I should really rename this series “the forgotten about”. It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, and that’s because I haven’t really seen anything that I’d class as that underrated. However, while watching Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, which is arguably the ultimate Sam Peckinpah movie, it occurred to me that the film receives nowhere near the love that it should do. Even if it is arguably to blame for some of Cokey McFrankensteinhead’s more wild excesses. I find it surprising that in this day and age of remakes, particularly of notorious films from the day, that this Grand Guignol of bloody tragedy and ultraviolence wouldn’t have flitted across some marketing whore’s desk. I mean, if you think about it, the supremely unpalatable Straw Dogs received a grotesquely inappropriate remake last year (which genius cast Kate Bosworth in the Susan George role? She’s got the sex appeal of a tapioca filled jockstrap) so it’s astonishing that arguably the definitive pulp movie somehow has remained untouched. 

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia had a somewhat troubled genesis. Conceived by Frank  Kowalski, the story of one man’s attempt to retrieve a corpse’s head was transformed by Pekinpah into something almost completely unpalatable for audiences at the time. Certainly unpalatable for most (Ebert excepted) critics. Filming in Mexico, the gun crazy wino tweaked the nose of Hollywood with increasingly insane pronouncements about American cinema, and thereby pissed off the unions who threatened to boycott the film. It went down as the film that Peckinpah thought he had the most control of; the film that represented his purest vision, and on that note, one can only say that he was one supremely fucked up dude.

Warren Oates plays Bennie. Bennie is a down on his luck American ex-soldier eking out a sorry living playing piano in a shitty bar in Mexico City. He’s approached by Sappensly (Robert Webber) and Quill (Gig Young), two homosexual hitmen working for El Jefe, a wealthy land owner who is somewhat upset that his daughter was impregnated by one Alfredo Garcia. Bennie happens to think he knows the location, and he confirms with his prostitute girlfriend Elita (Isela Vega) that Garcia died in a drink driving accident. Bennie hatches the half-witted plan to cut the head off the corpse and return it to El Jefe for 10k. En route to Garcia’s grave Bennie and Elita are assaulted by two bikers (one of whom is played by Kris Kristofferson) who attempt to rape Elita compelling Bennie to open Pandora’s box and gun the pair of them down, thereby starting the spiral of violence that the film is set on. At Garcia’s grave, Elita is murdered and Bennie buried alive with her body, which causes his mind to, understandably, fracture. Bennie retrieves the head, has a few severely bizarre conversations with it and the violence escalates culminating in a, even for Peckinpah, astonishingly nihilistic and blood soaked ending.

Warren Oates has never been better than he is here as Bennie. His accelerating unravelling psyche is brilliantly portrayed, and the scene where he starts chatting to Alfredo is a superb piece of work. Vega, an actress that I’m not familiar with, is astonishingly good as Elita, and her performance is natural and incredibly warm. Incidentally, this is essential, because she supplies the emotional heart of the film- Elita loves Bennie unconditionally, and despite his greed bringing tragedy down on them, she’d willingly follow him into the jaws of Hell. It’s her death that alters Bennie’s motivation, and the transformation from being a greedy bastard after some cash into the spirit of revenge is one of the finest examples of high tragedy out there.

This is a “difficult” film, and that’s in part because it is so god damned nihilistic. Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is a bleak and sordid tale, and as such is not easy to watch. Peckinpah’s Mexico is a down and dirty place, populated with characters with no redeeming feature; a land where life is cheap and respite from the misery is found in the bottom of a bottle. Garcia’s head becomes a grail quest for Bennie- it represents a sliver of hope in a horrible existence, and the eventual shattering of his delusions is what makes the film so hard to watch. Incidentally, apparently there is a scene out there, thankfully cut, that shows him making love (for want of a better expression) with Elita’s corpse, which is a bit too much even for Peckinpah.

As this is a Peckinpah film, we’re clearly not going to be short of gunplay, and Bennie kills more people than Spanish flu. Arguably Peckinpah’s most famous scene is the end of the Wild Bunch, and Alfredo Garcia is similarly stuffed full of slo-mo shoot outs. Yet, as stylised as the violence is, it doesn’t feel gratuitous. Bennie hasn’t borrowed Rambo’s jacket of invulnerability, and the death handed out, particularly to El Jefe, is brutal and coarse: life may be cheap in the film, but it  is very hard to say that in all honesty the majority of the victims don’t deserve their demise- and as such this makes the end even harder to take, because Bennie is completely off reservation by this point and you get the feeling that he knows that his own end is coming.

Overall, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is a minor masterpiece. It’s a gritty pulp story told with no little panache and stock full of stunning performances. I find it insane that this film rates on some people’s lists of the worst movies of all time along with schlocky trash like Santa Claus Conquers the Martians or Manos. Such an absurd statement can only have been borne from the alienation of Alfredo Garcia, and the difficulty that elitist turd Medved had watching it. In some ways, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is the definitive cult movie- and it does seem to have found its audience long after it was first released.

This is the film that has been credited with killing Peckinpah’s career, and it’s fitting that Bloody Sam went down in a hail of bullets, as I cannot think of another film that encapsulates an entire career like this one.

Until next time,

Jarv.

Here are some books I’ve read and TV and movies I’ve seen lately. I  decided to wrap them up into a quick reviews format this time out. Due to Barfy being very busy at the moment this is all me she didn’t edit it so that’s why it reads like it was written by a slow five year old.

BOOKS: These are some quick reviews of some things I’ve read over the last few months. most are books I have read before and didn’t think anybody would be interested in a long review. I have a few long reviews of books in the pipe line.

The Coming of the the Horse clans(Robert Adams 1978) One of my favorite sub genres in Sci fi is post apocalyptic stories and if you add in telepathic horse nomads, saber tooth cats and archery I damn near soil my underoos and that is what you get with Robert Adams excellent book The Coming of the Horse Clans.

Here is the basics. The book takes place 600 years after a nuclear war decimated the worlds some time in early 90′s. Plagues and starvation killed even more. The land was changed due to earth quakes and floods. Humanity was reduced in size and returned to a level of technology about that of the late dark ages. The Horse clans of the title are nomadic decedents of Americans and they roam a range that is roughly from Mexico in the south into Canada in the north and from about Missouri to what’s left of the western states. Most of the west coast was destroyed by nukes and natural disasters.

The horse clans are hard fighting horse archers nomads that can telepathically talk to each other, their horses and to “prairie cats” which are saber tooth tigers that were brought back by cloning just before the world imploded. Returning to the Clans is their undying chief Milo Moray a mutant who is at least 800 years old. He came to rally the Clans to fulfill their destiny, after he spent 200 roaming the world looking for others of his kind. The Horse clans destiny is to return to their mystical shining city of Ehlai by the sea(LA California Adams plays with language a lot in these books and figuring the references is some of the fun) There is one major problem with that idea and Moray knows it. LA is gone and California doesn’t exist much anymore and what’s left is a nuclear waste land. So what he does is convince the 40 odd clans, that decided to trek with him, that the song of Prophesy made a key mistake and Ehlai is in the east not west.  So off go the clans to fight their way back to their mythical home.

This trek puts the clans into conflict with the much more settled lands east of the Mississippi river, principally the Ehleene(a corruption of the word Hellene meaning Greek). The Ehleens were a warrior race made up of Greeks, Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese that had three invasions of the East coast  pushing the natives out and creating a coastal  empire that stretched from whats left of New England down to the Carolinas.

 These books are fun action packed reads. The cool thing about them is that Adams was a three war veteran US Army NCO so his fights scenes have a feeling of authenticity to them. The other thing that is interesting is that Adams was a guy that made swords and armor so that was accurate and I like that sort of info in books. Someday I am going to build a forge and teach myself how to make swords and armor.

