Here at The Nerds Templar, we get a lot of movies sent our way to watch. Some are new, some are older. We get Blu-rays, DVDs, online screeners and everything in between. Sometimes we just don’t have time to write a 1000 words about every movie. Sometimes the movie doesn’t deserve a 1000 words. We do like to discuss the movie though and in those situations we do articles like this, Review Round-up.
Up first we have Grand Auto Theft LA. No this isn’t the popular video game series, but it wants to be it for sure. This is a low budget action film with tough chicks trying to take over LA from their rivals. This hit DVD a few months ago and if you’ve never heard of it, there’s good reason, it’s not very good. I usually don’t mind low budget action, in fact, it’s probably one of my favorite genres. My issue with this film is, not one of the tough chicks comes across as actually being tough or capable of taking over the streets. Sure you can give anyone a gun and they can drop bodies, but a crew of women like this would get slaughtered out there. I hate how movies think acting tough and swearing makes you tough. It doesn’t. In fact, every woman in this looked like one punch would drop her. Don’t get me wrong, I know plenty of bad ass women, none of these actresses looked like them. Beyond that it is your standard action flick with post production muzzle flashes and bad overacting. You can skip this one.
Next we have Prime Target to continue the tough chick theme. This is a MGM Limited Edition Collection release and the film came out in 1989. It stars Angie Dickinson and Charles Durning. Dickinson plays an NYPD detective investigating the murders of other female officers. She finds out she’s next on the list. The film is from the 1980s. The style, the look, the wardrobe, the score, all very 80’s. Dickinson is fine if you remember that. Her character would have fit right in with Cagney & Lacey. It was made for TV and you can tell. Taken out of its era, it’s not very good, but if you try to watch it for when it came out, it’s a tough chick cop flick with Dickinson shooting bad guys and doing detective work. If you remember it, it’s worth watching. Plus it’s Dickinson playing a Police Woman again (See what I did there? Yeah you do.)
Third we have Sexina. This is about a female pop star who’s also a detective. Ok I swear I wasn’t trying to do a pattern here. It’s been on DVD for a few years, but it’s new to me. I had never heard of it and it makes sense why. It’s bad, but I’ll be honest, it’s also kind of campy fun. Think Britney Spears as Police Woman. The lead actress is pretty cute and Adam West plays the bad guy so that’s worth it right there. It’s badly acted and really corny, but again, it’s kind of bad enough to be entertaining. Plus it proves that pop stars are robots most of the time which really makes sense when you think about it.
Keeping with the sex theme, next we have Save Me. 80’s hunk Harry Hamlin stars in this MGM Limited Edition Collection DVD release from 1994. Hamlin plays a down on his luck accountant who falls for a mysterious woman who leaves him a note to save her. The film is pretty hot to be honest. There’s some pretty racy scenes. Michael Ironside plays the “bad” guy and the film never quite lets you know if the woman actually needs saving or if she’s setting up Hamlin. I don’t think it’s very good and I’d never watch it again, but I do like Hamlin and Ironside and they at least make it watchable.
Next we have Active Shooters. This hit DVD in May and is the action flick I was expecting from Grand Auto Theft LA. It’s not a good movie, but there’s some good action, lots of killing and it’s entertaining at least. I don’t know if I really understood it, but I got the gist of it. The government is corrupt, four brothers go around with their own style of justice. It wants to be layered, but I don’t know if it’s smart enough to really work, but again, it’s filled with action and that’s all I wanted out of it.
We follow that up with Flytrap. This is actually new, hitting Vudu and iTunes on August 23rd and it’s available on Amazon Instant Video as well. Part of me liked it, part of me wanted so much more out of it. It’s won a bunch of independent film awards and I guess I can see why in terms of the story and originality. A man breaks down and knocks on the door of a house to make a phone call. An attractive woman named Mary Ann lets him in and offers him a drink. She brings him into her bedroom where the phone is and wants to procreate with him. Turns out, she’s an alien from Venus and wants to have sex with him to get pregnant. The leader (The Skipper) won’t let him leave and other characters have Gilligan’s Island names as well. It’s a pretty original idea and a good take on a Venus Flytrap, but unfortunately I just didn’t think the acting was very good. I know it’s an indie film and I’ve seen far worse acting, but the concept works really well and the movie could have been a 10 Cloverfield Lane type hit with bigger/better names. As an indie film guy I still recommend it and hope people support it because again, the concept is there, I just wish I liked the acting more because it could have been a cool cult hit.
Sticking with the monster type theme we got going now, next is Predator: The Quietus. Another MGM Limited Edition Collection release, this has nothing to do with the Arnold Predator franchise. This 1988 film from the UK was pretty disappointing despite the fact that I had never even heard of it. A bunch of kids go missing and livestock end up dead so an American reporter goes across the pond to investigate. That’s all I got out of it. The Brits usually do dramas well, but this one was really slow and boring. I’m actually struggling to remember plot details and not just the bad editing, bad accents and wondering around the forest. Maybe there wasn’t more to it.
I’m almost done, I promise. Next we have The Bloodstained Butterfly. This is a 1970’s Italian film hitting Blu-ray through Arrow Video US. A young woman is killed and her lover is accused and goes on trial. He’s a TV sports personality and is seen fleeing the area. Everything points to him till more women are found dead. Overall I liked it, but man is it slow at points. It has a lot of style and looks cool (especially now that it’s been restored). I just wish it wasn’t so slow. It’s not very long and a lot of women end up dead, but there’s times it takes forever to get from investigation to investigation. That being said I still recommend it especially if you are into Italian crime dramas. I’ve seen a few and most don’t disappoint. The women in it are beautiful. The men are cool. It’s Italy in the 70s.
Second to last we have Memory Lane. Low budget science fiction is pretty hard to pull off so I’ll give the film a lot of credit. Maybe more than it deserves. It’s pretty good, but I actually expected a bit more from it. It’s sort of a Flatliners meets Looper, but nowhere near as good or with that type of production value. A soldier returns home to find his girlfriend had committed suicide. He decides to take his own life, but as he gets rescued, he sees flashbacks of his girlfriend being killed or so he thinks. He dies over and over again to try to piece the puzzle together. It’s sort of like other recent sci-fi flicks Primer and Time Lapse. If you like any of the films I’ve mentioned here, you’ll probably like it. Go in with lower expectations though. The DVD box compares it to Memento which is one of my all time favorite films so that got my expectations way too high. Overall not bad for a small sci-fi film
Last, finally, we have The Big Gamble. A 20th Century Fox Cinema Archives release, the film is from 1961. This is an action adventure flick that tracks 30,000 miles to the Ivory Coast. By today’s standards, the film is pretty lame. Definitely don’t expect Romancing the Stone or Indiana Jones here. I almost feel bad trashing this movie because it’s hard not to compare it to films of today. This might have been high adventure back in the day and mind blowing to some people. Today it’s pretty cheesy and lackluster. Maybe your parents or grandparents know it and they’ll like it. It’s for them anyways.
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