Automatic (John Murlowski, 1995)

E-mail? Dental scans? Self-healing automatons? Ponytail-sporting badasses wielding CornerShots? Annabelle Gurwitch playing a character with a Japanese surname? Either, I've totally lost control of my faculties or Automatic is the best movie ever. It can't be both, but I'm leaning towards... What's that? Ah, I see. Well, this is kind of embarrassing. I've just been informed that I have indeed lost control of my faculties. Which is a shame, really, because having control of my faculties was one of my strong suits. Nonetheless, this mid-90s motion picture does contain the things I listed at the start of this review. Sure, it's nowhere near as awesome as Nemesis (not much is), but this sci-fi action flick can hold its head high, as it poses some deep, philosophical questions. The most important being: Would Olivier Gruner have a film career if it weren't for cyborgs? Granted, I've only seen two Olivier Gruner films, this and the aforementioned Nemesis. But the fact that he plays cyborgs in both has lead me to believe that Olivier Gruner is the Laurence Olivier of cyborgs.

Now, you might think that calling someone "The Laurence Olivier of Cyborgs" would be taken as an insult. But that's not the case at all. You see, Olivier Gruner has very little in the natural charisma department (the shelves are bare). However, by casting him as cyborgs, having natural charisma is a negative, not a positive.

That being said, you can't make a movie filled with cyborgs with no natural charisma. Okay, that's not entirely true, as I've seen plenty of films that boast tons of charisma-challenged bores. But this is not one of them.

In a shrewd move, the makers of Automatic have surrounded Olivier Gruner's "tin man" with talented actors.

Along with personal favourites like, Jeff Kober (Demolition High), John Glover (Life on the Edge, a.k.a. Meet the Hollowheads) and Marjean Holden (Dr. Caligari), the makers of this film were smart to pair Olivier Gruner with Daphne Ashbrook, an actress who is not only leggy in all the right places (thanks to a short ecru skirt that is put through the ringer), but brash and plucky. I know, brash and plucky.

After kicking things off with a pretty decent fake-out (we're shown a family being attacked by bandits, but it's actually a slick commercial for a revolutionary new security system), we're whisked into the boardroom of Robgen Industries, the makers of 'Automatic,' a line of state-of-the-art robot servants who all look like Olivier Gruner.

Quickly looking over some of the people who at this board meeting, I can already tell that Dennis Lipscomb's character is going to be a toadying yes man and that Stanley Kamel's character is going to be an annoying thorn in the side of John Glover's Goddard Marx, the cheerful president of Robgen Industries.

On top of being a sycophant of the highest order, Dennis Lipscomb is also a scumbag. Asking Nora Rochester (Daphne Ashbrook) if she could stick around to work on an "important project," Dennis Lipscomb clearly has more than work on his mind. Yep, it turns out this so-called "important project" involves gratification-based relief for his unloved penis and nothing much else. Since overseeing the needs and wants of Dennis Lipscomb's penis isn't in her job description, Nora resists his attempts to mount her sexually.

While walking by Dennis Lipscomb's office, an Automatic named J269 (Olivier Gruner) hears the fruits of Nora's resistance. Asking Dennis Lipscomb if everything is all right, J269 is told to basically get lost. Which he does. But when Nora's screams grow louder, J269 decides to help her (he throws Dennis Lipscomb onto the floor). This, as you might expect, angers Dennis Lipscomb, who downloads a firearm from his desk. That's right, if you need something in a flash, whether it be a stiff drink or a gun, you simply ask for it and your desk will serve it up for you.

Anyway, J269 ends up killing Dennis Lipscomb during their confrontation. Informing the building's head of security (Troy Evans), that he had just killed Dennis Lipscomb, J269 asks that the authorities be notified. When Goddard Marx gets wind of what happened, he immediately goes into damage control mode. Since Automatic's aren't supposed to kill people, Goddard decides that both J269 and Nora Alexander need to be eliminated.

What transpires next are a series of poorly staged action sequences involving J269 and Nora trying their darnedest not to be killed by a gang of mercenaries lead by Jeff Kober, a "primitive brute" with a ponytail.

