October’s such a great month! Not only does Halloween provide the perfect excuse to get dressed up all sexy-like but the theaters are also full of horror movies!
Speaking of which, check out this trailer for the upcoming horror anthology Tales of Halloween! It’ll be coming out on October 16th and, among the ten directors contributing: Mike Mendez, who directed the great Big Ass Spider, The Descent‘s Neil Marshall, and The Woods‘s Lucky McKee!
I can hardly wait!
Last night, I watched Her Infidelity, a Lifetime film that’s been sitting on my DVR since April.
Why Was I Watching It?
I recently discovered that I only had room on my DVR to record another 10 hours worth of programming. With SyFy scheduled to show several original shark films next weekend, I knew that I had to make room on the DVR. Otherwise, I would run the risk of the DVR automatically deleting the oldest recordings and I am sorry but there is no way that I’m going to allow Bend It Like Beckham to be erased. So, with all that in mind, I’m finally getting around to watching some of the movies that I recorded earlier this year. I started with Her Infidelity, a Lifetime film from April.
What Was It About?
Following the tragic death of his wife and daughter, creepy mask enthusiast Grayson Kendall (Clayton Chitty) gets a job working as an elementary school teacher. Grayson also volunteers to be the latest teacher liaison to the PTA.
The president of the PTA is Lily Helms (Rachel Hunter), whose son happens to be one of Grayson’s students! Lily is married but her husband (Lane Edwards) seems to be more concerned with work than with his marriage. Lily feels neglected, Grayson makes little secret of the fact that he finds her attractive, and can we be surprised that eventually they end up having sex in a motel while Grayson wears one of his masks?
Lily’s husband comes home and promises to be a better spouse and also explains that, despite what Lily assumed, he was not having an affair with his secretary. Lily wants nothing else to do with Grayson but Grayson has become both obsessed with her and friends with Lily’s husband. Even worse, he’s now dating Lily’s best friend (Miranda Frigon)!
What Worked?
I liked Her Infidelity. It told a pretty standard Lifetime story but director Christie Will created a dream-like atmosphere and added enough surreal touches that the audience was kept off-balance. Up until the very end of the film, I was expecting Lily to suddenly wake up and discover that she had just been having a particularly vivid fantasy.
As well, Her Infidelity — much like A Deadly Adoption — deserves credit for taking everything to its logical extreme. Grayson isn’t just your standard Lifetime stalker. Instead, he’s one of the creepiest characters to ever appear on Lifetime or any other network.
One thing I especially appreciated was the fact that, no matter how oddly Grayson behaved, Lily was apparently the only person who noticed. Everyone around her was so amazingly oblivious. Even Lily’s husband insisted that Grayson was just a nice guy. It all helped to create an appropriate atmosphere of paranoia and helplessness.
(It also confirmed one of my own long-held beliefs: people are a lot more stupid than you assume.)
What Did Not Work?
As far as I’m concerned, it all worked. It was Lifetime movie that promised infidelity, melodrama, and masked men. And it delivered on all three!
“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments
Naturally, I related to Lily’s best friend, the red-headed real estate agent played by Miranda Frigon. Hopefully, however, I have a better taste in men.
Lessons Learned
Cleaning up the DVR can be fun!
The Minions, everyone’s favorite group of little yellow weirdos from the first two Despicable Me films, now have a movie of their very own! Earlier tonight, Jeff and I braved a theater that was full of hyperactive little children and we watched Minions.
I have to admit that I was really looking forward to seeing Minions. After all, I loved both of the Despicable Me movies and, much like Through the Shattered Lens co-founder Arleigh Sandoc, I thought the minions were pretty adorable. Along with the fact that they were just so weird that you couldn’t help but love them, the minions were distinguished by the wonderfully cheerful approach that they took towards their work. Even when one of them was accidentally launched into space during the original Despicable Me, he continued to smile. He was just happy to be a part of the project. Seriously, who wouldn’t want a bunch of minions to do her bidding?
Now, it was established during the first Despicable Me movie that the minions were specifically created by the super villain Gru. However, Minions reimagines their origins. Now, we discover that the minions have existed since the beginning of time and, apparently immune from aging, they have always sought to serve a villainous master. During the film’s opening, we watch as they serve a Tyrannosaurus Rex, Dracula, and Napoleon. Unfortunately, the minions’ combination of enthusiasm and stupidity proves fatal to most of their employers.
Eventually, the minions find themselves exiled to Antarctica. After several centuries, the minions find themselves suffering from depression and ennui. Finally, three brave minions (all voiced by director Pierre Coffin) volunteer to go out into the world and find a new master to serve. Kevin is the responsible leader. Bob is the cute, enthusiastic one who always carries a teddy bear with him. (Bob also has heterochromia, just like me!) And finally, Stuart is the one who likes to play his guitar.
