Invaders from Proxima B, on Fandango at Home

"Chuck" is a lot like Alf, but he can also body-switch. He is a gruff little troublemaker, but a Hollywood musician and his family decide to help anyway in director-screenwriter-lead actor Ward Roberts’ Invaders from Proxima B, which premieres today on Fandango at Home.

Fleeing his not very-Roddenberry-esque alien planet in a stolen flying saucer, Chuck crash-lands in Howie Jankins’ backyard. Of course, his wife Jane did not see anything, but he is sure there is something out there, so the next morning he calls Nathan Droogal, the world’s most annoying fire-and-brimstone exterminator. While Droogal hunts demonic vermin, Chuck reveals himself to Jankins, claiming to be on a mission to save planet Earth. Reluctantly, Jankins agrees to let Chuck temporarily switch bodies with him. Maybe he was a bit gullible, but coming face-to-face with a furry space puppet is bound to be convincing.

Nevertheless, things get a bit sticky when Wily and Marvin Felson start poking around. The father and son agents of a secret alien-liaison organization have been ordered to facilitate Chuck’s extradition. They also hope to get a kickback for their efforts. As the chaos mounts, Jankins accidentally uses Chuck’s body-switching powers on his wife, creating a real mess.

Viewers might initially fear Roberts’ extreme DIY aesthetic will lead to deliberately cheesy low-brow humor. However, Proxima is surprisingly inventive. Most of the special effects involve a puppet who looks like Oscar the Grouch’s cousin. Yet, it also boasts some reasonably slick-looking animated segments depicting Chuck’s flashbacks.

Fantaspoa ’24: Harakiri Squad

They are like the Dirty Dozen, except there are only four of them. Perhaps you would compare them to Snake Plissken instead. Of course, filmtwitter hacks would only know the Suicide Squad (whom the title deliberately echoes), as a point of reference. Pocketfish’s team is just a bunch of thieves, whom the Shogun regularly dispatches on suicide missions, because they are expendable (so to speak). However, when they need someone to steal a lock of hair from a demon, it makes sense to send some thieves in Ryosuke Kanesaki’s Harakiri Squad, which screens again today at Fantaspoa in Porto Alegre.

Pocketfish is a pickpocket. Dr. Poison is a questionable sawbones. Suicide Squid is the getaway expert and, when need be, their torturer. Supposedly, Geishafish is an expert in disguise, but the ambiguous genderbender always makes a point of standing out. Mizuno Heima is not part of the Squad, but he teams up with them to fight the demon, who is secretly leading his sister’s religious cult.

It turns out the demon is planning to consume all the souls in the capital, using amulets spread by the cult. Not surprisingly, Pocketfish and his gang are really out of their depth. However, their survival rate is better than that of Fox Team, the Shogun’s varsity squad.

Sarnet’s The Invisible Fight

Today the Axis of Authoritarians clearly includes Xi and Putin, but in the early 1970s, the Soviet Union and China had rather standoffish relations. (Actually, defector Anatoliy Golitsyn claimed that was just an act, but he was “controversial.”) Either way, the clueless Rafael’s outpost on the Soviet-Chinese border was a real hardship post, especially when a trio of Chinese Kung Fu bandits attack. He will be the sole survivor, because “God has other plans for him.” Those plans are weird and chaotic in Rainer Sarnet’s Kung Fu-Russian Orthodox mash-up The Invisible Fight, which opens tomorrow in New York.

Except for the anachronistic crosses, the trio that attacks Rafael’s base look like they could have walked out of a Shaw Brothers movie—and they fight like it too. The opening over-the-top martial arts sequence sets the tone for the rest of the film. They kill everyone, except Rafael, whom they deliberately spare, even leaving a pair of nunchaku behind for him. As a result, he dives into Kung Fu when he returns home, often to sounds of his favorite death metal.

Somehow, Rafael is drawn to a sort of Shaolin-style Russian Orthodox monastery, where he is taken in as a novice (despite his obvious idiocy) when his prayers elicit tears of honey from the sacred Virgin Mary icon. The order’s spiritual leader, Nafanail, sees something in the moron that is lost on the other Brothers, especially his presumed protégé, Irinei, who has the day-to-day responsibility of training Rafael. With this set-up, Sarnet unleashes one crazy encounter after another, enlisting demon temptresses and arrogant KGB agents as potential foes.

Frankly, Invisible Fight can be a little exhausting. The nearly two-hour running time is a bit much for a wild and larky movie like this. However, it truly sports some of the most inventive and comedic fight choreography since Stephen Chow’s early 2000’s peak.

As the wacky mayhem in Invisible Fight escalates, its depiction of the Orthodox Brothers becomes increasingly “unorthodox,” almost to a disrespectful extent. (Of course, given the current Church’s collusion with Putin and the past allegations of high-level KGB collaboration, reputedly including Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow, many Westerner viewers might not be inclined to object too strenuously.) Yet, eventually, the film delivers a surprisingly heartfelt expression of faith. If only the real-life Patriarch were as humble and true as these gravity-defying monks.

