Empire Records: the Urban Outfitters of crappy music.
EMPIRE RECORDS (1995)
Obnoxious teen comedy/melodrama that unfolds in the title record store, from Allan Moyle, the director of the infinitely superior Pump Up the Volume. The whole viewing experience is something akin to nails on a chalkboard. Assuming we’d like the hip teen characters that work at Empire Recordswas a serious miscalculation. They’re worse than unlikable, they’re unbelievable. The teen angst on display is of the most suburban, white and spoiled kind there is. By the time the climactic, concert-to-save-the-store scene comes along you’ll be so annoyed you’ll pray that they fail. Among those responsible: Renee Zelwegger (Who sings!…I think.), Liv Tyler, Ethan Embry and Robin Tuney as a suicidal goth girl (yawn!). Anthony Lapaglia is the store owner and Debi Mazzar is his girlfriend. Both appear to be in a constant state of pain and shame. The teen employees seem to come and go to and from their jobs as they please and have no evident friends outside of co-workers. G.W.A.R. has a brief cameo as a pot-brownie-induced hallucination (Um, I don’t think pot brownies induce hallucinations.). Gratingly, hatefully, excruciatingly bad.
*
"This MUST be a sequel to Donnie Darko because, lookee, I'm a scary bunny! Rar!"
S. DARKO: A DONNIE DARKO TALE (2009)
Watch S. Darko, the pseudo-sequel to 2001’s Donnie Darko, with the sound turned off. Come up with your own interpretation of what you are seeing, write it down and — voila! – you’ve just developed a treatment for a more coherent and entertaining movie than the one you just watched. –OR, better yet, take the screenplay and randomly rearrange the pages. Tah-dah! You’re ready to begin your career as a direct-to-video sequel-maker for 20th Century Fox. Daveleigh Chase, the only returning DD cast member, plays Donnie’s baby sister, Sam. Best I can tell, the story outlines a derailed road trip with her bitchy best friend. En route to L.A. to realize Sam’s dreams of becoming a dancer, they break down in a small town filled with annoyingly eccentric characters. She experiences some dark, trippy visions, travels through time, survives an alternate universe and dies more than once. The story is sloppy and rambling, the dialogue is wince-inducing/hilarious, and the performances remind me of an equally professional production: Mrs. Hull’s morning kindergarten class’ production of Three Billy Goats Gruff (in which I played “Robber #3″). I’m forgiving of most attempts to sequel or reboot a favorite movie or franchise (After all, I even found merit with the Blair Witch Project sequel.) but this lazy, half-baked piece of crap is a crime against humanity and someone should have to pay. If I can find one nice thing to say about SD it’s that there are some exceptional visual effects wedged in among countless lumps of cinematic stupidity. But that’s little consolation to any fans of the original DD (Count me among them.) who took a chance on this ill-advised, poorly-executed, cracked bottle of celluloid snake oil. Richard Kelly, DD’s writer and director, wisely put as much distance between himself and SD as possible and I’m sure he’s pleased that only one very brief flashback from from his obviously superior effort pops up. SD’s director, Chris Fisher, and writer, Nathan Atkins, should be condemned to making direct-to-DVD sequels to American Pie for all eternity — because I doubt their sincerity as much as I doubt their commitment to Sparkle Motion.
*
Watch the official trailer for S. Darko:
"Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals" suitable-for-framing German poster. WANT!
EMANUELLE AND THE LAST CANNIBALS (aka Trap Them and Kill Them) (1977)
Joe D’Amato’s cannibal epic is also a soft-core erotic epic. This Emanuelle (aka Black Emanuelle) underwent a slight name change as a disconnect from her literary namesake and its related franchise with Emanuelle in America (also D’Amato’s). The outrageously hot Laura Gesmer is the black Em, a reporter who sets off to investigate cannibal killings in the deep deep jungle. Soft-core sex and nudity is offset by gut-munching gore. Like all European sleaze, there is a tendency towards some talky stretches – but at 90 minutes it’s tighter than Emanuelle in America (which has its own fair share of zoological shocks!). As is the case with most movies in the cannibal genre, the gore is pretty devastating and definitely not for the squeamish. But hey — boobs!
**1/2
EMBRACE OF THE VAMPIRE (1994)
If you recognize the title you know why this movie is worth buying on DVD: a pre-Charmed, post-Danza Alyssa Milano…naked. It wouldn’t have the same impact now as when it came out (straight to video of course) when I was in college. Back then no one had seen her since Who’s the Boss? And we’re not talking one scene brother. There are several well-lit topless scenes. The vampire story is incidental and not very good. Milano looks like a vampire’s old flame from another time so he starts popping up all over campus and seducing her right out of her clothes much to the consternation of her boyfriend. What’s Jennifer Tilly doing here anyway? The director and Milano worked together on Poison Ivy 2 also. There are R and un-rated versions of this. Choose wisely.
