WRESTLEMANIAC -- Movie Review by Porfle

(NOTE: This review originally appeared online in 2006 at Bumscorner.com.)

Movies in which a cast of young people gets whittled down "Ten-Little-Indians" style by an unstoppable killer are a dime a dozen these days, and the only things which distinguish any of them from the pack are a good story, competent (at least) execution, and a unique antagonist.  WRESTLEMANIAC (2006) gives us a passably good story which is very well executed by writer-director Jesse Baget and a talented cast. 

As for the antagonist--he's a psychotic Mexican wrestler named El Mascarado who was created by evil scientists (using the bodies of three other Mexican wrestlers) and then abandoned in an isolated ghost town after he went uncontrollably, kill-crazy nuts.  Okay, that's pretty unique.

Adam Huss plays Alphonse, a brash, cocky dude with a pimp goatee and a cowboy hat who's hauling three girls and a couple of other guys down to Mexico in a van to shoot a porn video.  Jeremy Radin is Steve, his pudgy cameraman, and Zack Bennett plays Jimbo, a typical stoner-type who's there mainly because it's his van.  The girls include a couple of blondes--the vivacious Debbie (Margaret Scarborough) and the wasted Daisy (Catherine Wreford)--and a sultry brunette babe named Dallas, played by WWE Raw Diva Leyla Milani (recently seen in THE BOYS AND GIRLS GUIDE TO GETTING DOWN), who should be receiving my marriage proposal in the mail any day now.

On the way to wherever it is they're going, they stop at a gas station that looks like it hasn't seen a drop of gas since 1957 and meet a weird old geezer (familiar character actor Irwin Keyes) who warns them not to stop in the haunted ghost town called La Sangre De Dios.  Whatever you do, he stresses repeatedly, do not stop in the haunted ghost town of La Sangre De Dios.  So what do they do?  They make a beeline for La Sangre De Dios.  Why?  Because, as Alphonse confidently informs everyone, a haunted ghost town would make the perfect location for a porn video.

No sooner do they get there, however, than strange things start happening and members of their group begin to disappear.  They do, of course, find time to start work on their video, which gives us a chance to see a scantily-clad Dallas and Debbie making out on the bar of the saloon.  For those of you who are keeping score at home, Debbie gets topless.  Unfortunately, so does Alphonse.  Daisy, meanwhile, wanders off somewhere to throw up and is never seen again.  Jimbo goes looking for her, and is never seen again.  As darkness begins to fall on the spooky old town, it gradually dawns on the others that something may be amiss.

When the hulking, terrifying Mexican wrestler El Mascarado appears and starts coming after them, they realize that something is definitely amiss.  This is when the fun really starts.  Director Jesse Baget does a good job of keeping the old stalk-and-kill formula interesting, with lots of action and some genuinely suspenseful sequences.  There's also a generous amount of gore, mainly because El Mascarado studiously observes the number one rule of Mexican wrestling: when you defeat an opponent, you rip his mask off.  Our protagonists, of course, don't wear masks, so El Mascarado simply rips their faces off instead.   Yowch!  That's gotta hurt!

I'm not into wrestling myself, but I like to see this sort of horror flick done well, and in this case it's done very well.  If you're into both wrestling and horror, you should really get a kick out of this, especially since El Mascarado is played by none other than Mexican wrestling superstar Rey Misterioso.  He makes a pretty intimidating monster, and when the overweight, out-of-shape Steve squares off with him to try and rip his mask off (which, theoretically, will force him to "retire" and leave them alone), you just know it ain't gonna turn out good.  Forget about the ol' Lone Ranger--Jim Croce should've been a lot more worried about this guy.

Did I mention that every time Dallas or Debbie run away from the killer, the camera zooms in for a closeup of their rear ends?  I didn't notice this myself, of course (ahem) but I believe it's mentioned in the commentary track by Baget, Huss, and director of photography Tabbert Fiiller.  This is just one of the spoofy elements that let you know WRESTLEMANIAC isn't meant to be taken seriously--but, with that in mind, it's still a full-blooded, action-packed horror movie that throws most of the current stalker flicks right out of the ring.

WRESTLEMANIAC -- Movie Review by Porfle

BORDER RUN -- Blu-Ray Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 2/22/13

 

Sharon Stone as a conservative, "fair and balanced" TV reporter who's against illegal immigration?  Well, I just knew that sounded too un-Hollywood to be true, and sure enough, before BORDER RUN (2012) is over, her character has an epiphany that revs her overacting dial up to eleven and beyond.