Molli and Max in the Future

In the future, you might have your own personal spaceship or a mecha robot suit, but there are still plenty of annoying people around to bother you. At least this irritating duo self-selects their own company, which should make them easier to avoid. They are supposed to be a futuristic “Harry and Sally,” but they should get together to prevent innocent people getting stuck with them. The future sure is verbose in director-screenwriter Michael Lukk Litwak’s Molli and Max in the Future, opening Friday in theaters.

Molli and Max sort of have a meet-cute in an asteroid belt. Technically, he crashed his ship and had no insurance, but they still start hanging out. Right from the start, he maybe sort of feels something for her, but they decide to friend zone each other, before she joins a space cult.

The next time they meet, it is kind of awkward, because she is involved with her creepy space deity and he has become a famous mecha robot gladiator. Of course, neither is happy with their choices and both realize it thanks to their reunion.

If any of that sounds funny, it is because you didn’t have to listen to them explaining it. That is what they do: talk and talk and talk. In addition to their personal lives, they also discuss the genocide of the fish people. Even though Max looks human, he is part fish person, so it understandably disturbs him when Turboschmuck, a candidate for Galactic Emperor, advocates another round of mass murder.

Presumably, Turboschmuck was intended to satirize Trump, but jokes about genocide (ha ha, geocide, super funny) land quite differently after the 10/7 terrorist attack. Trump is a disaster, but at least he is not chanting genocidal slogans like “from the river to the sea.” Anti-Semitic hatred and violence has exploded post-10/7, which really casts a pall over these tongue-in-cheek bits.

Beyond that, it is hard to tell whether Litwak was deliberate going for a campy ultra-DIY-Ed Wood look, or if Molli and Max was simply cobbled together on the cheap. It is a problem that viewers have to guess. Regardless, all the mumblecore chatter gets to be like fingernails across a blackboard.

The Blackening

Movies based on comedy sketches have a pretty spotty track-record. Remember films like It’s Pat and Night at the Roxbury? The trend continues. The misses out-number the hits in this slasher satire, but the shortage of kills really undermines the genre cred of Tim Story’s The Blackening, which opens tomorrow in theaters.

There is a cabin in the woods and there is an evil game, like Uncanny Annie, Game of Death, Ouija, Beyond the Gates, or whatever. The twist is this sinister board game has a blatantly racist theme. If you do not play you die. If you do play, you probably still die, but at least you play for some time. It did not work out so well in the prologue for Morgan and Shawn, the organizers of this weekend reunion for their old college friends. At first, they were psyched to see their Airbnb had a game room, but then the “Blackening” game sealed their fate.

Of course, they are nowhere to be found when the rest of the guests show up. Nevertheless, they all pick right back up where they left off, playing the same drinking games and busting the same chops. However, they are surprised to learn the strait-laced Clifton was also invited. They never really liked him, so when the game calls for a scapegoat, he is the one they chose.

It is not like they really wanted to play. Unfortunately, the unseen host has remote control over all the doors and windows. The Jigsaw-like figure is also holding one of their friends, so they really do not have much choice. Yet, for horror (ostensibly), the ultimate survival rate is bizarrely high.

Frankly, The Blackening is not nearly as clever as it thinks it is. It wants the respect of The Menu or Us, but it is written at a level that is barely a step above the Scary Movie franchise. By far, the film’s best elements are the character of Clifton and Jermaine Fowler’s portrayal of the unexpected guest, both of which are so sharp, they largely subvert screenwriters Tracy Oliver and Dewayne Perkins’ exhaustingly didactic messaging.

Quentin Dupieux’s Smoking Causes Coughing

Grown adults who wear spandex richly deserve to be mocked. Unfortunately, satire has been choked unconscious by woke social justice warriors, just as the superhero genre peaked. Hollywood no longer has defiantly rude satirists like Mel Brooks. The closest we can get is the post-modern bizarro wackiness of Quentin Dupieux, from France. Whenever a rubber-suited monster attacks, the Tobacco Force is there to stop them in Dupieux’s Smoking Causes Coughing, which releases this Friday in theaters and on-demand.

Usually, the fab five can rely on their marital arts skills to defeat the human-sized kaiju they fight. However, when all else fails, they can call on the carcinogenic compounds for which they are named, to give their foes an immediately fatal dose of cancer. Benzene is the oldest, so he considers himself the group’s leader. Mercury is a family man, whereas Menthanol is a luckless loser with the ladies. Ammonia is the baby of the team, whereas Nicotine carries a torch for their boss, Chief Didier, even though he is a human-sized rat, with greenish slime oozing from his mouth.

After their last rocky encounter. Chief Didier orders them off on a team-building retreat. As they pass the time, they tell a series of campfire stories that are meant to be scary, but are really just indescribably bizarre and random, very much like Dupieux’s films. Unfortunately, while the Tobacco Force cool their heels, their intergalactic nemesis, Lezardin, is planning Earth’s final destruction.

In this case, a comparison to Brooks is quite apt, because sometimes Dupieux’s gags are riotously funny and sometimes they fall excruciatingly flat, but he keeps blasting them at the audience with a scattergun, regardless.

