JAZZ WARM UP TO TRACI LORDS (1990) ** ½

After gaining notoriety as an underage porn star, Traci Lords effectively parlayed her fame into a lengthy career as a well-respected B-movie actress.  Since her rise to stardom occurred around the same time as the home workout tape craze, it was only natural that she would try her hand in the already saturated marketplace.  For many fans, this was one of the only ways they could legally watch Traci in a skimpy outfit doing suggestive maneuvers on the floor. 

As a workout tape, it’s admittedly pretty weak.  Traci herself was ultimately dissatisfied with the results and re-released the tape in a re-edited format a few years later under a different title (Traci Lords:  Advanced Jazzthetics).  However, for Traci’s die-hard fans, this will be worth a look as a curio.

Traci, Scream Queen Debra Lamb, and some dude stand around on a living room set doing stretching exercises and calisthenics.  The instructions are mostly in the form of Traci giving motivational “raps”.  (“Touch your toe to your ankle, to yourself you’ll be thankful!”)  Because of that, it’s not very informative.  If you’re watching this to actually… you know… work out, you’ll probably be disappointed.  In fact, you’d be better off just following along to her movements than her instructions.  Then again, she goes through the exercises so fast that I’m sure you’ll still have some difficulty keeping up with her.  (She looks out of breath about fifteen minutes into the routine, so I’m not even sure she was using this regime on a regular basis.)  It’s also annoying when Traci yells, “CHANGE!” to change your position every thirty seconds or so.

If you’re looking for a quality workout tape, this ain’t it.  (It’s no Linnea Quigley’s Horror Workout, I know that much.)  Since it features Traci in a tiny yellow sports bra and matching bikini bottom cavorting around, undulating wildly, and thrusting her hips on the floor, I’d say it’s still worth watching.  That said, there aren’t as many suggestive workout poses as I was hoping for, but there is enough rhythmic pelvic thrusting and gluteus jiggling here for it to skate by with a ** ½ rating.  

AKA:  Warm Up with Traci Lords.  AKA:  Traci Lords:  Advanced Jazzthetics. 

NUDES IN LIMBO (1983) ** ½

Nudes in Limbo is an artistic exploration of the nude form (both women and men are featured).  Director Bruce Seth Green’s aim here isn’t to titillate the audience.  He’s more concerned with seeing human body in motion.  (I can imagine this being show in both art and anatomy classes.)  It’s all shot in a very artsy manner and often looks like an ‘80s perfume ad.  In fact, the scenes of people lifting weights, working out on rowing machines, doing gymnastics, and hitting punching bags would’ve looked right at home in a Soloflex commercial if it wasn’t for the fact the models were naked.

Thanks to the ‘80s lighting, graphics, and hairstyles, it all has the feeling of one of those Electric Blue sequences played over and over again.  (Many segments feature models lying on top of giant light boxes, which kind of makes them look like they are in a tanning bed… or maybe sitting on top of a giant fax machine.)  Since it’s not especially sexy, it’s kind of hard to get too excited about it.  Even though there are many sequences crammed into the short running time (most are under a minute long), it does get rather repetitive in a hurry.

The main reason I watched it was for the participation of popular adult actresses, Scream Queens, and B-movie stars who briefly appear as figure models.  Shauna Grant, Michelle Bauer, and Linnea Quigley all appear in the buff, although they really don’t do anything particularly memorable.  Not only that, but Deadly Prey’s Ted Prior also pops up as one of the male models!

It should come as no surprise that the most successful bits are the ones that are, at the very least, vaguely sexual in nature.  The scenes of a woman standing under a stream of water and the shots of a model sensually caressing a phallic looking fluorescent light were among my favorites.  Green gives just about every nook and cranny its share of screen time too, as there are segments devoted to hands and feet in addition to all the butts and boobs. 

Even at fifty-two minutes, it all feels a bit overlong.  It probably would’ve been just right at a half-hour.  I can’t say it’s exactly boring, thanks to the acres of flesh on display.  It’s just that if it wasn’t for the participation of certain individuals, it would’ve been easy to skip.  I’m still glad I saw it.  Sort of.

Green later went on to have a long and varied career directing episodic television.      

