6 More Wonderful Trailers

Posted on August 22, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Here’s the latest installment of my series on some of my favorite grindhouse and exploitation trailers.

1) Death Has Blue Eyes — This is actually a really, really bad Greek movie, a movie that is not only generally incoherent but deadly dull as well. Of course, some of my reaction has to do with the fact that I’ve only seen a scratchy, fuzzy version of it on an imported VHS tape. This film is also known as The Para-Psychics but I think Death Has Blue Eyes sounds so much better, don’t you?

2) Massacre Mafia Style — I haven’t seen this movie and, unlike Death Has Blue Eyes, coming across the trailer didn’t fill me with any real desire to track it down. I really don’t even care much for the trailer but I’m including it here because its just so over-the-top and violent. How many people get killed over the course of this trailer? I lost count.

3) The Boogeyman (1980) — This is actually a pretty good and atmospheric little horror film. Not to be confused with the terrible Barry Watson movie that came out a couple of years ago.

4) The Pack — This trailer once again establishes that I am right to be scared of dogs. According to my paternal grandmother, Joe Don Baker is somehow related to me but I’ve never been sure how. I’ve always been more interested in just how exactly grandma became a Joe Don Baker fan.

5) Switchblade Sisters — One of the ultimate “girl gang” films and a perfect example of how a movie can both be grindhouse and feminist at the same time. I love this movie.

6) Strange Behavior — Finally, let’s wrap up this installment with the trailer for one of the greatest film’s ever made, 1981’s Strange Behavior (a.k.a. Dead Kids).

Review: Piranha 3-D (directed by Alexandre Aja)

Posted on August 21, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Yesterday, I had two concerns about going to see the new horror film, Piranha 3-D.

First off, I know that 3-D has been hailed as “the future of movies” and that apparently, Webster’s is considering whether to recognize 3Dgasm (which is the response that certain film goers have to 3-D regardless of whether the movie itself is actually good or if it’s just Avatar) for inclusion in the next edition of the dictionary. However, 3-D often makes me sick to my stomach and I mean that literally. 3-D makes me feel car sick. Considering that I love movies, if 3-D is the “future” than I’m probably being punished for something. That’s right. Avatar was just a result of my bad karma.

As for the second concern, I can’t swim and I am terrified of being underwater. Hanging onto the edge while wading in the shallow side of my uncle’s swimming pool is about as submerged as I can get without having a major freak out. It’s not just drowning that scares me. When I was 17, my family spent the summer in Hawaii and my sisters (being the meanies that they are) had a lot of fun with the fact that I’d spend hours lying out on the beach but I refused to even step into the ocean. It made sense to me. There were jellyfish and sharks and those weird little black coil things just floating around in the ocean. Thanks to seeing Piranha 3-D, I now know that there are also cute little fish that will eat you.

I dealt with my fear of the water by asking my sister Erin (who can actually swim because she’s cool and I’m not) to see the movie with me and to keep me calm if I started to have a panic attack. She agreed and she did an admirable job. She also helped me deal with my fear of 3-D when, during the coming attractions, she said, “Why don’t you take a Dramamine?” Now, according to Erin, the only reason she said this was because apparently I was “going on and on” about it. That’s not how I remember it but I just happened to have some Dramamine in my purse and I quickly popped a few.

If you’ve ever taken Dramamine then you know the way that it works is by basically kicking your ass until you pass out for a few hours. (I occasionally resort to using it whenever I’m getting hit with insomnia.) Within minutes of taking it, the Dramamine was saying, “Sleep, Lisa…” “But I want to see the movie,” I replied. “That wasn’t a request,” the pill responded. “Dammit, will you two shut up!?” Erin snapped. (That may have not actually happened.)

The point of all this is that I stayed awake through the entire movie, despite having taken the most powerful sleeping pill in existence. True, my mind did go a little bit goofy (Erin says I was “babbling” through the entire film) but it never shut down. That’s the type of movie Piranha 3-D is. The story moves so quickly and the mayhem is so over-the-top and excessive that the brain never gets a chance to relax enough to check out.