The Unknown Man of Shandigor, Starring Serge Gainsbourg

Life is cheap when you are a spy, especially when you are in a spy-spoof. You could die at any moment for your country, but there is a good chance viewers might laugh when it happens. There is a pretty high body-count in this spoof, but at least one of the fallen agents gets a requiem serenade from none other than Serge Gainsbourg. The mayhem is goofy but unusually stylish in Jean-Louis Roy’s Euro-spy send-up The Unknown Man of Shandigor, which releases tomorrow on BluRay.

Everyone is interested in the “Canceler” formula developed by the mad scientist Herbert von Krantz that holds the power of neutering nuclear war heads. Just about every spy in the business is out to get it, including the Serge Gainsbourg ‘s aptly named “Baldies” from France. There are also the Americans, led by the Eddie Constantine-like Bobby Van and the Soviets, commanded by Shostakovich. Frankly, it is a little unfair to make him the composer’s namesake, considering the real-life Shostakovich had a very complicated and sometimes uncomfortable relationship with the Communist Party.

The formula is safely tucked away somewhere inside Von Krantz’s weird split-level suburban McMansion, but only he and his albino assistant Yvan know where. Not even his neglected daughter Sylvaine is privy to his secret, but it is somehow related to their last happy family vacation to Shandigor. Understandably, she still carries a torch for the dashing Manuel, whom she met there—but can she trust him when they eventually reunite?

Shandigor is a lot like Godard’s Alphaville, but the story is easier to follow, the comedy is broader, and sets and backdrops are even more stylized. Roy shrewdly used the ultra-modernist buildings of Geneva’s NGO district and Barcelona’s Gaudi buildings to create a trippy environment for his espionage frolics. Frankly, the story is more than a little ridiculous and it is riddled with le Carre-esque moral equivalence for each network of spies. However, Shostakovich is arguably the most sinister of the bad lot.

Spy Intervention

Casual fans might not remember when James Bond got married, because it happened during the brief but glorious Lazenby era. Needless to say, it didn’t last. Maybe it will work out better for Corey Gage, but probably not. His relatively new marriage will get particularly rocky when his old agency tries to pull him back into cloak and dagger work—for his own good. The rusty super-agent tries to simultaneously save the world and his marriage in Drew Mylrea’s Spy Intervention, which opens somewhere tomorrow.

Intervention opens with a jokey faux anthropological prologue, in which natural history dioramas illustrates Sinbad-esque difference-of-the-sexes gags, like something out of early 1960s rom-coms. Like most of the jokes here, these bits really don’t land. At least we get a little forward momentum when Gage meet-cutes Pam Grayson during a mission that goes down sideways. She is the reason why.

Suddenly, Gage is willing to chuck away all the globetrotting and settle down with the mall-store makeup sales associate, even though that leaves his final mission unfinished. Of course, Smuts, his best friend at the agency (think more like U.N.C.L.E. or CONTROL from Get Smart rather than the workaday CIA) insists he return temporarily, to complete the job. Naturally, he will be partnered with a bombshell. It’s to save the world, but they also argue it will force him to remember what he’s really good at.

The humor of Intervention is always quite broad and mostly rather dumb. However, Mylrea and screenwriters Mark Famiglietti and Lane Garrison suddenly start scoring laughs with the manic farce of Grayson’s climatic dinner party. It’s probably not worth sticking around for, but there is some kind of payoff at the end of the tunnel.

Enter the Fat Dragon: Opening in NY but Not China

If Sammo Hung can do it for real, Donnie Yen can certainly pull off similar moves wearing some extra padding. When a hot-shot Hong Kong cop gets reassigned to the property room, he loses his trim physique, but he still has the same skills. The 1978 Hung fan favorite gets a re-whatevering in the portly shape of Wong Jing & Kenji Tanigaki’s Enter the Fat Dragon, which opens this Friday in New York—but not in China, where its theatrical release was canceled due to Xi Jinping’s super-proactive handling of the Coronavirus outbreak.

Initially, Fallon Zhu is the hardest charging cop on the HK force, but when he publicly embarrasses his superiors, he is transferred from police work to evidence warehousing. He is also dumped by his on-again-off-again fiancée, Chloe, a semi-famous second tier TV actress. Sitting around depressed in the property cage day after day leads to a lot of snacking. Despite the weight gain, he is happy to get back into action when he is tapped to escort a prisoner extradited (there’s a sensitive word in Hong Kong) back to Japan.

Of course, his dodgy Tokyo PD contact quickly loses the prisoner, but Zhu gets the blame, so he and his Chinese-Japanese interpreter go careening through Tokyo in search of the fugitive (frankly it often doesn’t look much like Tokyo, but so be it). He will also have the help of his former junior-now senior’s goofy expatriate chestnut-hawking pal Thor. Plus, as fate would have it, Chloe is also in Tokyo to make promotional appearances at the behest of the Yakuza front-man pulling all the strings.

The humor of Fat Dragon is definitely goofy and slapstick, but as his own action director (with choreographers Hua Yan and Tanigaki), Yen composes some gloriously loopy fight sequences that could very well equal those of vintage Jackie Chan movies. There is some incredible athleticism and acrobatics on display, much of which Yen performs wearing Santa Clause padding.

