Ugh. Argh!

I grow weary of critics who accept screeners from ultra-low-to-low-budget filmmakers, then, when that filmmaker name drops better-known directors and films, the review proceeds to judge that self-produced passion project against those Bayos n’ Bayhem’ed, A-List summer tent pole inspirations: it’s a losing proposition to a negative review.

A critic simply can not measure today’s 2020s’ indie streamers — no more than you could rationalize regional filmmakers of the ’70s, such as Don Dohler or Andy Milligan (Fiend, The Ghastly Ones), or SOV home video purveyors of the ’80s, such as Jon McBride (check out our “Exploring” feature), or Doug Ulrich and Al Darago (Scary Tales) and Donald Farmer (Scream Dream) — to the films that inspired said filmmakers, which would be everything from Hitchcock to Carpenter, between the usual soup-to-nuts sprockets.

Today’s young bucks, such as this film’s writer and director, Michael Matteo Rossi, are analogous to those up-against-the-budget indie filmmakers of ’70s and ’80s yore — as they deliver a fascinating entertainment experience (at least to this snobby, know-it-all critic) in observing how the modern, digitally-based filmmaker tackles the hard-to-tackle-on-nickles-and-dimes action and science fiction genres (Anton Doiron’s Space Trucker Bruce as the best-example).

Courtesy of today’s here-to-stay digital technologies, gone are the days of indie filmmakers heading out to a patch of woods, sans permits, with a camera loaded with short ends and a gaggle of their friends and amateur actors to leave their mark with a horror film (and don’t forget that de rigueur pair of overalls or coveralls). Today’s smart phone’d filmmakers, such as Anthony Z. James (Ghost) and James Cullen Bressack (For Jennifer) and other Canon Reds purveyors, aspire to rise above those regional and home video filmmakers of old to create films in other genres besides the aforementioned horror and the low-budget auteurs’ second favorite genre: the cheap-to-make rom-com, such as Edward Burns and his industry breakthrough with 1995’s The Brothers McMullen, from those Fine Line Features, Fox Searchlight and Miramax glory days (that he shot for $30,000 and cleared $10 million in box office).

So, yes. Michael Matteo Rossi is ambitious. To a fault? Eh, maybe those James Dalton-opinions down at the roadhouse vary in the eyes of the Brad Wesleys of critical divide. Moi? I see no reason to compose discouraging reviews. (Ugh, again with the length complaints: the one hour thirty-six minutes of Shadows is short compared to most indie-streamers where directors are their own worst editors.) So, yes, I cut a wide berth (see Nigel the Psychopath, as an example) — that I would never give to a major studio film: those major leaguers know better than the shaggin’ flies guys down in Triple A (I hated Last Man Standing and John McClane seeks not my pity).

As I spoke with Rossi and actor Chris Levine when their previous film, the John McTiernan-aspiring The Handler, was released, they enthusiastically spoke of their next film, Shadows — and mentioned their joint admiration of Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas and Michael Mann’s Thief.

Does that mean I should critically compare Rossi’s works to either of the those stellar films? No. Absolutely not. What Rossi’s mention of his cinematic inspirations provides this critic is a critical embellishment to the film’s IMDb-posted logline: I simply now know what to expect as the 1s and 0s formulate images on my lap top. As with Michael Matteo Rossi’s The Handler serving as his homage-throwback to ’80s and ’90s action films, Shadows is his cinematic tip-o’-the-hat to the crazed flux of ’90s gangster films — films rife with the expected Shakespearian-to-Dashiell Hammett noirish twists and betrayals.

So, with that being said: My critical barometer, here, is not Scorsese or Mann, but, when thinking back to Quentin Tarantino serving as a secondary inspiration to those Miramax-gangster ’90s: his film, Reservoir Dogs. Well, more accurately: Rob Weiss’s low-budgeted, Tarantino-cobbled Amongst Friends, Matty Rich’s Straight Out of Brooklyn, and Troy Duffy’s Boondock Saints. But make no mistake about it: Rossi is not a filmmaker who cuts off one’s nose to spite one’s face — as did that “Tarantinoesque” ego-destroying triumvirate. However, unlike those three films, okay, well, maybe not Boondock Saints, Shadows is not your typical indie streamer: it is not only a well-shot film: the sharp cinematography is supported by solid, fluid editing giving it, well, the Scorsese-Mann quality on-a-budget to which it strives.

