Hallmark Review: All Yours (2016, dir. Monika Mitchell)

Posted on April 10, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

I’m really glad my cable box told me what movie I was watching cause that title card sure doesn’t do a good job of it. It would be perfectly natural for someone to look at that and think it says Aee Yours before they realized it said All Yours.

Have you ever wanted to see the TV Show Melissa & Joey condensed down to about 90 minutes without a good reason for the smart guy to become a nanny, not much humor, and not much chemistry between Mom and the nanny? Neither did I. To be fair, I’ve been a big fan of Melissa & Joey for years. When I saw that Hallmark had a movie called The Manny in production, I wasn’t too jazzed. They appeared to have changed the title at the last minute though. I mean you can still see in the credits that the movie was made by Manny Productions Inc.

I think what happened was that at the last minute they got the rights to use I’m Yours by Jason Mraz. They probably figured the title All Yours not only fit with the song, but that it sounded more like the generic greeting card titles that Hallmark likes to use.

I mentioned that I’m a big fan of Melissa & Joey so I was constantly comparing it to that show while watching it. That’s only partly fair because that had many many many hours to develop all of the stuff I mentioned before, while this only had an hour and a half. I will try to be reasonable with the film.

The movie begins and we are introduced to Cass McKay (Nicollette Sheridan). She’s a lawyer. The case she’s arguing doesn’t matter. All the case part does for her character is establish that she is a good and busy lawyer. What this film does here is interrupt her argument over and over to cut to her kids at home.

The son’s sister runs up into his treehouse. You gotta put that No Girls Allowed sign where she can see it. She could argue that it wasn’t displayed properly at his establishment so she had every right to go up there. Believe it or not, these scenes are not just to establish that Cass needs a nanny. They are not just to establish that they need a nanny who can put up with the kids’ hijinks either. One of the excuses the daughter gives for getting up in the treehouse is because the son doesn’t use it anyways since he is afraid of heights. This getting over his fear of heights part of the story will be the equivalent to the bridge from Love, Again for example. Or, to use Melissa & Joey as an example, it’s the equivalent of when Joey finds and talks Lennox off the roof in the first episode of the show, thus proving his worth as a nanny. There will be a similar thing with the daughter playing the violin.

Now we get what I always show in these reviews.

I think they did a good job here. They hid the Canadian cellphone provider by having her connected to the courthouse WiFi. It also looks like they modified the screen too. It’s probably a screenshot she is looking at rather than the real interface. Regardless, good work.

Now we cut to the house to chew out the kids and introduce us to Grandma played by Jayne Eastwood.

I always like looking up these actors who I don’t immediately recognize such as Eastwood here. Wow! She seems to have been in everything under the sun. She’s been in what appears to be a sexploitation flick called My Pleasure Is My Business in the 70s, SCTV; Videodrome; and Care Bears in the 80s, the TV Show Goosebumps in the 90s, My Big Fat Greek Wedding; the remake of Dawn of the Dead; Degrassi: TNG; Chicago; and the musical remake of Hairspray in the 2000s, and in a variety of TV Shows and movies along with My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 in the 2010s. At the time of writing this, she has 215 acting credits on IMDb since her first one in 1970. Amazing!

Now we get something pretty awesome. Yes, we get a brief shot of the future nanny named Matthew Walker played by Dan Payne, but who cares when we have this shot.

Care to take a guess at where this shot was taken? It’s on the sign and attached to the flag pole. Times up! It’s Denmark. No joke. That restaurant is at Nordre Beddingsvej 17, 3390 Hundested, Denmark. I have no idea why they use this shot a couple of times, but they do. I’ve seen Hallmark movies shot in the Los Angeles area, all over Canada, and even a pseudo-Hallmark movie shot in Scotland. Denmark is a new one on me. The rest of the movie is shot in the Hallmark favorite of Langely, British Columbia. If anyone involved in the production of this movie knows why this shot ended up in the movie, then please leave a comment.

Now we go inside and meet Matthew’s father Charles played by Michael Kopsa.

Michael Kopsa is another one of these actors that has had a long and eclectic career. He’s been in some major films such Watchmen (2009) and Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), but he goes back to the late 70s and early 80s where he got his start doing English dub work for the TV Show Mobile Suit Gundam as well as two of the movies. One of which he appears to have done the English voice of the main character: Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack (1988). Always worth taking advantage of IMDb while you watch movies.

He is here to talk to Grandma about his son. His son is the typical well educated guy who really found what he learned in college isn’t his thing so he’s been drifting around. A real world example of a guy like this is Huey Lewis of Huey Lewis and the News. Lewis is a bit of a math genius and attended Cornell. However, he found out it wasn’t his thing and drifted around playing music before settling down and starting his music career. His father was a doctor. That’s kind of how Charles describes his son. Charles is a developer who wants to tear down and redevelop the marina. His son isn’t a fan of that idea. I’m not either considering the marina never really looks like it’s in need of that kind of work during the film. What happens here is that Charles, Grandma, and Matthew strike a deal. Matthew will take a job as a nanny to Cass’ kids, and his father will reconsidering the redeveloping the marina. They keep that a secret from Cass. There’s your setup.

Oh, and they knew each other as kids so that they already come pre-packaged with some basis for their romance. Despite recognizing him, Grandma trying to make the hard sell, the kids obviously already liking him, and them already knowing each other, when Nicolette Sheridan gives you this look,…

then you know she means business.

Next we get introduced to Henry played by Lochlyn Munro who is kind of the wrong guy, but won’t play that role to the degree that we usually see in other Hallmark movies. On the good wrong guy to the weirdo in Christmas Land wrong guy, I’d say he sits somewhere in the middle leaning towards the decent wrong guy.

During the entire film I kept thinking that I had seen this guy before. After the film I checked the credits and realized it’s you cut to me before I had my wig on Burger King from In The Name of the King: Two Worlds (2011).

In the Name of the King: Two Worlds (2011, dir. Uwe Boll)

We meet him as Cass is introduced to a new court case. It is between two tech billionaires that have brought a case against each other so that their reconciliation as old friends can parallel the story between Cass and Matthew. It also adds a bit of a procedural element to the film that lets Matthew edge his way further into her life rather than having a separation of work and home since he went to law school too.

After suddenly needing to be called back to help the kids, Cass gives in and hires Matthew. That’s when she introduces him to the big calendar that will show us at what point Cass is in her character arc based on how much she breaks it and gets involved in the events listed on it. Then Matthew does something that pisses me off. He points out that Monday and Tuesday are reversed on the calendar.

Dammit, Dan Payne! You’re taking away work from cynical Hallmark critics like myself who like to point out flaws in these movies.

Anyways, she then gives him a phone to remind future viewers that this movie was released near Easter.

Also, it definitely doesn’t come in black. It’s not that kind of bunny, Matthew!

The next big thing is when he takes them to school. They actually don’t hide the name of the school at all in this movie. They say it’s Yorkson Elementary School, and it is. Well, sort of. It’s actually Yorkson Middle School, but close enough. It’s at 20686 84 Ave, Langley, BC V2Y 2B5, Canada. It’s new too because you can see it was in construction a few years ago on Google Maps.

They also bring up again that the girl’s equivalent to her brother’s height issue is playing the violin during this scene.

He takes them rock climbing. This is where we really find out that the boy has issues with heights. So of course, Matthew does what anybody would do.

He builds mini rock climbing walls in the backyard. Pretty cool actually.

This is the point in my reviews when I say you’ve got it now. The rest of the movie is kind of on autopilot. The stuff between Matthew and the kids is really the highlight of the movie. It’s not like Melissa & Joey where there’s more a balance in the quality of interaction between the nanny and Mom as well as the kids. He does have his moments with Cass, but the main focus is on his time with the kids. Cass kind of comes for free with Matthew helping the kids. That’s the way it felt to me while watching it.

The son gets over his fear.

The daughter plays the electric violin in the talent show at the end of the film.

There is of course a last minute speed bump. I think having that is in the Hallmark writing bible that they give anyone who is going to make films for them. However, it really does make sense here given how they set things up and all. Does she overreact? Yes, she does, but she comes around and they kiss at the end of the talent show.

Do I recommend it? Maybe marginally. I liked October Kiss better as a Hallmark nanny love story. If you want the the nanny to be a guy, then I really do recommend Melissa & Joey. The best part of the movie I would say is with the kids played by Genea Charpentier and Kiefer O’Reilly.

Here are the songs:

Sci-Fi Review: Trancers 6 (2002, dir. Jay Woelfel)

Posted on April 5, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

Technically this movie doesn’t begin with the title card. It actually starts by telling us Full Moon Pictures and Young Wolf Productions present that title card. The ‘6’ is huge as if to say, “seriously we made a 6th one of these.” Trancers 4 & 5 may have been sad, but that was because it was terrible seeing Tim Thomerson and his iconic role reduced to such garbage. This one doesn’t even have Thomerson in it. It’s just a terrifically bad movie. Nevertheless, let’s have some fun with it.

The film begins with a guy watching footage from the end of the movie before he realizes he too is in Trancers 6.

There’s only one thing to do when you see shot on video footage made to look even worse of a woman trying to stab another woman to death. That’s to get up, play with some switches, and then break the news to stock footage from the previous Trancers movies that time travel is going to happen again. During this we also get a voice inserted that isn’t Thomerson to say a line they couldn’t find in one of the previous movies. You might be wondering if it at least sounds like Thomerson. Nope!

Stock footage Deth is not happy about this. But before Trancers III Jack can argue his way out,…

Trancers III (1993, dir. C. Courtney Joyner)

he is sent into the future of 2006 to make a cameo appearance in Evil Bong, an extra that doesn’t look like Thomerson appears on a slab,…

Trancers (1984, dir. Charles Band)

and the film cuts back to Old Los Angeles of 2022.

So 6 years from now and 300 years 1 minute 49 seconds earlier from the opening scenes. Seriously, it says that second thing.

Moving on! We now meet Jack’s ancestor, but for a few minutes as herself. Her name is Josephine Forrest played by the only actor I’m going to credit on this film named Zette Sullivan. It’s bad enough I have to remind people she was in this movie. This was her second, and last role she ever did. Kinda sad because despite what follows, she didn’t deserve to disappear from films.

She’s an astronomer with an apartment where she can look through her telescope from the comfort of her own couch. That’s weird. She sees a meteor shower happen. She records where it was and calls it in. She is told to be careful, but she has no idea what that means. Doesn’t matter. That meteor shower thing will barely factor into this movie. Now she sets down her bowl of slop to look at her fish tank before knocking the bowl over.

This is a very important scene you see. The reason is because she says, “Oh, shoot!” You see what they did there? Flash! Fall! Get up!

“That was an ass breaker of a ride.” Other lines. “Shit! I need to clear my head.” That’s how we know for sure that Zette Sullivan has been given direction to stop acting like a regular person who has watched too many Jimmy Stewart movies and to begin channelling her inner Humphrey Bogart.

“I woke up this morning with a bad hangover
And my penis was missing again
This happens all the time
It’s detachable”

-Detachable Penis by King Missile

Of course she goes to the fridge to get a drink. Yes, I am going to call her a her despite it supposedly being Jack inside of her. I don’t want to sully the character’s good name by pretending he’s actually here. In the fridge, she finds everyone’s worst nightmare: tofu, non-fat yogurt, beet juice, and carrot juice.

“Oh, my God! What a fucking nightmare!”
-My Cousin Vinny (1992)

Then she finally realizes she’s a woman now. By that I mean she looks at her hands, her breasts, then looks in the mirror.

That’s it. I’m sorry, but this is what happens if you have a penis and suddenly discover it isn’t there.

Switch (1991, dir. Blake Edwards)

That’s when Breasts walk into the room.

He is the ancestor of the guy from the beginning of the movie. He tells her that Josephine is Jack’s daughter. How much of a role will he play in this movie? Barely any. Aside from that piece of information, he’s just here to tell us his ancestor was a “ho” and give Josephine some stuff like a gun. That, and to have tits in the movie. I love that he brought along with him three pictures of the exact same thing to give to her.

Those are pictures of her being stabbed to death. A fate she needs to stop from happening.

Now she goes over to her desk to find out some information on herself. I would make fun of the CRT monitors on her desk, but who cares. There’s funnier things than that.

The next morning she gets her gun and threatens a pair of pantyhose with it before struggling to get them on.

I would love to believe that’s why she goes with a long skirt, but considering other things that happen in this movie. I just believe they thought they needed that scene because you will never see her have any problems with heels, makeup, or any of that stuff from now on. I’m actually glad about the heels part. Movies really over-exaggerate the difficulty of wearing them. The pantyhose thing is actually refreshing.

Make note of the outfit. She thinks this cool red car is hers. Make note of the red car too. After realizing the car isn’t hers, but the other car next to it, the camera cuts and…

I’m pretty sure the color of her top just changed. It could just be the lighting changing the color of the top. Regardless, make note of the purse. The movie won’t remember.