Piranha 3-D begins with an earthquake in Arizona. The earthquake opens up a passageway to an underground lake. As look would have it, the underground lake is full of a bunch of prehistoric piranha. These piranha quickly move up to an above-ground lake where they promptly eat Richard Dreyfuss. Having gotten a taste of Dreyfuss, they apparently decide to eat every other human being they come across and who can blame them?

Actually, the bloody and graphic demise of Richard Dreyfuss was the first clue I had that this film was going to work. Needless to say, Dreyfuss is the last surviving star of the original killer fish movie, Jaws. In Jaws, Dreyfuss is plays a character named Matt Hooper. In Piranha, he’s just named Matt. By introducing him and then promptly killing him off, Piranha lets us know that it understands the legacy of previous horror blockbusters (like Jaws) but that it has no intention of respecting it. In other words, this scene lets us know early on that the film is on the side of the fish.

Anyway, it turns out that its spring break and as a result, Lake Victoria, Arizona is full of stupid, drunken college students who are determined to hang out in the water no matter how many people get eaten. Sheriff Julie Forrester (Elisabeth Shue) struggles to maintain order on the streets with the help of her loyal deputy (a very likeable Ving Rhames). Julie is also a single mother and, the morning after ol’ Richard Dreyfuss gets devoured, her oldest son Jake (Steven R. McQueen, grandson of the star of Enemy of the People) blows off his baby-sitting duties and agrees to help sleazy Derrick Jones (Jerry O’Connell) film the latest installment of Girls Gone Wild on the lake. Sleazy, speedo-clad Derrick (and the fact that O’Connell looks really good in it doesn’t make that red speedo any less ludicrous) attempts to initiate Kelly (Jessica Szhor), the “good” girl who Jake likes into the world of straight-to-video, jailbait porn. Kelly, by the way, kinda has a boyfriend, a guy named Todd who will eventually end up killing a lot of people with a motorboat. Even before this, we know he’s a bad guy because he’s named Todd. Nobody named Todd or Tad is ever good in a horror movie.

Director Alexandre Aja doesn’t take much time introducing his cast of characters and he takes even less time in letting the fish devour them. So, no, the characters aren’t exactly all that developed. But it doesn’t matter really. With what little they have to work with, the cast works wonders. They know exactly what type of film that they’re in and they know why they are there and they embrace their roles as piranha fodder with an impressive sense of commitment. Best of all is O’Connell who turns sleazy, coke-fueled egomania into some sort of art form.

The real star of the film, of course, is director Alexandra Aja who takes a mainstream genre piece and who, much like his fellow French director, Jean Rollin, transforms it into a piece of pure grindhouse exploitation. Aja may use the clichés of the genre but he never blindly embraces them. Instead, he uses them to comment on both the genre and the audiences expectations of what those cliches mean. Aja takes everything we’ve come to expect — the blood and gore, the standard plot device of Shue’s children being stranded out on the lake, and the sudden death of nameless extras — and he then pushes them just a little further than the audience is expecting, As a result, he not only comments on those expectations but he forces the audience to question them as well.

This is never more apparent than in the film’s climatic piranha attack. This is when the piranha finally get around to attacking all of the swimmers at once. This is the scene that we all know is coming and that we’ve all been expecting and Aja does not disappoint. Things start out as you might expect. Close-up of bikinis. Drunk idiots in the water. A wet t-shirt contest. Rhamas and Shue come up in a boat and start yelling, “Everybody out of the water!” Because they’re a bunch of drunk dumbfugs, everyone responds by jumping into the water. Cut to an ominous piranha point-of-view shot. Suddenly, one woman — floating out in an inntertube — shouts, “Something bit me!” And suddenly, all Hell breaks loose.

