THE JUNGLE PRINCESS (1936)

Chalk up another one to my ongoing quest to see every jungle girl movie ever made, even the crappy ones. Fortunately for me, this was one of the good ones.

Even though the infamous Hays Code served as Hollywood's stringent organ of self-censorship during much of American cinema's Golden Age, every now and then a movie with what would have then been termed "risque" material managed to sneak past the precursors of today's MPAA and such a film was THE JUNGLE PRINCESS. Though often listed as the debut film of legendary sarong-goddess and frequent collaborator with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in the famed ROAD TO (fill in the blank) movies, Dorothy Lamour, the truth is that she'd been kicking around Tinseltown for a few years in bit parts and this movie was her big break. Looking at it even from a distance of seventy-plus years it's easy to see why Lamour became a star overnight after this one.

Overnight sensation Dorthy Lamour as "jungle princess" Ulah.

The story opens with a cute little girl of about four years old spear-fishing in a stream, her only companion an equally cute tiger cub. Before you get into an uproar over this being one of those "tigers...in Africa???" movies, it's soon made clear we're in Malaysia, which also serves to explain how the darkened-up little actress isn't a Negro (not even one of the familiar cork-blackened Hollywood variety). About two minutes into things the poor tyke's village is utterly decimated, trampled into the ground by an inexplicably pissed-off herd of elephants, leaving the girl an orphan, and when the narrative picks up again it's years later and a bunch of "great white hunter" types — British, natch — find themselves in Malaysia for reasons largely irrelevant to the story's main thrust (so to speak), namely the capture of wild animals. We're told by the understandably annoyed native guide that several such attempts have been thwarted by "the tiger who laughs," a potentially dangerous local legend feared by the superstitious guides, porters, and hunters in the British party's employ.

One of the Brits, a very likable sort named Chris (a shockingly young Ray Milland, who would win a well-deserved Oscar for THE LOST WEEKEND nine years later), has no interest in capturing animals and is along for outdoorsy inspiration that will fuel the completion of the book he's working on. Also along for the ride is his spoiled and veddy British high society fiancee, Ava (Molly Lamont), whose father is the head of the expedition. Ava's instantly pegged by viewers as the real plot complication when she brattily rails against Chris' desire to stay behind and finish his book rather than leave for England and be her lap dog, so it's both a blessing and a curse when she fucks off out of the story for a good bit of the proceedings, thus allowing Chris to get jumped by a huge tiger and meet the beast's companion, Ulah (Lamour). Left for dead by the natives when the tiger — named Limao — showed up, Chris not-so-reluctantly finds himself in the tender and friendly care of Ulah, who of course takes quite a shine to the strange white man. Along with Limao and Ulah there's also a chimp who's the film's obvious knockoff of Cheeta from the concurrently-running Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan series, and once Chris joins them they all become one happy family in an idyllic jungle paradise.

As Chris acclimates himself with jungle fantasy living, Ulah, who has presumably had no contact with men other than those she harassed with the help of Limao, reveals a sexually aggressive streak that I can't believe got by the Hays people, especially since her behavior toward Chris leaves no doubt whatsoever as to her intentions. Chris, not being an idiot, cannot help but notice Ulah's advances and suffers the tortures of the damned as he agonizingly stays true to his fiancee despite his obvious (and quite understandable) growing affection for the saronged she-Tarzan. While Ava may be the model of upper-crust Britishness, Ulah's charms are many, including exotic beauty, a very sweet and rather girly nature despite her knack for unassisted survival (unless you count Limao, and I kinda do) in a tropical jungle, and an uninhibited kindness that's nothing short of infectious, and for Chris it's pretty much all over when she sings a song to him in Malay that is very obviously an impassioned love song. Unable to take it anymore, Chris quite unwillingly leaves Ulah and sets off to find his party, unaware that Ulah, Limao, and the chimp are hot on his heels. Needless to say, the shit hits the fan once the presumed-deceased Chris returns and is believed by the natives to be a ghost, followed by "the tiger who laughs" and his toothsome mistress, both of whom are perceived as evil forest spirits who must be killed. Then there's the matter of Ava, who's relieved to see Chris is alive and well...until she meets Ulah and knows she's been pretty much kicked to the curb, thus setting in motion a very much one-sided bit of romantic brinksmanship that forces Chris to wake up and fully acknowledge his feelings for Ulah. But just when you think all of this will be settled in a way reminiscent of some tired bedroom face, things get resolved in a violent native uprising that seems to have swung in from another film entirely, complete with shootings, stabbings, spearings, and Ulah being prepped for a pretty nasty bit of ritual sacrifice while the Brits await presumed execution.

Basically a distaff ripoff of a Weismuller-era Tarzan movie, THE JUNGLE PRINCESS is very charming and it's easy to see how its steamy parts made it a huge hit for Paramount. The chemistry between Lamour and Milland is far more engaging than a potboiler like this deserves, and Lamour is simply perfect as a loving and ultra-feminine schoolboy fantasy figure made flesh. Ulah is gorgeous, sweet, nurturing, fun and funny, and for all I know never has a period, so in short the perfect girl. All she wants to do is love up Chris, and I can only imagine what this movie would have been like if its torrid potential had been allowed to flower in full like the uncut version of the classic TARZAN AND HIS MATE (1934), a film neutered upon release by those Hays killjoys and restored decades later. As is, THE JUNGLE PRINCESS is romantic and lively, but the last quarter of the movie seems to be catering to the Tarzan crowd and not to those of us who by that point were more than hooked on the romantic mishegoss. For me the movie was really turned on its ear by the perfunctory action ending — an army of chimps and monkeys, seemingly hundreds of them, come to the rescue, stealing a page from the elephants at the end of most of the MGM Tarzan movies — a move that almost makes it feel like the movie was completed with the final reel of another film altogether.