Now she arrives at work and…

is that a bright blue top now? The purse handle certainly is longer. What happened to her cardigan? Just in case you thought she might have left it in the car, the film cuts to the next scene at a hot dog stand to assure us that it did indeed forget she wasn’t wearing it in the previous scene.

There’s that long purse handle too. This scene exists to introduce us to these people who will show up later because otherwise they would need to hire more actors.

Then as she is heading into work…

she appears to have changed again back into the more beige version of the top. Damn Trancers! Before, they were just killing people, but now they are destroying all continuity.

She walks in front of the secretary so we can see that the cardigan has disappeared yet again.

It’s a magic cardigan!

Now we meet the short-lived Eddie Deezen of this movie.

Hmm…do I make the joke, or do I restrain myself? Nah! The movie is garbage. It deserves all the jokes I can come up with so I can get through this.

WarGames (1983, dir. John Badham)

I think it’s fair to say this Eddie Deezen has backdoors in mind while looking at Josephine. However, in the movie, he just reminds her that she sat at the wrong desk after giving her creepy stares and she moves over to her computer.

Remember kids, “Mondays Are Fundays.” I think Bob Geldolf & The Boomtown Rats would disagree. Even The Bangles would say that Sundays are in fact the Fundays. Okay, enough music jokes…for now. After clicking on the icon in the center of the screen without a mouse cursor and seeing that her meteor sightings were denied, a flight attendant comes to get her.

She is there to take her to see Mr. Castle and again to introduce us to an actor who will come back around again. Josephine takes a good look at her butt before going in to meet with him just to remind us that her sexual orientation has not been altered because of the gender body swap. If you didn’t get it this time, then don’t worry. The film will remind you again of this fact later. Believe it or not, at that point, it actually serves a real purpose in the story. This is an odd Full Moon production because it appears to try to send a message of being a strong woman, not smoking, not drinking, living a healthy lifestyle, and about fighting back when people try to prey on your weakness given your apparent position in society. Well, sort of. Just think of it as some marbling in the pile of cow dung.

Now Josephine sits down to talk with Mr. Castle. Blah, blah, blah, something exploded into the Earth even though we didn’t see that happen, blah, blah blah, you saw a gaseous explosion above the Earth’s atmosphere, and she’s fired.

After having a conversation with a security guard, we find out that this Eddie Deezen isn’t the jackass he appeared to be. He’s a Trancer jackass.

She proceeds to fight him. Oh, and he talks too. These must be the Trancers from the third film on, minus any real strength. He tells her that Mr. Castle wants her dead, breaks free, turns into pixels, jumps out of a window,…

and then dissolves on the ground.

That’s when Jim Walls…

appears to tell Josephine she didn’t follow proper trooper procedure and sends her back to try again.

After getting a call, Josephine is off to meet her astronomer friend at an observatory who apparently…

is still living in 1991 according to that poster behind him. The doctor confirms her findings about a meteor crashing into the Earth, and bad guys show up. All you need to know is that the long second works even better than before. You start to use it with your hair up,…

then the camera cuts to put your hair down,…

followed by the long second getting activated which puts your hair up again,…

and finally as you run away, your hair is down again.

Yes, that is the car from the parking lot earlier that she thought was hers. No reason for it to be the same car, but it is. She gets in that car and mows down a Trancer on the ground before getting out to shoot another one with her hair up again.

Now she bends down to take the dead Trancer’s jacket, but pops back up with her hair down again.

She also takes his pants because clearly those are her size. This part happened before she popped up with her hair down again.

The movie now briefly cuts back to the future to show the guy playing with a computer followed by fake Jack being attacked by ripple special effects.

Josephine follows one of the Trancers from the observatory and Breasts shows up to talk to her. He tells her that she is fading in the future so she better make sure her parents get together at the Enchantment Under The Sea dance. He actually says she is fading up the line because of her potential failure in the past.

Now we are off to the last main set of the movie, and the movie still has an hour to go. She gets there by following a white truck that picked up three Trancers that were hanging out nearby. Her first encounter at this shanty town/base of operations is with a guy I call Lucas.

The Wizard (1989, dir. Todd Holland)

However, since she doesn’t have the Power Glove, he takes her in. They stick her in a room with a musical reference.

“Who draws the crowd and plays so loud, baby, it’s the guitar man
Who’s gonna steal the show, you know, baby, it’s the guitar man
He can make you love, he can make you cry
He will bring you down and he’ll get you high
Somethin’ keeps him goin’ miles and miles a day
To find another place to play”

-The Guitar Man by Bread

This is where the sexual orientation part actually has a purpose. He is dirty. They pretend he is one of the many transients who has been taken in by the bad guys to be turned into Trancers. The reason it matters is because he offers to have sex with her, and she tells him she isn’t into guys. That rules out a way he can get close to her in order to mislead her. That’s the last time it’s brought up. It’s better than that whole thing in Switch where he doesn’t have sex with the one girl because even though he is in a woman’s body and loves girl on girl, he is supposedly so homophobic that he can’t do it. It sounds even dumber when I write it out.

I forgot to mention that Bad, Bad, Hot Dog Man from earlier is here too.

He’s the baddest hot dog vender in the whole damn town.

I couldn’t resist. It’s going to be awhile till I can reference it properly in a review of Sneakers (1992) where you get to hear it sung by some Chinese guys.

This is when the Waitress In The Sky…

shows up to tell us she is now Hell Bent For Leather…

and give an inspirational speech to her people. She tells them that the ray gun attached to a fake meteor is going to make them powerful so they can fight back against the system. This lady volunteers…

and turns into this.

Remember that she looks like that after she is zapped because the movie will forget it when they go to zap Josephine even though it does that with every single other person. All Josephine will do is act like Kristen Stewart in Twilight: New Moon (2009), and they all believe she has been Tranced.

Some guy is brought in and torn apart by two of the Tranced ladies. Then they are taken to two people having a barbecue who they kill before being singed by Hot Dog vendor.

That’s when the film cuts to Flight Attendant and Castle. They do some plotting here that no one cares about. The importance of this scene is to remind us there actually was a crew that worked on this movie because we can see their reflection in the TV screen.

Now we get a random sex scene between Flight Attendant and The Guitar Man. This is apparently how he reports to her. His penis must tell her somehow. Even more random, it cuts to things like this during the scene.

This is now only halfway through the movie. Yep!

Flight Attendant keeps saying she is helping these extras who are about 20 years late to be zombies in Day of the Dead (1985). This stuff goes on and on and on.

I do like this guy in the background though who is training by lifting a road sign.

This is how she looks after she has been supposedly Tranced even though everyone else looked like a zombie afterwards.

She dodged it using another long second Breasts gave her. There’s also a thing about Flight Attendant’s butt knocking this over…

even though it will have no purpose in the film that I could discern.

Now Josephine is sent off to bring in her scientist friend. He’s just brought in to provide convenient items when the plot needs them. Also, just before he is taken it looks like somebody’s hand appears slightly in the bottom left hand corner of the screen.

You’ve got the movie now. They all just hang out at this place while the scientist is forced to work on improving their Trancing so they can replace people in power. They do this till enough time has run out on the movie for the final showdown to occur. I’m not going to waste your time with a blow by blow of this part. Let’s cut to the fight, and summarize it with a musical number!

*piano music start*

Again! Run, Shoot, Shoot, Fight, Shoot, Aim

Right! That connects with turn, Turn, go outside building, go inside building, Jump, Run, Run, Kick, Kick, Leap, Kick, Aim

Going on! And turn, Turn, Shoot, Duck, Back Up, Run, Pivot, Run, Walk, Walk, Walk

Now imagine that whole combination facing towards the cameras, and you have the battle.

There are a couple of plot things here such as the meteor being the source of the Trancing ray. It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t. They don’t even use it consistently. One minute it turns people into Trancers, then it’s just turning them mindless, then it’s blowing up ground, and then it’s making cars disappear.

The scientist gets stabbed in the back, the Flight Attendant gets her head blown off, and then boom!

With that done, Josephine returns to kill Mr. Castle who turns out to be an alien.

Now the movie actually sequel baits big time that Josephine is the new Jack Deth going out to hunt down the remaining Trancers. It seems like they really thought this would reboot the franchise.

Everything is wrong with this movie. I honestly can’t give you one redeeming quality here other than maybe the pantyhose thing. The sad thing is that I can think of a way this possibly could have been saved. Rather than having Jack go back into the body of his daughter, have him end up in McNulty’s ancestor instead. The girl played by actress Alyson Croft who was not only in the original film as that character, but in the sequel too. She was good and pulled off the seasoned male cop in a young woman’s body well. I would have brought her back and just made up some nonsense that this time something happened causing Jack to end up in the wrong body. Quantum Leap broke the rules one time for that Civil War episode so Sam Beckett could take credit for saving Martin Luther King’s ancestor and giving him his last name. Why couldn’t they have just done that here? Croft was only 27 when this movie came out too so she certainly would have been young enough for Full Moon. What a shame.

I just probably gave this particular installment in the Trancers series more attention than anyone else or that it even deserved. Well, we have one more to go after this. We will be going back to the original second Trancers movie that was made as part of an anthology film called Pulse Pounders (1988) and released on its own only a couple of years ago.

Following The Amazon Prime Recommendation Worm #8: Oliviero Rising (2007), A Scandalous Journey (2002), Little Lili (2003), Blindspot (2008)

Posted on March 30, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

I had to get these four out before they completely faded from my memory. We do have more misleading Amazon Prime posters, which I know is what you really come for with these posts so I will try not to disappoint. Sadly, I do have the first film on this list to bring you. I think it will end up being the worst movie I see this year. It will really take something awful to beat it. Here we go!

Oliviero Rising (2007, dir. Riki Roseo) – I know you can’t hear it, but I am chuckling as I am writing this. First off, that’s a scene from the very end of the film. Second off:

Thirdly, they didn’t even get the right title in their fake poster. Here’s the realistic poster for the movie. Sort of.

Fourth, the plot summary on IMDb has nothing to do with the movie: “A young and charming employee (Gallo) finds himself victim of an ‘office intrigue’ engineered by his attractive female boss.” Finally, I’m pretty sure that the “Rising” in Oliviero Rising refers to Vincent Gallo’s penis. I’m not kidding. The story is about Gallo getting over his mentally induced erectial disfunction. Shall we talk about this a bit? It does have a scene I can’t avoid telling you about. Shivers just ran down my spine.

Usually when I write about these movies I just watch them on the big screen so I don’t have screenshots to share. Sometimes there’s that rare film that causes me to stop and switch to my iPad. This was one of them. As a result, I do have a few of them to share.

The movie begins and we meet Oliviero who appears to drive a tuck for a living. We see him stop the truck and lift up air without showing the actual person in the scene. I’m pretty sure that Gallo wasn’t present for this scene or any of the truck driving parts. We see later that air is a baby porcupine. After a really weird and inappropriate scene with a psychiatrist, Gallo and his family are off to Italy. They are there for a family funeral. Nothing really happens there except bad directing. Here’s the “highlights”, if I dare to call them that.

Ernest Borgnine riding while singing in a pink cadillac with a suit of armor in the back seat.

A small jump cut as Ernest Borgnine rolls in the armor because either he wasn’t actually there or he knocked it over so they reshot it from the point where it fell over. There is a lot of lazy and awkward editing in this movie. Some of it very obviously done because not all the actors were there or sets couldn’t be used at the time they were needed.

Enest Borgnine not putting his penis into her vagina meaning he is screwin’ the cushion. I know Borgnine shows up in many different films in much the same way Whoopi Goldberg does, but this? Why? Why? Why?

This is the “Superior Seduction” the poster was referring to.

She tries to seduce him, which he has no interest in.

I must apologize, but I don’t have the scene with Vincent Schiavelli who you may recall as the angry subway ghost from Ghost (1990). He is trying to help Oliviero get over his ED. He actually stops, looks into the camera, and lectures women in the audience about their alleged worship of the penis. First off, I’m sure lesbians are rather indifferent towards the penis. They probably just feel men’s pain for all the weird things it does out their control. If a straight girl leaves you because you can’t get it up or keep your penis hard, then she is a horrible person. She is the guy who leaves a straight girl because her sex drive has taken a dip. Penises are weird. People with that equipment are not lying or exaggerating when they say it has a mind of its own. It takes a fair amount of work to try and get any modicum of control of it during sex. However, none of this translates to worship of the penis.

There is also the scene where Gallo’s wife has sex with his girlfriend because he can’t get it up for her. Seriously. Wife gets frustrated, goes right over to the girlfriend’s room, and they have sex while Gallo is in the hallway.

I think Ernest Borgnine summed up my feelings about this movie when he walks past the bones in the castle and tells them, “fuck you”.

A Scandalous Journey (2002, dir. Michele Placido) – If by scandalous you mean the story of a woman who writes poetry, meets a guy, then seems to stop writing, and instead supports her now mentally disturbed husband who also writes before he winds up in a mental institution. It’s not scandalous in the slightest. It has a beginning and an end. So I guess it technical it is a journey since they don’t stay in one spot the whole time. That’s really it. The rest is just how much you like good performances in a really boring story that grates on your nerves. I wish I could provide you with more details, but this was so incredibly forgettable that I can’t. I remember the next one more and it was forgettable, but at least it had an irredeemable asshole that the film is blind to seeing as such. That made it stick in my mind more. Even the more realistic poster is misleading.