Dune(Frank Herbert 1965) I don’t think I need to go into the story right? But man do I love this book it, like the Horse clans book, springs fourth as a fully realized world and felt authentic and lived in. The Emperium, The Bene Gesserit, The Spacing Guild, The Landraad, CHOAM, the Great House, The Sardaukar and most especially The Fremen(By Shai Hulud I do love the Fremen) all jump off the page fully formed and ready to go. If you’ve never read Dune please do yourself a favor and go out right now and get a copy  Your life isn’t fully realized as of yet if you have denied yourself The Fremen. “I am Fremen I walk where I will” words to live by friends.

The Affair(Lee Child 2011) This is the latest Jack Reacher book of the month and compared to the dog shit that was the previous two books this one is pretty OK actually. The story goes back in time to 1997 and takes places a few weeks before the events in the Killing Floor and explains why Reacher lives the way he lives. Like a typical Reacher book there is a hot broad he nails, a mystery to figure out and wrongs to right. Unlike most other Reacher books The Affair is decent and written somewhat OK and makes some sense, which is a BIG victory.

The story is basic Reacher is sent by the Army to a small town outside an Army post that is the home of two companies of Rangers(complete and utter BS, Ranger Battalions are only in 3 places when not deployed or training there are 2 in Georgia and 1 in Washington state they don’t farm out companies unless its training or deployment.). One of the Rangers might or might not be a serial killer of beautiful local women. The big kink in this is that there are several competing political agendenas happening and Reacher is in the cross hairs of all of them. For a typical Reacher book the political machinations and the fights are actually good for once. Congrats Child’s you now have 3 decent books out of 16.

 MOVIES:

Outsourced(2007) This is a really nice little slice of life movie I enjoyed a lot. Its a fish out water story that follows Todd Anderson(Josh Hamilton) a manager at a Seattle Washington based novelty company that finds his department and job outsourced to India, To add further insult to injury he girlfriend dumps him and he is being sent to India to train his replacement. So once he gets to India we, of course, are treated to the whole “this isn’t the west” type of situations. The crowds, the trains, food the society etc are covered. What sets this movie apart from others like this is that Outsourced doesn’t try to do the normal for these type of movies and be condescending to both eastern and western cultures. It explores the strengths and weakness of both but never trys to show one is inherently better then other. Also the low key low speed love affair between Todd and Aisha, a worker at the call center, was well handled and believable. Also the interactions between Todd his replacement trainee manager and the worker bees was nice to watch. I recommend this movie its solid low key entertainment. For you married dudes throw this in it will cover you on the romantic movie front but it doesn’t suck and it’s watchable, you’re welcome.

Benny & Joon(1993): Pound for pound probably Johnny Depp’s finest performance. When he did his Buster Keaton schtick it was amazing to see. Benny & Joon is in my top 10 favorites for a variety of reasons. I like both love stories. The acting and writing was fantastic. The story is engaging sweet and gentle.

 Benny & Joon is a well made little story about the lives of some regular folks that live Spokane Washington. Benny(Aidan Quinn) is the primary guardian for his mentally  ill sister Joon, short for Juniper. Benny is a great guy he loves and cares for Joon as best he can and its pretty damn good,but it takes a toll. All he does is work at the garage he owns and watchs out for Joon which has been getting harder to do. Because of that Benny decided to put Joon in a care facility and it is eating him up. See he’s a decent guy.

 Benny’s only social outlet is a weekly poker game where he and his friends get together and use coupons or items from home as stakes. Benny is forced to take Joon with him since she had driven off the most recent care giver Benny hired. When Benny steps out for a moment Joon joins the game and ends up “winning” Sam(Johnny Depp) A strange, odd movie and Buster Keaton obsessed illiterate, but good man.

 The rest of the movie is about integrating Sam and waitress Ruthie(Juliane Moore) into Benny & Joons lives and its a pleasure to watch it all unfold. This movie is, in my opinion, just about a perfect movie for a many reason but there are two that stand out for me.

 The first is Aidan Quinn. He was great as Benny the  caring compassionate good man with his own issues. Benny put’s his life on hold in his compulsion to take care of Joon. Quinn, as Benny, knocked it out of the park. As laudatory as Depp’s performance was, and it was top notch, I think Quinn turned in an equally great performance in a very non-showy role. Truly outstanding work by Mr. Quinn.

 The other thing that elevated this movie was its portrayal of mental illness. In Hollywood there seems to be only one kind of mental illness that is a psychotic divorced from reality, you know the jabbering schizophrenic type. Here though they managed to show the real face of mental illness the near functional mentally ill. The writers and Mary Steward Masterson showed what the bulk of the mentally ill are like mostly able but different. They really got it right since the character in some moments reminded me of what my mother was like, yes my Mom was mentally ill. They got so much of it right what its like living with the mentally and I would would like to thank the writers, director and actors for their fine work portraying mental illness on this movie.

 TV:

The Syfy channel version of Being Human which is an adaptation of an English show about a vampire, werewolf and Ghost that share a house. Being Human its a sort of alright I guess. The two male leads are good but the girl is all sorts of whiny and kind of useless. I’m only about half way through the first season and the story overall is just OK. The main problem I have is that its full up with all kinds of 20 something navel gazing whinny BS. If they could just slow down on that sort of douchebaggery and maybe focus more on the awesome Mark Pelligrino, continuing his streak of playing bad ass supernatural characters, as the vampire boss then the show will really kick ass.

 The other issue I have with being Human is it being shot in Montreal as a stand in for Boston. That part doesn’t bother me what bothers me is that shows filmed in Canada tend to take on bland homogenous look to them that’s vaguely annoying.

Boss: this show was hugely embraced by the nerds but I don’t see it past the great acting of Kelsey Grammer as Chicago Mayor Tom Kane. Grammer is in full tour de force mode here as Kane and he is excellent. There isn’t a trace of Frasier anywhere to be found. Kane is tough, ruthless, decisive, dangerous, vengeful and dying from a degenerative neurological disorder. As fantastic as Grammer is the show is let down by almost everybody else but the guy who plays Kane’s consigiliere. All the other characters hover somewhere between paper thin and over the top characterization and the actors don’t do much to elevate what they are given. Those lame charters really hurt the show. On the plus side there is considerable nudity in this so thanks for that.

BONUS!

 I have been listing to this Zombie show over the internet called We’re Alive. Its like an old time radio play done on the internet and its pretty good. I’m about half way through season one. If anybody is interested here is a link to the home page http://www.zombiepodcast.com/The_Zombie_Podcast/WereAliveMain.html

Xiphos

If I had brought my guitar, we could all sing Kumbaya. 

I love these big dopey “improbably large and hungry creature fights another equally improbably large and hungry creature”. I love the sheer randomness of the opponents. For example, are octopi and sharks really natural enemies? I think not. In this case, the title fight is between a large Komodo dragon, native of the south pacific, and an even bigger King Cobra, native of, er, India, I think. Or it may be Africa somewhere, anyway naturalism isn’t my strong point and all that matters is that it’s nowhere near the giant lizard’s natural habitat. Therefore this strikes me as unlikely that these two animals would ever face off, even were they to be trapped on a small island in Polynesia and fed nothing but cardboard for two weeks.

