A skeleton android searches its way through a maze full of deadly traps and puzzles.
Tag Archives: Science Fiction
LIST CANDIDATE: MUTANT GIRLS SQUAD (2010)
DIRECTED BY: Noboru Iguchi, Yoshihiro Nishimura, Tak Sakaguchi
FEATURING: Yumi Sugimoto, Suzuka Morita, Yuko Takayama, Tak Sakaguchi
PLOT: On her 16th birthday a bullied teenage girl discovers she’s really a half-breed mutant with
a claw for a hand; she joins up with others of her kind and must decide if she will help them destroy humanity and usher in an age of mutants.
WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE LIST: At least one of these new wave Japanese splatterpunk movies will eventually make the List; it’s just a question of which one can raise its head (or more appropriately, spout its geyser of blood) above the mad crowd. This entry in the cycle has the advantage of being a collaboration between three of the top talents in the sleazy subgenre—Noboru (RoboGeisha) Iguchi, Yoshihiro (Tokyo Gore Police) Nishimura, and Tak (Yakuza Weapon) Sakaguchi—as well as being bat-guano insane in its own right.
COMMENTS: You’ll probably know whether you want to see Mutant Girls Squad or not on the basis of the still above. Three of Sushi Typhoon’s top directors each handle a thirty minute chapter of this thinly-plotted, tripped-out triptych, and each is intent on outdoing the other in outrageousness. It’s a testament to the anything-goes interchangeability of the mutant-bioweaponry genre that you probably wouldn’t realize three hands were in this pie without being told; each of the directors promiscuously mixes up styles within his own segment, from teeth-chattering action sequences to absurd organ-oriented comedy to a terrorist music video medley mixing “Ave Maria,” calypso dancing, and suicide bombings. This filmmaking procedure may result in a certain level of discontinuity (schoolgirl Rin discovers and activates her mutant claw in the first chapter, and then goes through the mutant awakening procedure all over again in the succeeding segment), but that’s not too much of an issue in a style that makes comic books look like hardcore realism by comparison. The loosely sketched storyline involving a war between humans and mutants is just a clothesline on which the filmmakers hang as many “WTF?” moments as they can. To wit, you get soldiers equipped with masks that fire bullets from their noses; a baker ironically carved up into a baguette; a mutant pop with deformed nipples and genitalia; a flashback to a decapitated head on a birthday cake; a final boss with two giant boobs on either side of his head that shoot acidic milk; and so on, and so on. All this craziness becomes so expected, in fact, that it’s the quieter touches that stand out: in context, it’s actually more bizarre that the mutant cheerleader girl wears a bright yellow sweater reading “I [heart] Texas” than that she can extrude a chainsaw from her rectum. Of course, if you’re familiar with these movies at all, you know they’re not intended for anyone squeamish around blood and guts. Squad lives up to its forebears with all the expected exploding heads, absurdly abundant fountains of blood jetting from decapitated necks, and other demonstrations of the infinitely malleable meatishness of our all-too-frail human forms. Mutant Girls Squad‘s only real ambition is to zip from one outlandish, grotesque image to the next, and to do so as fast as possible so its audience never has the slightest opportunity to get bored. It achieves that ambition, but the effect is like scarfing down a pile of candy on Halloween; it’s tasty while you’re guzzling it down, but you might feel a little sick and guilty when the feast’s over. You also might feel that you’ve been robbed of a proper nutritious meal.
Since Meatball Machine essentially founded the mutant splatterpunk genre in 2005, Japanese studios have been churning out these chaep, absurdly bloody vehicles at the rate of 3-4 videos per year. In 2010 Nikkatsu Studios (makers of yakuza potboilers and pink films, and the company that infamously fired Seijun Suzuki for making movies that were too weird) spun off a sub-label called “Sushi Typhoon” to pump out these b-movies and market them to the lucrative Western market.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
NUDE ON THE MOON (1962)
It’s 1962. You are a producer/director who, admittedly, makes films for the primary purpose of turning a profit. Now, you only have a budget of about fifty bucks. So, what’s the best way to turn a profit? Skin, of course. There is, however, a bit of an obstacle. The obscenity laws prohibit nudity. Of course, that is hardly an obstacle if your name is Doris Wishman. Doris was well aware of THE BIG LOOPHOLE. Nudity on film was permissible IF it was confined to a nudist colony, because we all know there is, indeed, educational value in filming naturists. And if you really want to double your potential profit, you take that nudist colony and put it on the moon for the sic-fi kids. Amazing, but true!
Our space adventure begins with a 7th grader’s lame drawing of outer space accompanied by an endlessly lame theme song sung by an equally lame crooner. Jeff (Lester Brown) wants to go to the moon. But, poor Jeff does not have the funding. Even worse, Jeff can’t seem to get aroused by his horny , buxom secretary, Cathy. The Professor (William Mayer) is also in a predicament. In addition to having about five gallons of shellac in his hair, he is stuck listening to Jeff’s money problems and to Cathy’s confessions about her pent-up desires. Time to smoke a pipe.
Lo and behold, Jeff’s uncle dies and leaves Jeff three million bucks. To heck with the government, we are going to the moon ourselves! Come on professor. Let’s go! Space makes the boys a tad sleepy, and somehow they wake up after having landed somewhere. Maybe it’s the moon. Maybe it’s not.
Our dynamic duo jump into their red and green power ranger suits and discover, you guessed it, a nudist colony. But, this is not just any nudist colony. Actually, it’s just a topless colony. Oh, and the topless Martians all have antenna through which they communicate. This, of course, makes dubbing a heck of a lot easier. Jeff and the professor, being hu-mans, do have to chat, so there are plenty of shots from behind so we won’t see their lip movements are out of sync with the sound.
This must be the dark side of the moon, with plenty of lush vegetation and a volley ball court. The Queen (Marietta) looks an awful lot like Cathy (Marietta), except Queenie’s allergic to blouses. There are a few moon men too, pulled from the list of rejects from Tarzan casting calls.
A few light taps on the head from a moon chick’s abracadabra viagra stick and suddenly Jeff’s noticing boobs. Now Jeff’s happy! For the first time in his life, Jeff is as giddy as a school boy. But, gosh darn it, Jeff’s gonna run outta oxygen. Goodbye boobs. Back in the space ship, back home, and, hey Cathy looks just like the Queen! I’ll bet Cathy has boobs too, thinks Jeff. After an excessively long panning back and forth between Cathy clothed and Jeff’s eyes trying hard to bug out, Cathy loses her blouse and, yes, she has boobs just like the Queen! Jeff is happy again, despite having received a call from the government. They don’t believe Jeff and the professor went to the moon! Who cares? Jeff now knows that, to find boobs, he need not look any further than his own back yard.
There’s no place like home.
123. THE AMERICAN ASTRONAUT (2001)
QUESTIONER: What are the most common comparisons to other films that you hear?
CORY MCABEE: There’ve been a few. Because it’s in black and white people sometimes say Eraserhead, but other than the fact that it’s in black and white I don’t really see much… [laughter]. I get a lot of “cross-betweens,” like “a cross between Rocky Horror Picture Show and The Grapes of Wrath.” [laughter]. That’s a very large area to cross between…
–Cory McAbee at an American Astronaut Q&A session
DIRECTED BY: Cory McAbee
FEATURING: Cory McAbee, Rocco Sisto, Gregory Russell Cook, Annie Golden, Tom Aldredge
PLOT: Astronaut Samuel Curtis arrives on the asteroid Ceres, where he meets his old friend the Blueberry Pirate, enters a dance contest, and trades a cat for a Real Live Girl (who consists of cloned cells in a box). His commission requires him to go to Jupiter where he will swap the Real Live Girl for the Boy Who Actually Saw a Woman’s Breast, whom he will then take to the all-female planet Venus to exchange for the remains of an expired stud. Along his journey he is pursued by maniacal “birthday boy” (and film narrator) Professor Hess, a man who can only kill if he has no reason to do so.
BACKGROUND:
- Writer/director Cory McAbee is the songwriter and lead singer of the band The Billy Nayer Show; the then-current lineup of the band (minus McAbee) appears in the movie in the Ceres dance contest sequence.
- McAbee was working on a script entitled Werewolf Hunters of the Midwest when he got the idea for American Astronaut and decided it was the more interesting project. He completed the script for Werewolf Hunters in 2002, but negotiations with financiers fell through. Pre-production resumed in 2011, but the actor cast as the lead died, and the project is again on hold.
- The American Astronaut got its limited theatrical release September 21, 2001, only a little more than a week after the 9/11 tragedy.