You basically get a film made by an Italian director who probably wishes this was still the era of films like The Night of the Shooting Stars (1982) or 1900 (1976). It isn’t. Moving on.

Little Lili (2003, dir. Claude Miller) – Wow! They’re “Young & Hungry For Fame.” I could understand if they were just young, but also hungry for fame? This is clearly going be story about Ludivine Sagnier who is so hungry for fame that she’ll sleep with Robinson Stevenin to get to the top. I mean what else are you going to read from that poster? Well, I read that this is a movie based on a play by Chekov about a young pretentious self-loving asshole who makes a shitty short film that his family defends as if he is some guardian of pure unadulterated cinema as characters wander around to make sure we spend way too much time with this twit before the movie decides it has no idea how to redeem the character so it suddenly leaps over many years where he is now going to reshoot the events of the film on an artificial looking set that belongs in a Douglas Sirk movie before the film finally ends. That’s what I see. I also see that dickwad we are told to cheer for not listed on the poster. That character is played by Bernard Giraudeau who of course went on to do next to nothing after this film rather then the two actors whose names are on the poster. Oh, and after it leaps over all that time, he’s still a jerk who looks down with contempt at people who dare to not make shitty foreign films like the one you will be seeing if you watch this movie. Also, it continues to remind you of better directors, films, and actors throughout. I think I even spotted a reference to Rohmer’s film Claire’s Knee (1970). Amazing! Stay as far as you can from this garbage. I want the film that poster promised me. It sounds stupid, but I doubt it’s as bad as this thing was.

Blindspot (2008, dir. Ad Bol) – The poster is certainly accurate about “You cannot see.” I could barely make out the opening scenes because they were so dark. That was followed by the remainder of the film that I couldn’t understand. The movie begins with a woman doing a weird dance before she wakes up. It was a nightmare. Then we see a guy take a woman hostage in a room. I thought things were going to progress there, but then it seemed to come apart when they were talking, but it was in a voiceover while they were in clearly different places. After that, it goes off to tell the story of some guy who gets involved with a woman who died and her sister who needs to confront her father about him abusing both of them as children. There are some affairs in here. How any of this ties together, especially with the opening scenes, I have no idea. It’s a confusing mess. I wanted to scream at the director that if he didn’t know how to this kind of non-linear plot, then to stop trying. It didn’t help that it would suddenly cut at odd times. There is also an audio lead-in that I think was the only one in the movie and it only adds to the viewer’s frustration. Hell, this could have been linear, but it was so disorienting that I couldn’t tell. Skip!

Sadly, I can’t recommend a single one of these this time. Maybe I’ll have better luck next time.

Film Review: The Heroic Trio (1993, dir. Johnnie To)

Posted on March 27, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

Jeez! It seems like it was just yesterday when I remembered that a Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman movie was coming out this month. Now Ryan already has his review of it up. Here I am sitting on this, the sequel called Executioners (1993), and way more Batman and Superman movies than I care to list left to review. With that in mind, I’d better get on it if I want to even finish by the end of the next month, or the month after that.

I have done several Superman movies and a Batman movie already. That Batman movie technically had Wonder Woman right near the end, but I wasn’t comfortable with that alone. Aside from the 1974 TV Movie, this movie, and it’s sequel, were the only ones that popped up as having a Wonder Woman in them. Even IMDb lists the character of Tung as Wonder Woman. She doesn’t exactly look or act like you would expect Wonder Woman to act. In fact, my subtitles call her Super Heroine and the version on Netflix calls her Shadow Fox. But the movie has Maggie Cheung, Michelle Yeoh, and Anita Mui playing superheroes in a reworking of The Terminator/Terminator 2/Lady Terminator. By The Terminator, I mean the 1984 version. I think we can be fairly certain that director Johnnie To was unaware this version of The Terminator existed.

The Terminator (1991, dir. Ben Hernandez)

It is also filled with references to everything from Silver Streak (1976) to Remo Williams (1985) to the Flying Guillotine movies. I can’t really bring myself to feel mislead that I was going to get a Chinese Wonder Woman. By the way, I apologize in advance for all the references I’m sure I have missed. But, I don’t apologize for not including screenshots of the two scenes that no one needs to see if they don’t watch the film themselves.

The movie begins and we hear on the radio that 18 babies have been kidnapped in the last three months as a car pulls up at to an old house. This is when we meet Wonder Woman (Anita Mui), her husband Lau (Damian Lau), and the real estate agent. He takes them inside this dump that only really looks good from the outside. As he tries to sell it, he is also honest. You know, full disclosure and all that. He has to tell them that it is “structurally sound. It had a minor fire, that’s all.”

Lethal Weapon 3 (1992, dir. Richard Donner)

He quickly thinks that there’s no way he’s going to make a sale here. He even kicks at one of the pillars in the house causing it to fall down and a bird’s nest to land on his head.

However, much to Chinese Leo Getz’s surprise, she wants the place anyways. But you know what’s even more of a surprise? The next scene that happens right after they say they will take the house. I’ll explain it, show it, then give you my theory as to why it exists.

Her husband spots a guy outside trying to hot wire their car. He grabs a vine from the roof of the house and dives out the window with it like he’s Tarzan. After landing, he proceeds to use it to lasso the thief and yank him out of the car. He then hands the guy hand cuffs telling him to cuff himself, which he does. It then cuts to Wonder Woman and the real estate agent. He says, “He’s so cool,” to which she responds, “Of course, my hubby is a cop.” Here’s what it looks like.

No, it’s never brought up again. It’s as if the film just wanted you to know that Hong Kong cops can do that. Believe it or not, I have seen an otherwise unexplainable scene such as this somewhere else before. If memory serves, the movie is actually a favorite of Lisa’s. I haven’t seen it myself, but I have seen The Cinema Snob review of it. It’s a movie called Pieces (1982). There’s a scene where a girl on a college campus is walking around at night when out of nowhere a Chinese guy tries attacking her with martial arts before passing out next to her. A guy comes up to say it’s his Kung Fu professor. The Chinese guy gets up, apologizes saying he had some bad chop suey, and then walks off.

Pieces (1982 dir. Juan Piquer Simón)

The reason for it is that the producer of the movie Dick Randall also produced Bruceploitation movies. To give a little advertising for those films he had one of the Bruceploitation actors do that random scene. I figure there must be a similar explanation for why Damian Lau does this bit. It’s my best guess.

Next we cut to the police station where the Invisible Woman (Michelle Yeoh) is screwing with the cops.

We find out that all the babies that have been kidnapped are male babies. She leaves a threatening notice for the Commissioner that it will be his baby that is going to be kidnapped next. Now the movie cuts to a hospital.

This set is so 1993 that I thought the Super Mario Bros. might show up at any time.

Super Mario Bros. (1993, dir. Annabel Jankel & Rocky Morton)

After some talking, a lady asks why they can’t just call in Wonder Woman. That’s when the Invisible Woman tries to snatch two more babies. Well, not really. She picks them up and throws them out a window. These are special babies though because they take forever to fall to the ground. They take long enough for the guy in the window and a woman on the ground to have a conversation about which one to catch. Also, long enough for Wonder Woman to show up running across power lines to make her dramatic entrance.

She throws her equivalent of batarangs to pin the two babies to the wall, which are apparently still near the top of the building after all this has happened. Also, apparently the two batarangs come straight down on the babies, are then are shown in Wonder Woman’s hand, then come in horizontally to pin the babies to the wall. You know, something tells me this film isn’t very realistic and might have been rushed into production.

Wonder Woman spots some blood on the wall where the babies are and throws her batarangs at them thinking someone might be there. It obviously hits the Invisible Woman. Why it hits the wall yet still causes her to bleed is anyone’s guess. Maybe they just grazed her. Regardless, one of the babies flies off the wall while the other is taken away by the Invisible Woman. Wonder Woman then leaps into action and catches the baby with some rope who is still exerting its magic ability to defy the laws of gravity. She catches the baby with rope and yanks it towards her like her husband Tarzan Lau from the beginning. Maybe that scene was to tell us she learned that trick from her husband. I doubt it though cause the rest of the film will make it very clear to the viewer that he is just a regular cop while she is the superhero. Doesn’t matter. She tells her husband to have the blood on the wall looked into.

He doesn’t know it’s his wife because he has clearly contracted Lois Lane syndrome. She then calls her husband to tell him she will be late.

Now we cut to the Invisible Woman in a car with the baby she has kidnapped. Like all the movie’s I’ve been watching lately, we need to pull out the “of course” for this scene. Of course she heads for a random manhole and kicks it up with her foot. Of course after climbing down to the sewers they turn out to be the set for the bad guys. Of course she runs into this movie’s Arnold Terminator…

who proceeds to fight her, get his finger cutoff, and then eats it. Cause of course he does. Now we meet Robert Patrick Terminator crossed with Lady Terminator who is also on loan from the 70’s. I’ll just call him the Evil Kung Fu 1000.

He keeps saying that “China must have an emperor.” Funny that Maggie Cheung would go on to be in the film Hero (2002), which many consider to be Chinese government propaganda that said it was okay to slaughter a bunch of people if it meant unifying China. Those babies will not die in this movie. Maggie does kill a bunch of small children though who are down there rather than allowing them to become servants to this king of sorts. At the end of the movie, the babies will be found alive. Little side note, if you have only seen Hero, then watching The Emperor and The Assassin (1998) is essential. It’s a much better and realistic film about the same story.

Oh, and you see the children die. She throws dynamite into the group of them that are in chains. You can see the looks on their faces. You can see one of them fly in the air. You also see at least one of them piss themselves as they are dying. When it comes to this part, the movie doesn’t play any games like it does with the rest of the film. Remember, this film came out the same year as Farewell, My Concubine (1993) and The Blue Kite (1993), which certainly had the Chinese government’s panties in a twist. At this time Chinese studios were also entirely cutoff from government funding. I wouldn’t be surprised if Johnnie tried to cloak a message here with superheroes and such. Another little side note. If you watch this movie on Netflix, then that scene is edited out of the movie. The kids still die, but it’s implicit, offscreen, and you really don’t know it happened because you only saw the babies and they are rescued in the end. The only hint at this is a very quick flashback to the children before being blown up that they didn’t edit out. But it’s so quick no one who didn’t know there was something missing would notice.

Anyways, the movie now goes into a flashback. We see a guy standing next to a little girl in white who will turn out to be the child version of Wonder Woman. He is pointing at a girl in red who is the child version of the Invisible Woman telling her she has to climb up this rope hanging over a cliff all by herself.

She doesn’t make it up the cliff. How she survived the fall…I don’t know. I’m just going to assume that Michelle Yeoh is such a badass that she has the same powers as Michael Des Barres who survived this.

MacGyver

That was a nightmare the Invisible Woman was having. This is where it gets a little weird. She wakes up in a bed that is on the other side of some glass separating her from the rest of the room. On the other side is a professor who is working on the invisibility suit. Apparently, it doesn’t work under direct sunlight.

Not sure how this setup happened or exactly what she is doing for him in this situation. I do know that she is on that side of the glass because the other side isn’t safe health wise while he works on the suit. I also know that she is there because we will find out that she is meant to steal the suit permanently once it works perfectly.

Next Wonder Woman visits a fortune teller to try and figure out why all these babies are being kidnapped. The fortune teller tells her that they are destined to be emperors. That’s when a little girl falls out a window, they obviously didn’t count on people being able to pause the film with accuracy in 1993, I won’t post it, and Wonder Woman jumps out to save her.

She also saves a cat that fell out of the window shortly after the little girl fell. I love that she looks around at the children in the windows as if to say keep it under your hat, but apparently the fortune teller she was sitting next to didn’t notice anything. She was probably meant to be blind, but there’s nothing in the scene to indicate that except her wearing sunglasses. Oh, and of course the child and the cat have the magic ability to fall at just the correct speed to be caught.

Back at the Wonder Woman estate, she is chopping vegetables and her husband is cutting a log. Wonder Woman has a flashback to a little girl kissing her and referring to her as an older sister, but it doesn’t make any sense. Good scene.

Downtown at Aota Chemicals a hostage situation is taking place. So of course the cops call in Cobra.

Cobra (1986, dir. George P. Cosmatos)

I know Maggie Cheung’s character has an actual name in this movie, but I don’t care. I’m just going to refer to her as Cobra Cheung. She’s not a cop like Cobra, but does this kind of work freelance. However, she does just what Cobra would do in this situation. She straddles a barrel, lights the back of the sucker on fire, and flies into action.

She dispatches some of them and launches the others out in barrels for the cops to arrest. Before leaving, she offers her services to the commissioner to get his son back for him if he pays her. If memory serves, in the Netflix version she just offers to get his son back for him. In the original she wants more money if she brings him back alive, and a lesser sum if she brings him in dead.

