GIRL (2020) **

Bella Thorne stars as the titular girl who returns to her shithole hometown, hatchet in hand, on a mission to kill the abusive father she hasn’t seen for several years.  (This girl REALLY wants to bury the hatchet if you know what I mean.)  Almost immediately, she pops up on the radar of the creepy sheriff (Mickey Rourke) who presides over the town.  When she finally confronts her father, it doesn’t go nearly the way she expected, and she soon finds herself at the mercy of the despicable sheriff. 

Girl, like the unimaginative title suggests, is a thoroughly ordinary and unmemorable little crime thriller.  It was sold as a horror movie, but it’s more of a redneck drama with some occasional bloodletting.  It’s fine, I guess.  It’s just that director Chad Faust (who also plays Rourke’s psycho brother) never really manages to ratchet up the tension.  While it’s a perfectly watchable affair, Faust just can’t seem to squeeze any suspense out of the admittedly thin script (that was surprise, surprise, also written by Faust).  Even the big plot twist (which isn’t really all that surprising) falls flat, which is just as much the fault of Faust’s writing as his direction.

If the movie has an ace up its sleeve, it’s Thorne.  With her permanent scowl, stringy crimson locks, and facial piercings up and down her profile, she really sells her character’s predicament and makes for a tough, likeable, able-bodied, and resourceful heroine.  Too bad the material she’s been given to work with is so weak. 

As big of a Mickey Rourke fan as I am, it pains me to say that I was a little disappointed by his portrayal of the sheriff.  He really underplayed the character’s menace and didn’t act nearly as weird as I was expecting/hoping.  I’m not saying a top-shelf Rourke performance could’ve singlehandedly saved Girl, but it certainly would’ve given you a reason to watch it.

HOT TOUCH (1981) **

Wayne (M*A*S*H) Rogers stars as an art forger who makes bank pawning off fake Picassos.  When he’s not off hoodwinking clients with his business partner Patrick Macnee, he’s making time with a married woman (Cousin Cousine’s Marie-France Pisier).  Things begin to get hairy when an art dealer (Samantha Eggar) gets wind of his scheme and blackmails him into taking on another forgery.  He then has to outthink his new clients and double-cross them before they do it to him. 

Rogers is miscast in the role of a suave forger, but he isn’t bad, all things considered.  Macnee is fun to watch though and lends the film a touch of class and charm.  Speaking of class, Melvyn Douglas also pops up in a cameo (it looks like they filmed his limo ride to the set).  Lloyd Bochner is rather memorable too as Eggar’s sleazy henchman. 

Hot Touch was directed by Roger (Barbarella) Vadim, and for a while, it seems like an ill fit for his filmography as much of the art forgery plot has the look and feel of an unsold television pilot.  However, once Rogers’ gratuitous sex scene with Pisier comes around, it finally starts to feel like a Vadim film.  Shortly thereafter, it goes back to feeling like a Made for TV movie.  Pisier is a little weak as the love interest, and despite her big nude scene, she doesn’t really leave much of an impression.  She also gets a nude chess scene that starts off well, but it’s much too short to really titillate. 

The big con finale leaves something to be desired too.  The build-up isn’t bad, but you should at least feel something when Rogers and company finally pull the wool over his new employers’ eyes.  Luckily, Bochner’s eventual comeuppance is fairly gruesome, which at least ends things on a memorable note.

There was a decent idea here.  However, with Vadim at the helm, you just expect a little bit more skin.  If he had added two or three more love scenes of the same caliber as Pisier’s first scene, he might’ve had a winner on his hands.  As it is, Hot Touch is rather cool to the touch.

AKA:  The Hot Touch.  AKA:  Manhattan Gang.

THE NEW MUTANTS (2020) ***

The New Mutants seemingly couldn’t catch a break.  It was originally supposed by be released in 2018 but had to be postponed for planned reshoots that never occurred.  It then became a casualty of Fox’s merger with Disney and was pushed back yet again.  Once it seemed like it was finally going to see the light of a projector, the pandemic hit, and its release was shuffled yet again.  It eventually hit theaters last August, but I wasn’t about to venture out during COVID to see it.  Honestly, I kind of forgot about it until it miraculously showed up on HBO Max to little fanfare last week.  Now that I have finally seen it, I have to say that it probably works best on the small screen.  Although it’s easily the least of the X-Men movies, I still sort of dug it. 

An unseen force wipes out an entire Native American reservation.  The sole survivor is a teenager named Dani Moonstar (Blu Hunt) whose fledgling mutant abilities might’ve been the cause of the disaster.  She is sent to a hospital for young mutants where the other rebellious mutant teens are learning to come to grips with their burgeoning powers.  Before long, they are beset by an evil presence that turns their worst fears against them and they must band together and work as a team to fight it.

