film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

Author: BRWC

  • DVD Review – Ninjas vs Vampires

    DVD Review – Ninjas vs Vampires

    If we’ve learnt anything from the recent spate of Something vs. Something-else movies is that they are never as good as we’d like. Cowboys and Aliens was amazingly dull, Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus will always be the film that broke my heart. It’s not that you expect the films to be cinematic masterpieces by any stretch of the imagination but what you do expect is schlock-fun. So far the majority of these films have committed the cardinal sin of being boring. A bad film can be hugely entertaining if it’s done badly enough.

    Ninjas vs Vampires is the latest from auteur Justin Timpane who previously threw Ninjas vs Zombies at us. The plot follows a young geeky guy called Alex who is in love with his best friend. After she rebuffs him one night they are randomly attacked by vampires and are in turn randomly saved by ninjas. Alex then decides to join the ninjas so that he can stop the vampires from doing something else to the girl he loves. I would be lying if I said I could remember exactly why the ninjas and vampires are fighting with each other and I know it may make me a lackluster reviewer but honestly it matters very little to the film overall. Normally I would be first in line to see a bunch of crafty ninja engage in full blown combat with hulking vampires but seeing that this is a low budget affair the ninjas are over weight and the vampires anemic. It’s like watching Brendan Gleeson unloading a roundhouse kick in Marilyn Manson’s face. In fact that would be a grossly more entertaining film. We’re not dealing with stealthy, shadow-like ninjas here. These guys are look as though they are the kids from 3 Ninjas grown up. Kyle – the overweight ninja – stands out particularly for being the “funny” one. We’re talking Jar-Jar Binks levels of funny here.

    But even he is better than pretty much anyone who is on the vampire side of the acting fence. A quick glance at the credits didn’t show a Casting Director so I can only assume that these actors were lured into nets with the promise of cupcakes and forced to act out lines so bad that most sane people would equate the pain to being tortured to death in a snuff movie. Apart from the main vampire, who I assume as the school jock, bullied the director into a role. You really have to see some of this acting to really believe it. It’s one of the rare occasions when you may think “I could act better than that”. You could. I don’t know you but I know for a fact you could act most of these people off the screen.

    But that is where most of the films enjoyment comes from. Beholding the complete ineptitude of the acting. In all fairness the actors playing the ninjas clearly know what they’re doing in the moves department. Stood still and talking they don’t look much but they know how to throw a punch. Being a low budget affair the effects look ropey but they could be a lot worse. The camera work looks cheap and the sets seem to be the cast houses and back gardens.

    The films major crime – along with the acting – is the script. The reason for a long-standing war between ninjas and vampires is negligible as long it delivers so ridiculously awesome action. It doesn’t. What we get instead is a film that at times goes for Kevin Smith-movie referencing humour (the DVD cover is adorned with a quote from Jason Mewes) to melodramatic, disease-of-the-week emotions. Timpane is not a skilled enough writer to mesh the funny and dramatic into a cohesive atmosphere leading to an almost bi-polar script. The film even ends with a non-sensical twist that seemed to almost be riffing on Super Mario Bros of all films. He’s a man who’s clearly watched a lot of films. Visually and script-wise there are a lot of references to much better films. When one vampire utters “At last we shall reveal ourselves to the humans” complete with Darth Maul hiss I actually wanted to watch The Phantom Menace and for that feat Ninjas vs Vampires can’t be all bad.

    Well it is.

  • DVD Review: Memphis Heat – The True Story Of Memphis Wrasslin’

    DVD Review: Memphis Heat – The True Story Of Memphis Wrasslin’

    It’s hard to resist a film that has the word “wrasslin’” in the title. Actually it could be pretty easy. Depends on how much you like wrestling and wrasslin’. Like a great deal of men who grew up in the late 80’s/early 90s I was at one stage a die hard WWF fan. I stopped watching before it swapped the F for an E. We’re talking pretty full on fandom, I could have ended up like the guy in the “It’s real to me dammit!” video you can find on YouTube – if you haven’t seen it look it up… after you’ve read this though.

    Even though I have long since stopped following the sport entertainment, and whenever I catch it now it’s filled with strange unfamiliar faces much like tuning back into a soap opera after being away for a while, I still enjoy documentaries about the subject. Wrestling it turns out is usually much more interesting behind-the-scenes then in the arena. Previous docs on the subject like Beyond The Mat and Forever Hardcore have shown the dark-side of the sport to profound effect. Seeing the physical and psychological damage the wrestlers inflict on themselves in the name of entertainment goes to show just how messed up this form of entertainment can be.