This is the scene you knew was coming and you’ve seen it a hundred times before. What makes it memorable here is just how far director Aja takes things. These fish don’t just bite their victims. They literally devour them while the camera lingers over every piece of flesh that floats through the ocean. As everyone struggles to get out of the water, they get their skulls split open by passing boats. In the background, we see various feet, hands, and other body parts randomly floating in the water. One older man pulls his friend’s torso onto the beach and cradles it while screaming, “I love you, man! I love you!” As Shue tries to pull people out of the water, we see a teenager that’s already on the boat start to shake as his life expires. As I mentioned before, Todd tries to escape by forcing his motorboat through the crowd of terrified swimmers and graphically dismembers a lot of people in the process. It’s an incredibly graphic sequence, one that starts out as fun but which just keeps going and going, Director Aja understands that the audiences is expecting — probably even looking forward to — seeing a little blood. So, instead he assaults us with a lot of blood and he does so in such a way that the audience is forced to question why a little blood is fun but a lot of blood is disturbing. It’s as if Aja is saying, “You wanted to see people die, well — here they are, dead. You feel better now?”

As for the 3-D, Aja proves himself to be one of the few filmmakers to understand that 3-D is not the future of movies. It’s just another gimmick to be exploited and exploit it he does. However, he does so brilliantly and he is so shameless about it that watching Piranha 3-D simply serves to reiterate just how silly the whole 3-D craze really is. Every short is a tracking shot. The CGI piranha float across the screen, stopping momentarily to stare straight out at the audience and almost wink. The men in the audience seemed to be especially happy about all the boobs that literally seem to swing out of the screen and across the theater but they were a bit less enthused when a disembodied penis came floating out of the screen. By not only fully embracing the ludicrous possibilities of 3-D but by also doing so without any shamefaced attempts to justify its use, Piranha 3-D is perhaps the greatest 3-D movie ever made.

Scenes I Love: Two Orphan Vampires

Posted on August 17, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Sometimes, I feel that there are only two types of people in the world. There’s the minority who appreciate the dreamlike atmosphere and sensual obsessions that dominate the vampire films of French director (and genius) Jean Rollin.

And then there’s the majority who don’t. We refer to this majority as being “the idiots.”

As for me, Jean Rollin is one of my favorite directors. I’ve previously reviewed his low-budget masterpiece, Night of the Hunted, on this site. I hope, in the future, to review even more of his films.

For now, I’d just like to share a scene from one of his later films, the hauntingly beautiful and elegiac Two Orphan Vampires.

Rollin is a director best known for spending the past five decades making films in which he continually and obsessively returns to a few key themes: the importance of memory, a nostalgia for the innocence of youth mixed with the knowledge that youthful innocence could also be destructive, a fascination with the beach, an obvious love of architecture (Rollin films old castles the way that an American director might film an action sequence), and — most notoriously — the use of two female protagonists who are usually portrayed as possessing a very strong, sister-like bond even though it’s rare that they actually are blood-related.

A good deal of Rollin’s current following comes from men who feel that there’s an erotic element to Rollin’s portrayal of female friendship. And to an extent, they’re right. But to an even greater extent, it doesn’t matter. Regardless of why the relationships between Rollin’s protagonists exists, the important thing is that they are portrayed as sharing an unbreakable bond. Whether they’re linked by lust, friendship, or just memory, Rollin’s women are bonded by a very true, very real love and that’s what makes his movies special to me.

This is what the scene below is all about. The two orphan vampires of the title are two teenage sisters. During the day, they are blind but when the sun goes down, they can not only see but they become vampires as well. Two Orphan Vampires is a surprisingly sad and haunting look at their attempts to survive in a world that has no place for them. In the scene below, after failing in several attempts to get the blood they need to continue to live, each sister resorts to drinking the blood of the other. To me, every thing that Rollin had directed before was leading up to this scene.

(This scene is also prototypical Rollin in that the budget is obviously low, the actors are more than adequate but, at the same time, are obviously not professionals, and the English dubbing is poorly done. And yet the scene itself — especially when seen in the larger context of both the entire film and Rollin’s movies as a whole — is actually more sincere and memorable than the majority of what is produced by the mainstream. In short, this is pure Rollin in that you either get it or you don’t.)

Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander?

Posted on August 16, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s official. The role of Lisbeth Salander in the thoroughly unnecessary and borderline insulting American remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo will be played by Rooney Mara.