Sharon plays "hard-nosed right-wing journalist" Sophie Talbert, who, with a black fright wig emphasizing her pale skin, hardly looks like someone who lives right on the Arizona-Mexico border.  Like Jane Fonda's initially conservative TV newswoman in THE CHINA SYNDROME, she's on the wrong side of the issue at hand (by Tinseltown standards, that is) until shown the error of her ways--in this case, when her own relief-worker brother Aaron (Billy Zane) disappears in Mexico and she must enter the world of the illegal immigrant herself in order to find him. 

After Sophie arrives in Mexico, Aaron's co-worker Rafael (Rosemberg Salgado) offers to take her in his pickup to a meeting with someone named Javier who may be able to help her.  On the way there, they form an instant romantic bond that has them stopping off at a roadside bar to get drunk and dance while precious minutes in the missing Aaron's life tick away.  This odd passage indicates how awkward some of the tone shifts and scene transitions will be for the rest of the film.

Before we know it, Sophie and Rafael get separated and she meets up with Javier (Miguel Rodarte), joining a group of migrants whom he's smuggling across the border.  Naturally, Sophie's rigid attitude toward the whole thing begins to change when she discovers that some of the migrants are nice people with heartwarming personal stories (imagine that!), and that the process tends to be both dangerous and uncomfortable. 

Just how dangerous becomes clear when the tanker truck they're stashed inside gets diverted to a remote farmhouse well short of the border, where Sophie meets the film's main villain, Juanita (Giovanna Zacarías), a real piece of work who could easily be the poster girl for PMS.  We've already seen this mega-bitch-on-wheels repeatedly beating up the bound Aaron, who's also being held there, and now we get to see her kicking a pregnant woman in the stomach while one of her fat, sweaty henchmen has his way with the bound Sophie. 

This decidedly unpleasant rape scene gives Sharon Stone yet another chance to do some full-tilt emoting and it will be far from her last.  I won't go into everything that occurs next but after an escape, a chase, and the proverbial run for the border, Sophie ends up in a border station where her newly-found righteous indignation against U.S. immigration policy is given full vent.  Here, Sharon lets loose with a "big acting" moment by throwing a fit that is borderline (excuse the phrase) hilarious.

You might think that the film, having made its point, will fade out on Sophie's return to the USA to crusade against immigration reform, but this is when BORDER RUN pulls a plot twist on us that's worthy of a horror movie, with Sophie suddenly ending up in more grave peril than ever.  With this added sequence, the film finally lurches all the way into "so bad it's good" territory and makes me wish I'd been watching it as a wacky exploitation flick instead of a misguided message pic all along.

As mentioned before, Sharon Stone's performance here is wonderfully bad, especially since director Gabriela Tagliavini seems intent on photographing her as unflatteringly as possible from start to finish.  Billy Zane, who plays Aaron, demonstrates once again that if a project doesn't make him feel like turning on the old "Billy Zane" magic, he's Stiff City.  And as the monstrous Juanita, Giovanna Zacarías almost makes Al Pacino look like a study in subtlety.

The Blu-Ray disc from Anchor Bay is in 2.35:1 widescreen with Dolby 5.1 sound and subtitles in English and Spanish.  No extras.

BORDER RUN is ridiculously melodramatic where it means to be hard-hitting, and goes for big emotional moments that it hasn't really earned.  A weird combination of social relevance and pure exploitation, it fails as a "good" movie but succeeds, to some extent anyway, as a perversely entertaining train wreck. 

BORDER RUN -- Blu-Ray Review by Porfle

KITES -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 2/18/11

 

High-octane chick flick?  Or sensitive love story for guys?  Whatever you call it, the Indian film KITES (2009) is a dazzling achievement that starts out looking all flashy and superficial and ends up steeped in genuine operatic romance.  And shoot-outs.  And car chases.

When a bunch of Mexican farm workers descend on a freight train with pitchforks to unload bales of hay, an unconscious man rolls out with a bullet in his back.  As an elderly peasant removes it, flashbacks reveal the man as J (Hrithik Roshan), a pretty-boy con man from India who gives dance lessons in Vegas and marries illegal immigrant women seeking green cards on the side.  When one of his students, Gina (Kangana Ranaut), falls for him, he's uninterested until he discovers she's the daughter of immensely-wealthy casino kingpin Bob (Kabir Bedi). 

Gina's gangster brother Tony (Nicholas Brown) is getting married, and wouldn't you know it--his intended, Mexican beauty Linda (Bárbara Mori), is one of J's former green-card brides, and the only one he ever felt anything for.  When J sees how Tony abuses her, he takes action.  The result is that J and Linda are now on the run from Vegas' most powerful crime family, with every cop and bounty hunter in the state on their tail along with Tony and his henchmen.



It's been awhile since I finished watching KITES, and I still haven't come in for a landing.  This shimmering cornucopia of movie magic overflows with so much good stuff during its two-hour running time that it's almost like one of those lucid dreams you don't want to wake up from.  Brilliantly directed (by Anurag Basu), sumptuously photographed, and exhilaratingly cinematic, it's almost a throwback to the silent days with extended passages of compelling images that involve the viewer on a non-verbal level.

The dialogue, when not purely functional, is used mainly for both romantic and comedic effect as various language barriers (English, Spanish, Hindi) prove awkward.  Rajesh Roshan's poignant original score is a major element throughout, as are several spirited song montages.  Unlike a lot of other films, frequent lapses into slow-motion work because we're seeing everything from J's point of view and he's pretty much in a constant dream state.
 

The early scenes are lighter in tone, with J and Gina's electrifying performance in a breakdancing exhibition providing a lively interlude, and some of J and Linda's adventures on the road are fun.  But danger and desperation begin to darken the story as the fleeing lovers encounter peril at every turn, and this is when KITES turns into one of the most thrilling action flicks of recent years. 

There are at least three major car chases, one of which is jam-packed with incredible crash stunts that will leave you breathless.  The film doesn't skimp on bullets either, nor is there a lack of genuine dramatic tension when things really start to go wrong for our protagonists.  Along the way, we get to see J's character transform from superficial street hustler to a man willing to die (as well as kill bad guys) for love, which endows him with blind courage and a fiendish resourcefulness during the action scenes.

My estimation of Hrithik Roshan as an actor grew as I watched his character develop.  It may not be apparent at first, but beyond his male-model looks he's very good.  (He also, incidentally, has two thumbs on his right hand.)  As Linda, Bárbara Mori is more than just radiantly beautiful--she gives a thoroughly captivating performance that's at times deeply affecting, whether trading playful romantic barbs with J or facing death at the edge of a cliff.  All of the supporting players are fine as well, notably Nicholas Brown as the homicidally hostile Tony.


The two-disc DVD from Image Entertainment is in 2.35:1 with Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound.  There are no extras--not even chapter selections.  Disc one is the original 123-minute Bollywood version in all its glory, while disc two contains Brett Ratner's 92-minute "Cliff Notes" version.
 
Ratner's remix strips the original of all its more contemplative passages and musical montages, including the early dance sequence and other important scenes in their entirety.  Graeme Revell's less effective new score replaces the intensely romantic one by Rajesh Roshan, including the love theme (which, admittedly, is a rip-off of Enya's theme for Aragorn and Arwen from the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy), robbing the film of much of its heart.
 
Already a fast-paced film, the remix is downright ADD-friendly--trimmed and "time-compressed" the way syndicated TV episodes are carved up to make room for more commercials--and nowhere near the exquisite collaboration between images and music as the original version.  In his attempt to reshape the film into something more appealing to short attention spans (while adding a few more titillating shots here and there), Ratner rushes so impatiently through the story that even the deeply moving ending is seriously blunted.

Even if unabashed romanticism makes you uncomfortable, you might as well just give in to KITES and allow it to do its thing for a couple of hours.  Either you won't like it--and I imagine a lot of people won't--or it will be one of the most thoroughly intoxicating movie experiences you've ever had.  My advice is to let it sweep you up in its emotional and sensory embrace, and--heaven forbid--maybe even get a little misty-eyed at the end.  This movie earns it.

KITES -- DVD Review by Porfle

TIME TO DIE -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 11/23/17

 

Sometimes I'm in the mood for a simple, matter-of-fact story told in a deliberate style that allows the viewer to contemplate what's happening rather than just passively observing flashes of action and drama. 

If, like TIME TO DIE, aka Tiempo de morir (1966, Film Movement Classics), this story happens to be a vintage Mexican western in exquisite black-and-white, then all the better.

There's a lot to contemplate in the story of Juan Sayago (Jorge Martínez de Hoyos, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, THE PROFESSIONALS), who, after serving 18 years in prison for killing a man, is released and walks all the way through the lonely desert to return to his hometown where the dead man's two sons, now grown, wait patiently for their revenge. 

Juan doesn't want trouble, but only to rebuild his life just as he tries to reassemble the shambles of a home left when his mother died years ago.  But the hatred of proud, hot-tempered young Pedro Trueba (Enrique Rocha) is too strong, and his insistent provocations to violence unavoidable even as the man's younger brother Julian (Alfredo Leal), the less volatile of the two, has a conflicting sense of what he sees as a potentially honorable man.

The story seems almost reverse-inspired by HIGH NOON--this time it's the protagonist coming into town while his killers await him there, and the townspeople, rather than staying out of it, do everything they can to come between the opposing forces to avoid bloodshed. 

This is especially true of Juan's former love Maria (top-billed Marga López), now a rich, respected widow, and Julian's girlfriend Sonia (Blanca Sánchez), who fears the needless death or imprisonment of her future husband--strong women but unable, in their time, to affect the course of men doing men's business with harsh fate as their final arbiter.

There's also HIGH NOON's brand of crisp black-and-white photography and quiet, deliberate pacing as well as a preoccupation with time and timepieces.  In addition to brief snatches of its minimalist score, the film's soundtrack consists mainly of stark practical sound effects often backed by the constant rush of hot desert winds. 

A long moment in which Maria quietly dreads the inevitable future is accentuated by the loud ticking of a clock.  When the vengeful Pedro dons his father's old clothes and paces within his empty study, the dead man's spurs echo hollowly on the wooden floor as Pedro follows in his ghostly footsteps.

In 1962's THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, Jorge Martínez de Hoyos played a humble farmer seeking the aid of expert gunmen to help protect his village from marauders.  Here, he himself is such a gunman, but a tired, much older one who now wants only peace and a chance at redemption. 

It's a restrained, subtle performance that reflects Juan's wasted years behind bars and his weary regret for once killing a man while now facing the prospect of engaging his two sons in pointless conflict.

The main tragedy is that in this revenge western there are no bad guys and no clear-cut morality--only a relatively good man who was once forced to kill, and two brash young men honor-bound to avenge what they perceive to be the cowardly murder of their father. 

Director Arturo Ripstein, who began his career as Luis Buñuel's assistant director in 1962 and would become one of Mexico's leading filmmakers, handles his first feature film with a restrained confidence and an artistic eye.  He favors long, unhurried takes with fluid handheld camerawork (a rarity in those days before Steadicam) that tells the story unobtrusively and economically. 

Part of the novelty of this Mexican western comes from the setting, taking place not in the rough border town of Sergio Leone's A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, but in a picturesque village with narrow cobblestone streets and whitewashed buildings of adobe and brick.  There's an almost turn-of-the-century modernity and sense of progress which the more civic-minded inhabitants are striving to keep untainted by the kind of violence threatened by Juan's return. 

The physical and emotional release of gunplay is held back from us until the very end, where neither we nor the surviving character(s) derive much satisfaction from it save for a curdled sense of relief.  In TIME TO DIE, the only real victor is Death itself.


BONUS FEATURES
Video Introduction by director Alex Cox (Repo Man)
Commentary by director Arturo Ripstein and actor Enrique Rocha
New essay by Carlos A. Gutiérrez, co-founder of Cinema Tropical
Booklet insert

PROGRAM INFORMATION
Type:  Blu-ray/DVD
Running Time: 89 mins. + extras
Rating:  N/A
Genre:  Western
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audio:  Stereo
Language: Spanish with English Subtitles

Buy it at Film Movement Classics

WATCH THE TRAILER

TIME TO DIE -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

The "Badges" Scene From "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948) (video)

Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, and Tim Holt are gold prospectors...

...fending off the unwelcome advances of Mexican bandits.

The bandit leader is Gold Hat, played by Alfonso Bedoya.

His exchange with Bogart leads to a very famous line.


I neither own nor claim any rights to this material.  Just having some fun with it.  Thanks for watching!

The "Badges" Scene From "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948) (video)

Lon Chaney Werewolf Transformation: "La Casa Del Terror" (Mexican, 1959) (video)

In this Mexican chiller, Lon Chaney plays a mummy...

...who, after being revived, turns into a werewolf!


I neither own nor claim any rights to this material.  Just having some fun with it.  Thanks for watching!

Lon Chaney Werewolf Transformation: "La Casa Del Terror" (Mexican, 1959) (video)