What movie are you viewing at the moment?

[Brecht]

There Will Be Blood (2007)



Trailer

Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a ruthless and stubborn cash hound with a modest beginning. Just before the turn of the century, he's digging for silver in New Mexico until he discovers oil in California. When one of his workers dies in an accident, Plainview adopts his orphaned son and uses him as a "cute face" to attract potential investors. In 1911, Daniel is approached by Paul Sunday (Paul Dano) who tells him about the oil under his family's property in Little Boston, California. Plainview sets out to hicktown with his adopted son, H.W. Plainview (Dillon Freasier), and succeeds in aquiring the property for $5,000 and the drilling begins. But soon a worker is killed in an accident and a gas blowout leaves H.W. deaf. Meanwhile, Paul Sunday's religious wacko twin brother Eli (Paul Dano in a dual role) blames the accidents on the well not being properly blessed. The self-proclaimed prophet remains a pain in Plainview's ass for years to come.

This could have been a better film if it wasn't this long. The first half is very promising but the story soon goes in no particular direction and remains just a portrait of a man fueled with anger and hatred. I wish the director and writers spent more time on exploring the historical and social context of the oil boom. Instead, we just get to see a madman descending into more madness, though brilliantly played by Daniel Day-Lewis. For 158 minutes.

[Brecht]

Act of Violence (1948)



Trailer

Frank Enley (Van Heflin), a "war hero" and Nazi POW camp survivor, moves with his young wife Edith (Janet Leigh) and baby from Syracuse, New York, to the small town of Santa Lisa, California, where he becomes a respectable businessman and member of the community. Edith doesn't know that starting a new life on the other side of the country is Frank's attempt to escape his past but it catches up with him anyway when his former best friend and comrade Joe Parkson (Robert Ryan) shows up.

A masterfully directed film noir by Fred Zinnemann, extra heavy on the noir. Act of Violence is a dark, nightmarish post-war picture about guilt, betrayal and the impossible search for redemption. If there's anything like a perfect film noir, this one comes pretty close, one reason being the fantastic performances by its main cast.

[Wendigo]

Duck Soup (1933)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0023969/


Classic Marx Brothers comedy as Rufus T Firefly (Groucho) is appointed leader of the the nation of Freedonia which is suffering a financial crisis. He was given the job in order to receive a loan from Mrs Teasdale, the government has no choice but to appoint Firefly.
Meanwhile the neighbouring nation of Sylvania send in two spies Harpo & Chico
to dig up some dirt in order to discredit Firefly.
There are so many classic lines delivered at machine gun pace, one of the greatest comedy films ever made

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF0Pa1uMP4Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSabiG8q8-k

[Oh hi Mark!]

High Kicks


This was a complete impulsive watch for me. Actively browsing reddit, on the homepage, it shows top posts from the subreddits you're subscribed to. One of them I subscribed to, though for some reason barely visit, is r/badmovies. I do love me some entertaining films of the shit variety, and the post highlighted was titled “How to end a scene,” citing High Kicks. I didn't look at the accompanying video clip, though it does show two women on grass. That, and the title of the film made me do a little search. The IMDB page is very barren, I had a better summary from wipfilms, which was a site I went to a lot back in 2015 to get all kinds of non-mainstream films, pornos were included. The summary for the movie basically called it “porn without actual porn.” I watched the movie to analyze the validity of that statement. It's valid alright, and it also said that it's a rape-and-revenge film, that it looked like it was shot in the course of just one afternoon, all these things that would attract me. I didn't read the whole summary, don't want to read too much into the movie. I read enough to download the film from there and watch it almost immediately. This wasn't planned out in advance, this has no ties to Power Rangers, as my ongoing movie fascination involves films that feature former Ranger actors. It's just a total freefall into a world of films I know and love. Now, there are movies that have the tag of “so bad it's good,” but end up being just bad, movies that have the makings of it, and yet they just suck. Godfrey Ho films come to mind, embodying the risky nature of watching bad movies under the expectation of them being fun, and at least half the time being disappointed. In some respect, bad movies are a “high risk, high reward” kind of deal. Being just 82 minutes long, the risk I felt wasn't too high. It was the end of the day, short duration, the summary, for as much as I read, was convincing, the poster even saying it's awesome, what can go wrong?


Seeing as how I kept referencing the summary, I should quote it, and from there, analyze if the movie matches the summary accurately.

High Kicks is a rape revenge movie that appears to have been made over the course of an afternoon. Our hero Sam blows into town on his sailboat looking for a job and ends up at High Kicks aerobic studio owned by Sandy. He lands the job and leaves. While he’s gone a vicious gang of hilarious dudes end up attacking Sandy. Sam teaches Sandy karate and together they exact revenge on TC and his Gang.
This movie is awesome. I’ve heard it described by many people as “a porno without any of the porno”. There are enough great scenes to make it entertaining for the entire 82 minute run-time.

That's a very good summary, going into detail reveals though that there are some things that are not strongly represented. Basically the summary exaggerates a thing or two. Well, the rape/revenge thing, the summary claims that, I was excited about that, but the film really meanders on that, to funny results, but still, this film could've been easily cut in half and still kind of make the viewer forget that there is a revenge plot. The summary also didn't mention that it was shot on video, it was released only on video, and it really looks like that. I have come to the conclusion that movies shot on video tend to be of the low-hanging fruit, either they are terrible or terribly hilarious. TV shows seem to have a better time being shot on video, as they can turn out to be international juggernauts (*cough* Power Rangers). Another thing to note, it was written and directed by one person, Ruta K. Aras. I have no idea if this person is male or female, the first name sounds female, this is led by a woman, it's about a woman getting revenge, there are 3 defined female characters that impact the story, as well as distract from the story. It could be seen as a flimsy women empowerment film.


This leads me to the “porno without any of the porno” line in the summary. That's true, and it's painful to say that. This came out in 1993, 25 year anniversary, hooray. Two years earlier was the cheap action film Maximum Breakout, which I enjoyed, featuring a male lead who primarily did softcore films later in the decade, Bobby Johnston. I mention this movie because it was co-written and directed by Tracy Lynch Britton, a woman who saw fit to show man skin a lot more than female skin. This movie is similar in that there is a lot of topless men here, sweaty and fit (to varying degrees), and the closest to female nudity was a major tease, especially with me believing that the woman in that choice scene was a porn actress, more on that later. All that said, I'm concluding that this was made by a woman (Aras also produced this movie). As the opening and closing credits reveal, in typical low budget movie fashion, members of the cast and crew did multiple duties. The male protagonists choreographed the fight scenes, and it really shows, oh boy. There's a credit of “Aerobics choreographer” given to one Anastasia Raven Alexander, who I thought was a porn actress. I notice an “Evan Aras” being credited in the end a few times, so a family member of the “auteur,” perhaps even husband. Strangely a “Casey Jones” was credited for lighting and grip work, sharing the same name as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Character. A “Paul Tarantino” as a production assistant, the surname of course bringing to mind Quentin Tarantino. More evidence pointing to the filmmaker being a woman, Lida Hadas credited as the one gaffer, the one camera operator (there's a separate credit for a boat camera operator though), Elisa Mohler credited as the electrician. The star of this movie is Terry Lee-Anne Roth, who I expected to be someone in the vein of Cynthia Rothrock, the surname being what I thought was an easy indicator. I was wrong. It was disappointing to see that according to the end credits, she was doubled by another woman, who apparently was part of her aerobics class. I actually couldn't tell that she was doubled, maybe I didn't pay attention well enough, maybe the film being so low quality, something that clearly didn't get a remaster or any kind of DVD treatment. The point is, I think it's excusable to not be able to tell that she was doubled. I'd add to that when you look at the characters doing physical stuff, it's not really impressive to the point where you think a talented stunt performer did it, and you're under the impression that the “actors” themselves aren't very talented, at least in making their stuff look good on camera, more on that later.


