Over the last couple of years I have watched a ton of Japanese movies, mostly horror*. In the middle of watching Mutant Girls Squad I realized that I have naturally picked up one piece of the language during this time, which I think is spelled “nande yo ne”. It means, roughly, “WTF?”. This is a phrase that is used a lot by both the characters and the audience during Mutant Girls Squad.
The movie is kind of a broad winking take on X-Men, and the plot such that it is revolves around strange mutant girls who live and train together. Near the end of this movie there is a fight involving one girl armed with breast swords and another with an ass chainsaw. Yeah, you read that. Ass. Chainsaw. Nande yo ne?
Mutant Girls Squad was released under the Sushi Typhoon label, which seems to have an ethos similar to Troma (creators of the Toxic Avenger) only with a dollop of that very Japanese menacing sexuality. It features blood, blood, blood, death, boobs, more blood, and cosplay nurses.
If you’re okay with that, however, it’s pretty fun. Mutant Girls Squad doesn’t take itself the slightest bit seriously —it just wants to show us some cute girls with tentacles lopping off limbs to a techno beat. On that scale it is a rousing success.
* This is a discussion for another day, but K-horror > J-horror. FYI.
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Mutant Girls Squad is currently touring North American as part of the Splatter Matters tour, which is still due to arrive in Ottawa, Toronto, Saskatoon, and Philadelphia. Proceeds to go Japan Earthquake/Tsunami related charities.
Here’s a more thorough review and a really bloody trailer from YouTube.
Sucker Punch, 2011
It’s been a long time since I saw a movie as bad as Suckerpunch. Let’s get that out of the way now. The script, the acting, the directing, virtually every element of the fundamental structure of the movie was deeply, fatally flawed. The lines the actors were forced to read, sometimes with visible difficulty, were atrocious. The film’s narrative was disjointed and largely incoherent. The “twist” ending was telegraphed so far in advance, I could have slept through the entire second act and still given a detailed breakdown of how the movie ended. Frankly, I almost wish I had. Let’s not kid ourselves, this flick was BAD. But even in the midst of all this determined awfulness, there are a couple of bright points. So let’s move on from Suckerpunch’s many failings, and focus on the movie’s one saving grace, the combat sequences.
The action director for the movie deserves a solid round of applause. The combat was big, both in scope and in drama, visceral, and was always very, very pretty. The girls’ martial displays were elegant, lyrical and a pleasure to watch while they carved a path through crowds of faceless, CGI-spawned mooks. Snyder has a lot of experience using CGI landscapes to good effect, both in 300 and Watchmen, and he uses that to good effect here. The dreamscapes the characters rampage through are a delight; giant temples, “Heavy Metal”-inspired World War 1 trenches, and futuristic alien cities. Even when I was actively trying not to listen to the dialogue, I was glued to the screen for the visuals during the combat.
Given all of that, Suckerpunch can be viewed as the most recent blow struck in Zack Snyder’s continuing war of style against substance – a deliberately vapid movie that exists only to display a large amount of nubile young girls in skimpy outfits hacking their way through armies of sluggish monsters. It’s stupid, sure, but it’s not meant to win awards, it’s just here to tittilate us. The movie is all surface, with absolutely nothing under the hood, like a Lamborgini chassis put on a go-kart motor. But for some people, that’s the perfect ride.
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Jessica adds: Warner Brothers released the first six minutes of the movie today to lure in more hapless viewers, I suppose. Be aware that these are six of the best minutes — it doesn’t sustain this pace. 
Paul, 2011
Before I start, let me get just one thing off my chest: I am a Simon Pegg and Nick Frost fangirl. I watch their movies, follow their Twitters, read articles I find about them. I bought Pegg’s book. I am pretty clearly within their intended audience, so keep that frame of reference with you as you read this.
That all being said, while I enjoyed Paul and I would recommend it, it’s not amazing. No new ground is broken, no genres invented, no comedic highs hit. Your life will not be changed by watching it. If, however, you are looking for nothing more than a fun little diversion with lots of nerd culture jokes then this is the movie for you!