The film opens somewhere in the South Pacific. An attractive girl with pleasingly bouncy breasts, Michelle Borth, who played Dean’s wife in that Supernatural Episode with the Djinn (yes, I did look that up on Imdb, and I’m pleased to inform that she was also a gymnast for 14 years. Not sure what relevance this has) and two old guys are running away from an extremely shoddy piece of CGI that is, allegedly, and I’m guessing this from the clever title, an oversized Komodo Dragon. One of the disposable guys gets eaten by the terrifying piece of carnivorous CGI, then it just decides to up tail and bugger off. Michelle and the survivor decide to, because brains are clearly high on the list of skills here, make camp next to the river, when blow me down if another piece of shoddy CGI doesn’t pop out that resembles, apparently, a giant King Cobra, and unconvincingly swallows the other old guy.

"Look, up there, it's a tennis ball on a stick"

Cut to military douchebags, who are sending in a crack team to clean up. The crack team turn out to be almost completely useless and are chomped en masse. Cut again to a bar where Stoddard (Michael Paré, collecting a cheque for a change) is being recruited by tree hugging environmentalist douchebag (Ryan McTavish) his model girlfriend Sandra (Renee Talbert) and a TV crew, the most important of whom is Carrie (Jerri Manthay- who is actually a TV presenter). They’re trying to rip the lid off evil genetic modification that’s been taking place on the island and expose it to the media. Incidentally, Borth, plays, apparently, Dr. Susan Richardson, eminent geneticist and all round scientific genius, and she’s at least partially to blame for the fuck up on the island.

You see, it turns out that they were trying to cure world hunger by arseholing around with some kind of growth serum that Paré wants to steal so he can rub it on his genitals (only joking). Unfortunately this was a military funded project, so they were really interested in making (fuck knows why) large and angry animals. The army (and we’re told this through a series of flashbacks/ cuts away from the action) aren’t too pleased and have ordered the airforce to blast the shit out of the island and erase all trace of them being up to no good and anally violating Mother Nature.

Hehehehehe.

Sadly for them, our intrepid band of heroes escapes, and exposes their rank villainy to the world. But not before we get to witness the most pitiful face off between large and hungry fake CGI monsters that I’ve seen in one of these films. That, by the way, is really saying something, because I’ve seen Dinocroc v Supergator.

These films are nigh on impossible to judge from any reasonable critical perspective. The acting in them varies from the average to the atrocious (it’s average here) and the camera work etc is usually fairly good. The writers try their best to stuff the scripts full of portentous and pseudo badass lines about how when you fuck Mother Nature you don’t wipe your cock on the curtains when you’re done (I will bet that line, that I’ve just made up, appears in one in the near future), but to be honest it never really works properly, as the lines themselves tend to sound ludicrously contrived and self-conscious when delivered by the less than stellar cast. The CGI is invariably utter rubbish, lacking in depth, obviously being superimposed on the screen, and not consistent in size, and they usually, for some reason best known to themselves, indulge in both CGI fire and gunshots.

"I'm telling you, it's a tennis ball on a stick"

Given the above, it’s no real surprise to know that KvC is almost exactly along the expected lines: Mediocre acting? Check; Competent direction? Check; crap CGI? Check; faux badass script? Check (“What the hell is that? It’s something I want dead.”); and so forth. This is very much a paint by numbers 21^st Century monster movie. As such, the success of these films relies entirely on how much fun you had with them.

In the case of this one, I’m sorry to report that that it is a failure because it isn’t any fun. In fact, it’s mostly boring. Our crew of environmentalists aren’t likeable characters, and as such you don’t root for them at all. Ryan in particular is a massive sack of cocks, and aside from the odd moment of comedy (the leeches) the overwhelming feeling is that this lot are just not worth bothering with. To compound the boredom, the frequent scenes with the army just break up the flow of what I’m forced to term the action. I don’t really care what a 5 star General is doing back at base, we only need to see him once, ordering the air strike, and his frequent interruptions to the story rob the film of what little momentum it has managed to generate.

In a rash moment, the cameraman adopted the defensive posture of "rolling on your back" which is known to hold off most forms of bad CGI. Most forms, but not the Cobra.

Then there’s the showdown between the two monsters. By this stage, we’ve seen enough of them to know that they look like hopelessly fake pieces of CGI, and as such aren’t invested in them as realistic threats. Secondly, the fight itself comes out of nowhere, it’s literally “look there’s a helicopter. Oh no, the giant lizard is in front of it. Oh no, there’s the cobra. They’re going to fight now”. This is staggeringly uninteresting, and a waste of a good idea. The fight itself is even more boring, as both are just totally unthreatening, and as such there’s no sense of depth or drama to it. Instead, we’re treated to what feels like two 2 dimensional poorly animated drawings snapping at each other. This is a fail.

Paré is really funny here. He's looking down Borth's top. Never mind the giant leaches, Michael, not when there are juggs around.

Overall, nope, I do not recommend Komodo v Cobra. It’s just too dull for the most part. When I watched it with a few mates, we made a load of sarky remarks about the growth serum, which was good for a few laughs, but that was it in the way of entertainment. To make matters worse, there’s no gore, and every single actress’ top remains resolutely on. This is an entirely pointless effort, and an annoying one, because there are far more entertaining big animal eating people movies out there. Basically, don’t bother, because this one honks.

Incidentally, Jim Wynorski, the director, seems to have a thing about giant Komodo Dragons as this is actually a psuedo-sequel to his original non-globe shattering Curse of the Komodo. I’ve not seen that one and am strangely drawn to it.

Until next time,

Jarv.

Welcome back to Just Pillow Talk’s tour of insipid cinema. Marvel adaptations are, judging by this series, a pretty uninspiring bunch with very few of them becoming elevated above their source material. In fact, it does seem that he’s seen an awful lot that I’d term as being utter shit.  He split up the two Iron Man reviews, probably for reasons of sanity, as the second Iron Man film is dogshit by any reasonable standard. Nevertheless, he’s back with his update from the bowels of funny book hell: 

Iron Man 2 (2010)

Back in the Marvel saddle, I apologize for the delay, but shit happens. While I still have the two FF and Howard the Duck films to contend with, I think it’s time to reflect on how blah Marvel films are. What makers of film seem to forget is to make fun films about superheroes. There should be plenty of action, because, well, it’s a fucking movie based on a comic book. Nor does filling a movie to the brim with characters make it better; it in fact makes it worse since characters inevitably get shortchanged and the overall story suffers.

Now I quite liked the first Iron Man, and yes, that’s mostly due to RDJ’s performance, but there was enough there besides that to make it a good film. The origin of the Iron Man suit I think was handled very well, and the effects were pretty solid. The sequel takes place shortly after the events of the first movie. The world knows Tony Stark as Iron Man, thanks to his announcement at the end of the first film. Tony, suffice to say, loves the limelight. He thinks he is doing a greater good and making America, and the World, a safer place. Alas the U.S. government doesn’t share the same sentiments, and wants the Iron Man suit as government property. They don’t get that warm and fuzzy feeling that a private citizen has control over such a powerful weapon. What Tony doesn’t realize is that Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) has plans to take out Tony with some of the same technology that powers the Iron Man suit and keeps him alive. It turns out Ivanko worked with Tony’s father but got deported due to sharing some of those scientific secrets with the Soviets. Tsk-tsk. Well, Ivan is sort of pissy about that and tries to take out Tony with some electrical charged whips. Close, but no cigar to our comrade friend.

Ivan gets put away but lo and behold gets broken out of prison by Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), who is a competitor of Stark Industries. He wants Ivan to help him build a better droid to compete against Iron Man and win a contract with the military. That tricky Ivan has other ideas and unleashes the droids against Iron Man and the public.

But wait, I got a tad ahead of myself. Rhodey (now played by Don Cheadle), after being reassured by Tony that the technology would not get into the wrong hands anytime soon, he’s upset by Ivan’s attack, which proved the technology is already being copied. This all leads to the worst scene in both movies (think Daredevil vs. Elektra playground scene or the entire Ghostrider movie) with Tony in the Iron Man suit drunk, dancing and shooting dishes with his repulser beam. Rhodey decides to suit up in another Iron Man suit and they duke it out. Rhodey ends up leaving with the suit and bringing it to a military air force base. There, it gets powered up with some of Justin Hammer’s weapons to make it “War Machine”. Are the geeks happy? I think this part was unnecessary; did we really need to get War Machine already? No we did not.

Oh, one more thing, RDJ is dying from the arc reactor even while it keeps him alive. Fortunately for him, Shield gives him the necessary help (sort of) to help him recreate a new element (his dad did it first) and build a brand spanking new arc reactor that is more powerful and doesn’t have the side effect of killing him. Yay Howard!

So Iron Man and War Machine save the day by destroying all the droids and killing Ivan in his all new suit. And there’s more shit about the Avenger Initiative and Nick Fury and Scarlett Johansson is the Black Widow working for Shield pretending to be a secretary for Stark Industries..not that important.

Listen, I actually like the premise of doing the “Armor Wars” (was that what it was called?), where Tony was trying to repossess his technology and undo some wrongs. I just didn’t like the way they went about it. First, the Senate scene was complete shit. Second, I thought Sam Rockwell was a shit villain. I couldn’t take him serious for one moment, nor do I even think he would have had the backbone to have Ivan broken out of prison. The dude is a weasel, doesn’t fit the character. Third, Ivan’s little speech to Tony about “blood in the water” now that he showed the world Tony (and Iron Man) could be gotten to, nothing came of it. It would have been better if Ivan had sold the technology to someone which led to more attacks on Tony. I think the action should have been upped more than it was in this regard. Show what Tony’s overconfidence does to those around him by having everything he cares about put into danger by the technology he created.

The biggest problem with this movie: it felt like a filler between the Avengers movie. It was a disappointment because it did not build off of the first one, more like tread water. I’ll give it 1.5 ScarJo’s out of 4.

Pillow out

Colin was a film that flashed briefly into the public consciousness on release in 2008. The director, one Marc Price, made a virtue of how cheap his film was, costing, allegedly, £45 to make. Now, whether this is true (and I’m somewhat sceptical) the reality is that he used equipment, both camera and editorial that he was either given or already had in his possession. Were I to make a film, then it would cost me a hell of a lot more to both rent the camera and gain access to Adobe Premiere. Nevertheless, the focus on the cut-price nature of the production does, to me, reek of trying to cover over limitations by focusing on one extraordinary feature, and as such excuse the obvious knock on effects of those problems.

Colin is an ordinary guy. The film opens with him entering his friend’s house. Little does he know that his friend has turned into a zombie. Colin manages to fend him off, but not before being bitten himself, with the usual predictable zombie consequences. The rest of the film follows Colin as he shambles around London being all undead. The film concludes with a flashback that fills in the events we missed at the start of the film to thus complete the circle.

The actors were apparently recruited using Myspace and Facebook, therefore, we’re not talking about professionals, but how much range exactly do you have to show to be a zombie? They give out lessons in Shaun of the Dead, and even Davina McCall has managed it convincingly in the past. However, by this lowly standard, it’s only fair to say that all the cast, but Alastair Kirton in particular do a good job. So, no real quibbles there.

What I do have problems with is the rest of the film. Colin at the time was hailed as being the first ever film shot from the point of view of a zombie. This may well be true, I couldn’t say either way. However, that doesn’t mean that a film shot from a zombie’s perspective is necessarily a good idea.  This may be Colin’s film, and it indeed may well be breaking new ground, but it is also  living proof as to why this has never been done before. Simply put, it is, frankly, not at all interesting to follow a zombie around doing zombie things, and getting up to all types of zombie type shenanigans.

This is why I avoid DIY like the plague

By definition, a zombie is a slow, shambling creature primarily motivated by hunger and utterly impervious to pain. They don’t think, they don’t talk, they can’t solve even elementary puzzles (such as door handles) and all in all, they aren’t the most interesting protagonists that you could place at the centre of a narrative. Romero in his more dim-witted days has had them thinking and so forth, but it never works properly (outside of Return of the Living Dead, which is a series played for laughs anyhow). Colin may be a zombie, but he’s an old fashioned one. He wants for nothing more than the opportunity to chew on some people and seems to be following a path through London dictated by some residual memory.

This is the big problem with the film: following a zombie around is not very interesting. In fact, I’ll go further than that: following a zombie around is downright fucking boring. It isn’t helped out by the obvious cheapness of the production, everything looks like grainy shit because the bottom ranked equipment clearly couldn’t do any better. However, against that, watching him shamble around is just an entirely dour and dull experience. In theory this is a fairly good idea, but by its very nature the story is hamstrung because any character that may be of interest is little more than peripheral. Colin, the eponymous central figure of the film isn’t a character, he’s a zombie and as such he has nothing interesting or defining to do. This makes the film boring, and that, at the end of the day is the big sin of the Colin.

Closed patio doors: foiling Zombies since cinema began.

The next problem is that Colin was shot on hand-held camera. So you can never guess what I’m about to say: welcome to shaky hell. Lots of the film, particularly the mugging sequence, is borderline unwatchable as the camera shakes like a blancmange on a pogo stick. I understand that this is a direct result of the cheapness of the equipment, but it does render the film almost unwatchable on more than one occasion, which is a crying shame, really.

He's striving for the high note in Minnie Ripperton's "Loving You"

I haven’t got a huge amount more to say about Colin, really. I appreciate the effort that went in, and I admire Price for getting an almost 0 budget film made and distributed, but I do genuinely dislike the attempt to downplay the actual cost of making it. For a start, it strikes me as disingenuous to claim that it cost £45 because you already owned the camera. Sure, you didn’t buy it to make Colin, but you had already spent the money on it. Then there’s the cost of the computer/ Adobe/ travel for those actors chosen. That all had to be paid for from somewhere. Just because it wasn’t spent, by Price, at that point doesn’t mean it wasn’t spent. In a way, I object to the claim that it cost so little, because it is palpably untrue and if he had claimed that it cost less than, say, £5,000 then we’d all have been lauding the achievement. Nevertheless, by picking a number as absurdly low as £45 he all but guaranteed that I’d spend the entire run time watching it and picking holes in his declared budget.

"It feels good to feel so bad"

Overall, nope, I don’t recommend this. Colin is, on paper, a really good idea implemented with no little aplomb for a budget that ranks as miniscule. However, in reality, Colin is actually a really good idea for a short film running less than 5 minutes, but at full feature length watching a zombie shamble around while you sit on the sofa performing mental arithmetic is not an entertaining way to spend a couple of hours. Colin was a nice try, but should probably have remained a student film project.

Next up I may do the other extreme and idiotic zombie parkour antics in The Devil’s Playground, which features ubercunt Danny Dyer and utterly wastes Myana Buring. Or I may not. I’m not sure.

Until then,

Jarv.

From my brief research into this film, in a vain attempt to find something to write about, I’ve discovered that Beneath the Planet of the Apes is almost universally reviled. This strikes me as unfair. It’s nowhere near as bad as, say, Battle or Burton’s equally hateful remake, and were it to exist in a vacuum then it would be a seriously enjoyable piece of B-level schlock. Unfortunately for the first Planet of the Apes sequel, this isn’t the case and the original film casts a long shadow both over the production of the film itself and the reception to it that Beneath simply isn’t good enough to get out from under.

Serious spoilers lurk below, by the way. 

Opening at the end of Planet of the Apes, Beneath has, in many senses, already made life incredibly hard for itself. Not only is that one of the most iconic scenes of all time, but it serves to remind us of just how fucking good Planet of the Apes was, and therefore makes an absolutely catastrophic mistake early on. Taylor (Charlton Heston) and Nova (Linda Harrison, a lot better this time out, and every bit as hot as she was before) ride off into the distance, Taylor makes a half-arsed attempt to teach her to talk (he’d have more luck teaching algebra to a horse), before he gives her his dog tags and they get separated. In the meantime, a new NASA ship has landed (let’s leave aside the massive continuity problem in the series of this ship landing) introducing us to our new Human protagonist Brent (James Franciscus). Brent is looking for Taylor, and no sooner than you can say “monkey” than he’s bumped into Nova. She takes him to Ape City where he meets Cornelius (Not McDowall this time, surprisingly, instead the part is taken by David Watson) and Zira (Kim Hunter again). Ape City is not a happy place, General Ursus (James Gregory) is clamouring for war on the Forbidden Zone, the wanker, while Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans again) is doing Dr. Zauis type things. Brent is captured along with Nova, then they’re freed by Zira to escape to find Taylor. This leads the humans into the Forbidden Zone, where the descendants of humanity actually live: psychically juiced up Morlock type things that worship a giant planet-killing nuke. Taylor and Brent are reunited and have a bit of a comedy fight, then the apes attack, everyone dies and in a supreme act of absolute dickishness, Taylor presses the button eliminating (in a needless act of mass genocide) all life on the planet.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes is plagued with problems. Firstly, there’s Heston himself. Not only was the budget cut severely, but he demanded a much larger chunk of it. Furthermore, he said he’d only reprise his role if his part was limited to 5 days on set and he got to destroy the world to prevent any further sequels (Ha, you wish, Charlton). This forced writers Paul Dehn and Mort Abrahams to invent the Brent plot so we’ve got a human focus for the films. Actually, weirdly, Franciscus is really good here, and he certainly elevates Harrison not to mention looking more natural with her than the rather caveman-esque Heston. Nevertheless, the problem with Brent is that his very existence forces us to relive the events of the first film, but slightly tweaked. So, Brent meets Nova, marvels at ape city, gets stuffed in a cage, meets our friendly chimps and manages to discern that we blew up the planet. None of this is necessary, because it’s just truncated from the first film, and it’s actually a colossal misstep. The correct route here would have been to have Heston vanish “Beneath” the Planet of the Apes, then Nova returns to ape town and Cornelius and Zira lead the search for “Bright Eyes”.

Which brings me on to the next problem: the psychic morlock things. OK, while this is a stupendously schlocky idea, and really quite entertaining with all the “show god our real face” nonsense, it’s just too bugnuts insane for the first sequel to the incredibly high-concept original. This sort of idea should appear in about film 4 or 5 in the series. Furthermore, there’s an agonising scene where the morlock fuckers communicate with Brent telepathically forcing poor old Franciscus to repeat their side of the dialogue as well as his. It’s a bit of a relief when one of them eventually says that they’ll communicate with speech because he’s so fucking primitive.

The real problem here, though, is that this is a Planet of the Apes movie that effectively sidelines the apes. All the shit with Ape City and invading the Forbidden Zone feels hugely extraneous, and that’s because it is. The meat of the story here is the search for Taylor, but I don’t want to watch a film where Franciscus and a vastly improved Harrison wander around the ruins of New York looking for one of the most monumentally dickheaded characters ever put as a lead in Sci-Fi. The really short-changed characters are Cornelius, Zira and (sadly) Dr. Zauis. These were great characters in the original, and Hunter is probably the best actor on show here, so it’s almost a bit insulting that these three (who in a sane sequel, which this is not, would form the main story) are so badly sidelined.

Against that, though, this isn’t actually a bad film, and outside of Conquest, it’s probably my favourite of the sequels, and my favourite of the original series that isn’t called Planet of the Apes. This is for two reasons: firstly it is completely insane, as if a hell of  a lot of LSD was being ingested when it was written, and secondly, because the ending is absolutely fantastic. It is no exaggeration to say that Beneath the Planet of the Apes has one of the most spitefully nihilistic climaxes ever filmed.

The thing is, when the battle takes place and Nova and Brent are gunned down, this is the natural end of the film. However, that didn’t meet Heston’s terms: he had to destroy the world. So, the film ends with him launching the rocket. Not only is this in direct contradiction to what they’re trying to achieve (defusing it), but there isn’t a single reasonable explanation that makes it either necessary or heroic for Taylor pressing the button. I actually really admire the balls of Beneath the Planet of the Apes, because the film doesn’t even try to justify this. What Taylor does is the ultimate act of spite; he’s not saving the day or anything like that. Furthermore, it isn’t just spiteful, but it feels almost playground level of pettiness.

It plays out like this: Brent goes down, hard, Nova says her only line in two films, then dies, and Taylor himself is shot. He’s lying on the floor and asks Dr. Zauis for help, who sniffily dismisses it because Taylor is a human. Taylor’s response? hits the button. He’s basically just gone “Fuck you, then” and arbitrarily decided to eliminate all life on the planet. The hilariously po-faced epilogue is almost pointless, because we’ve witnessed the ultimate act of destructive spite that mankind could inflict:

“In one of the countless billions of galaxies in the universe, lies a medium-sized star, and one of its satellites, a green and insignificant planet, is now dead.”

The reason this is so successful is that it’s both heavily ironic and perfectly in character for Taylor. The dude is a monumental arsehole, and for all his posturing and persecution at the hands of the monkeys, when push comes to shove he just says “fuck you” and singlehandedly proves Dr. Zauis right about humanity. By pressing the button Taylor has become the sort of anti-messiah for the apes: he’s the angel of death and has come to eliminate all life on the planet and his arrival has heralded their destruction. This is an awesomely nihilistic way to end a film, and I really admire the big shiny balls that the studio had allowing this to go through- you’d think that they would have found a way to make the destruction of Earth noble, no matter how many narrative hoops they would have had to jump through.

Overall, in the context of Planet of the Apes sequels, it’s really quite good. However, that’s because the rest of the sequels are mostly, and let’s be honest here, garbage. There’s one feature that remains constant in all the Apes movies, and that’s a stupendously miserable ending that elevates the material we’ve seen previously (exception being Battle, because that’s shit), however, having said that, I don’t think any of them, and let’s face it, none of them are cheery, come close to the absolute misanthropy of the finale to Beneath. I’m giving it 2 monkeys out of 4, mostly all earned by that finale, because it does earn the film stripes that it otherwise wouldn’t get.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes is completely insane on any reasonable analysis, and as a series closer, that would be a belter. However, the cash cow was only just starting to be milked so next time out we’re fleeing from the Planet of the Apes in the mostly bizarre 3rd film: Escape from the Planet of the Apes. Escape is the film that closes the circle, and then I’ve got the fucking awful remake to contend with.

Until then,

Jarv

I’ve liked Joe Cornish for a long time, as I remember Adam and Joe in the 90′s (if YouTube has some of the toy reconstructions of films, then I seriously suggest that you watch them. The Trainspotting one in particular is inspired) and he seems like a likable enough film geek in his own right. So, following in the footsteps of Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright (who produced Attack the Block) it feels fitting that he’s finally released a genre film of his own. That film was last summer’s Attack the Block, a science fiction Alien v feral Hoodie scum film that seems to be either rapturously adored or strongly disliked. 

