Trailer Trash

For a while now I have been a big fan of Roller Derby, which you might want to write off as me just being interested in attractive punk chicks on skates, which it's true might be some of the appeal, along with the fact that it is one of the most brutal sports out there, with fights regularly breaking out especially with them being actively incouraged, so why are more people not getting behind making this a national sport, after all who really likes football (or Soccer for my American readers) anyway? So as you probely guessed, I'm glad that someone has decided to finally make a film which combines, two of my favourite things in life together, Ellen Page and Roller Derby which is exactly what has happened with "Whip it", which see's Page joining her local Roller Derby league in an attempt to find herself.

For those of you not to sure what Roller Derby, here is a quick introduction video



So no doubt after seeing that video your wondering, why we bother with all these other lesser sports right. Well "Whip it" was written by "Shawna Cross" who herself is a former Roller Derby skater, having skated under the name Maggie Mayhem for the Sirens and based alot of the characters and teams, based on these experiences on the Roller Derby Circuit.

Personally I've been a fan of Ellen Page pretty much since, I first saw "Hard Candy" (2005) in which she took I think everyone by surprise, with a performance that verged on darn right brutal, as the pedophile torturing Hayley, while also proving extremely well suited to the pop culture obsessed dialogue of Diablo Cody in "Juno" (2007), which makes it all the better that she is once again in similar territory it seems with this film, which also see's the directorial debut of Drew Barrymore.



Ok so it could turn out to be a horrible film, but personally it's Roller Derby and Ellen Page so what more of a reason would you want to go see it? I just hope that it doesn't turn my beloved Roller Derby into some over glamorised mainstream nightmare, with corporations who will no doubt try to cash in on any success this film has. Still I guess we will have to wait until October to see, whether Barrymore can make the transition from screen to Director chair.

Final Girl Film Club - The Devil's Rain

Title: The Devil’s Rain
Director: Robert Fuest

Released: 1975

Staring: Ernest Borgnine, Tom Skerritt, Joan Prather, Eddie Albert, William Shatner, Ida Lupino

Rating: 1.5 / 5

Plot: When Mark Preston’s (Shatner) father goes missing, only to suddenly turn up demanding that the family give Corbis (Borgine) what he wants, Mark sets off on a journey to the desert town of Devils Rain, only to be captured, along with his mother Emma (Lupino) by Corbis. Now their only hope rests with his brother Tom (Skerritt) and Occult Expert Dr. Richards (Albert) as they prepare for a final showdown.

Review: It’s funny to think I was in such a great place with my life, what with my wedding only a month away (31st October) and my first hell spawn on the way, let alone the fact the blog is still going strong nine months after I first started out with an urge to write about the films I adore as well as those that I kind of wish I hadn’t bothered with, even along the way picking up the occasional comment from you like minded folks, who take the time to read these reviews. So yeah things were going pretty good…… until this movie came along, so thank you Stacey, and your “Final Girl Film Club” which is pretty much responsible for me sitting down to watch this film which looked quite promising from the outset, after all it features William “F’ing” Shatner, a man who usually can salvage even the most car crash of ideas and at the least make the outcome slightly humorous….kind of a shame that it didn’t happen here, as at more than one point I truly felt that I had found my own version of “The Manipulator” (1971) which Stacey herself deemed unreviewable, to the point were she didn’t even finish the film, which I actually managed to beat, by sitting through this film to the end, even if the final fifteen minutes, I watched after a brief break in viewing in a vain attempt to retain what was left of my sanity.