    Memphis Heat takes a rather more rose-tinted view of it’s subject matter. Before the WWE monopolized the wrestling industry, promoters ran specific territories. One of the biggest of these territories was Memphis. Covering the period of the 1950s-70s Chad Schaffler’s film assembles many of the big name stars of the time along with promoters and managers to reminisce about this golden age. The reason I mention my own interest in wrestling is because it really helps to have at least some vague knowledge of it to find any basic enjoyment from the film. Whilst it’s interesting to see some familiar faces that would later turn up in the shiny world of WWF such as Jimmy Hart, Jerry Lawler, Ric Flair and Kamala the majority of the wrestlers are long retired. Many wrestlers are spoken about with hushed tones but with only a few clips to show their sporting prowess their impact doesn’t come across so much. Watching the old promo spots is quite amusing if only to see how ludicrous they were back then and have only become 100% more ridiculous. As with many documentaries like this, the most interesting parts come from finding out which athletes didn’t care for each other and they have no problem saying it.

    Anyone who has seen Milos Forman’s biography of Andy Kaufman, Man On The Moon will remember that for a period Kaufman wrestled as a heel in Memphis. It is the films highlight to see the actual footage of the Kaufman/Jerry Lawler fight that is re-enacted in the Hollywood bio. We also get to see the performer butt heads with other wrestlers in promo shoots. It feels almost like bonus footage that should have been on a Man On The Moon DVD. Lawler in particular discusses at great length how Kaufman was one of the best things to ever happen to the sport whilst the more old-school, hardcore wrestlers see as nothing more than a gimmick that rung a final death bell before the advent of the WWF. Which is where the comes to a seemingly abrupt end. With the golden days of the Memphis scene dealt with it feels as though it should move on to the next chapter in a wider documentary, leading to a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion.

    The fact that this is a very niche subject for a niche crowd. Fans of the sport entertainment may find novelty and nostalgia in the promo clips and old talking heads but the story feels like it’s cut short just as it’s picking up. In short it will do little to convert wrestling skeptics.

  • Sand Sharks – Review

    Sand Sharks – Review

    The American film industry spends too much money on crap and this film is a prime example of how wrong they can get it.

    Normally I’m pretty easy to please when it comes to films. If it’s funny, I’m happy. If it makes me question my outlook on life, I’m happy that a film has had that effect on me. If it’s got a good storyline that keeps me on tenterhooks, I’m happy. If it has Tom Hardy in, I’m especially happy. Unfortunately, this film had none of these qualities and I was certainly not happy.

    Directed by Mark Atkins (Battle Of Los Angeles) this film is well and truly awful. The acting is stilted, rigid and uncovincing, featuring an all star cast which includes no-one I have ever heard of. The CGI is low budget and unsubtle about it. The storyline is laughable (not in a good way) and the film is confused. I think the director was aiming for a parody but instead managed to create a film with cringeworthy ’emotional’ scenes, cliché monologues and badly acted thoughtful stares into the distance.

    If you’re sitting there with a spare 91 minutes free, let me recommend something. Stay away from this film.

  • Demons Never Die – Review

    If I’m honest I wasn’t expecting much from Arjun Rose’s urban slasher film. Maybe that’s because of the title, maybe the fact I’d never heard of it despite it’s relatively high profile maybe its because the film boasts ‘Tulisa off of N-Dubz’ and ‘Reggie Yates off of Radio One’ as members of it’s supporting cast.

    The main issue isn’t the cast members, its more that the film doesn’t know what it wants to be. In the first half we’re introduced to a number of teens at a London comprehensive who are in the process of making a suicide pact. Despite the casts’ best efforts I don’t believe for one second that any of these kids seriously wants to commit suicide and lightness of touch with which the subject is handled is incredibly off putting or at worst offensive. No where is this more evident than in the soundtrack. Full with the latest in ‘cool’ British alternative music from the likes of Chase and Status and Ed Sheeran, it hints at a far more hedonistic and relaxed youth culture than is actually on display. I’m not saying I don’t like this music but its use in the film is completely out of place with the subject matter. When a group of teens are getting ready to go out for the evening to get together and discuss their collective suicide, ‘You need me, I don’t need you’ by Ed Sheeran may not be best choice of track.

    While the suicide aspect of the film doesn’t work the film makers attempt to fix the issue by switching genres entirely half way through from ‘teen suicide drama’ to ‘urban slasher film’ as an unknown masked assailant begins to pick off the kids one by one. Whether the fact that the characters concerned wanted to die before they started being murdered renders the entire plot irrelevant or provides a nice bit of dramatic irony depends on your outlook but for me it was probably the former. While Rose tries his best to inject some innovation to proceedings by shooting the obligatory ‘creep around the huge house in the dark’ scene towards the end in the style of a found footage/blair witch rip off, the slasher potion of the film is still incredibly formulaic and contains some fantastic clichés that would make Randy from Scream proud. We even get a moment when the popular girl, hosting the party, runs away from the knife wielding murder, not into the well lit room full of teenagers playing twister but instead decides to hide in the pitch black wooded area behind her house.

