THE BEST OF DORIS WISHMAN (2021) ***

The Best of Doris Wishman is a celebration of the smut movie pioneer’s work.  It is a hodgepodge of movie trailers (Hideout in the Sun, Nude on the Moon, Gentlemen Prefer Nature Girls, Blaze Starr Goes Nudist, The Sex Perils of Paulette, Bad Girls Go to Hell, Another Day, Another Man, My Brother’s Wife, A Taste of Flesh, Indecent Desires, Too Much Too Often, The Amazing Transplant, Love Toy, Keyholes are for Peeping, Deadly Weapons, Double Agent 73, and The Immoral Three) and musical interludes from her films (such as Diary of a Nudist, Blaze Starr Goes Nudist, Indecent Desires, and Deadly Weapons) that almost play like mini-music videos.  In addition to the DVD, there’s also a bonus CD, which is essentially just an audio version of the DVD.  It’s not exactly a must-have, but I’m glad that Something Weird and Modern Harmonic is really taking up the cause to preserve music from old exploitation movies.  Some of these rarities would be forgotten if it hadn’t been for their efforts, and for that, we should be thankful. 

The Best of Doris Wishman offers a nice sampling of her work.  Most of the eras of her career are touched upon, from nudie movies to roughies to her gonzo exploitation films.  I just wish it had been a bit more exhaustive as there’s no mention of her magnum opus, Let Me Die a Woman or her attempt at an ‘80s slasher, A Night to Dismember.   

The DVD runs seventy-six minutes, but strangely, only forty are devoted to Wishman.  The rest of the time is spent on ads for Modern Harmonic’s other vinyl releases like Something Weird’s Greatest Hits CD (which in itself is highly recommended), The Doll Squad, Mr. Peter’s Pets, Pacific Northwest Fuzz Box, Missile to the Moon, She Demons, Psychedelicsex Kicks, Pacific Northwest Jukebox, Girl in Gold Boots, The Party Girls, It’s a Revolution Mother, Dracula (The Dirty Old Man), and Something Weird’s Spookshow Spectacular a Go-Go.  I’m not knocking it as I have enjoyed every CD I’ve bought from Modern Harmonic.  However, I kind of wish the DVD was a wall-to-wall trailer compilation.  The musical interludes are fine (as is the rare audio of Wishman on the set), but I was kind of hoping the DVD would be more than a mere visual accompaniment to the CD.  Even with my reservations, this is still a treat for Wishman fans.  

RESISTANCE (2003) **

Bill Paxton stars as an American fighter pilot whose plane is shot down over Belgium during WWII.  A boy finds him and brings him to the home of Julia Ormond, whose husband (Philippe Volter) is part of the Belgian resistance against the Nazis.  While hiding him from the clutches of the Germans, she and Paxton grow close and eventually fall in love.  Naturally, her jealous husband learns about her betrayal and sells them out to the Nazis.

Resistance is an unapologetically schmaltzy and well-intentioned period drama.  Just as U-571 was a throwback to the old Men on a Mission actioners, this is a retooling of the war-torn romance films of the Golden Age of Hollywood.  (The resistance leaders are so cliche that they would look right at home in Top Secret!)  All of this is relatively low key, predictable, and a tad forgettable, but at least it moves at an agreeable pace and doesn’t get bogged down with a lot of unnecessary subplots like a lot of similar romance dramas. 

In fact, the pacing is a bit too fast as the film enters the homestretch.  The ending is so rushed that it almost feels like it was the victim of reshoots.  The fact that major plot points are delivered via exposition by two minor supporting characters at the very end is especially odd and ends the movie on an unsatisfying note.  

I guess the main stumbling block is that there isn’t a whole lot of sparks between Ormond and Paxton.  In their separate scenes with other actors they are quite good.  However, their romantic sequences are lacking passion and kind of fizzle out before they can even gather any momentum.  Plus, the kid who acts as a surrogate son to the couple will grate on your nerves pretty quick.  It’s enough to make Resistance awfully resistible.  

U-571 (2000) ***

U-571 is a good, old-fashioned throwback to the WWII “Men on a Mission” movies that used to play non-stop on TBS back in the day.  It was also riding the coattails of a couple of then-current trends.  It’s a submarine movie like Crimson Tide, a boat-sinking movie starring Bill Paxton like Titanic, and the stuff with the seasoned veteran of the team being killed off halfway through is a lot like Executive Decision.   

During WWII, the Americans intercept a transmission that a German U-Boat is left off the coast in less than ship shape condition.  Paxton leads a team of men to intercept the ship posing as German mechanics so they can steal an Enigma coding device onboard the vessel which may be the key to turning the tide of the war.  Things do not go as planned and the men find themselves stranded aboard an enemy vessel fighting for their lives. 