It’s hard for me to say how I feel about this casting. When I first heard about it, my initial thought was, “Who’s that and how could she be better suited for the role than Jena Malone?” However, after talking to Arleigh, I realized that I actually do know Rooney Mara. She was the lead in another remake, this year’s Nightmare on Elm Street. In that movie, Mara was a likable presence but she was no Lisbeth. Then again, woman like Lisbeth Salander — independent women who refuse to be solely defined as either a good virgin or a bad whore — don’t appear in slasher films. What is important is that Mara has proven she can carry a film. She hasn’t proven that she can carry The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Then again, considering just how iconic a figure as Lisbeth has become (both in the original novel and in the original film) it’s probably for the best that director David Fincher went with an unknown. Rooney appears to be a talented young actress but she’s got a very difficult job ahead of her.

It’s probably not a coincidence that Rooney also has a small role in Fincher’s upcoming film, The Social Network (which is going to suck, by the way). It’s possible that Fincher saw something in Rooney that she hasn’t been allowed to show the rest of the world. Me, I’m just happy that if there is going to be an American version of Lisbeth Salander, at least she’s going to be played by an Irish-American. At heart, Lisbeth is as Irish as a Swede can get.

(Though again, the ideal Irish-American to play Lisbeth would have been and still is Jena Malone.)

As I’ve stated before, I have mixed feelings about the remake of the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. (And yes, it is a remake regardless of what they’re saying over at Awardsdaily.com.) On the one hand, the entire literary Millenium Trilogy (of which The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was the 1st part) is one of the best recent works of pop cultural fiction. Lisbeth Salander is destined to be an iconic noir figure. On a personal note, even though she’s ultimately just a fictional character, she is a fictional character who has provided a great deal of strength and hope to abuse survivors (such as myself). When we read about her and her refusal to allow herself to be victimized or to be dependent on even as well-meaning a man as Mikael Blomkvist, the book’s nominal hero, Lisbeth Salander becomes the vehicle for our own wish-fulfillment fantasies. She is a character who transcends the page to become a role model in real life as well. In many ways, she is the 21st century version of Scarlett O’Hara. Scarlett gave hope to aging Southern belles. Lisbeth gives hope to bipolar neurotics like me. And much as everyone couldn’t wait to see Scarlett on-screen, a lot of us couldn’t wait to see Lisbeth on-screen.

And that is the biggest hurdle that director David Fincher and Rooney Mara are going to face with this much-hyped remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. We’ve already seen Libseth onscreen and, in our mind’s eye, she’s not Rooney Mara. Instead, she’s Noomi Rapace. Both Fincher and Mara have a difficult task ahead of them. Not only do they have to meet the expectations of the people who have read the original novel, they have to exceed the expectations of the people who have seen the original Swedish film.

And that, to me, is the issue that is being avoided, the proverbial Elephant in the room. For all the wannabe, internet-based film critics who are currently gleefully devouring any crumbs of information concerning Fincher’s production, nobody has yet to answer the question as to why this film needs to be made at all? (Beyond the obvious fact that there’s money to be made…)

I found it interesting that, at the end of the EW article concerning Mara’s casting, it is mentioned that the film is set to begin filming in Sweden. Why exactly? Hasn’t a film about a girl with a dragon tattoo who helps a smug journalist investigate a disappearance in Sweden already been made? It would seem that the “American version” has little to offer beyond offering up a fantasy Sweden where everyone speaks English and those viewing the film are freed from having to try to read subtitles and rattle their jumbo tubs of popcorn at the same time. Or are we just sending David Fincher over to Sweden because we think we’ve got a thing or two to teach the nation that gave us Ingmar Bergman?

It’s easy to find a lot of people trying to convince themselves that this film is a guaranteed classic. (“I’m so happy they cast Robin Wright!” they exclaim. “I usually hate remakes but with David Fincher aboard, I’m looking forward to this,” another one will say. And, of course, my favorite: “This movie is not a remake!”) But nobody seems to be willing to address just why exactly we would need a new Lisbeth Salander when she’s already been created to perfection by Noomi Rapace.

Seriously, both Rapace and Lisbeth deserves better.

For that matter, so does Rooney Mara.

