One of the aspects of “Isa” that I enjoyed beyond the predominantly latino cast, is the fact that its heroine “Isa” is a strong individual. When we first meet her, she’s a brilliant tech wiz who sells jail breaking cards on the side for extra cash. She always seems one step ahead of everyone, even at her most vulnerable, and uses a troubling dilemma as an opportunity to find out about her shady past. She has memories of parents she barely knew, and is living a life she doesn’t quite trust to be her actual one, and she’s capable of finding out and giving the villains of the film a damn hard time working around her brain.
Category Archives: Movie Reviews
Same Time Every Year (1981) (DVD)
Goofy, albeit erotic, “Same Time Every Year” is one of the more tightly directed and entertaining smut films from the late seventies, that would help usher in the eighties porn wave. It’s not really a movie so much as it is hardcore porn, but it definitely has its charms. Besides the gorgeous women and well edited sex scenes, “Same Time Every Year” is delightfully funny at times. Whether it’s intentional or not, I’m not sure, but some scenes were just too unusual to take as erotic.
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)
Joseph Zito’s 1984 treatment of “Friday the 13th” really should have been the final film in the series. While I do love the “Friday the 13th” movie series dearly, there’s a considerable drop off in quality after “The Final Chapter” as you can sense the writers trying to bring Jason back with as little absurdity as possible. “The Final Chapter” is one of the last really excellent horror romps that focus on character dynamic and family, and surely enough it’s still a very strong horror film where Jason Voorhees is an unstoppable killing machine.
The Monkey’s Paw (2013) [Blu-Ray]
It definitely feels like someone took the original short story of the monkey’s paw, and stretched in to ninety minutes of melodrama. There’s so much padding and filler here, you could cut it down to fifty minutes without missing much. “The Monkey’s Paw” is one in dozens of variations of the dreaded monkey’s paw tale, created by W.W. Jacobs (about the perfect wish trinket with dire consequences). Except the monkey’s paw bears little to no relevance in a movie about an undead guy who just wants to take his young son fishing. He just wants to take him fishing, what’s a dead guy to do? Kill a lot of boring supporting characters to get his wish?
The Chambermaids (1974) (DVD)
Impulse Pictures apparently restored “The Chambermaids” from a nearly destroyed theatrical print, and boy does it show. Despite the attempts to keep it pristine, “The Chambermaids” still looks like it was carried over from a projector. But for folks that appreciate the faux grindhouse aesthetic, it might add to the experience. What’s more entertaining is the inadvertent comedy, bad acting, really bad sound looping, and shadows of crew members during certain scenes. “The Chambermaids” is only seventy minutes long and wastes absolutely no time establishing its plot. Or what little there is.
Honey Buns (1973) (DVD)
One of the most disappointing aspects of “Honey Buns” is that is boasts the incredible Uschi Digard, who plays a key role in this goofy porn film, but she never really does much the entire time she’s on-screen. Granted, she appears in a skimpy purple dress, and doesn’t mind showing off her gorgeous body, but she disappears for the remainder of the movie, entirely. Not that Ms. Digard’s fleeting albeit stunning presence ruins the experience of “Honey Buns.” But it’s the principle, damn it.
Phantom of the Grindhouse (2014)
One interesting however minute exception you have to give “Phantom of the Grindhouse” is that it at least has its heart in the right place. And even when it rides off the rails in to complete nonsense, you can sense the cast are committed to delivering comedy to compensate for the apparent lack of budget. Its entire macguffin revolves around the group of characters throwing a big grindhouse festival to save an ailing movie theater, but we never actually get to see the festival being held. There aren’t even shots of the characters spreading the word of the impending movie marathon.
From the director of “Terror at Blood Fart Lake” and “I Spit Chew on Your Grave,” comes “Phantom of the Grindhouse” a relatively short, but valiant attempt to deliver a horror comedy. Rather than pad the run time with tedium, director Chris Seaver packs the first ten minutes of the movie with VHS style faux grindhouse trailers of varying quality. Truth be told, they’re the best part of the feature, and they seem to be inspired by the trailers from the Tarantino-Rodriguez feature with their version of “Don’t!” entitled “Nothing!”
From what I gathered, a local grindhouse is about to close, so to keep it open movie fan Christine (the lovely Desiree Saetia) concocts the double bill idea and a movie marathon in hopes of saving their beloved movie community. Just then an inexplicable phantom of the grindhouse (a la Phantom of the Opera) that seems to love Michael Jackson and Prince arises and begins murdering the characters and local staff one by one. There’s a lot of padding and meandering from the narrative with director Chris Seaver not even remotely trying to elicit a scare from his audience.
You can also sense most of the cast are doing nothing but improvising their lines, or at least riding off the rails from the script to go hog wild with comedy and wacky double takes. Like much of the contemporary takes on grindhouse, the film is soaked in eighties nods. So there’s a Weird Al spoof, a character that oddly enough does nothing but mimic Michael J Fox from “Back to the Future,” and the heavy implication that this movie is set in the eighties. Though, due to the clear lack of budget for the film itself, it’s hard to really figure out if that’s the intent. That said, while “Phantom of the Grindhouse” is fifty minutes of mostly nonsense, I didn’t hate it. I appreciated what it was going for, and I wish director Seaver had a bigger budget to deliver something even better than what we get here.