Bruce Campbell

"... The first movie, we had no idea we would even finish the thing. It was a four-year slog just to get it done. And an even longer slog to return the money to the investors. Nobody broke even for about 10 years on that project—none of it was a slam dunk. People forget, Army of Darkness went well over budget; it bombed, and so they killed the franchise.... "

I interviewed the man, the myth, the legend, Bruce Campbell for Vegas Seven.

Atomic Blonde

... Played with a reserve as icy as the cubes she tosses into her many glasses of vodka (seriously, people drink and smoke in this movie like it’s Barfly), Lorraine herself comes in with only a few shreds of backstory and remains enigmatic throughout the film, which some might find off-putting but, hell, isn’t that how James Bond has operated for 26 movies?

Read the rest of the review at Vegas Seven...

Psycho Gothic Lolita

Well, because the title, that's why.

As the trailer for Psycho Gothic Lolita announces: "Beauty, modeling and action! The core of Japanese films all in one!" There's also a goodly bit of splatter. Also known as Gothic & Lolita Psycho, it's a fast-moving series of fight scenes, punctuated with gallons of fake blood, none of which gets on our heroine's fabulous outfit.

 Basically the story is that Psycho Gothic Lolita's mom was murdered and her dad (who is apparently a priest) was paralyzed by some gang in black trenchcoats and now, of course, she is out for vengeance. I don't think we ever find out why the killed her family and there is an absurd twist at the end that would make even M. Night Shyamalan say, "That shit was contrived and unnecessary," but what kind of fool watches something called Psycho Gothic Lolita for the plot?

 

Our heroine has five people she needs to off in order to even the score for mom--each one is represented by a tarot-style card, a device that, like so many things in Psycho Gothic Lolita, remains unexplained. Her father, who is now in a wheelchair, is her Q and builds her a number of interesting umbrella-based weapons but we have no idea why she has to dress up in Gothic Lolita drag to get revenge--in the (tedious, overused) flashbacks, she is conventionally attired

As our Psycho Gothic Lolita, Rina Akiyama looks great, but isn't much in the charisma department: Not so much implacable killing machine as a outfit and a gimmick with a catchphrase that doesn't make sense. Although it is a hell of an outfit--love the umbrella-styled sleeves and laced-up skirt even if the Marie Antoinette via Michaels hairdo doesn't really do it for me. Also, i know it's all about consistency, but I wish she'd had one or two more outfits. The movie is about fashion, so give me some costume changes, dammit!

It also feels like they missed some opportunities with her opponents. Her biggest adversary, Elle, is in Gyaru style with pink lipgloss and a TLC-style eyepatch, as well as a pair of knife/guns, one of which has a built-in cellphone. (Wait--Elle with an eyepatch and guns? Well, I guess it's nice to see someone stealing from Tarantino for a change.) But the rest of the folks she battles are a sort of random assortment--if we're here for fashion, every one of them should have been some kind of Tokyo street style stereotype. She should have had to take on a Kogal schoolgirl or some Fairy Kei bitch in a Care Bears T-shirt and pastel fake fur.

 

There is one brilliant scene where she runs into "KAMIKAZE," a ridiculous bunch of Westerners that are half-Karate Kid, half-West Side Story and completely hilarious. Psycho Gothic Lolita ain't no Sex and Fury and it ain't no Heroic Trio. Hell, it's not even Tokyo Gore Police. But it does have its moments.

Wild at Heart

Perhaps you're wondering how the work of David Lynch qualifies as the Craptacular... 

After all, Blue Velvet is amongst the finest films made by anyone, ever, classic or modern, American or foreign, indie or studio. No argument there. Eraserhead is a work of divine madness, Mulholland Drive is a haunting piece of cinema that turns on itself like a Mobius strip, Twin Peaks was the precursor of today's dark, narrative-heavy television series. Of course, there is some genuine crap in the output (Lost Highway). But Wild at Heart is Lynch's best attempt at drive-in cheese, whether he (or the jury that gave it the Palme d'Or at Cannes) knows it or not. 

And it has Nicholas Cage. The role of Sailor Ripley helped focus Cage's ass-kicking, snakeskin-wearing, pseudo-Elvis persona... for good or for ill. (Gotta love how he tells everyone that his beloved snakeskin jacket is "a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom.") I believe we can also add Wild at Heart to the (very) long list of films Quentin Tarantino has cribbed from.

So, the film opens with flames, guitars and action-movie punching sounds. We go straight to Nicholas Cage beating some guy to death in the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel. (It says it's somewhere in the Carolinas, but i've drank at the Biltmore and stayed at the Biltmore and i know it's the goddamn Biltmore.) Since he could have stopped at the beating part and left off the "to death" and it was in front of about 100 people, he goes to prison. This distresses his girlfriend, Lula, played by Laura Dern. But it delights her mother, Marietta Fortune, played by Dern's mother Diane Ladd -- not as much as it would have delighted her if Sailor had been the loser in that battle (as was her intent), but it brings a fuschia-glossed smile to her pancaked face nonetheless.

