Martial Arts

Black Mask II: City of Masks (2002)

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blackmask2If you took X-Men and crossed it with The Island of Dr. Moreau, and then removed the good ideas of both and replaced them with pro wrestlers, you would — and do — have Black Mask II, the highly disappointing sequel to 1999’s terrific superhero kung-fu fest.

Although Jet Li wisely declined to return in the role, his Once Upon a Time in China trilogy director Tsui Hark — who merely served as producer on the original — agreed to helm the whole thing, a curious move akin to something like Steven Spielberg agreeing to do Poltergeist III.

blackmask21In his film debut, Andy On (Mad Detective) stars as Black Mask, the genetically engineered super-soldier dedicated to protecting his public. This time around, the bad guys are the aforementioned pro wrestlers, five of them (including Tyler Mane, Rob Van Dam and, um, former porn star Traci Lords) infused with animal DNA that turns them into actual reptiles. Thus, Black Mask spends his time kicking guys in rubber suits. It’s as if the Syfy channel had been granted full creative input, with acting on the level of any given Slim Jim commercial. Once Black Mask was shown riding down a street on an elephant, I gave up any hope that the movie might get good.

The major problem is the weak script (with five credited writers), but also detracting from one’s enjoyment are a heavy reliance on CGI, the terrible kid actor and downright confusing editing. Martial-arts choreographer extraordinaire Yuen Woo Ping serves as just that, but I sure couldn’t tell, as there’s nothing here that will excite any of your senses, except your desire to go to the bathroom without bothering to hit the pause button. —Rod Lott

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Comedy

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)

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madworldSocial-issues auteur Stanley Kramer (Judgment at Nuremberg) really cut loose with It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, a comedy that bears no agenda beyond driving its superficial plot. Perhaps feeling guilty that the project wasn’t Important Enough, the crusty Kramer couldn’t resist bloating the material into an epic 202 minutes that begin with one of those old-fashioned musical overtures that play against a blank screen. It’s about the only moment of respite.

The goofs get going when a crook (Jimmy Durante) accidentally drives off a cliff; coming to his aid are five fellow drivers (played by, in ascending order of irritation, Jonathan Winters, Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, Buddy Hackett and Mickey Rooney). Just before croaking, the dying man tells them that $350,000 — an amount that seems positively quaint today — is buried under “a big W” in a California state park. His news sets off a veritable rat race to snag the loot first; because the money is stolen, a bulldog-faced cop (Spencer Tracy) monitors their progress.

madworld1Problems and hangers-on pile up in equal numbers along the way, per rules of the slapstick subgenre. The sheer size of the cast is so big — and so loud, thanks to Ethel Merman — that Mad World‘s imitators curl like Shrinky Dinks in comparison. Had the adjective “zany” not existed beforehand, Kramer’s comedy would coin it — and likely concurrent with the occasion of a paint can landing atop someone’s noggin.

But is the film funny? Personally, if not for the final set piece that violently hurls the leading men off an uncontrollable fire ladder, I’d say no. I suppose that once upon a time in Hollywood, the sights of cars weaving, people yelling, objects falling, structures collapsing and Dick Shawn gyrating automatically translated into laughter. Ah, those were the days, weren’t they, Meemaw? —Rod Lott

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Sex

Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1964)

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fannyhillBefore Russ Meyer found his groove exercising his autonomy across a well-built body of work, he took on the for-hire job of adapting John Cleland’s notorious erotic novel of the mid-1700s for the silver screen of the mid-1960s. The result, Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, is far more faithful to its source material than to what we today consider the Meyer aesthetic.

At least the black-and-white period piece opens with a hint of That Meyer Touch, drawn in broad brushes of suggestive humor such as a fish landing in the cleavage of our heroine. The mayhem that ensues in this slapstick sequence would do Mack Sennett proud — a nod to him exists on the street’s “Pie Maker” sign — yet as if the film already tired itself out, it settles into an extended stay of conversation.

fannyhill1Orphaned teen Fanny (Letícia Román, The Girl Who Knew Too Much) falls into work at a curiously idle brothel run by the matronly Mrs. Brown (Miriam Hopkins, 1932’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). Not only is the place staffed with girls not up to up to Meyer’s minimum standards of pulchritude, but Fanny is amateurish to the point of virginal. That hymen won’t stay intact forever.