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

Posted on August 13, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And Then There Were Six More…

Posted on August 8, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I recently came to the realization that my destiny is to list and share 666 of my favorite grindhouse and exploitation film trailers. Previously, I’ve shared 12. Here’s 6 more.

Part One and Part Two of my trailer survey can be found here.

1) Liquid Sky — Have you seen Liquid Sky and if the answer is no, why not? Liquid Sky is one of the great underground films of the early 80s, an epic about drugs, aliens, bisexuality, and performance art. Quite simply put, you must see this movie.

2) Blacula — When I first saw this trailer, my first thought was, “Oh, that is sooooo wrong.” But, the movie actually isn’t that bad. William Marshall is wonderfully dignified and haunted as the tragic title character.

3) Bio-Zombie — I haven’t actually seen this movie but I love this energetic trailer (and the Hello Kitty reference, as well).

4) Martin — This trailer for George Romero’s vampire movie features the film’s star, John Amplas, speaking to the audience in character. Martin is one of the unacknowledged great vampire movies. Supposedly, there’s a remake in the works which, needless to say, is not necessary in the least. The original is more than good enough.

5) Near Dark — Speaking of vampire movies, here’s Near Dark. Before Kathryn Bigelow won an Oscar for The Hurt Locker, she made her debut with Near Dark. Of the two, Near Dark is the better film.

6) Rabid — This is an early David Cronenberg film and probably one of his first stabs at being a “commercial” filmmaker (I would have to ask R-Lee for sure on this as he’s the resident Cronenberg expert). The late Marilyn Chambers plays a young woman who gets infected with rabies and proceeds to spread the disease throughout Montreal. As you might expect with a Cronenberg film, the Canadian government quickly turns fascist and a lot of Canadians die as a result. The movie’s not totally succesful but the trailer is. As a sidenote: in 2004, Marilyn Chambers Taylor was the vice-presidential candidate of the Personal Choice Party. I cast my first vote ever for her.

Scenes I Love: Scum of the Earth

Posted on August 8, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

You know how there are certain scenes in certain movies that you just can’t get out of your mind? Below is one of my favorites, the infamous “you’re damaged goods and this is a fire sale!” monologue from Herschell Gordon Lewis’s 1963 expose of the Hollywood smut trade, Scum of the Earth.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Twelve (directed by Joel Schumacher)

Posted on August 7, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I’ve seen a lot of reviews for the just-released Twelve that have referred to this movie as just being an extended episode of Gossip Girl, largely because the movie deals with spoiled, rich teenagers and it stars Chace Crawford. I’m going to venture a guess that the majority of these reviewers have never actually seen an episode of Gossip Girl, which is actually entertaining and self-aware in a way that the ploddingly obvious Twelve could never hope to match.

Crawford plays White Mike. He’s a recent high school drop out who now makes his living selling drugs — mostly marijuana — to his former classmates. However, his classmates — not to mention his cousin, Charlie — are more interested in sampling a new designer drug known as twelve. We’re told that twelve feels like a combination of cocaine and ecstasy. As this movie struggled to reach its apocalyptic conclusion, I found myself thinking, “That doesn’t sound too bad. I wonder if I can get some twelve after the movie…”

Anyway, Twelve charts out four days in the life of Crawford and his former classmates. It starts with Crawford ignoring a pathetic phone call from his junkie cousin and it ends with a shooting rampage at a party that leaves the majority — but not all — of the cast dead. It’s supposed to be an anti-drug film but, like far too many anti-drug films, it can’t disguise the fact that the characters are a lot more fun to watch when they’re on drugs than when they aren’t. (For instance, we’re told early on that White Mike doesn’t do drugs, smoke, or drink and just look how miserable he is.) Director Joel Schumacher gives us a lot of really pretty images but there’s nothing below the surface and as a result, the film’s massacre doesn’t so much feel tragic as it just feels like a poorly planned fashion spread in Elle.

(As opposed to Nick McDonnell’s original novel, the film Twelve is mainstream enough to only allow unlikable characters to die at the end.)

