NEWS AND NOTES

Hey everyone. I guess you can tell I haven’t been around a lot as of late.  I’ve had some problems with LiveJournal lately and to make a long story short, I packed up my bags and went to Blogger for a spell.  I didn’t really like that all that much either, so as of now, I’m kinda in between blogs until I figure out what I want to do.  In the meantime, I’m going to dust off my old Letterboxd account and use that as my temporary home for my reviews.  So if you want to see what I’m up to nowadays, you can find me here:  https://letterboxd.com/thevideovacuum/

SUICIDEGIRLS: THE RELAUNCH (2015) ** ½

Although the SuicideGirls movies are never all that great, I still continue to check them out, mostly because they remind me of those old Centerfold shoots you’d use to see on The Playboy Channel (except with a lot more tattoos and piercings).  There’s something to be said for a film franchise that is nothing more than a series of interludes where women disrobe in front of the camera, occasionally interrupted by dull getting-to-know-you shit.  This isn’t the greatest SuicideGirls flick, but it is the latest, so that counts for something.

The whole “premise” (and I use that term loosely) is that the SuicideGirls website has become old and outdated.  Because of that, the people in charge want to relaunch the website.  In order to do so, they have to come up with a lot of new content.  That’s where the endless scenes of tattooed trollops disrobing come in.

The stripping scenes themselves are hit-and-miss.  The good news is that even if there is a sequence that doesn’t work, there’s another one nipping close behind.  The best sequence features Quinne, a busty babe who does a poolside striptease while all her friends chill out in the background.  She definitely has a way with the camera and her coy innocence is a nice compliment to her overabundance of tattoos.  I also dug the scene of two bikini babes having a topless water gun fight.  Some of the music during the stripteases is a tad annoying, but hey, that’s why the MUTE button was invented.

I could’ve done without all scenes of the girls brainstorming new ideas for photo shoots, publicity stunts, and merchandising.  Many of these scenes feel phony and and/or over-rehearsed.  Since they’re nothing more than filler, these interludes make for a perfect place to go get a sandwich, grab a beer, or fold some laundry.  Trust me, you won’t miss anything.

THE RAGE OF WIND (1973) **

During the Japanese occupation of China, there is an increased tax on the local fisherman, which causes much strife.  The Japanese also go around beating the tar out of hapless fisherman, just to throw their weight around.  Chen (Shanghai Massacre) Sing is a Chinese boxer who returns to his home in China with his Caucasian bride in tow.  He killed a guy in the ring back in America, so he vows never to use his fists again.  If you can’t already predict, the Japanese push him to his limit until he breaks his promise and starts kicking ass again.

The Rage of Wind isn’t bad, but it suffers from some considerable lulls in the action.  Most of the lulls are devoted to showing how bad the Japanese were.  They’re pretty much assholes in this.  They hassle random passersby and hang up dead people as a warning to others.  These sequences are necessary I suppose.  However, they do have a tendency to get repetitive after a while.

Once Chen finally says enough is enough, the action is decent, although it’s really nothing out of the ordinary.  The finale where he fights the villain on the beach and does some Steven Seagal moves while waves crash in the background is OK, but it’s just a day late and a dollar short. 
 

The plot is standard issue and the fights are mostly unmemorable.  What is memorable is the music score.  And by “music score”, I mean that they just steal Isaac Hayes’ music from Shaft at inappropriate times.  Sadly, they don’t use any of the vocals.  If there was a part where Hayes sang, “They say this cat Chen is one bad mother…” it might have been all worthwhile.  Alas, it was not to be.

SWISS ARMY MAN (2016) * ½

 

 

I had no idea that The Beach Boys biopic Love and Mercy was part of the Harry Potter Extended Universe.  It seems like an unlikely pairing, but you know me.  I’ll watch just about anything.  Since everyone was falling all over themselves to praise Swiss Army Man, I thought I’d check it out. 

I wish Harry Potter could cast a spell on me so I’ll forget I even saw it.

This is the story of how Brian Wilson got shipwrecked and became the original Beach Boy.  One day while in the midst of a suicide attempt, he decides to befriend the bloated, farting corpse of Harry Potter.  Desperate for company, he keeps the dead wizard around and at various times uses him as a jet ski, a water fountain, a razor, and a projectile gun to kill small animals. 