Time to actually dig into the movie. The summary I quoted again says enough of what's in store. I'm going to kind of prove if it's agreeable or not.


The movie starts with a title sequence that features things that end up defining aspects of the film. Silhouettes of martial arts training, though they're all males. A boat sailing across the sea with a long haired person (I assume a man) controlling it, a couple walking on the beach, people hanging out in an some urban blight area wearing roller blades, and to conclude, an establishing shot showing a large city, which if going by what was said in the movie, it's Los Angeles. I wouldn't really describe this title sequence if not for the fact that two people were credited for making it. Because it was so awesome, two people needed a standalone credit for it in the opening, not even the end credits! Having now seen the movie, that title sequence foreshadows a lot of it. The lead male is Sam Monroe (Dennis Swarthout), a loner, a drifter of sorts as he sails into Los Angeles on a boat, which doubles as his home. A couple walking on the beach, he gets into a romantic relationship with Roth's character, Sandy Thomas (which totally sounds like a porn name). People hanging out in that specified situation, uhhh, well a loose translation. There is an evil gang, as the summary mentions, of hilarious dudes, who always hang out in ratty looking areas, though one instance had them trying to play basketball. The silhouettes, martial arts being a part of this movie, I had hoped Roth was already a martial artist, again making me expect a Cynthia Rothrock derivative. I didn't expect her to be raped, rather a female friend, a sister, and she'd go to town on the offenders, similar to Unbreakable, which Rothrock starred in, a Godfrey Ho disaster that's hilarious too. I was wrong, but I didn't lament over that. The silhouettes also show that the males know martial arts, the female or females (going by a friend of the lead girl and what she gets up to) being students. Immediately after that title sequence, there's yet another sequence, a montage showing a huge part of the film, aerobics. I think it's still seeped in the 80s, but also this was a huge indication of it being a porno. You see women exercising, wearing decently provocative workout gear, all you hear is this funky-ish beat mixed with a flute lead that remind me of late 80s and early 90s porn, specifically Where The Girls Sweat (I've enjoyed the first 2 films in that series). Closeup shots of women's body parts in motion, breasts, butt, hard nipples on one girl wearing pink. That woman being Anastasia Raven Alexander, and I give out the fully credited name because it sounds like a fucking pornstar name! With how her character interacted and influenced a bit of the plot, I totally thought that she was a pornstar. I was wrong, finding confirmation while watching the movie. That being said, if I found out after the movie ended, I still would've believed she was before this, as she was credited for choreographing the aerobics sequences. Yeah, any fit woman can do that, but with how saucy it looks in the first sequence for example, I easily thought she was a porn performer. It also went along with the “porn without the porn” description, as there are movies that featured porn performers, whether before, during, or after their time in porn, where they are sexualized, most of the time being in nude scenes. This woman, the highest potential of being nude out of the rest, and that includes Roth (you'll understand soon), to be naked...is not naked at all. The closest you get are the skimpy outfits she wears to these classes, later in the movie she has a date with Sam, trying to fuck him, and she has an untied robe on over just bra and panties! An absolute tease, and then it turns out that while she wasn't a porn performer, she was in softcore films and has appeared nude a bunch of times, so, fuck! Missed opportunity, and it again shows that Ruta was a woman. Man I got sidetracked, the point is that these aerobics sequences are shot in a porn style. On video, closeup shots teasing the viewer before sex scenes, music that would fit in a porn scene, that have more time in those sequences than actual dialogue, the group of women are attractive, but for this movie, the best they can afford. That means they aren't drop dead gorgeous, or have any slutty appeal, nothing tantalizing, Ms. Alexander was the one exception. Even how she wore her hair, her facial expressions, the dialogue, porn performer all the way...but no. Fuck.


The aerobics alone isn't really interesting, simple stuff. That's why it's a bit baffling when the male martial artists take part in the class at first and they suck. So the studio is called “High Kicks.” They don't do high kicks or any kind of kicking exercises until after Roth learns some Karate. They keep saying Karate, she at first said it was Kung Fu. Bitch, Kung Fu and Karate are different. Sam just walks by there, wearing the Canadian Tuxedo, denim jacket and jeans, and he has a long mullet, at first shown to be put in a ponytail, and holy balls, he could be mistaken for a woman. He needs a job, the guy who originally had the position of being, I guess the secretary, or handyman, was a fat middle aged man. They go all stereotypical by having the guy always eating food, specifically desserts, his black shirt stained with white powder. Sugary powder, not cocaine. Sandy's class eventually ends (there's more aerobics during this shit, and you hear her talk for the first time), she takes a quick look at Sam's application and has the fat guy already photocopy his driver's license, and then gives him the job. Now why is the fat guy taking a hiatus? A movie, no, not a porno. He apparently got a part in a movie, he's due for a wardrobe fitting (fatass probably tore apart clothes in it) the next day, so Sam is told to start tomorrow. The project is supposed to take 2 months to film, but this is the last time you see the fat man, as it turned out he got a role in a TV series, so Sam's position in High Kicks is basically permanent. It's such a random and pointless story element, just have the fatso quit, you can't convince anyone that he has any shot of being an actor. Another idea, don't have him in the film at all, the position would've been open from the start and Sam would come in and fill that spot. That saves the people involved in this movie money, and they sure needed it.


The gang of hilarious dudes, as the summary puts it, are just that, hilarious. Racially diverse too...and stereotyped to all Hell! The leader is a greasy, bearded New Yorker (though he was wearing a Bulls cap in his first scene). The black man looks like Laurence Fishburne, and he acts like most stereotyped black gang members from the late 80s. Think of the black guy in Bodicker's gang in Robocop, laughing and whatnot. There's a greaser looking dude, maybe trying to be like Andrew Dice Clay, sunglasses, black jacket, New Jersey native looking guy. There's the Asian gang member. I've found that during this time, Asians who weren't stereotyped as martial artists or bespectacled nerds/dunces, are gang members. It was a shallow pool for Asians back then. Lastly, the most stereotyped guy, or at least the one I'm very familiar with, the Mexican. “Homes,” all that talk, he turns it up to 11. He's dressed like a California Vato, as if trying to be like B. Real of Cypress Hill, or failing to be in the band Suicidal Tendencies. Oh, Raiders buttoned shirt in his first scene, a fedora looking hat, looks like he was holding a 40 Oz, bandanna, he screams Mexican thug stereotype, it's hilarious. I tried to play what TC, the New Yorker boss said in the end of the scene, talking about serious business. The audio quality is shit, but I just think the guy is hard to understand, the other guys at least talk clearly, albeit very stereotypical according to their appearances and ethnicities. I'll just say their scheme is to have a good time at High Kicks. That studio is so cheap looking, the exterior shot shows it to be in the middle of a business strip, back then I assume it included an arcade, laundromat, and a video rental store. Inside however, it looks like something in a corner, dingy place, a hole in the wall. The workout room itself is really small, making it a wonder that they crammed that many women in there. Granted, it was about a dozen, but still.


Along with stereotypical dialogue from the gang that is hilarious, their facial expressions are classics, I'll give some examples...