AHITH ’18: Amazon Hot Box

Call us traditionalists, but we don’t see the point in making a jungle women’s prison movie without Sybill Danning, even if it is a spoof. In this case, we are assuming the film in question is intended to be a send-up, but it is hard to tell from the tonal mish-mash. In any event, there is plenty of adult subject matter in James Anthony Bickert’s Amazon Hot Box (trailer here), which screens during the 2018 Another Hole in the Head Film Festival, in San Francisco.

Poor American college student Penny came to fake-sounding Rattica as part of a conservation project, but she was scooped up during the government’s latest crack-down, along with Jade, as revolutionary sex-worker and Ebony, a revolutionary revolutionary (obviously a reference to Ebony, Ivory & Jade). She will be tormented by the Isla-inspired warden, Inga Von Krupp (with her short of stature sidekick) and the sadistic lesbian gang leader Val. As it happens, Penny is not the only one trapped there. Country singer Jett Bryant, playing a fictionalized drug-running meta-version of himself, has been appointed president, but is still very much a captive of the revolutionary government (from the previous revolution).

Man, where’s Roger Corman and Sid Haig when we need them? Maybe someone could make an amusing mash-up of their old Philippines-shot women-in-prison movies, but AHB is way too unfocused and scattershot. There are zombies in here and references to voodoo that really aren’t appropriate, considering Vodun is a real religion.

The biggest problem is AHB never feels like it was made by someone who loves the genre. In contrast, Adam Brooks & Matthew Kennedy’s The Editor (produced by Astron-6, who are not exactly known as guardians of good taste) is a spot-on satire of Italian giallo movies that actually becomes a not half-example of what it is skewering.

Nevertheless, Bryant has some nice moments with Tristan Risk (who also co-starred in The Editor), vamping it up something fierce as Val. Their late scenes together make us wish this film had been totally re-conceived to better feature them.

So, this exists—and it is not very good. AHB is just way too gory, in decidedly not funny ways, to cut it as a comedy. On the other hand, the film does not respect its secret agent and zombie elements enough for it to be a serviceable action or horror movie. However, cult movie fans will probably excuse away its shortcomings, because it wears its influences on its sleeve. Not recommended, Amazon Hot Box screens tomorrow (12/3), as part of this year’s AHITH.

Living Among Us: Interviews with Vampires

Vampires are finally getting more media savvy. They will invite a TV news crew into the home of a respected member of their underground community, so they can explain vampirism is really just a medical condition. Or maybe they will simply kill them, because nobody will miss a few media jerks. Either way, Benny the intern will be filming way more than he bargained for in Brian A. Metcalf’s found footage horror-comedy Living Among Us (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

Mike, a local market prima donna broke the story revealing the network of blood banks supplying plasma to vampires, so the bloodsuckers’ sect leader naturally reached out to him for a proposed up-close-and-personal piece on life as a modern-day vampire. The blood banks’ secret distribution scheme was actually a good thing because it means they no longer need to kill to feed. The traditional vampire lore are just myths and misconceptions Andrew and his wife Elleanor insist. However, they insist on some suspicious ground rules before they allow Mike, his segment producer Carrie, and Benny, the station manager’s idiot brother-in-law to stay in their home. Of course, we’re talking about staples, like crucifixes, holy water, and wooden stakes.

As you would expect, the vampires immediately act suspicious, especially Blake, a swaggering Lestat wannabe and Selvin, a deeply warped former dungeon “dweller.” Fortunately, the nebbish Benny has a compulsive need to document everything, so he will capture some freaky business—thereby supplying viewers with our movie.

Metcalf maintains a healthy energy level and his screenplay is reasonably amusing. Still, it is hard for LAU or any subsequent vampire comedy not to suffer in comparison with Taika Waititi & Jermaine Clement’s What We Do in the Shadows, especially when LAU uses a documentary-news crew conceit. On the other hand, Metcalf recruited the character actor power trio of William Sadler, John Heard, and James Russo, as the vampire sect leader, Andrew the vampire host, and the gruff station manager, respectively. All three give any film instant credibility.

Indeed, you have to give Metcalf credit—he skewers the media quite effectively, while cranking up a sense that things are about to go very, very bad. Andrew Keegan and Chad Todhunter chew the scenery nicely as wildcards Blake and Selvin. Plus, Esmé Bianco, arguably the biggest genre star from Game of Thrones and The Magicians is suitably regal and fierce as Elleanor.

There are plenty of prior found footage mock-doc horror movies, but LAU is cleverer than most. At times, its limited budget results in some cheesy looking TV newscast sequences, but that’s forgivable. Recommended for horror-comedy fans, Living Among Us opens tomorrow (2/2) in New York, at the Cinema Village.

Bucky and the Squirrels

Alvin and the Chipmunks have posted three #1 hits, placed fourteen songs on the charts, and won six Grammys, so far. In contrast, Bucky and the Squirrels were one-hit wonders. To be fair, the flesh-and-blood Appleton, Wisconsin garage band that made good never had a chance to follow-up “Do the Squirrel,” because their tour plane was lost over the Alps—until now. The fictional cult favorites will be thawed out like Austin Powers in Allan Katz’s Bucky and the Squirrels (trailer here), which opens this Friday in Los Angeles.

