Halloween Horrors 2013 : “Self Storage”

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Sometimes even a movie with very little to recommend for it still has — well, something to recommend for it. Such is the case with this year’s direct-to-video, shot-on-HD indie horror effort Self Storage, a largely pathetic, unmemorable, boringly amoral (more on that before we’re through) piece of — uhhmm, work —- written and directed by, and starring, the supremely untalented Tom DeNucci.

Shot in Rhode Island, this is one of those flicks that’s pretty hard to see having much of an audience beyond the friends and immediate family of anyone involved in its production, being that every single character in it’s a complete douchebag, the blood n’ guts are both fairly tame and poorly realized, and its somewhat inventive premise is buried under layer upon layer of incompetent execution.

First, the particulars of the plot : go-nowhere pothead Jake (the aforementioned DeNucci) works as a security guard at a mini-storage facility. His friends, a half-assed assemblage of walking caricatures (the slut, the hot chick, the good girl, the horn-dog guy who gets a lot of pussy, the two other horn dog guys who get no pussy and are hopeless porn addicts) want to party at his workplace one night and figure it should be no sweat because Jake actually lives on the premises, as well. He says no at first, then says yes when he learns that his asshole boss (Eric Roberts) and flunky right-hand man (Micheal Berryman, whose name might not ring a bell to anyone but die-hard horror fans, but who even most casual viewers will recognize instantly thanks to The Hills Have Eyes, The Devil’s Rejects, and too many other flicks to mention — in short, he’s the tall, bald, weird-lookin’ dude) have cut some kind of shady deal with a local black marketeer (Jonathan Silverman — -speaking of supremely untalented), and intend to shut the place down the next day when they’re good and rich and fire their deadbeat part-timer’s ass in a heartbeat.

So — the party’s on, but everyone but Jake and his sweetheart get killed because the “big deal” that’s going down is a massive sale of kidnapped coeds for the purportedly thriving underground body parts and organs trade. Jake accidentally melts the folks who have already been kidnapped in an acid shower — long story — and finds that he and his dickhead friends have been tapped as replacements.

Yeah, I know — it sounds kinda creepy/interesting yet hopelessly stupid at the same time. Rest assured, dear reader, that the “hopelessly stupid” part of the equation wins the day in a hurry and you’ll be hoping against hope for everyone — even (and maybe especially) our purported “hero ” — to get killed both gruesomely and quickly. Unfortunately, things take a long time to get going, and aren’t very interesting once they do. DeNucci’s film is that rarest of things, then — a story about people you’re aching to see get murdered that bores you so fucking much that you don’t even end up caring how, when, or even if they die — you want ’em too, sure, but actively giving a damn is just too much effort.

So what about that whole “dully amoral” thing, then? Well, Jake ends up pocketing the take for his dead pals’ organs in the end, and rides off into the sunset with his ladyfriend, and I guess the two live happily ever after on the gruesome loot they’ve procured on the deceased bodies of their friends. Could be shocking, I suppose, if handled correctly, but it’s such a garbled mess that you honestly wonder if DeNucci even considered the ethical implications of his tasteless finale or if he just wrapped things up quickly because he didn’t know what the hell else to do at that point. The end result? It all falls pretty flat — just like the preceding 90-or-so minutes.

Still, as I mentioned at the outset, Self Storage has at least one thing going for it — Eric Roberts, who’s clearly in the “anything for a buck” phase of his career at this point. I don’t know about you, but if my script called for a psychotic cheeseball Viet Nam vet who owns a mini-storage business and trades in impromptu homemade (and fatal) surgery on the side, he’d be the first guy I’d call. And he certainly doesn’t disappoint here, hamming it up with the kind of overstated, fourth-wall-busting relish that makes his turn as the villainous Master in 1996’s Doctor Who TV movie look subtle by comparison. He’s a lot of fun to watch, and is clearly pushing the envelope of what he can get away with simply because he knows his chickenshit kid director doesn’t have the balls to step in and tell him to at least try to play it straight. I have a weird kind of respect for anyone willing to piss in his boss’s face so brazenly, and so I tip my hat to Mr. Roberts for clearly communicating with his outrageous performance exactly what he thinks of this steaming pile of dogshit he’s working on. Thanks for the money, ya snot-nosed little punk, now shut up, get the fuck out of my way, and let me do what I do best.

