Machete Maidens Unleashed!

Documentarian Mark Hartley has made a name for himself chronicling cinematic histories that nobody else seems to want to touch. With his first film, Not Quite Hollywood, he explored the creative energy and weird anything goes vibe of the Australian exploitation movie scene. Along with countless trashy ones, some genuinely good films came out of that genre, such as George Miller's classic Mad Max, and Richard Franklin's demented horror film Patrick (which Hartley is now set to remake).

Now comes Hartley's second film, Machete Maidens Unleashed!, about the cinematic revolution in The Philippines through the 60's, 70's, and 80's, spurred on by schlock producer Roger Corman. Like the Ozsploitation scene, this is a lesser known piece of cinematic history that still deserves to be told.

The Philippines offered many resources for Corman to exploit: extremely cheap non-union labor, real life jungle sets, and stunt men willing to do anything for a buck. Corman made his movies there one after another, cheap and fast, utilizing many of the same actors and directors. He explored and exploited many genres there, including many Women in Prison films, some blaxploitation, martial arts, and horror. Most of these movies were, of course, terrible, but some of them do have their moments. Actors Pam Grier and Sid Haig cut their teeth making movies in The Philippines, and The Silence of the Lambs director Jonathan Demme got his start writing them. The fact that the movies were so trashy allowed him to sneak in some subversive political subtext in places where nobody would look.

Hartley's documentary is told in a series of interviews, with, among others, Corman himself, Grier and Haig, his trailer cutters Alan Arkush and Joe Dante, and director John Landis. The interviews are intercut with scenes from the movies themselves. There are a lot of interesting stories told. A particularly funny one is Arkush and Dante's story about the exploding helicopter, and how it found its way into many of the trailers they cut.

The history of Americans shooting their films in The Philippines ultimately culminates in Francis Ford Coppola bringing his infamous production of Apocalypse Now to the country. Since there's already an entire movie about how that went down, they just spend a few minutes on it, but it's still some of the most interesting stuff in the movie.

After Apocalypse Now, The Philippines started exporting their own products. We're introduced to Weng Weng, a dwarf action star who starred in James Bond spoofs such as "For Your Height Only". He was their first homegrown success story in the international scene.

Machete Maidens Unleashed! is an extremely interesting, often outrageous story. I love this kind of thing, I find the oddballs working on the fringe of the mainstream so much more interesting. I hope Mark Hartley keeps on making these documentaries and exposing the world to the stories behind all these weird grindhouse gems. Next up, he's telling the story of Cannon Films, the Israeli production company that produced the hilariously bad disco musical The Apple (WATCH IT, EVERYONE!), Breakin', its sequel, Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo, and Masters of the Universe. Can't wait!

Machete Maidens Unleashed! and Not Quite Hollywood are available on Netflix Instant if you want to see them.

The Thing with Two Heads

I try to bring a good mix of reviews to this website. New releases, classics, foreign films, oddities. Once in a while, I'll watch a movie against my better judgment, out of pure curiosity. So, you tell me: if you saw this poster, you'd have to watch the movie, too, right? Yeah, I thought so.

As the logline suggests, The Thing with Two Heads is about a white bigot who's head is transplanted onto a soul brother's body. The bigot in question is Dr. Maxwell Kirshner, played by Ray Milland. He's a wheelchair bound transplant surgeon, the head of his own institute. He is no longer able to perform the transplants himself, but he supervises them. He doesn't allow black people on his staff. We know this because he somehow let one slip through the cracks. He tries to fire the dude, Fred Williams, but Fred gives a speech and has signed a contract, so he's allowed to stay for the remainder of his term.

At home Kirschner has a secret lab where he is developing the first ever head transplant. He's testing it on a gorilla (or possibly a man in a gorilla suit, I'm not sure). At one point, the two headed gorilla escapes. You'd think it would go on a rampage or something, but all the movie can really afford is to show it walking down the street calmly, and then knocking some things over in a grocery store. When they find the gorilla suit man, he's peacefully sitting in the supermarket, munching on two bananas.