    Through the genre mashing mess the only Robert Sheehan (aka Nathan from Misfits) comes out relatively unscathed but you can’t help but wonder, did you really leave Misfits for this?

     

  • RIP: Remembering Jamie Lee Curtis, 1978-1999

    RIP: Remembering Jamie Lee Curtis, 1978-1999

    Halloween, which I sadly non-celebrated this year (seriously no horror movies, no dressing up, no nothing, save for pigging out on candy, but that’s an everyday thing really) reminded me of something I had forgotten about, something I once loved dearly and still cherish in my heart, but miss, almost like a lost son or daughter… It’s been gone for a long time now, it left a void in me, deep and expansive and I fear it will probably never be filled again. This great thing that was taken from me, leaving only fleeting past visions of awesome spectacle in its wake and more current, often disappointing and disheartening momentary glimpses… this tender, tremulous subject to which I refer is Jamie Lee Curtis.

    As most of my regular readers know (all 2 of you) I am one to make light of almost every subject (including the subject at hand), especially things I enjoy and love (hello Linda Blair and her breasts) but I will be serious for a moment…

    Before getting to my silly half truths, non-truths and outright idiocy I just want to say up front that I do truly love and respect Jamie Lee Curtis as an actress and a person (and no, despite the title of this article, she is not ‘dead’.)

    Now, with that out of the way…

    Jamie was born on November 22nd 1958, to two famous actors [her father would later star in ‘The Manitou’ (the greatest film ever made about a semi-nude, floating Indian, Midget God that shits lasers) and her mother would later star in ‘Night of the Lepus’ (the greatest film ever made about ketchup covered bunnies that like to terrorize miniature towns.)] Jamie Lee lived the first 20 years of her life having testicles in her pussy (Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome), fighting aliens with Buck Rogers, crime with Charlie’s Angels and spending an inordinate amount of time with Peter Falk’s glass eye. In 1978 however, Jamie Lee grew tired of being better than everyone else around her and decided to do something about it.

    Through sheer force of will she and her pussy balls birthed John Carpenter unto this earth so he could write and direct Halloween (the greatest film about William Shatner murdering people ever made) for her to star in. Over the next 3 years Jamie Lee would hone her skills as a thespian and being the person you go to when you need a warm, loveable, funny, ice cold hysterical bitch, by starring in ‘The Fog’, ‘Prom Night’, ‘Terror Train’, ‘Roadgames’ and ‘Halloween II.’ Upon growing tired of evading serial murderers by being awesome, but generally un-comedic and not showing them her breasts, Jamie Lee decided to have a complete change of pace and be marginally less awesome, but VERY funny, while evading Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy (themselves serial murderers, of comedy) and show them her breasts in the 1983 film ‘Trading Places.’

    After the massive success of this film and the wealth of acclaim and attention it brought Jamie Lee she decided (ever the non-conformist) to do a bunch of films that are horrible, but she is quite good in. This brought us ‘Love Letters’, ‘Grandview, USA’, ‘Perfect’ (a film solely made to show Jamie Lee’s and John Travolta’s spandex clad genitals trying to commit suicide because of Jermaine Jackson), ‘As Summers Die’, ‘A Man in Love’ and ‘Dominick and Eugene.’

    Pictured Above Being Better Than You

    Then, in 1988, Jamie Lee grew tired of not gracing mortal eyes with her presence so she starred in ‘A Fish Called Wanda’, John Cleese’s classic tale of animal abuse and misleading titles. After the massive success of that film Jamie Lee teamed up with the equally awesome bitch Kathryn Bigelow to make the film ‘Blue Steel‘ in which a smoking hot Jamie Lee plays a lady cop with a big gun, who has sex with Ron Silver while tracking a serial killer (who happens to be Ron Silver) with Mr. Krabs.

    From 1991 until 1997 Jamie Lee decided to bounce back and forth between starring in crap you’ve never heard of (but still being awesome in) and making her two greatest contributions to cinema [1994’s Mother’s Boys (a film in which she is both smoking hot and utterly psychotic, this is all you need to know and all the film is) and also 1994’s True Lies (James Cameron’s second best film and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s best performance, also a celluloid love letter to how awesome Jamie Lee Curtis is.)]