Wait a minute, I think I should clarify something. It's not that the action is "poorly staged," it's that their poorly lit. Seriously, the film is so freaking dark at times, I couldn't even tell if Nora's skirt was a grayish to pale yellow or a light grayish-yellowish brown. I mean, c'mon people, let's set up some lights.

Repeatedly stymied by J269, who is determined to protect Nora from harm, Jeff Kober calls in reinforcements. And would you look at that, one of these reinforcements is played by Marjean Holden. I liked the few scenes Jeff Kober and Marjean Holden had together, as their relationship reminded me of the one between Private Jenette Vasquez and Private Mark Drake in Aliens; except instead of "smart guns," they wield CornerShots.

I will say this, the Die Hard-ish scene in the elevator was well done. And, no, I'm not just saying that because we get some great shots of Nora's grayish to pale yellow/light grayish-yellowish brown skirt. No foolin' the scene is quite thrilling.

Meanwhile, while all this is going on inside, a reporter named Gloria Takamatsu (Annabelle Gurwitch, Pizza Man) is holding court outside with a group of protesters; Automatic's are not popular with the "unwashed masses." At first I was like, why do all the non-Asian reporters in this movie have Asian names? But then it dawned on me, they married Asian dudes. Either way, I love the fact that Annabelle Gurwitch plays a character named "Gloria Takamatsu."

I don't know what else to say about this movie other than it boasts some modestly intriguing ideas in the regard to the future; the ability to download objects directly to your desk is kind of cool. But as far as being a sci-fi action flick, I'd have to declare Automatic a mild, poorly lit failure.

Stripped to Kill II: Live Girls (Katt Shea, 1989)

What do my eyes see gyrating in front of me? Are those healthy gams encased in the finest fishnet stockings fourteen dollars can buy? Why, yes. That's exactly what they are. And on top of getting the price right, you weren't kidding when you said they were healthy. In fact, they're so healthy, they should be featured in Leg Show magazine (which, get this, is a real publication). Anyway, it would seem that writer-director Katt Shea has somehow convinced producer Roger Corman to allow her to make a sequel to Stripped to Kill, because it totally looks like I just watched Stripped to Kill II: Live Girls, the absolutely necessary sequel to the strip club set slasher flick starring Kay Lenz and Norman Fell, and featuring a shitload of lingerie. Well, I'm afraid to say that Miss Lenz and Mr. Fell are nowhere to be found in the second chapter (their existence isn't even acknowledged), but the lingerie, my god, the lingerie, it's more prevalent than ever. Actually, the same could be said about the film's overall temperament, as Katt Shea seems extra determined to create something spectacular. And you know what? That determination pays off quite handsomely, as the sequel is not only superior in every way to the original, but it manages to out dream Rinse Dream on several occasions. If you're in anyway familiar how I feel about the Rinse Dream aesthetic, then you know I don't say that lightly. A vast improvement in terms of acting, choreography, costuming, music, production design, and, of course, direction, part two takes no prisoners when it comes to delivering a weird mix of surrealism and erotic horror with a steamy dose of noirish cool.

Even though there's no way I can confirm this, but I feel the success of the first film must have enabled Katt Shea to take more risks artistically this time around. Just as long as every dance number ends with a woman topless. And you can see this art proceeded by toplessness in almost every scene. Your average perverted mind simply wants to see naked breasts, so it doesn't really matter what takes place before they're exposed for all to see. (Really? You mean they'll sit through interpretive dance just to see boobs?) Are you kidding? They'll watch an old man change his colostomy bag if it means they'll be rewarded with unclothed titties.      
 

 

Freeing up their ability to satisfy their own artistic endeavours, while, at the same, delivering the sleazy goods the marketplace expects, Katt Shea uses this technique to her advantage, as every scene practically oozes this dichotomic construct.  
 

 

Wasting little time establishing this new-found freedom, Stripped to Kill II: Live Girls opens with an erotic dance routine featuring zombie-esque women in rags menacing a lone stripper in white. You can tell almost immediately that this isn't your average strip club. For starters, there's this wind, and not just any wind, a howling wind, that seems to be creating an air of extreme disquietude. Wind aside, the blonde swinging on the poll is Victoria (Lisa Glaser), and she's wearing white hold up stockings and being harassed by her stripper peers, who are, of course, dressed like dishevelled devil worshipers.

Suddenly, a panic stricken Shady (Maria Ford) enters the frame. A shock-haired, or maybe that was just her normal hair? Whatever. A clearly frazzled Shady is being harassed not only by her peers (who are, like I said, in desperate need of a makeover), but by mysterious figure in a mask wielding a razor-blade between their teeth. 
 

 

Just as she's about to learn the identity of the masked individual, Shady wakes up on her friend's couch with a bloody mouth (the skylight above the couch is covered with mannequins). Concerned for her well-being, Shady's friend, an English woman named Cassandra (Karen Mayo-Chandler), offers her some tea (yep, she's an English woman, all right). There's no time to dilly-dally, the neon and zebra print adorned walls of the Paragon need strippers to tie the room together, so Shady and Cassandra head down to fulfill their contractual obligation.

As they enter the club, I was quite taken with its stylish decor. The aforementioned neon and zebra print give it that new wave flavour everyone with a pulse savours, but the addition of chain link fence material and sharp angles gave the club an almost industrial feel.
 

 

While Shady and Cassandra are making their way backstage, we meet a dancer named Something Else (Marjean Holden), who is explaining the genesis of her unique stage name. Since Shady dreamed about Victoria in distress, she asks Ike (Tom Ruben), the Paragon DJ, where she is. Pointing the spotlight on her just as she was about to receive a generous tip (fifty bucks), a sense relief washes over Shady when she sees that Victoria is alive and well. Though, if you were to judge by Shady's body language, relief is something she's got in short supply, as she constantly looks like a delicate flower that's got the weight of stripping world resting uncomfortably on her lightly freckled shoulders. Her flowery state of mind isn't helped by the fact that her fellow dancers can't stand each other.

We get a taste of this stripper-on-stripper animosity when Victoria tells Something Else to go fuck herself in the dancer's dressing room.
 

 

Stressed out by the negative atmosphere in the club's dressing room, Something Else scolds Dazzle (the E.G. Daily-esque Birke Tan) for using her tweezers, Shady retreats to the alleyway behind the club for solace.

Oh, alleyway behind the Paragon club, why are you so awesome?

Seriously, the alleyway in Stripped to Kill II: Live Girls has got a personality of its own. After making a dinner date with Victoria, Shady and her super short skirt go home to change. Unfortunately, she falls asleep on the couch, and dreams that she is running toward the Paragon in a diaphanous dress made of  imitation silk. When she arrives, she finds Victoria hanging from one of the club's many chain link fence motifs with her throat cut.
 

 

Now, this is the time when we're usually introduced to my least favourite character in these type of movies: the gruff homicide detective in charge of solving the case. And don't get me wrong, he's gruff as fuck, but there was something off-kilter about Sergeant Decker (Eb Lottimer) that made me inexplicably like him the moment he appears on-screen. At the Paragon to ask Victoria's living co-workers about the crime, Decker sizes up the situation pretty quickly. While I'm sure he picked up some important clues, all I noticed is that Dazzle loves leopard print and that Something Else has a habit of correcting Dazzle's grammar. More importantly...wait a minute, what can be more important than leopard print?!? Trust me, this is more important than leopard print. We get to witness the first meeting of Shady and Decker, one of the most fascinating on-screen pairings in film history.
 

 

The backstage bickering and grammar correcting continues in the next scene when a stripper named Mantra (Debra Lamb) tells Something Else to suck her dick (as you know, I soft spot for women who refer to their non-existent male genitalia), and Something Else tells Dazzle the word is "geek" not "greek" when she attempts to mock Ike's ill-timed romantic gesture towards Shady (he tries to give her a rose). While all this drama is taking place, Decker is out sleuthing his ass off in the club's alleyway; kudos, by the way, to cinematographer Phedon Papamichael for creating one of the most stunning alleyways I have ever seen depicted in a motion picture.
 

 

While I was admiring the way the neon light twinkled in the puddles of water that litter the alleyway behind the Paragon, a Mr. Pocket-esque (Mr. Pocket was the lead creep in the first Stripped to Kill) patron inside the club is admiring Karen Mayo-Chandler's English thighs up close.           

 

 

The second meeting between Shady and Decker does not go well at all, as he gets an awkward lap dance from a woman who should be the prime suspect in a murder investigation. The reason she's not a suspect is because, well, Decker has got the hots for her. And can you blame him? At any rate, after the lap dance debacle, Decker tries to make things right by inviting Shady to get a bite to eat at his favourite Hawaiian taco stand; the fake–though, I'm sure they were real–palm trees over looking the joint added to the film's dream-like temperament. On top of seeing Maria Ford's bewildered kewpie doll schtick in a non-strip club environment, we learn that Decker is wearing woman's coat.
 

 

The sound of a harmonica gently being blown on the soundtrack (composer Gary Stockdale's music does a masterful job of creating the right mood), and Shady's knee-high hooker boots dominate the proceeding as they kiss for the first time. And just like the lap dance, it's pretty awkward. Mostly because Decker retreats mid-smooch, which upsets Shady. To be fair, a stiff breeze is enough to unhinge Shady, she's the world's most fragile and complicated exotic dancer. But his make out withdrawal was totally uncool. Sure, he's trying to act professional by not getting involved with a suspect in the murder case he's currently investigating, but you don't take a woman, especially one wearing a super-tight gold skirt (the kind that needs adjusting every five minutes) to a Hawaiian taco stand at 3 A.M., and then suddenly decide that you don't feel like pressing your tongue against their tongue; it's not the way a civil society works.     
 

 

Giving one the most oddly compelling performances I've seen in a long time, Maria Ford (Slumber Party Massacre III) is beguiling Shady, a.k.a. Margaret Albright, a stripper whose peers wind up dead after she dreams about them. Every gesture, every nuance, is filtered through the actresses' stainless steal bear trap of a brain. This filtering process is best observed when she's walking home from her "date" with Decker. If you pay close attention, you'll notice that she tilts her head to one side, which, to me, signified that the plethora of deep and disturbing thoughts rattling around inside her head were weighing her down.
 

 

Upon further reflection, her performance reminded me a lot of Isabella Adjani in Possession, in that, she was absolutely fearless when it came to putting herself in psychological jeopardy. Take the scene where wakes up in an alleyway behind her friend's apartment (a loft on the outskirts of a broken dream), she's dirty, she's covered in blood, and her stockings are torn, which, as most people know, are the hallmarks of a great performance. The way Maria Ford went from being a glamorous vixen (fingerless opera gloves paired with a vampy red dress) to a bloodied mess was mind-blowing.
 

 

Oh, the duality between Maria's two looks (glamorous and bloodied) and the alleyways she spent most of her time was not lost on me. The alleyway for the glam look, for example, had a neon sheen to it, whereas the narrow passage for the bloodied motif looked like an apocalyptic nightmare (the abandoned railway tracks were a nice touch).
 

 

Upping the ante when it came to just about everything, Stripped to Kill II: Live Girls manages to inject itself into the pores of everyone who watches it. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they were completely unclogged by the time the film had finished. The state of my pores, aside, the dance numbers (choreographed, like in the first film, by Ted Lin), the costumes (Ellen Gross), and the production design (Virginia Lee) were all first-rate in terms of creativity. If you want to see all three working in perfect harmony, check out Shady and Cassandra's lion tamer routine, or Shady's naughty school girl number (white thigh-high hold up stockings paired with lacy white ankle socks), as both seem to capture the essence of this film's appeal in a nutshell.

Actually, if you want to see the greatness of Ellen Gross's costume design, look no further than the alleyway scenes that feature Maria Ford and Eb Lottimer, as the chromatic cinematography and Shady's classic 1940s attire mixed with 1980s whore chic really seem to come alive when bathed in the neon shadows. 

 

 

A masterpiece of erotic horror, writer-director Katt Shea, her talented crew (kudos to Greg Maher for his amazing art direction), and the film's bevy of actors (Maria Ford is electrifying presence) and non-actors (Jeannine Bisignano, who plays a surly stripper named "Sonny" probably never acted before), have all come together to fashion a unique cinematic statement.

