Horror

Queen of the Damned (2002)

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queendamnedA belated sequel to 1994’s hit Interview with the Vampire, the flop follow-up Queen of the Damned is, to me, the more enjoyable work, because it doesn’t try to be an important, arty film like Neil Jordan’s laborious adaptation. Recognizing the source novels of Anne Rice as purely B-level material — Jane Austen she ain’t — Queen sets out to be nothing more than a B movie.

Stuart Townsend (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen‘s Dorian Gray) takes over for Tom Cruise in the role of Lestat, the ancient vampire who has now become a rock star, singing terrible death-metal songs (penned by Jonathan Davis, the guy behind the terrible nu-metal band Korn). By informing his fans of his bloodsucking status, Lestat has raised the ire of the vampire nation, which seeks to silence him permanently. In making his evil music, he’s also raised the titular queen (R&B singer Aaliyah, who eerily perished in a plane crash before the film’s release) from the dead, and she wants to extinguish the human race.

queendamned1Queen is more campy than anything, especially with the majority of vampire action given silly ghost-trail effects that cheapen the film. The direction by Michael Rymer (In Too Deep) is flashy and showy, befitting of the piffling material, which grows confusing as it heads toward Act 3. But with bloody bosoms and combustible corpses, who’s expecting Shakespeare?

The end seems to be a direct setup for another sequel, unlikely to surface given this chapter’s tepid reception. —Rod Lott

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Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Reptilian (1999)

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reptilianReptilian is South Korea’s needless attempt at creating a Godzilla-esque franchise like Japan, with a little all-American Independence Day thrown in for foul measure.

The derivative monster in question begins the movie as a mere dinosaur fossil, before he’s awakened by an electromagnetic force from an alien spaceship. Then he’s a living, fire-breathing killing machine, and dubbed something that sounds like “Young Gary” by the pesky humans. (It’s really Yonggarry, the original, overseas title.)

reptilian1The aliens are some of the cheapest-looking the decade produced (they speak English, yet their mouths never move), and Young Gary isn’t any better. Since he’s entirely a CGI creation, he’s entirely phony-looking the duration of the movie. Because director Hyung-rae Shim (Dragon Wars: D-War) and his fellow crew members were bankrupt in the idea department, a second Young Gary emerges from the ground at the end, only so the two can battle each other.

The terribly bad acting — with terribly bad dialogue to match — keeps Reptilian from being a total snoozer. At one point, someone exclaims, “Compared to this guy, Godzilla is a pussy!” That’s untrue. —Rod Lott

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Reading Material

The Cinema of Cruelty: From Buñuel to Hitchcock

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cinemacrueltyMy introduction to vaulted film critic André Bazin, co-founder of the influential and revolutionary Cahiers du Cinéma, arrived as yours should: via The Cinema of Cruelty, Arcade Publishing’s trade-paperback reprint of the 1975 text collected and edited by François Truffaut, who knew something about the medium himself.

Both Frenchmen, the director and his subject were unofficial members of a mutual appreciation society, but Cruelty finds Bazin, who died in 1958 at the age of 40, discussing six other legendary filmmakers: Erich von Stroheim, Carl Dreyer, Preston Sturges, Luis Buñuel, Akira Kurosawa and Alfred Hitchcock.

The latter makes up the bulk of the material, which is great for two reasons:
1. Hitchcock is my favorite director.
2. Hitchcock is not Bazin’s favorite director. In fact, the film theorist wasn’t exactly into him at all, at least not at first. Because Truffaut presented select essays and reviews Bazin penned on the master of suspense chronologically, we have the pleasure of witnessing Bazin’s slow progression from disdain to being won over.

Seriously, this is to the degree Bazin’s dislike began (italics added for emphasis): “Since 1941, Hitchcock has contributed nothing essential to cinematic directing. Mentioning his name along with that of Orson Welles or William Wyler (which I have also been guilty of doing) as one of the principal champions of Hollywood’s avant-garde, stems from an illusion, a misunderstanding, or a breach of trust. … But just between us, we’ve been had.”

