Random Movie Project: 'Women's Penitentiary XII'

This was the first time (surely not the last) where I was a little hesitant to rent the title which the Gods of randomization have bestowed upon me. The page I was to go to open was near the end of the catalog, so I knew it would be somewhere in the W-Z range. My heart sank as I saw that every title on my designated page began with the word "women." It sank further when my designated line number held the title "Women's Penitentiary XII."



99 Women (1969)
Dir: Jess Franco
Story: Jess Franco, Milo G. Cuccia and Carlo Fadda





Summary:

Three women on a rowboat arrive to Castillo de los Muerte (Castle of Death) on a prisoner's island led by the evil, emperor-like Governor Santos (Herbert Lom), and an even eviler butch warden, Thelma Diaz (Mercedes McCambridge). These women have led lives of sin, prostitution, drug addiction, murder and general waywardness. One of them is innocent, but cannot escape the trials of prison life. After Leonie Caroll (Maria Schell), a sympathetic government official, comes to inspect the prison, she intervenes by making life easier on the inmates, much to the behest of the disciplinarian, Diaz. With this newfound leniency, three women attempt to escape with the help of a lover/inmate from the men's ward, but things are never as easy as they seem.

99 Women, it seems, has undergone many, many editions - including the tape I rented which was labeled "Women's Penitentiary XII." Apparently, "Women's Penitentiary" was a franchise which had success on VHS. I guess some company bought the distribution rights to this movie and included it in their women-in-prison "collection." 99 Women was never a sequel in any series of chick prison movies. Other editions include an X-rated French version which had hardcore lesbo-erotic shots inserted years after the original film's production. Director Jess Franco is said to have largely disowned that version. Seems he wanted his women-in-prison flick to remain a respectable one.

Impressions:

Icky. This movie had an air of ickiness all over it. That's not to say that in an icky, exploitative way, it wasn't well made, because it kinda' was, if you can ignore the fact that nearly every interior seems to have been lit with one solitary light. But even with all the nice, scenic Brazilian exteriors and the Spanish and Italian architecture it features, the movie still mainly consisted of scenes of blurry lesbian encounters, rape, catfights, face smacking, hair-pulling, camera zooming, catfights, blurry what-nots and rape. There wasn't a whole lot more to this one. In an attempt to make the dialog as irritating as possible, the screenwriter saw fit to have all the characters repeat the same lines over and over:

"On the other side of the island, there's a fishing village... with boats!"

"She has committed repeated insolence!"

"Zis eez a place of punishment for crimes against zee laws of society!"

Oh, and one more thing - the actress who played the bull-dyke warden was also the voice of the possessed Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist.

Virtual A/V Tech

Lean in close to this picture and you're there. Now stay there for four and a half hours and feel the lifelike sensation of what it's like to be a real A/V tech! This was my vantage point last Wednesday afternoon and evening from about 3:00-9:00 PM. I honestly couldn't tell you what this gathering was for. The screen says something about the "Team Contest Celebration." There were several speakers, PowerPoint presentations, laptop video and some VHS tape to play. That's all I remember.

Random Movie Project: 'Beverly Hills Brats'

"You'll shoot your eye out, you'll shoot your eye out!!"

That was the line that kept running through my head as I watched this week's Random Movie, Beverly Hills Brats. Is it because it stars Peter Billingsley, a.k.a. "Ralphie" from The Christmas Story, you ask(Billingsley is in full-on Ralphie mode, I should add - glasses and all)? Maybe. I mean, it's not as though that line was ever uttered by Martin Sheen, and he was in Beverly Hills Brats, too. He played Montgomery "Scooter" Miller's father. Paulie (Burt Young, also in Beverly Hills Brats) from the Rocky series never used that line, did he? I dunno. He might have. I only saw part of Rocky V. Ahh, perhaps it was Ramon Sheen, the oft-forgotten older brother of Charlie Sheen and son of Martin Sheen who played Scooter's brother, Sterling. Nah. Probably not.


Beverly Hills Brats (1989)
Dir: Jim Sotos
Screenplay: Terry Moore, Jerry Rivers and Linda Silverthorn
Exec Prod: Sir Rupert A. L. Perrin, MD












Ramon Sheen (a.k.a Ramón Estevez)

Summary:

Lot's of "why the hells" in this one. First, why the hell do we put the 80's on such a lofty pedestal? After watching this movie, an unbiased, yet playfully pugnacious space alien you might have living with your family at home would demand to know what all the fuss is about? Clothes? Ugly. Hair? Ugly. Cars? Ugly. Okay, some of the cars were awesome (I saw my old Honda Prelude in there!). And the computers were awesome, too - if you were a rich little brat from Beverly Hills, apparently. Scooter, our "star," has everyhing; a high-tech bedroom with computers that do his homework at the punch of a single key; daily hundred-dollar bills for lunch money; leather Gucci ballcaps and Vision Street Wear T-shirts. Everything, that is, but the love and attention of his family. Time to fake being kidnapped to get the folks at home to notice him! It's fool-proof!

Impressions:

I have to admit, when my super secret randomization process turned up this title, I was concerned. But all that worry seemed to melt away like butter on top of a bowling ball in the microwave after seeing the star-studded, well, star-kissed cast credits in the beginning of this film. I mean, it has Martin Sheen! And an awesome cameo by none other than Whoopi Goldberg, herself. And in 1989, that was HUGE. I mean, I don't understand what Martin Sheen was doing in this cheesy 80's comedy, but screw it. He was there. So was Burt Young as the hapless down-on-his-luck race track gambler turned house burglar, Clive, who gets detected by Scooter's home security system he has in his bedroom (where else?). Scooter then offers Clive the chance to kidnap him and keep the ransom money his dad, a filthy rich plastic surgeon who draws pictures of boobs at the dinner table instead of talking to his family, would surely pay. Dad also often visits patients at home to "adjust their breasts" because "breasts constantly need to be watched." That's okay, because mom cheats, too. But I guess that's the charm of this picture, if you could call it charm. It held nothing back in terms of cheese and one-liners. And that's what 80's movies were all about, right?

Check out the trailers here and here.

Planet Zero

I wondered into this interesting Japanese arcade/game museum/juice bar today. I had heard about this place and its location, and not knowing where the intersection was, I somehow found myself in the area, noticing the street names on the way back from a bookstore, and there it was: Planet Zero. I think it might have said "Planet Zero Anime Center" or something like that. Anyway, it's really just an arcade (where you pay money to charge your swipe card to play) that has all Japanese games and video game themed merchandise. The girl who works there tracked me down and gave me all the general info and told me about the tournaments and stuff. Lots of loud noises and flashing lights, so I didn't last long in there. I did get these snazzy snapshots, though. These are exhibit display pieces encased in wall-mounted plastic bubbles. Please excuse the crappy cell phone quality.

Neo-Geo was one of the best home systems of its time - especially if you liked fighting games.

The classic Sega Master System

A selection of Japanese games. That yellow cartridge at the top is Super Mario Bros. and it comes with character keychains.

The Super Famicom a.k.a. the Japanese Super Nintendo

Random Movie Project: 'Heroes Shed No Tears'

This experiment has already manifested its potential quality. I understand that for every great movie I get, there will be approximately 100 crappy movies, but today must've been an exception. For today I saw John Woo's Heroes Shed No Tears.












Heroes Shed No Tears (1986)
Writer/Director: John Woo

Summary:

This is a tale of conviction, family honor, courage, loyalty and explosive fireballs of death. In Ying Xiong Wei Lei or Heroes Shed No Tears, we follow the story of Chan Chung (Eddy Ko), a Chinese ex-mercenary hired by the Thai government to kidnap a drug tycoon, a stubborn fellow called Samton, from the deadly region of southeast Asia known as "Golden Triangle." To succeed in this quest, he must also protect his family (all of whom die, except for his son), dodge millions of bullets and fireballs (he gets both shot and burned), rescue a French reporter, his wife and his chauffeur (again, all of whom die) and recruit the help of Louis, an old American war buddy with a wide selection of live-in prostitutes (you guessed it, they all die). Actually, pretty much everyone this guy knows dies, thus teaching a valuable lesson: if you ever encounter Chan Chung in the middle of a kidnapping plot, assassination mission, or even at Lens Crafters, get at least one hundred miles away as quickly as possible because, chances are, you'll die. He even sat back and watched the evil Vietnamese forces light a circle of gasoline on fire around his son. Luckily, the resilient little kid began digging in the dirt with his bare hands a buried himself to escape the flames. And it worked! Of course it's impossible, but it's more than his father was apparently willing to try.

Impressions:

The first thing you'll notice about this movie, or at least the poor 1992 video transfer I watched, are the hilariously bad subtitles.

"Golden Triangle lies in the delta area amidst Burma, Cambodia and Thailand where produces 75% of world's drug. February this year the Thai government determining to destroy it and it's tycoon Sampton sent out a recruited troop which was made up of several Chineses..."

One scene even has his American pal, Louis, shouting (in English) "You Motherfucker!!" while the subtitles read "You son of a bitch!"

Actually, their English is way better than my Cantonese, or what ever the hell language this movie was translated from, so I can't really complain about that. As a whole this was actually a pretty enjoyable film. John Woo's tendency towards blood, guts and bullets is fully exhibited, here. Woo has even said this was his first "real film." According to IMDb, this movie was shelved after completion and never saw actual release until the success of Woo's following feature, A Better Tomorrow. It certainly sets the tone for his later movies such as Hard-Boiled, Hard Target and The Killer. Pretty much everything he made before he "went Hollywood" with Broken Arrow, Face/Off and Mission Impossible II.

But redemption can still be had - I'm still waiting for John Woo's He-Man and Metroid.

Random Movie Project

Here's an idea. In order to keep this weblog alive with interesting stuff to write about, I'm considering following:

As I've mentioned, there is a video store down the street (Audio/Video Plus) that has somewhere between 60,000 and 80,000 titles in stock. What's interesting about the store is that they have a catalog on the front counter that gets updated every few months containing the entire library. Usually, what the regular customers do is go straight to the thick catalog and search for their titles by name, write the catalog numbers on little sheets of paper with pencils they provide and give it to the clerk who goes back into the stacks to retrieve the tape. Sort of like a library.

This might be fun, it might be a miserable, horrible idea and it might be both, but what if on an occasional basis (perhaps weekly, perhaps bi weekly/semi-monthly) someone were to walk in, go to the catalog, open up to a random page, blindly point to a title, write the number down and hand it to the clerk, watch the video and review the movie/document their experience? The only rules are no peeking and no second picks. Viewer be warned, though; they carry 'adult themed' titles. Also, children's titles.

Kindly give me your thoughts.

Well...

Well, it has been a while, hasn't it?

First of all, let me thank you all for your ongoing support as I struggle with my recent diagnosis. All the flowers and free hugs! Okay, I was only joshing. No such diagnosis. I don't have any life threatening diseases, God willing. What I do have, however, is a new iPod. Irony has reared its beautiful head in the form of a holiday party raffle ticket at our annual Christmas fête at work (held in January). I held the winning ticket for the 'Grand Prize' iPod Nano. What makes it ironic is I had just purchased the 30GB iPod Video for Katrina for Christmas. And upon opening the Nano package, she fell for the thing and the 30GB was bequeathed over to me. That makes three iPod children in the family. It's true, you tend to forget about the old, boring kids when a newer, more beautiful one is born. I recently labled my original 2003 iPod as "Clint's Old But Still Useful iPod" in iTunes. As my boss loudly and publicly remarked when I held aloft the winning ticket, "Hey! This guy's got three of these things, now!"

On the other end of the lame-to-cool spectrum, I recently had to endure a defensive driving course for a speeding ticket I got a while back in Galveston County. I opted for the course so as to wipe the thing off my record, and it was a little cheaper than actually paying for the deferment. There are several ways to do this: One option is to find a class and attend it. Another option (I learned about from a girl at work) is to rent tapes and a special VCR that records your test scores from a video store. Finally, there's the online course - which is what I chose.

It totally sucked.

For six hours I was a slave to the PC. And no, you cannot let the thing play for six hours while you sleep. If it idles too long, your course is terminated. If you answer too many questions wrong along the way, your course is terminated. And if the program suspects any cheating at all, your course is terminated. Generally, you get a page of text to read with the occasional embedded Flash animation or cheesy video. And at the bottom, there's a timer with, let's say, 00:01:30 on it will count down before you can advance to the next page. No matter how fast you can read, you must wait. Then, there might be a non-relevant question to make sure you watched the video. "What did the boyfriend say to the girl when she asked for the keys?" Shit like that. As I am not severely mentally retarded, I passed with flying colors.

But after I completed the course, I became ensnared in a catch-22 where in order to get my Certificate of Completion, I needed to fax in a notarized "Certificate of Assurance" claiming I took the test myself with no third party assistance, but had no picture ID to get the thing notarized since I had to surrender my Indiana license when I went to the license branch and applied for my Texas driver's license (which takes a month to come in the mail) which I needed to apply for a copy of my Texas driving records to mail to the court along with my (unattainable) Certificate of Completion. Driving records, mind you, that I couldn't possibly have accumulated since, up to that point, I had no Texas driver's license, just an Indiana one which I had to surrender, leaving me with no picture ID to get the Certificate of Assurance notarized. Something like that. It's late, and I'm not even going to attempt to proof-read this paragraph.

Luckily, I happened to casualy mention all this to my boss, and he literally produced a notary stamp and ledger from thin air like he was David Copperfield or something. Who knew this guy was a Notary Public?

Again, I don't recommend the online course. I've even heard from two separate co-workers that you can actually go to a comedy club to take the course for the same price, lunch included. Okay, sure, so you can do the online thing in your underwear and all, but I'd rather get out of the house, you know? I guess I'm old-fashioned like that. Besides, If you ask me, underwear is overrated as leisure apparel.

Oh, and I'm now a member of Netflix. It's handy for several reasons. No, not so I can rent scratched, fullscreen pan-n-scan copies of White Chicks and Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo. Now, I won't be giving another dollar to the criminally overpriced Blockbuster Video or the despicably ghetto Hollywood Video. And Netflix carries titles which are fun to watch, but not necessarily fun to buy that most video stores won't have. There are two family-owned video stores in town, Audio/Video Plus and Cactus Music & Video, which I will still regularly and proudly patronize for the inevitable impulse rental and oddball title.