THE INCREDIBLE PROFESSOR ZOVEK (1972) ** ½

 

Zovek was basically Mexico’s answer to Harry Houdini.  Throughout his career, he performed incredible escapes and feats of astonishing strength and agility.  He died way too young at the age of thirty-one while performing a helicopter stunt.  This was his first and only solo starring vehicle. (He starred in Invasion of the Dead with Blue Demon the next year, which proved to be his second and final film.)  He’s kind of fun to watch too.  Sometimes he’s dressed like Tonto from The Lone Ranger.  Other times he’s gussied up like a caped superhero. 

Zovek stars as himself.  He gets a premonition of a plane crash and sends his chauffeur and girlfriend to investigate.  While Zovek is busy performing his act in a dinner theater, they are kidnapped by the bad guy.  (I guess the supposedly psychic Zovek didn’t see that one coming.)  It’s then up to Zovek to rescue them before the mad doctor performs a fiendish experiment on them.

The Incredible Professor Zovek is really slow to start.  It begins with long scenes of him yelling at people and hypnotizing women, which kind of plod on and on.  The version I saw didn’t have subtitles, so I had no clue what was going on in these scenes if I am to be completely honest.  When we finally meet the villain, things pick up considerably.  It doesn’t hurt that his secret lair comes complete with a giant hypno-wheel, an open BBQ pit, and a torture dungeon filled with caged Dr. Moreau-style animal men. 

I also dug Zovek’s nightclub act.  He gets brought out on stage and is tied and chained up by guys in Lucha Libre masks while sexy women wearing bikinis and executioner hoods kiss him on the cheek before dropping him into a tank of water.  It’s not exactly great, but after watching so many wrestling scenes in Mexican horror movies, it makes for a nice change of pace. 

The fight scenes are OK, but they aren’t up to director Rene (Night of the Bloody Apes) Cardona’s usual standards.  The close-ups of the faces of the caged monsters leering from their prison bars are effective though.  The scenes of the animal men chowing down on bones is pretty cool, and the brain surgery sequence (complete with an awesome shot of a woman’s pulsating brain) is the highlight. 

So, if you can get past the talky first act, you will be treated to some decent WTF Mexican Cinema.  The last reel where Zovek has a melee with a mafia of midget monsters and duels to the death with a deranged dog man… well…  That’s the sort of shit I live for when I watch these movies.

SLAXX (2021) **

Libby (Romane Denis) is an idealistic young woman who gets a job working at a Canadian Gap knockoff store.  The place is buzzing with excitement as they have been chosen to be the site to launch a new line of jeans.  As the store goes on lockdown to prepare for the big sale, a pair of the newfangled jeans comes to life, goes crazy, and starts killing the employees. 

Slaxx is a none too subtle metaphor on corporate greed.  Companies like Starbucks always act like they’re trying to save the environment, but they’re really just trying to line their coffers by using trendy buzzwords to make themselves look saintly in the eyes of gullible millennials.  (Here, the jeans are “gender inclusive”.)  This sort of thing is an easy target, and yet the movie never finds anything to say on the matter besides the obvious.  It’s only seventy-six minutes long, so I’m sure a lot of this was just a means to pad out the running time.  However, the humor is too on the nose to really work as satire. 

Then again, what do you expect from a movie about a killer pair of jeans?  

While Slaxx isn’t exactly a hilarious send-up of the retail industry, it doesn’t quite work as a horror flick either.  All the lame jabs at corporate America would’ve went down smoother if the kills were memorable.  Most disappointing is the fact that almost all the death scenes happen offscreen.  The biggest letdown comes during a moment that seems to be building toward a big slaughter, but it cuts away before we ever get a chance to see it.  Bummer.

The most amusing bit involves the killer jeans doing a choreographed Bollywood dance routine.  If it couldn’t deliver on the gore, Slaxx really needed more of these WTF scenes to make it worthwhile.  As it is, moments like these are few and far between. I also dug the origin story that explained how the pants turned homicidal.  (It’s kind of like The Mangler, but with a pair of jeans.)   