The funny thing looking back is when they were waiting for the High Kicks studio to be empty (excluding Sandy), they were right next to a sign that said “No soliciting,” and to make things funnier, they're right in front of a dry cleaning joint! I wish they continued on the stereotyping path and showed Koreans in that facility! So I was right in my description of the location. I deliberately mentioned an arcade for a specific reason. Well, two. One because this kind of business strip was present in my town, I think it still is, though minus these old businesses. There was a local video store, a laundromat, which had an arcade section. I went there quite a lot. So I spoke from experience. The other reason though is I thought of a famous video game that got its start in the arcades as I watched this film. I'll explain later. Again, not understanding TC, I think the plan was to not only rob the place, but also for some family friendly raping. They end up going for the former when Sandy said some shit about basically not being able to give money to them. It's ridiculous when movies like this try to complicate things, checks and credit cards, doesn't keep cash. Well okay, and then they spend some time having a gang member check around to see if that's true. This movie really does stretch itself out to even make that 82 minute mark, and this is one of the earliest examples of that. There was a redhead woman who didn't leave High Kicks and got caught in all this. Sam came back after realizing that he left his driver's license in High Kicks. Yeah, and they made a point about showing that the fat guy and Sandy still had that card. That's stupid, how is Sandy running that place if she can't remember to return such an important item, how is that fat guy a valued employee for not returning that important item as well? That license is what draws Sam back in, but too late. The guys have Sandy pinned down, while Jill the redhead plays a cowering witness. I was hoping for Sandy to fight back, she kicked TC in the nuts, so I thought she would power up, and just kick ass. I expected martial arts stuff to go on, the title sequence showed someone doing forms, though it was a male silhouette. My expectation was not met, that was the only defense Sandy put up, and she ended up getting raped by the ugliest of the group, TC. Since I mentioned TC's name a lot, I should give out the names of his “tribe,” as he puts it. Rico, the black man, interestingly enough wearing a pink shirt that says “bum Equipment.” He looks like a bum. Bo Man, the Andrew Dice Clay wannabe, I heard Boneman, but the credits say otherwise. Uhh, fucking TC's lisp-like speech made it hard to make out the Mexican's name. The credits list him as “Choots,” so I'll go with that. It just sounded like “Truths” to me, but mangled by TC's speech. The Asian is Mackie. Anyways, TC got all of her while the guys held her down and laughed. That's pretty sick, some shots of the scene would suggest it being very dramatic, a horrible thing to happen to any person. None of those shots involve the facial expressions of the villains, they are just so ridiculous. It's also sick of me to admit this, but I was looking forward to nudity here. That didn't happen, even at the 13 minute mark, I had this suspicion that no nudity was going to come throughout the film, any tease, whether it be the rape scene or Tracy (Ms. Alexander's character) having Sam over for dinner, would get me hoping for nudity. My hopes were strongly dashed. Back to the facial expressions, even though Bo Man mostly had his sunglasses on, it's impossible to hide facial expressions, eyes are just a part of it. There were no shots of TC thrusting, the most you get is him pulling down his pants. Everything about that scene was awkward and stupid, rather than a strong piece of drama.


The bad guys leave, Jill finally stepped up, and ran out for help. She didn't have to go far, right around the corner came Sam, coming back for his driver's license, only to be led into the scene of a crime. While the rape scene was poorly shot and executed, there's still the convincing belief that something that traumatic would scar a victim, to where it's hard to move on. In rape/revenge movies, the woman has that rock bottom feel, only to rise up and do some serious damage. What this movie gets wrong is basically meandering about, to the point where it's easy to forget that there is still revenge to be had, and when revenge is slowly delivered, it's not even brutal or grand. I know the movie was going to be silly and such, but I did expect the retaliation to be over-the-top, like someone getting their dick cut off or something. Maybe it's being spoiled by I Spit On Your Grave, an unrealistic expectation of a woman destroying multiple men through fatal methods and some cunning. Add on martial arts with this particular film. I was dead wrong. Sandy's lamenting is really quick, she looks broken for only a couple minutes. Back at the gym following the rape, Sandy gets covered with a blanket, her eye makeup running down her cheek, hair all messy. Sam calls the police, which amounts to a piece of paper labeled as a police report, and nothing really material beyond that. They all say some crap about the police not being able to get involved, crime rate being up, whatever. Again, movies like this try to complicate things and it would sound so stupid, publicity was mentioned as well. It just doesn't make sense. It sounds like me not paying attention, but trust me, it's more that it's bullshit reasoning.


Sandy's brought to Jill's home, her finally stepping up after cowering in a corner watching her friend and teacher get raped. They hug, Sandy takes a shower, gets flashbacks to the invasion, the faces of the monsters, which is my word to describe them, the movie doesn't do a good job of making them look like monsters. More like goobers. Anyways, the memory of the event is still fresh in the mind of the viewer, it just happened a couple minutes before. Sandy cries as she is showering, and that's a bummer too, no nudity shown there. Yes, she is naked, but you don't see nipples, butt, anything. She could very well have been wearing some underwear down south, so the nudity is more or less implied.


That's it, Sandy goes through the rest of the movie looking composed and calm, it's as if her trauma only lasted for the rest of that day. She even said in the scene after that she feels much better already, smiling very wide, almost like the rape was a mild inconvenience! Not even showing unbridled rage, which would've been a great reaction if depression wasn't used. Or mix the two, but no, she's happy. Sam for some reason blames himself, kind of, saying “If only I was there” or whatever. Well if he had his driver's license all along, he would not have come back at all, and it's not like he had a rape alert siren going off in his mind, he's no superhero. Anyways, Sam offers to teach her some self defense, saying that the gang may come back, good point. She agrees, and that's when the movie continues to delve into ridiculousness.


By coincidence or rather, the script, the next day, Sam and Sandy are biking in the park, and they spot two topless men fighting, with weapons. It's so clear that it's a sparring session, a form of training, a competitive match of sorts, because the bulkier guy is using a long wooden staff while the shorter guy who looks like a Jean-Claude Van Damme wannabe is using tonfa sticks. Those weapons don't just appear in a park, there's no previous scene showing it to be a planned fight to the death. Therefore, training session, and the choreography implies that as well. The biggest letdown from this movie is the choreography. Even though the male protagonists appear to be talented martial artists, they are not really good at staging fight scenes. More often than not, exchanges are very careful and slow. The trick is making them look fast and kinetic. None of these guys are able to do that, and nobody in the crew has ever done under-cranking. Thus you get something that looks a bit clunky. That being said, it can work to a movie's advantage if the fighting is shit, as long as it's funny, such as the case with Samurai Cop. For here, not so much. It does end with the shorter guy doing the JCVD split with a punch to the balls. I actually thought of Johnny Cage of Mortal Kombat, hearkening back to me saying about the arcade reference, Mortal Kombat being a huge arcade title before coming to home consoles in 1993, the year this movie was made. What made me settle for the JCVD comparison is the man himself name-dropping the guy, as well as Steven Seagal. Once it's established that they were simply having a competitive match, and after Sam drops in and fights the two one at a time, that's when the shorter man, who is German, expresses a desire to be an action star. He even did a high leg extension that JCVD would do, see his first scene in Double Impact for example, where he showed those ladies how amazing his legs are. With the foreign accent, similar body, and pretty-boy face, he could definitely pass off as JCVD to a very casual moviegoer. For me, he'd pass off as his stunt double.


Going back to the trio of short fight scenes in the park, again, choreography wasn't impressive. The facial expressions from Sam were hilarious though, and how he and Jonas (the German guy, played by Jonas Johannes) end their exchange was classic...





There's a leg on the right of this image that shows someone stepping into frame that wasn't supposed to. Ah low budget filmmaking.