- After our first viewing we declined to place The American Astronaut on the List of the 366 Best Weird Movies immediately (read our shortsighted initial review), but the public decided this omission was one of our biggest oversights, as the movie won our third readers choice poll.
INDELIBLE IMAGE: The Boy Who Actually Saw a Woman’s Breast dressed as the messenger god Mercury in an art-deco helmet and thick black eyeliner, raising the roughnecks of Jupiter’s morale by performing a song and dance number in a spotlight on a stage in a cavernous warehouse.
WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: The fact that it’s an absurdist musical comedy space western, for one thing. The American Astronaut is an incredibly personal affair—Cory McAbee wrote, directed, starred, composed the songs, helped paint the backdrops, and probably sold the popcorn on opening night. McAbee brings a particular and peculiar set of personal preoccupations to the project: space operas, psychobilly, Monty Python, German Expressionism, cowboy movies, Lewis Carroll, film noir, Busby Berkeley, the wide-eyed innocence of childhood, Ed Wood, and Dadaism, among others. It’s a galaxy of influences with competing gravities, and whether they appear as a meaningful constellation or just a meaningless mass of lights may depend on where the viewer is standing. The movie probably makes the most sense when seen from Mars.
Original trailer for The American Astronaut
COMMENTS: Since it’s such a spaced-out movie, it’s appropriate that The American Continue reading 123. THE AMERICAN ASTRONAUT (2001)
122. BARBARELLA (1968)
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AKA Barbarella, Queen of the Galaxy
“Barbarella, pyschedella,
There’s a kind of cockleshell about you…”
–Lyrics from Barbarella‘s theme song
DIRECTED BY: Roger Vadim
FEATURING: Jane Fonda, John Phillip Law, Anita Pallenberg, Milo O’Shea, Marcel Marceau, David Hemmings, Ugo Tognazzi
PLOT: A wide-eyed aviatrix known as Barbarella must travel to the outer reaches of the peaceful galaxy to stop rebellious scientist Durand-Durand from unleashing his weapon, the Positronic Ray. She is rescued from a gang of dolls with razor-sharp metal teeth by a man who teaches her the ways of physical love, then befriends a blind angel. Her search leads her into conflict with the Grand Tyrant in a sinful city of the future.
BACKGROUND:
- Based on the French comic series of the same name, Barbarella‘s screenplay features her creator Jean-Claude Forest among its many credits, as well as novelist Terry Southern (who also worked on the scripts for Dr. Strangelove and Easy Rider, among others).
- The entire film was shot on a soundstage in Italy, meaning that the wondrous, complex sets were built from scratch for every scene. An oil wheel projector was used to create the trippy, amorphous backgrounds that visually expanded the limited space into larger territory. Several of the Italian actors are dubbed in English.
- Among the many cut sequences from the final product is a titillating love scene between Jane Fonda and Anita Pallenberg. Publicity stills of the scene exist but it was never actually filmed.
- At the time Barbarella was shot, star Jane Fonda was married to director Roger Vadim, known as the man who discovered (and married/divorced) the young Brigitte Bardot.
- The bands Duran Duran and Matmos took their names from this film.
- Barbarella was a flop on release. It was re-released in 1977 to cash in on the space opera craze started by Star Wars, with most of the nudity removed to create a PG rated version entitled Barbarella, Queen of the Galaxy.
INDELIBLE IMAGE: For many, Fonda’s titillating anti-gravity striptease over the opening credits is the highlight, or her sweaty orgasmic torture under the deadly Excessive Machine. For me the most remarkable visual moment is the Great Tyrant’s Chamber of Dreams, wherein Barbarella runs around in confusion, backed by fantastic lava-lamp patterns and floating bubbles as a rambling xylophone score tinkles over the action.
WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Merging elements of sex-romp comedy, ludicrous science fiction, and death-defying action-adventure with memorably psychedelic imagery, Barbarella is a series of disjointed sequences that get stranger and stranger as the story progresses. The wild costumes, over-saturated color schemes, goofy dialogue, and sly winks to the audience are punctuated with weird little details, from deadly animatronic dolls to a hair-raising futuristic sex scene with minimal physical contact.
Original trailer from Barbarella (1968)
COMMENTS: Set in a wildly distant future where war and violence no longer exist, everyone has Continue reading 122. BARBARELLA (1968)