There are two things that Pegg and Frost do very well, and Paul is full of them both: geek references and bromances. The two of them were adorable together in both Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz and that continues here — they are indeed the ideal heterosexual lifemates, as it were. The actors’ real life friendship shines through their interactions, adding a really sincere element to their on-screen shenanigans.
I saw a lot of reviews mention that the movie poorly handles its midwest redneck stereotypes, to the point where I was kind of expecting a reverse Deliverance or at least a lot of very crude charactures. As it turns out, though, I think Pegg and Frost were actually nicer to the ignorant religious types in Paul than they ever were to rural township busybodies in Hot Fuzz. It didn’t really seem that transgresive to me.
Anyway, in short I believe you will get your value from seeing Paul if one or more of the following is correct:
- You laugh when aliens and cute girls cuss like sailors.
- You enjoy nerdy pop culture references.
- You have enjoyed the previous Pegg/Frost movies.
- You like movies that are sweet, silly, and don’t take themselves too seriously.
I give Paul a very lippy:
Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, 1998
There are some movies that are so iconic that it actually does them a disservice. Take The Matrix, for example. It blew away audiences back in 1999 with its “bullet time” camera technology and cyberpunk stylings. A million .. well, let’s call them homages rushed out in the Matrix’s wake and to be honest when I catch these scenes in movies even now I tend to roll my eyes. I’ve seen this! It was great. Done. Next! But oddly enough I find I have the same Matrix-fatigue when I’m actually watching The Matrix. I have to make a concerted effort to remind myself that no, this isn’t a knock off, it’s the original and it was pretty dang groundbreaking in its day.
I mention all this because while it’s not quite as revolutionary as The Matrix, Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels has often been imitated since its release in 1998, not the least by director Guy Ritchie himself. It is a great, great movie, but when watching it again over the weekend I found myself having to keep in mind that Lock reimagined the British crime caper and not the other way around. The huge cast of characters, twisty plotlines, and violence set to rockin’ beats has been often duplicated since Lock came out, but in my opinion it has yet to be bettered.
The entire cast is stellar. It’s hard to stand out in such a huge array of characters, but almost everyone with a speaking line seemed to have a twinkle in their eye and a story in their back pocket, even if we never got to see it. The plot is convoluted without being irritating, and all the crime and death is done with a light enough tone that the viewer can sort of float right over it. It’s just business — don’t think about it too much, luv.
The movie is sort of diminished by imitators now, but it’s worth remembering that in its day Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels was a breath of fresh air and is still a slammin’ good time.
Quick, before the coppers get here I give this movie
Peacock, 2010
Peacock is a complicated movie to review, as much as it was to watch. As a film that revolves around the secrets of a disturbed man, much of the story is hidden at the outset, to be slowly revealed as we go. I came into this film expecting something very different from what I got, even if the end result was still quite good. Likewise, it is hard to review without revealing too much and risking the viewer’s ability to be surprised as the film slowly exposes the central plot. I felt this was part of what made the movie so satisfying to watch; you are injected into a world that is obviously a result of a great deal of unspoken history, which the director shows to us with skillful and understated interactions between the characters. Knowing what to expect robs the movie of its greatest asset: the ability to make the watcher reassess what they know from what they’ve seen already.
The gist of the film focuses on a man, John Skillpa (played by Cillian Murphy, who sweats, twitches and stammers with the best of them), in small town Peacock, Nebraska. He lives in the house that belonged to his abusive and possibly insane (and now deceased) mother, brings lunch in a brown paper bag to his basement office at the town’s bank, and avoids contact with his neighbors and coworkers. When he gets home, he quietly and with great formality dresses in womens’ clothing and a wig, moving about the house in a sort of domestic contentment until it is time to leave the house for work the next morning. One gets the immediate impression he has lived like this for some time. When a train goes off the tracks near his home and plows through his backyard, he is suddenly thrust into the town’s spotlight, and as his secrets are exposed, he begins to disintegrate under the pressure, ultimately completely breaking down in a…very unexpected fashion.