The cast is almost achingly pretty but, at the same time, largely forgettable, with two major exceptions. Poor Rory Culkin (who I worry about because he always seems so sad every time he shows up in a movie) brings a lot of pathos to his role as the geeky kid who happens to have the perfect party house, permissive parents, and a psychotic older brother. Emily Meade is memorable playing a character who, in many ways, is a female version of Culkin’s. Playing a bipolar girl who discovers a love for twelve, Meade actually manages to overcome the generic plot (the type that demands that she go from being an honor’s student to selling her body to Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson in little over 24 hours) and makes her character compelling. Plus, she has a fun scene where her teddy bears encourage her to kill people.

Still, the movie ultimately belongs to Keifer Sutherland who never appears on-screen but who gets more dialogue than anyone else in the entire film. Sutherland plays the narrator. That’s right, as simplistic as the movie is, Schumacher apparently felt that the movie needed a narrator to tell us what we’ve just seen onscreen. For instance, we see Crawford selling drugs. Suddenly, Sutherland’s voice informs us, “White Mike is a drug dealer.” “Oh,” we say in the audience, “so that’s why he’s exchanging marijuana for money…”

Even though the narrator is essentially just quoting large chunks of prose from McDonnell’s novel, the use here is technically a mistake. I say “technically” because it cannot be denied that Sutherland has probably got the sexiest narrator voice around. Regardless of whether the movie needed it, I needed it. If nothing else, I will always remember seeing Twleve as the time I heard Keifer Sutherland say, in his purring growl of a voice, “I want to tap that ass,” and I thought, “Well, okay…”

Too Sordid To Ever Be Corrupted

Posted on August 1, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“How could you have possibly enjoyed that movie?”

I hate that question. I hate the self-righteous tone of it. I hate the demand that I justify anything that I choose to do with my life. I hate the implication of the question, the suggestion that somehow there is some sort of moral force at the center of the universe that determines whether or not a movie can be enjoyed.

Unfortunately, no matter how obviously justified I am in loathing that question, it’s still one that I am frequently asked. How can I not only enjoy watching old school exploitation and grindhouse films (the majority of which were made before I was even born) but also devote a good deal of my time to not only watching these movies but tracking them down and then telling the rest of the world how much I love them?

(Of course, what they’re really asking is what are you doing watching exploitive trash like House On The Edge of the Park or Fight For Your Life when you should be out finding a husband, driving an SUV, and living a life of quiet desperation?)

First off, I should confess. I have commitment issues, I know it. I realize that, as a result of some personal experiences in the past, that I tend to beg for affection and attention even while I’m putting up my own invisible wall to keep anyone from getting too close. It’s not easy for me to trust but, after writing for this site since May, I feel like maybe it’s time to share a little bit more about me. Hi. My name is Lisa Marie. I’m 24. I have three older sisters that I love. I’m a proud to be an Irish-German-Spanish-Italian-American. I lived in five different states before I was 13 and I’m rarely amused when people point out the country twang in my voice. Up until I was 17, ballet was my life but then I fell down a flight of stairs, broke my ankle in two places, and that was the end of that. I worked very hard to earn a degree in Art History. Not surprisingly, my current job has nothing to do with art or history. I have asthma and heterochromia (my right eye is a darker shade of green than the left). I’m blind without my contacts. I like cats, driving fast, and being single. I dislike dogs, needy men, and those tiny little smart cars. The only thing that can equal my love for the Grindhouse is my hatred for the Mainstream.

Here’s a few reasons why.

1) Before Independent Film, there was the Grindhouse.

Today, if a young director wants to show what he’s capable of doing, he makes his own little film and enters it into various film festivals and, if he’s made something interesting, he might sign a distribution deal and his film might pop up down here in Dallas at the Angelika theater. In the 70s, that young director would make an exploitation film, hope that it had enough sleaze appeal to make back its budget by playing in a New York Grindhouse (or a Southern drive-in) and, if he had made something interesting, his cheap, exploitation film might eventually end up being released on DVD by Anchor Bay or Blue Underground. The best Grindhouse films were made by director who were eager to show what they were capable of doing. These movies were not made by multimillionaires with houses on both coasts of the country. Grindhouse movies were made by director who had to work to create something memorable, filmmakers who knew that they might never get another chance to put their vision on-screen.