Slaxx feels kind of like a movie Troma would make.  The only difference is, Troma would’ve made it fun (or at least gory AF).  I admire the concept.  It’s just that it stumbles hard when it tries to be About Something.  I think this would’ve made for a fun three-minute fake Grindhouse trailer.  However, even with a relatively brief running time, these slacks show wear and tear early on and become threadbare by the time everything’s all sewed up. 

HONEST THIEF (2020) *** ½

Liam Neeson stars as a bank robber who prides himself on precision and skill.  He stops his thieving ways once he meets the girl of his dreams (Kate Walsh).  He prepares to confess to his crimes and turn the money over to the Feds (he never spent a dime of the loot), in hopes of a reduced sentence so he can enter into a new chapter of his life with a clean conscience.  However, things go south when the dirty Fed (Jai Courtney) tries to take the money for himself.  There’s a scuffle, another agent winds up dead, and naturally, he puts the blame on Neeson.  Now, Neeson must go on the lam and clear his name before the Feds (both the crooked ones and the guys who are on the up-and-up) take him down. 

Honest Thief was one of those movies that played to empty theaters in the midst of the pandemic.  As much as I wanted to see it, I opted to wait and catch it at home.  Fortunately, it plays a lot better on the small screen than it probably did in an empty movie theater. 

I appreciated the fact that the pacing was deliberate, though self-assured.  The plot unfolds like a good novel, and part of the fun is seeing how, despite Neeson’s best intentions, things snowball on him and he gets deeper and deeper into trouble.  It’s a good moral dilemma.  He’s just trying to do the right thing.  However, he’s turned down by the Feds who thinks he’s just a crackpot.  Once he finally gets someone to listen, they wind up being a murderous thief.  I think we’ve all been at a moment in our lives when we try to come clean about something and it winds up blowing up in our faces, only making things much worse.  It’s kind of like that here.  Sometimes, honesty is not the best policy.  Or maybe, honesty IS the best policy, but you just have to go through a whole lot of shit to get out from under the truth. 

Walsh and Neeson are a good team.  They have enormous amounts of chemistry together, which makes them feel like a believable couple.  You truly believe Neeson’s need to confess comes from his love for her, and it’s not just a gratuitous machination of the plot (as is the case would be with so many other thrillers).  Courtney does a fine job as the single-minded agent willing to do anything to get his hands on the loot.  Robert Patrick also lends a touch of class to the proceedings as the unbelieving agent who winds up dead.  It’s Jeffrey Donovan who steals the movie as Patrick’s partner.  His character just got out of a messy divorce and wound up winning his wife's dog in the divorce settlement.  That means he brings the cute pooch along with him everywhere he goes.  It’s quirky touches like this that make Honest Thief sprier and more memorable than your average crime flick. 

The only real eye-rolls come from Neeson’s nickname, “The In and Out Bandit”.  It’s mostly there for a cheap laugh and the filmmakers run the thin joke into the ground early on.  It’s a small consolation that Neeson’s character seems to hate it as much as anyone. 

Like the main character, Honest Thief is precise, efficient, and reliable.  There’s nothing flashy about it, but it gets the job done.  Some may feel let down by the climax, which is a little low on action.  I for one thought it was a refreshing change of pace as it requires the hero to outthink his adversary and not outgun him.  There’s something to be said for that.   

AKA:  The Good Criminal.

THE POLKA KING (2018) *** ½

The Polka King tells the true-crime story of polka bandleader Jan Lewan who roped his fans into an elaborate Ponzi scheme.  While this material is slight to be sure, it makes an enormously entertaining showcase for Jack Black.  The role of Jan Lewan would not fall into the wheelhouse of many performers, but it fits Black like a glove.  A character that can allow him to simultaneously combine his natural gift for music and comedy all the while occasionally allowing him glimpses of dramatic flair and nuance?  It almost seems too good to be true.

Naturally, that’s what Lewan’s followers should’ve thought.  They willingly “invested” lots of money into his organization, that unexpectedly blew up into something bigger than he could’ve ever imagined.  They probably should’ve known something was shady, especially when he was giving them huge, guaranteed returns on their money.  Then again, when Lewan is able to deliver on such unlikely promises as a free bus tour to meet the Pope… well… maybe it was money well-spent. 