Beyond that, though, this is a movie with less than nothing going for it. Don’t waste your time and/or money picking it up on Blu-Ray or DVD, to be sure — and if you absolutely must watch it in spite of my dire warnings, then catch it on Netflix’s instant streaming queue, like I did. But honestly — you’re just better off leaving the whole thing alone and just trusting me when I say that Roberts is a blast to watch, but Self Storage is in no way worth sitting through just to see him ooze sleaze and disrespect for his (temporary) employers unless you’re really bored, stoned, or both.

Film Review: Lovelace (dir by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman)

Posted on August 17, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

About halfway through the new biopic Lovelace, there’s a scene where former porno actress Linda Lovelace (played by Amanda Seyfried) is hooked up to a lie detector. The polygraph examiner explains that he’s going to ask Linda a few test questions to get a reading.

“Is your name Linda Lovelace?” he asks.

Visibly nervous, Linda replies, “Can you ask something simpler?”

It’s a great scene because it establishes the central mystery of both the film and the title character.

Just who exactly was Linda Lovelace?

A girl whose main talent was apparently giving head, Lovelace became a star in the 70s when she starred in Deep Throat, the first (and perhaps only) hardcore film to become a legitimate mainstream hit. For a brief while, Lovelace was the face of the American sex industry. However, her attempts to have a mainstream film career failed and Lovelace retreated into obscurity.

Several years later, she wrote a book called Ordeal. In Ordeal, Lovelace claimed that she was forced, by her abusive husband, to perform in Deep Throat. Whereas Lovelace, during her brief stardom, originally claimed to simply be a sexual adventurer who performed on camera because it was liberating, the post-stardom Lovelace presented herself as being a brainwashed victim. Or, as Lovelace herself put it, “When you watch Deep Throat, you’re watching me getting raped.” While several people disputed the authenticity of Ordeal, Lovelace herself passed a polygraph examination. Lovelace then became an anti-pornography activist before, once again, descending into obscurity and eventually dying in an automotive accident in 2002.

Lovelace deals with the issue of figuring out just who Linda Lovelace was by basically telling her story twice.

During the first 45 minutes of the film, we see how young Linda Boreman first meets Chuck Traynor (Peter Sarsgaard). Everything about Chuck — from his mustache to his perm to his flashy clothes — practically screams sleaze but, since he’s played by Peter Sarsgaard, he also has an undeniable charm. (With this film and An Education, Sarsgaard has proven himself to be the definitive older man who your parents warned you about.) Chuck and Linda eventually marry and, when they need money, Linda turns to “acting” in order to pay the bills.

Under the watchful eye of producers Bobby Cannavale and Chris Noth, director Hank Azaria, and co-star Adam Brody, Linda stars in Deep Throat and becomes the face of the sexual revolution. While there are occasional hints that things might not be perfect (bruises are often visible on Linda’s arms and legs), Linda seems to truly love the spotlight. Even Hugh Hefner (played by James Franco, who is way too hot to only have a cameo) says she’s going to be a huge star.

And then, rather abruptly, we jump forward six years. Linda is now writing Ordeal and we once again see how she first married Chuck Traynor, starred in Deep Throat, and came to be a star.. However, we now see the story through her eyes. We see that Chuck wasn’t just controlling but that he was also an abusive psychopath who would hold a gun to her head in order to get a performance out of her. We see that, during the shooting of Deep Throat, she was regularly beaten by her husband. We see Linda attempting to reconnect with her strict and tradition parents (played by Sharon Stone and Robert Patrick). We see the ugliness that was hidden underneath the glamour.