2) The Mainstream Lies. The Grindhouse is honest.

Mainstream films are just that. They are films designed to appeal to the widest possible audience. A mainstream movie is not made for you. A Mainstream movie is made to appeal to the brain-dead suburbanites who can be easily recruited at the local mall to be a part of a test screening. A Mainstream movie is made to be inoffensive. A Mainstream movie is edited and re-edited to remove anything that could possibly negatively reflect on the bottom line.

Grindhouse movies, however, didn’t have time for that. Grindhouse movies were made to exploit the moment. As a result, there was no time to worry about appealing to everyone. There was no time to constantly edit until not a single rough edge remained. Grindhouse films are messy. Grindhouse films are not always pleasant. They don’t always have the perfect ending. In short, Grindhouse movies are like life itself.

In the end, safe and inoffensive mainstream movies are made to appeal to the who we wish we were. Grindhouse movies — sordid, sometimes uncomfortable, and always appealing to the audience’s most primal thoughts, fears , and desires — are made to appeal to who we actually are.

3) The Mainstream is bland. The Grindhouse is dangerous and unpredictable.

Where else but in a Grindhouse film could you hear a killer who speaks like a duck like in Lucio Fulci’s The New York Ripper? Because the Grindhouse was free of the need to try to fit in with what the mainstream decreed to be normal, the Grindhouse had the freedom to come up with some of the most brilliantly demented plots in the history of film. When was the last time that the plot of a Mainstream film really caught you off guard? I’m not talking about safe, inoffensive surprises like Avatar‘s 3-D effects. I’m talking about a plot where, halfway through, you look at your fellow viewer and you both say, “What the fuck was that!?” Anything can happen in the Grindhouse. As soon as things start to feel safe and a little boring, the Grindhouse has the ability to make things exciting again. The Mainstream, meanwhile, just asks you to get married.

4) The Mainstream always condescends. The Grindhouse occasionally empowers.

Here’s a story of two movies. In the mainstream Brave One, Jodie Foster gets a gun after she’s raped and her dog is stolen. (In typical mainstream fashion, the movie doesn’t seem to be sure which crime is supposed to be worse.) In the grindhouse Ms. 45, Zoe Tamerlis gets a gun after she’s raped twice in one day. In the Brave One, Foster passively sits on the New York subway and waits until she threatened with rape a second time before she kills the potential rapist. In Ms. 45, Tamerlis shoots every man she sees because she knows that every man she sees is a potential rapist. In The Brave One, Foster gets her revenge by remaining the victim. In Ms. 45, Tamerlis becomes the aggressor. Both Foster and Tamerlis act in self-defense but Foster is wracked with guilt because the mainstream cannot risk losing its audience. Tamerlis becomes stronger and more confident with each murder as, for the first time, she has found a way to control her own destiny. At the end of The Brave One, Foster is not only rescued by a man but she gets her dog back too. At the end of Ms. 45, Tamerlis goes on a shooting rampage at a Halloween party and is finally killed by another woman. The Brave One‘s tag line was “How many wrongs to make it right?” Ms. 45’s tagline: “She was used and abused and it will never happen again!”

I know this is probably going to be my most controversial argument. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating that we should just go out and start randomly shooting men. But, I will say this — in Ms. 45, Zoe Tamerlis refuses to be a victim and she — and the film — refuses to let society off the hook. When I think about Ms. 45, it doesn’t inspire me to hate men (because, trust me, I don’t) and it certainly doesn’t inspire me to grab a gun and start shooting. It does, however, inspire me to not allow myself to fall into that never-ending cycle of victimhood.

I’m not attempting to argue that Grindhouse films are secretly feminist films. Grindhouse films are infamous for exploiting women. However, so does the mainstream. (Of the two films, The Brave One features nudity. Ms. 45 does not.) Both the Grindhouse and the mainstream obviously get off on victimizing women. However, in the Grindhouse, women were occasionally (though certainly not often) allowed to fight back with the same aggression and determination that the mainstream, for the most part, usually reserves just for men.

