARNATED AS HITLER! (1977) ***

This has always been one of my favorite Naziploitation flicks, mostly because of the title.  It was originally called The Gestapo’s Last Orgy, but it was retitled to cash-in on Tinto Brass’ head-spinning hedonistic hardcore epic Caligula.  No, Caligula doesn’t appear.  Nor does he become reincarnated as Hitler.  However, it’s sort of accurate if you imagine that the same zany spirit the classic Caligula had has been transferred over to your typical Nazi flick.  In fact, I think it’s an overall “better” film than Caligula and certainly one of the most lurid exploitation movies of its day. 

After WWII, Commandant von Starker (Marc Loud) is exonerated for his war crimes and allowed to go free.  His lover, Lise (Daniela Poggi) wants to go on a romantic walk to the place they first met… a concentration camp!  As they walk through the ruins, they reminisce of their first meeting and all the atrocities that occurred there.

Such atrocities include:  Gynecological examinations, orgies, incinerations, menstruating women being fed to dogs, cannibalism, human lampshades, pegging, BDSM, women hung over a pit of hungry rats, a quicklime Slip n’ Slide, and forced felatio on a gun.

The love story angle at the heart of the film is what makes it interesting and memorable (and disgusting).  For me, it works much better than say, The Night Porter.  It certainly helps to grab your attention and announce that this won’t be your average Naziploitation potboiler.  That said, there is plenty of disgusting, depraved lunacy here, so fans of the genre won’t be disappointed.  The framing device works pretty well too, especially once the purpose of their little visit is revealed.  The performances by Loud and Poggi are quite good, but it’s Maristella Greco who steals the movie as Alma, von Starker’s perpetually horny second in command.

If there is a flaw, it’s that the ending is way too rushed.  There’s about twenty minutes of plot crammed into the last two minutes.  The movie is already pretty strong as it is, but I can’t help but imagine how much more powerful it would’ve been if the director Cesare (A Man for Emmanuelle) Canevari hadn’t allowed the final scenes to play out at such a breathless pace.  Still, the final moments are quite shocking and help make Caligula Reincarnated as Hitler! a classic of the genre (even if neither Caligula nor Hitler show up).

AKA:  The Gestapo’s Last Orgy.  AKA:  Last Orgy of the Third Reich. 

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG (2020) * ½

Sonic the Hedgehog is exactly the kind of movie you think it’s going to be.  It’s innocuous and harmless to the point that it’s almost insulting.  It’s as if the barest minimum effort was put into every creative decision, which is funny because the filmmakers had to change their release date to fix the special effects once fans derided Sonic’s appearance in the previews.  They should have demanded the screenplay be overhauled too. 

This is one of those movies that milk an IP where you have to wonder if the creative forces behind it ever played a single Sonic game.  Like Masters of the Universe and Howard the Duck, it starts off on the main character’s home planet before finding some bullshit excuse to send them to Earth on an adventure.  You know, because it’s a lot cheaper to film on Earth than another planet. 

Sonic is a speedy alien hedgehog who is trying to find his rings so he can move on to another world.  He enlists the help of a small-town cop (James Marsden, who deserves better) who eventually agrees.  Meanwhile, an evil scientist (Jim Carrey) is hot on their trail as he wants to dissect Sonic and uncover the secret of his power. 

Would it surprise you if I told you this is a road movie?  Or that our heroes get into a bar fight with some bikers?  Or that Marsden has to choose between life in the big city and his small hometown?  If you thought Sonic was fast, you should see how quickly all the cliches pile up.  Even the scenes of Sonic’s fast-motion shenanigans have a feeling of déjà vu about them as they are basically a mash-up of the bullet time sequences of The Matrix and Quicksilver’s antics in the X-Men movies.

This was something of an attempted comedic comeback for Carrey.  I think if this was made in ’94 when he was at his zenith, he could’ve made it work.  As it is, his whole performance sees a bit tired (at least for him) and uninspired.  It doesn’t help that he has virtually no zingers to work with.  In fact, Sonic’s jokes are weak too.  They feel more like filler lines that were put there temporarily until the writers could find something better to write in later… but they never thought of anything.  The guy they got to voice Sonic is pretty terrible too.  He gives Sonic zero personality and strangely, he winds up being the most forgettable thing about his own movie. 

I guess it would help if I actually had any nostalgia for Sonic the Hedgehog.  I’m not saying Sonic was after my time, but he came along just as my time was coming to a close.  Heck, I was always a Nintendo guy anyway.  (In fact, I think this is even worse than the Super Mario Brothers movie.)