Since I named Jonas, I should name the bigger guy, who wore some short shorts during this scene. “Crazy Maurice.” He's not crazy, so I'll just call him Maurice. Sam being a private sailor, just so happened to have met those two before during his adventures. Sure, whatever. They end up helping Sandy out, so she gets multiple teachers. The funny thing is that the training is such a small portion in the movie, even though they have a scene or two dedicated to it, to show that it's important. It really isn't, going back to the point of this movie really meandering. At the end of the scene where she is introduced to the two guys, you can hear a thunder clap sound effect. It wasn't raining, it plays again during the next scene with just her and Sam. Again, no rain. This is one example of a really funny aspect of the film, the dubbed sound effects. The comedy is more in the fight scenes, but the same general tendency of not fitting into the movie at all is still present.


For fuck's sake, that scene with Sam and Sandy with the unnecessary thunder clap sound effect, revealed Sam's backstory. I totally forgot that he admitted to being raped. Ugh, it just proves how this movie makes you forget serious things, the plot basically. He basically sailed into an island where the natives weren't friendly. Yeah, that's about all he said about that. I would imagine they thought he was a woman, his long mullet is something women would have, though much more poofier. Sam isn't about that hairspray. Still, from the back, he could pass off as a woman. This leads me into his physique. He shows off the guns, the body during that section of fighting his two buddies. The problem is that those two opponents are much more muscular than him. He has little definition, not a lot of muscle, he's almost skinny really. In trying to think of a good comparison, how about David Spade as he was as Joe Dirt, but he went to the gym for a month or two. I think that paints a good enough picture. Towards the end of the scene, Sam tries to score a date with Sandy, starting their romantic relationship pretty much, planting the seeds of that. Common movie knowledge, especially with low budget films, the two best looking people end up together. That being said, I'd have to correct myself, because Jonas is much better looking than Sam, but he's not the lead. Anyways, that first date is a trip on Sam's boat. Music accompanies that, so, montage. This movie kind of takes the Rocky IV route, where a majority of the content is just in montage format. It certainly saves money, not needing to record dialogue, and just edit in a generic, non-copyright musical piece. All you have to show are shots that illustrate a section of the story. So here, them sailing, laughing, embracing, adjusting a sail, all that.


Music accompanies the next scene, though there's dialogue, the beginning of Tracy's fascination with Sam (music over dialogue in this fashion reminds of old school porn). The scene's thunder is stolen pretty early though when the lone male student comes up to Sandy, talking about his improvement. Either the guy was really mentally retarded or he was acting, it's hard to tell. The former actually makes sense, low budget filmmaking, get anybody you can find, that guy was probably related to a crew member, or even Ruta. What's a bit baffling is that the conversation implies that this guy is a regular student. I don't recall seeing him in the previous aerobic scenes, nor do I recall seeing him in the subsequent ones. I think I'm right in saying he only appears here, why would you not film this guy? He stuck out like a sore thumb, it would be weird not to film him. Add on to the fact that they made sure to focus on the martial arts guys who end up taking the classes, they focused on them at that point more than the women, so it's pretty clear that they would shoot the standouts. Anyways, padding this review. I'm meandering, just like the movie. Also in this scene, Jill expresses remorse over not helping Sandy during the rape incident, she calms her down about it. It's crazy how much of a strong mental fortitude Sandy has, it makes one wonder why she even wants revenge. 34 minutes into the movie and she hasn't even started enacting it, this goes into forgetting about that being a driving plot element in the movie. One's too distracted by how nonchalant and forward-moving this Sandy is, meanwhile Jill is more of the lamenting kind, reasonably so. Acting wise, nah, she's actually worse than the other non-gang member actors involved. Facial expressions being a big part of it. Nobody here is a good actor though, to be fair, but who cares about that?


With Tracy wanting that dick, Sandy does get jealous. Looking at Sam for a bit, he totally looks like Bobby Johnston circa Maximum Breakout with the long blonde hair, but half the muscle mas, maybe even 3/4s of that, as Johnston was a beefcake. Johnston would chop it off and look respectable, I don't think Sam would do the same thing. Tracy is sent off pretty much, and it takes a letter from the gang mailed to Sandy to snap her head out of just life (no training scenes at this point) and get on with the revenge. The message was made with those pasted on letters, and they said “You're tagged bitch,” though Sandy read it as “You're a tagged bitch.” Jill said Sandy should call the police. “What help would they be?” Sigh. None of the people in this scene are black, they can get cop help, easily.


One thing that bugged me is that Sandy doesn't get revenge on her own, she enlists the help of Sam and even gets Sam's Karate buddies in on this. Sure it's this makeshift gang against the gang of stereotypes, and it is poetic to have them roll up on an individual member, since that gang rolled up on Sandy. Poetic justice, but my preference is in the cold, damning, violent way delivered by one person. Ah well.

Look at Sam in this scene where the first target is Choots. His hairtie is gone, meaning no ponytail, that mullet is completely free. He's wearing a pink wifebeater shirt, it's tucked into his blue jeans which are a bit high on the waist, and a thin brown belt around it! This is so retro and ridiculous that it's hilarious. Meanwhile Sandy is wearing a red cap in reverse, overalls, and flannel shirt, she looked more manly than Sam! Fucking Choots is wearing the same shit he wore in the rape scene, which going by this movie's calendar was a few days ago! They don't all do that, the next person targeted, Rico, has a different shirt on, though the same pair of red sweatpants. Anyways, bad audio, Sandy just standing there and making facial expressions, Sam does all the work! Come on! Disappointing, Sandy is a fit woman, but by this point, she only showed that in the aerobic scenes. I repeat, no training scene with Sandy has occurred at this point. It feels like Ruta danced around and gave all these caveats that prevented pure revenge, woman vs. evil men. Part of me thinks she just wanted to shoot an aerobic exercise tape, that has martial arts instructional breaks, and then end with a fusion of the two. She probably saw how there was no market around that, so she kept the idea because it was a passion of hers, and she simply wrote a film narrative around that, squeezing it into her original plan. That's a porn style that was coming in during that period, and is pretty much the standard now, the sex is worked out first, and a story wiggles around it. Or no story at all, and it's gonzo, which this movie kind of veers into, meaning no plot progression for a good chunk of the film.


Back to the scene, Sam didn't even do martial arts, he just outmaneuvered the guy and beat him down, the final blow was an uppercut. Sandy laughs and smiles to close that scene, a good representation of her contribution to the action. Her face looked almost as red as the hat she wore, weird.


Going back to Ruta, the belief that she's a woman, here's your man meat porn. Sam, Maurice, Jonas, and a fit black man revealed to be another old friend of Sam's, Billy. They're doing some forms near a cliff, under the hot sun, the cliff overlooks a beach. Then they are on the beach, Maurice holding a pad for Billy and Jonas to hit. Meanwhile Sam and Sandy wear white gis as they talk, the former having a headband on, trying to be like Rambo. Or Ryu from Street Fighter, the headband should be red though. He comes off more like Ken, though his blonde hair is way too long while Ken has it relatively short. Also, typical, you see them breaking boards. You know what they say, “Boards don't hit back.” They, I mean Bruce Lee. Apart from a certain montage that piles on a bunch of clips, this was Billy's last scene. Take into consideration what clips Billy appears, and it shows that he was only filmed in one location, for one day, so his presence in the movie is very minimal, a true token black character.