I immediately — and pleasantly — noticed Rossi smartly brought back the fine Rachel Alig, Tyrone Magnus and Chris Levine (The Ice Cream Stop, No Way Out) from The Handler for his cast. He then ups the game with the casting of long-suffering indie actress Krista Allen, who parlayed her indie film roles (speaking of the shot-on-phone genre: the pretty fine Case 347) and under-five and guest starring television roles (Diagnosis Murder to CSI: Crime Scene Investigations to Hawaii Five-O) to a featured, 77-episode role in CBS-TV’s long-running daytime drama, The Bold and the Beautiful. Another welcomed actor to the cast is Rahart Adams from Nicklelodon’s Every Witch Way, (as well as Pacific Rim: Uprising) in an adult film role, given a chance to shine as our well-meaning but flawed Othello. Fans of FX’s Sons of Anarchy and Mayans M.C. will also notice David Labarva, fine here as the crazed, drug-manufacturing Nicolas. Then there’s Jazsmin Lewis of the Ice Cube-starring Barbershop franchise, in support, as Shonda, who cares for Jewel and a stable of hookers.

The streaming incentive, here, of course, is, well . . . we wish Australian icon Vernon “The Wez” Wells was here in more than just-a-name-on-the-box starring role, à la the aforementioned Bruce Willis, or Eric Roberts and Nic Cage (we are forever his bitch), but we do get a little bit more of Francis Capra — yes little Calogero in the Scorsesesque A Bronx Tale.

As with the aforementioned Amongst Friends, Rahart Adams is Cody: another troubled soul from a broken family hoping to break free of Jewel (Krista Allen), his crack-addicted prostitute mom, by working at the only good-paying job a foster care-dumped kid can get: as a low-level drug dealer. The modernized, Shakespearean proceedings — as they usually do in these films — goes to shite when Cody unknowingly buys a batch of a new designer drug for a quick mark-up resell — only to discover the drugs are part of a cache stolen from our in-residence Iago, Nicolas. And — as things usually do in these films — gets worse when our femme fatale Desdemona, aka Michelle (Rachel Alig), from Cody’s mom’s stable of call girls, unwittingly drags him into a multiple homicide.

Now Cody and Michelle are on the run from Nicolas’s right-hand psycho, Axel (a very adult-fine Francis Capra), who takes a scored earth approach to his profession: no survivors — including Vernon Wells’s prostitute-addicted lowlife, Cliff. Cody and Michelle’s savior comes in the form of Eric Etebari (The Lincoln Lawyer and TV’s NCIS: Los Angeles) packing the Robert Forster-cool as the salvation-seeking cartel hitman, Dean.

In the end, Rossi, as he did with The Handler, handles the drama-to-action ratio with a Scorsese-Mann aplomb. So much so that those pesky digital blood n’ bullets sticklers will overlook those digital effects. We will just have to wait and see if Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson sticks to his publicity-driven bluster to never use “real guns” on sets, again, and he ups digital gun effects and squibs to the point where we can no longer tell the difference. Hello money: here’s the mouth.

So, until The Rock delivers: Michael Matteo Rossi delivers as he keeps getting better at the craft.

After watching and reviewing The Handler, Rossi provided me with a link-copy of his previous, third film, 2019’s The Chase (his freshman and sophomore features — amid his twelve shorts — are 2013’s Misogynist and 2017’s Sable). While The Chase is a commendable effort, The Handler is certainly the more ambitious, superior effort. And Shadows — thanks to great casting with actors bringing their A-games — trumps both of those films. I believe, once his next film, the also-starring Vernon Wells The Sweepers drops come September 2022, Michael Matteo Rossi will begin to receive mainstream, major studio notice as did his digital cousins Prince Bagdasarian (Abducted) and Steven C. Miller (First Kill). In fact, like Ryan Coogler before him: I see Michael Matteo Rossi creating that film — one that will win “Top Audience” and “Grand Jury” awards at the Sundance Film Festival where he will find himself called out of the dark, indie shadows to the sun-kissed majors.

It’s all about, not naysaying, but seeing the potential in the indie filmmaker. And Michael Matteo Rossi’s day in the sun is on the horizon and ready to break the dawn.

Shadows will be released to VOD and digital streaming on May 6th by Acort International Pictures (the team behind Clinton Road). The studio’s page for the film will lead you the film’s Facebook and Twitter pages to follow, as well as an Action-Flix interview with Michael Matteo Rossi and Deadline interview with actor Rahart Adams.

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies (links to a truncated teaser-listing of his reviews).

This Japanese yakuza gangster-noir written, directed and edited by Takeshi Kitano was his response to Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas. Courtesy of Quentin Tarantino’s fandom, the film found its way to U.S. theater — art house — screens in 1998 via his Rollling Thunder-imprint, which subsequently released it to home video in 2000.

Of Kitano’s 18-film writing-directing career, it remains his best-known international film, although his action-revenge thrillers Violent Crime (1989), which served as his feature film debut, and the follow up, Boiling Point (1990), were sought out by Tarantino fans and came to find an audience on post-’90s home video imprints.

Kitano got his start as an actor in the late ’60s, making his debut in Go, Go, Second Time Virgin (1969), but he’s best known to U.S. audiences in that discipline, courtesy of Senjō no Merī Kurisumasu, aka Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), co-starring David Bowie — Kitano starred as “Sgt. Gengo Hara.” You may also know Kitano for his work as a ruthless yakuza in William Gibson’s Johnny Mnemonic (1995), as well as the imported Battle Royale (2000) and Battle Royale II: Requiem (2003).

As for Sonatine — a play on the musical term sonatina — was a critically appreciated but a commercial failure in its homeland. Its commercial acceptance in the west was courtesy of Tarantino touting the film; it didn’t hurt that America’s leading critic at the time, Roger Ebert, gave it a “thumbs up” and three and a half out of four stars. The film’s failure in Kitano’s homeland is attributed to the fact he was, at the time, primarily known as a television comedic actor.

Kitano stars as Murakawa, a burnt-out yakuza enforcer who discovers his newfound, lackadaisical attitude towards his profession has led to his bosses wanting to get rid of him. As with Scorsese’s gangster opus, Sonatine is a film of not of dumb-down, trite action-driven dialog of no substance, but an introspective intelligence — that revels in its silent moments — that pulls back the reigns on the ultra-violence to use the violence as — to carry through with the musical imagery of the title — punctuating crescendos across its celluloid measures.

This is a film that is disserviced by the usual rat-a-tat-tat reviews scoring every “beat” of the film for you to decide to watch it. It’s a film where you simply need to stream it, sit back, and enjoy Takeshi Kitano’s sonata.

You can watch the trailer and this seven-minute vignette of Quentin Tarantino speaking of the film and the works of Takeshi Kitano on You Tube.

You can stream Sonatine on Amazon Prime and Vudu.

You can learn more about Quentin Tarantino’s Rolling Thunder-imprint with our “The 8 Films of Quentin Tarantino’s Rolling Thunder Pictures” featurette.

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies (links to a truncated teaser-listing of his reviews).

What can I possibly say about this bizarre (which is an understatement if there ever was one) Takashi Miike low-budget direct-to-video horror — with its mix of mobsters and ghosts and breast milk and cow-headed men — that hasn’t already been said. For if you are a Miike fan, you’ve seen it. If you’re a fan of Asian cinema, you know it well. If you’ve seen Miike’s Ichi the Killer (WTF) and Audition (WTF x 10) and you haven’t seen Gozu, then turn in your B&S About Movies’ membership card, for ye were never a member.

You didn’t see his contribution “The Box” in the Japanese portmanteau Three Extremes?

Just stop it. You’re embarrassing yourself. Isn’t there a Jennifer Aniston Oscar-chasing-never winning boondoggle you need to stream?

Sure, everyone drops the justified “David Lynchian” critical modifier to help us dopey Americans get a handle on the twisted insanity. And yeah, I am sure Guillermo Del Toro and Eli Roth — who offer up their own insights with their joint interview with Miike on the DVD — are the go-to guys for Gozu Intel with a whole-lot-of-what-do-we-need-this-digital-critic-from-Pittsburgh-for scoffing.

So, let me give an overview . . . for the ones who haven’t experienced the . . . something else . . . world of Miike. And that the title’s literal translation is: Yakuza Horror Theatre: Cow’s Head. And a caveat: Forget the guy with the cow’s head: if the killing of a chihuahua — an “attack” chihuahua — bothers you: stop watching. No. Watch. Just close your eyes for about twenty-Mississippis, well, in context: twenty-Shinano Rivers, then open. But there’s that gooey . . . and the slimy. . . .

Yes. Gozu is about — partly — a cow’s head. It’s also a gangster film. Then it’s not. Then what is it? A horror film? A comedy? There’s nothing is the works of Lynch, be it from film with Eraserhead to television with Twin Peaks, that can prepare you for this tale of an up-and-coming yakuza who receives orders to assassinate his boss, who happens to be his best friend. And when his boss catches wind, he goes into hiding. And if our young yakuza doesn’t complete the sanction, he dies. So begins our journey into a twisted, mysterious town where nothing is as it seems or nothing is as it should be — with a nightmare that would make Lynch flinch.