Considering the subject matter and the talent involved, Lovelace should have been one of the most interesting films of 2013 but, unfortunately, the two separate halves of the film just don’t come together. While the first half of the film does a good job of capturing the absurdity of sudden fame, the second half of the film falls apart.

Oddly enough, Chuck Traynor and Linda Lovelace only come across as real human beings during the superficial first half of the film. During the second half of the film, both Chuck and Linda come across as one-dimensional ciphers. Linda becomes such a total victim and Chuck becomes such a melodramatic villain that neither one of them is all that compelling as a character. Instead of being disturbing and revealing, the second half of the film just feels like another generic film about the price of fame.

Most of what I know about Linda Lovelace and Chuck Traynor comes from two sources — the 2005 documentary Inside Deep Throat and Legs McNiel’s and Jennifer Osborne’s book The Other Hollywood. In both the book and the documentary, Lovelace comes across as being a rather pathetic figure who was exploited by both the adult film industry and the anti-pornography activists who used her as a symbol. Both the industry and the activists abandoned Linda once her novelty was gone. Ironically, even though both the documentary and the book are rather critical of her, it is there that she comes across as a far more interesting, sympathetic, and ultimately tragic figure than she does in this biopic.

With all that in mind, Lovelace is not necessarily a failure as a film. The 70s are convincingly recreated and there’s a few scenes that hint at the type of film that this could have been if the filmmakers had been willing to take a few more risks.

The film is also full of excellent performances. Seyfried is sympathetic and believable as Linda and, up until the second half of the film requires him to abandon all shades of ambiguity, Sarsgaard perfectly captures the sleazy charm that someone like Chuck Traynor would need to survive. As Linda’s strict mother, Sharon Stone is surprisingly strong. Just watch the scene where Linda’s mom explains to her that she has to go back to abusive husband because that’s what marriage is all about and you’ll see an example of great acting. Even better is Robert Patrick, who brings a poignant sadness to the role of Linda’s father. The scene where he tells Linda that he saw her on film is heartbreaking.

Lovelace is a film of hits and misses. Sadly, it misses the big picture but a few individual parts and performances are strong enough to justify sacrificing spending 93 minutes to watch it.

A Quickie Review: The Expendables (dir. by Sylvester Stallone)

Posted on August 19, 2010 by Arleigh

Lisa Marie has already done a wonderful job of reviewing Sylvester Stallone’s latest action vehicle, The Expendables. I’ll keep my review to a quickie format since her review went into detail and my thoughts ran at a similar path.

To start things I will say that despite the obvious gigantic leaps in logic one may have to take to buy into Stallone’s latest once that leap has been taken then The Expendables becomes a piece of mind-numbingly loud, fun and entertaining piece of popcorn cinema. Yes, this film is not going to break any new grounds in cinematic history (though in terms of piecing together a cast so manly and testosterone-fueled it may). Stallone will not have found his inner-Bergman or even his closeted-McTiernan. What The Expendables has shown would be how Stallone knows exactly what his core audience wants to see.

His film is quite lean to the level of anorexic when one has to describe it’s plot and characters. The film’s main plot involves Stallone and his band of expert mercenaries (using the film’s title as their name) being hired by a Mr. Church (Bruce Willis in an uncredited cameo) who wants them to overthrow a certain dictator-general who rules a small South American island nation called Vilena. Stallone and his writers try to add some complexities to this set-up of past CIA dealings with the general and rogue agents (sounds like rogue CIA agents are the villains of the season for 2010 with The Losers and The A-Team also having their own rogue agent) and daddy issues. But all that was just gristle that could’ve been taken out of the porterhouse that this film ended up being.