HOKUTO NO KEN ZERO: THE LEGEND OF KENSHIRO (2008)

"Remember this...I will always be by your side...And I will fight. This is the will of the heavens."
-Kenshiro, 64th successor to the Hokuto Shinken art of combat

After being greatly disappointed by the four previous entries in the five-film FIST OF THE NORTH STAR re-telling, I'm glad to say the series goes out with a relative bang and it's a damned shame that the series wasn't as much fun as this installment right out of the starting gate.

Kenshiro, the 64th successor of Hokuto Shinken, bestrides the wasteland.

Opening just after Raoh's defeat and Kenshiro's winning of his dying fiancee, Yuria, the story finds the reunited lovers engaging in what mythology scholars call a "sacred marriage," in which they pledge their love without the benefit of a sanctioned officiator. When their vows are made, the narrative goes back in time to just after Kenshiro has had his ass mercilessly kicked by Shin, a former friend and a master of the rival Nanto Seiken fighting art who also abducts Yuria for himself. That act is the event that galvanizes Ken into setting off on an odyssey of vengeance and virtually non-stop bloody martial arts carnage, and in all previous versions of the story it is from there that Ken comes out of the desert, scarred, pissed off and ready to make bad guys blow up real good using the power of his Hokuto Shinken kung fu. What happened to Kenshiro during the time immediately following his surviving the beatdown from Shin and the presumed year or so until the original narrative gets started had never previously been examined and that's just what this movie does, with some intriguing results.

Ken's near-dead and brutalized body is found in the post-apocalyptic wastes by a family of refugees, but moments after they find him and decide to get him some medical attention they're found and captured by a slave-trader and his well-armed minions. Normally such a threat would mean nothing to Ken and the villains would be explosively deceased in the blink of an eye, but he's hurt bad and has expended what little remained of his energy in slaying a pack of wolves who thought he'd be an easy meal. Thus is the weakened hero brought in for potential sale and locked up with the family (one of whom is a fifteen-year-old girl who wisely keeps her gender hidden), along with a mysterious old man who can barely walk. Though still healing, Ken is forced into gladiatorial combat against a gigantic opponent (a commonplace occurrence in this series since Day One), but rather than slay the brute Ken merely renders him unconscious. That sparks the old man to reveal that he is an elder of the Nanto Seiken school and Shin's former instructor, and he is deeply ashamed of his student and how Shin has become a murderous bastard who severed the old man's tendons. He confronts Kenshiro and points out Ken's naivete and selfishness in not realizing that it is his destiny to use Hokuto Shinken to bring order to their lawless world and use his skills as the earthly avatar of the god of death to kill those who so obviously need killing. In the time-honored tradition of old school kung fu movies, Kenshiro stews over his fate and takes a hell of a long time reaching the obvious conclusion, but as an invading army under the command of a Nanto warrior overruns the city where our hero is imprisoned, Kenshiro finally accepts his role as a super-human righter of wrongs and things get martially spectacular.

Kenshiro gets ready to make an entire army seriously dead.

HOKUTO NO KEN ZERO is certainly an improvement over every previous attempt at a series reboot, but it does have a few problems, some of which will not be apparent to newcomers, and I'm guessing that's probably who this movie is aimed at. Let's break down the good and the bad:

• An examination of what motivated Kenshiro following his defeat at the razor-sharp hands of Shin is utterly irrelevant. The fact that he got his ass mulched and survived, plus his desire to retrieve Yuria, was all the motivation he needed, and his acceptance of his eventual destiny was a lesson learned during his long journey of seemingly-endless killing, which was one of the source manga's main themes. Having Ken twig to his career's course so early negates much of what is to come in his development. (This stuff ain't exactly the most nuanced work of literature, but you get what I mean.)
• Having Ken fight and decimate Nanto would-be-conqueror Jugai also undermines the previously-established narrative's early thrust, namely Ken fighting his way up an escalating scale of opponents on his way to besting Shin. Ken's mettle had to be tested and his resolve and confidence as a warrior grew with each victory, so if he was able to defeat a full-blown Nanto master right at the very start, how could any of Shin's subordinates have proven much of a challenge at all?
• Ken's status as the post-nuke messiah is rendered ridiculously explicit when he is captured by a minor villain and crucified while still weak. It's a major eye-roller.

• The film is once again very light on the fighting and violence that made this series a landmark of 1980's manga and anime, but when it does get going it's among the best visualizations of Ken's signature skills yet rendered onscreen.

The "God of Death" gets down to business.

It's worth sitting through the entire film to get to the battle at the film's climax, in which Kenshiro single-handedly takes on Jugai's army, kills each and every one of them, and then takes the fight to their leader. The most striking bit involves Jugai advancing on Ken and finding himself in the midst of the famous Hokuto Hyakuretsu-ken technique — the "North Star Hundred Cracks Fist," which unleashes a hundred super-powered punches that essentially reduce an opponent's internal organs and bones to so much chutney — at which point the animators play with the frame's depth of field to produce a near-3-D effect in which Jugai is surrounded by fists that seem to occupy every direction.

The fury of Hokuto Hyakurestu-Ken. Translation: "That's your ass."

That whole battle sequence gets underway as Kenshiro catches and redirects a hail of arrows right back at the archers who fired them, and that moment of balls-out awesomeness sent a chill up my spine as I yelled out, "YEAAAAAAAH!!!" Compounding this was the familiar "You Wa Shock" theme song from the old anime series, a triumph of early anime-metal that is deservedly a classic, and it made me feel like I hadn't felt about FIST OF THE NORTH STAR since the episode in 1986 where Ken won a hard-fought and brutal showdown with the phoenix-powered despot Souther. That's the feeling I keep hoping to recapture each time I check out a new FIST OF THE NORTH STAR installment, and I wish the current run had given me more than what amounts to perhaps five minutes of the kind of ass-whuppin' I long ago came to expect.

So if you're an old school fan like me, you could certainly do a lot worse than to check this out if you can get your hands on a subtitled copy (and the subs on the version I watched were the best I've ever seen done for FOTNS). It's more of a Shaw Brothers-style old school kung fu film in animated form than a balls-out bloodbath like back in the days, and that's definitely a step up from the turgid, unnecessary retconning seen in recent years. RECOMMENDED (for those who care).

"Omae wa mo shinderu." Words to die by.

DEATH KAPPA

The lunatics behind THE MACHINE GIRL and TOKYO GORE POLICE have struck again and this time they've set their sights on Japan's signature take on the monster genre.

Pretty young Kanako (Misato Hirata) returns to her rural hometown after her attempt at a J-pop music career in Tokyo tanks, and we immediately realize that she occupies a place existing between the mundane world of man and the bizarre realm of the yokai, creatures from classical Japanese myth and legend. The few townspeople we see appear as creatures straight out of old block prints, only transposed into the modern day and holding down everyday jobs, and Kanako does not bat an eye at their strangeness, what with having lived among them her whole life. While walking home from the train station, Kanako sees her kindly old grandmother (played by Hiroko Sakurai, beloved to tokusatsu junkies as Fuji from the original ULTRAMAN series) struck and killed by a speeding car driven by an assortment of drunken joyriders.

Kanako's ill-fated grandmother, played by legendary tokusatsu actress Hiroko Sakurai, aka Fuji from ULTRAMAN.

Hiroko Sakurai and the rest of the Science Patrol from ULTRAMAN (1966)

Taking her dying grandmother's wishes to heart, Kanako accepts her family's mantle as a Shinto priestess and vows to take care of the family's shrine dedicated to the kappa, a legendary creature deeply connected to her ancestors.

Kanako in her priestess' formalwear.

One unexpected side effect of the drunken joyriders' rampage is the knocking of the sacred kappa shrine into the ocean, where the statue comes to life. The kappa soon makes its presence known when it appears in Kanako's yard and happily dances to one of her cheesy (and failed) pop songs.

An adorable and friendly monster, the kappa befriends Kanako and two of her buddies (presumably old friends but the translation does not really make that clear since it's really unimportant to the story) and they all spend a brief time playing games and having fun in the idyllic Japanese countryside.

Good times with good friends. Too bad it can't last...

But while all of these good vibes are happening, mysterious figures are seen lurking about at night. Something strange and mostly unseen emerges from the ocean and kills the male joyriders, while saving the females for some sinister purpose overseen by uniformed men...

Up until this point, the film seems like it's going to be something along the lines of DARBY O'GILL AND THE LITTLE PEOPLE (1959) or THE SECRET OF ROAN INISH (1994), wherein we have the mundane existing alongside the fantastic in a way that blends the charming and the wistful. Well, this is a modern Japanese concoction from the makers of films that go out of their way to be balls-out insane, and any hope of sanity is irrevocably dashed when the kappa and Kanako are captured by the mysterious men in uniform and the film veers straight into left field, becoming perhaps the funniest parody of Japanese giant monster movie tropes thus far to hit the screen. It's important to note that sometimes Asian humor does not travel well past its own borders, but the comedic intent of DEATH KAPPA is universally outrageous and silly, even Pythonesque in some respects, and can easily be grokked by anyone who's ever seen any of the classic Godzilla or Gamera films, or even old reruns of ULTRAMAN.

When Kanako regains consciousness, she finds that she and her kappa pal are at the mercy of a troop of modern day supporters of the WWII-style Japanese imperialism who intend to lift their nation from decades of postwar decadence and pussification by creating an army of weaponized fish-men, a plan concocted during WWII by a discredited (read "mad") scientist whose tits-out loony grand-daughter has continued his experiments and now only needs cells from the innocent kappa to give her army of fish-men (which totals three) that extra "oomph."

The modern day mad scientist and the corpse of her beloved and equally-insane grandfather, which she wheels around in a wheelchair. Yeah, that's normal...

It is swiftly revealed that the female joyriders were kidnapped to be turned into distaff members of the fish-army and Kanako is next in line for conversion, but kappa comes to the rescue, proving his skill at sumo (a sport attributed to the kappa in legends) and other forms of martial badassery.

Kappa came here to do two things: kick ass and chew bubblegum. And right now he's all out of bubblegum.

After kappa soundly kicks the collective ass of the imperialism revivalists and the fish-men,

the mad scientist chick exposes the fetish gear beneath her lab coat and opens up with a machine gun before blowing the lab to kingdom come with a leftover atomic bomb.

Now that's what I call mad science!

Once the (very bogus) smoke clears and everybody is apparently blasted to smithereens, a random giant monster called Hangyolas appears from out of nowhere and immediately makes with the urban renewal boogie.

The coming of Hangyolas.

Looking like a bizarre fusion of your garden variety Godzilla flick rampage or an episode of ULTRAMAN as filtered through MAD TV, Hangyolas destroys intentionally-fake buildings by the buttload as he also contends with wobbly toy tanks and hobby shop airplanes suspended on wires that are all-too-visible.

Like a throwaway detail out of a Mad Magazine parody of the genre, one of the defending aircraft is even piloted by an apparent drag queen, complete with makeup and a kicky scarf.

The balls-out rampage even includes a number of those atomic heat-ray tanks like those seen in MOTHRA (1961) and many other Toho city-stompers,

and we even get scenes from the sidelines where people whose homes have been destroyed sit by and watch the news reports of the destruction. Among the refugees is some knitting dude in a pink wig and schoolgirl's sailor suit uniform who's supposed to be a woman and is even given a dubbed female voice.

Then you get the expected hyperactive and suicidal news reporters, one of whom dies on the receiving end of Hangyolas' fiery breath, which would have been horrifying if not for the newscaster's screaming burning body being depicted with a stiff G.I. Joe-style doll.

When all hope seems lost, the kappa suddenly returns, only now he's several hundred feet tall and ready to engage Hangyolas in much building-smashing combat, some of which involves the kappa showing off his impressive martial arts skills, including cobbling together and using a pair of makeshift 'chucks.

No, you are not hallucinating.

After defeating Hangyolas, kappa becomes evil for no apparent reason and launches into his own wave of city-stomping and fire-breathing, leaving it up to an also-not-dead Kanako to save the day by placating him with water for his skull plate and the dulcet tones of her lousy pop song.

When all is said and done, the calmed kappa is once again a good guy and he is last seen swimming away into the horizon, an ending seen in countless Japanese giant monster flicks.

When the film's shift in tone occurs, it's as though a completely different movie featuring the same characters takes over and goes completely nuts, wallowing in damned near every trope found in the entire daikaiju cinema catalog. 2008's MONSTER X STRIKES BACK: ATTACK THE G8 SUMMIT mined similar territory and was also quite funny for those familiar with this kind of thing, but DEATH KAPPA has it beat by a mile for sheer lunacy and willingness to be as visually and conceptually crazy as possible. It takes a little while to get going and even seems rather treacly at first, but all of that serves to get you ready for a completely different type of film and then it violently pulls the rug out from under you, figuratively sending you tumbling down eight flights of stairs and resulting in considerable brain damage. Needless to say, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Poster from the film's brief American theatrical run.

SUPERMAN/BATMAN: APOCALYPSE (2010)

So I saw the animated adaptation of SUPERMAN/BATMAN: APOCALYPSE the other night and I enjoyed it quite a lot. A few notes:

• It's great to have Tim Daly back as Superman/Clark, and Kevin Conroy continues to rule as Batman, which should come as zero surprise to those who are already fans of the animated DCU stuff.

• Summer Glau is mostly one-note as the voice of Kara, who eventually becomes Supergirl. Her performance is pretty much a study in teen-movie predictability, at least until Kara is kidnapped by the Female Furies and taken to Apokolips for some nasty mind-control and re-programming. Nicholle Tom (Maggie Sheffield on THE NANNY) was perfect as Kara/Supergirl on SUPERMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (1996-2000), nailing the character's sweetness and desire to cut loose with her superpowers, but I guess Glau is as good as anybody when it comes to giving voice to Supergirl's post-Britany Spears incarnation. I grew up with the admittedly vanilla version first seen in 1959 and I really liked her for what she was. The current Supergirl, not so much.

• Big Barda is in this in a major supporting role and I could not be happier about it, unless they gave her her own feature (yeah, like that'll happen). That said, the fight sequences with her and Wonder Woman against the Female Furies on Apokolips are what earn the film its well-deserved PG-13. This may be the most violent DCU animated film yet made — an aspect that I love — but I feel it fair to warn parents before they buy it unknowingly and hand it to the wee ones. They can probably handle it — my wee niece, Cleo, would fucking love this — but Barda does outright kill an opponent by graphically shoving a spear through her enemy's back and out her chest (which is exactly what the character would have done). It was awesome, but may freak out the more sensitive kiddies and grownups who don't know what Barda's about. Here's a hint: she's an alien answer to Wonder Woman, only with none of that peace and love bullshit. Raised as a foot soldier on the most hostile world in the DC Universe, she rose to become the baddest of the bad and was the most formidable of Granny Goodness' feared Female Furies, earning her rank as leader through sheer martial badassery and skill. My kind of gal and my all-time favorite female superhero since I was little, so click here to read more about her.

• Wonder Woman is okay here, but I wish they'd have gone with more expressive direction for voice actor than Susan Eisenberg. I've heard worse, but the character could have used a tad more life.

• While Diana herself may be kinda so-so (when not in combat), the rest of her Amazon sisters are in fine form and get to represent in full force against the forces of Apokolips. And it's always a good time when you throw in good old Artemis for good measure.

Yeah, yeah, I know. So I dig warrior chicks. Sue me.

• The animation designs do not really look like original comic illustrator Michael Turner's art, and to me that's a good thing. All respect to the dead, but I was never a fan of the guy's work.
  
• The film proves once again what we already know: Don't give Batman reason to come after you, even if you are Darkseid.

• Speaking of Darkseid, Andre Braugher was a bad choice for the lord of Apokolips' voice because he has an instantly noticeable American urban black accent, something that in no way fits the character. Was Michael Ironside, who voiced Darkseid to great effect on SUPERMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, too busy to return? His absence was deeply felt (by me, at least).

• The climactic fight scene is an odd duck because it happens after the logical point where the narrative proper ends, but that's okay because we get to see exactly what a complete and utter badass Kara is when she's pushed too far. It's ultra-destructive and violent as hell — think about what a very pissed-off, not-fucking-about Kryptonian could do, and this story establishes that Kara may be more powerful than Kal -El because her body processes the yellow sun differently than his, which may be due to her youth — and completely awesome. By my estimation, I would say she acquits herself better than Superman. (If there's one thing I've witnessed since my youth, it's that when females fight, they do not fuck around; there are no rules and they fight to take their opponent out as efficiently and brutally as possible, and that's exactly where the animators went with this.) However, the scene nonetheless does seem tacked on, and once it's over we shift to Themiscyra for a coda upon a coda.
• The Green Arrow Showcase cartoon is the best of the shorts that they've done. Lots of fun, great action, and perhaps the most realistic fighting I've yet seen in animation that wasn't rotoscoped. Extra points for casting Malcolm McDowell as Merlyn the archer, and also for the best visualization of the Black Canary's sonic powers yet animated.
• I bought the two-disc edition and with the exception of the Green Arrow short, I was not impressed with the extras. There's a yawner of a documentary on the history ofSupergirl, a preview of ALL-STAR SUPERMAN that shows a few shots of storyboards but no animation, and the two-parter from the Bruce Timm Superman cartoon that introduced Supergirl (those are great but I already have them on the Superman series discs). There are also several trailers for the extant DCU animated videos but I personally do not consider those as extras, despite them being packaged as such.

Overall, I rate the film as definitely being worthy of purchase and it is very entertaining. Definitely worth checking out with some brews and buttered popcorn close at hand.

DESCENT (2007)

Films dealing with the subject of rape and its sometimes vengeful aftermath often tend to be aimed at the exploitation crowd, an audience that seeks to get its jollies by voyeuristically wallowing in depictions of violence against women, said women being portrayed by actresses willing to get naked for a fast buck. Long a staple of the grindhouse circuit, notable examples in the genre include THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972) and I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978), each extremely hard to watch during the sequences that feature brutality, yet both have gone on to achieve cinematic immortality and infamy for a number of reasons; both are gritty and cheap-looking, an aspect that lends both films an almost "home movie" feel, and both feature women being horribly abused, followed by gruesome, well-deserved revenge against the perpetrators (in the case of LAST HOUSE the girls must be avenged posthumously, while the heroine of GRAVE takes matters into her own hands with extreme prejudice). Director and co-writer Talia Lugacy's DESCENT mines this territory to interesting effect, and with a refreshingly non-exploitative amount of good taste.

Not to be confused with 2005's spelunking horror flick THE DESCENT, Lugacy's film follows the journey of Maya (Rosario Dawson), a nineteen-year-old college student who meets the scruffy and aggressive jock Jared (Chad Faust) at a keg party. At first repulsed by his alpha male behavior, Maya finds herself charmed by Jared and agrees to go out on a dinner date with him.

Rosario Dawson as Maya.

The date ends up back at Jared's place and a makeout session swiftly devolves into rape as Jared has his way with Maya, holding her down and unleashing his resentment of her perceived snobbish attitude, coupled with a torrent of racially offensive epithets. When the assault is over the story skips ahead to the end of the spring semester and we find that a withdrawn Maya has told no one of the rape and begun a downward spiral into drugs, booze and promiscuity, effectively drowning the person she was before her violation. Finding emotion-numbing refuge in a sleazy club, Maya meets Adrian (Marcus Patrick), an imposing, buff bartender/DJ of ambiguous sexuality who rescues her from the clutches of some predators who drug her drink. Maya feeds off of Adrian's masculine vibe, admiring the way he dominates all around him and gaining strength from his example, as well as joining him and his cronies as they ingest mountains of cocaine. By the start of the fall semester, Maya returns to school and her position as a teacher's assistant only to find herself proctoring a class wherein her rapist is a student. Maya decides to exact revenge upon Chad and embarks on luring him into her trust in order to set him up, but once he's in her hands, what then?

What could have been a sleazy exploitation effort instead proves to be a thoughtful and thought-provoking work that provides viewers with no simple answers, driven by across-the-board stellar performances. I've long admired Rosario Dawson for her sense of humor and quirky, sort of cartoonish NYC-homegirl looks, but this is the first time when I found myself riveted by her acting chops and not just her sexiness (I kind of had the same experience with CLERKS II, but that was a comedy). Dawson gets across every bit of poisoned emotion felt by Maya, no mean feat since Maya has surprisingly little dialog although she's the protagonist, but Dawson's expressive face and body language are more than up to the task. I was especially pleased to see that the scene of Maya's rape features no nudity whatsoever (she's wearing a skirt), and while Dawson is in no way shy about getting naked on camera — rent ALEXANDER and discover a reason to live — it was nice to not have images of her lovely self nude, being violated by some vile, jock asshole embedded in my cinematic memory. Nonetheless, the close camera setups place the viewer square in the same space as Maya, allowing us to feel her fear, outrage, and helplessness, and I find that far more effective than most other filmic treatment of such horror.

And speaking of said asshole, Chad Faust is terrific as Jared, a pig who's unlikable in the first place and then moves into downright hateful territory.

Clueless rapist Jared (Chad Faust) unwittingly enters the spider's web.

Not merely the jock stereotype, the most interesting things about Jared are small details gleaned over the course of the film; he's shown as pretty much a bench warmer for his football team, making him the "weakest" of a testosterone-filled lot and leaving him open to macho abuse from his teammates, and it's alluded to that his rape of Maya was his pitiful assertion of dominance over someone physically weaker than himself and may not have been an isolated incident. And despite the obvious nature of his deed, Jared blithely continues on with his life, totally unconcerned with what he's done and not even realizing he's committed a crime. When Maya approaches him months later, he's actually convinced that she couldn't get enough of him and happily agrees to meet her again for what he presumes will be more of the same. Hoo-boy, is he in for a seriously rude awakening...

Lugacy's camera perfectly captures the mundane college atmosphere both before and after Maya's summer odyssey to the darkest places of her soul, but the sequences taking place during her descent are shot with an eerie, dreamlike feel that strongly returned me to the long-ago days of all-night keg parties where the carpeted floor ended up as a decent stand-in for a bayou, the air thick with a fog composed of stale marijuana and cigarette smoke, loud music now an unintelligible goulash of noise, one's own perceptions strobing and weaving under the influence of the many chemicals altering one's consciousness, and passed out bodies littering the place like the morning after some terrible battle. It's a surreal, disturbing anti-Wonderland, and I couldn't wait for Maya's Joseph Campbellesque return to the real world after being re-forged in Adrian's after hours netherworld.

I highly recommend DECENT, but I'm very much aware that it's not for all tastes and I urge potential viewers to keep in mid that was rated NC-17 for a reason. It's as bleak as they come, but TRUST YER BUNCHE and sit through it in its uncut version at least once and get as pissed as I am that Rosario Dawson wasn't even nominated for Best Actress after this came out. There's no justice, I tell you... And once you're past the initial viewing, make sure to watch it again with the commentary by Dawson, Lugacy, and co-writer Brian Priest. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

SITA SINGS THE BLUES (2009)

You know how sometimes there comes a project that so overwhelms you with its quality and singular charm that you wish the artistic hand and mind behind it nothing but further success and accolades? That's exactly how I feel with regard to cartoonist Nina Paley and the Herculean effort she put into SITA SINGS THE BLUES, a very personal and compelling take on the great ancient Indian epic RAMAYANA, a work that serves as one of the cornerstones of Hindu literature and culture. I was totally blown away by its cornucopia of seemingly incongruous music, mythic culture and imagery, and the film came from out of nowhere to find itself on the short list of my favorite animated films. (It's a great movie in general, but as animation it's a unique work.) Those of you who read this blog with any kind of regularity know that I'm a very tough audience, so take this review at face value.

Told in a number of contrasting visual styles, the film looks at the RAMAYANA as recounted by a trio of contemporary Indians discussing it amongst themselves, providing the Western newcomer with a greatly abbreviated version that retains all of the important bits of the narrative while infusing the piece with healthy doses of modern irreverence. The meat of the tale relates the disintegration of the relationship between Rama — the ideal of the "perfect" man and seventh avatar of Vishnu, the supreme Hindu god — and his wife, Sita — perhaps the example of the "perfect" Indian woman and spouse, also an avatar of the goddess Laxmi, consort to Vishnu — but unlike most interpretations of its source material, Paley's film has the audacity (and sanity) to call into serious question Rama's treatment of Sita, especially when all she does is be selfless to a fault. You see, due to the political machinations of one of his father's wives, Rama is sent away from his father's kingdom for fourteen years just as he's about to take the reigns of rule from his dad; the scheming wife seeks to elevate one of her sons to the throne by way of cashing in a carte blanche wish promised by Rama's father, so she figures that sending the rightful heir away for fourteen years will amount to a case of "out of sight, out of mind." The dutiful Sita accompanies her hubby into the wilderness and while there she catches the eye of the rakshasa Ravana (a rakshasa is a kind of evil spirit, best known in the West for being a "monster of the week" on KOLCHACK: THE NIGHT STALKER back in 1974), the king of the land of Lanka, who abducts her with the intention of making her his bride.

Ravana puts on the moves, much to Sita's displeasure.

That opens a major can of whupass in the form of a righteous and quite understandably offended Rama, who is aided by the monkey warrior Hanuman and his army of loyal monkey badassess, leading to all-out war between the forces of good an evil.

Rama leads the monkey army into battle against Ravana.

Upon Sita's rescue, Rama promptly rejects his wife, believing her to have submitted to her demonic captor's advances. We, the viewers, know that isn't the case thanks to us having witnessed the details of Sita's captivity and her steadfast belief in her man coming to save her, plus her unwavering loyalty to him, yet despite her declarations of her innocence, Rama nonetheless demands that she undergo a very literal trial by fire via which her "purity" will be proven. If she lives and is unharmed by the flames, innocent. If not...

Rama, Hanuman and Sita.