Ok surprisingly enough this film starts off pretty strong and I actually thought that I might have found another film to add to the collection, like I did with my last contribution to the film club, were we looked at Fulci’s “The Beyond” (1981), which as surreal a film as it was to watch, still turned out to be a pretty good film and it was a vibe I was getting here, especially with the creepy opening score by Al De Lory accompanied by the wails of what I assume to be tortured souls in hell, but this creepiness was really cranked up by Fuest, who chooses to play this over a slideshow of paintings by Heironymus Bosch, which proves to be more than a little unsettling and really prevents the audience any chance of settling into a comfort zone, something that is further reinforced by the fact that your barely ten minutes into the film, before your watching Mark’s father melting into a waxy puddle, after appearing suddenly minus his eyes and demanding that Mark and his Mother give Corbis what he wants! It certainly grabs your attention, as we now set off following Mark, as he prepares to confront Corbis. Sadly it seems that upon getting the attention of his audience, Fuest now doesn’t know what to do next and hence the film, suddenly starts to down spiral with the key moment being when Mark’s brother is suddenly introduced abruptly, making me wonder “Who the hell is this guy and why are we not watching Shatner?” and this also were I lost interest in this film, as Tom is not as interesting a character as Mark, even if he does have a psychic wife, whose psychic ability is really brought into question, when she couldn’t even see the Satanist hiding in the backseat of her car, which I think it’s safe to say that she didn’t see that one coming. Infact her only real role is to fill in the gaps in the back story, which seemed all too similar to that of Reverend Kane in Poltergeist 2 (1986), but were as Julian Beck was creepy as hell, Borgnine is about as threatening as a squashed frog, especially as he plays the character of Corbis the same as every other character he’s played and even when in goat-man form, he’s still none the more threatening, as he burbles away with Satanic quotations and generally spends the whole film chasing Tom around the town, which grows old pretty quick.

So after a strong start and a really dull middle section, it might seem that there is really nothing worth sitting through this film for, especially as Shatner is at this point also missing his eyes and generally mumbling to himself, like a crazy person. Thankfully it seems that Fuest seems to have at least thought of this as the film ends with an amazing meltdown sequence, which really makes the melting Nazi’s at the end of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981) seem pretty timid (despite mildly traumatising me as a kid) and obviously releasing that the melting scene at the start of the film is what everyone liked, so the ending is pretty much the same thing again, just on a larger scale and it

As dull a film as it is, it does at least have a few interesting bits of trivia attached to it, such as Satanic High Priest Anton LaVey, who was not only brought on an advisor for this film, but also makes an appearance as a satanic priest, but good luck if you can spot him, much like John Travolta who gained his first screen credit with this film. With LaVey attached to the film, it makes it all the more surprising that the film is so ropey, especially in terms of the Satanist aspect as they come off more laughable than threatening. It kind of in a way brings into question how legit LaVey’s beliefs were in Satan, seeing how I always felt that it was a hoax religion, lead by a man of obvious high intelligence created to basically windup the Christian community and this film only helped to reinforce these beliefs.

There are some fans who might claim that this film is more effective, when looked at in context to its original year of release, when the majority of the population were terrified of Satanists living in the community and the youth devil worshiping and true it might be one of the better Satanist movies, but even when looked at in context to it’s original release it is still an extremely ropey movie at best and one that will test the devotion of even the biggest fan of Shatner. Still I have to go to the Dentist today, so it will be fun to see which is the more fun experience … literally.

Bronson

Title: Bronson
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn

Released: 2009

Staring: Tom Hardy, Matt King, Hugh Ross, James Lance
Rating: 3 / 5

Plot: Britain’s most notorious Prisoner Charles Bronson (Hardy), who was born Michael Peterson and created his alter ego Charles Bronson, after being sent to prison for a failed Post Office robbery. Originally sentenced to seven years, he has been behind bars for 34 years, 30 of which have been spent in solitary confinement.

Review: It’s not too often that the British film industry manages to catch me off guard, by producing something so surprising and fascinating to watch, that I’m left in slight disbelief that we actually managed to create something worth wasting a few hours away with, which isn’t a bond movie!