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Nemesis (Albert Pyun, 1992)

In a world where blood splattered walls and arterial spray have been replaced by sparky embers and frazzled circuit boards, Nemesis exists solely as pornographic wish fulfillment for those whose dream it has been to live on the fringes of society as a human-machine hybrid with conflicted loyalties. A Front Line Assembly album cover come to life, this cutting edge science fiction action flick will no doubt test one's tolerance for overlong shootouts, shoddy Germanic accents, and the act of diving off a cliff in a tropical setting. But those willing to look past its inherent wonkiness, the rewards are immeasurable; especially in terms of watching comely cyborg chicks in short skirts shoot automatic weapons at a wily French dude. A series of cleverly demented fire fights punctuated by William Gibson-esque dialogue and bluntly-worded one-liners, this film is a bouncy trip into the near future that will surely keep your gears oiled and your mind in a constant state of perpetual motion. If the expression "sparky embers" sounds familiar, well, that's because I also used it to describe the gun battles that take place in Radioactive Dreams, a post-apocalyptic adventure film from 1985. Which of course makes perfect sense seeing as that both are directed by Albert Pyun, the master when it comes to creating iridescent shootouts. (If I'm not mistaken, the gunplay featured in his version of Captain America were kinda sparkly as well.)

Anyway, taking spark-replete firefights to whole another level of... sparkiness, Mr. Pyun gets downright nutty with the pyrotechnics this time around. And what makes it so great is that he is completely justified. I mean, what do you think would happen if a room full of cyborgs started shooting metal projectiles at each other at an accelerated velocity? Exactly. The amount of sparks produced as a result of this bullet-fueled mayhem would be off the sparky charts.

Getting us from one spark-emitting encounter to another is the blank expression of Olivier Gruner, a Parisian kick boxer turned actor. Playing Alex, a L.A. cop in the year 2027, the monosyllabic tough guy is constantly being upgraded with mechanical parts after each assignment. These tuneups have become so commonplace, that he has started to worry about the structural integrity of his everlasting soul. At what point does he stop being human? Deep, mildly philosophical stuff.

Tired of hunting down cyber-terrorists and hackers, the conflicted cop moves down to Rio de Janeiro to start a new life as a black-market dealer of cybertronic doodads. The net may be vast and infinite, but this doesn't prevent his old employers from tracking him down. Forcing him to partake in a dangerous mission to locate a rogue agent named Jared (Marjorie Monaghan) in Shang Loo, Java, his bosses Farnsworth (Tim Thomerson) and Maritz (Brion James) install a small bomb in his heart to ensure his cooperation. Upon arriving in Shang Loo, Alex quickly becomes an unwilling pawn in an epic battle brewing between humans and cyborgs. And since he's somewhere in the middle, Alex must choose which side he's on.

Helping him make his decision is a rebel leader (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), a big-haired cyborg in a trench-coat (Deborah Shelton), and a limber rapscallion named Max Impact (Merle Kennedy). These three characters (especially the Lori Petty-esque Miss Kennedy) are essential to the non-shootout scenes, in that they utter the majority of the film's spoken dialogue. Don't get me wrong, he can blast his way out of an awkward situation like nobodies business, but my confidence in Olivier Gruner as an human actor is a tad on the sketchy side.

Strangely, Marjorie Monaghan is quite clumsy as an actress while in the flesh – though I did enjoy the shortness of her skirt (and the equally short skirt sported by her blonde friend, a leggy Marjean Holden)–yet, she was rather competent while compressed in the digital realm. It's weird how that happens.

It's true, I never saw Nemesis in its entirety before now, but the "cyborg fucking shootout" in the Shang Loo hotel has been in contact with my illustrious eyeballs on several occasions over the years. I first saw the infamous shootout on cable while volunteering over at a community centre for wayward she-male's with low self-esteem back in the mid-90s and more recently in an online setting.

However, seeing it in its proper context–you know, with the rest of the film in tow–has elevated it to a somewhat legendary status.

The sheer number of sparks employed during this sequence alone is enough to glorify it with exaggerated praise, the fact that Olivier Gruner escapes his hotel room by shooting his way through the floor–rendering a cyborg inoperative along the way–is what makes this scene the awe-inspiring spectacle that it truly is. Seriously, the person who came up with the idea of having him create his own personal elevator utilizing his guns is a freaking genius. And just the mere thought of Deborah Shelton exchanging an inordinate amount of gunfire with those two lumbering cyborgs, all the while, Gruner mows his way through the floor, never fails to bring a misguided tear to my eye.

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