Showing posts with label Grubby. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Grubby. Show all posts

Sunday, 8 December 2013

Review - Big Tits Zombie (2010 - Dir. Takao Nakano)



Big Tits Zombie. Let's take a more in-depth look at that title. Now, being a Professor of Linguistics and All Things Languagey I can clearly see that the title splits into two distinct parts: Big Tits and Zombie. This raises a few intriguing questions:
1. Do the sizeable bouncers belong to the titular zombie?
2. Is it someone (possibly a lady) with a hefty array of begonias fighting a zombie?
3. Or is this a detailed character study into the trials and tribulations of a male zombie trying to get a pair of improbably huge bazongers on the NHS?
Surely these are such tricky questions that they should have only been posed on The Krypton Factor. But I will attempt to answer them...


Actually it's none of the above. A more accurate title would be Slightly Smaller Than Average Booble Dumplings Zombie. In fact the largest bongos on show belong to a rather rotund fellow. This is false advertising on a massive scale (although it could be said that the title implies that the film is going to be rubbish, and it is).


Now that we've got the jumbo jubblies out of the way we'd better start to dissect the intricate story. Lena (Sola Aoi) is an exotic dancer who works in a rundown and virtually unattended strip club. After a fight with one of her co-strippers (in a typically under-dressed fashion) a wooden door is revealed that leads to a creepy old cellar. The stripping chums investigate and discover some books of the occult. Maria - a stripping chum - decides to read a passage from the book. Ooh la la, mon dieu, and most importantly, zut alors, the dead come back to life.


Whereas low-budget offering Alien vs. Ninja had poor production values it made up for it with a large dose of fun. Big Tits Zombie just looks like it's been made by the recurring character in many Japanese films: the seedy giggling bespectacled bloke who peeps up school girls skirts. Saying that there's probably more flesh filled entertainment in the average Carry On film. This is in no way saucy fun though, it veers more towards the dirty side of things (but rest assured that it gets nowhere near the grubby low standards of Zombie 108). The fact that one scene involves a lady zombie with a flame-throwing tuppence pretty much says it all. 


There's really nothing positive I can say. The acting is terrible all round, although I found Lena vaguely likeable (in a shallow way that could be because she's a bit attractive). The effects are equally dire. Wires can clearly be seen on one zombie who has an extendable tentacle neck. You would have thought that even their meagre budget would have stretched to wire removal. But no. As for the zombies, there are some professional gurners in their ranks. One bloke in particular is really annoying with his overacting rivalling that of dancers. And the same ones constantly reappear. Top hat zombie (amongst others) crops up way too often.


Ooh wait a minute! I can come up with a positive. At the start Lena knocks about in a rather more revealing version of the iconic Game of Death costume. I'll give it half a point for that.


So was it a total waste of time then? No, not quite. It gave me the chance to write a cheeky schoolboy review that contained many references to la grande garbonzas. And for that I'll round it up to:
1/10
evlkeith

If you like this you could also try:
Allo, Allo.


Wednesday, 28 August 2013

Review - Julien Donkey-Boy (1999 - Dir. Harmony Korine)


Good grief, this is hard work! It’s arty, cinematic poetry representing the perceived viewpoint of the schizophrenic Julien that is simultaneously disturbing, harrowing and annoying. I’ve had to systematically watch it in twenty minute chunks with gritted teeth to struggle through it. It’s not a terrible film, but it’s quite possibly the least enjoyable piece of cinema I have experienced.


Film aficionados will revel in the imagery, the representation of dysfunctional America and the oh so jerky, grainy camera work. However, I found myself asking what is the point of being so deep and meaningful when the end result is such a tortuous episode for the viewer? A portrayal of life for those suffering with schizophrenia sounds both laudable and interesting, but Julien Donkey-Boy is neither. As far as a genre classification goes, this is beyond Gritty, below Grimy and descends into an new area altogether; Grubby.


All the characters barring Julien’s pregnant sister (Chloe Sevigny), are represented extremely negatively. Julien himself (Ewen Bremner) is not only abused by his family, but his actions are often at best, unclear and at worst, disturbingly ambiguous. His wrestling brother (Evan Neumann) is abusive, gormless and shallow, and then we come to Dad…


Julien’s former military father is played by, who else but the legendary Werner Herzog! He literally left me speechless as he squirts his son with a cold hose pipe, makes Julien punch himself ‘because his face is so stupid’ and breaks his daughter’s harp while calling her a slut (gasp). We’re in near-nun killing territory here! (You can't kill nuns - evlkeith) And all spoken in that lovely kind voice he uses to interview people so sensitively in the likes of Grizzly Man and Into the Abyss. It’s a terrible world.


Add to this some aggressive-on-the-ear albino rapping, the fact that every shot and/or scene lasts about twice as long as it optimally should, and the most depraved act of cigarette smoking ever witnessed, and you’ve got yourself a gruelling ninety minutes of non-entertainment ahead of you. 1 point for the sister, 1 point for the smoker and 1 point for Werner, just for being himself, means a very generous score of…
3/10
Doccortex



If you like this you could also try:
Gummo, Mister Lonely, The Idiots.