The plot of the movie thrives on secrets, both John Skillpa’s, and those of the few other people in his life. As they are slowly revealed to the viewer as the film goes on, each new piece of information pulls back another curtain on his mind, showing us the depth of the damage he is concealing. He begins the film portrayed as something of a known quantity to the audience, but as his secrets are revealed, the director manages to transform the character slowly and subtly, as his mind cracks under the pressure of the town’s scrutiny, turning him from a tragic figure to a disturbing one, before a finale that is equal parts sinister and heartbreaking. While Cillian Murphy’s portrayal of John Skillpa is a little over the top at times, most of the acting in the movie is very understated, with a script that seems almost loathe to say more than it has to. This worked for and against the movie, I think – sure, it gave the director excellent control of the pacing of the plot, as he handed us tidbit after tidbit, but at times it left me feeling adrift in the story, unsure what was going on, and forced to simply wait passively for the characters to reveal what I didn’t know yet that would tie it all together.
At day’s end, an excellent if very slow burning thriller. Maybe not a good party movie, but definitely a rewarding watch. I give it a solid three stars.
House of the Devil, 2009
Written, directed, and edited by one Ti West, this movie is certainly a labor of love. Mr. West set out to recreate a typical 80s horror movie, complete with techno soundtrack, rotary phones, and that favorite boogyman of the 80s, Satantic cults. Attention is paid to every detail, and one certainly forgets that this is a recent film.
And that’s the problem, really. House of the Devil is a pitch-perfect replica of the disposable horror genre, and the result is… disposable! The plot lacks depth, the ending is ludicrous even by schlock standards, and most importantly I was never scared.
I mean, it was clearly a nice artistic endeavor, and to be fair there is the faintest scent of solid old school Black Christmas-style horror. However, at the end of the day an homage that doesn’t add anything to the original is just a boring old replica.
Put away that acid wash, because I give this movie a mere:
Wasabi, 2001
Okay, so Jean Reno plays a hard boiled French detective and ex-spy who goes back to Japan to find out who killed the love of his life… and who is now after her daughter. Chaos ensues!
This movie is extremely French, even though it’s mostly set in Japan. Very, very French. It’s not particularly clever, but it is a lot of fun, and few people can play hardasses like Jean Reno. My favorite part of this movie was how it gave me a window into how France (and the rest of Europe, perhaps?) sees Japan.
So nothin’ special, but a fun little movie to watch while having a beer or three with friends on Friday night.
Rating:
The Red Shoes (Bunhongsin), 2005
So let’s get one thing straight right off the bat: the shoes are pink. It’s not your screen… they’re pink. Not red.
Okay, so that aside I figured that this would be your average Asian ghost movie and it turned out to be much better and much twistier than I expected! The characters were good, the directing was excellent, and it was much more than the standard “oh no, hair!”. I was even surprised by the ending, and I am one of those smug bastards who loves to guess the ending ahead of time.
Highly recommended!
I rate this:
Piranha 3D, 2010
This was much more fun than it should have been. It has a slightly suspicious cast — Ving Rhames? Elisabeth Shue? Jerry O’Connel? — and cameos by Richard Dreyfus and Eli Roth. (And no, I didn’t think I’d ever write a sentence with those two names.) There are boobs. So many boobs! And gore. Ohhhh, soooo much gore. Ludicrous amounts of gore and boobs and gory boobs.
Those factors alone would probably put the movie over the top enough to be a good watch, but it additionally there’s a … merciless quality. Director Alexandre Aja seems to have an almost palpable hatred of “young American” culture, and it oozes through the reels as beautiful blondes and boozy boys are literally torn to pieces before the might of the all consuming piranha horde.
Basically if you’re going to watch a killer fish movie, make it Piranha 2010!
I rate this: