You've all probably noticed that within the indie filmmaking community, the fund creativity site KickStarter has been gaining big exposure. It's a great idea: help fund artists and filmmakers with their ideas and movies and get credit. Depending on the pledge amount, you can get some interesting exposure for yourself such as pledging a grand gets you a date with one of the stars (pending a psych evaluation)
Philip Messerer has done just that. His breakthrough film: Thicker than Water (review here) was a revelation of vampire ingenuity warranting 3 spinkicks from yours truly. So Mr. Messerer dropped me a line that his new film is a bit if a turn...he's going pulp!
More than that he's flipped the casting upside down. Via the KickStarter site:
Rather than casting actors for parts, the director gathered 26 underground comic virtuosos and asked them to create their own characters (one for each letter of the alphabet). For the next two months the actors / comedians lent their characters to weekly improv sessions which were then turned into a feature length screenplay.
So what's this film all about?
The plot of Underbelly Blues follows a mysterious briefcase as it exchanges hands amongst the colorful denizens of the underworld. These include a corrupt cop, a sleazy strip club owner, a pair of lesbian strippers, an ex-military gun-for-hire who suffers from O.C.D. and has a penchant for creative torture, a Jewish pawnshop owner and his dominatrix mother, a British sophisticate who cooks crystal meth, a pair of surfer pot dealers, a legally blind albino gangster, a 7 foot tall, 400 lb neo-nazi, a sexual deviant redneck, a wild-eyed Mexican named Take It Easy, and a brilliant 'brain' called The Architect.
All of these characters are connected through a series of bizarre coincidences which inevitably lead to the downfall of corporate America as the rivalry between two soft drink companies goes out of control.
Well I gotta admit, this sounds damn fun right? Well let's all get it off the ground.
The best way to see what this is all about is via the video below. These improv rehearsals help to get what it's all about. If you want to see originality, it'll come from jaded viewers like yourself. Check out the video below and get the word out.
"I've never seen anybody blend pulp crimeyness, film noir and fantasy all together! The fantastical twist in a pulp fiction cocktail is completely different from anything I've seen before. And that's the beauty of independent film."
Well now you get a chance to witness this pulp crimeyness for yourself. It's been recently released on Region 2 DVD in Europe. So for my fellow jaded European fans, this is for you.
For America and Canada, it should be on Netflix and Blockbuster. Definitely check it out.
I'm a big Quentin Tarantino fan. I just appreciate the fact that his movies are combinations of different grindhouse subgenres (crime thriller, kung fu mania, spaghetti western, war machine, etc.) The argument for the anti Tarantino fans is that he "steals" from other movies. To this I say, all films steal from other sources be it other movies or novels or TV or whatever.
So Inglourious Basterds is a mix of spaghetti western and that 70s-80s war machine shootapalooza (the soundtrack had that old 70s war music feel). And it works even as a "what if" alternate timeline flick. Movies are suppose to take you to a place which warps the real world. Where the impossible becomes possible. And I love those "What if the South won the civil war?" premises that sci fi authors like Harry Turtledove have created. Or what if we Germany did take over the world. And QT says what would happen if we had some Jewish soldiers slaughter dem Nazi bastards and try to take down Hitler.
What we get is just pure, relentless awesomeness. So much pure war brutality and harmonic dialogue that you've come to expect from Tarantino.
