I Spit On Your Grave 2 (2013)

Jemma Dallender in a spot of rape & revenge for I Spit On Your Grave.

At a glance:

"I shit on your grave!! I do!!"

Director Steven R. Monroe follows up on his R & R hit (rape and revenge) I Spit On Your Grave (2010) with the inevitable I Spit On Your Grave 2 (2013) -- this time with a slightly prettier lead in Kristin Kreuk lookalike Londoner Jemma Dallender (a bit like Hanna Mangan Lawrence too, innit?) and with better, more memorable villains, although they are typically East European again, as Hollywood's preferred criminal profilin will have it. The beloved critic Roger Ebert, who famously rubbished the 1978 original and its 2010 remake, is probably turnin in his grave right know, knowin that this franchise has managed to outlive him. For what it's worth, the product is a more polished, technically accomplished concept sequel with improved realistic torture for you gore hounds out there. This reboot features Katie, a wannabe model who gets more than she bargained for, after agreein to a free photo shoot with some dodgy blokes. Highlights include an extended rape scene on the floor and several good kills involvin a shitty toilet bowl (literally), a cement mixer and an electric prod, not to mention an excellent nipple removal scene reminiscent of Grotesque (2009), plus the best, most graphic castration scene I've ever seen on film.

Bad news on the doorstep:

We gotta nip it in the bud, I say.

I think it's a story of two halves, in more than one sense. The rape bit is nasty, steady stuff. However the revenge bit, which I believe to be central to makin these kind of movies work, is only partially present. Jemma Dallender actually commands a stronger screen presence than her predecessors Camille Keaton and Sarah Butler but the narrative robs us of any sort of meaningful reflection on the part of the aggrieved character that would have made retribution sweeter. The downtime I'm talkin about involves only a subway pigeon roast and a few half-arsed conversations with a sympathetic priest in a church. Notwithstandin some logistical concerns that plague the story and requires frequent suspensions of disbelief, Katie's unlikely escape and rebirth as the hellbent avenger is hard to relate to because she goes from desperate, helpless victim to a calculated, punchline-hurlin badass too quickly. She seems to have forgotten about the anguish that drove her so far in the first place, while we have been invested to see her keep it, especially for the decisive moments in which she is to exact her revenge. Huntin down her captors become an exercise in car-crash curiosity and the payoff we ask for is reduced to a series of shock violence and human depravity.

Jemma Dallender is a little tied up at the moment.

"Nice shoes. Wanna fuck?"

Perennial wonderment:

How should we do I Spit On Your Grave 3 ? I say, have a male lead this time, a pizza guy maybe, who gets raped and tortured by some old maids. Any better ideas? Drop me a line below.

Reminds me of:

I Spit on Your Grave / Day Of The Woman (1978) and Thriller - A Cruel Picture (1974). It's rare but I do find that this movie has actually provided a reasonably more entertainin modern times reupdate on those rape and revenge movies, although it broke no new ground.
I can't remember if I cried:
The nipple removal scene!

"Hmm... I wonder what this does..."

Most memorable line:

None.

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

Starburst Magazine's Paul Risker framed it well: "For all the controversy of Straw Dogs' notorious rape scene, the film remains a reflection of the ideologies of its director Sam Peckinpah. It explores the individual’s relationship to violence and the necessity of violence for survival. Whilst this reflection is embedded in the film’s subtext, I Spit on Your Grave 2 asks you to attempt to find a reason to celebrate it by projecting meaning and metaphor onto it where none exists." The movie could have been 15-20 minutes shorter, to achieve what it did. By the way, I saw a 107-minute version, so don't get shortchanged because I read that there are some festival cuts around.★★1/2
Bonus material:
I have loads of photos for you below but I don't suggest you click through unless you don't intend to watch the movie. Enjoy!

Joe Absolom gives it up for the best castration scene in cinema history.

Be My Slave (2012) @ 私の奴隷になりなさい

Mayama Akihiro flicks Mitsu Dan's bean in Be My Slave (2012).

Took this from the Facebook fan page.

At a glance:

Tôru Kamei's Be My Slave (私の奴隷になりなさい transliterated as Watashi no Dorei ni Narinasai) is an adult drama based on a Shu Satami novel, featurin model Mitsu Dan 壇蜜 (born Shizuka Saito) in the titular role. She plays an employee at a publishin company with some serious sexual needs, lurin a younger colleague (Mayama Akihiro) into her voyeuristic perversions before we're introduced to a game master fetishist (Itao Itsuji) who seems to hold all the cards. This movie reportedly "conjures up the spirit of classic Nikkatsu roman-poruno, a lineage solidified by the presence of Dan’s industry predecessor, Aya Sugimoto, who starred in the recent remakes of the old Hana to Hebi movies." If you know what that means, then you stand a better chance than me at appreciatin it.

Bad news on the doorstep:

Consider it your disclaimer that I really don't dig conventional Oriental porn, especially those Japanese ones with exaggerated resistance. So I'm not the kinda movie reviewer who'd know the difference between an AV model and a gravure idol. However, I did watch the extended, 111-minute director's cut of this full-frontal movie and I'm not glad to report that it failed to get a rise outta me, if you'd pardon the pun. The story is nothin new, the sex is unbelievably borin and Mitsu Dan ain't my idea of a good time, no matter how many dildos and vibrators she wants stuffed into all her orifices. Preferences aside, her unremarkable performance makes the whole movie pointless and borin to me.

What?

Perennial wonderment:

The sex appeal of docile Japanese women. I'm right at the other end of the spectrum here and usually find myself alone when friends gawk at diminutive, titless Asian girls.

Reminds me of:

That other sex movie that bored my tits off - Natali 3D 나탈리 (2010).

Watch out for:

The toy-assisted DP scene. You can actually spot Itao Itsuji lookin quickly to the cameramen for further instructions after givin Mitsu Dan a crisp slap on her arse. Talk about ruinin the mood!

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

Mitsu Dan simulates a DP here for your viewing pleasure.

I'd recommend a rewatch of Tokyo Decadence (1992) if you're lookin for a similar fix. Anyway, check out the official website for more information about this unnecessary movie, if you understand Japanese.★★

Bonus material:

Like what you see? Well, there ain't much more where that came from.

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.

Clip (2012) @ Klip

SEXPLOITED? - Nubile nihilist Jasna (Isidora Simijonović, 14 during filming).

At a glance:

I missed this sex-soaked Serbian movie at TIFF 2012 so I'm glad I now got to see it, especially since the last Serb flick I watched was Srđan Dragojević's The Wounds (1988) a.k.a. Rane (Ране) so many years ago. Festival programmer Dimitri Eipides wrote how this movie was "a succès de scandale at the Rotterdam film festival... understandably ignited controversy with its unvarnished look at teenage sexuality" and how debutante director Maja Miloš is not simply a provocateur, "not simply a lament for wasted youth, but an intimate account of how sex can become the only form of communication for young people whose situation has denied them a true voice, and the difficulty and pain they face when they try to articulate their feelings with the heart." We follow nubile nihilist 16-year-old Jasna (Isidora Simijonović, 14 durin filmin but the disclaimer reassures us no underaged actors were used), as she records her hedonistic, self-loathin lifestyle with her decadent friends on her mobile phone, all the while tryin to repress her emotions about growin up in bleak Belgrade with a troubled family. It's explicit, it's even got prosthetic cocks and you get coke and cum flyin in your face. Clip a.k.a. Klip (2012) is like Kids (1995) meets Lilja 4-ever (2002) with an unapologetically incendiary approach. You get to decide if there's any merit in it.

Some of them want to use you.
Some of them want to get used by you.

Bad news on the doorstep:

Self-loathing sex.

At least it's nothin like that artless Klip 3GP (2012) bullcrap I watched last week. Still, I think the scenes of self-degradation with the abusive pusher boyfriend Djole (Vukasin Jasnić) to establish the lack of self-worth and the desire for catharsis and numbin have unfortunately overachieved. It's simply too much, even if that's precisely the point.

Perennial wonderment:

The production design is so good because everythin the girls wear are fantastic for the purposes of the film. I have no doubt this DVD will be on every paedo's shoppin list. Ahh... the fine lines between art and porn are blurrier by the day. Just how do we regulate it?

Reminds me of:

Ahh... the secrets that we keep.

Watch out for:

Lead actress Isidora Simijonović. It's an unsympathetic role with no redemption and she nails it - but we're left wonderin what this movie will do for her in years to come.

Director Maja Miloš

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?
Variety's Jay Weissberg notes how it's impossible to shake off questions of exploitation - does it make it alright since Miloš is a woman? How is the gendered gaze affected by a male d.p.? I like how Philip Concannon frames it - the debasin sex scenes are simply too repetitive to retain their impact. Indeed, scenes like a last kiss are underplayed when it should be maximally milked and overhit, like the sex scenes. I believe the consensus is that Clip is invariably more show than tell.★★1/2
Bonus material:

Secret (2012)

Brace yourselves. It's an art movie. A Polish art movie.

At a glance:

Agnieszka Podsiadlik.
She has small areolae.

Entered myself via Cinema Clock to watch this movie at the Ekran Toronto Polish Film Festival 2012, now in its fourth edition. Sekret a.k.a. Secret (2012) is more of "an experimental novel than a conventional film" (as conceded by director Przemysław Wojcieszek himself), about the awkward relationships between three people: devil-may-care drag dancer Ksawery (Tomasz Tyndyk) and his apparent agent Karolina (Agnieszka Podsiadlik) who both visit grandpa Jan (Marek Kępiński) in the countryside. The titular secret refers to a Holocaust misdeed kept by septuagenarian Jan, concernin the disappearance of a Jewish father and son who used to own the very house they now live in. Karolina, bein Jewish, has an axe to grind and she goes to great lengths to force a confession out of Jan while Ksawery has to come to terms with the only person who matters to him bein a war criminal.

Bad news on the doorstep:

As usual, my wife and I are the only ones in the audience under 60 and didn't live through at least one World War. Even so, and despite the short run time of 82 minute, I saw several seniors who decided there were better ways to spend a Saturday night and just upped and left. In all fairness, the film is coherent and accessible (if you'd pardon its intentional ambiguity) but Tyndyk's incendiary gay character is a little too much for some, I believe. Krzysztof Prętkiewicz's jungle D & B score can get quite frightenin as well. I wonder how the audience liked it at the Berlinale 2012 where it premiered?

Frightening, really.

Perennial wonderment:

The film's strongest scene I believe is the one involvin a rant by Jan on the porch, which is the closest he'll ever come to a confession. The movie asks, if at all, about the anachronistic nature of war crimes and what restorative good may come from the overreachin long arm of the law. Jan looks like he's about the drop dead any time he's processin those sardines of his, never mind war crime tribunals or nosy young girls like Karolina. Yet, the question is turned inward when we see Jan prayin for his quick demise every night before bed. The perp lives with the crime, too. "Does digging up the past help one understand the reasons behind his actions? And is the sense of justice – or of revenge – always well-meant?"

Reminds me of:

Lukas Moodysson. Wonder what he's been up to.

Most memorable line:

I liked the bit where Jan summarised the state of affairs by alludin to a sports commentary on the radio. "Traitors" is the word.

"You are so insolent. Get out."

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?
Well, who are we to level any charges of self-indulgence when it comes to art movies, eh? Wojcieszek kept it short at 82 minutes and I wouldn't count it as a tough sit among the many tryin movies I've seen. For a more refined account of just what the fuck this really is, do read East European Film Buletin's Collete de Castro. Me, I'm just happy my wife and I had us some Polish bruschetta-type pastries called zapiekanki, together with some Solidarność Polish fudge that a volunteer assured us are "not from Alberta". It's a great night out, our first full feature at The Revue on its 100th anniversary year and also another first with the zapiekanka. Cheers, mate.★★1/2
Bonus material:

Zapiekanki! Hmmm... how come mine didn't have the ketchup?

Source: Dynamo Karuzela

L-R: Director Przemysław Wojcieszek, actress Agnieszka Podsiadlik
and actor Tomasz Tyndyk.

About Cherry (2012)

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Whores' Glory (2011)

Santa Muerte is the most basic tattoo for every protection-seeking whore in Mexico.
(Photo credit: Maya Goded)

At a glance:

Just another day in the fish tank.
(Photo credit: Vinai Dithajohn)

The ugliest and most absorbin facets of world labour cinéma vérité comes full circle with Austrian filmmaker Michael Glawogger's clumsily titled Whores' Glory (2011), the third and final piece in a so-labelled globalisation trilogy. I've not seen Megacities (1998) nor Workingman’s Death (2005) but if this effort is anythin to go by, the three movies definitely deserve a combo release. The level of access in this documentary is fantastic and anecdotes on his exploits make good readin on their own, as evident in interviews with the director, who was even confident enough to discount lesser, similar works like Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids (2004), somethin which I've seen and am ready to commend. The sellin point of Whores' Glory is indeed its privileged look-in, a laborious setup at three different fuck shops - a fishbowl in Thailand, a red light district in Bangladesh and a bordertown complex a little north of Mexico. You get to see all the infrastructural m.o. in great proximity, festered within each festive locale and drawin from them rich visuals. The narrative comes complete with punch clocks, street food and even the religious worship of different deities that underpin business superstitions.