Attack the Block was a film that I was frankly too lazy to see in the cinema. Aint it Cool News was wanking itself into a frenzy over it, and I simply couldn’t be bothered to fork over my hard-earned. Funded by the lottery, Attack the Block has a reasonable budget for a British film, and we don’t really tend to make Science Fiction, so I really should have got off my arse to see it.

The film opens with a group of feral chav vermin mugging a nurse (Jodie Whittaker). The leader, Moses (John Boyega) pulls a knife on her, before a meteorite hitting a car allows her to escape. On investigation, the meteorite turns out to have an angry alien inside, which the hoodie scum kill. Next thing we know, they’ve gone back to their grim housing estate (The Block) and up to local dealer Ron’s (Nick Frost) place to store the alien. Moses is recruited by Hi Hatz (Jumayn Hunter) as a dealer, and he agrees to allow them to leave the corpse in the weed room. Next thing we know, there’s a whole shit load of aliens landing and, er, attacking the block. Can our heroes survive.

This is quite a good film, but it’s been horrendously overrated. While I did have fun with it, there’s no way that it merits the vigorous testicular massage that it receives. There are several serious problems here, that I’ll come to in a minute, one of which was nearly bad enough to sink the film altogether. However, before I go down the route of needlessly beating shit out of a film, I’m just going to highlight the plus points, and I’m going to start with the acting.

Our little group of chavs are all played by actors that I’ve never heard of. While I suspect that Boyega was too old to play Moses (the character is meant to be 15), the film acknowledges this by having Sam say that she thought he was older. Nevertheless, Boyega has a steely presence and although not blessed with a huge range of expressions, his turn here works well in the context of the part. Frost is his usual likable loser self, and Whittaker is OK, if a bit shrill, as Sam. The rest of the hoodie brigade are, on the other hand, good most notably Alex Esmail as Pest.

Secondly, the effects, considering the budget, are fantastic. The Aliens have a real presence, and the luminous teeth thing is a nice way to get maximum bang for your buck. For the most part, these monsters feel real and also threatening, and you can see why our hoodie brigade has serious problems disposing of them. Furthermore, if I didn’t know that this was Cornish’s first film, then I wouldn’t believe it as he handles the effects themselves as well as the action sequences that make up the film’s second half with no little aplomb.

Talking about Cornish, he keeps the film on a short leash. This may possibly be down to budgetary concerns, but Attack the Block cracks along at a rare old pace. As a result, even when scenes aren’t particularly working, it doesn’t matter because they don’t hang around enough to become annoying. This is a remarkably assured first outing for a director.

Then there’s the second half of the film itself. Now, when I come to my complaints, they’re almost all about the first half, however, once our heroes make it back into the block the film comes into its own. There’s a palpable sense of danger to each confrontation, and I really haven’t seen anything as exciting/ uplifting in a Sci-fi as Moses sprint through the sitting room, which Cornish makes absolutely brilliant. The second half of Attack the Block is a genuine edge-of-seat thriller, particularly once the chavs start dropping, and even with the odd comedy moment it is still an absolute riot.

However, there’s the first half to get over, which, frankly, doesn’t work at all. I know what they were aiming at here- Moses eventually has to face responsibility and, frankly, stop being such a little cunt. However, when you open the film with 6 guys mugging a lone woman you automatically sacrifice any and all sympathy for the heroes. We want to root for them- they’re our representatives against the alien invaders, we should not be thinking, at any point, “good, fucking die chav scum”. I struggled for a long time with Attack the Block solely because of this, and it is a testament to how good the second half of the film is that I was eventually able to overcome it.

On a base level, this is a problem with the script, and it isn’t the only one. Cornish wrote it, so he is fundamentally to blame but there are a lot of severely clunky moments and logical inconsistencies. For example, Pest’s leg gets severely chewed by one of the monsters and yet, using only a pillow, he’s able to run like he’s auditioning for London 2012. Furthermore, the film remembers this every now and again, so he randomly starts limping when required. Secondly, fuck you with your social commentary bollocks. The sequence in Moses’ flat, showing just how fucking hard he has it, can kiss my arse. There’s no fucking need for this, and it’s the worst bleeding heart liberalism in a film for a long time. Look, at the end of the day, nobody made him go out and mug people, so don’t try a late sympathy grab for a fundamentally unlikable character based on this. What’s even more annoying is that by this stage he’s earned our sympathy, so it’s not just obnoxious but also unnecessary. Then there’s the upper class white stoner kid. He should not be in the film, because he only exists for two reasons: 1) as shit comic relief, which is pointless when Nick Frost is there, and 2) as exposition man to pull a shitty and lazily foreshadowed idea out of his arse to explain the aliens. He’s an atrociously written character and a horribly misguided idea.

Overall, despite these serious problems, this is quite a good film, and I did at the end of the day have fun with it. I’m not going to waffle on forever about Attack the Block because it is neither good enough or bad enough to merit it. However, what I am going to say is that if you get a few beers in then you’ll have fun, because it is a fast paced, enjoyable and exciting little monster film. And you can do far worse than that.

Next up is Colin, which is (allegedly) the cheapest film in history costing all of £10. I don’t believe this for a second, by the way.

So until then,

Jarv.

It’s time for my next step in the chronological journey through the Planet of the Apes films. For the most part, these films are pretty lousy, being a strange mixture of cheap prosthetics, cack-handed social commentary, bad acting, and nonsensical science fiction. However, the original Planet of the Apes from 1968 has long gone down as a genre classic. It’s reputation partially derives from the  simply stunning ending, which I will be spoiling if you happen to be the only person on the planet that doesn’t know what it is (even lost tribes in the Amazon know what the ending to this film is), but that does the film a massive disservice. This is a stone cold classic for a reason. 

OK, who doesn’t know the plot of Planet of the Apes? Just in case someone out there doesn’t, it goes like this: Charlton Heston plays NASA astronaut Taylor. With his crew, he flies out on what he presumes will be a one way mission. They enter hypersleep, and then wake up having crash landed on an alien planet. Discovering that there are people, but they are mute and kind of retarded, the Astronauts are captured by the planet’s dominant species: the Apes. Taylor is injured, so the scientist chimpanzees Cornelius (Roddy McDowall) and Zira (Kim Hunter) assume that he’s the same as other humans. Eventually, Taylor (christened Bright Eyes by Zira) comes to the attention of the ruling caste, the Orangutans, and Dr Zaius in particular (Maurice Evans). The apes run a theocracy, and any scientific investigation has to go before the council to ensure that it doesn’t interfere with their religious beliefs, one of which is that man has always been stupid and vicious. Eventually, Taylor leads Cornelius and Zira to the forbidden zone, which reveals the truth about humanity (something Zaius already knew, which changes the perception of him from villain). Taylor leaves the apes and rides round the corner with Nova only to discover the buried Statue of Liberty, whereupon he falls to the ground and starts punching the beach screaming “You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you all to hell!”. Film ends.

This is a superb movie. First and foremost, the score by Jerry Goldsmith is outstanding and fits so brilliantly with the material that it’s deservedly one of the most renowned of his career. Secondly, the makeup work here by John Chambers is simply outstanding and won an Academy award. Makeup wasn’t anything new when this film was made, hell, Karloff played Frankenstein’s monster aeons before, but this was one of the first times it was applied on such a scale. It’s testament to how good the prosthetic work is that Planet of the Apes still today looks dramatically better than the other films in the series.