Next, something happens back at the hospital where a madman is going to kill all the babies. It seems like it was just a last minute script addition in order to get Wonder Woman and the Invisible Woman in the same room for a bit before Cobra Cheung snatches a baby. Even having watched this movie twice, I’m still not sure why she takes this baby from the hospital. I understand that Wonder Woman and the Invisible Woman are in the same room in their regular clothes so that we can see that the Invisible Woman isn’t all bad as she lets her hand get cut up to rescue the babies from being killed.

Next we get a fight scene between all three of the ladies while the baby is there. This movie likes to follow projectiles in the air.

For those of you who grew up in the 90s…

you’re welcome.

Sadly, the baby falls during this fight and lands on a nail. Wonder Woman takes the baby back to the hospital, but it dies.

Now we get a flashback that seems to indicate that not only did red girl survive the fall earlier, but that she left leaving Wonder Woman to alone do whatever the harsh trainer guy wanted both of them to do in the first place. I’m not sure why they bothered with this origin story stuff. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, I probably haven’t followed it correctly, and it it doesn’t add anything to the film except to tell us they had connections prior to the events of the film.

Next we get a scene between the Invisible Woman and Cobra Cheung that had me confused. All you need to know is that Cobra wants the babies dead rather than to be turned into something evil, and this happens.

Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985, dir. Guy Hamilton)

Now we see how the Invisible Woman came to work for the Evil Kung Fu 1000. No explanation of how she got there, but he tells her she is no longer called Ching Ching, but will be known as Third Chan. Then he hits her on the back of the head with a log.

Yep! That’s a thing that happens.

Next we get a couple of scenes for character development. Who cares when we need to get to the all important Arnold Terminator eating birds scene.

That’s another thing that happens.

Cobra Cheung goes down to check out what’s happening in the sewers. She throws a bunch of birds up to distract this guy so she can look around. All that really matters here is that Cobra Cheung now knows the babies are being held down there in bird cages, and Arnold Terminator is now sent to kill Wonder Woman.

Cobra Cheung now shows up at the police station to tell them she’s off the case of the kids by throwing gold onto the table the cops are sitting at which disappears when the camera cuts.

Another good scene. Moving on now. As Cobra Cheung is leaving on her motorcycle, Wonder Woman throws the baby from American Sniper at her, which she catches.

Now we need more action and references. That’s why Arnold Terminator has taken a train station hostage, destroyed the computer, and brought a flying guillotine with him.

Master of the Flying Guillotine (1976, dir. Yu Wang)

Wonder Woman and Cobra Cheung get to the train station, but not in time to do much except this.

They drive the motorcycle into the wall, bounce off of it spinning, throw dynamite at Arnold, jump off, and the motorcycle is destroyed. That’s a thing that happens too. Then the train crashes into the station.

Silver Streak (1976, dir. Arthur Hiller)

That’s when Arnold tries to stop the train himself…

but he forgot he was a Terminator ripoff and not Superman…

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987, dir. Sidney J. Furie)

so he is disposed of as far as that scene is concerned.

Now the movie gets on the fast track to its conclusion. Wonder Woman visits her husband in the hospital. He now knows her secret identity. Things get more desperate between the Invisible Woman and the professor because his research is killing him now. Then all three of them meet up on the set of every Kung Fu movie from the 70s.

This scene only exists so they can fall over a cliff to recreate the flashback scene shown here.

They decide to work together. Then without showing them climb up, it cuts to this…

so that I can do this…

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989, dir. Steven Spielberg)

You might be wondering how her motorcycle is intact for this scene. No idea. You just have to roll with it.

Now the Arnold Terminator pays a visit to the professor to get the invisibility suit. He bends Cobra Cheung’s shotgun while they try to stop him.

Then this reactor like thing that was in the professor’s lab gets punctured. The room turns red and everything. They cause him to fall in it. He has the professor’s notes on a tape when he goes in. He punches his hand out of thing holding the tape player. That’s the last we see of him. I’m guessing that’s a setup for the sequel.

Now they go to fight the Evil Kung Fu 1000. First though, we have to kill the kids.

Ninth Chan is Arnold Terminator. Moving on because you don’t want to see it. The battle ensues before leaving the sewers to the set of Highlander II: The Quickening (1991).

Highlander II: The Quickening (1991, dir. Russell Mulcahy)

Considering the plot of the sequel to this movie, I’m sure Highlander II and its ilk were in the director’s mind while making this film.

They fight for awhile till Cobra Cheung is able to put a stick of dynamite into the Evil Kung Fu 1000’s robe.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991, dir. James Cameron)

After going up in flames, the movie does exactly what you think it does.

You can take your pick here.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991, dir. James Cameron)

The Terminator (1984, dir. James Cameron)

Lady Terminator (1989, dir. H. Tjut Djalil)

The way the Evil Kung Fu 1000 looks like after emerging from the flames, I think the director probably had a combination of The Terminator and Lady Terminator in mind.

In short order, he latches onto the Invisible Woman to make her fight for him.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989, dir. Arthur Hiller)

Eventually they are able to break the Invisible Woman free, and the bad guy falls to his death to shatter on the concrete. Then they walk off into the distance.

Well, there is one more short scene. We cut to Wonder Woman and her husband watching TV. This is when we find out that the husband has coined their name as The Heroic Trio and that the cops rescued the babies.

That’s The Heroic Trio. It has plenty of martial arts. It has plenty of mistakes. It doesn’t soft pedal things. It’s somewhat confusing. It’s a little insane. Overall, I would say I enjoyed it. If nothing else, it was fun to see all three of these famous Chinese actresses together onscreen. Especially since Anita Mui is no longer with us and Maggie Cheung appears to have stopped acting. They’ve all done better work, but I still recommend this enjoyable mess of a movie. I’m looking forward to watching the sequel.

Film Review: Supermen Against the Orient (1973, dir. Bitto Albertini)

Posted on March 22, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

Forgive me, but I watched this last week. I may have some trouble remembering the complex storyline. Good thing I have the movie right here. Let me just turn it on.

“I smack ’em! I whack ’em! I scratch ’em! I bash ’em! I cream ’em! I ream ’em! And then I redeem them!”

Ah, it’s all coming back to me now!

First off, me being half Italian, I can assure you that title translates to Knockoff Burt Lancaster, Harpo, and Rick Wright Rob a Safe in the Orient. The alternate tile being Supermen Against the Orient. By the way, the opening song is awesome!

The movie opens up on a deal gone wrong between criminals after two guys pop out of boxes with guns.

There is more talent on display here in this opening scene than in all of Superdragon vs. Superman. Just the fact that they have two fights going on during this scene on two different boats in the same frame is incredible. They even have the courtesy to make sure the bad guys were in black and blue while the other guys were in white. It’s small, but it makes fights easier to follow. Being confused about who is who gets in the way of enjoying fight scenes.

Oh, and it’s clearly done by people who are fans of 60’s crime and western films. A lot of style on display here.

After torturing the two guys who popped out of the boxes, the bad guys find out about something in Bangkok. Cut to a boardroom meeting and who cares. All you need to know is that they need Captain Wallace. They describe him like they are going to bring in Peter Sellers or something.

Here is Captain Wallace played by Robert Malcolm. He’s pretty funny in this movie. He’s here to finally get married. It’s the third time he’s tried.

Boy, the guy singing over the opening credits wasn’t kidding when he said he reams ’em.

Anyways, people show up to drag him away to serve his country of America. Yeah, he’s actually supposed to be from America in this Italian film. He goes to Bangkok.

After calling for a taxi, this guy pops out to look at our hero.

Clearly, he wants to check out our hero’s awesome mustache!

He also follows him in his car. Then a car chase ensues that lasts the enormous time of…

a few seconds. After Superdragon vs. Superman I expected this to go on for 7 minutes at least.

He now checks in at the hotel where he bumps into this lady.

She will be our Supergirl later on. Yes, I know she looks blind in that screenshot, but she isn’t.

Now the movie goes on Thailand vacation.

It’s like these scenes are here not only to add some realism, but as if the filmmakers cut a deal with the tourism board. You can shoot here, but show off some of the sights please!

After going to the pool and a kickboxing match for reasons that don’t matter, the film has fulfilled it’s Thai quota for the movie so it’s off to Hong Kong. He needs to find the “kung fu expert”. Although Jackie Chan is supposed to be in this movie, he’s just an extra and not the man he is looking for.

Wallace goes to the American embassy, which is run by an Italian character actor sitting in front of a picture of Nixon.

He’s a cryptic prick who says he has some sort of secret weapon that is so secret that he can’t tell Wallace about it even though he is supposed to use it to protect Wallace. No joke. He says all that crap along with a bunch more. He’s quite annoying in this movie. So is what should have been a subplot behind Wallace (the safe) under the painting that is next to the cover of Radiohead’s Kid A album. Wallace actually does guess at what this super secret thing could be. He says he thinks it may be a Buck Rogers Ray Gun. He’s in the wrong decade for that kind of a guess. That’s Reagan era stuff. It’s long johns. In other words, it’s a full body suit that makes you invulnerable to projectiles. Oh, and character actor farts before saying that kung fu is like a laxative because everything comes from inside. If he had only waited four more years, then a film a man like him would go see could have taught him how to solve his little problem.

Not going to say till I review it. If you know, then don’t tell. It’s a surprise!

Now we are off to continue the search for Jackie Chan in this movie at a kung fu competition.

He’s probably in this crowd somewhere just like Phil Collins in A Hard Day’s Night (1964).

We also meet Harpo (Salvatore Borghese), and who I like to call Rick Wright (Antonio Cantafora) even if he isn’t nearly as short as Larry Manetti.

Super Stache is called out to fight the kung fu champion. After a good old ass kickery. This happens.

Then we are in the hospital.

There had to be an easier way to meet the champ. Don’t worry about him. A good acupuncture treatment and he’s back in business. By that I mean it’s time for training. Such as punching hot coals.

I’m sorry, but Cüneyt Arkin punches rocks to train.

Now their palms are as strong as steel! They can kill a horse with one hand.

That’s all well and good, but Chuin can finger punch a nail.

Next we get a scene to remind me how much I like traditional Asian dresses/tops, that same guy from earlier is still watching Super Stache, and…

Supergirl, whose pink top I would take off of her cold dead body, tells him to watch out for people who are keeping their eyes on him. Particularly the guy under his table. Then we go back to stick feet into fire followed by a joke about donkeys and ointment for the ass. Moving on.

After ridiculously going around pretending he is Chinese, which no one believes, Wallace runs into Supergirl.

Blah, blah, blah, their kung fu means that bullets don’t work, blah, blah, blah, watch out, blah, blah, blah.

Now Super Stache goes out on the street to get his ass kicked again.

Luckily, Supergirl comes to his rescue and deals with them.

Now Super Stache meets with his friends to ask for their help.

They say they’ll help, but only if he helps them rob the safe at the embassy. After he is initially offended at the prospect, he agrees. The movie is at the halfway point. It’s a heist movie now. Seriously! It now carries on primarily with robbing the safe for about 30 minutes. No joke. 30 minutes! We get a few things in here like this.

This too.

It goes so off track that there is a scene where Super Stache runs to a library to find out when Abraham Lincoln was born and died in order to figure out the safe combination. The movie eventually gets back on track for the last 15 minutes or so of the film.

Finally, here are the Supermen and Supergirl vs. the dudes in black. I really don’t know what the deal with with these guys is, but after they attacked random business owners in the street I knew they had to be stopped.

With masks they can completely withstand bullets.

Except that guy in the front. He has to use his arms. Oh, and this guy jumps in the air.

Somedays you just gotta do midair splits.

There are a few goodbyes and the embassy guy does more of his comedy shtick, but that’s it! It was way better than Superdragon vs. Superman, but why did it have to go into that whole rob the safe thing? It had a good setup. I liked the actors. Them being Supermen and having a Supergirl too is fun. It could have worked better if they had stuck with it, but the safe thing is really boring and takes over the movie.

I’d still recommend this if only for Super Stache. He really is funny. It’s a shame that according to IMDb he only made two other films the same year as this one called Sinbad and the Caliph of Baghdad as well as And They Smelled the Strange, Exciting, Dangerous Scent of Dollars. In the first, he played Simbad. In the second, he played Butch ‘Charity’ Jenkins. Maybe someday I’ll see them.

In the meantime, I’ll pull out my complete series box set of The Greatest American Hero when I need my fix of comedians in red suits.

I Should Have Watched Something Else, But I Sat Through Superdragon vs. Superman (1975, dir. Chia Chun Wu)

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

The movie is also called Bruce Lee Against Supermen. By that they mean Bruce Li Against 80 Minutes Of Your Life. I really should have been watching something else.

Right now a woman is riding a shark while wearing a bunny suit. (Zodiac Fighters, 1978)

The movie begins with a car chase. Get used to that cause it will happen a lot. This time it’s a police car chasing a couple of criminals. The criminals see that the police are catching up. They are carrying a bag full of money, which they promptly toss out the window. A man and a woman find the money, but are surprised by Bruce Li dressed as Kato.