    Pictured Above Giving Even The Gayest Gay Men Erections

    In 1998, after decades of riots and dissidence in the Middle East and parts of Asia, Jamie Lee decided to return to the genre which brought her first acclaim (Horror) and the role she created (‘The Final Girl’) and made Halloween H20. Despite the title, the film has very little to do with murderous, holiday themed water, but is instead one of a spate of post ‘Scream’ meta-horror films in which Joseph Gordon-Levitt is murdered before the opening titles, while someone dressed poorly as someone trying to look like the killer from the first two Halloween films (but supposedly is the original guy) stalks and kills Josh Hartnett (former starrer of movies) and his wise cracking, genre in-joking friends, while Jamie Lee Curtis gets to be (as always) several hundred times better than everyone around her, an insanely wonderful actress and a bad ass bitch.

    Flushed with the success of another box office mega-hit Jamie Lee decided once again to screw convention and star in the third worst film of her career, 1999’s ‘Virus.’ A film in which Jamie and William Baldwin team up to stop Donald Sutherland from killing everyone on Earth via outdated Russian technology, after he has turned into a roving, battleship sized Best Buy appliance department. After starring in this film (and turning in an unnecessarily decent performance) Jamie Lee said of Virus “Virus is so bad that it’s shocking… That would be the all time piece of shit…It’s just dreadful… That’s the only good reason to be in bad movies. Then when your friends have bad movies you can say ‘Ahhhh, I’ve got the best one.’ I’m bringing Virus.” thus proving once again, as if further evidence was truly needed, that JLC is the living embodiment of pure, unadulterated excellence.

    Pictured Above Murdering Cinema Itself

    After being never fully appreciated by the masses she had so long tried to entertain and fulfill Jamie Lee decided to never again grace a decent film with her voluminous talents and to focus solely on starring in films worse than ‘Virus’ and or ones starring Lindsay Lohan (who is in fact a virus.) In the past decade she has proven dedicated to this cause by starring in numerous cinematic turds, including but not limited to, ‘The Tailor of Panama’, the second worst film of her career ‘Halloween: Resurrection’, ‘Christmas With the Kranks’, and the worst film of her career (if not one of the worst ever made) ‘Beverly Hills Chihuahua.’

    Pictured Above Realizing She Just Starred In Beverly Hills Chihuahua

    Will Jamie Lee ever forgive us for not worshiping her en masse as the Goddess Supreme she in fact is and again pleasure our eyes and ears with not only a brilliant performance, but one that isn’t just a shining, solitary spot of wonder, surrounded by a sea of pig vomit? Time seems to be uncertain of this…

    I mean for God’s sake this is a woman who beat an addiction to alcohol and pain killers caused by starring in ‘Virus!’ This is a woman who churns out oddly titled, strangely moving Children’s Books while on the crapper each morning! This is the woman who, in 1984, married Christopher Guest so no one else would have to! This is a woman who invented an ingenious attachment for diapers that has never been used because people won’t abide by her wishes and create biodegradable diapers! All of this she has achieved, mind you, while housing the largest recorded pair of testicles INSIDE HER VAGINA! I mean, Jesus wept! This woman needs a statue, a garden built in her name, a house of holiness dedicated to her very existence!

    But sadly, we continue to spurn the awe inspiring magisterial beauty that is Jamie Lee Curtis in favor of similarly talented (but not quite as special) bitchy thespians like Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver and Susan Sarandon. Is it because of her out-spoken nature? Her icy demeanor? The fact that she has balls? I don’t know, I may never know… All I know for certain is that it saddens me deeply.

    Jamie Lee is not sad however. No, in fact, she is happier than ever. For you see, our public shunning of her greatness has allowed her to devote almost all of her time and effort to her life-long love of shit related things. After years of making shitty movies, pioneering the field of diaper mechanics, marrying the director, writer and star of ‘Waiting for Guffman’, and fostering Lindsay Lohan’s career, Jamie Lee now spends her time squandering her prodigious gifts by shilling ‘Activia’ brand yogurt on Television. Activia, for those of you not in the know, is a Yogurt that comes in various flavors and makes you shit more and more regularly.

    Jamie Lee Curtis, spawn of acting legends Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh… Jamie Lee Curtis, a woman whose legs alone are more sexy and talented than most women who have ever lived… Jamie Lee Curtis, who starred brilliantly in the iconic hit films Halloween, Trading Places, A Fish Called Wanda and True Lies… Lee Curtis, a true inspiration of a person, a woman and a mother; out spoken, fierce, intelligent, vivacious and talented… This very same Jamie Lee Curtis is going to die, known almost solely to an entire generation as ‘that grey haired, dykey looking lady who wants us to eat yogurt that makes us shit.’

    How does that make you feel?

    Pictured Above Being Better Than Humanity Itself