Wild at Heart then flashes forward 22 months and 18 days when Sailor is released into the waiting arms -- and bitchin convertible -- of Lula. The two fuck and talk, the first of many rounds of fucking and talking in this film. They go to a bar where they flail around to some speed metal until Sailor stops the band to sing the Elvis ballad, "Love Me" to Lula. Then it's back to the hotel for more fucking and talking, during which the two decide to break Sailor's parole and point that convertible west.

However, Lula's mama is still pissed and figures she'll take another crack at getting Sailor whacked, sending her boyfriend Harry Dean Stanton to take care of the killin'. Like a job you send Harry Dean Stanton to do is gonna get done. The man has played many, many roles but damned few of them were fellows you'd describe as "go-getters"...

Let us also point out here that Diane Ladd has a remarkable series of wigs and pseduo-Dynasty prom dresses to aid in her demented overacting. But, of course, it's probably hard to figure out what is "too much" when you're acting in a David Lynch film.

Yeah. So that's basically your setup. Crazy young lovers on a road trip pursued by a series of weird, inexplicable villains. Like all Lynch films, Wild at Heart has plenty of odd supporting character turns. The most incredible is, of course, Crispin Glover as Cousin Dell. His narrative technically adds nothing to the story and is simply another of Lula's post-coital tales but, oh, is it bizarre. Cockroaches in underpants.'Nuff said.

Really, i kind of feel like it was stuck in when they realized Wild at Heart just wasn't weird enough. So, they cut out the torture-snuff scene and added Crispin Hellion Glover. I can tell you which one disturbs me more...

Then we have a phantasmagorcial scene of a roadside nighttime car crash with Sherilyn Fenn as a crash victim. The barrage of bad news, ugly accidents and evil mojo that our idealistic young lovers run up against is a recurring motif in this film.Another recurring motif is The Wizard of Oz, which feels a little forced, especially when we have Diane Ladd in full Wicked Witch of the West drag flying alongside Sailor and Lula's Eldorado. Be subtle, Mr. Lynch: Use the flying monkeys.

More plot-crucial, there's Willem Dafoe -- and some really ghastly prosthetic teeth -- providing another of his unhinged turns as Bobby Peru, a creep whom Sailor and Lula hang out with when they decide to strand themselves in Big Tuna, Texas.

Yep, that's a face you can trust. A face that you would have no problem with taking advice from, a face you would get drunk with, a face you would allow to fondle the mother of your child. The face of a man whose hare-brained, low-return criminal schemes you would certainly want to involve yourself in.

Is Wild at Heart a crucial entry in the David Lynch canon? Not really (although it is essential to understanding the evolution of Nicholas Cage). It's got plot holes you could run a fleet of semis through and still have room for a freight train. It's got way too much hotel-room soliloquy not not enough of the not-quite-our-planet otherworldly weirdness that characterizes Lynch's best work.

 It's oddly by-the-wayside in his filmogrpahy now, given the tumultuous reception it received at release -- though that perhaps had more to do with  Lynch's Twin Peaks-era cultural high-tide than the quality of Wild at Heart itself. But it's an entirely watchable film and perhaps the less-overtly Lynchian quality has something to do with that.

Romeo Is Bleeding

Another film that was ahead of its day, Romeo Is Bleeding was a violent noir homage with a charismatic antihero and sociopathic villainess.

 Don't worry: She's all fucked up and bloody because she just killed a couple dudes.

Romeo Is Bleeding got bad reviews and was something of a flop in its time, but i think that's just because no one got it. I'm not sure everyone would get it now, but hopefully at least the odds are better. If anything, some of the tropes that seemed weird at the time have become a bit overused by now...

So, Gary Oldman plays Sgt. Jack Grimaldi, a corrupt New York City cop who's in bed with the mafia and sleeps around. Don't worry, he'll get his. Everyone does.

Smoking is not sexy.

Lena Olin's Mona Demarkov is both femme fatale and evil mastermind combined--imagine Jane Greer and Kirk Douglas in Out of the Past rolled into one or Gloria Grahame and Lee Marvin in The Big Heat being the same person. Like Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction, she is not just a heartless monster, but a heartless monster that derives genuine, visceral enjoyment from watching her victims squirm. And die.

Nope. Not at all.

While the title is taken from a Tom Waits song, the film has nothing to do with it. Oldman-as-Grimaldi is a bored policeman who wants a taste of the good life he sees all the criminals around him devouring. He's got a beautiful brunette wife and a sexy blonde mistress and a bungalow in Queens. He's making a little extra cash selling out informants to the mob. He tells us all of this in third-person voiceover in case we don't get the noir thing (Actually at one point he gets so involved in the monologue that another character has to lean over and interrupt him.) but it's obvious that this a pawn who only has delusions of being a king.

So, Grimaldi sets up one informant, only to get tangled up with the mob's toughest assassin, Mona Demarkov. She's not just bad, she's a psycho killer. Literally: A lunatic who murders people while laughing hysterically. Usually dressed in lingerie, always in stiletto heels. She is smarter, tougher and meaner than any man around. Some crooked cop criminal wannabe self-styled ladies' man? She can eat him for lunch and still ask to look at the dessert menu.