Acting underneath all that shit must have been a challenge, but Kim Hunter as Zira is simply astounding. She’s a quality actress anyway (See Streetcar Named Desire) but here she manages to convey emotion mostly using her eyes while wearing an absolute ton of plastic crap. Heston has always been a bit hit or miss for me, but here his overly macho and arrogant persona fits that of the overly macho and arrogant to the point of stupidity Taylor. McDowall became inextricably tied to this series, but t’s hard to see why, because he’s probably the worst of the principal characters. He isn’t bad, per se, but Cornelius has little to do other than cluck around Zira and generally be a bit of a pain.

Then there’s the script. Rod Sterling adapted Pierre Boulle’s novel, and the script was rewritten by Michael Wilson. Boulle, incidentally, hated the ending, but he’s wrong. This is an extremely intelligent script. While the concept is intrinsically stupid and almost laughable, the film itself has a lot to say about different subjects such as religion interfering in scientific discovery, man’s inherent brutality, and so forth, and even now the messages contained within the film still stand up to scrutiny. For the most part, that is, because the late 60′s anti-war posturing is a touch dated nowadays, to put it mildly. It’s also astonishing that a film as nihilistic as this one managed to get made, let alone spawn a franchise that’s lasted 43 years. Think about it for a second- but this is about Humanity’s essential stupidity and how we’ve made ourselves effectively extinct. I’d be very surprised to see something like this in a big Tentpole release nowadays, and indeed Burton’s piss poor remake doesn’t go down this track.

This was directed by Franklin J. Schaffner who went on to make Patton, and he was at the top of his game here. The individual scenes of the Ape City are brilliantly staged, the stupendous opening is tight and clear, and the decision to use a wide angle for the Statue of Liberty scene still looks fantastic today, even though he did let Heston off the leash a tad in this scene for some almost brain-meltingly bad acting.

It isn’t perfect though, although I am going to give it a maximum, and there’s one fundamental problem with the film: Nova. Nova is set up as Heston’s love interest, but the whole thing is a bit, well, icky. She’s totally mute and borderline retarded, and this doesn’t look like true love as much as abuse. To make matters worse, Linda Harrison, despite having a grand total of 0 spoken lines, is unable to elevate the part, being all puppy-dog eyes and annoying mannerisms. I can see why she’s in the film, because I’m a male heterosexual with eyes and she is smoking hot, but the reality of it is that she’s only in the part because she was boning the 20th Century Fox president. However, in hindsight, although I can see why Taylor takes her with him, the character has no business being in the film. Nova is a blatant B-Movie piece of tits and ass in a high-concept A movie.

Overall, This is a nailed on classic and it is one for a reason. While the sequels may have dated horribly over time, the original Planet of the Apes stands there as an absolute titan of the genre. I can’t praise this film enough, and this is, as a result, one of the shorter reviews in this series, because there isn’t anything to say that hasn’t been said before. Simply put, Planet of the Apes is a stone cold, nailed on science fiction classic, and as such can have a maximum 4 extremely happy chimps out of 4.

Next time out is the inevitable sequel: Beneath the Planet of the Apes, where we get to see what actually did happen to mankind.

Until then,

Jarv.

I just adore raspberry pudding

Is there a more sorry genre out there than the Women in Prison films? Exploitation cinema as a rule is dirty, seedy, nasty stuff, but these exist solely to show various acts of sadism inflicted on unlikely female convicts who exist to wander round in the buff and commit various sapphic acts for the pleasure of the hooting gibbons that comprise the audience. Even in a genre as sorry as this one, and let’s face it aside from Reform School Girls, which is a spoof anyhow, they’re all tacky garbage, this 1980 slice of grindhouse schlock may possibly be the most obnoxious one out there. So, I was clearly compelled to watch it, and, this is something I never thought I’d say, Bare Behind Bars (A Prisão) eventually managed to make even lesbianism boring. How could such a thing happen?

The London riots took a disturbing twist.

Brazilian filth merchant Oswaldo De Oliveira was clearly in some sort of weird competition with Spanish filth merchant Jess Franco or Italian pervert Joe D’Amato to see who could produce the sleaziest and most bad natured film. While Franco gave it a good stab, even filming his own wife blowing people in things like Female Vampire, I reckon Oliveira has him beaten hands down with this. I can’t think of anything sleazier that may have crossed my mind, and having just finished watching it I feel an overwhelming need to go and drink myself into a coma to induce a state of amnesia. But not before I shower in bleach and scrub my brain with steel wool. Honestly, I feel like I’m typing with a two-inch thick layer of grime sitting in front of my eyes.

Cynthia cursed the button shortage that plagued Rio

Welcome to Brazil, and more importantly the Brazilian penal (hehehehehe “penal”) system. We’re privileged here to be given an insight into the inner workings of one of its most severe female institutions. Run with an iron dildo by Sylvia (Maria Stella Splendore), a lesbian without access to a lonely hearts column, this notorious gaol houses only hot women with dykish tendencies. In between making them go without showers or exercise (this is frankly a good thing, because when they do go out to the yard it’s like playtime at special school. Well, until they start with the nude calisthenics) she molests the hotter inmates, and then sells them as sex-slaves to other lonely Brazilian lesbos. The guards are run by Cynthia (Neide Ribeiro), who thinks the warden may be going a bit far, and in between bouts of torture they basically shag anything with a pulse- inmates, delivery men, each other, whatever. The various inmates don’t matter in the slightest aside from three: #241 (Marliane Gomes), #341 (Danielle Ferrite) amd #578 (Sonia Regina). Now, these three are important to what passes for the storyline, which I’ll go into in a second, but I just want it noting in advance that underwear is clearly not allowed for anyone that crosses the prison gates- guards, inmates or even the warden.

You think they'd be cleaner than this considering the amount of time they spend in the shower

The film opens with the inmates playing handball in the yard, something not dissimilar to a group of squealing retards fighting over a chew toy, while the riding crop wielding guards stand by the wall watching. Eventually someone shanks #170, which forces the guards to break out a puny water cannon (it has about the pressure of your average garden hose). This is not at all an excuse for a wet clothing fest or heaven forbid that you should think that those escaping tits in this scene were done in purpose. It’s an accident, goddamnit. Actually, this scene is the first of many, many unintentional laughs in the film as the guards accidentally hose down two of their own who are retrieving the body. The warden clamps down by having them randomly tortured (we don’t really see it, to be honest, and it seems to involve a lukewarm shower, a riding crop and a table, although we are informed that the prisoners die during it. Can’t see how, possibly of boredom), banning exercise and basic hygiene and having the nurse (more on this genius in a second) perform a series of cavity searches on the inmates to find weaponry. It comes as no surprise to discover that #241 has a straight razor. Concealed in her anus. Which we get to see removed. Thanks for that, Oliveira.

Brazilian Watermelon was renowned for inducing an orgasmic plateau in middle aged woman. Of course what you can't actually see here is that she's rubbing her naked arse on #241's naked arse. Which may have rather more to do with it than the watermelon. Or it could be the ether. Oh, fuck it, does it matter?

Anyhow, wildly inappropriate nympho lesbo nurse Barbara (Marta Anderson), an ether huffing sister-fister of truly manic proportions, falls in lust with #241, and so begins a torrid lesbian affair, involving bareback riding, sensual massage, and sucking on a giant dildo made out of a pineapple. I do wish I was joking about that. #578 meanwhile catches the eye of the warden, and also begins a torrid lesbian affair to gain control of Sylvia in order to escape. The inmates, in the meantime, are indulging in graphic acts of group sex with each other, using the dildo #241 was given by the nurse.

One Dildo. No water. 200 nymphomaniac lesbians. Think about that for a second. Then throw up.

The inmates were pleased when the flag of Brazil made it to their cell. This is, incidentally, exactly what it looks like.

Right, where was I? Oh, yes, #578 has convinced the warden that they need to have a (wait for it) full Catholic Mass to celebrate Carnival, while #241 has managed to convince the nurse to show them the way out, get her a gun, and supply her with her straight razor. The Mass comes, and our intrepid anti-heroines escape. In a frankly bizarre sideplot, we follow “Betty” who has been sold to a lonely dyke and her clam jousting adventures on a desert island.

Once out, the Warden is in deep trouble. She’ s fired and Cynthia takes over (who despite a rigorous determination to stay clothed, does get naked just before the escape). Nurse Barbara is hilariously exonerated (despite being more guilty than anyone else) but prohibited from ever practicing nursing again. Which is disastrous for her, because that’s her ether supply dried up, however, she’s only concerned about her hat. Our three girls, on the other hand, forsake any sympathy at all by going on a murderous rampage involving the rape of a 12 year old boy, 2 severed penises, and multiple acts of hard-core sex. 2 of them are caught by the extremely dodgy looking cops, and the other is murdered. The fucking end.

Women enjoy glory holes too.

This is a porn. Frankly. I’ve gone into such depth with the plot, because almost everything described above is basically an excuse for the women to get completely naked, fuck each other (and it’s hard core penetration on more than one occasion, so I’ve no idea what the reviewer on Lovefilm who described the sex scenes as “lame” was watching), and generally debase themselves for the camera. The debasement prize, by the way, goes to Gomes who participates in the rape of a minor, performs hard core sex, cuts off two penises, one flaccid that’s fed to a dog, and one (thankfully this was cut from the UK version) erect fed to the owner of said penis, and licks the pineapple dildo. The rest of the actresses also do put in the work lowering themselves, but nothing like this, aside from Ferrite, who also has the honour of being penetrated on camera by a half man- half wookie.

There’s absolutely no point talking about the acting here, because a)it’s crap, and b) it’s dubbed. However the dubbing is frequently hilarious, and almost worth watching in its own right, particularly Nurse Barbara’s raspberry pudding scene, which is possibly the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time. Er, aside from that, I’ve not really got a lot to talk about, I mean, this is basically a porn, so what else is there to say? Lots of women get naked, perform various sexual acts with each other, men, and themselves, and that’s about it.

Having said that, there are laughs to be had, like the sequence where the guard and a prisoner in solitary reach through the gap to molesting each other while the inmates use a pulley to pass the dildo across cells like some kind of bizarre cable car. Or Nurse Barbara’s increasingly insane sexual antics with #241, which never fail to raise a laugh.

This is also exactly what it looks like.

This film, obviously, is terrible. It shows how standards have changed in the UK that it was banned outright on release (and I kind of agree with the censor here) whereas with a couple of minor cuts I was able to watch it on Lovefilm. Erect cock, blowjob shots and all. I’m not trying to sound like a snob here, and I enjoy ogling oiled Brazilian lesbians molest each other as much as the next person, but at 90 minutes odd, and I can’t believe I’m about to say this, it becomes boring.

That isn’t to say that I wanted to see the cock shots towards the end, because, well, I didn’t, but I did want the three escapees to maybe do something more interesting than fuck people. This, incidentally, is the other strength of the film. Most Women In Prison films shy away from what the heroines actually did to get lengthy terms in the slammer, but here Oliviera has no qualms about showing his heroines to be sociopathic murderesses to a woman. I just wish he’d found another way of doing it that wasn’t raping a kid.

Overall? Nope I don’t rate this. In this day and age, if I want to watch porn, then it isn’t exactly difficult to get hold of. However, if I want to watch a movie then I expect a minimum of it not to be porn. If the fuck sequences are so frequent and so overextend that even someone with my sensibilities would grow tired of seeing lesbians then they really must be excessive. Bare Behind Bars is just a crappy slice of bottom feeding porn masquerading as sexploitation and thus a total waste of time.

At the end of the day, Nurse Barbara is funny, and the odd sight gag does raise a smile, but really, you’d be better off watching Reform School Girls if you want to see Women in Prison, or actual porn if you want to watch fuck scenes.

Until next time,

Jarv.

… to a birthday boy near you… and providing my clearly ailing 11 year-old PC doesn’t pack up (and an upcoming hospital scan doesn’t turn up anything rapidly fatal). Beginning January 30; rated PG…

January is the time studios usually sneak a movie out when they don’t dare go head-to-head with Christmas or early Spring releases – or simply it’s a film they haven’t got a clue what to do with. Therefore, I’ve had to hunt around for release dates on or as close to the 30^th. It’s not cheating, right; it’s necessity. There will be some familiar, some foreign and possibly some you’ve never even heard of. I’ll aim at posting 1 a week, but I may try for 2 (particularly if I get made redundant at work – oh, yes, 2012 has started wonderfully).

"Anyone fancy a Red Stripe?"

1965 – 36 Hours … not seen

1966 – Obchod Na Korze … not seen

1967 – The Night Of The Generals … seen

1968 – Up The Junction … not seen

1969 – Some Girls Do … not seen

Brando - he can't believe it's not butter... What?

1970 – The Wild Bunch … seen

1971 – Countess Dracula … seen

1972 – Under Milk Wood … not seen

1973 – Last Tango In Paris … seen

1974 – Lacombe, Lucien … not seen

They couldn't spot his lips moving when he said 'gottle of geer'

1975 – The Towering Inferno … seen

1976 – Cria Cuervos … not seen

1977 – Cross Of Iron … seen

1978 – Preparez Vos Mouchoirs … not seen

1979 – Capricorn One … seen

She's gonna be sore in the morning...

1980 – Guyana: Crime Of The Century … not seen

1981 – The Incredible Shrinking Woman … not seen

1982 – The Border … not seen

1983 – Danton … not seen

1984 – Broadway Danny Rose … not seen

Donald - he's climbing the stairlift to heaven

1985 – Phenomena … seen

1986 – Down And Out In Beverly Hills … seen

1987 – Radio Days … not seen

1988 – Braddock: Missing In Action 3 … not seen

1989 – Three Fugitives … seen

All right, who laced Goodman's cigar with LSD?

1990 – Milou En Mai … not seen

1991 – Eve Of Destruction … seen

1992 – Shining Through … not seen

1993 – Matinee … not seen

1994 – Blink … not seen

William Katt sings Tiffany... I only wish it were a joke caption

1995 – Before Sunrise … not seen

1996 – Bed Of Roses … not seen

1997 – Shadow Conspiracy … not seen

1998 – Desperate Measures … not seen

1999 – Jawbreaker … not seen

They both enjoyed playing the PS3 game 'Killzone: John Terry'

2000 – Eye Of The Beholder … not seen

2001 – Brotherhood Of The Wolf … not seen

2002 – The Count Of Monte Cristo … not seen

2003 – Biker Boyz … not seen

2004 – The Perfect Score … not seen

JPT is forced to re-watch 'The Beast Within'

2005 – Creep … seen

2006 – Annapolis … not seen

2007 – Blood And Chocolate … not seen

2008 – Untraceable … seen

2009 – The Uninvited … not seen

2010 – Edge Of Darkness … not seen

2011 – The Rite … not seen

2012 – ?

Where wolf? There wolf...

If there were multiple choices for a given year I went with the movie I haven’t seen and have avoided reading any kind of synopsis. If I’d seen all or none, I wrote the titles on Post-it notes, scrabbled them around and picked one out. I had to alter my original list due to a handful of titles I can’t get hold of and I’ll note which ones got switched when I get to the relevant review. And for the first time ever, in a move I’m sure will create genuine excitement, I will be applying a scoring system!

All that remains is for me to watch ‘em and write ‘em…

Cheers, folk.

ThereWolf.