Maybe you had to be there to appreciate the Squirrels, much like the rest of 1960s. They had one hit and it sounded a lot like any number of tunes from that era. Nevertheless, they had their fans, so there is intense media interest when the Squirrels are discovered frozen in time. To prevent shock, the Squirrels will be defrosted in an Appleton clinic, where Dr. Adams, the staff psychologist will ease them into 21^st Century life.

So, if the Mike Meyers comedies were too intense for you, The Squirrels might be just your speed. Katz (a veteran sitcom writer and producer, who served long stints on shows like MASH, Rhoda, and Laugh-In) seems to be going more for happy sighs than belly laughs, but he understands how to mine the nostalgia of his material. He also scores several big names cameos. Some are pretty painful, including appearances by Mike Farrell and Jason Alexander, but Richard Lewis is pretty hilarious.

As experienced improv performers, Josh Duvendeck, Kyle S. More, Matt Cook, and Matt Shively dive into the goofiness of the revived Squirrels’ new infantile period. Katz himself also scratches out a fair number of laughs as their old manager, Mort Fishbeck. However, the real surprise is the strong and appealing presence of Jill Lover as the dedicated Dr. Adams.

If you know your Monkees TV and Beatles movies inside-and-out than maybe The Squirrels will speak to your soul. For the rest of us, it is a nice little spoof that is pleasant to spend time with. It is also encouraging to see a cat like Katz still has a few tricks up his sleeve. Recommended for baby-boomers who will relate, Bucky and the Squirrels opens this Friday (2/2) in LA, at the Laemmle Town Center 5, Monica Film Center, and Playhouse 7—and it is currently playing in Appleton at the Hollywood and Valley Grand Cinemas.

Sundance ’18: Damsel

Ever since John Ford’s genre-defining The Searchers was released, nearly every subsequent western has had to deal with its legacy. That is even true of spoofs like this one. In the case of this goofball oater, the only Native character is just as big of an idiot as the pasty white characters. Nevertheless, echoes of The Searchers can be heard and seen throughout the Zellner Brothers’ Damsel, which screened at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Samuel Alabaster is a bit squirrely, but he seems like an earnest young chap, so sad sack Parson Henry agrees to make the trek to marry him and his beloved Penelope. However, while en route, Alabaster (he’s a white guy, in case you were unsure) informs the nebbish man of the cloth, he has actually joined a rescue mission. Dear Penelope has been kidnapped by the dastardly Anton. Yet, poor Henry agrees to soldier on, because he is moved by Alabaster’s ardor. However, things really get complicated when they arrive at the cabin.

Basically, the Zellners give an ironic O. Henry twist to the Old West premise and then devise ways to repeat the gag, over and over. Mia Wasikowska (well-represented at Sundance) is a formidable western heroine, but to get into specifics would be spoilery. Robert Pattinson is so unselfconsciously loopy as Alabaster, you have to give him credit for taking chances with his image. However, the Zellners’ MVP might just be Brother David, who is surprisingly humane and even rather affecting as Parson Henry.

As movie mash-ups go, Damsel is unusually moody. In fact, it rather dilly-dallies through the first act. Yet, that means the poignant pay-off does not so radically clash with the rest of the film. In many ways, we can see a kinship with the Zellners’ masterful Kumiko the Treasure Hunter (which also features a terrific supporting turn from David Zellner). It also directly addresses loneliness and the need for connection, but the outrageous gags give Damsel a partially split personality.

The Zellners clearly use the film’s Utah locations to evoke memories of The Searchers and other Ford westerns. They crank up the Utahness further by featuring Landon Weeks, a quite remarkable pianist from Ogden, as a saloon piano player, which is cool. It is an inconsistent film, but it proves movie spoofs need not be a brainless and soulless stretch of gags. Frankly, Kumiko was so great, it was wise of them to follow-up with something completely different. Recommended for viewers in the mood for some idiosyncratic humor that takes a few risks, Damsel is sure to get picked up by someone after it screened at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.

Codename: Diablo! (short): Make Up Your Own Double Entendre

If you identify with the long-gone grindhouse tradition, you probably have a soft spot for the films of Russ Meyer. If were a horny teenager during the 1980s and early 1990s VHS era, the name Andy Sidaris might mean something to you. Both exploitation auteurs shared a certain aesthetic that has been exaggerated to the extreme in Aaron Barsky’s spoofy short half-hour film Codename: Diablo! (trailer here), which releases today on VOD.

This is your basic girls-with-guns neo-exploitation film, but even more so. There is surely no mistaking the commonalities linking Kitty Steele, Barbie Blonde, and Monique Powers. They are a trio of lethal O.M.E.G.A. agents tasked with retrieving the stolen Diablo death-ray gun from the latex-wearing, ultra-lubricated agents of S.C.U.B.A., under the command of Contessa Del’Oro. Of course, her highly trained henchmen are no match for the O.M.E.G.A. operatives’ distractions.

If you want realism, then go watch a Sybil Danning movie. Frankly, the basic premise of Codename is so obviously ridiculous, Barsky is forced to animate the centerpiece action sequence. However, it is doubtful anyone is really going to watch this film for the fight choreography.

By far, Lilly 4K makes the most convincing super-agent as Kitty Steele. It is impossible to buy into Martina Big and Mary Madison Love as butt-kicking Le Femme Nikitas, but nobody is going to care. This probably won’t get veteran second-unit guy Barsky a shot at a Marvel franchise, but he keeps it moving along briskly, while maximizing the ogle shots.

It is just impressive that a film this frat house-ish can still be produced in our neo-puritanical day and age. You could say it is a one-joke film, but if that gag works once for you, it never diminishes with repetition. Recommended for cult movie fans who get the underlying nostalgia, Codename Diablo! is expected to launch today on DVD, with a VOD release scheduled for December 11^th.

Abertoir ’17: Top Knot Detective

Sheimasu Tentai was no Zenigata Heiji, that’s for sure. Supposedly, the ronin detective was a champion of deductive reasoning, but it is hard to prove it from the cheesy clips drawn from his short-lived early 1990s Japanese TV Show. Apparently, it was subsequently suppressed, for murky, conspiratorial reasons, but enough bootleg VHS tapes were circulated in Australia to earn it a small but loyal cosplaying following. The short rise and long fall of Ronin Suirei Tentai is chronicled in Aaron McCann & Dominic Pearce’s mockumentary, Top Knot Detective (trailer here), which screens at this year’s Abertoir: The International Horror Festival of Wales.

When the powerful Sutaffu Corporation decided to get into the television production business, they were unable to sign their first choice of talent, so they settled for Takashi Takamoto. His primary merit was the Ronin Suirei Tentai treatment he already had ready to go. It was clumsy and campy, but it still became a minor hit anyway, because the early nineties were apparently not a golden age of Japanese television.

Ronin Suirei really started to comparatively take off when former j-pop idol Mia Matsumoto joined the show as Tentai’s rival and love interest, Saku. Inevitably, Takamoto’s arrogance and hedonism started to sabotage the show. Yet, it was his scandalous relationship with Matsumoto that really hastened its demise. However, Takamoto and Tentai would mount at least one highly unlikely comeback bid.

Although Takamoto was the showrunner, producer, and star of RST, his absence from Top Knot, aside from some faux archival interviews, is suspiciously conspicuous. Indeed, McCann and Pearce slyly and subtly reveal his post-show fate, implying some pretty sinister machinations went on behind the scenes. In many ways, Top Knot directly compares with the sardonic Director’s Commentary: Terror of Frankenstein, but it is not as shy when it comes to revealing its scandalous secrets.

Too many cult cinema spoofs think they can get away with building some cheap retro-looking sequences around a goofy premise and call it a day (looking at you, VelociPastor). However, McCann and Pearce create a richly detailed backstory for both the fictional show and its ill-fated cast-members. As Takamoto/Tentai, Toshi Okuzaki truly thrives on ridiculous situations and humiliating circumstances. Believe it or not, Mayu Iwasaki is weirdly poignant as Matsumoto/Saku, the sensitive starlet done wrong by the media and Sutaffu. However, Masa Yamaguchi ultimately steals the picture with his droll attitude and finely turned pivots as Haruto Kioke and Kurosaki Itto, Takamoto’s nemesis in real life and on the RST show.

You can’t fillet low-budget jidaigeki TV shows with such razor-sharp precision if you don’t love the genre to begin with. McCann & Pearce earn a lot of laughs because they really understand what they are spoofing. Yet, they constantly unwrap more surprises throughout the course of the film. Highly recommended for cult cinema fans, Top Knot Detective closes the 2017 Abertoir this Sunday night (11/19), in Wales.

Stuff MX ’17: Samurai Rauni

Rauni Reposaarelainen is sort of like Popeye, if Popeye were a mean Finnish drunk. The hard-drinking head of a provincial Finnish samurai clan bullies just about anyone who crosses his path. He has more enemies than teeth, yet he is still surprised when someone hires a band of ninjas to assassinate him. The Bushido way sort of gets a Scandinavian send-up in Mika Rättö’s Samurai Rauni (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 Stuff MX Film Festival.

Reposaarelainen is caught flat-footed by the ninjas’ attack, but he is still too strong and ill-tempered for them to handle. Learning the hit was contracted by the mysterious “Shame Tear,” Reposaarelainen starts visiting all his old enemies, which consist of pretty much everyone he ever knew, who he hasn’t killed yet. However, his investigation will ultimately hit distressingly close to home.

There are several samurai spoofs currently making the festival rounds, but the one really worth waiting for is the mockumentary Top Knot Detective (review coming in two hours). In contrast, Rauni is more about skewering the small town Finnish booboisie, with little apparent affection. Frankly, there is not a lot of hack-and-slash action in Rauni, either played straight or for slapstick laughs. Instead, lead actor-director Rättö revels in Reposaarelainen’s dissolute behavior.

Still, you have to give Rättö credit for looking the part. He is a fierce, wild-eyed, knuckle-dragging presence as Reposaarelainen. Yet, we definitely start to root for the outclassed ninjas rather than cheering for his anti-social antics.