Next scene, montage again, which the previous scene was pretty montage heavy with the guys doing their Karate. Here we go again with the aerobics, and the guys are there. Maurice, Sam, and Jonas having a fun time looking at the women, and a tough time keeping up with the movement, and thus looking like goobers. Sandy smiles, totally in her element. Montage again, some of these don't last long, like the aerobic one I just talked about. Anyways, FINALLY, Sandy does some training. There's really only one action in this montage, her trying to perfect a punch, while in a form, Sam trying to get her to make that right punch, which I don't think she really does in that kind of stance and whatnot at any point after this scene. This particular bit gets reused in a later montage, which is filled with reused shots in general, as I hinted at when I talked about Billy. Low budget filmmaking! That later montage though doesn't have the conclusion of this one, where Sam uses a takedown on her, and she gets humbled by that.


Sandy finally does some action in her revenge plot, as she forces Rico out of his Low Rider, which I don't believe he legitimately owns, he's a poor fucker. Sam and Maurice enter the fray and fight, allowing Sandy to just watch again. She gets the exclamation point moment, kicking Rico in the testicles. Come on, anybody can do that, where's that Karate Sam taught you? That punch? Hell, she couldn't use some aerobics to trip the guy up? Almost as much as this movie wants to show off aerobics, it indulges in simple martial arts fodder, but without the rightful story infusion, which would be Sandy doing that stuff and kicking ass all the time. It makes me wonder, again with writer/director Ruta K. Aras, if she had a deal with these athletic people to show off their shit in exchange for a movie gig. The martial artists get their shit in, Anastasia Raven Alexander gets her aerobics in. That does clash with my other theory of Aras basically trying to make an exercise video and wrote a film narrative around that. I'm just full of theories in regards to this odd little movie. This was at the 41 minute mark, roughly, I'm giving these times to show how much meandering the movie does, it takes a while to get to the revenge stuff, and the build to them are more like distractions rather than a more suitable form of storytelling. They locked Rico in the trunk of his car by the way, but he pops up later, and he doesn't bring up what exactly happened to him. That's something to talk about, but nope, not in this movie.


I mentioned earlier about sound effects being the funniest part of this movie. Well, one of the funniest, something else just came to mind. These fight scenes with the villains have this bizarre use of sound effects that go over the same kind of sound effects, and this overlaying bunch don't fit into the movie at all, almost like they're from a stock library, or made on the fly under the impression that the original sound effects just don't cut it for whatever reason. When you see the villains get hit, their grunts are very much identical, but if you listen closely, you can hear sometimes grunts that more naturally comes from them. Again, sound effects over the same ones, essentially two tracks of grunts and other fight noises for the villains. Not even one villain, those sound effects are indistinct. Think Samurai Cop, where the grunts and bits of dialogue from unnamed characters come from the same person (Amir Shervan, the director of Samurai Cop). That's what ultimately makes the scenes funny, and it makes a difference because just on the choreography, a fight scene such as the series of battles in the park where you're introduced to Sam's friends, is not as entertaining. Those fights were mainly entertaining because of facial expressions. In short, fight scenes in this movie are entertaining for pretty much anything but the actual fighting and choreography. This again reminds me of Samurai Cop, which to me is second only to The Room in classic bad movie history.


The hits keep on coming actually. Sandy and Jill are stretching and talking on some grass, I think a park. This scene's final couple seconds were shared on r/badmovies and thus was the preview that I didn't even watch, but the image and the post's title was enough to get me to see the whole film. A bonding moment between them, Sandy says that “it” comes to her in nightmares and freaks her out every time. Obviously she means the rape incident, but going by her face looking upbeat, smiling here and there in the scene, it's really hard to believe her. Horrible acting, but par for the course with this movie. Jill saying that “we” are going to be so good that Sam will be impressed implied that she's taking Karate lessons as well, though that's never shown. In fact, you don't know for sure that she was being trained until the final confrontation, when she gets into the action. It's really ridiculous by the way. The conversation naturally shifts to Sandy and Sam's relationship, and it leads to mentioning that fat guy, the TV show bullshit. So, Sam being an employee full time? No, can't complicate things. She doesn't make it clear, but I guess what happens is that she laid off Sam, this way they can be purely an item rather than also employer/employee. I assume this because she explicitly states in this scene that Jill should help run the business. Jill's face...classic...





She then complained about Sandy twisting her arm. False, she was lightly moving it left to right, like a child when clung to their parent. Does Jill say yes? If doing...HIGH KICKS...is any indication, then the answer is yes.





From that scene on, any instance of Jill and Sandy doing high kicks, comes off as a meme, being really funny, thus I feel the need to capitalize when literal high kicks are done. They are advertising the movie, being true to it. The film's called “High Kicks,” so bring on the high kicks. Sure the men brought it, but the women finally did...at the 45 minute mark, despite the fact that Sandy's aerobics studio is called “High Kicks.” Jesus man.


Still on the 45 minute mark, the scene following HIGH KICKS has Sandy take on Bo Man. What's funny about that scene is that it starts with Bo having a drink, leaving his bottle next to him. When it cuts to Sandy kicking the bottle, it's clearly shown that Bo's watching the kicking being done, as if he knew it was coming. That was so off, it should've had him turned around, facing the opposite direction, and then turn around to where the bottle was, seeing that Sandy kicked it away from him. Anyways, Sandy once again wasn't alone, Sam ran into this in less than a minute into the scene. Maurice appears as well. Sandy does get a few shots in, but when Bo Man tried to fight with a broken beer bottle, the two men did all the fighting. Maurice by the way was wearing a pink wifebeater, methinks the same one that Sam wore, as it barely covers that bulky and buff body. Also, short shorts, again, this time they are white instead of black. Sam seems to have the same outfit scheme of blue jeans and a wifebeater. Pink, black, and here it's green. The sound effects are hilarious, again you hear the actual grunts of Bo Man at the same time as these overdubbed grunting sounds. There's another audio issue where certain grunts are repeated in a way to make it appear that the shot was repeated, when it wasn't. These audio issues, including a major one in the beginning of the film where there was no sound on the left speaker/headphone until dialogue is spoken (meaning the whole title sequence came out only on the right ear), could be a result of the video file, a VHS transfer, a rip, whatever. Then again, I think it's the movie itself having these audio problems, it's a low budget mess anyways, seems plausible to have audio issues of varying kinds.


Going back to the scene, the three sit and have fun by putting cigarettes in Bo Man's holes: nostrils, ears, and the most being his mouth. How they are held by the mouth, it's clearly the actor holding them in place, that's just unrealistic. They were talking about what to drink and eat later, and inviting Jonas on this. That's a bit weird to talk about while next to an unconscious person. Fade to them having drinks on Sam's boat. We go from Samurai Cop to Shotgun, as that particular film has a memorable drunk scene where the two male leads are dreadful at acting drunk. Some funny bits here though. Maurice wearing a sailor's hat, captain one maybe, and he's still wearing the white shorts and the pink wifebeater. Yeah...uhhh...Jonas was wearing a black wifebeater and patterned short shorts...oh boy. Wifebeaters are just the shirt of choice for these men, though Maurice and Jonas seem to favor the ones bodybuilders would wear. Sam's cover more skin, more economic, for lack of a better word. Maurice is the most drunk of the bunch, he and Jonas exit the scene, and it leads to this random moment.





Jonas was doing the JCVD thing of high kicks and making these particular grunting sounds that the Muscles from Brussels would make. Seriously, this guy is simply a German version of JCVD. Back to Sam and Sandy, they're tipsy, but it doesn't stop them from kissing and spending more time in the boat.


Fade again to High Kicks, where the birth of Karataerobics occurs. I made up that word, they don't have an official title of this mixture of aerobics and Karate. It's basically Sandy doing some Karate punches and kicks in an aerobic pattern. It also works on the defensive, Sam would do practice strikes to have her practice blocking, and those blocking positions made for aerobic poses to continuously do. Sandy was all “So what?” about this breakthrough, which was a bit ludicrous, it took her lover Sam to praise it high enough as being something to teach to her class, that she turns around on it. It leads to Sam helping her out in this groundbreaking thing. The shot of her doing the blocks while Sam does practice kicks ends up being reused in that recycled montage compilation towards the end. Of course, there's music to accompany this scene, pretty much making it another montage with some dialogue.