This is a film where you can’t rat-a-tat-tat the plot in a review; for in the tradition of the best Spanish and Italian horrors of ’70s, Gozu — or any Miike Joint — is probably not going to make a hell of a lot of sense (see Dead or Alive and The Happiness of the Katakuris). And the character’s motivations are dumbfounded and sometimes lacking in any development for you to care about them (One Missed Call). But as with those overseas horrors (this is black-comedy-cum-horror, like Sam Raimi’s comedy-gore of The Evil Dead, if that helps) of old, we never came for the plot or the characters in the first place: we came for the atmosphere and what-the-hell-why not Chunk King-toss to the walls. And Miike is brilliant for it.

You can watch the trailer and an extended interview with Takashi Miike on the making of Gozu on You Tube.

You can free-with-ads stream Gozu on Tubi. If fact, Tubi streams several of Miike’s films. They have the sci-fi’er Terra Formars, which I really liked: how can I not, as it’s about cockroach men on Mars, as well as the really fine 13 Assassins. Remember when, in the 2000s, when every single J-horror movie was getting Westernized? Don’t do it: go to the source.

And the “source” is Takashi Miike.

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies (links to a truncated teaser-listing of his reviews).

One look at that theatrical one-sheet combined with that title: you know you’re getting a space comedy that owes its clever cues to John Carpenter’s Dark Star (1974).

Sure, we could mention the quicky-came-and-quickly-forgotten Space Station 76 (2014), itself a retro-parody of ’70s science fiction television series that used Gerry Anderson’s UFO and Space: 1999 for all of its costume, set and model cues. As result of that Liv Tyler-starrer (in spite of her presence) resembling those British-made, Century 21 Television/ITC Entertainment imports-to-U.S. television, I eagerly anticipated the arrival of Space Station 76 . . . and it was a huge disappointment (Liv Tyler f-ups another movie, for me) ejected from my below-the-waistline, rear celluloid airlock. Remember how Spaceballs was hilarious with its on-the-sleeve humor, while the The Ice Pirates certainly looked better but was “meh” in a post-Star Wars world? Remember how Galaxina was nerf herder-scuffy and Spaced Out (aka Outer Touch) sucked dianoga tentacles?

Well, for me: Space Milkshake spins to the Spaceballs side of the vortex.

Yes, Space Milkshake fluxes my capacitors over the puerile, dead-in-space-before-it-even-hit-the-big-screen Leslie Nielsen-starring Alien parody Naked Space (1983), as well as his other space “comedy,” 2001: A Space Travesty (2000). Don’t even get me started on Eddie Murphy’s The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002) — a movie so painful that Sam or myself (or any B&S guest writer) wanted to cover that $120 million dollar turd for our “Box Office Failures” week of films (and it is noted as the #1 biggest of bombs). Amid those flurry of “space comedies,” however, I enjoyed — to the chagrin of many — Mike Hodges’s Morons from Outer Space, so what do I know?

Okay, back to Space Milkshake.

While not as deadpan in its its funny-dry humor as Dark Star and not as slapstick as a Mel Brooks galactic joint, Space Milkshake is more aware of its ancestors and goes for the “fan humor” of the genre. So, think Shaun of the Dead (2004) set on a space station in terms of humor. When it comes to the sets, reflect back to your days of watching Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Red Dwarf on public television (in the States). If you’re a fan of Blake’s 7 or the Tom Baker-era of Dr. Who, you’re in the sector of space you need to be.

Owning up to Dark Star: one of the off-screen characters referenced is named Professor Gary Pinback: after Sergeant Pinback from Dark Star. As with the Carpenter progenitor: the crew deals with the boredom of space and hygiene issues. They play board games. However, unlike Dark Star: there’s two females on board, so there’s a comical, sexual innuendo component. In the second half, as in Dark Star, the tedium breaks when the “monster” appears: Dark Star had a beach ball with claws. Here, we have a mutated-enlarged rubber duck on a rampage. In between, the crew deals with the fact that all life on Earth has ended — and there’s that pesky time flux that zips them between various dimensions and timelines.

As with the Nostromo before them (and Buck Henry’s of Get Smart! fame creating the garbage-hauling Quark starring Richard Benjamin in 1977): we have four blue collar astronauts employed on a Sanitation Station responsible for collecting space garbage from Earth orbit.

Jimmy (Robin Dunne) is the station’s newly-arrived, socially awkward computer technician. He’s welcomed by a dickish Captain Anton (Billy Boyd) who’s just broken up with his fellow crew member, the statuesque beauty queen Valentia (Amanda Tapping). The other female of the crew, the Ripleyesque Tilda, quickly becomes Jimmy’s love jones.

The ludicrous plot twists ensue as Anton and Valentia discover a glowing trinket from the salvage of an abandoned space shuttle. The “Time Cube,” accidentally activated, the station loses all contact with Earth as Tilda begins acting oddly — and discovered to be an android. Then a rubber duck — identical to the one given to Valentina by her ex-lover, Professor Gary Pinback — slams into ship. Brought on board by Valentina, it grows (and has George Takei’s voice). It is soon learned that Pinback, via the duck, is possessed by the galactic evil responsible for the “Time Cube” and is bent on universal conquest.

Yes. The above paragraph about mutant tub toys voiced by a Star Trek alumnus, time cubes, and androids is real. I did, in fact, write it.

It is reported this cost $300,000 to make — and this film looks great for a film made for less than a half million dollars; it certainly stands tall against its raison d’etre, Alien (1979), which cost $11 million and came to clear over $100 million during its initial box office. At its reported price, I see no reason why Space Milkshake didn’t — at the very least — break even on its production costs through cable buys and streaming rentals (it never saw a theatrical or hard media release). Again, it’s a fine film that looks great; however, make no mistake that the proceedings in Space Milkshake are still more Full Moon (the monster, seen above, takes me back to the alien mayhem in Bad Channels) than 20th Century Fox: but that’s not a bad thing, for Full Moon (and its previous incarnation as Empire Pictures) had their moments (Robot Jox).

The film had a trouble production that, according to Playback Magazine, began in the winter of 2011. The production was stymied — according to the Hollywood Reporter — by the provincial government of Saskatchewan, where the film was shot, closing out their refundable tax credits program: a tax credit that “funds” productions due to films contributing to the local economy through jobs and crew members frequenting area businesses.

Never intended for a theatrical release in its homeland, Space Milkshake premiered on the Canadian television channels The Movie Network (now known as Crave) in February 2013, then in March on Movie Central (defunct; 2016). Never picked up for U.S. cable distribution (Why, not Syfy? It had Amanda Tapping from Stargate, which you rerun.), Space Milkshake made the U.S. film festival rounds in 2013, in addition to the festival circuits in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. It began appearing on streaming platforms outside of Canada in 2015.

Armen Evrensel effectively wrangles all of the touchstone plot elements of the genre, along with cheap, but well-made sets and costumes (think 1980’s Battle Beyond the Stars) and schlocky, but better than ’70s British sci-fi series special effects. The cast is a shaken to perfect chemistry ensemble fronted by the instantly recognizable and perpetually likeable Robin Dunne (TV-familiar “Will Zimmerman” from Sanctuary and a few Lifetime Christmas flicks), along with Billy Boyd (yes, “Pippin” from Lord of the Rings), Kristen Kreuk (“Lana Lang” from TV’s Superman spinoff, Smallville), and Amanda Tapping (the Stargate TV series-verse). Oh, please tell us you do not need us to tell you who George Takei is.

Writer and director Armen Evrensel made his feature film screenwriting debut with the Canadian-produced romantic-drama The Zero Sum (2009), an inventive, unique tale about a mugger (a great turn by Scottish actor Ewen Bremner; yes “Spud” from Trainspotting) who falls in love with one of his victims. While Space Milkshake served as his second feature screenplay and his directorial debut, Evrensel hasn’t made another film, since, and since moved into television in other disciplines. That’s a shame because his wacky take — across the same comedic stars explored in the earlier frames of Galaxy Quest (1999) — is infectiously nuttier than that Tim Allen annoyance. Space Milkshake should have been a harbinger for more feature projects.

You can enjoy Space Milkshake as a VOD on You Tube Movies or as a free-with-ads stream on Tubi. Amazon no longer offers it as a stream, but if you want to avoid the ads and prefer not to use You Tube, it is still available on Google Play, iTunes, and Vudu. Be wary of those DVD-r, as this has never been official issued to DVD. You can sample the trailer on You Tube.

Films like Space Milkshake and the short-lived U.S. television series Quark joke about “junk in space,” but the reality is that it’s a very real problem. B&S About Movies frequent reader and fellow WordPress’er Peter Adler breaks it down with his “Garbage In Space” post — which turns you on to the 360-degree tracking map, Stuff In Space. See? Fascinating stuff and not just junk films are to be had at B&S.

Be sure to visit these past features
with more sci-fi in space and other obscurities!
Click those pics!

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies (links to a truncated teaser-listing of his reviews).