Sita comes through it all without so much as an inch's worth of sooty sari, so Rama takes her back (which one would damned well hope he would since several of the major gods show up in testament to Sita's complete and utter innocence). But things once more go off the rails when Sita finds herself pregnant with Rama's twin sons, which, for no adequately explained reason, Rama believes the result of Sita's non-existent infidelity (again, her innocence was vouched for by the gods themselves), so he banishes his pregnant wife from his kingdom in order to maintain the respect of the citizenry. More happens after that, but the point is that Sita keeps receiving the doo-doo end of the lollipop, all while clinging to her love and respect for her husband, a state of being that was meant to be an inspiration to all women back in the days (or all Indian women, anyway).

Sita's narrative is interesting enough and obviously ripe for much discussion from a feminist point of view, but the piece is lent an interesting parallel by Nina Paley's injection of her own marital situation into the mix, rendered with a "squigglevision" visual style whose simple mundanity underscores the RAMAYANA's epic grandeur. When Nina's husband accepts a job that takes him away from his wife (and their cat) for a six-month contract job in India, the man undergoes some changes during his time over there, changes that really become apparent when Paley arrives in India to join him and discovers he has grown distant and indifferent to her.

A contemporary parallel narrative: Nina arrives in India to discover her man has gone through some unexpected and unfortunate changes.

Upon returning to the States for a short gig in New York, Paley finds herself dumped by her husband, via email, no less (his reasons are never actually explained, but they are not necessarily germane to the point and they're not the viewer's business anyway), which leads her to find a degree of solace in the ancient words of the RAMAYANA. Thus, as embodied by Paley as a modern avatar (in my interpretation, anyway), Sita's struggle becomes a universal trial shared by a 21st-century sister, a deeply moving example of how the arts so often reflect life and how even a work as seemingly hoary as the RAMAYANA can remain relevant so long after its composition and so utterly removed from the time, place and native culture of its intended audience.

The kind of animated visuals that make me regret giving up recreational hallucinogens. (Gotta love that strutting moon!)

The fascinating stylistic elements found in SITA SINGS THE BLUES are many and never are they exploited solely for their sheer visual gimmickry. Paley's design style is both crisp and lush, lending the RAMAYANA's subjects a visually-pleasing and colorful aspect, which is wholly appropriate when dealing with Indian mythic figures, several of whom have been depicted since Day One as possessing pigments of assorted non-human hues. Everything within the RAMAYANA's mythic landscape is alive with color and interest, so even if that were the only thing the film had going for it, the audience would still have something solid and legitimate to absorb. In fact, I would say this film has the most fully-realized animated world/universe in any film since YELLOW SUBMARINE (1968) and that is a compliment I do not hand out lightly.

The well-versed and often irreverent "Greek chorus" of shadow puppets, seen here discussing Sita and Rama. I found these guys both informative and occasionally funny as hell.

Offering a running commentary on the story's events are a trio of modern day Indians who are represented in ornate silhouette by shadow puppet figures. Serving as the film's "Greek chorus," the trio of two guys and a woman recount the story in a manner suggesting it's something they've experienced since perhaps as far back as childhood, and their conversational manner suggests a level of comfortable, intimate familiarity with the material, an aspect that will certainly make the piece much more accessible to the Western newbie. That comfort and familiarity also affords an unexpected and refreshing level of discourse involving inconsistencies in the venerable narrative that more hidebound and reverent adherents would overlook or accept due to the work's place as a literary landmark, but the film's narrators' approach the material like a bunch of fans discussing a beloved work over drinks during happy hour, having fun with the object of their shared interest and making a number of very valid points about its content when looked at from a modern post-feminist context. Rama's behavior is deservedly called into question — Dude, the gods exonerated your wife...Hell-loooooo!!! — but Sita also gets called on the carpet for her moon-eyed and doting acceptance of her husband's cruelties, a pattern described by one of the male narrators as "her big mistake." Definitely not an attitude that would have been so matter-of-factly expressed in the more patriarchal time and culture from which the RAMAYANA sprang.

Jazz Age vocalist Annette Hanshaw (1901-1985): the voice of SITA SINGS THE BLUES.

Accenting all of this, and to great effect, is the music of vocalist Annette Hanshaw, a singer whose understated-but-heartfelt tones lend appropriate voice to Sita's point of view. Displaying that haunting and haunted sound that only pre-1940's jazz and blues recordings have, Hanshaw's songs are so dead-on in synch with what's going on in the story, you'd swear they were recent recordings crafted especially for Paley's film, only slightly aurally tweaked to simulate the aforementioned period sound. Jazz and blues are not exactly my thing, but I do love the very old school stuff, so the tunes found in the film's soundtrack were right up my alley, so much so that I bought the album immediately after seeing the film for the first time.

Speaking of which, I first sat through SITA SINGS THE BLUES a week ago, and as of me sitting here writing this piece — it's nearing 1AM on this Monday morning — I just sat through it for the fourth time about three hours ago. I intended to write about it last Monday or Tuesday, but I didn't have the time to sit down and give it the attention it deserves. I have now rectified that situation and I strongly urge you to buy your own copy of the DVD. A decent cut of the sales goes to Paley, who busted her ass making this film almost totally by herself, a feat that is nothing short of mind-blowing when one considers that there are many animated features from the past decade or so that cost many times more and had dozens of animators on staff and yet aren't one tenth as good as this.

Here endeth the review/love letter.

MACHETE (2010)

"Exploding houses? Bodies falling from the sky? Jesus Christ, Machete! You're a walking shit magnet!"
-Santana Rivera (Jessica Alba)

Sometimes you just have to check your brain at the door and enjoy an out of control roller coaster ride of a movie, and that's certainly the case with Robert Rodriguez's balls-to-the-walls non-stop actioner, MACHETE. And the true beauty of it is that it doesn't take itself seriously for even two seconds.

MACHETE sprang from a fake trailer that preceded the PLANET TERROR half of 2007's GRINDHOUSE (the most fun I had at a movie that year), a coming attraction that really made the viewer want to see the flick in question. Judge for yourself:



Audience reaction was strong and favorable, so Rodriguez actually rendered it into feature length, utilizing some of the footage from the trailer and spinning a wild, gore-drenched "Mexploitation" flick that's a delight for old school aficionados of 42nd Street-style fare and the uninitiated alike. (I took my girlfriend to see it, a woman who had somehow managed never to see an exploitation film before, and she loved it.)

Our hero.

MACHETE stars my man Danny Trejo as the title character, a completely badassed Mexican federale who dishes out evisceration and dismemberment like Halloween candy. Following a bloody encounter with vicious drug lord Torrez (Steven Seagal), who's pissed at Machete not allowing himself to be paid off to look the other way, Machete's wife and daughter are killed and a seriously injured Machete is left to die, presumed burned alive when the bad guys torch the house. Skip ahead by three years and we find the grizzled badass eking out a living as a low-paid day laborer near the Texas border, blending in as just another illegal immigrant.

Don Johnson at his most villainous.

It's a bleak existence marked by hatred for illegals, an animosity personified by the likes of vigilante sheriff Von Jackson (Don Johnson) and his pack of redneck scum who patrol the border and kill wetbacks, an activity they lovingly capture on video.

A scenery-chewing Bobby D as the loathsome Senator John McLaughlin.

Also along for the murderous ride with those assholes is Senator John McLaughlin (Robert DeNiro in a scenery-chewing turn), a politician who's up for re-election and riding a campaign platform based on stringent anti-immigration policies while secretly being funded by drug lord Torrez. From out of nowhere, Machete is approached by Michael Booth (Jeff Fahey), a businessman who claims to feel that the Senator's point of view fails to realize that the country, and more immediately the state, runs on illegal labor and cutting that off would fuck things up bigtime.

Machete takes aim, only to find himself royally screwed.

Booth offers Machete $150, 000 to assassinate McLaughlin during an outdoor political rally and Machete accepts, unaware that he's being set up himself; Booth has one of his own men shoot Machete as Machete wings McLaughlin in the leg, intending for the whole thing to be witnessed by the media and made to look like a conspiracy to stop the senator, thus garnering sympathy votes. Unfortunately for Booth's plans, Machete does not die easily, and once he susses out what's up, a hardcore odyssey of gory vengeance begins. That bloody trail also brings Machete into contact with two beautiful sides of the immigration issue: Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Santana Rivera (Jessica Alba) and work site taco truck proprietress Luz (Michelle Rodriguez), who is actually the head of a network that smuggles illegals into the country. With all the pieces in place on the chessboard of hate and retribution, all hell breaks loose and it soon becomes hard to distinguish between splattering sanguinary spew and salsa picante.

MACHETE is packed to the rafters with crazy, ultra-violent set pieces, some amusingly heavy-handed political commentary, and a cornucopia of tongue-in-cheek exploitation movie fun. In fact, if it were up to me I would classify this film as a completely straight-faced action comedy, and a very funny one at that.

Assorted notes and observations:

• At age 66, the leathery Danny Trejo makes for a grizzled and Charles Bronson-like protagonist, a man of few words and positively lethal badassery, and I hope to see more from him as Machete (which may happen if Rodriguez is serious about making two sequels).
• We get the welcome return of the toothsome Avellan sisters, Elise and Elektra, aka "the crazy babysitter Twins" from PLANET TERROR (who also happen to be the director's nieces).
  

Robert, give these gals a movie of their own while they're still hot, for fuck's sake!

• Lindsay Lohan appears in the role she was born to play, namely a drug-addicted, spoiled rich kid who gets into a lurid threesome with her mother and Machete before having a change of heart and becoming a vengeful, gun-toting badass in a nun's habit.
  

Lilo's best role next to MEAN GIRLS.

• Steven Seagal's sadistic and assholish Torrez is a fun bad guy with plastic hair like something out of the Devo merchandise catalog, circa 1981, and he's a scary antagonist in many ways. It's a hoot to see Seagal ditch his good guy badass image to essay a bad guy badass, one who used to be a fellow federale with Machete, so you just know the guy's beyond deadly.

Torrez (Steven Seagal), living the pimp life.

• Also on hand is the the always welcome Cheech Marin as Machete's brother, a priest whose line "God has mercy...I don't" pretty much defines his role.
  

Cheech: a long way from his days with Tommy Chong.

To sum up, MACHETE is the kind of film whose enjoyment factor is contingent upon the kinds of films the viewer digs. If you love old school exploitation excess, ultra-violence, gratuitous nudity and general mayhem, this film is right up your alley. If your taste runs toward Merchant Ivory films of genteel ruminations on the human condition, this ain't for you. Ya pussy.

Machete and his army of kickass day laborers!