Well, that was a bit of a comedown. After riding high on the first film, I barrelled straight into ‘China O’Brien 2’ expecting…Hoping. That it would continue the momentum of the first film…It did not.

The plot picks up a few months to a year after the events of the first film and the focus this time is on a recently released from prison Drug lord, whos planning a major sale, while at the same time we’re reintroduced to China and the crew who are being awarded by the towns mayor for their turnaround of the local police department since China became Sheriff, we’re shown that China has kind of settled into a life of fairly mundane local crimes, but when she accidentally busts a key mechanism of this Drug lords plans for a major Drug deal, a bounty is placed on Chinas head her her friend Dekota and his friends are taken hostage. Leading China and Matt to try everything in their powers to bust Baskins drug dealing operations and rescue Dekota and crew unharmed.

The quality fall is palpable here, its clear they had even less money than the first film, and the cuts have run too deep to really salvage this piece. What we essentially have here are a handful of small budget set pieces that ARE fun…that get diluted away to pretty much nothing by the rolling gulfs of nothingness that happen when the fun things arnt happening.

The scripts pacing has taken a hit right to the kneecaps it seems. The opening third of the movie barely even feature China and the crew and instead focusses on Baskin and his team settling old scores and setting up the framework that’ll dictate the rest of the movies direction. By the time the main crew DO show up in any meaningful sense, its already kind of too late. As we then have to follow them as they uncover what we’ve already been told up front AND THEN we have to sit with them while they figure out a plan.

The pacing is positively glacial, the act structuring seemingly stalls part way into the opening act and doesnt really recover until the final 10-15 minutes. The characters feel like they’ve undergone a degree of ‘flanderization’ with all the nuance and bumps that made the characters fun and cheesy in the first film being heavily sanded down because they need to push the plot forwards by any means necessary.

The dialogue isnt as playful, it feels much more scripted and less naturalistic, which really hobbles the film as that was the most endering quality of the first film. Essentially; there are maybe 3-5 scenes in this film that collectively run to maybe just shy of a quarter of the runtime, where they try something a bit silly, or weird, or they try to experiment a bit…and then the rest of the film is just overtly bland sequence building and plotting that doesnt try to rock the boat and doesnt really do anything other than trying to copy the stuff that worked in the first film…just with less money, less passion and lower energy.

The same impacts the direction too, the fight scenes are all massively scaled back in terms of choreography, they dont mask the connections as well as the first film, the scope to experiment seems to have been scaled back massively due to the budget cuts, which means we have many MANY more sequences of people just kind of sitting around talking idley to each other. Everything feels a lot flatter, a lot less colourful or interesting and a lot LOT safer, to the point of the films detriment.

Cast direction is about the same as the first film, which is a small mercy, it may not have a lot of money to do much. But they at least let the characters use props and improvise within the frame physically a little bit. Which did just about bring an element of a sparkle back to the production. But its still not really as good as the first film.

The cines been paired back, we have less creative lighting choices, less b-roll, less experimentation with shot compositions, less of a ‘vision’ for the film. It feels like a film that was shot on the cheap to try and cash in on the heat the first film gave off. Its not inherently badly shot…it just feels a bit bland, boring and played out. At a point where they really could and should have ramped up…they basically fizzled out to nothing.

Even the performances are significantly flatter, with Harlowe Marks as our villian Baskins just…being kind of drab. he doesnt have the right energy for this, he just comes across as a generic baddie from any low budget action film from the mid 80s onwards. Totally unremarkable. Cynthia Rothrock feels increasingly throughout this film like she wasnt taking this very seriously. Previously I thought she wasnt the best performer in terms of dialogue delivery or physical acting. But I commended her martial arts abilities and when the film did get ‘serious’ she more than rose to the occasion to match the energy required. In this film? she gets significantly less screen time, her acting is still flat, but not they’re scaling back the martial arts work too, meaning she gets even less interesting stuff to do, and the stuff that she DOES do well, they’re scaling back on.

Even the supporting cast feel lower quality/less engaged on the production. with Keith Cook getting a decent share of the screen time, but very little to say, and even less to do physically. and Richard Norton essentially being paired down to a sidekick role where he gets almost nothing to do until the finale.

adding to this the soundtrack, which feels recycled and doenst quite fit right to the tone of this film…and overall? this is a bit of a wash…its not inherently bad, its just kind of boring. Nowhere near as good as the first one. It desperately needed more money and….just…actual heart and soul putting into it. This film feels like it was being churned out for the sake of being made…I feel like if someone actually WANTED this thing to exist,it could have played out differently. Definitely one to give a wide birth, it reminded me a bit of the quality difference between ‘Day’ and ‘Strike’ of the panther….and much like that film series. I’ll probably just stick to watching ‘China O’Brien’ going forward.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/china-obrien-ii/

One thats been on my hit list for a while, i’d heard great things about ‘China O’Brien’ over the years, and with the UK being battered by fridgid tempratures and 80mph winds today, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to crack the seal on this one and give Vinegar Syndromes 4k Double feature release of this a whirl!

The plot follows the titular ‘China O’Brien’ (played by Cynthia Rothrock) A big city cop who, when she isnt booking criminals by day, is teaching mixed martial arts to folks by night. Chinas got life pretty good, but when one of her students disrespects her and accuses the her of teaching fake self defense, she agrees to prove her ability by taking on 5 street thugs in a back ally later that night. Only, on arriving, it turns out that the gang arnt the folks her student planned for her to fight, and are instead ACTUAL thugs who beat up her student and are now turning their attention to her.

China takes strong action against the gang, dispatching them with relative ease, but when one of the gang dies as a result of his injuries…and when that gang member turns out to be underrage. China is bereft that she let her ego get the better of her, and resigns her post at the police station, vowing never to weild a gun again, and to return back to her small town, back water home to regain her bearings with the support of her family.

However; on returning back to her home town, she finds it in the grips of despicable corruption. A local businessman has seemingly tied up all major law and business within the town and is using it to essentially do whatever he wants, however he wants without any confrontation. China finds this out first hand when, on returning to her local club, she finds it overrun with goons working for him.

China bumps into her old high school flame, and between her, him and her father, the local sheriff. the gang decide to look into the shady dealings and to try and restore honour to the town once more, but when the hire goons hit a little too close to home, in a devestating way. China will be forced to run as Sheriff of the town on her own, to defeat the corruption once and for all.

And, pretty much everything I had been told going into this film was very much the case for me, I was promised a great little 90 minute action movie thats all killer and no filler, and thats exactly what this is really. The plot isnt the most original in the world (by the time this film came out in 1990, the ‘single person tries to overthrow the corrupt leaders of a small town’ genre had well and truely been mined) but what it does here it does well, offering some genuinely poigniant moments contrasted by a vibrant and light sense of humour that helps keep things quite well balanced throughout.

The characters are engaging, almost all of them get solid character development arcs across the films runtime, the dialogue is thick on cheese, but handled very well in terms of delivery for the most part the pacing is on a dime with a near perfect 30/30/30 split on runtimes between the acts and a near seamless transition between the three. the pacing is pretty breakneck, though I do think the front half of the 3rd act slows down maybe just a tad more than I personally would have likes, and also I feel like the ending is a little underwhelming. I mean, they resolve most of the key plotlines…But it doesnt really end on a satisfying note. It ends kind of fizzling out with the audience being left to assume that everything worked out great and that there wont be any problems anymore (not likely of course, given theres a sequel to this film that came out the same year as this one)

Direction here is a bit of a game of two halves, while theres definitely a degree of professionalism around this production. I found that the more grounded, conversational scenes were a little ‘by the numbers’ Not inherently bad by any stretch, but not exactly pushing any boundaries…’Safe’ for the genre is probably the best way to frame it. The action scenes by contrast are exceptional, with vivid and colourful fight sequences, featuring weapon play, gun play, masked contact shots, soft contact play and as many explosions as you can shake a stick at. its over the top, not afraid to experiment and the fight sequences themselves are fast paced and incredibly well choreographed. I thought itw was handled superbly, and even at the dryest points of the dialogue…and given the cheese level, there isnt much of that, I was keen to stick around to see what kind of madcap stunts would come next!

Direction of the cast too is solid, they get seemingly good instruction on moving around the frame of their location, they get decent prop play and have been allowed to really bring their physicality out on film. I was very pleasently surprised given the genre usually only really bothers to direct the cast on fight scenes, it helped add an extra layer of drama to the performances and made the hard hitting moments hit that much harder.

The cine is superb as well, Vinegar Syndromes 4k remaster of this film really brings the deep colours and detail from the grain out to front and center, and their bluray copy is pretty unrivalled on that front too. shots have a great sense of depth, the sequences are well structured with good amounts of b-roll. The line and compositional rules are largely followed throughout, with only a few attempts at experimentation falling a bit flat for me. its a pretty sharp edit, especially around the fight scenes, though it maybe would have been nice in some of the more action oriented scenes to give the wider shots just a little more playtime to help things breath a bit. but thats really more of a nitpick than anything else.

Performance wise, Cynthia Rothrock absolutely delights here as China, Is she the best at line delivery? in my opinion no. I find her deliveries to be a bit dry and flat, with even her more emotive moments seeming a bit lacklustre. To that end, her physical acting is also a little stunted when its not in an actual fight scene. BUT! mercifully, when she does flip into action mode she totally nails the brief, being able to deliver dry and withering putdowns with tremendous ease and physically bringing a real sense of ‘dont mess with me’ to the film. Shes fantastic in that regard, and the two contrasting character performances, I felt played nice off each other given the overall cheese factor of the production.

RIchard Norton and Keith Cook are both excellent (if not slightly dry) supports for Rothrock as her love interest Matt, and local boy with a grudge against the system ‘Dakota’ they help to really kind of ‘grease the wheels’ on rothrocks performance, introducing some of the lighter and darker elements in such a way that Rothrock can play more easily off of, they’re fun to watch and while they maybe arnt quite as impressive in terms of physical performances…their delivery work is just the right tone that this movie needed. Same also goes for our villain of the piece, Stephen Kerby as ‘Sommers’ who brings a quite malevolence to the film, which again, acts as a perfect foil to the more explosive performances and moments in this film.

As for the soundtrack? Its a power packed hard rock and soft metal score that packs almost as powerful a punch as the movies star! cracking stuff that really does the job on tying the whole production together!

This was one of my first dalliances with Rothrocks work, and I was really taken aback by just how fun and hyper the whole thing was. I really wish i’d gotten around to this one sooner, and Its really made me want to check out more of her movies in future! Definitely recommended if your in any way an action fan (Though, I assume you’ll likely have seen this one by this point) or if your still feeling out the genre, this is a great one to track down, and more than worth your time!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/china-obrien/

‘Cycle: The Bloody Summer of 1999’ is…an intense short film…I think thats a fair measure for it. its a 2004, 20 minute assault on the senses, and im still not entirely sure what I just sat through.

The basic plot is that, in the summer of 1999, a mental hospital undertook one of the most savage incidents in post war german history, when a man in a mask invaded the hospital and essentially turned it into an experimental torturing ground, over several days, fuelled by violent movies. He would subject the entire hospital, staff and patients to horrendous torture techniques. to the extent that the hospital was abandoned and anyone who went anywhere NEAR it, was usually never seen or heard from again.

Cut to the present day of 2004, and a journalist and his camera man have decided to undertake a tour of the hospital unsupervised to see if they can piece together any of the depravity…and from there the film kind of jumps around in time, mainly focussed on the ‘Summer of 1999’ but also jumping to various dates between 2000 and 2004 showing us what happened after the incident to anyone who dared try to get close to the hospital…

And its there really where the film kind of lost me, because directionally, the films suffering heavily from that weird blip in early/mid 2000s culture, where editing was treated less like an art and more like an assault on the senses. its a non stop frantic piece thats aiming not to waste a single second on anything other than trying to hit you with everything the director can muster.

The actual plot isnt really anything to write home about, its your standard haunted house movie, just set in a hospital instead of a house…but the actual plotting of that story is a mess because we keep getting flung backwards and forwards. I think the intention was that, as the news crew wander from room to room, we flash back to that room in 1999 as the torture was happening, but because of how fast the footage moves, both in terms of whip pans and cutting combined with how close the camera is getting to the subject. I really struggled to make sense of what I was looking at.

The characters arnt that fleshed out, which you can either see as problematic because it means why should we as the audience care what happens about them, or you can see it as a plus, adding mystery to who the killer actually is or what their motives are…I personally fell into the former camp, because I, as a viewer, need at least a little bit of context as to why I should care about any of this…and the tone is seemingly just ‘be as unpleasent and intense as possible’. Which again, didnt exactly endere me to the production.

The direction yields some interesting and trippy camera effects, but theres an overeliance on plug ins that really put me off, an overeliance on ‘fish eye’ lens shots, again, a victim of its time…that AGAIN…really put me off this thing, sequences feel like they were assembled via smoothie maker, and the whole thing feels totally mashed up. I also feel I should mention at this point that theres also a weird overeliance on penises across this films runtime, with an extended mutilation sequence and an extended (simulated) ejaculation scene leaving me just kind of struggling to hang on to the production for dear life.

The characters arnt well fleshed out, are again…very intense, when they really didnt need to be and dont really get anything in the way of a character arc, and the soundtrack is just drone and noise that made me feel a bit ill honestly.

I didnt really get on with this one. If your a fan of films that are ‘gore and not much else’ then this’ll definitely be your party…but for me? there just wasnt enough story, and the visuals were so unpleasently handled, that I dont think i’ll ever really want to watch this one again.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/cycle-the-bloody-summer-of-1999/

‘Splotsch: Ordnung Muss Sein!’ (Rough translation ‘Splotch: Order Must Be!’ is a 1994 German SOV comedy horror short thats essentially a special effects tech demo thats had a vague plot built around it to help make it something a little extra.

The story is simple enough, a company called Secure-Grau Corp have recieved news that, as a result of them illegally dumping nuclear waste into a local nature spot (Lake Senser) they’ve created a bit of an ecological problem…and by ‘A bit of an ecological problem’ I mean that the wildlife is mutating into horrendous gooey abominations, and that any people who go anywhere NEAR the lake, either end up with all their skin burned off, or they transform into horrendous mutant zombies.

The science team at Secure-Grau are horrified. and after a LOT of deep thinking (2 minutes) they decide to do what any scientist should do in this situation…NOTHING!

we then head down to the lake itself, where a group of ecologists are studying the flora and fauna of Lake Senser, when they stumble across an abomination of an animal, which they quickly dissect, they deduce…pretty much immediately, that Secure-Grau must have been dumping toxic waste into the lake, and they set about trying to locate any more abominations for their studies…at which point they find and kill a mutant…realise they have MUCH bigger fish to fry, and decide to upgrade themselves from ‘ecologists’ to ‘nuclear clean up crewmembers’ which here means they load up on guns and machetes and jump into the woods for a 15 minute mutant on scientist hoe-down showdown. with blood guts and gore aplenty!

Its clear where the inspirations for this film have come from, a lot of the pacing and direction have clearly come from Sam Reimi and ‘Bad Taste’ era Peter Jackson. Its absolutely not taking itself seriously story wise, with an almost Pythonesq level of comedy timing and narrative tropes. In short, its a small silly zombie movie. and I quite enjoyed it.

I felt like the humour was much more on the ‘zany’ side than anything else, but I think they got the balance right of being over the top and crazy, but not SO over the top and crazy that it became grating. I enjoyed the character pieces which were incredibly tongue in cheek. the pacing was pretty breakneck. I think my only complaint here is that they spend a good half of the movies runtime setting up WHY the zombies are at the lake…and then the second half just kind of…throws it all away in favour of comedic vignettes where the scientists hunt down the mutants…which is what led me to believe that Ulrich Fleischer and Markus Metzler (the director, writer and special effects guy respectively) were making this film more as a collaborative effort to show off their directing skills and effects work, rather than the other way around.

The direction and cine, for SOV is actually pretty solid, and the effects work is particularly noteworthy for how well it handled (for this genre) and how genuinely grizzly it gets at times. It is still quite rough around the edges…but given this came out in 1994, when learning about the craft of film making was still fairly localised to ‘whatever your film teacher/mentor told you + whatever you could scrape out of your local library’ I think its handled quite well, its maybe a little washed out, and they could have benefitted from using the tripod a bit more…But the edits tight, the sequence work is solid. Its quite well handled realy…

The performances are solid as well, they mix dry deliveries with zany high energy physicalities here creating something thats positively loony tunes in places. There are a few puns and one liners that I do feel maybe get a bit lost in translation, but on the whole. Its a fine enough work…is it believable? no. But I dont think that was their brief really…

And the soundtrack is cheap whomping synths…which again, given this feels more like a tech demo than a fully fleshed out movie, doesnt surprise me. For SOV, its fine enough…i’ve heard better…but i’ve DEFINITELY heard worse.

On the whole? this was fun! I liked it! I’d say its definitely worth seeing at least once if your into SOV, its wacky, gory and would probably play really well when paired as a palette cleanser ahead of something like ‘Brain Dead’ or ‘Evil Dead 2’

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/splotsch-ordnung-muss-sein/

A campy, but kind of unremarkable 9 minute short, and the last film Stacey Walker. Its essentially a ‘Nudie Cutie’ faux documentary ‘nature film’ narrated between Stacey and her ‘manager’ Charlie as shes tricked into attending a nudist camp, and more importantly ‘Miss Nude Universe 1965’ as some kind of judge or host.

Inoffensive, and not particularly well made. Theres a definite charm to this short, and its a very entertaining little time capsule of a particular way of life and film making from over 60 years ago. But in 2025, its a different kind of ‘novelty’ to what it was intended for back in the 60s.

The narration is probably the only reason to catch this one, the plots paper thin, its really just an excuse to show naked people in non sexual situations. But it all feels quite rushed, with Stacey only really appearing in about 2-3 minutes of the full runtime, and the rest of the movie being just footage of the contest, badly framed, and poorly edited together.

Back when adult content was censored and heavily restricted, I imagine this would have more than made some guy or gals night. But in the present day? its just a reminder of how inconsistent and aimless the censors were in their striving for virtuous modesty.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/but-charlie-i-never-played-volleyball/

Caught this today as the B feature on AGFAs ‘The Defilers’ set. Given the last time I saw this, it was a fuzzy, roughed up 280p, cropped to 4:3 download from the ‘Something Weird’ website. This looks really nice in HD.

There’s a LOT of dropped frames, and scratches and tramlines running pretty much entirely throughout. But the bump in resolution, combined with the return to its original aspect ratio more than balances this one back out. Its such a fun and sleazy movie. Definitely worth catching at least once.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/a-smell-of-honey-a-swallow-of-brine/1/

ONe from the desk of David F. Friedman, ‘The Defilers’ is an early 60s ‘Roughie’ that, for the time would have almost certainly had its share of controversy, and while the film itself to modern audiences may seem tame, the topics covered are as relevent today as they were over 60 years ago.

The film follows two young bachelor boys ‘Carl’ and ‘Jaimerson’, the pair are living for the moment, driving fast cars, following the latest fashions and scmoozing with as many ladies as the 60s will allow (which is apparently quite a lot!) Jaimerson is going somewhat steady with one of the girls within the pairs clique. But Carl prefers to ‘hunt’ his prey…quite literally it would seem…See…Carl is very much into doing stuff ‘For Kicks’, here translated as ‘He wants to do whatever gives him an endorphine rush and woe betide anyone who comes between him and achieving that’.

To that end, while hes the perfect picture of a earnest bachelor boy to his family and looser friends, in private, he’s a sadist, who lures young girls into a rented basement dwelling on the outskirts of town to do perverse BDSM activities on them. But its slowly not becoming enough, and after a night of smoking dope with Jaimerson, he confesses to him that he needs a bigger thrill, something REALLY ‘far out’. To the extent that he decides the only thing that’ll saciate his urges, is to kidnap a poor unsuspecting girl and keep her as his ‘owned’ captive, to do with as he pleases.

Jaimersons VERY reluctant, but Carl is so unrelenting and forceful on the issue that he eventually goes along with it. Their target? a young woman they’ve recently been introduced to through a mutual acquaintence called ‘Jayne’…And…under veil of darkness, the pair go to Jaynes complex, lure her into their car on the promise of going to a hip new party…and take her back to the basement room to be their love slave/animal.

And im still kind of struggling to get my true feelings on this film settled, because there are elements that it handles very well, and elements that are absolutely and truely dire…

Script wise, theres very little here honestly, to the point that the first half of the film is almost entirely silent for dialogue barring occasional overdubbed lines. we spend extended sequences watching the boys and their followers frolic around on beaches, we take extended tours of the LA strip, of the lad lounging about smoking or reading…its so incredibly padded that realistically if you just took the plot beats of the first half out and stitched them together, I think you’d struggle to hit 10 minutes. And while time has made this movie a veritable time capsule of mid 60s LA…that wasnt really the intention of the production.

when they arnt doing extended walking or lounging seqeuences, its ‘nudie cutie’ or ‘roughie’ fodder, either girls frolicking around in bikinis topless, or Carl administering spankings or making love (offscreen) to women in various states of undress. I realise that thats the main reason most folks showed up to see this film. but you’ve got to imagine when your films only an hour and eight minutes long and the first half an hour is 2 heavily censored sex scenes, 3 extended walking and driving scenes (intercut with some nudity) and about 7 minutes of ACTUAL plot sandwhiched in there, it does make for a bit of a dull viewing experience.

That being said, I think once Carls ‘kidnapping’ idea enters the story around the halfway point, things really do pick up and the film actually begins to build up a decent pace, ending about as solidly as this film could have ended. but whether you have the stamina to make it through the opening half for a kind of mid, but rewarding second half is really down to user preference.

Tonally, the films seedy, grubby and frankly quite grim in places, but then, the films called ‘The Defilers’ and in the first 10 minutes one of the characters says something to the effect of ‘Women only have one role in life, to pleasure men, and if they dont want to, you can just take it.’…Its a film that features the excessive abuse and rape of women, who are seen (at least in part) to enjoy it. And at times, even in 2025, it genuinely comes across as upsetting. And while they do try to balance things out a bit in the finale…I do think this is a film you’ll either need a very particular headspace, or a VERY particular fetish to enjoy.

The characters are a bit thin on the ground detail wise. Our boys get solid back stories with families, history and a decent arc running across the runtime. But the ladies of this movie? They basically get nothing…they exist to be molested, and apart from maybe the flimsiest of throwaway lines to explain how they came into the world of Carl and Jaimerson, they dont really have lives beyond their entry and exist point of the movie. Something that I feel is both indicative of its time in history, but also I feel why this film is so troubling, Friendmans writing style here doesnt really indicate he has a fondness for women, andd while he definitely makes a point of showing that our main characters are DEFINITELY evil in their actions, he doesnt really give the female characters any kind of depth or growth to show he cares what really happens to them. Its very much a film where the guys are shown to be immoral, and the girls are there to be chased in their underware.

The direction here is pretty nice, borrowing from the growing ‘new wave’ scene of the time, this movies all for fast cuts, handheld work and experimental camera and lighting work. With Carl’s basement scenes in particular being a definite highlight as we go for a more frenzied camera work combined with chiascuro lighting that helps emphasise the dank dinginess of the whole thing.

The cine too is razor, though I feel here that the experimentation occasionally comes to the detriment of the production, its clear they wanted to play fast and loose on filming the scenes, but that sometimes badly impacts composition or scene structuring, things like ‘the line’ feel like optional extras for this production. Which in some ways I feel accidentally improves the films tone and vibe given its plotting…But on the other hand does make it at times feel a bit unpolished.

Performance wise its pretty much a two person race here, with Byron Mabe as Carl bringing a wonderful level of psycopathy to the role, flitting between blind and silent aggression and a soft spoken calmness as he tries to force these women to do what he wants. He’s genuinely terrifying at times in this and is absolutely a reason to check this film out, if for nothing else. Mai Jansson plays the boys kidnapp-ee Jane Collins, and again, she absolutely aces playing a vulnerable and terrified individual captive to these men and their diabolical plans. I thought she came across as very naturalistic, particularly for mid 60s cinema, and she really sold the character to me, giving a good emotional range and bringing a solid physicality to the performance.

The rest of the cast dont really have the same level of naturalism unfortunatley, witha lot of the performers sinking into a ‘hey Daddi-o’ style hip beatnick schtick that does overstay its welcome by the end, a victim of its time almost certainly…But one that I couldnt really forgive.

If you like ‘Roughie’ pictures, ‘The Defilers’ almost certainly will scratch an itch for you. For me? I wasnt quite so impressed, While I enjoyed this one more than some of Friedmans other works, those good moments are just far too few and far between for me to really solidly enjoy this one, or recommend it really. a good example of the genre. I feel like I will revisit this one again at some point. But its a flawed and unpleasent work thats probably going to have to be watched next time under a haze of booze at 2am.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-defilers/

Trying to broaden my horizons, I landed on ‘Angels with Dirty Faces’ and what I was led to believe was going to be something of a gangster turn redemption movie…and it is *KIND* of like that…but not in the way I envisioned it.

The film follows Rocky Sullivan, and in the opening of the film him and his friend Jerry are nogoodnicks looking for good times and easy living, when they jump a boxcar heading to Florida, looking to escape the winter cold and enjoy some swimming, they end up being found by the cops and they decide to make a break for it, Jerry gets away, but Rocky isnt so lucky. While awaiting trial, Jerry suggests he should come forward and tell the cops he was involved as well, but Rocky advises him to keep quiet, because Jerry putting himself in the mess wont make either of their stints in Juvie any easier.

Jerry agrees and the two young mens lives divert tremendously, Rocky goes to jail, and spends the next 10 years or so offending and reoffending, building a small empire. with his last heist earning him 100 grand he has stored with his lawyer.

Jerry meanwhile gave up the low level life of crime and joined the clergy, eventually becoming the priest of his community.

When Rocky ends his latest stint he returns to his home town looking to reconnect, and get his money back. Jerry welcomes him with open arms, and brings him up to date about his saintly ways, especially with his work with the kids of the community. Rocky cant quite believe it, but hangs out with Jerry for a while to get a feel of whats changed in the area…However; it doesnt take long for Rocky to get back up to his old ways, and when a small gang of kids run into Rocky, hanging out and causing trouble in his old stomping ground, He decides to recruit the kids as part of a new racket. leading to confrontations with Jerry over Rocky bringing hard core crime to a community that has enough problems of its own.

I’ll be honest; going into this film I had preset expectations, which is THE worst thing a critic can have when going into a movie. *I* was under the impression that the core plot of this was going to be some kind of gangster thriller, in which Rocky returns to his community, meets Jerry, and while trying to look good in front of Jerry, he’d be secretly grooming the kids in Jerrys care to do bigger scale heists than their usual fruit stealing gigs. With Rocky having a question of morality as to whether this is the life he’d want to go to, and him and Jerry having to stop the kids when they get too big for Rocky to handle alone.

That isnt what this film is, what this film is is about 10 minutes of solid opening set up establishing Rocky, Jerry and the evolving neighbourhood, and then about 45 minutes of exposition between Rocky and his lawyer, Jerry and some other bad guys who want to do a heist with him. The kids Rocky works with get maybe 20 minutes of the movie, and dont really do much. If memory serves they pull of one heist for Rocky, get paid handsomely and then they kind of dissapear barring for comic relief. and it isnt really until 15 minutes off the end that the more actioney-Gangstery type stuff I was expecting the whole movie to be finally came into it, at which point it was so rushed and heavy handed I couldnt really enjoy it.

The pacing is fine enough here, but around the middle it bloats as we end up in extended moralistic conversations, and while the dialogue is really decent and quite naturalistic for the time, I struggled with the fast paced nature of it all and ultimately had to swap to subtitles to really figure out exactly what was happening.

The tones nice enough, its a gritty crime film, with some lighter moments, theres a gentle sprinkle of comedy through the runtime, which I felt added a nice contrast to things really…But again, because I was expecting something a bit more shooty bang bang and less criminals discussing finances, I did find myself drumming my fingers at times…

The characters are all solid, though the kids are a little too ‘theater’ for me, that isnt surprisng however, as ‘The Deadend Kids’ were all theater performers and this was their first feature outing. Rocky and Jerrys relationship is handled well, and I like the fact we do get a bit more depth to the characters via flashbacks and remenising as that helps bed in that these people had lives and a bit more complexity than say, had the film just opened with Rocky getting out of jail.

The direction and cine is solid enough, especially for the time, i’d go as far as to say its exemplary. with some interesting use of cross fading and some fantastic chiascuro work giving this a nice noir-esq finish. sequences are well put together. But, as i’ve found with a lot of these older movies, I feel like the picture could have been 10 minutes shorter, and more about showing rather than telling, and it could have been significantly better…However, I accept that this films a bit of a victim of its time.

The performances are solid, with James cagney as Rocky basically stealing the show in a highly memorable and rock solid physical performance, his closing moments at the end of the film were genuine to the point of haunting, and thats probably going to be the most memorable aspect of this for me truthfully.

I can understand why some would consider this a classic, and I can see this is clearly a very well made production, but having seen it now, I dont feel like this was really my kind of rodeo. It definitely had its moments, and I have no regrets checking it out. But I think it may be better recieved in a future rewatch now that I know what its about, especially when im in the right headspace, than it was when I watched it today.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/angels-with-dirty-faces/

‘Clifford’, in essence, is a parody of the ‘troublemaker kid’ movie genre that had a bit of a resurgence in the early half of the 90s. A period of time that gave us ‘Home Alone 1+2’, ‘Dennis the Menace’, ‘Blank Cheque’, ‘Getting Even with my Dad’, and ‘The Sandlot Kids’…These were movies that featured actual children, wisecracking, getting one over on the adults, pulling pranks, setting traps and being frankly incorageable.

The big twist with ‘Clifford’ and the thing that really acts as its main draw, is instead of a child actor playing the neredowell kid role, it’s Martin Short playing a precocious to the point of satanic evil darling, the titular ‘Clifford’.

Clifford is manipulative, gaslighty, phoney, psychotic, meniacle, capable of complex scheming and planning and deeply malevolent…and thats just the nice things…and the film opens in the far future of 2050, with an older Clifford explaining to a wayward child how he was a troublemaker when he was a lad.

The plots pretty straightforward, Cliffords on a business trip with his parents, but he REALLY wants to go to Dinosaur World, a dino theme park in California. But his parents business trip is in Honolulu. So…Clifford causes a major incident during the flight (he turns off the planes engines) to force an emergency landing in California so that he can go to Dinosaur world. But the end result is Clifford being banned from airtravel for the forseeable. and his parents potentially missing out on thousands of dollars in conference speaking fees.

That is until Cliffords father plays a last hope, roll of the dice and calls his brother Martin. The pair havent really spoken to each other in years, Martins an architectual designer in an long term relationship/engagement with his partner, the lovely Miss Sarah. But theres a bit of trouble brewing, as Sarah is a teacher and desperately wants children…and Martins obsessed with his work and isnt really interested in kids. When Sarah pushes the issue, Martin tries to fein enthusiasm for having kids, when his brother calls him to ask if he’d mind looking after Clifford for a couple of weeks till they get back from their business trip.

Martin jumps at the chance, thinking it’ll take the heat off of him from Sarah AND potentially allay any fears that he isnt interested in kids. But things go rum pretty quickly, when Martin tells Clifford he helped design some of the rides at Dinosaur World, and that he’ll take clifford as soon as possible…something Clifford clings to with a vice like grip…When Martin gets an emergency project dropped on him at work, he has to cancel the trip with Clifford, and…well, all hell breaks loose, as Clifford quite literally tries to tear Martins world apart over a broken promise…

I largely checked this film out tonight after seeing the ‘look at me like a human boy’ scene on Tiktok not too long ago, and…im gonna be honest, I think your milage may vary depending on how into comedy thats purposfully trying to test your patience you are really.

Me? I love comedy thats trying to see how far it can mess with its audience, and as a parody of those kinds of precocious kid comedy movies. I think this absolutely nails the brief. taking a usually pretty kooky adventure and ramping it up into a truely demented and at times sincerely bleak place.

The pacings pretty solid, I gut laughed at least a few times over the full run of the film…Is it the funniest thing ever? no…I wouldnt go that far, but when it hits it scratches a very specific itch for me. Tonally, its a tongue in cheek farce comedy that does have a couple of moments of pathos buried in it. The films intentionally trying to be insincere to the audience, but as soon as you as the audience recognise that, a whole other level of comedy opens up.

The characters are all pretty well written I thought, and theres some genuinely nice character pieces in here mixed in with the absurd comedy moments. Martin Shorts performance will likely split the room between folks who think its some great physical work, in the same vein as Norman Wisdom and the likes…and those who would gladly run their eyes through a rotary cheesegrater than experience one more minute of gurning. But I felt he landed on the right side of things for me, and really captured that wonderfully hideous charactism.

