TETSUO 2: BODY HAMMER (1992) *** ½

I’m a big fan of director Shin’ya Tsukamoto’s Japanese splatterpunk body horror classic Tetsuo:  The Iron Man.  Don’t ask why it took me so long to check this sequel out.  It’s flat-out nuts.   

Two men try to abduct a man’s son in broad daylight.  While he’s trying to get his child back, they shoot him with a strange bullet.  He soon finds that whenever he gets angry or is under extreme duress, his body twists into metallic forms.  When he is kidnapped by the mysterious underground faction, they hook him up to a giant headset which intensifies his powers and he turns into a gnarly, malformed cyborg hellbent on revenge.

Tetsuo:  The Iron Man was a low budget marvel that was sort of like a cyberpunk version of Eraserhead.  This time out, the inspiration seems to be American action movies, namely Terminator 2.  Whole scenes seem to copy that film (as well as C + C Music Factory’s music videos), but with a body horror edge.  Imagine if David Cronenberg was at the helm of T2 instead of James Cameron and that may give you an idea of what to expect.  (There are also nods to The Fly, Videodrome, and Aliens.)  The action sequences are pretty wild for the budget and some of the transformation scenes are downright insane. 

This is the part of the review where I admit the version I saw didn’t have subtitles.  That just enriched the overall lunacy of it all.  I didn’t need to follow the plot.  The images did all the heavy lifting for me.  I mean who needs plot when whole chunks of the movie are devoted to a large machine gun turret erupting out of your hero’s chest?  By the time the final act rolls around and your main character has morphed into what can only be described as Robo-Gumby, you just have to be in awe at the ingenious zaniness of it all.  

TENET (2020) **

Tenet is another entry in the Chris Nolan Thinks His Cinematic Shit Doesn’t Stink sweepstakes.  This time out, Nolan doubles down on the “I’m the smartest guy in the room” mentality of storytelling that botched much of his later post-Batman Begins work.  If Inception was his intellectual version of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3:  Dream Warriors, this is his riff on Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, as the overly simplistic logistics of time travel in both movies is awfully similar. 

John David Washington stars as “The Protagonist” (which gives you an idea of the level of pompousness involved), an agent who is recruited into a new Cold War.  His mission is to stop a nuclear holocaust that has already happened in the future.  Items from the future war are found and when properly used in the here and now, can sort of bind the future and the present together.  That means there are shootouts where the bullets go INTO the guns and fight scenes where guys start on the floor and then move backwards until their face lands right into the knuckles of the dude who (hasn’t) punched him (yet).   

All of this is gloriously sleek and shiny.  It looks like a million bucks, but they should’ve sprung for a better shotgun boom mic because most of the characters speak their dialogue in mutters, through thick accents, while wearing masks, or over crackling headsets full of static.  I think Nolan didn’t have the confidence in his worldbuilding, overly complicated, gobbledygook dialogue, so he fucked with the audio so people wouldn’t spend half the movie picking it apart. 

Washington is Denzel’s kid, and he looks and sounds enough like his old man.  He’s not bad.  It’s just that he really isn’t a movie star yet.  Since he’s missing some of the family swagger, he kind of gets lost in the shuffle amid all the flashy backwards effects.  Elizabeth Debicki does a fine job though as the heroine, although like most of the characters, a lot of her dialogue is unintelligible.  Many of the bright spots come courtesy of Robert Pattinson, whose shaggy dog demeanor makes it feel like he came out of a completely different (and better) movie.  At all times, he seems content knowing that he can do whatever the fuck he wants and Nolan would probably let it slide.  (He sometimes resembles Richard E. Grant after a bender.)   

I have to say as muddled as most of this is, it does have a certain allure to it.  Although it almost defies the audience to go along with the daffy plot, there are some sequences that work.  Nolan knows how to keep a story moving, which helps too.  However the results are simultaneously mind-boggling and curiously underwhelming, which in itself is quite a feat.  I just wish the overall picture wasn’t such a mishmash of heist sequences, showy action beats, and marathon exposition sessions. 

Ultimately, Tenet just feels like a mash-up of Nolan’s usual bullshit without a real singular throughline to make you care.  In Memento, he gave us a film that essentially played out backwards.  Here, we get action sequences that run in reverse.  Like Inception (the Nolan film this feels closest to), there are scenes where the scenery folds in on itself and the landscape changes before your eyes.  While some may enjoy seeing Nolan playing around with the same motifs yet again, in the end, it just feels kinda hollow.  I’d say it’s slightly better than Inception, but it’s certainly one of Nolan’s weakest efforts.

TURKISH STAR WARS (1982) ½ *

I’ve heard whispers about Turkish Star Wars ever since I was a kid.  As both a Star Wars junkie and a bad movie connoisseur, I knew I had to watch it some day.  Now that I’ve finally seen it, I have to say it’s even worse than I imagined.  Not only is it the worst Star Wars rip-off of all time, it’s one of the worst movies ever made. 