Why is he dressed like Kato? Who knows? Once a battle after the credits is done, he won’t do it again for the whole movie. There will be a mention of The Green Hornet who I’m pretty sure is two guys dressed like Supermen. Kato takes the couple to his car and drives them away to the police station.

Right now a dog taught to hate is heading towards a tragic end. (White Dog, 1982)

Now the film cuts to the opening credits. There are flies all over them. I’m not sure why. Later we’ll see flies on the Superman uniforms of the Supermen who might be The Green Hornet in this movie.

After dropping the couple off at the police station we see Kato drive away. He doesn’t get far before he appears to have trouble with his tire. After getting out he is attacked from behind.

One thing immediately clear is that not only is Bruce Li not as good an actor as Bruce Lee, but not as good a fighter either. However, everyone else is worse than him in this movie.

After Bruce Li dispatches with them, it cuts to one guy in a suit strangling another guy in a suit. The guy being strangled tells him The Green Hornet did it. That’s when it cuts to some newspapers to tell us that Dr. T has invented a way to refine food from petroleum by-products. He has been invited by the Arabs so he is going to travel to the middle east with his daughter. Then we get to see the Supermen who might be The Green Hornet.

They also have this glowing ball.

Sadly Burt Reynolds doesn’t talk to them through it. Instead, it flashes, and a printer spits out something we can’t read. If you watch this movie, then I hope you enjoy this shot of the Supermen because you won’t see them again in uniform till the very end of the film.

Right now a Russian Count may or may not be coming to the rescue. (The Marquise of O, 1976)

That’s when we cut to the bad guys talking to a guy who is willing to pay big bucks for the bad guys to get Dr. T’s formula. He is willing to pay a lot of money. Now we cut to the “Middle East”

No joke. That’s supposed to be an Arab. That Chinese guy right there is supposed to be an Arab. You might be wondering what he sounds like. He sounds like a Chinese stereotype. I think he is trying to do a Middle Eastern accent, but it’s hard to tell. I seriously doubt they cared. Now the movie cuts to Will Our Heroes Be Able to Find Their Friend Who Has Mysteriously Disappeared in Africa? (1968) as they take Dr. T out to a dig site.

When they arrive at the site they hand the doctor some ore. He suddenly has an attack, but is okay once his daughter gives him some medication. Then he takes a good long look at the ore. We get nice closeups of the ore. We get a zoom shot on her dropping a liquid on the ore. We get a zoom shot on the doctor looking through a magnifying glass at the ore. Once that padding of the movie is done, the daughter decides to go swimming.

Right now a playboy is realizing he killed someone. (Il Sorpasso, 1962)

This is when the movie decides it’s time to show us the daughter swimming around naked. Oh, and we see the bad guys spying on her, but it’s really just so we can see her naked. Will they actually say anything? Nope. She just gets dressed, then cut to an airplane landing.

Now we watch a man cross the street for a minute or so before hailing a cab to pad the movie out some more. Then we cut to fighting.

We don’t know what they are fighting about at first, but who cares! They’ve got 80 minutes of your life to take away so some of it might as well be mildly entertaining. It turns out they were just practicing. We find out…

this guy in red needs help protecting Dr. T and his daughter. I’m quite sure it’s Bruce Li, but I’m not sure if he was one of the Supermen at the beginning or not. Doesn’t matter because in the next scene Dr. T is getting kidnapped and shoved in a car. In a car that’s passing, the two guys above spot the car and give chase. A long slow car chase.

Right now a pen tester is going through somebody’s trash. (Sneakers, 1992)

Back in the movie the car chase is still happening with a needlessly crazy angle…

that doesn’t add anything to the film.

Right now a boxer is finding out that winning the fight doesn't keep him from the fate he didn't know was coming. (The Set-Up, 1949)

Right now a boxer is finding out that winning the fight doesn’t keep him from his fate he didn’t know was coming. (The Set-Up, 1949)

After a four minute slow speed car chase our two heroes pretend to be lying on the road to stop the kidnappers. They take them by surprise and a fight breaks out.

I call that kick, the Dolemite. That’s where you just place your foot near their face and they pretend to get hit.

Right now you’re looking at Degrassi long before Netflix got ahold of it.

After three minutes of fighting we cut to this guy…

who is ordering a sniper. Then we cut to who I assume is Bruce Li and Dr. T’s daughter walking around.

Then they walk around some more.

Right now you’re looking at an Eastern you should see. (White Sun of the Desert, 1970)

After three minutes of walking around we cut to a shot of a building. For reasons that I don’t know, a guy who I assume is still Bruce Li walks up to a little girl and somebody takes a shot at him. He grabs the little girl and they hide behind a pillar. She is carrying a little wind up toy. Bruce winds it up and places it on the street. He leaves the girl to make a run for the building.

He runs to the top of the building where the shot came from. Then he throws a rope over the edge of the building and rappels down the side of it to pad the movie out some more.

Then he gives chase.

Right now this woman is in the middle of having explained to her what happened last year. (Last Year at Marienbad, 1961)

After seven and a half minutes of him chasing him, the two fight.

It cuts to this shot during the fight.

After leaving the audience wondering Where’s Waldo? it then cuts back to the two of them on the top of the building where the bad guy falls to his death.

Back to the phone guy, and we learn that “The Green Hornet” is a real problem for him. But after listening to the unseen person on the other end, he says he’ll just get Superman. Maybe that’s this next guy who now does his part to pad this movie out more.

After he spends a minute of doing his martial arts/calligraphy routine, we cut to ninjas flipping.

No really, random ninjas inserted that flip around for 10 seconds. Maybe Godfrey Ho did this part of the movie.

Right now you’re looking at a very famous scene of a historical event that didn’t take place where the film says. (Battleship Potemkin, 1925)

Now a guy and a girl speak in Adam and Eve talk before padding the movie out with sex.

We cut to the doctor getting kidnapped again before cutting back to sex. Now the doctor’s daughter runs on the street, bumps into a guy, and he takes her to the sex scene. Then we see more sex to pad the film out some more. Daughter bursts in and immediately starts a cat fight with the girl. After one tries to hold the other’s head under a running shower, we cut to this.

While they have to wait for “Green Hornet”, the doctor is getting tortured by bad camera effects.

Planet of Dinosaurs (1977)

Right now that’s how I feel about the rest of this review. Let’s cut through this: chase, fight, pointless hostage scene, fight, chase, fight, pointless hostage scene, fight, fight, fight, chase, and movie!

Make that the middle finger, and you have what I felt the film was trying to tell me. You didn’t miss anything. It’s all padding. The chase scenes go on forever, the fighting is boring, and the plot is almost non-existent. Please go watch the other movies and TV Shows I mentioned rather than subjecting yourself to this. Well, that is except for the one just below this text. That documentary was awful.

Right now another bad movie is getting made because of what this title card says. (I Love Dollars, 1986)

Superman, Spider-Woman, Dallas, Badminton Brawling, and More! It’s Dariya Dil (1988, dir. K. Ravi Shankar)

Posted on March 15, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

When you first reach out on the Internet to find foreign knockoffs of American superheroes you will most likely come across something referred to as the Indian Superman and Spiderwoman. That movie is called Dariya Dil. Funny enough, there was a literal remake of Superman that came out one year prior to this from India as well. It was just called Superman, but is one of the many superhero knockoff movies for which I haven’t found English subtitles. However, every one of the mentions of this movie that I have seen appear to have been written by people who have only seen just the Superman and Spiderwoman scene. They will even reference the IMDb plot summary, which doesn’t even mention Superman or Spiderwoman, as if they are in disbelief that it could be the right movie. The plot summary is right, and so are the people who talk about how great the superhero scene is in the movie. Yet, they both don’t do justice to this film. I hope I can. I also have linked to the full film at the end of this review. Thanks to Shemaroo Films, at the time of writing this, it is up on YouTube legally. I’m sorry about the black bars in my screenshots. That’s where YouTube puts the tiny subtitles. I normally work around this for review purposes, but this was not one that made it easy.

The movie starts out and we are introduced to the hero of the film named Ravi who is played Govinda. He’s here to tell his Dad named Dhaniram (Kader Khan) that he needs to cut back on the sugar so that we know he is the son who listens to his Dad.

You can think of the Dad in this as Larry Hagman from Dallas. Although, he won’t get shot like J.R.

Now Ravi goes to wake one of his brothers and sisters-in-law.

I love the dialog that leads up to that line about her neck-ache. Ravi tells them that God grants wishes to early risers. Sapna (Shoma Anand) says that her husband is an image of God, but that regardless of telling him three hundred times a day about the pain in her neck, he doesn’t help. Her husband says that the treatment for her neck is very expensive. Don’t feel bad though because the treatment is “just an ordinary diamond necklace.” This is when the film makes it clear that other than Ravi, the rest of the family is going to be scheming against Dad. Also, we find out that the father apparently has a lot of money he is sitting on.

After Ravi wakes his brother Ajay (Shashi Puri), we cut to the family factory of Shani Ram & Co.

Since there is a boombox onscreen at this point, it’s as a good a time as any to mention the music in this movie. I don’t mean the musical numbers, but the score. There are two noteworthy things about it. First, it has odd timing to say the least. Sometimes it makes sense, but other times it will get all dramatic even though something very minor has happened on screen. Sometimes I swear nothing happens, but the music doesn’t seem to know that fact. I’m sure they were doing this on purpose because the only other movie I have seen that tries harder to make fun of soap operas is Soapdish (1991).

The second thing is the choice of scores. Often it sounds like this almost futuristic synthesizer music. It kept reminding me of background music I would hear in the Trancers movies. Like everything else in this movie, the score is very 80’s.

Back to the movie. This guy has come in to do his Saturday Night Live audition. He tells Dhaniram that he is his A.D.S. (Asrani) By that he means assistant-driver-secretary. He explains that since he does three jobs, he should be getting three salaries. It’s pretty funny as Dhaniram explains that he actually is just an assistant who knows driving and can do the job of a secretary. Thus, it’s only one job in reality.

The main plot line for this movie is how the father appears to be very greedy with his money, but actually will turn out to be a good guy. He just doesn’t throw his money around for no reason, and isn’t afraid if people want to call him a miser. Heck, he’ll even proudly accept an award as “the king of misers.”

The soap opera of the scheming family and rich Dad continues at home. Then it cuts to an office where a guy hands Ajay some money. Then dramatic zoom…

and abrupt cut to the horse track.

This movie has a thing for abrupt cuts. Apparently, the wipe transition was not in the director’s cinematic vocabulary. Well, he does use one late in the movie. I’m not sure where it came from, but it’s there. The rest of the time scenes will just end. It’s kind of like getting a jump scare each time the scene needs to change. When you add that to everything else in this movie, I love it!

Ajay took the money to the track and lost it. So he does what any irresponsible person would do. He uses the old terrorists beat me up and took the money routine.

Those are the actual subtitles. I don’t know what I like better. The fact that he actually says terrorists took the money. His brother’s yellow-jacket sweater. Nope, it’s the comedy routine that Dhaniram and his A.D.S. go into about what actually happened. I really enjoy how the father says we need to make sure we really know exactly who these “looters” were. Were they “terrorists, extremists, activists, optimists or pessimists?” Dhaniram and his A.D.S. go into cricket umpire mode so that they will remain unbiased.

This is when A.D.S. and other members of the family launch into a standup performance before stripping Ajay of his fake bandages. Cut!

A littler earlier in the movie we met Radha (Kimi Katkar) on a bus. She will be our heroine for the movie. She’s the future Spiderwoman and Indian Natlie Wood. There’s a West Side Story (1961) musical number and one that appears to reference Splendor in the Grass (1961), so why not? This is the scene of the badminton match between Ravi and the guy Radha came with who is determined to take Ravi down. Let’s cut to the chase. Ravi finds out that an iron ball has been put inside the shuttle cork. It’s on, and I think the filmmakers might have seen Turkish Star Wars.

And cut! Cut to what? Why Singin’ In The Rain (1952) of course!

I’m sure the fact that the jacket resembles the one Michael Jackson wore in Thriller is a total coincidence. The musical numbers in this are actually pretty good. It helps a lot that Shemaroo Films bothered to give us subtitles on the songs. I’m pretty sure that every old Bollywood movie I’ve watched never bothered to do that. Can you imagine watching something like The Sound of Music (1965) without subtitles on any of the songs?

As soon as Ravi is literally strung up with rope, it cuts back to more family scheming. Two of the brothers decide to hatch a plan to get at their father’s wealth. Now we meet D.O. Gogi, the shady Doggie Income Tax Officer.

The Dad will refer to him as Doggie later on in the movie. The brothers tell him that their Dad has a bunch of “black money”. Apparently, by turning him in they will get 10% of it. Doggie tries to get a bribe out of the Dad, and he agrees to it. I love how it instantly cuts from Doggie turning to leave the room to Doggie waiting at a construction site for his money. No wasted time in Dariya Dil! Dad shows up, Doggie takes his money, and the cops arrest Doggie. Scene!