(If The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo had been released in the 70s, it would have played at the Grindhouse.)

5) Lastly, and most importantly, the Grindhouse is still our little secret.

Let’s just admit it — independent films are trendy. Contemporary independent films have, to a large extent, become the new mainstream. The earnest film students who had a Sundance hit are now going to Hollywood to make the next Benjamin Button. Sundance is just ShoWest with more facial hair. However, the old school grindhouse will never sell out because it no longer exists. It was destroyed by the morality police before it could sacrifice its soul. While an independent filmmaker is just a director who will eventually grow up and break your heart, the great Grindhouse films are frozen in time, too sordid to ever be corrupted. The Mainstream will never embrace the Grindhouse and for that reason, the Grindhouse will always be the ultimate statement of freedom.

6 More Exploitation Film Trailers That I Love

Posted on July 31, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Back in May, I posted 6 old school exploitation trailers that I love. At the time, I said that even though I only posted 6 of them, I could have easily listed 666. While I don’t have the space to put up quite that many, here’s 6 more exploitation film trailers that I love.

1) A Black Veil For Lisa — There’s several things that I love about this trailer. I love the faux-noir narration. I love the teasing tone. I love the old school femme fatale attitude of lead actress Lucianna Paluzzi. But, to be honest, the main reason I love it is because it’s all about a redhead named Lisa. That and the line “Every man wants a Lisa…”

2) The Italian Stallion — This is the trailer for the re-release of Sylvester Stallone’s porn debut, A Party At Kitty and Stud’s. I’ve never seen the movie nor do I have much desire to see it but this trailer just amused me to no end. Whether its the awesomely phony line readings of Gail Palmer or the catchy and empty theme song, this trailer feels like a genuine time capsule.

3) The House On The Edge of the Park — Speaking of catchy but empty theme songs, Ruggero Deodato’s The House on the Edge of the Park features my personal favorite, Riz Ortolani’s infamous Do It To Me (Once More). It can be heard at the end of this trailer and once it gets stuck in your head, it’ll stay there forever. As for the trailer itself, it’s a perfect example of how a well-edited trailer can actually make a somewhat draggy film seem exciting (that said, this movie is one of my all-time guilty pleasures, as misogynistic and wrong-headed as it ultimately is). A few things I love about this trailer — the blue-tinted views of New York City, David Hess’s iconic psycho performance, the sight of my man Giovanni Lombardo Radice dancing, and the fact that the trailer actually manages to 1) get the movie’s name wrong and that 2) nobody ever bothered to fix it.

(Author’s note: Whoops! Before you watch this, I have to admit that I’d forgotten just how explicit, violent, and exploitive this trailer really is. So, consider this to be definitely NSFW — not that you should be watching any of these trailers at work, to begin with — and seriously, no joke, don’t watch this trailer if you are easily upset or offended. Honestly, if I saw this trailer without having any knowledge of how silly the actual movie really is, I would probably find this trailer to be deeply offensive. Well, no, actually, I probably wouldn’t. For the most part, I’m only offended by things that happen offscreen in the real world. — Lisa Marie Bowman)

4) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre — Yes, I know everyone’s probably seen this trailer a hundred times but it’s still probably one of the best and most effective trailers of all time. Plus, I’m from Texas so you know I had to mention this movie at some point. (I may have mentioned this in the past, but seriously — try to imagine this movie being as effective if it was called The Vermont Chainsaw Massacre.)

5) Mindwarp (a.k.a. Galaxy of Terror) — I’ve been eagerly awaiting the chance to buy this film on DVD ever since seeing this trailer on the latest 42nd Street Forever compilation. Rumor has it that this film was actually directed by James Cameron, back when he was still interesting. Supposedly, this film features a very aggressive tentacle but, to be honest, I mostly just want to see Sid Haig’s arm get cut off. (Seriously, who doesn’t? Take that, Capt. Spaulding!)

6) Stage Fright — This is the wonderfully intense and claustrophobic trailer to the great Michele Soavi’s 1st film, Stage Fright, a movie I’m going to watch as soon as I finish up this post. So, with no further delay…