Bad news on the doorstep:

Soliciting in City Of Joy, a massive brothel in Bangladesh's Faridpur district.
(Photo credit: GMB Akash)

The Indian leg in this triptych is easily the most borin and in fact, most annoyin, so it's a good thing they cleverly sandwiched it between the other two stories. Runnin 110 long minutes, it could've done with more editin, as some of the scenes can grow rather tedious with one too many naggy whores. Maybe it's just me bein a Southeast Asian native who ain't unfamiliar with the seedier aspects of urban life but Glawogger's sequences, impressive as they are, don't really offer anythin truly groundbreakin, as confirmed when the last story ends rather abruptly. Well, I guess that's the very point of cinéma vérité, some say.

Perennial wonderment:

O Death, save me from violent, diseased gangbangers.

"How on earth did he get permission?" will be your constant refrain throughout the picture. Many customers seem happy to be filmed (and paid) so don't be surprised with the last bit in La Zona where you even get a full sex scene, unless you count the pariah dog orgy that was opportunely filmed outside the Siamese bordello. I also liked findin out that the director has shown the end product to the girls who appeared on his film, save the ones from the Thai aquarium who already disappeared and reassembled elsewhere like all good organised crime do.

I can't remember if I cried:

I don't cry. I'm from the Third World.

Most memorable line:

Getting high on your own supply?

"I'm a virgin because they say after 90 days, the vagina closes up again if you don't have sex. The last time I had cock in me was three years ago. I'm retired from cocks but for 25 years, I was number one. I used to have 40 johns a day. I sucked and fucked. How? I showed my tits. Chocolate and vanilla. Come here, daddy. These, like this. I showed my tits and said: 'Come and get it!' Chocolate and vanilla for a titfuck. But blowjobs were my specialty. I have rim jobs and frozen blowjobs. What are those? A blowjob with an ice cube. You put a piece of ice in your mouth ,then you suck on the head of his cock with your tongue and the ice. You run your lips over his veins and balls with the ice cube still in your mouth. You manoeuvre the ice cube over his head and nibble on it. Then you jerk him off and rim him, sticking the ice cube up his ass. Riming is the best because it makes them moan. If his asshole is dirty, prepare a bowl of chlorine. Wipe it clean with a towel. If it's still not clean, bleach it! If it doesn't stink anymore, you can put ice in his hole. Once the ice is in there, they bleat like goats. They roll their eyes and bleat. Baa! Works on everyone. Like a vibrator. Job done! Generally, when a man comes here, he is only interested in coming. The woman doesn't matter. They come here like animals. They want you ready. 100 pesos for normal sex. Normal means they spread your legs, they climb on top and fuck. Many want to kiss but it's disgusting. Their breath can smell like they ate a lion. Or they take off their socks and it stinks like toe cheese. But you just bear it. 100 pesos is money. Now every time you change positions, it costs another 50 pesos. We did everything for 100 in my day, back when I was still working as a whore. When I worked, I wasn't just any whore. I was THE whore."

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

I won't go as far as to call it intimate braggadocio but the clarity of its lightin and the edgy soundtrack almost makes it romantic. The daily grind, pardon the pun, goes well beyond economic enslavement and this is certainly not the work of one of those glory-hungry Westerners who are out to exploit the White Man's Burden by shootin Third World toil. Check out its Facebook page and for more compellin Michael Glawogger fare, do visit his official website here.★★★

Michael Glawogger.

"I had to first convince them that I wasn't a journalist who would yet again put out a notion about them they wouldn't necessarily care for or who would victimize them. You know, journalists come and go. If they come twice, it's a lot. But I come 10 times and hang out with them and share stuff. If you connect with someone just once, that's something. But if you can connect twice, that's something else. As a filmmaker I cannot make anything beautiful. I'm Platonic in that sense. I think beauty is the splendor of truth, so if the people I portray think they're beautiful, they're beautiful. I don't make them that way. I don't aestheticize anything. I don't even use lights. The working girls do one thing all day: They make themselves pretty. That's their job and their money. In a way, I had the best makeup artists, hairdressers and art designers in the world." (Interview by Jeremy Lybarger on Mother Jones)
Bonus material: