Film Review: STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI by Mike Sullivan

There were two movies America couldn’t get enough of in 1977. The first, STAR WARS, went on to envelope pop-culture in such a suffocating, ever-present degree that the only possible way to escape it is death. The second was SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, a film in which the late Jackie Gleason briefly made racist, southern sheriffs not just lovable, but nearly cuddly. In short, STAR WARS stuck around while SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT didn’t. But I wish it was the other way around. I wish I could walk into any one of three remaining FYE’s on the earth and see too many Sheriff Buford T. Justice dolls on the shelf instead of too many Darth Vader dolls. I wish I could go to any Halloween party and see the uncertain faces of women as they have second thoughts about being coerced by their soon to be ex-boyfriends into dressing as Paul Williams in Little Enos drag instead of Princess Leia in her ‘slave’ get-up. I wish I lived in that alternate universe where SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT: THE FINAL JUSTICE is playing in theaters instead of STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI.

I don’t like STAR WARS. I never did. When I saw RETURN OF THE JEDI as a child I got so bored, I tried talking to the kid sitting next to me. When he ignored me, I started kicking him. I’m not proud of that moment but there it is. I’m a petty, violent asshole who is easily exhausted by space dogfights. Now, with that said, the obvious question is, “If you hate STAR WARS so much, why did you sit through THE LAST JEDI?” Well, three reasons: Like mostly everyone else on earth, I already sat through the previous chapters in the STAR WARS saga -- for various reasons -- and figured one more couldn’t hurt. It wasn’t genuine interest as much as it was the same kind of misplaced completism that led to me owning a full set of McDonalds BATMAN FOREVER tumblers. Secondly, I had to witness the PINK FLAMINGOS-esque sight of Mark Hamill jerking off the nipple-y, boob-penis of a Muppet before glumly drinking its green milk-cum. Finally, I kept hearing how different THE LAST JEDI was from the other STAR WARS movies. How it was more SPACEBALLS than A NEW HOPE, that it destroyed the legacy of Luke Skywalker and how it allowed black men, Asian women and Laura Dern in a purple Supermarionation wig to tread on the bland, E.E. “Doc” Smith-like space mediocrities that comprise STAR WARS’ inescapable legacy. The mashing of a thousand caps buttons whittled down the pudgy, brittle fingers of various Redditors into Cheeto-stained nubs so that the world would understand that STAR WARS had ceased to be STAR WARS, and became SCARY MOVIE rewritten by Andrea Dworkin. Manic, over-the-top criticisms of THE LAST JEDI caused me to believe it was a Porg-filled fartstravaganza where Dern pulls down Oscar Isaac’s spacepants to dismissively flick his penis and ends with Mark Hamill looking into the camera to say, “Menstruation is not a crime” as John Williams’ iconic theme swells in the background. It seemed heady and exhilarating. But much like the Magic Cards that were stolen out of the backpacks of THE LAST JEDI’s most scathing critics back in high school, my high hopes were flushed down the toilet and laughed at. Contrary to whatever unsolicited opinions are being screamed at to disinterested clerks at your local comic shop, THE LAST JEDI is not a STAR WARS movie for people that hate STAR WARS, this is a STAR WARS movie for people that love STAR WARS so much they have to pretend to hate it in order to impress STAR WARS fans who are pretending to really hate it for reasons -- that as a non-fan of STAR WARS -- I’ll never fully grasp. In spite of the fact that THE LAST JEDI has minor progressive touches and even slighter attempts at genre subversion, this is a STAR WARS movie right down to the cardboard characterizations, bad pacing, clunky dialogue, and the kind of comedy that suggests the only thing every STAR WARS creative team can agree on is that nothing will be funnier than the sight of those rats running the diner in THE MUPPETS TAKE MANHATTAN.

Still, as much as I disliked THE LAST JEDI, it has something I never experienced in any other STAR WARS movie, moments that not only stayed with me by the time I left the theater, but also caused my cold, STAR WARS-hating heart to unthaw but in that ineffective way a bottle of soda that gets pushed to the back of a fridge unthaws. It’s still a lot of ice. Although the sense of humor in this series still errs on the side of sub-Muppety, baby whimsies; genuinely amusing moments are almost hidden amongst gags involving terrified quivering robots and screeching CGI bird-things that look like Danny DeVito reinterpreted by a Sanrio artist. The film opens with a solid laugh as Isaacs’ Poe Dameron taunts Domhnall Gleeson’s fey authoritarian General Hux by pretending to have trouble with his communication device which causes Gleeson’s standard, bad-guy monologue to be repeatedly undercut by Isaac’s requests to, “hold please”. It’s funny simply because of how unexpected it is. The STAR WARS film universe is earnest to a deadening degree and to see something this sarcastic and self-parodic is refreshing. Unlike THE FORCE AWAKENS, which couldn’t stop reminding you of the past and felt like one of those cast reunion sketches Jimmy Fallon used to smirk through on THE TONIGHT SHOW, THE LAST JEDI isn’t as beholden to the original films. C-3PO is finally presented as the grating irritant he’s always been, one that’s openly ignored and mocked by the characters. Luke Skywalker isn’t just an embittered hermit but almost an attempted child murderer (more importantly he drank the green milk-cum that came out of a Muppet’s nipple-y-boob-penis). The darker, more adult streak Gareth Edwards was trying (and failing) to bring to the franchise with ROGUE ONE is better realized in THE LAST JEDI as it addresses class issues and politics with a degree of nuance the series is usually unwilling to explore (and by explore I mean the film addresses the fact that classism and war profiteering exists. Not exactly groundbreaking points, but a big step for STAR WARS). Yet as the film gently deconstructs its own tropes, it’s also tweaking expectations in surprising ways. Particularly in the way it depicts Isaac’s brash, hotheaded flyboy archetype. Initially, THE LAST JEDI appears to side with Poe because he gets results, man, and Princess Buzzkill (Carrie Fisher) and Admiral Holdo and her stupid Dame Edna wig won’t allow him to just go out there and fuck shit up, y’know? But then the film reminds us that he managed to get a number of his own men killed with an impulsive, half-hearted attempt to take out one measly spaceship, nearly gets John Boyega and Rose Marie Tran’s characters killed in an ill-considered secret mission that backfires and kills several more resistance fighters and commits mutiny simply because Dern wouldn’t let him in on her secret plans even though she was under no obligation to do so. After decades of Hollywood deifying the image of the loose cannon, THE LAST JEDI has the courage to finally explain why the police commissioner is grinding the captain’s ass: Harry Callahan, Marion Cobretti and anyone who insists on playing by their own rules are glib, harmful lunatics who would blow up your house if it meant they would get to say, “there goes the neighborhood” to your smoldering corpse. The only thing separating Martin Riggs from Jason Voorhees is a hockey mask.

Yet as great and as promising as all of those above moments are, they’re still just moments. Blips in a nearly three hour movie. It’s amazing all of the uproar these things have caused because they’re almost negligible. Splotches of gray have entered the film universe but the characters’ motivations are still decidedly black and white. In spite of all the ways Rian Johnson has attempted to revise, update and otherwise shake-up the franchise, he’s still leaving basic characterization to the people who write the extended universe. As in THE FORCE AWAKENS, the characters -- with the exception of Luke and Benicio Del Toro’s stuttering code master -- are devoid of personality. Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (Boyega), Kylo Ren, and even Andy Serkis’ Snoke are bland sci-fi ciphers, the kind of uninteresting clichés people would be ridiculing if these movies weren’t released under the STAR WARS banner. When Driver murders Serkis’ twisted Emperor Palpatine simulacrum towards the beginning of the third act, the moment carries no impact because we don’t know who this character is. He’s just a John Merrick looking motherfucker that likes to yell and wear gold lamé. Who cares? Additionally, Johnson undoes the goodwill generated by one of his gutsiest and most unexpected twists by having Dern note dreamily that she “likes Poe” after he held a gun to her head, called her a traitor and proceeded to kill several more resistance fighters. Sweet, sweating, ab-crunching Christ! Have the dudes who called this movie a SJW atrocity even bothered to watch it? Poe’s sociopathic actions not only carry zero consequences, they’re making everybody on screen dangerously horny and, realistically, nobody should want or need Llewyn Davis inside them after all of the selfish bullshit he pulls. Even worse, THE LAST JEDI is at least a half hour too long, which means we get much more dialogue like “Get your head out of your cockpit”, “Let’s go Chrome Dome” and “We're going to win this war not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love!” which is so cloying your aunt should stencil it underneath “Live, Laugh, Love” on the walls of her dining room. Oh, and if you seriously think that Rey’s parents are exactly as Kylo Ren describes (scummy, faceless drunks buried in a pauper’s grave), you’ve either never seen a STAR WARS movie or you suffered severe head trauma before you entered the theater. I guarantee that in the next sequel her parents will be revealed as some kind of Jedi royalty or an already established character like Sy Snootles, Lobot or Loki (Disney owns both properties. Why not?).

Obviously, I’m not the audience for THE LAST JEDI, but even though I didn’t enjoy it, I didn’t exactly hate the experience either. Johnson is bucking against the constraints of audience expectations and that’s a good thing because this franchise has been coasting on nostalgia for close to twenty years. There’s a sense that the creative team wants to stop massaging every inch of its fanbase’s brain with rose-colored, STRANGER THINGS-esque memories of Gatorade Gum, Big Wheels and puppet Yodas and finally move forward. Who knows? I might actually like the next chapter in this unending saga, but I kind of doubt it. Unless it involves an unsettling, CGI Burt Reynolds causing a Southern accented Josh Gad to angrily throw his cowboy hat on the ground, I’ll probably avoid it.

Review: A GLIMPSE INSIDE THE MIND OF CHARLES SWAN III (2013) by Mike Sullivan

Is it me or was Charlie Sheen an actor at one point? Because as far back as I can remember, Sheen has always been a guy who punched hookers and then appeared on a sitcom or in a bad parody movie to make fun of the fact that he punched hookers. 98% of this guy’s career has been one prolonged wink and it has never been funny or charming. He’s not an incorrigible rascal, he’s the kind of guy whose death will be ruled an apparent suicide because coke-fueled, auto-erotic asphyxiation is far too long to fit on a death certificate.

However, there was one slightly redeeming factor behind Sheen’s, ‘ain’t I a stinker’ routine and it’s the fact that he never tried to convince us that he was anything more than an enormous garbage idiot. He wasn’t a beautiful sensitive man who deserved love, he was a guy who joylessly mumbled out the word boner on TWO AND A HALF MEN. Unfortunately, A GLIMPSE INSIDE THE MIND OF CHARLES SWAN III changed all that because now we’re supposed to give a damn about the man behind the STDs and, unlike Emilio Estevez, that’s not a step I’m willing to take.

Loosely based around the graphic art of Charles White III, SWAN tells the story of a dying blood hound in sunglasses (it could be a hard-partyin’ graphic artist named Charles Swan III. With Sheen in the role it’s really difficult to say) whose girlfriend (Katheryn Winnick) breaks up with him and makes him very sad. So sad that he drives his vintage Cadillac into a pool, spends way too much money on caviar and throws a garbage can at a tall building. Eventually Sheen confronts Winnick about the break-up and tells her that he doesn’t want to never not love her (or something). Winnick then thanks him for all the experiences he gave her. Even the ones where he fucked other women behind her back. As they part ways, Sheen imagines himself singing an acoustic cover of "Aguas De Marco" with Winnick because stilted quirkiness equals genuine comedy. Sheen then goes to a party and feels better when he watches a marionette version of himself look up a woman’s dress. The End.

I know I’m in the minority here, but I find those elaborate, aggressively quirky, Etsy-ready products Wes Anderson calls movies completely insufferable. Additionally, I’ve always thought his comedies were for people who felt that laughter is something those grimy, dirt people do at Jeff Dunham concerts. But as much as I dislike Anderson, at least I can say that his movies are actually movies. At least they have a beginning, a middle and an end. At least his characters aren’t a series of vaguely defined traits awkwardly stuffed into a series of silly '70s inspired wigs. And that’s more than I can say about Roman Coppola who is basically everyone’s most negative opinions about Wes Anderson realized in one person.

Apart from the one-dimensional characters and the thin, practically non-existent storyline, CHARLES SWAN III fails because it’s trying to shoehorn Sheen’s eternally sleazy tabloid persona into the twee, artisanal sensibilities of a Wes Anderson film and it’s a combination that not only doesn’t work, it’s actually punishing to watch. It’s kind of like an issue of Maxim that’s been edited by Chris Ware or a movie based on the art of Henry Darger directed by Russ Meyer. Throughout the film there are numerous fantasy sequences where Sheen is murdered by shrewish women in stereotypical Native American drag or nearly murdered by the vindictive agents of the Secret Society of Ballbusters who are such totally, on the rag bitches they get all upset when their boyfriends try to pick up women behind their backs. Look, females! Understand that our penises just end up inside of things. Sometimes it’s a strange lady other times it’s a tepid bowl of Spaghetti-Os. Our penises are not a crime! Now get off the rag, get on the treadmill and go back to your stronghold on Bitch Mountain! Playful misogyny aside, CHARLES SWAN III makes no attempt to challenge or comment ironically on Swan’s sexist point of view. The film just shrugs its shoulders and happily agrees with him. CHARLES SWAN III is basically just a series of whimsical interpretations of a sexual predator’s self-loathing filled daydreams. Oh, and there’s also a scene with a hot dog couch, so look out for that.

Shockingly, apart from Sheen’s stuntcasting, CHARLES SWAN III boasts (and wastes) an amazing cast that includes Aubrey Plaza, Jason Schwartzman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Colleen Camp and Bill Murray. Yes, that Bill Murray. The same Bill Murray who’s extremely selective about everything he does and refuses to appear in things like COMMUNITY and PARKS AND RECREATION. What happened here? Was it a personal favor to Anderson? Did he pull another Garfield and wrongly assume this movie was directed by Francis Ford Coppola? Whatever the reason, he’s in it and he doesn’t look too happy about it. He just looks logy and beaten down. Maybe he pissed off Anderson and this was some kind of penance he had to perform before he could appear in MOONRISE KINGDOM.

Still, if I have to say something nice, I will say I enjoyed the Liam Hayes soundtrack. Everything else about this DVD can decay on the floor of that abandoned strip mall where Blockbuster Video used to be.

-- Mike Sullivan

Social Networking (and by that I mean the T-word)

I'm going to assume that anyone who is friends with Steve/Shock Cinema on Facebook knows I have a Facebook (non-movie-related for the most part) but I also have Twitter (#uselesstimekiller). I do, at times, talk about film there, especially if it is something that doesn't warrant an actual review (or, I intend to anyway).

Ok, I didn't Twitter about Salt, because I can't come up with 140 characters to say about it that someone else already hasn't. It was a very silly film with lots of action. You knew that after seeing a trailer for it, didn't you? (#youcanreallytellthiswaswrittenfortomcruise) And I didn't write about the first episode of An Idiot Abroad because I was so blotto on painkillers I don't remember a thing about it (#dentalwork).

In my grande attempt to make up for an entire year of NOT writing for Shock Cinema, I am now making a real effort to post here and at Twitter. So, come follow. I guess. If that's your thing. #doyoureallywanttoreadmyrandomthoughts?

Recent Netflix Rentals, or maybe not-so-recent...

I've been MIA recently, I know. Hey, I have a day job, I help out with the physical production of Shock Cinema Magazine, and I'm writing a book. Three if you count the ones I'm shelving or planning. I also have stacks of movies to watch! That keeps me away from the blog even when there is important news like the Tokyo Zombie DVD getting a US release at last (which I found out about AGES ago and never bothered to post- bad obscure film fan, no cookie). There are a number of films that have seen legit releases that I actually liked, and I'm not just talking documentaries about grim and depressing subject matter. Oh no, these are full on dramatic films about grim and depressing subject matter!