While it lacks the unadulterated fun of the main X-Men series, The New Mutants accomplishes what it sets out to do, namely tell a claustrophobic horror story within the realm of a superhero movie.  I for one thought the lower stakes and character-driven plot worked well for the material.  I mean, when you’ve seen as many superhero flicks as I have, it’s a refreshing change of pace when the fate of the world isn’t hanging in the balance.  It’s nice when all the heroes have to worry about is not being mauled by an enormous psychically projected bear.  I also have a soft spot for superhero flicks in which the characters have C-grade powers.  (In this one, the heroes:  Bounce off walls, turn into a werewolf, use a lightsaber, and there’s a Human Torch knockoff too.)

If I had saw this in the theater (especially during the pandemic), I probably would’ve been underwhelmed.  If I saw it then, I might’ve suggested it would’ve been better suited as a TV show.  Seeing it at home, years after the bad buzz that soured its release has died down, it made for a perfectly acceptable evening of entertainment. 

Another bonus is that it’s only an hour and a half, which is a relief after so many superhero flicks with unnecessarily inflated running times (cough… The Snyder Cut… cough).  It’s nice to find one that actually knows when to quit.  It might’ve made for an anticlimactic swan song to Fox’s run of X-Men movies, but it’s really a lot better than I had anticipated. 

Besides, any movie that is essentially A Nightmare on Elm Street 3:  Dream Warriors Meets Grizzly 2 is OK in my book. 

AKA:  X-Men:  The New Mutants.

X-MEN MOVIE SCORECARD:

X-Men: Apocalypse: ****

Deadpool: ****

X-Men: Days of Future Past: ****

X-Men 2: X-Men United: ****

X-Men: ****

X-Men 3: The Last Stand: ****

Logan:  ****

X-Men: First Class: *** ½

Deadpool 2: *** ½

X-Men: Origins: Wolverine: *** ½

Dark Phoenix: ***

The Wolverine: ***

The New Mutants: ***

DEATH SMILES ON A MURDERER (1973) ***

A carriage overturns in front of the home of Dr. von Ravensbruck (Giacomo Rossi Stuart) and his wife Eva (Angela Bo), leaving the driver dead and the sole passenger, Greta (Ewa Aulin from Candy) with a bump on the head.  She winds up with amnesia and the couple, feeling sorry for her, take her in.  Before long, Greta is seducing not only the man of the house, but his wife too.  Meanwhile, visitors to the castle wind up getting bumped off by a mysterious killer. 

Death Smiles on a Murderer was directed by the legendary Italian exploitation maverick, Joe D’Amato.  Unlike a lot of his sleazier efforts, this one is a lot artier than you might expect as there are passages that have an otherworldly dreamlike quality.  He even manages to give us a few shocks that feels like something out of a waking nightmare.  While some of these moments are effective (like the scene where the maid keeps seeing a strange man in her room), or at the very least, interesting, they never really gel into a cohesive whole. 

The plot jumps around a lot too, which some will find frustrating.  However, if you surrender yourself to the dreamlike logic of the film, it will make for a rewarding (although quite possibly baffling) experience.  Some of D’Amato’s extreme close-ups, odd angles, and deliberately off-kilter camerawork can get a little annoying, but the eerie score is often effective. 

There are stretches of the film that feel like D’Amato riffing on a Jess Franco movie, while others play out like his version of a Jean Rollin flick.  After a strong first act involving the strange love triangle between the couple and their uninvited houseguest, the second act turns into a hodgepodge of Poe-influenced cliches.  (Think The Masque of the Red Death Meets the Black Cat.)  From there, things sort of morph into a macabre ghost story by the final third. 

With such distinct and disparate sequences, Death Smiles on a Murderer kind of resembles an anthology film that has intertwining characters and plotlines.  Although it might not have been intended as such, the movie might play better for you if you view it with that in mind.  It doesn’t quite excuse the unevenness of the overall picture, but it may be the key to enjoying it.

Aulin is lovely and gets naked quite a bit.  Her scenes with Bo are especially memorable.  It’s Klaus Kinski who leaves the biggest impression as the doctor who makes a house call to Aulin’s character.  Unfortunately, like most of the cast members, he doesn’t stick around for very long.

AKA:  Death Smiles on Murder.

LADY WHIRLWIND (1973) *** ½

Miss Tien (Angela Mao) arrives in town looking for Ling (Chang Yi), the man she holds responsible for her sister’s death.  Ling as it turns out, has faked his death and has devoted the last three years of his life to practicing Kung Fu so he can finally get revenge on the gangsters who control the town.  When their paths finally cross, Ling begs Tien for an opportunity to finish his vendetta.  Then, he will gladly atone for his past sins and face her in mortal combat.

Lady Whirlwind is a terrific martial arts flick that feels like a repurposed western.  Ling’s homestead kind of looks like a dude ranch, the various casinos and watering holes are obvious stand-ins for the Wild West saloons, and the Kung Fu battles and swordfights are the movie’s version of barroom brawls and gun duels.  The mutual respect that grows between Mao and Yi is also very reminiscent of aging gunslingers in a B oater.

Chang Yi makes for a good hero, but it’s Angela Mao who totally owns the movie.  Despite her star billing and prominence on the poster, she’s really the co-lead and probably gets less screen time than Yi.  However, when she is front and center, she makes her presence known as she commands the screen with her elegant charisma, her graceful physicality, and radiant beauty.