Being a sex comedy with no sex shown is one of many reasons this version of Fanny Hill remains noteworthy. Others include Fanny’s true love being played by future Boogey Man director Ulli Lommel, and that the pushy producer is Albert Zugsmith (Touch of Evil). For all those asterisks, however, the movie isn’t any good — just a largely lifeless farce that would be all tease if it contained a libidinal pulse. It’s for Meyer completists only, and even that’s questionable. —Rod Lott

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Reading Material

Hidden Horror: A Celebration of 101 Underrated and Overlooked Fright Flicks

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hiddenhorrorWhile certainly well-intentioned, the idea behind Hidden Horror: A Celebration of 101 Underrated and Overlooked Fright Flicks is hardly new. For example, I immediately was reminded of a book that’s now 10 years old: Fangoria’s 101 Best Horror Movies You’ve Never Seen: A Celebration of the World’s Most Unheralded Fright Flicks. Hell, the titles are almost the same!

Yet that’s not a complaint. At least not when so little overlap exists, when so many more movies have yet to get their due, and when the results are as finely polished as editor Aaron Christensen’s trade paperback is. Pay no mind to it being print-on-demand; this book exudes professionalism on all levels without sacrificing its pure indie spirit.

It’s also a good sign that I didn’t care that I have seen more than half of the 101 featured films and heard of all but two. No matter how deep your knowledge of the genre goes, Hidden Horror is a fun read above all else. While I suspect it will be used by burgeoning film buffs looking to expand their horizons in the years to come, it serves dual purpose as simply a fine collection of criticism and an opportunity to reconnect with titles that may have escaped your memory.

Following a foreword by no less an icon than Maniac director William Lustig, Christensen admits in his introduction that the movies covered in Hidden Horror may not truly be hidden at all. Degrees to which a film is “underrated” and/or “overlooked” is arguably as subjective as whether it is scary.

That’s why something like 1978’s notorious (or noxious, depending on your POV) as I Spit on Your Grave is included. Yes, the rape-revenge shocker has plenty of fans and caused plenty more furor in its time, but no, you’re not likely to have read about it quite like you will here, as BJ Coleangelo — a rape victim herself — defends the oft-maligned exploitation thriller as empowering cinema. Now that’s a refreshing take to read.

And so it goes with 100 other essays from writers, journalists and bloggers, each taking roughly three pages apiece to share and spill their love over a particular work, from the low-bar schlock of Horror of Party Beach to the high-minded artistry of Andrzej Zulawski’s Possession.

Only the spaghetti Western Django Kill … If You Live, Shoot! — no matter how surreal — strikes me as suspect for this lineup. Still, the piece on it is well-written; all of them are, which is more than a little surprising, given the sheer number of cooks in the kitchen.

Also worthy of a shout-out is John Pata for his terrific design work. What so DIY indie authors and publishers fail to recognize is that how a book looks is just as important as how it reads — and maybe even more so, since it creates that first impression upon flip-through. Bad design — or simply nonexistent design — can do harm to good work. Just look at Christensen’s previous collection, 2007’s Horror 101, the guts of which are as drab as to repel the eyeballs connected to interested minds.

Hidden Horror has no such problems; I’m not sure it has any problems, other than that soon after 300 pages, it comes to an end. —Rod Lott

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Action

Lady Cocoa (1975)

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ladycocoaSinger-turned-actress Lola Falana (The Liberation of L.B. Jones) stars as Lady Cocoa, a spoiled, sassy “hot piece of cheese” who gets out of prison for 24 hours in order to testify against a mob boss. Under the watchful eye of two cops in a Nevada hotel, she bats her eyelashes, throws temper tantrums and scoffs, “You poo-poos!”

After she tires of tossing off the insult “Buster Brown,” she ventures into the casino and soon finds herself in a heap o’ trouble, being pursued by no fewer than two teams of hitmen, one of which contains football player-turned-soda pitchman “Mean” Joe Greene (The Black Six); the other, a dude in drag. The best scene has a car being chased through the casino by a cop on foot. Do the math.

ladycocoa1I’ve long believed that there was no such thing as a bad theme song for a blaxploitation movie, but then I heard this film’s, appropriated from “Pop Goes the Weasel” (an alternate title for this cup of Cocoa). Director Matt Cimber (Butterfly) has it played over and over and over. —Rod Lott

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