Hit Man (George Armitage, 1972)

Blaxploitation remake of Get Carter. And not very good one to be honest.

Major problem is that it cannot decide whether to be hard-boiled crime or exploitation action flick. So for the first 75 minutes our hero wonders around LA but his investigation regarding his brother killing is pretty pathetic. He keeps asking/threating the same prostitute who used to be involved with his brother and he also keeps getting harassed by two (not very) tough guys urging him to get the hell out of the town. In the meantime he fucks two girls and runs into sleazy porn movie peddler. White of course.

Standard stuff. Some flashy dialogues and bad-ass one-liners plus few outraging hairdos and crazy clothes backed up by a funky soundtrack. Decent and watchable, but lacking big time in the action department. Laughable at times, especially fights are staged very amateurish.

It gets better in the last 20 minutes. After waiting for the first corpse for so long, body count starts to climb rapidly. We get cold blooded execution (x2), hanging, scarface style shoot-out and one unfortunate soul even gets torn apart by lions! But these scenes too are choreographed and executed pretty poorly and especially fake blood looks simply ridiculous.

Highlight and the saving grace of this flick is definitely Pam Grier! Although her role is pretty small and not very significant one, she's credited right after the leading hero Bernie Casey. Which I find unusual since Hit Man slightly precedes Coffy, Foxy Brown and all those other great movies that we love her for. I don't think she had been famous yet in '72 but director obviously realized who the real star of his movie was.

5/10

Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film (Jeff McQueen, 2006)

Documentary about the slasher movies that doesn't even bother to mention mighty Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Italian maestros ala Bava and Argento, infamous Video Nasties stuff etc etc

I don't think so.

Still it was fun to watch trailers and excerpts from some classical 80s flicks and see the usual talking heads ala Savini, Carpenter, Craven tell their anecdotes.

3/10

Sentô shôjo: Chi no tekkamen densetsu aka Mutant Girls Squad (Noboru Iguchi, Yoshihiro Nishimura, Tak Sakaguchi, 2010)

Well, it's another demented manga with high school chicks, non-stop CGI action, tons of gore and splatter and humans turning into machines mutants.

Since these movies are in the league of their own and basically just compete with each other by the amount of insanity, I'll give it (undeserving really) high grade just because it has - now prepare yourself! - a chick with a chainsaw sticking up her ass.

Oh man, these crazy Japanese fucks...

7/10

Miami Blues (George Armitage, 1990)

Loved the book but hated this flick. To be honest, I probably hated it because the book is such a masterpiece and I had simply expected too much. I guess what pissed me off was that director (or screenwriter) actually thought that he could improve the material by adding some scenes (like - for fucks sake! - a dinner they all have together) and had at the same time omitted some really cool ones. Just leave this stuff alone asshole, it's so much above you!!!

I was very surprised to see lots of raving reviews about  Alec Baldwin's performance on the various message boards. For my money, he's the one who puts the last nail into the coffin by his totally over the top portrayal of a "charming psychopath". On the other hand, Jennifer Jason Leigh is very good (as she always is) and especially Fred Ward manages to pull a good job. Maybe not too surprisingly since he's also credited as an executive producer so we can speculate that he was personally involved and had liked his character. At first I didn't like "his" Hoke much, but somehow he had stayed in the back of my mind. I was a bit surprised to have his image in my head when I was reading next Hoke novel. So I'm giving this movie an extra point on his behalf altough it's still an abomination of Charles Willeford's classic...

3/10

Sweet and Lowdown (Woody Allen, 1999)

To be frank, I can't stand Woody Allen. I don't like his frustrations about him being a Jew, having an ongoing problem with women, his mother's complex etc etc. I know that some artists keep re-inviting themsleves and returning to the same themes but in his case this shit is so ridiculous that it stopped being funny sometime before I was even born.

But for every rule there's an exception that confirms it! When I talk to my friends about Woody Allen, most of them (after endless pointless arguing and argumentation) eventually agree with me (probably just to keep me of their back) but still they usually ask me the same question: "But, surely, at least you do like Zelig or Everything you always wanted to know about sex, don't you?!" And my answer is always the same: "Fuck that, the only Woody Allen movie for me is Sweet and Lowdown!"

To put it in one word, it is simply FUNNY! And what's there not be liked about a depression era period documentary(?) about a drunken, obnoxious, overly-talented (but not as much as Django Reinhardt!!!) jazz guitarist (part time pimp) who takes his dates to a dumpster to shoot rats(!) and exploits his deaf girlfriend? Great jokes and one of the Sean Penn's best performances ever! 

9/10

The Queen of Versailles (2012, Lauren Greenfield)

I was really intrigued by this movie when it had came out and wasn't even sure if this was supposed to be a mockumentary or a "proper" documentary. But somehow I always managed to miss it. And they did play it here in Dublin for quite some time! So I was pleasantly surprised when it was shown on BBC just a few weeks after it had finished its theatrical run.

Story is well known and bizarre and it obviously speaks to the audience about human stupidity, shallowness, megalomania, trivial and materialistic view of life etc etc etc. But I liked it foremost from its documentary film-making aspect. Director doesn't really choose any sides and just keeps filming what's in front of her camera. And what comes out from it is that you don't feel absolutely nothing for these assholes. No pity, no anger, no contempt, no nothing.

7/10

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (Larry Charles, 2006)

I don't follow popular culture much but I did like Ali G a lot. Bruno's coverage of the nazi-skinhead gig, Vietnam Vet(erinarian) and Ali G's persuasion of cops to use dolphins instead of dogs to detect drugs (since everyone knows they are much smarter) are classics, in my book they are very close to be 21st century variations of Killing Joke or Ministry of silly walking.

But somehow I just wasn't interested enough to check out Borat/Bruno movies when they had came out some years ago. I suspected they would be either too mellow or overly offensive. You know - in the way big studios get cheap publicity by creating some sort of controversy (Scorsese/Gibson biblical crap etc...)

But still I was intrigued enough and couldn't resist when they were showing this on TV. And really liked it - funny, cool and offensive in an intelligent way. Probably shouldn't say this publicly, but antisemitic jokes are the best ones. Stuff with Borat and his manager throwing money at the cockroaches (=shape-shifted Jews) is simply hilarious and had left me speechless and with tears in my eyes. And if you're more into the good old dick jokes, you probably died laughing in a scene where Azamat jerks off on the picture of Borat's beloved Pamela.

Funny stuff, Mr. Cohen got it! I'm definitely checking out Bruno.

8/10