Rauni was adapted from a hipster theater group’s stage production—and its avant-garde roots often show. Despite some stylishly rendered scenes in the third act, it just doesn’t connect emotionally. Nor will it hit international viewers on a mirthful gut-level. Not recommended, Samurai Rauni screens this Saturday (11/18) during Stuff MX, but patrons should check out the inventive Laplace’s Demon instead.

PDXFF ’17: The VelociPastor

For a while, shape-shifting paranormal romances were a hot-selling publishing category. They’ve cooled off lately, but Brendan Steere and his co-conspirators are determined to bring them back. Instead of werewolves or selkies, Doug Jones has a velociraptor alter-ego. That’s Doug Jones the character, not the actor—and a priest to boot. Do not expect subtlety or shame from Steere’s The VelociPastor (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 Portland Film Festival.

VelociPastor is based on a gag grindhouse trailer, so that should give you an idea of what’s in store. After his parents are killed by a car bomb, Father Jones experiences a crisis of faith. To reconnect with God and nature, he tours rural China, which looks a lot like Clark County, Ohio, by the banks of the Mad River. While there, a peasant girl chased by ninjas passes on a mystical dragon tooth to him, which duly instills its juju in him, after it cuts his palm. Whammo, hello VelociPastor.

Initially, Father Jones tries to keep the monster inside him at bay, but when his parents’ killer unknowingly boasts of their murder in the confessional, all bets are off. He also starts falling for Carol, a hooker with a heart of gold, who will be his kung fu kicking partner in vigilantism and eventually breaking his vows. Frankly, as Carol, Alyssa Kempinski has more poise and presence than this movie has a right to expect. To his credit, Gregory James Cohan endures no end of slapstick humiliations like a good sport, but some of the supporting players are awkward even by low budget grindhouse spoof standards.

If VelociPastor had an ounce of seriousness or professionalism, we would call out its shameless hostility towards the Catholic Church (which among other things is eventually revealed to be masterminding a nasty cocaine smuggling ring). However, it just isn’t worth the effort for a film like this. So, it’s offensive. What did you expect?

A little faux grindhouse goes a long way. Even at seventy-one minutes, VelociPastor is really dragging the joke out. Still, it has the twin virtues of being nuttier than Machete and less brutal than Hobo with a Shotgun, if that helps you place it. So here it is. You’re on your own when VelociPastor premieres tonight (11/2) at this year’s Portland Film Festival.

NYAFF ’17: Vampire Cleanup Department

Summer is one of those hopping Chinese vampires, but she can be taught to walk. The question is, can she be taught be human again? Tim Cheung is convinced she can, but that puts him in a rather awkward spot as a trainee in Hong Kong’s super-secret vampire-hunting agency. At least he has a natural immunity to vampires, but they can still kill him the conventional way in Yan Pak-wing & Chiu Sin-hang’s don’t-take-it-too-seriously Vampire Cleanup Department (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 New York Asian Film Festival.

Instead of a smart-dressing Men in Black-style outfit, the Vampire Cleanup Department (VCD) is a top-secret subsidiary of the sanitation department. Members push brooms by day and wear orange vests while on the job. Of course, that means nobody questions their presence, even at the goriest crime scenes—nobody except the dedicated police detective (a cameo appearance from NYAFF honoree Eric Tsang), who gets an earful from Cheung when he tells the copper his story, in media res.

Cheung happened to stumble upon the VCD, including his hard-nosed Uncle Chau, in the middle of a case, even getting a bite in the buttocks from their prey. Given his immunity, the rest of the squad prevails upon Chu to let him join. After all, it is a family tradition. In addition to Chau, Cheung’s late parents actually died while in service with the VCD. However, one of his first duties is the incineration of vampires immobilized by old Master Ginger’s paper amulets. Yet, the sight of what look like tears running down Summer’s face spurs him to save her undead life. Yes, she is cute, why do you ask? Keeping her safe will require a lot of farcical scampering around, since he is housed in a shack adjacent to VCD headquarters, but he is convinced she is one of the rare “human type” vampires. There is also a decidedly more sinister and powerful vampire afoot, but the film doesn’t show much interest in him until the climax.

VCD is cute and affectionately knowing in its references to old school HK vampire comedies. Most significantly, Chau is played by Chin Siu-ho of the Mr. Vampire franchise. However, the film has the attention span of a ten-year-old who skipped their Ritalin in favor of a Red Bull. Aside from the admittedly appealing romance the blossoms between Summer and Cheung, the narrative skips around seemingly at random.

Still, there are plenty of goofy gags that veteran cast-members Richard Ng and Yuen Cheung-yan milk for all their worth. Yet, quite surprisingly, it is the paranormal romance that works best, thanks in large to Lin Min-chen, who is quite a find as Summer. You certainly can’t accuse Babyjohn Choi of being afraid of a little physical comedy, but his put-upon Cheung gets a bit tiresome over time.

VCD wears both its heart and its goofiness on its sleeve. For those who grew up with hopping HK vampire movies, it is probably a nostalgic blast, but it is otherwise a rather fluffy bit of sweetness for general genre viewers, which make it exponentially more fun than the mummified Tom Cruise. Recommended for fans of real horror movie spoofs that don’t have the words “scary” and “movie” in the title, Vampire Cleanup Department screens this Saturday (7/15), at the SVA Theatre, as part of this year’s NYAFF.