True this jaded attitude is probably down to realising how behind the times anything the BBC creates is as well as the fact, that the British film industry in recent years has concentrated largly on costume drama’s which help reinforce the idea, that a large percentage of the rest of the world population have about the Brits, that we are all a bunch of well spoken, tea sipping aristocrats and that life is generally quite similar to a Jane Austin novel, which is quite an unfair stereotype really (well outside of the tea sipping part). The other side of the British film industry of course largely consists of those horrible crime dramas, such as “The Crew” (2008) and “Kidulthood” (2006) where it seems everyone is trying to imitate Guy Richie with supposedly quotable dialogue and everyone trying to cram in as many swear words per sentence as humanly possible, as they try to hold tough guy persona's which is weird when you consider that Guy Richie has only really made two good films with “Revolver” (2005) being the third at a push, though for fans of that film like myself, they do find it’s a very lonely club. I could gripe some more about how Noel Clarke has heavily contributed to this decline, but that would detract from this film which really is the shiny penny in the pile of crap, which has become the British film industry and which like Danny Boyle and “Film4 Productions” has given me hope yet for British film making.

Nicolas Winding Refn is surprising to hail as one of the savours of British film making especially, seeing how he is Danish, yet while watching “Bronson” I couldn’t help but feel I was watching a British film, as he has captured not only the subject character perfectly, but also the most simplest of interactions between characters, without none of the usual over characterisation to represent the British public, as the performances throughout all seem very natural and without any of the cringe worthy characterisation that seems to constantly plague more recent English films, almost as if the director doesn’t believe that the audience will buy into the idea, unless the characters are reduced down to were they are almost caricatures, of what the English are supposed to represent and something which is thankfully not present here. In fact this is were I found the first of many surprises to be, especially seeing the source material this film, could easily have just been made as the usual hard man prison drama, with characters spewing out the words “Slag” and “Cunt” every five seconds, along with a number of other colourful phrases, but none of that is to be found here, as Refn instead chooses to take a more surreal approach, with the character of Bronson appearing on stage in a suit, while addressing an equally smartly dressed audience, with the story of his life and how he came to be the man he is, from a hot headed 19 year old in 1974 to his current status, as one of Britain’s most notorious prisoners. It’s certainly a unique way of presenting the story and feels almost as if Refn is trying to reinforce the fact that, while being incarcerated that Bronson has become almost like a character in a play, as the film switches between these monologues and the main action of the film which is again laced with irony ridden narration, bringing to mind the character of Alex in Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” (1971), while also throwing in a scene, where while talking about his time at Broad Moor prison, introduces TV Footage of the real Bronson, shot during the riots which he helped spark during one of his numerous escape attempts, which led to Bronson receiving the title of “Britain’s most expensive prisoner”. All of these helping the film to rise about just being another Biopic, as at times it feels almost surreal including a conversation between Bronson and one his Psychologists, which has Hardy turning from side to side as he plays each of the two characters, with one side his face made up to appear femine, reminding me heavily of a deleted scene from the X files episode “Humbug” in which Mulder and Scully are served by a hermaphrodite waiter. It certainly is none the less surreal when used quite effectively here and it was moments like this which really surprising me with this film, not only because time had been taken to make this, more than just a straightforward biopic, but also because I didn’t think that Refn as a director would use such methods of storytelling, especially after watching his brutal “Pusher Trilogy” which certainly lacked any of subtly that he uses here, but it is during these moments that it really drives home the idea, that your not just watching another crime Biopic, but rather receiving an introduction to the Psyche of Bronson, a world were he openly admits that he does the things he does because he wants to and not because of some early childhood event, which would shape him into the man he becomes, infact it’s this idea that he is a creation of his own self, that is reinforced within the opening monologue, when he praises his parents for giving him such a happy childhood and that it was solely the belief that he was meant for bigger things, which lead to his first robbery. True it might seem that Refn only cares about the violence which made the man, rather than his later reform, with the film ending after holding his art teacher hostage, before receiving a brutal beat down at the hands of the prison officers, but these are the stories which most people associate with the man and seeing how the film, was released with a supposed audio introduction from the real Bronson in which he states

"I'm proud of this film, because if I drop dead tonight, then I live on. I make no bones about it, I really was... a horrible, violent, nasty man. I'm not proud of it, but I'm not ashamed of it either... See you at the Oscars."

This statement also makes it feel as if Refn is not wanting the audience to show sympathy for the character by showing reform, which could make the audience forget about what they have witness before. Instead he prefers to sledgehammer the audience with a bombardment of violence and graphic image and here it is used to devastating effect.