When Bazin finally came around, it was to praise 1953’s I Confess, oddly enough, which most of the world considers minor Hitch at best.

However, I’d argue that such unpopular opinions — call them “quirks,” if you wish — help made Bazin unique and cement his global reputation. The man clearly harbored undying love for the art form, then still in somewhat of an infancy, and his passion is reflected in lines like, “If Buñuel made films exactly as he wished, the screen would undoubtedly burst into flames at the first screening!”

While I dislike the occasional style of “Now I will address this …” guideposts, there’s no denying his status as a giant in the field. He was an important voice silenced too soon, and The Cinema of Cruelty was and remains an important book that I hope wins him new fans — beyond myself, mind you. —Rod Lott

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Sex

Emanuelle, Queen of the Desert (1982)

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emanuellequeenIndonesian beauty Laura Gemser (Black Cobra Woman) stars as the oft-naked Emanuelle, Queen of the Desert. Except she doesn’t really play Emmanuelle as she has many a time, but rather a generic hussy going by the exotic name of Sheila. I understand the title switcheroo, as Sheila, Queen of the Desert sounds about as marketable as, say, Marcy, Ace Groundskeeper.

As the film’s story begins, Emanuelle Sheila is washing her breasts at a river when she’s approached by a scruffy guerilla soldier named Victor, who asks, “Have you ever screwed a guy you just met?”

She says, “Yes,” so he promptly jumps atop her. But she says if he wants “free pussy,” he has to work for it, so off she runs into the mountains. Victor angrily gives chase, eventually threatening to kill her with his knife if she doesn’t put out. Being crafty, she distracts him with her body so that Victor loses his footing and accidentally stabs himself in the gut as he rolls down the mountain to his death.

emanuellequeen1And that, ladies and gentleman, is how you get to be Queen of the Desert.

Soon, his buddies discover his blue-balled body and go looking for his murderer, although they’re already lost and don’t realize that the woman who’s just offered to be their guide is also responsible for his doom. Before long, she’s using her feminine wiles to get them to turn on one another.

What begins as sleazy fun then becomes a sleazy depressant, with rape, murder and gratuitous fruit-eating. The only thing more ludicrous than its claim that it was based on a novel is that … well, no, that covers it, really. —Rod Lott

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Martial Arts

The Man with the Iron Fists (2012)

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manironfistsIn his directorial debut, Wu-Tang Clan leader RZA distills what’s so enjoyable about 1970s kung-fu films into one spectacular, outlandish romp — a greatest-hits collection of Black Belt Theater fare. In turn, story is secondary to the all-out circus of slaughter, if not incidental altogether. Revenge is the name of The Man with the Iron Fists’ game.

RZA himself stars as the blacksmith of Jungle Village, whose governor has been killed for his gold by the wild-maned Silver Lion (Byron Mann, TV’s Arrow) and Bronze Lion (Cung Le, True Legend). The governor’s son, Zen Yi (Rick Yune, Die Another Day), returns to town to avenge his father’s death; rolling in about the same time is Jack Knife (Russell Crowe, Gladiator), a bloated bloke who practically sets up an alcohol-doused residence among the whores of the bordello run by Madam Blossom (Lucy Liu, Kill Bill).

manironfists1That’s far more setup than the film needs. With all the chess pieces in place — and they number many more — RZA delights in having them knock each other down with feet and fists of fury, and specially crafted weapons that make the flying guillotine look like a Cracker Jack prize by comparison. He doesn’t skimp on their end result, either: the blood. Paying proper homage, it spurts in geysers.

With booby traps, mirror mazes and sound-effects stings, the whole affair could be considered tongue-in-cheek if said cheek weren’t already sliced open and said tongue already yanked out. This exercise in “hi-ya!” is anything but ho-hum. —Rod Lott

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