Oh, before I continue. Earlier in the movie when we first met Radha, there was a little sequence on a bus. Dariya Dil breaks the fourth wall a few times, and…

the first time it does it, it’s kind enough to hold up four fingers to make sure you get it. I bring it up because Ravi needs to complain in the next scene about the “his” room being occupied.

Ravi decides he has no choice and goes into the “her” room. Of course Radha is in there. If you watch Dariya Dil, then you will often find yourself saying, “Well, of course that just happened. Of course!” Such as these wonderful lines about being intoxicated by urine.

She initially freaks out, but Ravi isn’t going to put up with her backwards bathroom rules. He goes into fast motion to get past her, and then ah!

Once again, of course, he comes out of the bathroom to find Radha is still there because the two of them are locked in the department store. I’m sure that if this movie came out after 1991, then it would have found some way to reference the Frank Whaley/Jennifer Connelly locked in a Target store movie called Career Opportunities. Instead, she threatens him with a sword, then falls asleep next to it. She has a bad dream that he gets drunk, and tries to take advantage of her. She wakes up to find that it’s not a good idea to go to bed next to a sword where you can easily pick up the blade by mistake. He bandages her hand and of course…

Superman and Spiderwoman costumes are hanging right next to them. This is the part of the film that has made it famous. I’ll try to give you some highlights.

Then like everything else in the movie, it suddenly cuts to the next scene. This is when I’d say the soap opera portion kicks into high gear. Up till now it’s been rather comical, but it’s going to get a bit more serious. By that, I mean more scheming children. However, we now find out that the father is anything but a miser when A.D.S. catches him coming out of the post office with a bunch of money orders. The father has his reasons for keeping it a secret. A.D.S. respects him for it. This is when we really know the Dad is a good guy, and does have money.

Need more no nonsense, no time wasted material? We find out now that Ajay is going to get married to a pink lady.

This means a letter needs to be written to Dhaniram’s brother in London. Cut to plane, and boom! He’s there.

I’m not sure which one of these outfits on the girls are worse. That one, or…

this one earlier. While the men’s outfits aren’t much better, the women’s outfits in this movie are so 80’s it hurts. After a few more scenes, we get one I honestly thought meant these two girls were going to turn out to be lesbians.

The dialog here, the way these two ladies act, and that this scene comes after all the crazy stuff we’ve already talked about really had me thinking that could be a possibility. In fact, considering a musical number later in the film, I’m surprised they didn’t turn out to be lesbians. In reality, they are two ladies that are going to also be plotting against the Dad through the Mom. Oh, and it will only take a foot massage in the scene immediately following this one for the scene immediately following that one to be Mom going to Dad in order to get money for the kids from him. Again, it’s No Time Wasted Dariya Dil!

This is when Dhaniram goes into super-dramatic mode.

He finally takes us inside the prayer room. This is where the father allegedly was sitting on a bunch of money like he was the guy Rainbow was referring to in their song Man On The Silver Mountain. Inside, we find it empty except for a few keepsakes. He picks up the items and gives the backstory on them. He in fact calls his family to come forward and share this wealth with him that he worships. I mentioned it before, but let me elaborate here. The film is as much about the father as it is about his children learning not only about their father and his principles, but also why their father is hesitant to just hand out money to them.

The mother continues her pleading. Dhaniram does give in. He gives his sons money to start their own businesses. Ravi is the only one who doesn’t accept it. He tells his father that his lessons are the wealth he has given him. Just as we have this tender moment between father and son…

the movie instantly cuts to…

a woman vomiting. Talk about ruining the moment. This is to tell us she is pregnant. I would show you just how fast we get to her having this baby, but there are some very crucial scenes in between.

First, we get a staged show put on to make Doggie look good by rescuing the brothers from a bad deal. Doggie was bailed out by his brother. A brother that is marrying into the family. One of the girls, who is Doggie’s sister, is also marrying into the family. I think. It gets confusing as any good soap opera should. The point is that Dad catches them all having a conversation about the fake bad business deal. He confronts them. We get this reaction from Doggie.

That’s all you really have to know about this part. Now we cut to Dhaniram pulling up to help some people stranded on the side of the road. He doesn’t see that they are waiting for him. This happens to him.

See! I keep my promises. He did not get shot like J.R. He was stabbed instead, then tossed in the water to die. Totally different!

After a few scenes to tell us everyone is still dirty and the bad guys have taken control of the family, the baby is born.

In terms of runtime, it’s only a few minutes after we found out she was pregnant in the first place.

Now we cut to a funeral/baby shower? I don’t know. However, we get this scene.

Believe it or not, this movie had me wondering what crazy stuff would happen to the point that I didn’t even notice the major clues this movie was dropping about who shot J.R. … I mean stabbed Dhaniram.

Ravi takes his mother away to a house run by his uncle. He finds that it’s actually a home his Dad funded to help the “old and helpless.” Rhana shows up to support the mother.

Now we get an even more random musical number than the Singin’ In The Rain one. It starts with who I believe is a college teacher talking to himself about whether Shakuntala or Vasantsena was more beautiful. I’ve taken a course in both Comparative Religion and Religion in Early India, but I have no clue who they are. Doesn’t matter because he discovers Ravi and Rhana under a tree. Then the Splendor in the Grass musical number begins.

That then goes to a ugly sweater and flamingo dance.

Then it finally settles on whatever the heck he’s wearing and one of the few non-Sari women’s outfits that I like in this movie

Now we cut to the factory to find that when the workers complain, then Doggie whips them with his belt.

It’s been awhile since I watched Ran (1985), but I do remember the lady near the end who goes on a vicious rant about how much she hates the family before they behead her. I would not be surprised if this film is also borrowing from King Lear. Sadly, I have never read the play. My only exposure is through Kurosawa. Ravi witnesses this so…

the movie is now Norma Rae (1979), The Working Class Goes To Heaven (1971), Sister Stella L. (1984). Take your pick.

The bad guys try to shut down the house for the helpless. Not sure if they are sucessful or not. A.D.S. seems to show up to stop it after Ravi puts up an actually fight. Doesn’t matter because this happens next.

Dhaniram shows up and is alive! I guess he was pretending to be his brother during this time. I don’t recall seeing the brother after he showed up initially. Doesn’t matter cause Dad is back. He comforts his wife, then goes to visit Ravi as his brother. However, Ravi sees right through it. He knows it’s his father. He tells him so, and they hug. But if you think actor Kader Khan is going to give up a chance to play the flamboyant brother some more, then you are wrong. No, we finally get Dhaniram actually saying what I have been saying from the beginning. “D.O. Gogi? You mean doggie?”

He takes it further too. After doggie corrects him, Dhaniram doesn’t care, and says it sounds better that way. Every dog needs a collar!

Dhaniram has a great idea for Doggie. He tells him that to combat Ravi, he should kiss up to the workers. He tries to do just that.

Now comes the final, and most bizarre musical number in the film. It’s the West Side Story one. Ravi is wandering down the street when he is confronted by a gang out to get him.

Boy! Ravi is in trouble. If the fact that a posse of cisgender women, transgender women, and Radha show up to rescue him doesn’t surprise you, then I have done justice to how crazy this movie is.

They do a combination of an advocation of non-violence while gladly humiliating these guys by drawing on their homophobia and transphobia to make them squirm.

They even dress up one of the guys as a woman and make him ride a mule like the jackass he is.

The remainder of this film can basically be described as the father using his business skills and his inner circle to bring down Doggie. His sons are ultimately left in ruin. However, this is when the Dad reveals to them that he is still alive. The father doesn’t oust them or anything. He reunites his family.

The brothers finally get the point there father was trying to get across to them. The father also seems to have learned that maybe he was a little too hard on everyone when it came to his ideals. This is also when we find out that the sons didn’t know about how their father died. Of course it was Doggie.

Ravi and family bring him to justice. Even Doggie’s sister is redeemed. Earlier in the film after she was in the poor house, she came to her brothers. They pretended like they didn’t even know her. They weren’t there when she needed them, so she sure does the same thing to them when they need her. They kind of had to do this with the story. I mean the message of the film would have felt a little funny if the woman with Dad’s grandchild was kicked to the curb.

With the story over, the remaining cast kindly poses for the ending title card.

That’s the end! That’s Dariya Dil! It’s a movie known for a short musical number that happens to feature Superman and Spiderwoman. It’s a movie that has an ultimately simple story about selfless charity and not taking the easy path to wealth. Especially when taking that path hurts others, family or otherwise. It’s also a movie that is filled with so many other things that make it so worth watching. I really enjoyed this film. I might come across another one of these foreign superhero movies that I’ll like, but I don’t think any of them will top this.

Here is the full film. Not sure why they felt the need to disable embedding, but they did.

Hallmark Review: Flower Girl (2009, dir. Bradford May)

Posted on March 13, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

Before I start talking about the movie I need to mention a couple of funny things.

First, I kind of like actress Marla Sokoloff. I first saw her on an episode of Melissa & Joey where she played a chiropractor that Joey Lawrence’s character goes to see. I enjoyed her performance. Her and Joey end up in a relationship together. It turns out she’s a virgin. As I recall, he can’t follow through with it. It was humorous to me given the title of this film.

Another coincidence that is similar to that one is another place I had seen Marla before watching this film. The previous film I saw her in was Scents and Sensibility (2011). In this movie Marla’s character will bring up that she enjoys more serious books rather than things like romance novels. There is even a scene where they mention Jane Austen who of course wrote Sense and Sensibility.

Weird that not only were both of those things done after Flower Girl, but that they were the only two other places I had seen her before, which also happen to somehow tie back to this film. Bizarre!

The second thing is something that only someone like myself who, for some reason, has now seen 164 Hallmark movies would notice. All but 5 of which have been since last July.

I think IMDb nailed it here. Let’s go through those recommendations:

Perfect On Paper is about a girl who is given a job editing romance novels. She is encouraged to date men who are perfect on paper. She eventually comes around to the guy who isn’t perfect on paper, but perfect for her. This movie has romance novels at the center of it, and Marla is encouraged to date a doctor because he is perfect on paper. Also, the actor playing the right guy in this movie is the wrong guy in Perfect On Paper. His last name in that was Cooper, which just so happens to be the last name of the right guy in this movie.
So You Said Yes is about a girl who runs a bridal shop that tries to cater more to the brides actual wants rather than just whatever is the standard wedding they are told they want by the owner. Marla will several times talk about how she does just that. She listens to her clients and uniquely tailors the flowers to be used at the wedding even when that includes something like matching flowers to biker tattoos.
Recipe For Love is about a girl who is given a chance to help ghostwrite a cookbook for a famous cook who is hiding behind a persona that isn’t the real him. Someone ghostwriting books is an important part of this film. That person is also using someone else to pretend that they are the person who is writing the books.
My Boyfriends’ Dogs is about a girl who goes through a series of boyfriends accumulating the dogs they buy together along the way. During all this she passes through a dog store where she keeps running into a guy that winds up being for her. Okay, the connection here is a little weak, but it was written by Gary Goldstein, and he has written both of the Flower Shop Mystery movies.
Bridal Wave is about a girl who is going to be married to a doctor, but at the last minute leaves him for another guy. They will break up when they both realize that they were getting married because it seemed like the next logical step. They both worked together all the time with him as the doctor and her as his assistant. In this movie, one of the two men Marla is dating is a doctor. She will also break it off with him because she thinks both of them were rushing into a possible marriage because they were both just looking for someone. Also, just as in Bridal Wave, they will never make the wrong guy out to be a jerk. He is just not the right guy for her.
In The Wish List, a girl starts the movie as a little girl who is very organized and drawing pictures of her prince charming. It then cuts to her in the present as an adult. She will proceed to make a big list of the things that must be in a guy for him to be perfect for her. She will end up choosing between a doctor and a barista. To try and decide between the two, she makes a list comparing the two of them. The doctor will go away to South America at one point in the movie. This movie also starts off with Marla as a little girl. She is in her grandma’s flower shop before cutting to the present where she now runs the place. Her grandma will even tell her to make a list comparing the two guys she meets. One of them is a doctor. Oh, and yes, the doctor is going to go to South America in this one too.

Like I said, I think IMDb nailed it this time with their recommendations.

I think I’ve nearly laid out the whole plot right there for you. I’ll try to be brief.

The film begins by showing us Laurel Haverford (Marla Sokoloff) as a little girl for what I think was about two seconds. It’s actually kind of cute. When the little girl is onscreen it only says “Flower”, but when it then cuts to Laurel it adds “Girl” to give us the full title. Marla does flowers for weddings.

We are quickly introduced to the two main ladies in Laurel’s life. One is her grandmother Rose (Marion Ross). The other is a friend named Brooke oddly enough played by Brook Kerr. I’m not reading that off of IMDb either. It says it in the credits that the character is Brooke with an ‘e’ and the actress is Brook without an ‘e’. I have no idea why. To add even further confusion to this, the captions say her name is Brook without an ‘e’.