Grimaldi tries to play Mona against the mob, the NYPD against the Feds and is not nearly smart enough to do so. The dipsy mistress starts hassling about marriage, the compliant wife has been wised up all along and he's still got Mona to deal with. She may be crazy, but he's an idiot who can't think further ahead than the tip of his dick. Grimaldi and Mona spend the whole film trying to kill each other or fuck each other or fucking kill each other. And you know who's going to be on top....

Romeo Is Bleeding also has some fabulous New York City location shooting in the last days before Giuliani wrecked everything (Or began: Bloomberg finished the job.) everything from a nightmare dream sequence on the Wonder Wheel to a backyard overlooking Cavalry Cemetery to a Greenpoint car crash to shallow graves in the shadow of the World Trade Center. Actually all the cinematography is beautifully done. The soundtrack is also atmospheric and evocative of classic noir films (brushed drums, wailing saxophone).

Gary Oldman is compelling and sympathetic while being an in-over-his-head jerk and pulls of a damned convincing New York accent; Olin is over-the-top as the voracious Mona Demarkov, but that's the way the role is written and she plays it to the hilt, a woman who takes no bullshit from or for anyone. Romeo Is Bleeding is certainly not a great film, but it's a fun watch...

Tokyo Gore Police

You know how the Double Down has those edited videos that blend anime porn, foreign sexploitation, horror trailers, underground cartoons and old commercials? Well, Moss can save himself some work for the next round and just throw on a copy of Tokyo Gore Police, which has most of those ingredients chopped up and ready to serve.

Chopped up indeed. Tokyo Gore Police takes blood-spewing, limb-severing grossness and slams it to the nth level. If it wasn't so ridiculous, it'd be upsetting -- ridiculous not only in the sense of a nonsensical plot, but it's also a movie that knows when you need to see that the exploding head is almost laughably (and entirely laughably, if you've had a few beers) fake. Also because sometimes they just say "Fuck it," point a hose full of red tempera paint at the camera and let 'er rip.

Tokyo Gore Police is set in a dystopian future (Is there any other kind?) where there's lots of violence and crime and it's always night. The Tokyo Police Corporation are locked in perpetual battle with "the Engineers," a mutant race of criminals that sprout weapons from their wounds. So, if you cut an engineer's hand off, it may grow a chainsaw. Hack a leg off, it might turn into a sword... and other bizarre and brutal transformations.

As you can see, the cops need a little help and that help comes in the form of Ruka, miniskirted master warrior, daughter of an assassinated police captain. Her entrance has distinct echoes of Maggie Cheung in The Heroic Trio, except the cutting part is a little more like a Lifetime movie. There's also a bit of noir in the sets and styling, but the excess of red throws it off a little...

Another feature of Tokyo Gore Police is the use of "commercials" for things like cartoon character wrist-cutter knives or PSAs against committing hara-kiri over your job, as well as "news reports" on the latest grotesque crime. It also has a very cool sort of Shonen Knife/5678s/Stereo Total Japanese garage rock soundtrack.

We've also got a brothel scene that is a triple-X mutant Mos Eisley horrorshow -- it makes the gay bar in Dinah East look like a Mormon Tupperware party and the eyeballs in the nipples bit from Gothic like something from Forest Gump.

Oh, and there's a lot of gimps in this movie. Lotta gimps. Variations on a gimp suit you never thought of before -- actually you get to see nice closeups of a number of sex toys. I'd suggest that the various Adult Emporiums and Love Stores put it on screen to encourage sales, except you know, the violence. And the blood. And the vagina dentata...

As Ruka, Eihi Shiina is blank-faced and emotionally distant but, well, that does make her a welcome bit of solidity in a film of whirling excess, as well as an example of the troubled-child-grows-up-into-implacable-killing-machine hero meme familiar from so many action flicks. And, as you can tell from these stills, the lady knows how to create a picture on screen.

Know what happens when you grab my ass on the subway?
My samurai sword makes a Bellagio fountain out of your grimy mitts.

There's some excess plot about an engineer called the Keymaker who is out to get our heroine (But why?), who is also out to get whoever killed her father (But who?) Tokyo Gore Police runs a little long and they could have done without some of the storyline. Heaven knows they weren't going to cut any of the effects. If sometimes the movie seems to stop entirely to flaunt some particularly visceral and horrible bit of construction, bear in mind that the director, Yoshihira Nishimura, is best known for his work on special effects makeup and he let himself go a bit nuts on sort of David Cronenberg/Tetsuo: The Iron Man hybrids...

 Why, yes, Todd Akin, a woman's body does "have a way of shutting that down."
Wanna see it?

Tokyo Gore Police is not everyone's cup of tea. In fact, i am pretty sure it is a cup of tea that will cause most people to make a distressed noise and immediately rush to pour it out in the sink. (And even if you're inured to fake blood and body parts, they swing around and get you with someone eating bugs on the subway.) But, if you like the gross and the black humor and the hallucinatory-level weird -- or just dig special-effects makeup --it's worth a look, although you probably will also be spending some of the running time looking away...

Jesus Christ, i thought BatRatSpiderCrab was horrible....