Cut to the “tribe” playing basketball, well, trying to play. That kind of shocked me a bit, the ones who got revenge dished out to them, appear in the movie still. Yeah, they weren't killed, so it's realistic that they would appear again, but I originally thought they'd just wimp out and not retaliate, this would leave just Mackie and TC. While they are still to be targeted, they have the support of Rico, Bo Man, and Choots. They talk about retaliation and crap, and it ends with TC doing this...





He should play for the Warriors, further cement their place as the most dominant NBA team today. Actually they do cut back to High Kicks Studio, as the two blondes continue their Karataerobics, Jill and Tracy see it and they join in on the fun. After TC did a move that even LeBron would fail at pulling off, you see Sandy's entire class, including Sam and Maurice, doing Karataerobics. Maurice, wearing that damn pink wifebeater again, with blue compression shorts, is particularly excited doing the exercises. Also, note that his shirt is a brighter shade of pink than Tracy's outfit. If Ruta K. Aras actually delivered the porn to this apparent porn style of filming, there would be a gay sex scene between Maurice and Jonas.


Sandy and Sam talk, while the former holds the latter's leg up to help his flexibility. That's a bit weird to me, because as a Karate man, shouldn't Sam be able to hold his leg up in that middle range? It should be easy for him, but no, it just exposes the man's level of fighting talent. Compare it to Jonas, who reaches for the sky with his foot in an attempted JCVD grace. That takes talent and experience, Sam doesn't compare. Anyways, Tracy interrupts the scene, and asked if she and Sam are still on for dinner. Oh yeah, during their first interaction, the man basically put a rain check on a first date. Little did he know that the woman held him to it. Sandy didn't like that, and you get that cliché temporary relationship break, where the man and woman unofficially break up until they reconcile. Joy.


This leads into the biggest nudity tease in the movie. Tracy, again with the robe and lingerie, trying to wine and dine, music playing. The food offered was sushi (she said they're supposedly aphrodisiacs), which this Karate man apparently never had. Neither have I, but that's besides the point. The teases didn't involve just her outfit, there's instances of her licking the top of the champagne glass, highly suggestive. She's just gagging for his dick! He didn't seem to like the sushi. Cut to Sandy, what's she eating, or rather, has on her plate and doesn't eat because of a lot of contemplation? Pizza...with pepperoni...and pineapple on top! You fucking whorebag! Pineapple on pizza, blasphemy, burn this witch at the stake! That really took me out of the film, can't you tell? Sandy reads that letter again, tagged bitch, which I honestly think she deserves that on account of her pineapple-on-pizza bullcrap. She tore the piece of paper up, got dressed into battle-ready clothes, and note that she never took a bite out of that pizza. Maybe the actress doesn't like that blasphemous combination, but the director insisted on it, indicating that Ruta K. Aras is a whorebag.


Meanwhile, the music in this dinner scene, the sexy tone in Tracy's voice, come on, porno. How she removed her robe, how the camera descends down her body, from head to toe. PORN! Fuck, tease. Cut to Sandy making a message for her prehistoric answering machine (Tommy Wiseau would love it). Cut back to Tracy feeling up on Sam, this Dudley-do-right not getting into this game of seduction. He pauses her attempt at kissing with a request to use the phone. That's granted, and he basically escapes from having sex with a hot woman. Sigh...


He of course calls Sandy, getting the message, which the audience just heard a minute ago, talk about redundant. Sandy drives off her place, Sam is seen running out of Tracy's, and she gives up, throwing the plate at sushi at his general direction, calling him an asshole. I agree.


Sandy's driving through the streets of Los Angeles, and ends up in some random place, where Mackie arrives, at an hour and 1 minute into the movie. Sandy went for the Canadian Tuxedo as well, denim-on-denim. Sandy got more moves in, a few high kicks, but then Mackie got a long chain ready for use, and then Sam comes in. Ugh, so it's Sam and Mackie, the chain's wrestled away, those sound effects come back. You hear them a lot here, and it dawned on me that they sound like effects you'd hear from a fighting game. That just makes it funnier.


Fade to them entering Sandy's house for a chat. The weird thing here was Sandy looking through what she got in the mail. This was the middle of the night, she just ignored her mail until this scene? It established her being in her home for a long time, she was sitting at a table, wearing a tied up robe, with that blasphemous piece of pizza on a plate. So, she had been home for a while, she just didn't bother to get her mail for the whole day, up until night time? That's insane. Anyways, they talk, blah blah blah. Sam proves that he loves Sandy, trying to console her after she walks off at first crying. Actually, he said “like,” not “love.” She didn't call him out on it, but I am. Sam is an idiot. Sandy is an enabler, but I guess if her cheery demeanor can survive rape, then she can survive this poor choice of words. Yet she can't survive the feeling of betrayal? Sandy is simply put, a weirdo.


While peace and love is achieved there, Mackie is in a public bathroom putting a tiny bandage over his eyebrow, even though there was no damn scar on it. He also put it on like it was a major task. Mackie is basically a pussy. The other members of the “tribe” are in this bathroom, with TC coming out of a stall following the flushing of his toilet. What the fuck?! It's like Dick Jones from Robocop when he took a dump in the bathroom, and corners Bob Morton in there while everyone else bailed. I didn't see him wash his hands, and he moved them around a bit. He didn't touch anyone, it was a short scene anyways. He basically said some stuff about what they shouldn't do against Sandy, instead they should do something else. Whatever.


I kept mentioning it, finally comes the big montage that just reuses a crap ton of clips. There are some new shots, but they are buried under the same old shit. The music is even a repeat from before, though the music is generally indistinct, to the point where I think only a few tracks covered all these montages, so repeats were aplenty. Pretty much the most notable clips in this montage were the HIGH KICKS! Jill and Sandy doing them, and it shows that it's a cut scene from their legendary bonding moment that concluded with them doing HIGH KICKS. There's also a shot of Sandy doing kicks in a perfectly GIF-able loop...





Ending the montage are shots of waves crashing, birds walking on the sand, Sandy and Sam doing forms, and judging by that, it looks like it took place during the scene where they watched Maurice, Sam, and Billy do their training. Those three even appear, separate from the blondes, doing their shit. A shot at waves crashing again, jeez, I get it. To be fair, it was more like 50/50 with the montage containing recycled stuff and new clips, but a lot of those new clips are just things cut from their original scenes. In that respect, I count them as recycled as well, thus the only truly new clips were the ones that included her doing the GIF-able looping moment of HIGH KICKS.


For some reason, they showed a man unlock the fencing to enter the boating dock, walking all the way to Sam's boat, and leaving a piece of mail over there. That takes about 30 seconds, and it's just completely unnecessary. Just cut to the man leaving the mail on his boat, that's it! This time could've been better spent with a random shot of Tracy naked!