The introductions are over a wedding as well as a run with Rose and Brooke. Grandma Rose wants her daughter to get hooked up. Brooke might as well be Sarah Fischer from The Wish List cause she has her list of things that must be present in a guy. Well, at least things that show he is up for commitment and jobs he can’t have. Sorry wedding photographers who moonlight as guitar playing bartenders, but Brooke says you won’t do. I actually did know a community college speech teacher who moonlit as a bartender. He was a wonderful teacher.

This movie wastes no time. Grandma runs right into Dr. Evan Cooper (Terry Maratos) as she is finishing up delivering some flowers. I love the looks on Marion Ross’ face here as she talks with the doctor. First it’s surprise that he knows the Latin name of the flowers. Then it’s kind introductions. That’s followed by a sly look and a question about his marital status. After she finds out he’s not married, she springs up with this face.

The next major plot point is when Laurel runs into Stephen Banks (Kieren Hutchison) at a wedding. He will be kind of a man of mystery throughout this film. She later runs into him at a table with a bunch of books on it. Stephen suggests a book by Victoria Darling (Bonnie Root).

I’m not even going to take a guess at what the guy on the cover is holding. I don’t think I want to know.

That’s it for setup. There is a small subplot with an older guy named Gavin played by Nicolas Coster. If you look at Nicolas Coster’s filmography, then you will find that he seems to have been in everything. He’s probably most notable for being on the soap opera Santa Barbara. However, you can also see him in Betsy’s Wedding (1990) that a cross country coach I had liked to Goldengirl (1979) that The Cinema Snob put an impassioned plea out to get it a proper release when he reviewed it to All The President’s Men (1976). In this movie, he might as well not be there.

The remainder of the film is a series of dates with Stephen and Evan. I kind of already gave away the surprise earlier about the romance novels, but trust me, it’s not much of a surprise. The movie really sends you clear messages about it. In the end, she decides to be with Stephen. The film ends with them being married, then getting into a pretty neat looking carriage.

So, do I recommend it? Honestly, I have to say no. It has things to like about it sure. I really do like Marla. They obviously didn’t have a big budget for the movie, but tailored the film to fit that budget. They didn’t try to fake things like in Bradford May’s film Cloudy with a Chance of Love. Still, for the life of me, I can’t recommend it to anyone off the street. If you happen to turn it on with nothing else to watch, then sure. I do recommend though if you like Marla Sokoloff.

Filipino Batman: Alyas Batman en Robin (1991, dir. Tony Y. Reyes)

Posted on March 12, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

A Filipino Batman. Of course! There’s Turkish Supermen. There’s an Indonesian Lady Terminator. There’s Brazilian Star Wars. There’s a Mexican Batwoman. There’s a dancing Indian Superman and Spiderwoman. So why not a Filipino Batman? Actually, this is one of three that I know about. There is another one with the same title as this film from 1965, which I don’t have, and a movie called James Batman from 1966 that I do have. I’ll review that one later.

Let’s talk about this particular Filipino Batman. The title literally translates to Alias Batman and Robin, which is actually a very appropriate title. While the movie does have Batman, Robin, Joker, Penguin, Catwoman, and numerous other superheroes that show up at the end, they are all regular people who take up the roles rather than actually being the real characters.

The movie of course opens with the Batman TV Show theme song playing. However, it’s like almost all the lifted songs in this movie. It’s not the exact song. It’s not like if you watch the Taiwanese film King Of Snake (1984). In that film you will hear the main theme from The Terminator (1984) and music from Once Upon A Time In The West (1968) unaltered. In this movie, the songs will be tweaked or sampled, and have new lyrics. There is one exception, but we’ll get to that.

I’m gong to just cut through the very beginning of this movie cause the film sure does, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense. The movie opens up and we meet our future Batman (Joey de Leon) and Robin (Keempee de Leon).

As far as I can tell they are supposed to be high school or college students. The only person they are really clear about is the guy who becomes the Penguin. Now we meet our future Joker (Rene Requiestas) reading about the character.

I’m going to say it here. He has a great maniacal laugh. It never feels like there’s a psycho or a really bad guy behind it like you see in The Dark Knight (2008) or Batman (1989). Nevertheless, it still is pretty great, and he does it a lot. He also does great crazy eyes.

There are some girls here, some rivalry, and some fighting. None of it really matters. Trust me. Even the film will tell you later how meaningless these opening scenes are to the movie. The next thing you know Joker’s uncle gets out of jail and this happens.

There you go! Now we have Joker and Penguin (Panchito). They immediately go to rob the Treasury Office, but first!

The director of this movie made other films like this such as Bobo Cop (1988), Goosebuster (1991), and his own line of Tarzan films. I seriously doubt that sticker having the year Tim Burton’s Batman came out is just a coincidence.

Anyways, they rob the treasury and gloat about it.

They also talk about hiring some goons.

After our future Batman and Robin read about the robbery, we get Kabuki Joker.

Now the Joker and Penguin start hitting more places including apparently Gotham Bank.

I always suspected Gotham was really Manila. Now they’ve gone too far!!! The brothers decide to become Batman and Robin.

Well, to be fair. The brother who will be Batman actually wants to be Starzan. Starzan is this movie’s director’s Tarzan knockoff. Do I have to tell you? The actor who plays the brother is the actor who plays Starzan. However, future Robin tells him he can’t do that because it will turn “this movie into shit”.

Meanwhile, we need Catwoman (Almira Muhlach). So here she is with her posse.

After quoting the title of Bobby McFerrin’s Don’t Worry Be Happy, they are off to rob the Smith & Wesson Dollar Exchange! Now we get our first musical number.

My original sentences here were going to be that I couldn’t figure out where the song is from, but a friend came through. The song they use is Bird Dog by The Everly Brothers.

While I may have had trouble with that song, I sure as hell knew what the next one was! After Joker and Penguin rob a jewelry store, we get a montage of Batman and Robin becoming Batman and Robin.

“Do you still remember from your comic book. The series of the Dynamic Duo. The Caped Crusader and the Wonder Boy. They fight all the goons. Holy smoke, Batman and Robin. Oh my God, Batman and Robin. Praise the Lord, Batman and Robin. Shoot now, shoot. Batman and Robin. Let’s do Bruce Wayne now and Dick Grayson now. They are a part of me.”

In other words: “Let’s go surfin’ now. Everybody’s learning how. Come on a safari with me.” It’s Surfin’ Safari by The Beach Boys with lyrics about Batman and Robin.

It is glorious!!! I love the next one too!

Now the Joker and Penguin pull up to rob a place and that riff sure sounded familiar to me. It’s because it’s a riff from Oh, Pretty Woman. The lyrics are totally different.

But we have more important things now. To the Batcave!

Now the Joker and Penguin are going to strike again, but this time Batman and Robin are on the case. Oh, there’s also a little in-joke here about two Filipino production companies called VIVA and Regal. It’s not important.

To the Batmobile!!!

Action!

Oh, and some days you just can’t get rid of a coconut.

Now Batman goes where Batman always goes. No, not to the Bat Room. That’s later. He goes to the girl (Dawn Zulueta) he is interested in while dressed at Batman.

He asks her to meet him at the PPC. Apparently, PPC stands for Paco Park Cemetery. Why there? Your guess is as good as mine because before she can ask, he’s out the door.

Now we get reminded that Joker and Penguin aren’t the brightest of people. Well, the Joker that is cause they try to rob a Blood Bank.

Meanwhile, at the cemetery, Batman is resorting to jump scares.

While I was dishappiest, to quote Pat Buttram in Texans Never Cry (1951), with the jump scares in the awful Ex Machina (2015), I like the line “You son of a bat!” he gets from her after jumping out at her.

They go back to the Batcave now. She works for the Daily Planet…I mean the Daily Star. While he may be a son of a bat, he is a good host. He offers her something to drink.

Look! Batcaves are expensive and he needs to recoup costs somehow. She goes with Bat Tea. She asks if he can “take that off?” So of course this happens.

She meant his mask. He then asks her to take it off. She’s offended. Of course Batman meant her glasses, and he compliments her.

Given how this film is, I totally believe Batman told her she’s “even more beautiful with [her] eyes nude.” Now she asks the next logical question: “Can you tell me how Batman and Robin began?” Good question! I’d like to know that too. That’s when a Batarang flies across the screen…

because I’m pretty sure the film doesn’t understand how that happened either. Batman says they won’t stop till the super villains are stopped, and she asks to use the Bat Room. Scene!

Now we get a pointless part that amounts to Robin not being able to get his girl by telling her he’s Robin because it’s just as easy for anyone else to make a Robin uniform so this happens.

Well, it didn’t take them long because in the next scene Batman and Robin capture Penguin and Catwoman. Joker is still free.

Honestly, this is when the film begins to drag because it starts to try and take itself seriously. Batman and Robin try to get the girls they like. In fact, Robin shares a musical number with the girl (Vina Morales) he likes. This time around they didn’t bother to change anything. The song is Until Forever by Evan Rogers and D’Atra Hicks off the soundtrack to the movie Everybody’s All-American (1988).

Now we go over to Batman, and this is one movie that’s kind enough to tell you when a dream sequence is going to begin.

Unfortunately, it’s one of those dreams as realizes after waking up.

There’s another really immature moment next where we see Batman’s package through his underwear. I’m not showing that.

Now for no real reason at all, Penguin breaks out of prison and flies away in a helicopter. Batman decides he doesn’t want to play the part anymore. This leaves Robin to go fight crime alone.

Like I said before, this is where the film started to lose me. It will pick up at the very end, but till then the fun starts to stop.

Now Robin tries to protect himself against Joker and Penguin…

but he is beaten and Batman’s girl is taken prisoner while Robin is sent to the hospital. Batman must once again don the suit.

Now Batman goes to rescue his girl, and apparently does the same diving jump as Superman did in Kilink in Istanbul.

Kilink in Istanbul (1967, dir. Yilmaz Atadeniz)

Everything goes fine. The Joker and Penguin are now in jail. However, after crazy eyes…

they dig out the toilet and escape through the hole. Now you’d think the film would stop already, but no. There’s still a little left. Joker and Penguin decide to dress up as Batman and Robin to commit crimes, and blame it on them. The real Batman and Robin catch up with them and tell them as long as they return what they stole with interest, then they can go free.

After a stupid conversation between Batman, Robin, Joker, and the Penguin, Batman, out of the suit, goes to take out his girl, but look!

Now begins the final dance number and I think we all know this one. It’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Is Here To Stay by Danny & The Juniors, but of course we all remember it as performed by Sha-Na-Na in Grease (1978).

Everyone gets in on this number. Like mini-Spiderman here!

We know Batman and Superman are rivals, but for at least one dance they were able to put aside their differences.

If anyone knows who these two are, then tell me.

In the end, all that matters is that we’ll always be together!

My final thoughts on this movie are that I enjoyed it and would recommend it. The stuff near the end does take you out of the fun, and it really can’t pull of being serious, but that’s short-lived. It doesn’t ruin the movie. I know that some people cry foul whenever they see something like this and get outraged. I’m not one of them. The movie never felt like it was being mean spirited. It feels like a group of comedians with a love of 50’s and 60’s music got together and made a humorous Batman movie largely for fun. I always find it interesting to see such tightly controlled properties in new and interesting places. If that kind of thing bothers you, then don’t watch it. If it doesn’t, then check it out.

Following The Amazon Prime Recommendation Worm #7: Dolls and Angels (2008), Girlfriends (2000), Just Sex and Nothing Else (2005), What Ever Happened to Timi (2014)

Posted on March 9, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

This time around I actually have a couple of movies I can recommend. One of them I can recommend strongly. We also have the return of the ridiculously misleading Amazon Prime posters for foreign films.

Dolls and Angels (2008, dir. Nora Hamdi) – Ah, ha! The return of the poster to make you think it’s a lesbian movie. They went further this time than that poster for 9 1/2 Dates. First off, only one of those girls on that poster is a main character. The other one is just her friend. Her friend played by none other than Léa Seydoux. She also gets top billing on that poster while the actual two main characters are listed after her. You may know Léa Seydoux from Spectre (2015) or The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). I know her from somewhere else. I wonder what they were trying to confuse people into thinking this movie was like?

Yep, only one of the most well known and lauded lesbian/bi-sexual/fluid sexuality love stories of the past few years. I’m telling you, one of the most fun things about watching these movies is to see these posters. Makes me think of when they retitled the Sylvester Stallone porno The Party at Kitty and Stud’s (1970) to The Italian Stallion after Rocky came out. They even made this incredible bullshit trailer.

Here is a realistic poster for Dolls and Angels.

That trailer is even misleading. Not because it doesn’t lay out the actual characters and give you an idea of what is going on, but that it’s way better made than the movie itself. This is one of the worst directed, edited, written, and shot movies I’ve sat through in a while. The closest is David A.R. White’s film Redeemed (2014), which is a mess. I think this movie even beats it.