DWF ’17: Espionage Tonight

Reality television has become so toxic, the idea of weaponizing it sort of makes sense. However, the CIA has more of an exercise in soft power in mind. The plan is to show how transparent we are at being covert and dirty. Thomas Devlin, “the Swamp Fox,” is just the likable wet works operative to win back the trust of the American people in Rob Gordon Bralver’s broad satire, Espionage Tonight (clip here), which had its world premiere at the 2017 Dances with Films.

Obviously, the Swamp Fox will have to retire into witness protection with a new identity after the first season, but that is just fine with him. He is not crazy about the new focus-grouped “Swamp Fox” nick-name, but whatever. He will work reasonably well with Sebastian Young, the field producer and cameraman. He also still trusts his long-time handler, Sydney Greenstreet (let’s dearly hope they know they are making a reference). However, showrunner Sam Jacobson and network marketing liaison Elizabeth Geary are a different matter.

The show is on regardless, both for Devlin and Amanda Artemova, the Russian actress who will be playing French journalist Isabelle Fremaux, deliberately chosen for her resemblance to the pretty Russian woman executed for helping Swampy during his last mission. Like Devlin, she will also be improving. Supposedly, everyone else is who they are presented to be, but we know better. In any event, Mainland China is making a power play, proposing a transcontinental bullet train through Colombia to compete with the Panama Canal (of course, they would have to first permanently rout those pesky Communist terrorists first, but it would still be bad from a sphere of influence perspective).

Granted, spoofs are not typically what you would call narrative-driven, but the way ET careens from plot point to plot point, you would think it was scripted during a Mad Libs party. It would be a real challenge reverse engineering an outline from this movie. At least, there was some colorful casting at the front end.

Frankly, Joe Hursley is pretty good as the sad-eyed but still pretty crazy Devlin. He and Greg Davis Jr. also wisely refrain from over-playing the subject-cameraman buddy bromance. Lynn Whitfield has the right gravitas for Greenstreet, while Alexie Gilmore is drolly catty as Geary. Unfortunately, Saïd Taghamaoui and Chasty Ballesteros are grossly under-employed as the arms-dealing kingpin Iskandar Yasin and his lover Fei Song, but they certainly are a photogenic couple.

There are some amusing gags in ET, but the constant cynicism gets to be a drag. Even John le Carré finds more inherent honor in the western intelligence services than Bralver’s screenplay allows. The truth is, the more you like spy films, the less likely you are to enjoy this one. Mostly a misfire, Espionage Tonight premiered at the 2017 Dances With Films, which concludes tonight in Hollywood, CA.

New Adventures of Aladdin (its French)

Considering it was Antoine Galland who first added the story of Aladdin to the Arabian Nights, the French have as much right as anyone to give him the mash-up treatment. In this case, it probably helps to get the jokes if you understand the anachronistic French idioms. Too bad its dubbed. Be that as it may, Arthur Benzaqueen’s The New Adventures of Aladdin (trailer here) releases today on VOD.

Sam told his out-of-his-league girlfriend Sofia he works in finance, but he is really a homeless bum doing temp work as a department store Santa. He can’t come to Christmas dinner with Sofia’s disapproving family, because he stuck telling stories to the urchins. For some reason, he decides to go with Aladdin, who looks very much like Sam, albeit with radically different wardrobe.

Through various misadventures, Aladdin will acquire a certain lamp housing a less than gracious genie. Wishes will be granted to help the thief win over the beautiful Princess Shallia, but the evil Vizier manipulating her easily distracted father behind the throne will not give up power without a fight.

Benzaqueen and screenwriter Daive Cohen go for humor based on the ironic juxtaposition of modern attitudes with storybook tropes—sort of like Shrek and Shelley Duval’s Fairy Tale Theater, but with somewhat more ribald and scatological seasoning. It is hard not to get the broad comedy, but the obvious dubbing job makes it all sound unfortunately cheesy. Frankly, anime is probably the only genre who can get away with dubbing, because there is a large pool of specialists who really understand the franchises and conventions.

As Aladdin and Sam, Kev Adams can clearly take a pratfall, but that doesn’t mean he always should. Similarly, Jean-Paul Rouve seems to be playing to the back row of a Nineteenth Century vaudeville hall as the Vizier. Vanessa Guide certainly looks the part of the princess and more less manages to carry herself with dignity. Of course, Eric Judor is almost required by law to get shticky as the genie, but at least he makes the case for democracy and low taxation. Too bad the citizens of Baghdad are not listening.

On the plus side, the special effects are considerable better than necessary for a film like this. The flying carpets look surprisingly credible and the tomb-raiding sequences are kind of cool. Basically, this is dumb but harmless film. You might consider it if you are looking for a spoof film with an intelligence level somewhere in between the happily tasteless Zucker, Abrams, and Zucker originals and the utterly moronic Friedberg-Seltzer “Blank Movie” braincell-killers, now that The New Adventures of Aladdin is available on VOD platforms, including iTunes.