The Expendables works best when bought into it as being a throwback, meat and potatoes type of action flick. It definitely owes much to the many action flicks that got churned out for film and direct-to-video in the hundreds during the 80’s. Even the casting brings to mind the typical casting list of 80’s action. Take the most recognizable (then move down the tiers) action stars of the day, put them together, add guns and explosions and you got yourself an actioner. And boy does this flick have tons of explosions and a veritable buffet table of weapons on-hand. My favorite has to be the AA-12 assault shotgun carried by Terry Crews’ character Caesar. A character who seemed written just someone will come into an action scene firing this most awesome of weapons. When Crews’ Caesar does put the AA-12 into use the theater I was in erupted in cheers (yeah, cheering nameless soldiers getting shotgunned off their feet seems tackless, but oh so fun!).

I really don’t need to go too much into the plot in detail. What I had mentioned earlier and what Lisa Marie has already written pretty much explains everything. The film’s cast of past and current action stars have chemistry together. Though I will say that the chemistry may be just due to the fact that they all are in on the joke while making the film. They seem to know not to take the screenplay seriously and just go with the flow of the action. We’re not watching a film about Stallone’s character interacting with Statham’s or Rourke’s or Li’s. We’re watching Stallone shooting the shit with the others and there just happened to be cameras around them rolling. The only thing missing from the non-action scenes between the cast members were stripper poles, dancers and a few Hell’s Angels bikers doing boucner duties (maybe the director’s cut edition of the dvd/blu-ray will put those back in).

Now, what would a Stallone flick be without talking about the action. While the action scenes are not revolutionary and not even stylisticly different the way the action in The Losers and The A-Team were shot again Stallone stuck to 80’s meat-and-potatoes. The action scenes were reminiscent of scenes from Commando, Rambo: First Blood Part II and Die Hard. It was a by-the-numbers, point a to point b style of filming an action scene that audiences will accept with a nostalgic smile or dismiss as being boring and been-there-done-that. The one thing Stallone added to these scenes which made them feel somewhat fresh and new was the brutal and gory way people reactedwhen their clumsiness made them get in the way of the thousands of bullets, shotgun shells and explosions. Stallone first showed this in its over-the-top glory in his previous film, Rambo, and he uses the same style in a slightly more subdued way in this film.

I will like to point out one particular action sequence which was brief but done with a certain panache that convinced me that Stallone should just crank out action flicks for the rest of his career. I’m talking about a point in the middle section of the flick when Stallone and Statham use their team seaplane to strafe then firebomb the waterfront docks in Vilena. Part of me knew what was going to happen when they began their run but by the time it ended I was smiling like a goofy 8-year old kid watching his first rated-R action movie. Yeah, The Expendables definitely plucked the nostalgia strings in this film-fan’s heart.

One other way to look at this flick is to compare it to Stallone’s Rambo which also had a mercenary team who unwittingly becomes sidekick to Rambo by the film’s end. I, and more than a few other reviewers, where actually interested in seeing a film with Rambo and said mercenary team in a film together. While such a film would’ve been one of the most violent if not the stadard bearer if ever made we’ll just have to settle for a more tame version with The Expendables. Maybe this flick will make that particular spin-off happen down the line.

I would like to say that The Expendables had more to offer than the guns, explosions and overwhelming aura of testosterone, but I’d lying if I did. That’s all one needed to know going into the theater to watch this flick. To expect anymore, even a decent dialogue, would be asking for sauteed mushrooms and artichokes when all that’s needed is that porterhouse cooked just above rare and a six-pack of brews. Just think of The Expendables as that kind of meal and one will enjoy the bloody fun being had by all on the big-screen.

Film Review: The Expendables (Dir. by Sylvester Stallone)

Posted on August 13, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I know that I really should have hated The Expendables. For one thing, it’s a very, traditional, let’s-blow-up-Eric-Roberts-and-save-the-damsel-in-distress action film. Storywise — well, there really isn’t a story beyond a bunch of inarticulate, muscle-bound men blowing shit up. The Expendables is perhaps the most hyper-masculine film since Avatar, the type of movie that was obviously not made with anyone possessing a brain or a vagina in mind.