When I was a teenager, I made a Star Wars movie with some friends.  We got around doing elaborate special effects by having the actors sit in front of a TV.  Then, we put Star Wars in the VCR and cued it up to the final Death Star assault.  This way, it kinda sorta looked like they were sitting in the cockpit of a spaceship.  Much to my surprise, Turkish Star Wars pulls the same exact bullshit!  Not only that, but it uses footage from the movie for its nonsensical opening sequence.  The accompanying narration is just as confusing as the random assemblage of footage the filmmakers stole from George Lucas.

 

That confusion continues throughout the rest of the movie as the plot (and I use the word “plot” very loosely) is all chopped to hell.  It hops around so much that much of it is hard to follow.  Although it’s in Turkish with English subtitles, I have a feeling it might’ve made more sense WITHOUT the subtitles.  The sole highlight (and I use the word “highlight” very loosely) is the Turkish version of the Star Wars cantina scene.  The way the filmmakers (and I use the word “filmmakers” very loosely) incorporate footage from the original cantina scene with their new terrible-looking monsters is something else.  (One looks like a college football mascot.)  Instead of a quick-draw shootout, it ends with a Kung Fu brawl.  

At least you don’t have to worry if Turkish Han Solo shot first or not.  

Just so we’re clear, Turkish Star Wars isn’t merely content to rip off George Lucas’s iconic 1977 classic.  It also steals music from Raiders of the Lost Ark and Flash Gordon.  That’s to be expected since it was riding the wave of what was popular at the time.  Most befuddling is the fact that it borrows footage from Bert I. Gordon’s The Magic Sword and Robert Aldrich’s Sodom and Gomorah (which were both from 1962, a full two decades before this was released). 

I guess it goes without saying that the various action scenes and Kung Fu training montages are bad, and the shoddy costumes and special effects are laughable.  (The thing that’s supposed to pass as a lightsaber just looks like a Styrofoam cutout.)  The finale is the worst though.  It’s here where our hero karate chops the villain in half lengthwise, which sounds cool until you actually see it. (The effect is nothing more than the cameraman obscuring half the frame so only half of his face is visible.)   

Overall, Turkish Star Wars is pathetic.  I think the Star Wars movie I made as a kid was better than this.  Heck, your little sister could probably do better.  

AKA:  The Man Who Saved the World.

I WAS A TEENAGE ZOMBIE (1987) ***

I Was a Teenage Zombie is one of the more unlikely movies to wind up in the Criterion Collection.  I kind of understand why as it’s pretty good for a shot on 16mm low budget horror comedy.  What makes it stand out from the glut of similar pictures that were being churned out at the time is the fact that the comedy stuff is actually funny.  That’s good news too, since it takes an awful long time before the horror aspects kick in.  

 

A drug dealer named Mussolini (Steve McCoy) is desperate to move some tainted marijuana that has been laced with toxic waste.  Some teenage friends looking for a buzz, buy some of the deranged dope and smoke it.  After getting sick from inhaling the weird weed, they get revenge on the dealer by killing him and tossing his body into the river.  Little do the teens know the river just so happens to be contaminated with toxic waste.  Before long, Mussolini returns as a green-faced zombie and attacks the teens.  During the struggle, their leader Dan (Michael Ruben) is killed.  The only resort is to put Dan in the river too and hope that once he is resurrected, the teenage zombie will have what it takes to bring down the undead dope pusher.

 

I Was a Teenage Zombie feels like a slightly more polished version of a Troma movie (which is fitting because Lloyd Kaufman gets namechecked at one point).  The gore includes tongue tearing, neck twisting, and there’s a pretty great face ripping scene too.  At one point, the zombie gets it on with one of the heroes’ girlfriends, so fans of zombie hanky-panky will probably enjoy it.  

 

While it’s better than your typical low budget zombie comedy, it’s far from perfect.  There are some real lulls in between the highlights and the ninety-one minute running time is a bit unwieldy at times.  Ultimately, I think it would have benefitted from some tighter editing and a snappier pace (Dan doesn’t turn into a zombie until the film is two-thirds of the way over), but it’s an entertaining and amusing horror-comedy.

 

An acid head dealer gets the best line of the movie when he bemoans the modern music scene and says, “I played a Duran Duran record backwards, and you know what it said?  NOTHING!”

PADDLETON (2019) ****

As someone who felt helpless standing by while a loved one bravely fought (and beat) cancer, I must confess, Paddleton affected me in a major way.  It captured the feeling of being along for the ride while someone close to you is in the grips of a deadly disease.  There’s literally nothing that you can do or say that will make things any better, so you’re best to face it with a sense of humor and by showing your loved one how much you care.

 

Although the film is about a friend (Ray Romano) helping his cancer-stricken pal (Mark Duplass) commit legal pharmaceutical suicide, it manages to be a very funny flick.  It’s essentially a road trip movie as the two friends head out on the road to obtain the drugs that will end his (eventual) suffering.  In the meantime, they do a little living along the way (though realistically, not much).  No one crosses anything off their bucket list or anything like that, but they do have a few experiences that bring the duo closer together.