Kirschner soon reveals that he is dying, and is planning on performing his head transplant on himself. You see, the transplant isn't two headed forever. After a month, the bond is made permanent, and the original head can be removed. They put out a call for death row inmates, offering a chance to buy them another month of life and the pride of knowing they donated themselves to science. They find their subject in Jack Moss ("Rosey" Grier), a man about to be given the chair for murder, but, as he says in his final words, he's innocent, and his girlfriend is just about to prove it, so he thinks he might donate himself to science after all. Oh, also, Jack Moss is black. You can tell this before you even see him because of the funky theme music that plays before he's introduced.

They perform the head transplant. It's actually a pretty well done sequence. For some reason, my favorite bit was when they were prepping Jack for the surgery by shaving his shoulder. Kirschner's severed head looked quite good for 40 years ago. It's mouth moved a little bit like it was still breathing, and it's eyes rolled open too. Oh, you know why? This movie is one of Rick Baker's first. Yes, the legendary creature designer is also the man in the two headed gorilla suit, according to the credits.

So the transplant is a success, and Kirschner, regaining consciousness first, is still unaware of his donor. He slowly regains control and narrates as he lifts up his hand, then his arm, and looks at it and goes, "is this some kind of a joke?" This is basically how Kirschner is through the whole movie. He's like your cranky old racist grandpa.

They are having some complications, I guess, because the surgeons summon Dr. Fred Williams to Kirschner's house to help them, with his anti-rejection expertise. When Jack comes to and finds another guy's head next to his own, he's not too happy. He manages to escape, holding Williams hostage, they jump into his car and go on the run.

What happens next is... well, it's... (sigh)... an endless police chase. First our heroes are on the run by car, then they shake the car and find their way onto a Motocross Rally, and take themselves a dirtbike. The chase lasts about half the running time of the movie. Yes, about 40 minutes. And they couldn't afford to do it on the street, so they do it in a field. A lot of police cars roll over. There's very little dialogue. It just keeps going.

Finally, after endless chasing, they make it to Jack's girlfriend's house, with only about 15 minutes of movie to go. Kirschner says more racist things. Jack tries to sleep with his girlfriend, saying "don't worry, baby, I'll just cover his head with a pillowcase!" Okay, that's a pretty funny line. What the movie comes down to is a battle for Jack's body as Kirschner begins to take control. Who can remove which head first???

The Thing with Two Brains actually has some funny moments. It isn't taking itself seriously, and the two leads actually commit to their parts. "Rosey" Grier is actually quite likeable as Jack, and I found myself rooting for him to clear his name and get this white asshole's head off his shoulder. Fred Williams was good, too. If it weren't for the looooooooong period in the middle where nothing of interest happens, this would be a somewhat enjoyable, goofy B-movie, with just a touch of social conscience.

The Mack

Michael Campus' The Mack is considered one of the high points of the Blaxploitation genre. I haven't seen much of the genre, but I've seen enough to know the low points. The Mack isn't as exploitative as most of the others, and layers thoughtful social commentary into the story.

The protagonist is Goldie, a drug pusher who is busted by a couple of racist cops in the first scene and sentenced to five years in prison. He bides his time and is ultimately released. You get a sense that Goldie is at a loss with what to do with himself now that he's out. He decides to stay out of the drug business and get into the pimp game. Despite reaping the benefits of being a pimp, Goldie still seems conflicted about some of the things he must do to be successful. It's a slippery slope, though, and he winds up having to do some pretty bad things, and deal with the consequences that result.

There are many obstacles in his way: the two corrupt, racist cops that arrested him in the first place; a rival pimp; a crime lord trying to recruit him despite his refusals; and his own brother, an activist who doesn't approve of Goldie's lifestyle at all.

A lot of the acting was pretty impressive. Max Julien was quite good as Goldie. He was properly badass, but he plays his morally ambiguous actions with a subtle air of conflictedness, sometimes only visible in his eyes. He obviously is troubled about his trade, and tries to compensate by handing out money to neighborhood kids and telling them to not be like him. Richard Pryor plays his sidekick, basically as Richard Pryor. I assume there was a lot of ad-libbing going on. Roger Mosley is good as Goldie's brother, too. He gets to play the moral counterbalance to Goldie, and hopefully he sets the example that most viewers would walk out with.