 

I know what you’re thinking.  There is no way a corpse can do all of that.  However, since this is Harry Potter’s corpse, it can do magic and shit.

The premise is unlikely, but there are stretches where it works.  The early scenes are full of promise and there are a handful of funny scenes.  Most of it goes out the window once Harry Potter’s dead body inexplicably starts talking. 

All of this seems more like a calculated oddity than the genuine article.  Take for instance the scene where Harry Potter gets a magic boner that takes on a life of its own.  Even the King of Filth, John Waters would’ve probably written this scene out because it’s just too dumb.  Or the scene in which Brian Wilson dresses up in drag to teach the corpse about dating. 

The ending may come as a surprise to some people.  I had it figured out pretty early on.  I mean in Love and Mercy we learned that Brian Wilson had a long history of mental illness.  All this movie does is confirms just how far gone he really was.

I’m not sure how this all fits into the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them series.  Or maybe this is in fact secretly The Deathly Hollows Part 3.  I guess you’d have to find someone at a Harry Potter convention to get an answer to that one. 

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2 (2017) *** ½

The opening scene of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is one of pure joy.  The adorable Baby Groot (Vin Diesel) does a toe-tapping dance number to ELO’s “Mr. Blue Sky” while Star Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), and Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) fight a giant space squid.  Most directors would make the space squid battle the center of the action.  Thank God director James Gunn isn’t most people.  Instead, he focuses on Baby Groot’s dance moves while all the space action happens in the background.

This is truly one of the best moments in a Marvel movie thus far.  The only problem is that Gunn tries this same ploy of keeping the action obscured while something humorous is happening in the foreground a little too often.  Each time he does so, it’s with diminishing returns.  Since the first time he did it was unadulterated cinematic bliss, I can’t say I really blame him for trying to recapture that feeling.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is a sequel set in The Empire Strikes Back mode.  I don’t mean that it’s a particularly darker movie, although there is some dark stuff in it.  What I mean is that it is steeped in Daddy Issues and that half of the team is split up for most of the running time.  It also has a bit of a Wrath of Khan vibe as there is at least one touching death scene.

As you can see, just by throwing out Empire and Khan in conjunction with this movie, you can already tell it’s a pretty good one.  I can’t say it’s quite as good as the first one, but that’s mostly because it lacks the freshness and invention of the original.  Things really sizzle when Rocket and Baby Groot have to team up with their former foe Yondu (Michael Rooker) to escape the clutches of some space pirates.  In fact, Yondu’s whole character arc is one of the genuine surprises of the entire flick.  We all know that Michael Rooker is a national treasure.  It’s just that he has been woefully underutilized for decades.  Here, Gunn gives him a golden opportunity to do what he does best and Rooker hits it out of the park.

Going into the film, I was the most hyped about seeing Kurt Russell.  He is a great addition to the Marvel Universe and he does a fine job with his role.  There really isn’t anything wrong with his character arc, except that it’s predictable.  (I mean, his name is Ego, which pretty much tells you that he’s only looking out for himself.)  The way he plays it though, with that unmistakable twinkle in his eyes, keeps it from feeling stale.

Even though the film mostly centers around Pratt, it still feels like he gets the short end of the stick.  He was a revelation in the first movie.  You could see a movie star in the making.  Here, he’s mostly a dick to his friends until he learns the error of his ways.  Like Russell, he’s not exactly bad or anything, it’s just that the writing is a bit flat (and the final superhero battle looks like it came right out of Man of Steel).

Luckily, Drax is even more hilarious this time out.  Once again, Dave Bautista steals scene after scene from his more prestigious co-stars.  I also liked the interplay between Gamora and her sister Nebula (Karen Gillan). 

So yeah, it may not entirely be successful, but it’s amazing just how good Vol. 2 is.  I can’t say it’s as good as the first one.  I can say it comes damned close.

If anything, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is the second best sequel starring Vin Diesel and Kurt Russell about a makeshift family unit engaging in crazy action sequences where the villain from the last one is a good guy in this one I’ve seen in the past month.