This is a studio pic, and as such the direction and cine are all above board, I think its probably quite underplayed, but the visual direction of this film is actually pretty superb, it reminded me a little bit of ‘Pee Wees Big Adventure’ in places, and the experimentation, particularly in the 3rd act was a really nice touch. Compositions are decent, theres a clear creative vision on hand, and while it didnt exactly blow me away, I will say my expectations were exceeded here.

The triptic of Short, Charles Grodin and Mary Steenburgen is a superb mixture, with Grodin slowly losing his mind over Short, but having to keep the illusion up to a tentative Steenburgen that Him and Short are great friends…its a fun dynamic that maybe wears a little thing in the middle, but then picks back up before the end.

I think the only thing I didnt really like about ‘Clifford’ other than some minor pacing issues and a couple of hideous transphobic gags, is just that the ending doesnt entirely feel earned. I think had it had maybe another 5 minutes or so just to give the film something a bit more sturdy to end on, it could have taken it to a whole other level, as it stands it feels rushed, and given everything Martins character went through across the film, I dont feel like how they ended the story lined up with what an actual reality for this situation would be…

Nevertheless…I had fun with Clifford, and I think, if I caught this again in the right headspace, I’d probably like it even more…Definitely an acquired taste of a movie…But theres a lot to like about it…and then there’s Clifford.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/clifford/

I basically just watched this one because i’d seen pretty much all of Scott Hillmans other films, and figured catching this one would more or less tie off his live action filmography…I didnt enjoy this one.

Its a paper thin plot in which a woman hooks up with another woman at a 90% stock footage night club, only to find out the next day that she is infact an infamous dutch hacker and leader of ‘The Bikini Hackers’ a group of ‘ethical’ hackers who try to undo the evils of the corporate world, and their gimmick is they do so in bikinis. The hackers ask our leading lady if she’d like to join the team, and the rest of the film is the gang slowly trying to infiltrate an evil corporation and steal a large sum of money from them. Oh! and the girls spend most of the film wandering around an office space in Bikinis, or having pool parties…

This one wasnt for me really…I found the characters grating, theres a heavy handed use of ‘Lolrandum’ style babyish speaking and humour that just fell absolutely flat for me. Theres a romance subplot that only really turns up at the very beginning and very end of the film, the pacings all over the place, it feels glacial to be stuck with these characters for as long as we are.

The plot itself just isnt long enough to sustain 67 minutes, it feels like a 30 minute short at most…as shown by the fact we have an overeliance on stock footage, TONS of moments where we see a text chat conversation between two people who are largely just idling and talking about pop culture stuff.

I know from interviews that Scotts said the attempt here was to try and revive or modernise the ‘bikini’ movie of the 60s, but theres not nearly enough genuine whimsy here or story/action to give it that vibrant campness that those films thrived under.

In short; it feels like a 60 minute runaround movie, thats dragged WELL beyond its natural running point, and it feels painful to have to spend as much time as we do with the characters. the pacings all over the place, the tone isnt quite right and when it does try to go deep, it fails for me.

Direction and cine wise, its basic, theres a huge overreliance on stock footage to help flesh out the film, which does give it a glossy quality, but at the same time, really makes the ACTUAL footage shot for the movie feel drab and uninteresting. This is supposed to be a colourful and vibrant bikini movie, but the colour grade is desaturated and dull for the most part, making the bikini pool parties look like they’re being held in the middle of a thunderstorm.

Composition is middle of the road, If I remember rightly this whole film was shot in 3 days, which is absolutely insane. and while I appreciate the grind. I’d have still rather it been shot in a week and them actually nail the script and visuals and make something closer to Scotts other films (Blue belt and the Magic Christmas Tree spring to mind) As it stands…It just about does the job, but when im sitting there picking apart how much of this film was ACTUALLY shot by the crew for the purpose of this film and how much is digital effects and stock bought from 3rd party sites, thats not a good sign.

Performance wise? Im gonna swerve on that because, I have nothing redeeming to say. Make of that what you will.

and finishing off the sludge, we have a soundtrack 90% comprised of royalty free tracks.

In my opinion, this may be Scotts worst film. I didnt like ‘Baby Cat’, but at least the jokes kind of landed and there was an attempt at sincere heart…This feels like a test shoot that just got expanded out to feature length to try and squeeze some cash out of people. Not one i’d recommend, its not so bad its fun, its so bad that I forced myself to sit through the final 20 minutes just to say I had watched the whole thing.

Also; as an aside, this is the 3rd film where the director appears either nude, or in some state of undress in this movie…if it happens again in any future films, im docking that movie a star immediately.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/bikini-hackers/