Lucky Bastard (2013)

Betsy Rue goes full frontal as porn primadonna Ashley Saint in Lucky Bastard.

Coming to shoot or shooting to come?

At a glance:

Here's a welcome break from your Fuck Team Five and Dorm Invasion downloads. Just when you thought there can't be any more variations of the over-saturated found footage subgenre, filmmaker Robert Nathan's unheralded Lucky Bastard (2013) scores in more ways than one. This little low-budget project had no right to be much better than the shyte I've been siftin through in recent months but it is. After a rather unnecessary prologue, we're let in on what we understand to be a video recordin of an adult shoot in an L.A. mansion gone wrong, involvin veteran porn producer Mike (Don McManus), his ditsy muse and porn star wannabe Casey (Catherine Annette), his bitchy top-liner Ashley Saint (Betsy Rue) and a rather unbalanced young stranger (Jay Paulson) whom they hired for one of those fan-fuck episodes. Movie title is in reference to the sleazy website that hosts them.

Not a comedy but Betsy Rue and Jay Paulson revisit American Pie shortcomings.

A nod to Silvia Saint?

Bad news on the doorstep:

Well, I don't reckon I have too much to complain about a well-conceived movie as indie as this. Lucky Bastard keeps it tight and enjoys a committed, believable cast with sound character exposition throughout, maintainin credible tension long after its sloppy contemporaries have fizzled out. I'd have preferred a little more emphasis on the darker themes but perhaps that would've made it a different movie.

Perennial wonderment:

Don't people keep cuttin and resubmittin until they can get an R ratin these days?
Reminds me of:
You don't wanna know.

Watch out for:

Too tied up to talk to me about the dangers of gay sex?

Don McManus as Mike hits all the right notes, a character that Abbie Bernstein for Assignment X describes as "a very recognizable Hollywood type, glib and proficient, with glints of pain and weariness peeking through the smooth exterior." Amusin that the last two items on his CV that I could recognise are both related to adult entertainment - Lovelace (2013) and For A Good Time, Call... (2012).

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

An effective cheap story. This could be easily remade by a big studio as an R-rated wide release... or it could even be remade as a bona fide XXX movie by Reality Kings! Go check out the trailer. ★★1/2
Bonus material:
All photos taken from the Lucky Bastard official website and Facebook fan page.

Director & co-writer Robert Nathan, co-writer Lukas Kendall,
actors Don McManus & Betsy Rue. L.A. premiere. 5 Apr 2013.

Killer Joe (2012)

Fried chicken fellatio. Trailer trash strippers. Bloodthirsty biker bailiffs.
Killer Joe has got 'em all.

At a glance:

The last time playwright Tracy Letts and director William Friedkin got together, it was for the schizo sci-fi Bug (1996). More accessible than that genre-bender is Killer Joe (2012), a slick little shocker that goes OTT with some dark humour, havin been described as Larry Clark doin a Red Rock West (1993) to Coen brothers crime caper with a Pulp Fiction (1994) gloss-over. Having failed the NC-17 appeal, the peculiar trailer they cut hints little towards the violent hicksploitation this is; and the movie may have proved even harder to market without its comfortable star draw. We follow the titular Joe Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a bent NYPD cop who accepts a contract to kill the estranged, good-for-nothin mother of the dysfunctional Smith family comprisin of deadbeat son Chris (Emile Hirsch), sexpot stepmum Sharla (Gina Gershon), halfwit redneck dad Ansel (Thomas Haden Church) and daughter Dottie (Juno Temple) - the nubile virgin who ends up bein the collateral when the deal goes awry. Everyone is at some point or another either naked, half-naked or bathed in blood. Fire up the chicken and let the good times roll.

Bad news on the doorstep:

Juno Temple takes it all off for Killer Joe.

While it's easier to dismiss the complaints that are based on mismatched genre expectations, I seem to have shaken off the post-screenin euphoria to discover that this is ultimately a pointless, though entertainin film. It's also easy to echo At A Theater Near You's Chris Pandolfi in havin to recognise the film's technical merits and strong performances but Variety's Justin Chang hammered it home by questionin its raison d'etre to arrive at the lingerin feelin that this is some kind of inside joke - "a mostly well-done adaptation that never quite convinces you it was worth doing well in the first place". Somehow Clarence Carter's vulgar 1977 hit Strokin', a theme in the movie, makes us all feel a little played indeed.
Perennial wonderment:

It's only been six years but Juno Temple is certainly on the up and up; and it seemed so long ago since she first appeared as Cate Blanchett's annoyin teen daughter in Notes On A Scandal (2006). She might have landed the job here only because not many actresses agree to full frontals (ditto Gina Gershon, albeit with beaver wig), but her intercontinental brand of slightly sexual ferocity has seen her held her own in The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Kaboom (2010), The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), The Three Musketeers (2011), Wild Child (2008) and Dirty Girl (2010). Here in Killer Joe, she's 10 years older than the 13-year-old jailbait she's supposed to be for McConaughey's paedo cop but the young lady does command some screen presence, whether she's doin a standup doggie for him or aimin a gun to his head. Too bad Chloë Grace Moretz is still only 15, you can hear the paedos concur. Will look forward to seein her The Brass Teapot (2012) next.
Reminds me of:
Sidney Lumet's Before The Devil Knows You're Dead (2007) and the Coens' Blood Simple (1984). Killer Joe is only the most recent in Friedkin's very varied 16-film oeuvre, which includes films like The Exorcist (1973) and Cruising (1980).

I can't remember if I cried:

The fried chicken fellatio. Killer Joe will forever be best remembered for an act of sadistic misogyny so degradin even Gina seen-all done-all Gershon looks genuinely humiliated. Very nice. Charmin McConaughey, the quintessential Texan talent, never acted better accordin to many, but it's also funny to read to that director Billy Friedkin says the man didn't even get it when he first read the script!

Most memorable line:

Thomas Haden Church: "I've never had a thousand dollars all my life."

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

Thanks to Rue Morgue for the Scotiabank Theatre screenin in Toronto but now I feel guilty that the film's Twitter handle had retweeted my earlier one-sentence review praisin this as "vulgar, pulpy, pointless and chicken-sucking good". It's much closer to the chicken poutine I had prior to the show - a mess of instant, in-your-face, gratifyin gravy that you'd live to reconsider the mornin after.★★1/2
Bonus material:
"Totally twisted, deep-fried, Texas redneck, Billy Friedkin-directed, NC-17-rated, trailer park murder story masterpiece" as marketed on its Facebook page. Go check it out - they do have some funny photo mash-ups there.