Karataerobics again, Maurice being there, gray wifebeater this time. The scene establishes that there is definitely no love lost from Tracy towards Sam. Aside from that, just more posing, music going over that. Cut to another montage! Not training, but the two blondes having a day of fun. They go to a restaurant, the camera shows an assortment of desserts, they each have a slice of their respective cake, have some soda, talk but with no audio from them, you can't interrupt the montage music. Fade to them arriving at Sam's boat, him retrieving that letter, and it reveals that his brother, who was never mentioned at all before, despite the story making him out to be a loner at the beginning, is getting married. The fucker makes up some bullcrap excuse that just sounds like a ploy to ditch Sandy and bang Tracy. I wish at least. Basically, he said it takes one week to sail from Los Angeles to San Francisco. I tried pretty hard to find out if that's true. I couldn't get a definitive answer. I don't think it would take a week to make that trip, but I could be wrong. Why doesn't he just take a plane? It implies that he is just so attached to his boat, but the ending contradicts that. More on that later. So with this sudden development, in order to make it on time for the wedding, which was next week, he had to leave the next morning. Sandy's fine with this, giving them one night to make love. Well, kiss and touch each other. No nudity, you get this hilarious and abruptly approaching face, a candidate for the funniest part of the film...





After that kissing scene lasted too long, morning comes, Sandy tiptoes out of bed and the boat, for lack of a better word. She is seen with black lingerie! Damn! Hot body, competes well with Tracy, but no fucking nudity. Shame. She puts on her clothes, which they deemed necessary to show, even right down to her zipping up the short shorts. That was weird, it makes me wonder if a man shot that, or if Ruta K. Aras was fine with it. Maybe she swings both ways, who knows?


Montage again, though with choppier moving frames, it comes off looking like a music video or commercial. Probably more of the latter because it lasts as long as a standard TV one, which is not long. It's just more aerobics, not really the Karate kind, and it shows the thong cleavage of Tracy. Hot. So TC and tribe plan the same thing as before, just wait for everyone to leave High Kicks and try to fuck up Sandy. They do that, though Mackie is made to stand guard at the front door. They're confident in doing some damage, Sandy is smiling, so she's also confident. She's wearing her white gi, does some aerobics thing. Jill was there too, of course, and Sandy asked her to show off some of the “new moves” alongside her. Jill said “You got it babe,” with her eyebrow movements being a bit erratic. This woman can't even do that convincingly. So it leads into both women doing jumping HIGH KICKS to the bad guys. When they cut to Bo Man and TC's reaction, you can see the actual name of that High Kicks location in big letters. Sherman Oak's Karate, which was credited, among other locations in the end credits. Even before that dead giveaway, you can always spot the upper part of the wall behind the girls during their exercises, it shows a man doing a high kick, and that image is copied over from left to right, in different color schemes. Even from that image, you can tell it was a Karate studio, not an aerobics one. Low budget filmmaking!


So yeah, these women fight back, kicking ass and causing video game grunting sound effects to come out, the same ones used a lot of times. This is definitely the best fight in the movie since it's 95% HIGH KICKS, the funny sound effects, and it's just the women! Bo Man escapes, Mackie follows him, the other three are out cold, and shown soon after to be tied up for the police to take them. Sam enters the scene. Wait a minute, wasn't he going to sail to his brother's wedding? Nope, he explained that he got a plane ticket instead. They made such a big deal about him sailing and thus forcibly separating the couple only about 15-20 minutes before, but that was all dropped for such an obvious decision that Sam should've taken from the beginning, taking a plane. Sam and Sandy kiss, the former needing a ride to the airport, the latter wanting a trip to Catalina, so, that's all worked out. Tracy then enters the scene, and Sandy tells her that her membership expired, and she can't renew because they have too many members. That's basically a bitch way of saying “You're not welcome here anymore.” That's pretty harsh, Tracy just wanted to have sex. It wasn't rape, Sandy! Don't be a Me Too sheep. Poor Traci leaves with egg on her face, they laugh, and Sandy ends the movie with one last HIGH KICK, BITCH!





I'd like to take a moment and talk about the poster for this movie. I don't know if it's the official one, it appears on IMDB.





Notice anything missing there? No women, no Sandy, no Jill, just the men, with Sam and Jonas in the foreground. I can understand the former, but Jonas was not in the movie much. My guess is because of the JCVD wannabe status, him being on the poster like that would attract people, whether it be them thinking the movie will be a martial arts thrill ride or fooling people into thinking JCVD was in this movie. Note that the poster doesn't have any large text credits. Just the title, a very small font sized wall of words in the bottom. They don't mention the actors, so, by not doing that, it further can lead to fooling someone into thinking JCVD was in this movie. Nope, his little German brother was. I don't think that poster represents the movie so well. Though, it's just missing the women, have them in, and it's just fine, oh and have aerobics, have Tracy doing some. That's partially why I didn't share the poster until now. That and I just simply forgot to post it at the beginning at first.


I can't give any trivia or any behind-the-scenes talk. This movie came and went like any straight-to-video crap, where a small amount of people actually obtained this. It's very much a product of its time, as well as still being seeped into that aerobics crap that was all the rage in the 80s. I will however talk about the people behind this, briefly. Tracy Lee-Anne Roth, starting with the lead, according to IMDB, she only did this movie. Dennis Swarthout, who played Sam...only did this movie. Sandra Kay, aka Jill. Three things, two films, including this one, and her last project was Blasto the video game, and that was 1998, 20 years ago! Hey, at least she did other stuff. Kevin Knotts, who played Maurice, 17 credits! Wow, most recent being Reckless, a TV show from 2014. Sabrina the Teenage Witch...oh shit, Sworn to Justice from 1996! That's during Cynthia Rothrock's “act-y” phase, where she starred in movies that had her doing more acting, and not as much fighting. It was also at the height of her sexy modeling era, where she'd do photoshoots, even appearing nude, but always covering up. Hot. Knotts was “Fighter” in that. I need to look out for him then. Fitting credit here, Stripteaser 2, as a bouncer, just perfect. Crazy Kicks was his first movie. He also dabbled in writing, specifically for a TV show, 5 episodes of My Wife and Kids. Interesting. He also played different roles in that series. Frank Medrano, Steve the fat bastard. One of the most prolific actors of the group, most recent being a TV show from 2016, Attack of the 65 Ft. Woman. He was in The Fan, Blue Streak, Sleepers, and The Shawshank Redemption, as “Fat Ass.” Brilliant, I've seen those movies, but can't remember him in it. Frank though from Blue Streak kind of rings a bell. I watched that movie a lot when I was a kid, loved it. Lots of TV, lots of movies, High Kicks was his 5th project. Oh here's one, Rizzi from The Usual Suspects. Also not ringing a bell. I think you can tell who did more stuff based on the fact that they have actual thumbnails. The reset would have the generic human figure thumbnail. It's funny, the character who appears the least in the film, only two scenes (one really if you just piece them together with no cutting), is one of the most prolific. Louis Lombardi, TC, born in the Bronx! AHA! My New York observation was correct. Even more credits than Frank Medrano, 71 compared to 59, and four projects that are ongoing. One's in pre-production, another in post, one is labeled as “completed,” and another was announced. Good on him, I assume he got typecast as an angry New Yorker, just as I assume Medrano was typecast as fat jerk or comic relief. Again, thumbnail next to his picture, so he's legit. Dennis Reese, who played Rico, only 7 credits, two movies after High Kicks. Maybe the resemblance to Laurence Fishburne was to his detriment. Jonas Johannes, the JCVD wannabe from German...only 3 credits. Dragon Fire was first, Red Sun Rising was last, both featuring a martial arts lead. Poor guy, he could've been Germany's Van Damme and make a name for himself there. Maybe he did? Michele Krasnoo, who is billed as an Aerobics student, but also she was the one who doubled for Tracy Roth. I don't know where in the movie she appears as a student. I guess here because they spend some time on this random girl and she does have a similar body appearance to Roth.