First off is JCVD: Jean Claude Van Damme. What ever you think of the guy, feisty B-movie star who introduced a generation of stoned teen boys to the virtues of Hong Kong directors like Hark Tsui and John Woo or annoying Belgian martial arts moron who can't deliver a line -- JCVD will change that. This visually stunning, exciting, thoughtful and funny french language film was shot on a relatively low budget, but makes good use of the streets of Brussels and it's now-slightly-weathered leading man. Referencing Van Damme's actual career, the writers (Frederic Benudis, Mabrouk El Merchri- who also directed) pulled no punches in showing just what the life of an over-the-hill action man might entail. The opening scene (a stunning one shot) has Van Damme work his way through a back lot war zone, karate chopping and faux-face-kicking soldier after soldier, only to have prop failures and a bored director foil his performance in this film-within-a-film. This leads to the heart of the story, Van Damme's American ex-wife is suing him for custody of his estranged tween daughter (very close to real life from my understanding), his lawyers want money, his agent can't land him a decent role, so he's on his way back to Belgium a broken man. Of course when he enters a local post office, should you be surprised when gun shots ring out and he tells the police he's holding the unlucky people inside for ransom? Anymore would give too much of the plot away, but it includes a monologue delivered and written by Van Damme that would break the heart of even the most blase mumbblecore devote, and a refreshingly realistic twist to the finale. Make sure you stick to the subtitled track, the dubbed cut is painful to say the least. Mind you, I have a history of pushing artsy French action films, but this time the critics agree.

It's not often that a film adaptation drives me to go buy a popular novel and promptly get hooked -- Night Watch, Hellboy, and now Let the Right One In are the only examples I can think of. Let the Right One in hit the festival circuit around the same time Twilight opened in theaters, but the two films share only the briefest of vampire trappings. While Twilight's picture-perfect teen blood suckers try to tame their (blood)lust and play super human baseball for fun, Let the Right One In's sole creature of the night is an unkempt twelve year old girl who is more passionate about solving Rubix Cubes than in practicing her attractive pout. Set in the early 80's in a Suburb of Stockholm (think what Jersey is to NYC) young Oskar is a middle school looser, his classmates tease and bully him horribly, the teachers ignore his existence. His clingy mother and caring but dysfunctional, estranged father certainly don't help. While Oskar dreams of revenge, he notices the new neighbors who have moved in next door in their generic, middle class housing development are not quite normal. They arrived by cab in the dark of night, their windows are covered with blankets, neither "father" Hakan nor "daughter" Eli are often seen outside and certainly aren't friendly when they are. Hakan seems to engage in the activities of a serial killer (though he bungles most everything) and Eli stalks Oskar in the playground at night, undaunted by the icy cold of the Swedish winter, and continues to pursue him even after claiming they "can't be friends." In time, Oskar befriends Eli, only to have her reveal that she is a vampire of sorts, never getting older and requiring the fresh blood of human beings to survive, she also can not enter a home without being asked (the director has no qualms about graphically illustrating just what happens if she tries). There is a romance of sorts between Eli and Oskar, though in the least romantic sense, and it's hard to say if Eli is lonely or reserving Oskar for a snack. Their story is told on the back drop of a society which projects a clean image but is decrepit underneath -- in this lovely suburban lie the school children are monsters who attempt to drown Oskar in an icy lake during a field trip, the neighbors are derelict drunks, parents are useless. Beautifully directed and shot by Thomas Alfredson with well placed visual effects, this grim, violent, piercing adaptation streamlines J. A. Lindqvist's (also the screenwriter) brick of novel while still retaining the essence. I have a feeling this one will stay with me for a while.

Fan Favorite Mamoru Oshii's latest venture, Sky Crawlers, didn't attract the sort of worshipful response his animated outings usually garner. Slow paced, almost mundane in its approach to its not-quite sci fi environment, I can understand why. However, that is not the issue I had. While the rambling plot with its complex themes and nostalgic aura kept me interested, I found the photo-realistic CGI jarring in contrasts to the delicate, etherial 2D animation. In a world without war Yuichi is a perpetual youth, a pilot who flies fake missions for television ratings to keep the minds of a bored public off the threat of real war. Dubbed Kildren, these genetically engineered entertainers live empty lives, filling in the time between dogfights with smoking, drinking and the occasional outing with a prostitute. Not much seems to bother Yuichi about this, even when he is stationed at a new base his only real curiosity is what happened to the owner of the plane he's been assigned to. The thing is, there is plenty of of weird going on -- Yuichi's new commander looks a bit like a Kildren herself, she tends toward odd ticks like picking up discarded matches and telling her own daughter they are "sisters" to explain away the age discrepancy. The other pilots are odd too, from the jaded OCD, paper reading, albino to Yuichi's hard drinking roommate. And why does everyone keep commenting on the disappearance of Jinro, the pilot Yuichi has replaced? Based on the book by Hiroshi Mori, Oishii's presence is felt throughout, right down to the trademark hound dog hanging around the airplane hanger. CGI aside, this is one hell of a picture. Anime meets French Bande Dessine of the Corto Maltse ilk.

