The Cloverfield Paradox

Time for an As-It-Happens film review on this rainy Valentine's Day.

Cool, three white guys, one black guy, one Mideastern guy, an Asian chick and our star, the grieving African American girl with the loving husband waiting at home. Her name is Hamilton. I shall henceforth call her Hammy. Hammy and her husband had two kids, but they appear to have died for reasons as yet unexplained, although it may have something to do with the apocalyptic energy crisis which Hammy must go up into space to fix on a space station with the aforementioned ethnic crew, a shitload of earthworms (?) and a massive particle accelerator. I'm getting definite Arrival vibes here.

In space, no one cares about your lip gloss.

Volkov: Simon Pegg's evil twin. Also, I'm guessing it's not a coincidence that his name sounds like "fuck off."

Thank you, Trump's personal physician for providing us with the plot in advance.

How do you lose the whole Earth? Check under the couch cushions. Who had it last?

Pretty sure astronauts never sit around looking pensive. They're always floating around, pressing buttons and flipping switches. I watch the Discovery channel.

Oh man, you lost the gyro too? Wait, what's a gyro? Isn't that like a lamb sandwich with dill sauce?

And we've just found a random chick (this one white, just to balance things out) embedded in the wall of the spaceship. Okay, nice nod to the Philadelphia Experiment.

Foosball, Matruschka dolls...I sense metaphors signaling plot points. Must be patient.

Great, evil Russian Simon Pegg just turned into Thom Yorke, has a gun and has vomited up his oatmeal.

Wait, why did they have earthworms on board to begin with? Were they going to go fishing in space? And why did Not Simon Pegg eat them?

HAHA, *flatline beep*. I thought that said *flatulence beep*. pHaRtZ r PhUnNie.

White Girl has awoken. Her name is Mina and she brought along her Smash Box travel kit with ivory bisque matte foundation and pink diamond eye shadow.

k so - Mina says that the white guy who looks like a puppy is The Bad Guy and she's been there along, even though she hasn't, and back on earth, everything has turned into The Mist via District 9. Everyone on Earth thinks the space station has disappeared and everyone on the space station thinks the Earth has disappeared and the exceptionally hairy white guy just lost his arm in the wall. Oh wait no, there it is...crawling around all Ash Evil Dead. The arm tells them (srsly) to perform an autopsy on Asshole Russian Dead Guy.

Oh, the gyro was in his stomach. Well that explains the vomiting. Greek food, y'know?

Meanwhile, back on Earth, loving husband has found a little kid named Molly in the burned out ruins of...um, where are they? New York? London? Circle Pines? Whatever.

Okay so I think I know what's going on now. They ripped a hole in the space-time thingy with their Higgs Boson doohickey and now they're in a different dimension where a different crew was sent up and all died, so now they have to get back to the other dimension which could kill Mina but will save them, except the Asian chick drowns (srsly) but maybe not in the other dimension and ... oh sorry, I got busy ordering a pizza on Grub Hub and lost track for 30 seconds.

Alright, in this dimension Hammy's kids are still alive (guess they both died in a house fire in the other dimension) and holy shit, a steak and buffalo chicken pizza with bleu cheese? Oooo, and a coupon for a free 2 liter bottle of Pepsi! I prefer Coke, but fuck it, it's free!

Mina is the Bad Guy and maybe a side order of jalapeño poppers will help clear up my sinuses. Should probably order a salad too, just so all that meat and cheese doesn't sit in my colon like a big fat plug of wadded up soggy toilet paper. Yeah, I knew she was going to turn out to be bad because she's too calm and poised and looks like a blonde Trinity from The Matrix. Or that chick from Haute Tension who ended up making out with Matt Damon in that one movie that I can't remember the name of.

Ooo, Cloverfield monster. The end. Wow. What happened? Who cares? My pizza is here.

The Ritual

Been hearing a lot of talk about this flick on FB so...well, that's kinda my thing. Watch a movie, write about it, post some pics, blahdee blahdee blah. Here I am on a fucking Tuesday, day off of work, I'm coated in a thick crack-glaze of snot and cold germs, there's no goddamned hot water in this dump so a shower is out - fuck it, a movie it is, then.

Five British Mates go out to the store
a junkie stabs one and then there were four.

Sorry, my brain is steeped to the tits in Dayquil and keeps doing weird things. The four mates in question are Hutch (the handsome one), Luke (the guilt-ridden one), Dom (the whiny twat, which rhymes with prat and both apply) and Phil (the vaguely Mideastern looking one.) Their dead friend is Rob, the best of them, who so desperately wanted to go hiking through Sweden and Norway with his best friends on their next holiday. But because Luke was a total pisspants coward, Rob died needlessly upon inadvertently interrupting a liquor store hold up. Luke blames himself. His friends do too, although nobody says this aloud. Six months later, Luke packs all of his guilt in his backpack and trudges into the North with his remaining mates. There's your backstory, now on with the show.

Yeah, this is welcoming af.

These woods and hills bear a suspicious resemblance to Fanghorn Forest. And since Andy Serkis was a producer, I immediately suspect New Zealand standing in for Sweden. But I'm wrong. It's Romania. Okay, fine. Why couldn't they have just filmed in Sweden? Or Norway? Not finding fault, just curious.

Okay so in short order, the Twat - being a prat - takes a pratfall and immediately starts whining about his man baby booboo. Hey, someone had to fall and hurt themselves, and there's no women around so we'll go with the next best thing - an overweight, bespectacled bag of lard with a gaping cryhole. Another guy (I already forget who) points to a map and basically says: "Oh hey look! A shortcut through the spooky woods, let's go die there!"

Nordic God or coat rack? You decide.

In short order, the guys fuck off into the Stock Footage Forest and immediately discover a whole shitpile of cast off from about a dozen other horror films. They find an elk hanging in the trees and weird runes all over the place (Blair Witch). Then it starts to rain and they happen upon The Evil Dead cabin. It's leaky and long-abandoned, and there's a human torso fashioned out of sticks with antlers for hands just chilling around upstairs that looks a lot like one of my abandoned art projects. The night is dark and stormy. The storm is dark and nighty. And the dark is night and stormy.

Luke the Coward wakes up abruptly, knee deep in a nightmare about watching his friend Rob get killed all over again. His other friends are having similar experiences: Dom is crouched in a corner, screaming his wife's name. Hutch has righteously pissed himself. And Phil is upstairs, naked, prone before the Mervyn's mannequin from Hell as if in prayer. Understandably freaked out, the guys decide to blow the woods and make for the nearest pub. In the meantime, Luke's resemblance to Guy Pearce in Ravenous is starting to annoy me.

Four dumbass hikers lost in the trees
one gets gutted and then there were three.

Amazingly, it's Hutch the Handsome who dies first. But not before Luke gets called out for his cowardice in front of everyone and blamed for Rob's death. So there's your motivation: coward must somehow face his fear and conquer it. Yadda yadda yadda.

Three frightened hikers don't know what to do
one's eaten by a monster and then there were two.

Phil is the next to go down (or rather, up - as, into the branches of a tree, his guts unzipped) leaving the Twat and the Coward to make a run for it. They slam headfirst into Haggis's shack in Pumpkinhead and are promptly taken prisoner. It turns out there's a bunch of immortal Swedes living deep in the woods, worshipping a bastard deity without a name (they say they don't say its name, but if no one ever says it, wouldn't it have been forgotten by now?) who forces them to worship it and offer it sacrifices in return for unending lives looking like the forebears of the Deliverance locals who never got around to emigrating. Also, there's no plumbing and everyone looks like they smell really bad. If I'm going to be immortal, I want hot water and soap, okay?

The Twat and the Coward don't even have a gun
The Twat becomes monster food and then there was one.

Yeah, the Twat gets the King Kong treatment, stripped to the waist and tied to a pole. You'd think that the sight of that flabby, hairy midsection would put Mr. Elk Deity right off, but it doesn't. Now it's just the Coward, I mean Guy Pearce, I mean Luke. Anyway, at long last, our monster emerges from the shadows and...it's a really big moose. Or maybe an elk. With a male torso for a face and a sort of Jawa hood with glowy eyes. Now we see what Luke is up against, and it's borderline goofy.

But you can't kill a Nordic God - they're kinda immune to that whole death thing - so he really accomplishes nothing. I mean, they've been building up this whole macho manly "man up and face your fears" bullshit for an hour and twenty minutes, pumping you up for the Big Final Confrontation between Mighty Elk Man and wishy washy spineless nobody. You're totally expecting a bare-chested, two fisted, greased up showdown with nunchucks and flamethrowers and maybe an Uzi, lots of grunting and bellowing and sperm-fueled rage. But in the end, you get a smallish house fire, a halfhearted whack with an axe and a "run away run away!" sequence worthy of Monty Python.

Coward makes a run for it, monster doesn't follow
and this whole movie left me feeling kinda hollow.   

Shit, next time have Luke accidentally wander into Gaahl's house. That would be scarier.                                                                              

Alligator, 1980

Alligator, 1980

God I love the movie Alligator. Mere words cannot possibly describe how much I love the movie Alligator. And yet, for some reason, I've only seen it, like, three or four times? It's one of those odd, elusive little movies that slip silently beneath the scummy surface of the cinematic pond and blends in with the algae, sleepily waiting for you to cross its path once more. Then, up it pops out of fucking nowhere with a guttural roar like a fucking Howitzer shoved up a Tyrannosaurs asshole, spraying thick, stagnant splashes of mucky filth and chunky sewer sludge. You just know that Mr. Alligator's breath could paralyze a bull moose at fifty paces, reeking of rotting, maggot infested meat and congealed blood.

Party crasher!

Anyway, a friend of mine just uploaded this flick to his Plex collection and it immediately snapped me up in its toothy jaws and swallowed me whole once again. And for the third, or fourth, or fifth time in my life, I heard myself exclaiming: "How the fuck did I forget about this movie, it's so fucking awesome!"

When I was a kid, we had in our house a green, clothbound book - maybe an encyclopedia? - of animals from all over the world. There was one photograph in the book that scared the hell out of me. It was a page that I tried to avoid, but also a page that became a game with me: dare I look at it? That glossy, green photo of an alligator suspended in a swamp, a clump of some grody-ass, slimy reeds tangled around one webbed foot. I lived in permanent fear that somehow, the photo would come to life if I looked at it too long, and I would find myself immersed in that scummy pond, choking on stagnant water and my own blood as Mister Gator took me for a barrel roll. Alligators and crocodiles are just fucking creepy as hell. Goddamned snakes with feet. Who the hell invented them, and why?

I mean, look at this arrogant fucker! Just plodding along, slow as fuck, not giving a single shit about the all-you-can-eat buffet standing just four feet away, snapping shots and rolling film while goddamned death incarnate swaggers past like "Fuck all y'all." Fucking Florida. Why the hell would you want to live in a state where these goddamned things walk around, cool as a slimy, breathing cucumber, slipping into swimming pools and swallowing poodles whole?

I'm babbling, sorry. I'm supposed to write a review for this film, you know - synopsis, summary, recommendations, blahblahblah. No, fuck that. I just want to talk about how cool this movie is. Too many monster movies suffer from what I call the Five Minute Syndrome: an hour and twenty minutes of build-up and listless character development, then five minutes of monster at the very end. Not this movie, however. Alligator everywhere! All the time! From start to finish, that scaly motherfucker rules the movie - creeping in the sewer shadows behind our unsuspecting cast, bursting up through sidewalks to terrorize smartass, streetwise city kids, scooping up incredibly helpful victims who lie down in its path and lift their legs into the toothy maw, screaming theatrically as Karo syrup blood squirts everywhere.

Favorite scene: alligator slips into a backyard swimming pool, chilling under the fallen leaves and discarded pool toys. Bratty little shits with negligent parents slip away from Halloween party and force five year old pirate to walk the plank, i.e. diving board. 36 foot long food processor slides up underneath the Jolly Rogers and plop into the water the shrieking tyke goes, instantly reduced to a boiling pool of blood and guts. Yes! Childhoods ruined! Irreparable psychological scarring! Alcoholism awaits in adulthood! Innocence destroyed forever!

Other favorite scene: Gator gatecrashes a lavish wedding ceremony, eats a maid, lurches slowly towards the rest of the guests and wait staff who all helpfully feed themselves feet first into his mouth. Other other favorite scene: Creepy-ass Henry Silva buys it in a Chicago alleyway, feet first once again, looking for all the world like a giant hoagie, lying perfectly straight as he is enthusiastically gulped down the gators gullet.

Namedrop! 

Main gripe: I really wanted a scene where the redhead science sexpot (I forget her name already) realizes that the giant gator is actually the pet gator she had as a child which was flushed down the toilet by her asshole dad. She recognizes the gator, the gator recognizes her and they run towards each other in slow motion, embracing as they meet at long last. She named the fucking gator Ramon, and Ramon will respond to his name and return to his mommy and the two of them will fight street crime together forever after, or some such shit.

Other than that, it's a flawless, satirical rip-shit 80s sleazoid spool of cinema which doesn't get nearly as much praise as it is due.

Tura Satana

This weekend marks the seventh anniversary of the death of cult icon Tura Satana. I wrote this obituary seven years ago and wouldn't change a single word.

“I never try anything. I just do it.”

~Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!

Model.
Gang leader.
Exotic dancer.
Martial arts expert.
Miss Japan Beautiful.
Elvis Presley’s one true love.
Actress.
Cult Icon.

Tura Luna Pascual Yamaguchi, aka Tura Satana, didn’t TRY any of the above. She DID them all, and excelled at each and every one. Tura didn’t JUST dance; she was named one of the 10 Best Undressed Burlesque dancers of the 20th century by Bill Hanna. She didn’t JUST date Elvis; she taught him how to kiss and turned down his proposal of marriage. She didn’t JUST model; she posed nude for Harold Lloyd, who encouraged her to pursue an acting career. She didn’t JUST act; she was Russ Meyer’s muse, the iconic Pussycat, the penultimate leather babe, the very definition of Amazonian Goddess. 

Every man wanted her, every girl wanted to be her, and neither dared fuck with her. She was Tura Satana, a name that has always evoked images of race cars, astro-zombies and huge, proud breasts. It is a name that will always define that rare class of woman: tough but sexy, butch and beautiful, sweet though intimidating, both trashy and classy. It’s a class of women so rare that it can only have one member: Tura. 

She shone as bright and garishly as a sequined nipple tassel. She was the personification of Flesh As Virtue. She moved like a living oil slick, spoke in a voice like a red satin ribbon, threw a punch like a queen panther and smiled like a Raphael cherub with a mouthful of melted candy. She was a walking contradiction: serious sinuous solidity one second, velvet pink femininity the next. Legs like alabaster columns in an ancient Greek temple and an ass that didn’t just stop traffic but dented every chrome bumper within a five mile radius. Black bikini biker babe, opium scented dragon lady, go-go booted candy doll; Tura changed personas faster than a pussycat changes her panties. 

Tura’s body – that vast, curving landscape of creamy softness and cast iron muscle – finally surrendered yesterday, giving up the inevitable fight against time. But Tura isn’t dead. How can she be? She was our generation’s Cleopatra, a fierce and radiant idol carved out of gold and ivory, the reigning queen of all she surveyed. She didn’t have blood in her veins, it was pure honey. There cannot be a funeral for her; instead, an altar should be constructed at her feet and offerings of coins, chocolate, dove feathers and blood left by her mourners. I think she’d get a kick out of that, rolling those cats eyes of hers and laughing her worship-worthy butt off. 

Tura Satana did not die on February 4th, 2011 in Reno, Nevada. Heaven needed a burlesque goddess. The stars are taking turns being her pasties. The clouds were begging her to sit on their faces. Elvis missed her. Satan wanted to look up her skirt from the pit below. She got a better offer and moved on. But she’s not dead. No one – not now, not ever – can possibly hope to fill the boots she left behind. She’s not dead because she’s absolutely irreplaceable, devastatingly unique. She is, was and always will be: Tura fucking Satana. 

“You’re all shook up, aren’t you baby?”