In short, the Expendables is the type of mainstream, action movie that — based on everything I’ve ever written on this site — I should have hated. But you know what? I didn’t hate it. I’m not saying that I loved the movie (because I certainly did not) but on the whole, The Expendables is a fun movie and sometimes, that’s more than enough.

The Expendables are a group of mercenaries, led by Sylvester Stallone and Jason Stathan. They are, of course, the best at what they do. They must be as their existence is apparently a well-kept secret despite the fact that they all have prominent Expendables tattoos and all they drive motorcycles covered with colorful Expendable decals. So, the question is — can you accept the fact that the movie tells us the Expendables are a secret even though they clearly would never be able to pull that off in real life? If the answer is yes, read on. And if the answer is no, please don’t ever talk to me because you probably lack a proper appreciation for the absurd.

Anyway, The Expendables are hired by Mr. Church. Mr. Church is played by Bruce Willis who, in his very short scene, manages to chew up more scenery than a termite in heat. (That’s a lot of scenery.) Mr. Church wants the Expendables to go to a poor, island nation and overthrow the military dictator. Or something like that. To be honest, I never really figured out what the exact mission was other than it involved blowing a lot of shit up.

Oh, I nearly forgot to mention that Eric Roberts is on the island too. He’s a bad guy. You know he’s a bad guy because he’s always stopping the action to tauntingly explain his evil plans. (It also helps that he’s played by Eric Roberts.) Roberts is a bit of let down as a villain and its hard not to feel that his performance was basically made up of deleted scenes from The Dark Knight. Then again, in Roberts’ defense, he’s having to compete with memories of Jason Patric playing a similar character in The Losers.

If Roberts’ villain is disappointing, the Expendables themselves are played well enough. While Sylvester Stallone is hardly a great actor, he knows how to play an action hero and he brings just the right mix of self-aware parody and self-righteous fury to his role. His second-in-command is played by Jason Stathan who displays something resembling charisma for the 1st time in his odd film career. The other Expendables don’t get much to do beyond deliver a few quirky lines of dialogue and blow stuff up. One of them is played by Jet Li who dominates his few scenes even though he doesn’t really get to do much. Another Expendable is played by the Old Spice Guy who, according to Wikipedia, is actually a pro-athlete named Terry Crews. However, all of the Expendables appear to enjoy hanging out together. You get the feeling that they had a good time making this movie and, as a result, you feel almost guilty for worrying about stuff like logic or ambiguity.

The main selling point of The Expendables is that it apparently features every single action star in existence. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger gets to make a largely pointless cameo and deliver the film’s worst one liners while, in real life, the state he’s supposed to be running descends further and further into financial doom. While I recognized Stallone, Stathan, Willis, Roberts, Mickey Rourke, and Jet Li, apparently everyone else in the cast used to be someone at some point as well. Luckily, I saw this movie with my friend Jeff who got very excited as he explained to me who everyone was and why their presence on-screen was making all the men in the audience so positively giddy. To be honest, I think I probably actually understood a little less than a fourth of the information that Jeff provided me with but he was so incredibly cute trying to explain it all.

(I imagine I probably gave him the same look that he gave me when I attempted to explain Sex and the City 2 to him.)

As I explained at the start of this review, the Expendables is not, technically, a good film but it is a lot of fun. As opposed to the Avatars of the world, the Expendables is a movie that is at peace with what it is. There’s no attempt to try to fool the audience into thinking that they’re seeing a work of art. There’s something to be said for that type of honesty, especially when you consider that we’re approaching that time in the film season when every movie is going to be marketed as a sure-fire Oscar contender.

And if the film is a hyperactive overload of testosterone — well, it is what it is. After sitting through hundreds of films based on books by Nicholas Sparks, all featuring Miley Cyrus, Emma Roberts, or Amanda Seyfried haunting the beach all to win the love of some sensitive lifeguard eunuch, there’s something undeniably appealing about watching a bunch of guys acting like guys. Zac Efron might have the heart and soul of poet but can he blow shit up?