The cast is solid, through and through.  We have Matthew McConaughey as the wet-behind-the-ears officer who isn’t ready to lead his men, Paxton as his hardass mentor, and Harvey Keitel as his trusty right-hand man.  As good as McConaughey and Paxton are, it’s Keitel who gets the best scene where he gives McConaughey a much-needed pep talk.  Heck, even Jon Bon Jovi is pretty good in this.   

The action and suspense is handled with efficiency by journeyman director Jonathan Mostow.  It’s not as good as his other films like Breakdown and Terminator 3, but it's an absorbing and entertaining war thriller all the same.  While it never quite kicks into overdrive, it has a number of effective sequences.  There are also more submarine movie cliches than you can shake a stick at, so fans of WWII sub action will be sure to enjoy it. 

The movie got a lot of flack at the time of release because it was in fact the English who recovered the Enigma coding device and not us Americans.  If you are a stickler for history, you might find all this hard to swallow.  If, however, you just want a gripping, entertaining war flick with a reliable cast, U-571 will fit the bill. 

FRIED BARRY (2021) ** ½

Barry (Gary Green) is a junkie who walks out on his family, shoots some heroin, and gets abducted by aliens.  They experiment on him and send him back home a little worse for wear.  He then stumbles around Cape Town getting into various (mostly sexual) misadventures.   

Fried Barry starts off like a cross between Requiem for a Dream and Fire in the Sky.  There are also moments that might make you think of Liquid Sky and Species 2 too.  If you can’t already tell, all of this is wildly uneven.  There are some really great stretches here that are immediately followed by some head-scratching sequences.  However, if you can make it through the weak patches, you’ll be rewarded with some truly oddball stuff.  The episodic nature of the whole thing may turn some viewers off, but it has enough weirdness here that it’s hard to completely dismiss. 

Everything is filmed in one of those newfangled styles I like to call “Carpenter Chic”.  The camerawork, music, and even the font used in the title sequence is very much inspired by John Carpenter.  That doesn’t quite enhance the overall experience, but I like it when filmmakers wear their influences on their sleeves. 

Fried Barry doesn’t quite click, but it certainly has some memorable set pieces and moments.  My favorite bit was the scene where he bangs a hooker who immediately goes into labor and gives birth, much to her pimp’s confusion.  There’s also an intermission that looks like something out of 2001, and an ending that, incredibly enough, blatantly rips off E.T.  Even though much of this is overly familiar, the film does manage to blaze a few new trails.  I mean we’ve seen plenty of alien anal probes before.  This flick gives us what might be the screen’s first penile probe.  So, it has that going for it. 

Fried Barry is based on a short film, which I haven’t seen.  If I had to guess, I’d say that writer/director Ryan Kruger took what he could from the short and just kept adding more quirky scenes at random till he got to a feature length running time.  Because of that, it plays more like a mix tape of ‘80s pop culture influences funneled into a druggie hang-out movie.  It’s often slipshod and messy, but I’ll be damned if parts of it don’t work.  I can’t quite recommend it, but I’m curious to see what Kruger will do next. 

SAKURA KILLERS (1987) ***

I’ve been having pretty good luck here lately watching any old movie that I randomly stumble upon on Tubi.  Sakura Killers kept the hot streak going.  The opening is great.  It features Ninjas attacking an office building, crawling up the wall like a Wacky Wall Walker, and stealing a vital videotape. (Beta, no less!)  Then, the action switches over to Chuck Connors practicing his golf game on his ranch.  The Ninjas try to sneak up on him, but little do they know he keeps a shotgun in his golf bag for occasions such as these, and he blows them away.   

What makes Connors’ character great in this is that he almost always is seen wearing a Brooklyn Dodgers hat and jacket.  If you’re a fan of the man, you’ll know that he really played for the team back in the day.  I’m not sure if we are supposed to believe he’s playing himself, but I’d like to think so.  He’s only referred to as “The Colonel”, so I guess anything is possible.  Then again, if that were true, he would’ve been packing a rifle in his golf bag instead of a shotgun, seeing as he is The Rifleman and all.   

Anyway, Chuck sends these two guys who look like the Sam’s Club version of Michael Dudikoff and Steve James from the American Ninja movies to recover the tape.  Whenever they hit a plot dead end, they call Chuck back at the ranch.  Basically, it’s all edited together like a Godfrey Ho cut-and-paste Ninja movie except it’s got Chuck Connors instead of Richard Harrison.  That is to say, it’s pretty awesome.  

Sakura Killers is packed with laugh-a-minute action for the first half-hour or so.  In that time, we get a homoerotic training montage. an ‘80s aerobicizing montage, and a Ninja training montage.  I must admit, the laughs get a bit sparser as the movie goes along.  The film especially lacks inspiration once Connors is sidelined from the action (although he does occasionally pop up to reiterate plot points and remind the audience who is top billed).  That said, there’s plenty of amusing bits along the way to make this a treat for fans of Ninja cinema.   