Kevin, Bob, and Stuart get in a rowboat and eventually, they reach New York City. However, it turns out that the year is 1968 and there is a serious shortage of evil super villains to serve! Not only is Gru just a child but Bill Clinton hasn’t even launched his political career yet! Eventually, though, our three minions learn about Villain-Con, being held in Orlando, Florida. Hitching a ride with a family of aspiring bank robbers (Micheal Keaton is the voice of the father), the minions reach Orlando and eventually, they end up working for Scarlet Overkill (Sandra Bullock) and her husband, Herb (Jon Hamm).
Scarlet explains that, ever since she was a little girl, she has wanted to be the Queen of England. But she doesn’t have the crown! She orders Kevin, Stuart, and Bob to get that crown and reads them a bedtime story about three minions who failed to get a crown and were subsequently killed by an angry wolf. AGCK!
This leads to our three minions going to London and, since it’s 1968, that also leads to a lot of good (if predictable) songs on the soundtrack. As a result of several odd incidents, Bob is briefly the King of England. And things only get stranger from there…
The children in the audience loved it but, at the same time, I could never bring myself to like Minions as much as I wanted to. Minions just doesn’t have as much heart as Despicable Me. There’s no moment in Minions that’s anywhere close to being as joyful as the “It’s so fluffy” scene from Despicable Me. The minions are fun supporting characters but they don’t quite work as well as protagonists for a 91 minutes film. Sandra Bullock tries really hard as Scarlet Overkill but she just doesn’t have the right voice for the character. Part of Sandra Bullock’s appeal, after all, is that she not only looks but sounds like she’s totally down-to-earth and that’s one thing that Scarlet definitely is not. Jon Hamm, however, is hilarious as the vacuous Herb.
Minions is a cute movie that doesn’t really make much of an impression. Kids will love it, though. And, even though I would never actually eat there, I’m still going to go by McDonald’s and order a Happy Meal so I can get the little minion that’s inside.
(Especially if it’s one of those cursing minions…)
Lady Terminator (Barbara Anne Constable)
It’s all here. She hunts down and kills innocent people on her way to her target. She rams a car into a police station in order to get to her target. She drives after the protector and her target while having a shootout. She appears as the Lady Terminator naked. She takes two guys to the back of a car where a snake comes out of her vagina and bites off their dicks, killing them so she can take their clothes.
What? Arnold didn’t bite off any dicks? Well, that’s because this isn’t The Terminator. This is Lady Terminator. Here, if a dick isn’t shot off, then it’s bit off by what we will refer to as the vagina snake.
The movie begins in the past where an evil queen takes a man to bed and kills him during sex. Then another man is brought in, but this time it goes differently. She gets into position, a snake slithers out of her vagina, he grabs it, it turns into a knife, and she’s banished. By banished, I mean she swears she’ll have her vengeance on his great-granddaughter in 100 years, appears outside on the beach, and walks into the ocean to join forces with evil. Isn’t that one of the most absurd openings to a movie you’ve ever heard of?
We jump to the future and meet Tania. She’s not a lady, she’s an anthropology student, as she reminds the sea captain. You see, she’s going to investigate the legend of the South Sea Queen. The lady who liked biting off dicks. She visits a library to have an encounter with a ridiculous character who knows exactly what she’s talking about, warns her, but gives her what she’s looking for anyways. You know, standard stuff.
She gets a boat, goes underwater, winds up on a bed, and the snake goes up her vagina. Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? At this point I think we need to stop and notice that we have learned an important lesson. Fifty Shades Of Grey taught us that if you are a female English major then you’ll end up negotiating the use of butt plugs. But Lady Terminator teaches us that if you are a female Anthropology major then a snake will go up your vagina and turn you into a killing machine. Maybe major in Computer Science instead. Just saying.
See, I wasn’t kidding. That’s why we call it the vagina snake.
Anyway, once the we really were inspired by the legend of the South Sea Queen and not The Terminator portion is over, the fun begins. And by fun, I mean almost a scene for scene copy of The Terminator, but with some differences to keep it exciting while doing those scenes well.
Emerging From The Water Naked
Lady Terminator Vision
Shootout In A Club. Complete with getting shot to the ground, then popping back up.
The Car Chase
Crashing The Car Into The Police Station
Cutting Out The Eyeball
They even have somebody say Arnold’s name and the Kyle Reese character says, “Come with me if you want to live”. They also have the love scene together. I wish there was more to say, but telling you every added element would be spoiling it.
With all that out of the way. The question is whether this is worth seeing. You see the title. You know it’s a ripoff. You think of the Turks. You wonder is it worth your time.
Hell, yeah! It’s a lot of fun. It’s not as good as the real thing, but they did a damn fine job. I just wish they had made more of these movies with Barbara Anne Constable: Lady Rambo, Lady Die Hard, Lady Under Siege. Considering there is a new, legitimate, Terminator movie out, then this is a perfect way to take a trip back to the original, but with a fun twist.
Carry A Big Gun
Actually, I don’t know if Tom Hanks really saves America in Steven Spielberg’s latest film. But it does sound like something that Tom Hanks would do, doesn’t it?
Will Southpaw get Jake Gyllenhaal the Oscar nomination that he deserved for Nightcrawler?
Hmmm…it’s hard to say. The Academy definitely owes Gyllenhaal for snubbing him earlier this year. But Southpaw doesn’t necessarily look like an Oscar nominee. Instead, it looks like … well, it looks like every other melodramatic boxing film that’s ever been made.
But, still — I’ll see it when it’s released on July 24th. At this point, I’ll watch Jake Gyllenhaal in just about anything…
(Except for Love and Other Drugs. Don’t even get me started on that…)
Anyway, here’s the latest trailer for Southpaw!
Somehow, I had totally missed the fact that they were even making a Goosebumps movie. But apparently they are because a trailer was released earlier today!
And guess what?
Jack Black is playing R.L. Stine!
Check out the trailer below….
A few nights ago I watched a bad movie called Street Soldiers. We could talk about how it’s similar, very loosely, to West Side Story. The lame training sequences. The fact that the martial arts guy similar to Mr. Miyagi suddenly becomes psychic. Or even the rubber cobra that is clearly squirting a liquid like milk. But no. I want to take a moment to pay tribute to Jeff Rector who plays the villain named Priest. He amazingly overacts. Every facial expression he makes is like a gift from the cinematic gods.
This shot should be posted by anyone who accomplishes something.
This has been a moment with Priest. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films is all about letting the visuals do the talking.
All of the shots in my latest entry in 4 Shots From 4 Films come from movies that were directed by the great (and sadly underappreciated) French director Jean Rollin. Several of Rollin’s films are available for viewing on Netflix. Track them down and, when you get the chance, be sure to read my review of Rollin’s Night of The Hunted!
4 Shots From 4 Films
The Iron Rose (1973, dir by Jean Rollin)
Fascination (1979, dir by Jean Rollin)
Night of the Hunted (1980, dir by Jean Rollin)
Lost in New York (1989, dir by Jean Rollin)
“Where’s Mercury? Mercury, it’s God. Listen, I need you to take a message to Odin and Zeus. And don’t forget Moses. Tell the boys to send their strongest, ablest, most beautiful women to Earth to punch it out. I wanna see some real knockouts. Tell ’em to call it: Battling Amazons. Do it!”
Thus begins one of dumbest and greatest things ever made. You might be asking yourself: Why Moses? Well, Delilah of course! We all know what she did to Victor Mature’s hair so she clearly can handle herself in the ring. So, the call goes out and numerous women are sent to battle.
Thesbian, The Viking Queen
Peelar, The Tiger Woman
Athena
Wanda, The Iron Mistress
Sandra, The Prophet
Lazar, The Woman Of The Future
Delilah
Deidra, The Brazilian Bombshell
We are then introduced to Georgia and Peter Willis who are two of the three people who guide us through the fights. I would be shocked if their lines were written in advance because it really sounds like they are improvising. Especially Peter. Sometimes it’s like he can’t think of something to say.
At first glance this looks like something exploitative, but it’s not really. You want that, then the movie called Trashy Ladies Wrestling that they advertise at the end of the copy I watched is for you. This is pure parody. The ladies get out there and lay it on as thick as possible. Even Holly the “round girl” comes out and does her best impersonation of those girls who are only there for eye candy.
But just as professional wrestling doesn’t all take place in the ring, neither does Amazon boxing. As the ladies arrive, Dan Dugen interviews them. They come up to him and act all tough to a remarkably small audience waiting for them. The best part of these interviews is the size of the guy doing them. The only people this guy is bigger than are Peter Dinklage and the lead singer of The Outfield. It really adds to the impression that these ladies are sent by the Gods. They tower over him.
The other people who are of note are Issie, the manager of Delilah, and Wanda, The Iron Mistress.
Issie
Wanda is one of the last of the ladies to show up, but they cut several times to show that she is on her way. My favorite is when they show her running across some grass next to a parking lot. There’s a trash can in her way and she just knocks it out of her way while holding some weapon in her hand. Other times she just runs like a mad woman holding something. These parts always had me laughing.
Wanda is on her way!
In wrestling backstage drama is all part of the experience and that is brought to Amazon boxing as well. During the battle between Thesbian and Delilah, Issie plays a horn. It distracts Thesbian and causes Delilah to win the fight. Then comes the controversy that takes us into a flashback where we see that Delilah told Issie to sneak into Delilah’s training area to find her weakness. After realizing that the brush in her bag will do him no good, he finds the horn.
Finding The Horn
As for the fighting itself. It’s pretty ridiculous, but they actually appear to be fighting. It’s not like the kind of thing where you’d expect every move, punch, or grab to be of a sexual nature. It’s just weak sauce moves. Still, it’s fun to watch.
I just can’t do this thing justice with words or a few screenshots. It must be seen. It’s only an hour long and it’s on YouTube at the time of writing this. Otherwise, it’s available through Amazon on VHS. Check it out!