I think the movie’s point is that that his followers weren’t so much investing their money in a fraudulent pyramid scheme so much as they were invested in Jan himself.  He’s gregarious, fun-loving, and never has an unkind word for his family, friends, bandmates, and fans.  Also, for a so-called criminal, he busts his ass working odd jobs and running a gift shop while keeping his polka empire afloat.  

Black is terrific in the lead and the supporting cast does a fine job making the world around him as colorful as the suits he performs in.  Jenny Slate is well-cast as Black’s clueless wife who turns a blind eye to his business dealings out of love.  Jason Schwartzman is a trip as his right-hand man and trumpet player who goes through a hilarious transformation under his tutelage.  Jacki Weaver (who seems to be channeling Estelle Getty from The Golden Girls) is also quite funny as Black’s distrusting mother in-law.  Really, this is Black’s show through and through.  It’s a great performance and the movie is a perfect vehicle for him.

This wouldn’t necessarily be an awards contender or anything, but it accomplishes what it sets out to do.  It takes a thin premise and makes you actually care about Jan, even if his business model wasn’t exactly on the up and up.  It would make a great double feature with the equally enjoyable Bernie in which Black played another seemingly loveable fellow who’s actually a criminal.  There’s also kind of a Fargo vibe to it (at least the William H. Macy scenes from that movie) as Jan is always about one step away from having his scheme blow up in his face. 

Really, The Polka King is one of those Dark Side of the American Dream movies.  Instead of being about cocaine (like in Blow) or the stock market (like in The Wolf of Wall Street), it’s about Ponzi schemes and polka.  Just because the allure of polka music isn’t as enticing as drug runners and Wall Street fat cats doesn’t make it any less enthralling.

KING OF THE ANTS (2004) *

Before The Asylum got into the mockbuster business, they teamed up with horror legend Stuart (Re-Animator) Gordon for this weird neo-noir/torture porn/horror hybrid.  Chris McKenna stars as Sean, a painter who gets suckered by a rich contractor named Ray (Daniel Baldwin) to tail a suit down at city hall who’s causing problems for his business.  Things escalate quickly when Sean murders his target, which forces Ray to take matters in his own hands. 

King of the Ants starts out OK as things sort of play out like a modern riff on an old film noir.  The plot takes a turn though once the hero is captured and tortured by Baldwin and his cronies.  These sequences go on for far too long and are pretty repugnant.  Things get increasingly weird once he starts having bizarre hallucinations of Kari Wuhrer with a penis.  (I don’t know if this was supposed to be a homage to The Crying Game or not.)  Later, she appears to him as a grotesque shit-eating caterpillar that looks like a close cousin to Justin Long in Tusk.  What the fuck?  All of this is more unpleasant than scary and is sure no picnic to sit through. 

The third act is slightly better, although the fact that McKenna could get the wife of the man he killed to not only nurse him back to health, but make her fall in love with him too, is a little hard to swallow.  The finale where McKenna gets revenge on Baldwin and his crew also goes on too long.  In fact, the movie is too long in general, running one-hundred-and-two minutes, and feeling twice that length.

The cast is stacked top to bottom with talent.  Baldwin is ideally cast as the villain, and Vernon Wells and George Wendt (who looks like he’s having fun) make for a strange team as his sleazy crew.  Wuhrer (who made this just before she did all those Dimension DTV sequels) probably gives the best performance in the movie, but some of the stuff she’s asked to do is almost laughable.  The biggest surprise is seeing an uncredited Ron Livingston as her ill-fated husband, although he’s not given much to do besides die. 

The supporting cast is so good that they just make McKenna pale in comparison.  He just isn’t in the same league as his co-stars and is pretty annoying throughout the picture (but especially in the final act).  I can’t say the movie would’ve worked with a stronger leading man because it’s certainly repellent to the core, but he doesn’t do it any favors.

If King of the Ants was more of a straight noir thriller, it possibly could’ve been more tolerable.  However, the horror touches only make the whole ordeal more perplexing.  Since it’s neither fish nor fowl, I’m not sure if die-hard Gordon fans will even enjoy it.  It’s not quite as bad as Gordon’s Dagon, but it’s pretty awful in just about every way.

Gordon’s next was Edmond, a much better non-horror-but-still-sorta-horrific drama.