What makes Lady Whirlwind crackle is that the stuff that occurs in between the Kung Fu chaos is absorbing and entertaining.  Most movies have a love triangle.  This one has a revenge triangle.  The characters’ complicated motivations, allegiances, and loyalties are well-defined, so when they fight one another, we wind up cheering for both sides.  Those fights, it should be said, are something else.  Mao has an excellent scene where she singlehandedly takes on Sammo Hung and his gang inside a crooked casino.  The action is fast and furious, and the choreography is lightning paced. 

Lady Whirlwind is still just rough enough around the edges to make it feel a little more down-and-dirty than your average Kung Fu flick.  (It’s got some bloody fight scenes complete with eye gouging and gut ripping.)  The dubbing is terrible too, and the score blatantly steals from Diamonds are Forever, which is the sure sign you are watching some quality chopsocky.  If there is a flaw, it’s that the finale is a tad lackluster as Mao spends most of the time watching the battle from the sidelines.  Despite that, it’s a real winner.

Probably the most memorable thing about it though (aside from Angela Mao, that is) is the fact that it was released in America under the hilarious title “Deep Thrust” to capitalize on the success of Deep Throat!     

AKA:  Deep Thrust.  AKA:  Deep Thrust:  The Hand of Death. 

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (2011) ****

Most parents think of their children as little angels, no matter how badly they behave.  Even when their kid is a little hellion, they still think the brat can do no wrong.  Or (even worse), they turn a blind eye to their kid’s antics.  

Eva (Tilda Swinton) knows her son Kevin (Ezra Miller) is a bad seed from a very early age.  The little bugger is smart too.  He acts like a little prince to everyone else and only shows his true nature to his devastated mother.  Bound by love or duty or helplessness, she is powerless to do anything as he slowly morphs into a complete psycho. 

Director Lynne Ramsey’s We Need to Talk About Kevin is the art house version of the Macauley Culkin killer kid flick, The Good Son.  We’ve seen plenty of these killer kid movies before.  What makes this one so disturbing is that Ramsey puts you so deeply rooted in Tilda’s shoes that you feel damn near every second of her anguish.  We are right there with her as she watches in horror as her son matures into a monster.

We Need to Talk About Kevin is different from so many other killer kid flicks, mostly because it is told in a nonlinear fashion.  We know things are going to go bad eventually.  It’s just a question of how and when.  Some scenes are short and fragmented, feeling like half-remembered memories.  Sometimes the horror comes less from Kevin being a bad kid and more from others perceiving her as a bad parent.  Sometimes that’s even worse.

Ramsey is the real deal.  This isn’t exactly a horror movie, but it is the most uneasy I have felt watching a movie in a long time.  It’s like watching a car crash in slow motion.  You sit there, idly watching as everything goes to hell.  The film is especially traumatizing if you’re a parent, as it adds another layer of unease to the proceedings. 

The film is anchored by a riveting performance by Swinton.  It’s also uneasy seeing John C. Reilly cast as the clueless father as he basically plays his usual self, which heightens the counterbalance between the two parents.  However, it’s the chilling performance by Miller as Kevin that makes it memorable.  He is truly evil to the core.  He has everyone around his mother snowballed into thinking he’s an All-American boy, while simultaneously taking demented glee in letting his mother know just how twisted he really is, all the while knowing she’s helpless to do anything about it.  Miller is thoroughly despicable as the sociopathic teenager, but really, all the young actors who play the character at various stages are equally great. 

SIGN ‘O’ THE TIMES (1987) ***

After Purple Rain, but before Batman, Prince made this concert movie promoting his double-album Sign ‘o’ the Times.  It’s mostly filmed performances of songs from the album, so if you’re hoping he’s just going to play the hits, you might be disappointed.  I mean, at one point he does about a minute of “Little Red Corvette” before he gets bored with it and goes onto another number.  However, Prince’s showmanship is in top form, so even if some of the songs are far from his best, he performs them with a lot of raw sexual enthusiasm, which makes it recommend. 

Not all of it works.  The attempts to make the film seem more cinematic often fall flat.  The scenes of quarreling lovers that run throughout the performances are completely unnecessary.  This narrative ultimately doesn’t amount to much and only gets in the way of the music.  They should’ve lost these sequences to make room for more classic Prince jams if you ask me.

The music, while not exactly Prince’s best, is still strong enough to carry the movie.  He opens with a rip-roaring rendition of the title tune, and “Hot Thing”, “Housequake”, “If I Was Your Girlfriend”, and “I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man” are all entertaining.  The highlight though is when Prince is joined by Sheena Easton for a duet of “U Got the Look”.  It’s little more than a glorified music video (it occurs while Prince is daydreaming in his dressing room), but the chemistry between them is electric and the song is a straight-up banger as the kids say nowadays.

The rest of the songs are sort of forgettable.  Still, it’s interesting to see how creatively Prince is able to fuse various genres like rock, gospel, funk, and disco into a broad musical tapestry.  That to me, is a sign ‘o’ a legendary performer.

AKA:  Prince:  Sign ‘o’ the Times.  AKA:  Prince Tonite.