 

Marvel Cinematic Universe Scorecard:

Avengers:  Age of Ultron:  ****

The Incredible Hulk:  ****

Iron Man:  ****

Iron Man 3:  ****

Captain America:  Civil War:  *** ½

Ant-Man:  *** ½

Guardians of the Galaxy:  *** ½

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2:  *** ½

The Avengers:  ***

Captain America:  The First Avenger:  ***

Captain America:  The Winter Soldier:  ***

Thor:  ***

Thor:  The Dark World:  ***

Iron Man 2:  ***

Doctor Strange:  ** ½

 

2017 Comic Book Movie Scorecard:

The LEGO Batman Movie:  ****

Logan:  ****

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2:  *** ½

Ghost in the Shell:  *** ½

EMPIRE STATE (2013) ** ½

Chris (Liam Hemsworth) wants to be a cop so he can support his family, but he just isn’t cut out for it.  Instead, he gets a job as a security guard for an armored car company.  He quickly realizes that the company doesn’t give a shit about anything.  The security is lax, the cameras are broken, and the entry code is 1-2-3-4.  After Chris’ partner (Michael Rispoli) is killed during a hold-up, the company refuses to pay his widow a proper settlement.   So Chris decides to steal a bunch of money and give her the bulk of it.  Unfortunately, he blabs about it to his hotshot friend (Michael Angarano from Sky High) who tells some local thugs just how easy it is to steal from the place, and they pressure Chris into planning another heist.  Naturally, the robbery doesn’t go as planned, and a badass cop (The Rock) starts needling Chris to find the missing loot.

Empire State starts off with great promise, but it peters out about halfway through.  The film is at its best when it focuses on the relationship between Hemsworth and Angarano.  You get a definite Mean Streets vibe from their characters.  Angarano is particularly great as the slimy loudmouth best friend and Hemsworth does a good job as the straight arrow whose one lapse in judgment leads to an unending shit storm.

Unfortunately, once he robs the place, there’s really nothing left for his character to do.  Most of the time, he stands idly by, sulking as his friend, the Greek mob, and some Colombian drug dealers worm their way into the mix, all trying to get a cut of the money.  It’s here where the picture starts to get muddled.  I think director Dito (Fighting) Montiel was going for a slow burn type of deal, but the finale suffers from a so-so shootout and a couple of obvious plot twists.

At least the picture is anchored by a great supporting turn by The Rock.  He’s so good that you’ll wish his role was bigger.  He exudes attitude and swagger as the ball-breaking cop on the case.  Whether he’s playing mind games with Hemsworth or talking shit to gangsters, the film really comes alive whenever he’s on screen.  Even when the movie is going south, The Rock keeps you watching. 

GAMERA THE BRAVE (2006) ** ½

A little boy is having trouble coming to grips with his mother’s death.  One day he finds a baby turtle and makes it his pet.  He soon learns that this is no ordinary turtle as it can fly around his room.  At first, he is able to keep Gamera out of sight, but that becomes a problem once it starts growing rapidly.  Meanwhile, a lot of ships begin disappearing off the coast of Japan.  Do you think a giant monster could be responsible for the disappearances?  You bet.  Do you think Gamera is going to grow up and kick the monster’s butt?  Damn right!

The scenes of the kid bonding with the little Gamera are the best ones in the movie.  Usually in these films we have a giant turtle befriending a little boy, but in this one, they reverse their roles.  It’s a clever little twist on the conventions of not only the Gamera series, but of giant monster flicks as a whole.

My favorite scene directly rips off E.T. where the kid is out and about while Gamera stays at home and whatever happens to the kid happens to Gamera at the house.  While he’s out skateboarding in a skating bowl, Gamera is narrowly avoiding being cooked alive in a wok.  It’s corny, sure, but I dug it.

The monster fights are solid.  The villain looks like a reptilian version of the bad guys from The Dark Crystal and he has a retractable tongue like the Alien.  I also liked the new Gamera costume.  He looks more wide-eyed and spry, a look that was perhaps inspired by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

The movie itself never really takes off and achieves the heights of the newer Godzilla movies, but it’s fun for the most part.  While the ‘90s Gamera series was highly touted, they more or less left me cold.  This one is an improvement in just about every way.  I’d say it’s about on par with the ‘60s Gamera films.  While it’s not exactly impressive or memorable, it gets the job done.  Gamera fans will be pleased, although others may be left wanting more.