 

The performances by Ray Romano and Mark Duplass are equally great.  From their awkward exchanges with other people, you get a sense the only person they will ever be able to relate to is each other.  I especially liked the fact that they spent so much time together watching Kung Fu movies (make that one specific Kung Fu movie).  In fact, they are so much alike in their own idiosyncrasies that many people assume they’re a couple.  

 

Paddleton ranks right up there with Manchester by the Sea as one of the best depressing comedies in recent memory.  Even though the subject matter is bleak, the performances are funny and the laughs are hearty.  Some will likely be turned off by the subject matter, but I say if you can’t laugh in the face of death, you might as well give up completely.

SUPER RIDER (1975) ***

Lots of boats and planes go missing in the Bermuda Triangle.  It seems fairly obvious it’s the work of a giant robot... right?  A brilliant professor then assembles a team to pilot their own giant robot to defeat the bad robot. 

 

Super Rider (which is the actual on screen title, though it appears on Tubi under the name The Iron Superman) features some of the worst special effects I have ever seen.  The robots look like toys bought from a 5 and 10 store.  The models are a complete joke.  The scaling is hilariously wrong.  

 

I kind of loved it. 

 

Super Rider must’ve been edited from a TV show as it jumps around quite a bit.  First, our hero is hired to man the giant robot.  Then, he’s apparently part of a team of robot pilots in the next scene.  The fact the dialogue is dubbed into German and presented with poorly translated English subtitles adds to the overall hallucinatory experience. 

 

The villain is hilarious too.  He looks like a wizard with Troll doll hair, and one of his pet giant robot’s weapons is an oversized wagon wheel.  He even has a goon squad who dress up like a football team and kick exploding footballs at our hero. 

 

The good guys have their fair share of lunacy as well.  Their robot, “Super Weapon” oddly has the initials “MB'' on its belt.  I mean, shouldn’t the initials be “SW”?  Its big move is to fire rockets out of its nipples, which… I mean… why not?  There’s also a comedic cop sidekick named “Porky” who flies in a hot air balloon motorcycle.  Speaking of cool vehicles, our hero also drives around in a Mach 5-style car.  In one scene, he drives it right up inside of Super Weapon’s butt!  

 

Although the budget for the robot battles was only about $4.25, they are nevertheless fun to watch.  The villainous robots have a variety of weapons like giant maces, drill arms, and psychedelic freeze rays.  While some of the fights get a bit repetitive, I can’t help but love any movie that features a scene in which a giant robot is crucified by the villains and later returns to life to kick ass.  That’s right, folks, we’re talking about Robot Jesus here. 

 

The cherry on top is the hilarious dialogue.  I’m sure a lot of things got lost in translation, but that only adds to the fun.  My favorite line was when Porky was talking to the heroes about the evil football team and said, “These guys are unfettered by scruples!”

 

AKA:  The Iron Superman. 

SONGBIRD (2020) ½ *

When you set out to make a movie during a pandemic, inevitably you have to make a movie ABOUT a pandemic.  I mean how else are you going to explain why (most) everyone in the cast is social distancing, communicating over their computer via Zoom, and sitting alone listening to podcasts?  I don’t know about you, but I just lived through a year and a half of this shit.  I don’t need to see another ninety minutes of it.

 

Songbird was produced by Michael Bay.  That explains why the virus in the movie is called COVID-23.  You can almost hear him in a pitch meeting:  “You know what would be even more jacked than COVID-19, bro?  COVID-23!  Isn’t that boss? That’s at least four more COVIDs than we have now!”

 

Nico (K.J. Apa) is an immune courier who rides his bike through the empty streets of a pandemic-ridden America delivering packages for his boss (Craig Robinson) while 99.9% of the population is stuck indoors.  When his girlfriend (Sofia Carson) is exposed to the virus, she is immediately scheduled for termination.  Nico then breaks protocol and risks his life to save her. 

 

Songbird is mostly a shitshow from start to finish.  The lone bright spot is the always lovely Alexandra Daddario who plays a sexy cam girl/YouTube singer.  I guess the fact that she sings makes her the “Songbird” of the title?  If that’s the case, she’s not in it nearly enough to justify naming the movie after her character.  You have to wonder if originally she was supposed to be the main character, but somehow, the other plot line managed to win out during the editing process.  The highlight comes when she participates in a weird sex scene that unfortunately ends way too abruptly to be worth a damn. 

 

The movie is brimming with a bunch of fine actors (Peter Stormare, Demi Moore, and Paul Walter Hauser among them) who are completely wasted as they are up the creek without a paddle in a sea of fragmented narratives that never really gel together.  At all times, it feels like a crass, joyless cash-in to exploit our common current struggle we find ourselves in. 

 

Also, it makes it really easy to hate when it’s just so fucking terrible. The erratic camerawork and incoherent editing during action didn’t do it any favors either.  In short, the shit Songbird pulls just doesn’t fly with me.