Such treats include a scene where our heroes inexplicably turn into Ninjas wearing gold and silver devil masks and defeat a henchman by slamming his balls into a tree trunk.  I think the best part though was the finale in which the villainous Ninja travels underground just like Bugs Bunny!  Then in the midst of battle, he uses Ninja Scarecrows (!!!) to confuse our heroes.  No matter what the film’s shortcomings may be, any picture that features a villain using Ninja Scarecrows is OK in my book.

FANNY HILL (1983) ***

Homeless virgin Fanny Hill (Lisa Foster from Cave Dwellers) is taken in by the madam of a brothel (Paddie O’Neil).  She sells Fanny’s virginity to an old codger, but she runs off with a young suitor.  When his father learns of the affair, he forbids the relationship, leaving Fanny to return to her life of sin.  Eventually, Fanny quits the establishment and winds up working for an upscale madam (Shelley Winters).  When one of her rich clients (Buck Rogers’ Wilfred Hyde-White) kicks off, he leaves Fanny a giant inheritance which allows her to reunite with her true love.   

The set-up is kind of long-winded and the stuff in between the nude scenes is mostly unfunny.  The budget is a bit higher than your typical ‘80s sexploitaton period comedy though, which helps.  The costumes are especially well done and make it feel like you’re watching a “real” movie rather than a bawdy Skinamax T & A flick.  

Fortunately, whenever Foster is front and center getting naked (which is often), Fanny Hill is a lot of fun.  Fanny takes baths, has lesbian encounters, and engages in various sexual misadventures.  One of her lovers has a horse-riding fetish, and whenever he doesn’t please her, Fanny resorts to seducing a young stablehand. There are also scenes of Fanny spying on other working girls, and even a little S & M thrown in there for good measure.  It’s a shame Foster only appeared in a handful of films because she has an engaging presence.  She later quit acting and began a career in visual effects, working on such films as Cliffhanger and Die Hard with a Vengeance.   

The supporting cast is a lot of fun too.  Oliver Reed is a hoot as the goofy lawyer.  His highly tweaked performance nearly reaches Nicolas Cage levels of weirdness.  Raising his voice to a high-pitched squeal, it often sounds like he was huffing helium just before cameras rolled.  (He kind of sounds like a British version of Popeye.)  I don’t know if the director just didn’t give a shit or if Reed was in the midst of a week-long drunk, but it’s pretty amusing to watch.  It’s also fun seeing Winters grinding out a paycheck in something like this, and Hyde-White is pretty funny as Fanny’s old rich john. 

AKA:  Sex, Lies and Renaissance.  

WITHOUT REMORSE (2021) **

Amazon had a hit with that Jack Ryan TV show, so they doubled down on the Tom Clancy by greenlighting this movie.  I’ve never seen the Jack Ryan show, so I can’t say whether or not it will be connected, but it definitely feels more like a TV show than a real motion picture.  That’s not a knock really against the flick.  It’s just that it doesn’t feel all that cinematic.  The overly familiar plot and underwhelming action only highlight that fact. 

Michael B. Jordan stars as John Kelly, a Special Forces soldier whose wife and unborn child are murdered in a hit intended for him.  He soon goes out for revenge on the people responsible.  With a set-up like that, this should’ve played like gangbusters, but Sicario 2 director Stefano Sollima just sort of phones it in when it comes to the action.  There’s nothing terribly wrong with it, mind you.  He keeps the camera still, which is always a plus.  However, there’s nothing here that will get your fist pumping.  

I’m a sucker for a good revenge movie, but somehow, it all just sort of fizzles out.  There are moments here that not only crib from Death Wish, but also Mission:  Impossible (the scenes where Jordan’s team members are bumped off) and Bronson (there’s a prison cell fight where Jordan single-handedly takes on a bunch of guards).  These moments are competently handled.  It’s just you’ve seen it all before and done better elsewhere. 

Without Remorse also pales in comparison to the other Clancy adaptations that came before.  Those films carried themselves with a bit more self-importance, even if they were just dressed up action movies for dads. This one drops the pretension, but it fails to deliver on the fun.   

Jordan delivers a strong performance.  He deserves much better.  His Fantastic Four co-star Jamie Bell also shows up playing a two-faced CIA agent, but he looks more like a geeky intern than a two-faced government official.  Heck, even the usually-game Guy Pearce looks kind of bored. 

I guess this is like the monkey paw version of an action movie.  Every time I see an action flick filled with jerky camerawork and ADD editing, I groan. Here’s one in which the action is captured in a competent and clear manner, but the film itself is inert and by the numbers.  It also doesn’t help that it doesn’t have a big finale to give its hero a proper send-off.  Make sure you stick around for the Avengers-style set-up for a sequel.  I won’t be holding my breath for it to come to fruition, that’s for sure.  

This movie has been in the works for a while.  I remember it first being announced around the same time Clear and Present Danger was released.  (Jordan is playing the same character Willem Dafoe played in that flick, and who was later portrayed by Liev Schreiber in The Sum of All Fears.)  If the final product is any indication, Without Remorse probably deserved to stay on the back burner.