For face-value entertainment: * ½. For a historical slice of celebrity nudity: *** ½
ELEPHANT MAN (1980) The Elephant Man make-up still elicits a shudder decades later. A post-ALIEN John Hurt plays the 21-year old John Merrick, a horrendously abused and monstrously deformed circus freak and mama’s boy who is taken in by a kindly surgeon (Anthony Hopkins) that wants to give him a chance at a life of comfort and dignity. Hurt is unrecognizable and effective under layers of latex and behind garbling mouth appliances. The make-up effects are accurate and equally heartbreaking. This was David Lynch’s follow-up to Eraserhead, and he was nominated for an Oscar for his direction. In retrospect it hardly feels like a Lynch movie at all. It was easily his most accessible mainstream movie until The Straight Story two decades later. Shot in black and white, the cinematography captures turn-of-the-century England in all its bleak grittiness. The script is based on the memoirs of the surgeon Hopkins portrays. Watch for “Time Bandit,” Kenney (R2D2) Baker in a small (heh) role. ***1/2
Watch the original trailer complete with the famous “I am not an animal!” bit:
EMBALMER, THE (aka Mostro di Venezia, Il) (1965)
This nearly incomprehensible Italian horror flick is dead serious about it’s scuba-gear-wearing “monster” who kidnaps beautiful women, kills them, embalms them and keeps them in a collection. There are a few creepy images but mostly this is good for solid laughs. Someone raided the public domain library for the wildly inconsistent score that is so ill-suited to the images, you may forget it’s NOT a put-on. There are even moments when it sounds like there may be two separate scores playing at once! Fun.
**
The gut-munching, brain-eating, chunk-blowing best.
Shortly after my family bought its first VCR, Mom and Dad bought a bag full of public domain VHS movies from K-Mart. Among the poorly transfered cartoons, and “classic” comedies was Night of the Living Dead. Within days I pulled it from the stack and popped it in. Needless to say, I was never the same. It was the start of something big, and shortly after, I watched Return of the Living Dead at a sleep-over birthday party. That sealed the deal: I was now a zombie fan. Here’s an incomplete list to help you navigate the vast sea of the living dead. Post your favorites in the comments.
DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND (2003)
From the moment I saw the Amish teen lighting up on the face of the DVD box, I knew I had to see this movie. Evidently, the Amish allow their blossoming adolescents to take a good chunk of time to sort out whether or not the whole horse n’ buggy gig is for them. (It’s called Rumspringa.) While they contemplate their spiritual future they’re permitted to “follow their smile” as it were and explore the once and future unexplorable. Things like driving and electricity are only the tip of the iceberg. This documentary shows Amish hellions on the loose like 50’s drive-in movie juvies. There’s drinking, making out, rock and roll and crystal meth! It’s crazy and kind of depressing but always enlightening. One poor kid returns to the fold just so he can get clean. Another young woman who chose to go it alone finds herself a lonely lost soul burdened with severe depression. The filmmakers seem to push their subjects in the direction they want the film to go and I question the legitimacy of at least a few captured moments. (There’s always a camera around for dramatic crescendos.) Still, oddly informative and consistently entertaining. Add Witness and Kingpin to the mix for a hell-raisin’, barn-raisin’ triple feature. **1/2
Watch a clip from Devil’s Playground:
DEADLY FRIEND (aka Wes Craven’s Deadly Friend) (1986)
A nerdy high-school guy loses his hot best friend when her abusive father accidentally kills her. He – natch – decides to bring her back to life with the brain of the robot he’d been tinkering with in his basement. It’s a wobbly premise and not very scary, but good for a few prime cuts. Kristy (the ORIGINAL Buffy the Vampire Slayer) Swanson is the girl-gone-robot – all blue pallor and wide blinky eyes– but she’s still hot. With her new techno-advances, Swanson has super strength that allows her to enact revenge. The late Anne Ramsey (The Goonies) is killed when a thrown basketball shatters her head. Wes Craven was making lots of lousy movies like this one in the eighties. He wouldn’t fully recover until Scream. DF matches up nicely with Bride of Re-Animatorand Frankenhooker for a nifty triple feature.
* ½
Watch the trailer:
CRASH (1996)
David Cronenberg’s ode to automobile eroticism introduces us to a handful of weirdoes who get off on disfiguring car accidents. Considering the subject matter, Crash is extremely boring and perhaps the least interesting Cronenberg movie I’ve seen. When James Spader has a pretty severe wreck he becomes involved with the other car’s driver (Holly Hunter). She wastes no time introducing him to an entire sub-culture devoted to the sexual implications of crunched steel. Rosanna Arquette wears an enormous brace and invites Spader to fuck her in an open wound(!). The movie is filled with lots of similar gross-outs, but the shock value dwindles rapidly. Crash is a big pretentious bummer despite some promising exploitation trappings. The concept of re-enacting the fatal car crashes of dead celebrities is fun and there’s a nice Jayne Mansfield shout-out. Crash won a prize for “most audacious” at Cannes Film Festival but only after being booed by most of the festival’s audience. Audacious is probably the kindest and most appropriate adjective to describe Crash. A better-respected (but not necessarily better) crime drama of the same name came out in 2002 and is unrelated.
* ½