Guest Review! Terminator: Salvation

Full disclosure: The Terminator trilogy has never interested me. I really don’t know why but if I have to guess, it probably has something to do with the existence of Eddie Furlong. Yes, I know he was only in T2 (Terminator Two) but his smug presence still lingers over the franchise like a droopy eyed rain cloud.

It wasn’t until Christian Bale’s notorious meltdown on the set of Terminator Salvation that I started to realize the full potential of these Terminator films. Bale’s little blooper combined two things I demand to see in every movie: horrible assholes screaming their lungs out and very intense discussions about lighting. I was looking forward to a film in which Bale wanders around an apocalyptic hell-scape verbally assaulting any android that’s stupid enough to get his latte order wrong or accidentally give him full eye contact. Unfortunately, Terminator Salvation turned out to be nothing at all like I expected. But once I got over my initial disappointment the film turned out to be an entertaining summer movie. In fact, it’s far better than any movie directed by McG should be.

Stumbling awkwardly out of the gate, Terminator Salvation opens with a decidedly odd prologue involving a death row inmate named Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington) who donates his body to a sinister scientist (Helena Bonham Carter, inexplicably) but not before he mocks her cancer and makes out with her. Yeah. Sure. These things happen I guess. At any rate, the story picks up several years in the future; Skynet has destroyed most of humanity in a nuclear war. As the previous films have predicted, an adult John Connor must lead the human resistance against the machines. This time, however, the machines plan on killing John’s father (Anton Yelchin) who for some reason or another is a teenager that’s stuck in the current apocalyptic timeline. Complicating matters is the strange reappearance of Marcus who isn’t sure where he is, why he’s still alive or what role he plays in the resistance.

Make no mistake about it Terminator Salvation is a big dumb action movie and like most big dumb action movies the film is engaging as long as it sticks to its frenetic set-pieces. Once it strays into more subtle character based territory the film stumbles badly (particularly any scene that involves the uninteresting and bland Marcus character). The film also seems to struggle with the pretense that it’s something more than it actually is. There are a handful of distasteful and ill-advised allusions to the Holocaust that are completely out of place. Especially considering that they’re preceded by footage of a giant robot with a gun for a head as it launches motorcycles out of its shins. Terminator Salvation also boasts some hilariously clumsy callbacks to the early Terminator films. Case in point: there’s a scene where Bale announces he’ll “be back.” The moment is handled so awkwardly I’m surprised he didn’t wink at the camera and shout “wocka wocka."

At this point, I realize that it sounds like I hated this movie. I didn’t. In fact I really liked it. It’s fast paced, some of the performances are strong and the cinematography has an unsettling washed out quality. It may not be a good movie but it’s consistently entertaining and for a summer movie that’s good enough. Oh and one final note, I also really liked Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull so understand that this recommendation also functions as a warning.

Mike Sullivan

When Comedy Fails: Two reviews by SC magazine contributor Mike Sullivan

With Meet the Spartans looming ominously over the horizon, I felt it was necessary for people to realize that not every parody movie is as excruciating as those that are written and directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. Typically, they’re much worse.

Nonetheless, in honor of the notly anticipated Meet the Spartans, let’s take a look back at some of the worst films this justifiably maligned genre has to offer starting with this justifiably unknown and barely released Italian misfire.



CHICKEN PARK (1994)
Mocks: Jurassic Park
Directed By: Jerry Cala

Synopsis: Jerry Cala, the pudding that walks like a man, plays a destitute chicken breeder who travels to the Dominican Republic in order enter his rooster in competitive cockfights. After a successful match, Cala’s “cock is stolen” by a pair of thugs named Jelly and Beans (Tee, hee!). The thugs turn out to be working for a short, lisping scientist named Dr. Eggs (Lawrence Steven Meyers who supposedly went on to produce the Diane Laine vehicle Unfaithful) who is creating a race of giant, prehistoric chickens.

What Went Wrong:
Mocks the Russian Roulette scene from The Deer Hunter by replacing the original film’s iconic revolver with six hand grenades filled with soda.

All of the female characters lust after Cala even though he looks like he’s melting and sounds like he’s perpetually asking a question.

Openly rips-off the 91/2 Weeks parody from Hot Shots and then attempts to outdo the original spoof.

Tries to wring laughs out of a scene in which Thing from The Addams Family fingerbangs (Thing-er-bangs?) a Morticia look-a-like (Rossy de Palma) as she watches footage of a botched surgery.

Endless moments where jokes and sight gags barrel along without a purpose or a punchline such as the scene where Cala boards a plane in which half of the passengers are monsters, the bit where an American Indian hatches from a giant egg and the unmotivated cameos from Sherlock Holmes, Jaws, The Yellow Submarine and Mandrake the Magician’s assistant Lothar.

The Final Word: Equal parts grating and disturbing, the film’s mere existence answers the question: “What if somebody took Bunuel’s Un Chien Andalou and dubbed in fart noises and cartoon sound effects over the original soundtrack?”



The Helix…Loaded (2005)
Mocks: The Matrix Trilogy
Directed by: A. Raven Cruz

Synopsis: In this severely muddled and convoluted movie, a group of stoners led by Nuvo (Keanu Reeves sort-a-look-a-like Scott Levy) and Theo (Vanilla “Fucking” Ice) discover a new designer drug called the Helix that, if used properly, can give its users a deep sense of enlightment. Aiding them in their quest are a pair of mysterious yet familiar characters named Infiniti (Samantha Brooke) and Orpheum (Dana Woods) who are searching for someone who can take the Helix without going insane. Unfortunately, events are complicated by Smack, Crack and Jonesin a trio of ill-defined, FBI drug agent cyborgs (or something) who will stop at nothing to acquire the Helix for their own faintly nefarious purposes.

What Went Wrong:
Tries to wring comic possibilities out of an obvious and dated target.

Struggles under the impression that movie references = jokes.

Gives us terrible dialogue that sounds like it was written by a random catch phrase generator (such as, “I see rabbit people,” “You’re making me sober…you wouldn’t like me when I’m sober” and “The first rule of the Helix is: you don’t talk about the Helix”).

Attempts to compensate for the terrible dialogue by encouraging the cast to mug uncontrollably and speak in silly voices.

Turns Lawrence Fishburne’s character into a midget (who later does a Brando impression for no particular reason).

Gives Carrie-Anne Moss’s character a penis.

Two words: Vanilla Ice.

Gives an inexplicable nod to the Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle one-sheet.


Fun Fact: Believe it or not, The Helix..Loaded somehow managed to have its worldwide premiere at Graumannn’s Chinese Theater. Not bad for a movie that’s basically just an expensive fan film.


The Final Word: The essence of the story, for a film like this which is parody and slapstick and kind of goofy and silly, it’s really kind of a underlying tone; and this is kind of something that is very dear to me: the self’s journey, the journey toward self-discovery, the awakening of the hero’s journey. And through this silly little method we have encoded underneath it a much larger, metaphorical mythology, and that is: every person is seeking throughout their lives a happiness or fulfillment.

- A. Raven Cruz on his film The Helix…Loaded


Mike Sullivan http://www.myspace.com/cinemabizarro

Not so brutal...

Brutarian magazine is always a good read, so imagine my surprise when I saw not only a review of Shock Cinema #32 but the cover reproduced full sized! And Brutarian had lovely things to say about it, too, from praise of Steve's writing, to our choice of films and interviews. The only criticism -- well, as they point out, we DID ask -- the other film reviewers! And despite being one of those other film reviewers (I'm not an epigone, so I must be one of the feckless pendants), I still think the review was great and really look forward to future issues. These old school zinesters do not seem to have an official website, but click you can on their cover to visit their MySpace page...