A lot of the pimps in the movie were played by actual pimps. I thought that was interesting. Before I knew that, I was observing that some of the acting seemed very naturalistic, and didn't seem like acting at all. I wondered if there were non-actors in the cast. Turns out they were pimps. I guess it adds to the authenticity of the movie, but I hope they were at least former pimps. The movie tries not to glorify what they do for a living, but I think it crosses the line more than once. Goldie goes to the Players' Ball and wins the best pimp award. I still can't believe the Players' Ball is a real thing. Also, the real pimps get a special thank you in the end credits, maybe a little more appreciative than men who sell women deserve.

The Mack was pretty influential, too. I recognized elements that were referenced in the spoofs I'm Gonna Git You, Sucka! and Black Dynamite. I also saw reference points that Quentin Tarantino has used, specifically in Jackie Brown, the scene where Sam Jackson puts Chris Tucker in the trunk.

The movie mostly plays it gritty and real, and there's a lot of really good dialogue. There is one scene that seems oddly out of place. In it, Goldie talks about how you have to control the women. We then see how he does it: apparently, he brainwashes them by talking hypnotically into a microphone at a planetarium light show. They go through the whole thing, where he says how they should carry themselves, and they repeat it verbatim, as though in a trance. Pretty ridiculous, right?

You know what The Mack actually reminded me of at times? The Graduate. Bear with me. Goldie has a similar sense of aimlessness as Benjamin Braddock after his release from prison; he makes mistakes and ruins the lives of people he cares about (much worse than sleeping with your girlfriend's mom and then running off with your girlfriend at her marriage to another guy, though), and it also ends with a similarly ambiguous note. They should have called it Black Graduate, or better yet, The Bladuate.

Black Dynamite

Spoofs are maybe the hardest subgenre of comedy to pull off. The Zucker brothers perfected it throughout the 80's with Airplane!, Top Secret!, Police Squad, and The Naked Gun. But at some point after that, the genre degraded into The Scary Movie series and even worse. They became a mindless string of fart jokes and obvious references to the previous year's blockbusters (usually with farts added). Then along came 2009's Black Dynamite, by Scott Sanders, a pitch perfect spoof of the Blaxploitation flicks from the early 70's.

Black Dynamite follows the mold set by the Zuckers with Airplane by having the actors play the movie completely seriously and letting the gags arise around them. In addition to that, it lovingly inhabits the genre that it's mocking, by including cheap production values, intentionally bad edits, and a hilariously on-the-nose soundtrack. In that way, it reminds me of the British TV show, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, in my opinion the best and funniest intentional replication of bad filmmaking ever made, something that is much, MUCH more difficult to believably achieve than it sounds.

Michael Jai White (formerly of the terrible Spawn movie from the 90's) co-wrote and stars as the titular hero, a kung-fu ladies' man with a license to kill. When his brother is killed over drugs, he makes it his goal to track down the people bringing the drugs into the city. In the process he uncovers a deeper conspiracy that goes all the way to the top.

White is hilarious in the role. He really is impressive. He gets that for a movie like this to work, you have to play it straight. Never let the audience know you're joking.

I once heard an interview with "Weird Al" Yankovic, discussing his cameo in the original The Naked Gun. While on set, he believes that he actually witnessed the point when Leslie Nielson, so great in Airplane! and Police Squad, realized that he was being funny. He started playing the role differently after that, which was evident in the Naked Gun sequels and the million other spoofs Nielson became identified with throughout the years.

Anyway, this movie doesn't do that. I hear there's a sequel on the way, and I hope these guys understand why this one works so well.

I'm going to wrap this up now because I don't want to spoil any of the surprises Black Dynamite has in store. The jokes fly by at a rapid clip, making it one of the rare comedies that really does benefit from repeat viewing. This is a movie I plan on owning. A