So let's get to the WTF list shall we? (spoilers obviously)
1.) The fact the switch from French to English is commented on 2.) Jew Bear 3.) The guy who played Hitler is hilarious 4.) QT's dialogue machine is very much butchered in the fact that most of it is done in French or German and it just doesn't feel the same 5.) STIGLITZ!!! (the Vincent character of IB) 6.) It's Ryan from the Office 7.) Was that Austin Powers undercover? 8.) So Eddie Murphy was potentially gonna play the black guy? (see IMDB trivia) 9.) I-talians 10.) People you thought would live, didn't. You're never safe in a QT flick 11.) Poor Wilhelm (he screamed) 12.) A Mexican standoff never gets old 13.) The scalping is so gore-ific 14.) The branding is painfully knife-tastic 15.) Hans Landa is probably one of the best villains....ever 16.) Pipe vs Pipe 17.) "You don't got to be Stonewall Jackson to know you don't want to fight in a basement." 18.) The bumrush to kill Hitler by Donowitz and Ulmer 19.) The slaughter in the theater 20.) Hitler's bullet ridden body bulleted again and again and again
21.) My random rant. Having seen this flick with mostly jabronis and a few geeks, you knew that the obvious fact that QT had to visually point out the Nazi authority baddies is brilliant. Goebbels, Goering... Not many know of the famous SS Nazis and 2nd in command other than Hitler.
I've seen all of Tarantino's movies and if I had to put a quick ranking it would go like this.
1.) Pulp Fiction 2.) Kill Bill Vol 1 and 2 3.) Inglourious Basterds 4.) Reservoir Dogs 5.) Jackie Brown 6.) Death Proof
Inglourious Basterds is a great flick, thru and thru written for the intellectuals, the fan boys and the masses. I mean it's rather talky, but the dialogue always builds up to a payoff and boy the payoffs just scream yay. I'm going to have to watch this again.
Every now and then we here at the jaded viewer take a break from reviewing the horror and grindhouse and delve into the indie scene. Why? Because indie movies from every country are where filmmakers still bring creativity to cinema.
And the indie spirit is where you can find a movie like No Right Turn, a full fledge fairy tale pulp crime thriller that can only be described as eclectically unique and darkly comedic.
You'll get the feeling somebody's been eating your porridge and sleeping in your bed.
Well this is my first review of a David Bourke movie. I did not see his previous effort Last Exit so I'm coming in fresh on his work. I've never seen anybody blend pulp crimeyness, film noir and fantasy all together. Does this soup of genres work? You better believe it does.
No Right Turn is like a stage play come to life, depicting the seediness of Denmark's underworld and relying on four characters that pull us into the mystery filled with twisty twizzlers and shady betrayal.
What made this work so well? Let's explore. Boring Plot-O-Matic
Nina is the voluptuously alluring girlfriend of Johnny, a charming but delusional crook. To escape from her weary life she casually sleeps with an old friend, Teddy, but is fed up of her current lifestyle especially the drunken dreams of Johnny. One night after an argument with Johnny, she storms home where she is abducted by a pair of thugs and is fortunately rescued by a timid and guilt-ridden girl, Monella.
Even though they are from two very different worlds, they quickly become close friends and sooth each other lives.
Johnny hearing about Nina's ordeal with the thugs, sadly attempts to win her heart back by going on a crazy revenge spree.This scares Nina off even more. Nina eventually tells Monella of her ploy of escaping from Johnny’s seedy world by conspiring to steal his much talked about hidden stash, stored in a safety deposit box deep in the neon city.
Monella reluctantly agrees to help...
...and we follow each of their dangerously entangled lives until their ultimate and bloody fate.
Awesome Review-O-Matic
No Right Turn slaps your senses right from the start. From the opening scene of Nina pleasuring a character straight out of a Coen Bros. movie Teddy, we're in for a jam packed grimy world that you will feel dirty after viewing. What drives this film in the beginning is the characters and for the first hour we get to explore their characterologies to a level where we have to be comfortable with so that when we get into plot mode (which we finally get to in the last 30 min), we can see the motives all spinning out of control.
First, we get Nina (Laura Bach) a blonde, hot vixen who wants to be an actress. She's multifaceted in more ways than one. More likely than not she is the town whore as we find out later but her ever changing hair colors and lesbian inklings are devishly sexy. It's Uma from Pulp Fiction, but nastier. She's the angel that fell from the heavens but ended up with Johnny.
Johnny (Tao Hildebrand) is Mr. Asshole Junkie. A drug dealer by trade, a junkie by hobby. He's our Mr. to the Mrs. that is Nina. Johnny works for Pedro our big drug czar. For now, Johnny is our "pizza" delivery guy delivering but he's aspiring for bigger things. Johnny's days go like this.
1.) Bang Nina 2.) Drink and smoke 3.) Deliver drugs 4.) Sniff coke 5.) Bang Nina (ever harder) 6.) Drink and smoke Repeat 5 times.
He's a slimy dimebag of a dude that if you make him mad, he'll fuck you up.
One of Johnny's customers is Teddy, a John Waters looking chap who is a writer and pseudo engineer. Teddy is quirky times infinity, doing his drugs and smoking like a chimney (that's on fire). An odd cat, he's wrapped in secrecy that will be revealed toward the end.
Wrapping up our quartet is Monella. Her introduction is somewhat Irreversible but with a beatdown. After Johnny gives a drunk tirade to a some patrons at his local bar, the patrons decide to go out for some old fashioned raping in a dark alley.
Poor Nina ends up being the victim but is saved by Monella. They then proceed to have a very Wachowski's Bound like relationship. Monella, her mother having past away is a suicidal painter. The two go all Ying and Yang and go all lesbian grunting. Good times.
Like I said, the first hour establishes each of these characters. At times I got bored of seeing repetitive smoking and drinking. It wasn't until we see the Nin-nella relationship did I feel like I got some worthiness of my time. This was best illustrated in a scene where both women are playing darts and Nina tells off a man hitting on her. Cue lesbian love scene.
The plot kicks in on the last 40 or so minutes as Nina's proposed heist with Monella's help ensues. It's filled with twizzler twists to keep you on your toes, even going all fantastical in the last 10. I'm still scratching my head. What's the goodyness in No Right Turn? The characters are never boring, more so cardboard cutouts of pulp. A junkie drug dealer, a sexy siren, a innocent ordinary and a quirky 50s wannabe writer. The comparisons to Bound are hard to ignore. Nina and Monella's sassy relationship has that same Gina Gerson-Meg Tilly feel with Joey Pants as the Johnny type. NRT can be described as Bound's cousin once removed.
The visuals are shot remarkabely well for an indie. From snowy hills to Johnny and Nina's loft apartment are very top notch. Even the film quality makes this feel IFC-ish.
What's the baddyness in No Right Turn? Well it's the fact that the first 60 minutes has no plot whatsoever. Part of a mystery is to get the audience hooked and I had to wait a whole hour for that.
The first hour was also filled with scenes to promote the soundtrack. It almost looked like a music video. The characters are not doing anything special and after seeing Johnny drink, smoke, snort for the 20th time, I was wondering if anything from the trailer was ever going to happen. The scenes are so disjointed going to character to character. It's almost if you could have skipped the first hour and still understood the movie.
Even with my gripes, I enjoyed No Right Turn for what it was. A fantastical pulpy mixture with a dash of crime gone awry. The fantastical twist in a pulp fiction cocktail is completely different from anything I've seen before. And that's the beauty of independent film. You can do that and let the audience decide if it worked.
Thank goodness it worked.
Gore-ipedia
Some shot off fingers Bloody nose
Nude-ipedia
Grade B boobies from Nina
WTF moment The ending ending...I'm still going huh?
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
It's a crime fairy tale movie from Denmark! I was able to watch this from DVD screener from Mr. Bourke (thanks!). No Right Turn should be on the festival circuit soon, no word yet on any distribution.
You've all probably noticed that within the indie filmmaking community, the fund creativity site KickStarter has been gaining big exposure. It's a great idea: help fund artists and filmmakers with their ideas and movies and get credit. Depending on the pledge amount, you can get some interesting exposure for yourself such as pledging a grand gets you a date with one of the stars (pending a psych evaluation)
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