Oh, and as for that talking that is played over things actually happening in the trailer. Yeah, that is in the movie, but all we see is the tomboy-ish girl frantically writing or walking around a roof while an incessant and annoying voice over plays with a little musical accompaniment. Ugh! The director also wrote the book and the screenplay. I get the feeling she didn’t know how to adapt some of her internal monologues that are common in books to the screen where they rarely belong or if they do, sparingly and kept short. A good example of this type of thing done right is The Hunger Games (2012). The book has a bunch of Katniss’ thoughts, but when they adapted it for a film, they transferred it to the visual medium instead of having us hear all those thoughts via a voice over. This feels like Nora Hamdi thought if Godard did it all the time, then surely it will work here. It doesn’t. If the editing and other things weren’t worse, then this would be the thing that made me the angriest while watching this film.

This movie even made a mistake that is so simple that I rarely see it done. It’s when you don’t make it clear a character has left the movie or will come back. Yet, they are gone long enough that the viewer is left wondering if they missed something. You are wondering if the character will come back, or if they are really gone now. Not because you should be, but because the movie is confusing and thus, unintentionally frustrating for the viewer. Then sometimes they suddenly reappear to say, “Hi! Yeah, I’m still in the movie,” only to possibly disappear again.

It wouldn’t be as much of an issue if the film had a single protagonist, but this one doesn’t. When you have only one person, then the world of the film is created around that character. Where they go, we follow. To modify a very tired cliche: If the character isn’t in the forest to see the tree fall, then the tree doesn’t make a sound. If the character hasn’t been to the forest at all, then the forest itself doesn’t exist.

However, when you have multiple protagonists that you switch between, then you no longer have a world being created by a single character as they travel through it. Now you have a living world in which your multiple protagonists exist. When you do that, then you can’t be unclear about things such as whether a character is no longer part of the world of the film. This is also true in TV Shows. That’s why they usually make it quite clear whether a character has truly left the world of the show or not. You actually can have a character disappear for a long period of time, but there needs to be a reason, and/or a payoff. Not just a, “Oh, they are still here. I almost forgot they were part of this movie.”

I guess I need to talk a little bit about the plot now.

The movie is about two sisters named Lya (Leïla Bekhti) and Chirine (Karina Testa). They are ethnically Persian and live in the projects of France. It was funny to actually see a character named Chirine in a movie. I knew a girl in college named Shirine who was also ethnically Persian. But enough of me reminiscing about someone that is both way more beautiful and smart than this movie.

The trailer tries to play up that the father, mother, and the youngest daughter are part of the story, but it’s not really true. What you have are two sisters that take opposite directions after being given a Barbie doll as kids. Lya became introspective, tough, and kind of a tomboy. I say “kind of” because I knew an actual tomboy in elementary school. Lya is just a girl that doesn’t doll herself up all the time. She leaves that to her sister Chirine who went in the opposite direction and tried to become that doll.

Chirine tries to get into modeling, but she really just gets stuck with a guy who claims to be an agent, but is rather shady. While that is going on, Lya is doing her own thing. The next movie was so good that it kind of obliterated my memory of this one. Lya just mainly battles with her identity in various ways. Sometimes it’s the annoying voice overs, and other times it’s actually trying to do what her sister does, but quickly finding out it doesn’t work for her.

No recommendation here at all. Next!

Girlfriends/Les autres filles (2000, dir. Caroline Vignal) – This is not to be confused with the TV Show that started the same year. In fact, if you are going to look this movie up on IMDb, then you are better off typing in the French title. If you type in Girlfriends, then it won’t show up in the results. If you click on “More title matches”, then it still isn’t in the list. Only when you click on “Exact title matches” does it suddenly show up.

I love that poster! First off, I’m quite sure neither of those girls are characters from the film. Secondly, notice there are no actor’s names listed. That’s probably because Julie Leclercq who plays the main character Solange, and the supporting character of Gary played by Benoîte Sapim never went on to do anything else. Lucky for them, it’s a very good movie. In fact at this point, out of the 167 films I’ve seen this year, it’s the best so far that I’ve watched. I don’t tear up easily, but I did. It takes a fair amount to get me to tingle, but this movie did it. Here’s the realistic poster for the movie.

Despite what that horrible poster makes you think, this is not a movie about two fun loving girlfriends who like to party. Although, the line “How was your first time?” does have something to do with movie. It’s about a teenage girl named Solange that is learning how to be a hairdresser. Think of those dental school type things where you can get the work done free or cheap because you are helping the students to learn. It’s like that where Solange and other girls are learning by working on actual people under the supervision of a teacher. The film is Solange coming of age in numerous facets.

Let me explain this in a couple of parts. First is what is in the title. Solange thinks that at her age she should have already had sex. She calls a radio show similar to Loveline in order to ask about losing your virginity. She even nearly loses it to a random guy who backs off as soon as he realizes just how young she is, and that she is a virgin. Even he has standards, and that means he can’t bring himself to make this girl’s first time be a random fuck in the grass no matter whether she wants it or not. She does eventually lose it, but at that point she has also undergone a drastic transformation in several ways. So much so that her losing it really isn’t that important at that point. It’s more of a capstone on her actual coming of age.

The second part of this is that the movie sends a bunch of hints at you to make you think she might be a lesbian, bi-sexual, or even transgender. Honestly, I think she’s probably bi-sexual and transgender, but the film will never actually confirm it. She starts off even more of a tomboy then the girl in Dolls and Angels. By the end of the film, she dresses more masculine and has cut her hair very short. She also carries herself in a more masculine manner. That is partially tied to her greatly increased confidence, but I believe there’s more going on there. Especially because the guy she ends up having sex with is shown wanting to cuddle while she just gets up, gets dressed, and leaves like that dumbass guy in a movie who goes off, then wants to get out of there as soon as possible.

The last part is hard to put my finger on. It’s just done so well throughout the movie in every respect. I would be lying if I said it was flawless. I’m not one of those people who buys all the crazy hype around Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), which is the same hype that once surrounded The Dark Knight (2008). Both of those movies have flaws, and so does this one. However, just like those movies, this is still very good. I actually enjoyed it more than Mad Max: Fury Road to be honest. That’s probably because I went into this movie not expecting anything. Going into Mad Max: Fury Road, I expected the moon based on what people were saying. As a result, I kept seeing the flaws. I need to see it again so I can just enjoy it for what it actually is rather than what people say it is. The big flaw I would say is that the shift in her character near the end felt a little sudden. Enough that I mention it, but not nearly jarring enough to be an issue.

Two special mentions here. The acting is excellent. In particular, the performance from Leclercq. The second thing is the scene that got me tingling. There is a scene when she cuts a guy’s hair. It was one of the most erotic things I’ve seen a long time, and it was just Solange cutting his hair. It sent a warm feeling through my body like I haven’t felt in a long time.

I can’t recommend this movie enough right now. Maybe I’ll end up seeing something better this year, but right now, it’s easily the best. If you are doing that 52 films directed by women thing that’s going on this year and want to go off the beaten path, then check this one out.

Just Sex and Nothing Else (2005, dir. Krisztina Goda) – Wow! “Young, Single, Ready to Mingle”. I wonder where that film is because if by young, they mean people in their early to mid 30’s playing like they are closer to their late 30’s/early 40’s, then sure. They are single. That’s true. As for being ready to mingle, that’s pretty misleading.

Even this poster is misleading. That poster says love triangle between the good girl, the bad girl, and a guy who seems like he wants to be with the good girl, but wouldn’t mind a little bad girl once in awhile. That’s not the movie. Oh, and yes. This is another Hungarian film. So is the next one. For some reason that’s a thing now for these posts. Every four of them, there is now at least one movie from Hungary. Over the course of this experiment so far, I’ve seen five Hungarian movies. Jeez!

Here’s is the trailer. Although, it’s dubbed into German you still sort of get an idea of the kind of movie you are in for. Even if it does leave out a pivotal character altogether.

Not Ali (Antal Czapkó), the nice Turkish baker who turns out to also like doing exotic dancing. He’s prominently featured in the trailer as he should be. He’s pretty great in this movie. No, the character that is very important in the movie, but totally missing from the trailer is Péter played by Zoltán Seress. Or as I like to call him: The Hungarian Patrick Norton.

Zoltán Seress

Patrick Norton

If you are a techie and maybe from the Bay Area, then he needs no introduction, but for everyone else. Patrick Norton is a prominent tech journalist and tech show host. The two most well known being The Screen Savers, from when TechTV was a thing, and Tekzilla on Revision3. Although, he’s all over the place.

Back to the movie. You can think of this movie as one part Hallmark romantic comedy. It’s got the girl looking for love. There’s a right guy and a wrong guy. The difference is that this movie makes them both good guys, and never delivers a brick to your head to tell you who she should be with. The other part is Samantha from Sex and the City if she were completely all over the place about what she wants.

The movie has four main characters. Dóra played by Judit Schell is the never knowing what she wants Samantha type character. Zsófi played by Kata Dobó has a lot of sex, but only appears to be happy. She’s part advisor to Dóra and part female counterpart to Tamás played by Sándor Csányi. He also has a fair amount of sex, but the unhappiness part never really completely overtakes him, and only starts to catch up with him when Dóra comes into his life.

The way Dóra comes into his life is rather humorous. We see her walk past four road workers who definitely take notice of her, and she seems to like it. However, she goes right to the obviously married guy who she doesn’t know is married. When his wife shows up he quickly puts her out on the balcony of his office with only her panties on. Tamás lives in the same building, notices her, and tells her she’s better off coming across to get out through his place. If nothing else, as he puts it, because if she doesn’t, then the four workers will never be done fixing the road.

Don’t ask me how this part comes together, but here it is in two parts. First, Dóra and Tamás are putting together a production of a Dangerous Liaisons type play. Yeah, I know. Two Hungarian movies in a row with ties to that novel. Weird. The second part is Dóra trying to figure out what she really wants. Does she want stability with the real good guy Péter? Does she just want sex like Zsófi and Tamás seem to enjoy having a lot of? Does she just want to get pregnant? She really bounces around quite a bit here. Actually, that’s the main flaw with this movie. She bounces around so much that it starts to stop being funny, and starts to feel like a chore following her around. It never ruins the film, but it started to get to me.

In the process, we get the usual speed dating scene that is always in these kind of movies. The only thing noteworthy about it is that one of the guys is a trans man. He’s actually the sanest appearing one of the lot, but at that point she wants to get pregnant so that rules him out. Also, it was probably not the best idea for him to open with a line about how after he has bottom surgery it will work just like the real thing.

We also get the fun, nice, but quirky guy we know she won’t end up with, but we like having around. That’s Ali in this movie. He’s a Turkish baker who is really nice. She actually goes to him at one point, but he has to go back to Turkey for a couple of weeks. That’s until he figures out a way to make it work anyways and shows up at her door. He then drops his pants to reveal leopard print briefs and starts doing a little dance. I love the old lady across the hall who sees it, and Ali tells her to stop looking cause it’s not a peepshow. Of course, he does end up coming back only to fail once more with Dóra, but not with the old lady. After Dóra closes her door, she puts her hand out with some money to pay Ali to dance for her. He accepts it. You can tell, I really enjoyed Ali in this.

Overall, I’d say this is a reasonably fun romantic comedy. It looks like it might be getting a remake in the United States. If you type in the title on IMDb, there’s another film with that same title listed as being “in development”. It wouldn’t surprise me. I mean My Sassy Girl went from being a South Korean film to a Japanese mini-series, and was remade in the US the same year, which was 7 years after the original film. It could happen.

Also of note, the ending made me think of the Boombox Serenade scene from Say Anything… (1989) except she does it with her own voice instead of Peter Gabriel’s.

What Ever Happened to Timi/The Good, The Bad, and The Pretty (2014, dir. Attila Herczeg) – Yes, yet another Hungarian comedy. This one really can’t make up it’s mind poster wise. That’s the poster that is on Amazon Prime. Here is another one.

And here is yet another one.

I have to be honest here. I had almost no idea what was going here. Thank goodness there is a short plot summary available on Amazon Prime: “When a soon-to-be-married good guy has a one night stand with a beautiful former high school classmate, they think it’ll just be a quick fling. But the class bad boy has other plans.” There’s also a trailer.

Basically, what you have here is a Hungarian sex comedy that I really can’t recommend. But I probably should elaborate a little. The movie starts off with a high school prom dance. The narrator was there and slightly bumped his crotch against his dream girl’s butt. Very slightly, but it was enough that he went to the bathroom and jerked off. That tells you something about this guy right away.

Now we cut to the high school reunion where we think the two guys and a couple of girls are our only main characters, but none of the voices match the narrator. The narrator is actually a supporting jackass character. Sex happens here, and our scumbag narrator films it, then uses it to blackmail the other guys into getting him laid by the girl he had a crush on as a kid. That’s it really.

I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the characters. I really did find it confusing. I didn’t like story. I didn’t like the resolution. Oddly, I could have gone for a movie that just followed the douchebag around. He’s reasonably funny, interesting, and isn’t just a stock character like the others came across to me as being. I could have gone for something that actually did put him at the center rather than this film that actually teases you about that and says that the film is never about a guy like him. Why not? I might have actually enjoyed that movie.

Definitely check out Girlfriends and for some laughs Just Sex and Nothing Else. Avoid the other two.

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For those of you who waded through all of that. Here is the Joker from a 1991 Batman movie from the Philippines.