Tom Hardy's performance is a force of nature in this film, as he embodies the character of Bronson to the point were you never feel, as if your watching him playing Hardy, but rather watching Bronson himself, carrying out the variety of brutal beatings, as he hurls an almost constant stream of abuse, at anyone who stands in his way. It is also a credit to Hardy’s attention to character detail, which only add to the believability of the performance, with Hardy gaining 3 stone of muscle in order to play the character, while researching Bronson extensively and its safe to say that it’s work which pays off. Equally enjoyable to watch is the performance by Matt King as Paul, who upon Bronson’s first (and shortlived) release from prison become his manager of sorts, setting him up to fight in bare knuckle brawls, while also helping him to create his alter ego. King’s sporadic appearances also provide many of the pitch black moments of humour, with one particular stand out moment for this humour coming after Bronson first fight as he calmly hands an irate Bronson, by responding with

“Magic? You just pissed on a gypsy in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

In a voice which verges on being almost comically camp, but never slipping into parody which is always a risk, which is run whenever a camp character is introduced to any story, usually to irritance of the viewer, which thankfully is not the case here.

Soundtrack wise the score is mainly orchestral, helping to add to the mood of scenes, with only on a couple of occastions, breaking away from this score to throw in an 80's synth classic with the most prominant being "It's a Sin" by The Pet Shop Boys, a song which I've always loved and here it is used to great effect.

For a film that could easily have just been another dumbed down crime biopic, Refn has instead created not only a unique vision which on occastion verges on arthouse, but also a definitive look at the notorious prisoner, while creating a film with a vein of dark humour running throughout, which takes the time to not only look at what made the man, but also at the intoxicating and dangerous allure of violence.

Sense And Sensibility And Sea Monsters

Ok so it seems that enough of you, thought that the idea of "Pride and Prejudice" with added zombies, was a good enough reason to hand over you hard earned cash, I know I was certainly one of those folks who thought it sounded like a fun idea and to an extent it was, but sadly if you remember my review , you will know already that it was a joke that got stretched a little too thin, with most of the added material working well with Mr. Darcy being turned into a super slayer of the zombie hordes, as well as finally giving the reader a reason for the military being stationed so close by. Where it failed though I felt was mainly with the sisters being trained in Martial arts and the numerous references to training undertaken, with wise old masters which really didn't fit into the world being created, unlike the zombie hordes which surprisingly worked really well, but overall the experience left the reader, with the feeling of a joke being streched alittle too thin.

Hopefully Quirk Classics has taken on board these problems from their first title, with their latest and once again unique adaptation of another popular classic, which this time see's another Jane Austin novel receiving the Quirk treatment with "Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters" again not the most witty or subtle of titles, but when you consider that your giving a popular classic a hefty shot of pop culture, does subtly really come into it?
Still to promote the release Quirk books have created this trailer, which is almost as cool as the one we saw for "Meg: Hell's Aquarium" but is still pretty amusing, once you get past the awful acting and the fact that her dress is already wet before entering the water, but anyways here it is for those of you interested in seeing it.

"Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters" is set to be in a similar vain to "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" by expanding the original text, this time with giant lobsters, rampaging octopi, two-headed sea serpents, and other biological monstrosities As the Dashwood sisters are evicted from their childhood home and sent to live on a mysterious island full of savage creatures and dark secrets. While sensible Elinor falls in love with Edward Ferrars, her romantic sister Marianne is courted by both the handsome Willoughby and the hideous man-monster Colonel Brandon. Can the Dashwood sisters triumph over meddlesome matriarchs and unscrupulous rogues to find true love? Or will they fall prey to the tentacles that are forever snapping at their heels?

I guess we will have see, when the book is release on September 15th wether Ben H. Winters has managed to pull off the joke, as he takes the reigns for this latest adaptation, but I know that I'm already making space for it in the reading pile.

Sadly the success of "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" has lead to a number of different publishing companies all rushing out, their own twists on popular classics, in a bid to cash in on their latest publishing craze with "Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter" scheduled for an Autumn release, while more recently we have seen the release of "Mr Darcy, Vampyre" by Amanda Grange, which makes me fear that the market will soon become over satuated with lesser titles, much like what has happened for the Paranormal romance market, with it seems everyone currently obsessed with working darn vampires into thier stories.

I guess like everyone else we will just have to wait until September 15th to see if Quirk classic's can maintain it's dominance over the realm of the pop culture adaptation. Let battle comence!

Abe The Alien does Thriller

Ok in my last post I reported on the randomness which was Sci-fi day at Borders, in perticular mentioning a dance scene performed by Abe the Alien. So for anyone who was kinda curious to witness this, here it is for your viewing enjoyment.



What is especially great is the people in the background, who appear around the one minuite mark and don't appear to be overly fazed by the sight of a dancing alien, kind of like "Ohh it's just one of those crazy dancing aliens" which once again goes to prove that some people, just arn't impressed by anything.

Just Another Day At The Office

Saturday is Sci-Fi Day! Well this is true if I belive anything that the sandwich boards outside of work tell me, though for last Saturday atleast this was true, as for one day only Borders Southampton was invaded by a mixture of Time Lords, Aliens, Predators, Storm troopers and even a couple of Jawa's, thanks largely to the guys and gals from the "U.S.S Pendragon" who in thier ever continuing mission to raise money for the Princess Anne Baby Care Unit, with thier crew of like minded folks, who not only share a love for all things Fantasy and Sci-fi related, but also love to dress up as those same characters aswell, whenever they are given an opportunity. So last Saturday saw Pendragon teaming up with the branch of Borders I work at in Southampton, to raise even more money for this incredibly worth while cause, while also giving me an excuse to pose for this random photo.

This would be their third colaboration with the store, with the first being last year when we held a hugely successful "Dr. Who Day" and it was nice to see many of those same costumes and props once again reappearing at this event, after all who doesn't like to see a Dalek terrorising small children outside the store and with this success we quickly followed up with the "Beedle the Bard launch Party" and now Pendragon were once again back instore, only this time bigger than before, as this time they had called in some additional support including character actor Michael Henby, who not only is Southampton F.C's biggest fan, but also appeared in "Labyrinth" (1986) as one of the Goblin Corps aswell as an Ewok in "Return of the Jedi" (1983 and an uncredited role in "Willow" (1988) and he was more than happy to talk about these films, aswell as his stories of working with Warrick Davis.

We were also joined by fellow character actor Jerome Blake, who like Michael Henby is equally used to not being recognised on the street, seeing how when he appears in films, it is usually under several layers of make up, appearing as Mondoshawan (one of those giant golds things) in "The Fifth Element" (1997), which meant that of course I had to be a complete fanboy and ask what it was like to work with, one of my favourite directors Luc Besson, which he was more than happy to talk about, seeing how it was apparently almost as crazy to work on, as the film itself with Besson coming off as a real funny guy to work with, which is always nice to hear.

Jerome though will probably be best known amongst the slightly more geeky readers amongst you, for the various characters that he has played throughout Star Wars Episodes 1 and 3, especially episode one, were he played six different characters (feel free to put the answer in the comments if you can name them all). We also had a really random conversation about "Flesh Gordon" which I reviewed recently here on the blog, even though I can't actually remember how it came up.

Finally sticking with the Star Wars theme, we were also joined by John Chapman, who appeared in "Star Wars: A New Hope" as Red 12 and who has since gone on to write the children's book "Johnny Rocket".

Pendragon even managed to find a couple of predators as well as Abe the Alien, who has been used in the past for various pieces of promotional work, for "Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem". I don't know what it is but there is some sort of sadistic pleasure, from watching young children being scared out of thier little minds by these costumes, especially the Dalek which one young kid thought was chasing after him, when it started moving towards him, which reminded me just how powerful old school effects are and how kids today, never seem to experience those same sorts of feelings that I used to get as a kid when, you would watch films and see these kinds of effects, which have over the course of time been largely replaced by CGI, which sadly will never have the same kind of presence that these effects will always have.