Krasnoo, 10 projects, holy shit! One of them was No Retreat No Surrender! Karate student, uncredited. WHERE?! The only women doing Karate in that movie had to be from the beginning. Her IMDB said that she was born in 1974, so she was a kid in her debut film of No Retreat No Surrender. Interesting. The little blonde girl in this shot, could be her. The only other woman I could spot is a black girl.





Matthew Salas, credited as Matthew Gibbons in this movie, he was Choots. Born in Phoenix, so not really a pure Mexican. It says that he's a descendant of Russian-born French painter and designer Marc Chagall. No Mexican, so what the hell? Anyways, only 2 films. Michael Bavaro...the “Dock Master.” Uhh, the guy who left that piece of mail at Sam's boat? Well okay, acted in 2 movies, title sequence creator for 10 projects. Damn, and he was one of the two men credited for the main title sequence. That must explain why he got on the movie, his main title sequence must've been thought of as so good that he won himself a cameo. Again, that sequence just foreshadowed what the movie's mostly about, and it has the same music that ends up being used a lot in the film, so, it's not too special, but give the man his due. Other actors such as the perverted kid, though mentioned in the end credits, are not mentioned on IMDB...


Except one. I saved the best for last. Anastasia Raven Alexander. Going into her IMDB, I was fooled into thinking she was a pornstar because some of the films listed suggested that. Deviant Vixens 1 and 2, Dirtier Debutantes 7, Amateur Cream Pies 1. However, in these pornos, the credit is for “Raven Alexander.” Looking up Anastasia Alexander on IAFD, all that's shown is American Garter, which she did do in 1993, but it's labeled as “NonSex.” Going back to the “Raven Alexander” name, that belonged to some nothing blonde that did movies between 2003 and 2005. The movie titles did imply that the women would be young, while Anastasia probably would've been in her 30s during that time, which is MILF territory in porn, not young amateur stuff. So, that IMDB needs to be fixed, it has the porn filmography of some blonde girl mixed with hers. Excluding those wrongly placed videos, she appeared in 11 movies. Her last one was The Dark Gift from 2009. Oh man, I was about to say that it's impressive she co-starred with Helen Hunt. Well, not THAT Helen Hunt, instead a nobody, who only did that film. To me she's the biggest take-away from the movie because I want to fap to her nude stuff. Disappointing that she didn't do actual porn, because she sure looked like that kind of girl, but I was wrong. I'm fine with that. Writer/director Ruta K. Aras only acted in one film, Fast Money, I tried googling to find a clip, hoping it would prove if she's a woman or not. Oh wait! 1991, producer, Maximum Breakout! A movie I mentioned earlier as being a women's project, she must surely be a woman. Very interesting too, a line producer on Night Trap...oh wait, not the “video game.” Some movie, fuck it. Producing credits on 9 projects, production manager on 3, first assistant director on 1, a grip on a short, and a producer's assistant in a TV movie from 1985. She only wrote one movie, only directed 1 movie. Yeah, this one. So, not much of a career with this one.


Welp, that's it. In conclusion, this movie, though it didn't meet expectations I had going into the film, it still entertained me in various ways. It's just a decently entertaining bad movie. It has many of the trappings of one, between the bad acting, camera work, odd shots, and other things. There are instances where actors are shot for too long making certain scenes look awkward. Depending on any person's opinion, the high amount of topless man meat is either appealing or not. For me, it's appealing in terms of being funny. The martial arts stuff is a major letdown however, the choreography wasn't really that good, and Sandy didn't do as much as I felt she should given this kind of role, except the ending confrontation. If the movie had stronger action, this would be close to a major classic in trash cinema. The badness in these fight scenes aren't as hilarious as Samurai Cop for example. The rape part is very flimsy and silly, the revenge is too cold a dish in its serving, as well as being slow and constantly delayed through distractions. Regardless of these things, and other questionable stuff, High Kicks was a fun watch, and I'm glad I made that impulsive decision. Just lower your expectations, don't assume anything, sit back and enjoy. I think if I do that on the next viewing, I may like it more. Regardless, it's still a fun movie to watch.


8/10

[Silicone Carne]

Puppet Master The Littlest Reich



IMDB

What a piece of shite!
So that's it? That's what some critics said was the renewal of horror? A provokative, gory, entertaining B movie? F**k it!
Writer Craig Zahler may think he's supersmart and understands horror, he's not. And the directors aren't either.
So ok, Puppet Master The Littlest Reich contains lots of gore. But well, that's all it has to offer.
Almost nothing happens during the first 30mn then the dolls are committing random acts of murder. And again, that's all. Puppets killing mostly bad actors.
So ok, some veterans like Barbara Crampton, Michael Paré & Udo Kier are here. But they don't look really concerned. Just take the paycheck, guys!
The ending sucks big time too. Like they wanted to start a new franchise or something but if they do, they might change the directors, the writers, everything. And the worst thing about it is probably, more than the absolutely slow/boring pacing of the movie, this all attempt to be provokative by talking about nazis, jews, killing children or even unborn babies. I'm not easily offended so that's not the point, but it's just stupid because it has no real purpose. They did better in the Troma flicks 30 years ago.
I haven't seen a Puppet Master movie for a long time since I guess they all sucked after the fifth one. I lost 90mn watching this crappy cheapfest.

[Wendigo]

Winchester (2018)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1072748/


Helen Mirren plays Sarah Winchester, heiress to the Winchester rifle company fortune, known as the house the spirits built it is a house that is continually growing as over many years she has kept an ongoing building operation going, now seven storeys high with hundreds of rooms.
Doctor Eric Price (Jason Clarke) is invited to the house by shareholders to assess Sarah's state of mind, he does not believe what she tells him about believing the house is haunted by the spirits of those killed by Winchester weapons then she tells him the real reason she is building the rooms

Not an in your face horror but good fun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Juc2cL26mg

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by Wendigo

Winchester (2018)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1072748/


Helen Mirren plays Sarah Winchester, heiress to the Winchester rifle company fortune, known as the house the spirits built it is a house that is continually growing as over many years she has kept an ongoing building operation going, now seven storeys high with hundreds of rooms.

Funny that they can make sunny San Jose look gloomy and gothic . . .

[tsunamiSD]

Mark - thanks for mentioning her. I basically remember 'Mouse' for her role in 'Kickboxer 4.' The pint-sized martial artist has at least 3 neat scenes throughout the movie. There aren't any good pics on the 'net of her from that movie, at least I couldn't find any. And the videos on YouTube are pretty fuzzy.

[deepsepia]

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0145046/



Documentary as literature. This looks simple, a film about Dieter Dengler, a German born American Navy pilot who became the first US aviator to escape from captivity in North Vietnam.

In Werner Herzog's hands, you get introduced to a very quirky man. He's obviously technical and methodical -- a kind of stereotype of a German, he can remember the precise details of the control surface of his plane as he's crashing; but he's also a kid who grew up being bombed by the US Air Force and decided not "one day I'll kill those bastards" but "how great would it be to fly"

An amazing man and a film of great subtlety. Its tempting to compare Dengler to another of Herzog's manic collaborators, Klaus Kinski -- Dengler's jungle escape has more than a passing echo of "Aguirre" and his cheerful rapid fire enthusiasm even when he's discussing how he was tortured by the Pathet Lao is something that will stay with you, a smile concealing a lot of pain.

Not at all an ordinary man-- and German speakers may correct me, but I sense that Herzog's "need to fly" implies "fleeing" in German, eg there's "flight" as in birds in the air and also "flight" as in escape fliehen auf Deutsch.

Its a clever trick for both Dengler and Herzog, Germans making their homes in California, that this is a play on words that works in both languages . . .

[Reclaimedwg]

Originally Posted by Wendigo

Winchester (2018)

I turned that off.