Still before I go off on a rant about Old school effects VS. CGI I will wrap this up with some of the photos I took on the day, using the really shockingly bad camera which we have in the shop, so I apoligse in advance if any of these have come out a little blurry.

So until the next collaberation between the forces of Borders and Pendragon, I can only wish Pendragon, all the best with thier future fund raising events, as they continue tirelessly to raise much needed cash for Princess Anne's Baby Care unit.

Grapes of Death

Title: Grapes of Death
Director: Jean Rollin
Released: 1978

Staring: Marie-Georges Pascal, Felix Maten, Serge Marquand

Rating: 2 / 5

Plot: Elisabeth (Pascal) is on the train to see her boyfriend, when she is attacked by a man with a strange skin condition. Fleeing the train she finds herself stranded in a remote wine making village, where pesticides have caused the local villagers to go insane.

Review: So finally I’ve got round to watching a film by Jean Rollin, who is probably best known for his work in the horror genre, with this film being the first French gore film. He is also a director who has received numerous amounts of praise from both Jenn over at “The Cavalcade of Perversions” aswell as the “Vicar of VHS” which I saw as being more than enough to hunt out a bunch of his films, with the intention of making some sort of season out of it here on the blog, in much the same way as I did for Ozploitation Month. Sadly after sitting through this film I might be putting some space between this review and my next look at one of his films, as I found this film largely inaccessible, despite reading numerous comments from fan’s of his work who claim, that this is in-fact his most accessible film, which kind of doesn’t bode well for the other films of his I still have left to watch.

I should start really by clearing up the slightly misleading description which came, on the cover of my DVD version which describes this film as a “Erotic Zombie Classic” which are not really the words I would have used to describe it, seeing how the insane villagers are pretty much that insane with a slightly nasty looking skin infection and outside of the shambling horde they form, they share very little in common with what many would consider to be the traditional description of a zombie. As for erotic, outside of a few shots of naked women, there is nothing even remotely erotic to be found here.
“Grapes of Death” was a rare departure for Rollins, who is more usually associated with Vampire films and here appears to be throwing his hat in the ring, by giving his take on the Zombie genre, with the film baring a large amount of similarities especially in terms of atmosphere to George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead”, though were Romero used sporadic moments of explosive action, as he slowly cranks the tension, it is clear that Rollins intended to do the same here as well, though failing to achieve the same effect, as outside of a few moments such as Elizabeth’s meeting with the blind girl Lucy and their eventual discovery of the village, the majority of these moments fail to build any can of tension, for the viewer and only serve to increase the boredom of having to watch Elizabeth run around another set of empty fields.
The plot is pretty straightforward with Elizabeth running from scene to scene with only a seemly unaffected Bridget (Bridget Lahaie) appearing in the third act to break things up slightly, though no reason is ever given for how she has escaped being infected, nor why she is acting like some form of cultist?
Despite being largely devoid of gore, the few scenes which we do get are particularly graphic, including a beheading and a father attacking his infecting daughter with a pitchfork, but for those watching the film with any form of intrest, the majority of these effects come off more cheesy than scary, thanks mainly to poor execution. However the make up effects for the infected are particularly effective and on occasion, actually left me feeling kind of queasy, while wondering if these infected were any form of inspiration for the more OTT zombies seen in Rodriguez’s “Planet Terror” (2007)? While watching I also couldn’t help but think of “Resident Evil 4” especially in the terms of setting, as the isolated village is certainly a welcome change from the usual deserted city, which are all so familiar with the zombie genre and here it works well to provide some kind of tension, which is constantly being lost either through the painfully slow moving nature of the plot, or those bizarre occasional bursts of Synthesiser music, which pop up through out the film, only to end suddenly when a scene changes.

All in all this wasn’t a great first jaunt into the world of Jean Rollins and I hope that this is perhaps just not the film for me, much like Jean-Luc Godard’s “Weekend” (1967) which like a lot of Rollins work, has received a large amount of praise, the reasons for which I have never been able to decipher and it is really my hope that with further viewings that I might finally discover those reasons which have put him in such high regard.