Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Junesploitation Day 11: Badass Chicks!

 
So easy to kill. So hard to love.

Today's Junesploitation entry goes out to all the ladies.

20 comments:

  1. Haywire (2011)

    Gina Carano is a super soldier who's been betrayed and is out looking for revenge, you know the story. Carano packs a hell of a punch taking down Magneto and Kenobi. Also Soderbergh's directing that means great shots, good atmosphere and virtually any celeb he wants. A list castploitation!

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    1. So you would describe the movie as ... ?

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    2. sorry I was a little groggy when I wrote this one. In all honesty it was fine but admittedly wasn't my best choice in the Junesploitation month. Soderbergh for me has always been one of those directors who I appreciate his style but have a hard time getting behind since his movies seem to lack a certain energy I like to see in my fav movies. That being said Gina Carano damn!

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  2. Switchblade Sisters (1975)

    Terrific "tough girl" flick, with characters and plotting that would not be out of place in a Shakespeare play. Robbie Lee (in a key role as Lace) can't act a lick, but she more than makes up for it with her CRAZY EYES. And Monica Gayle plays a villainous Iago-type character called Patch, who was apparently an inspiration for Elle Driver in Kill Bill. Then there's Chase Newhart, who is hilarious as a gangster called "Crabs." So far this is my favorite film of Junesploitation.

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    1. It may very well remain your favorite, too. It's the best! I love Joanne Nail.

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  3. Switchblade Sisters (1975)

    Ok, that was pretty great. The roller rink shoot out alone (how the hell do you fire an automatic weapon on roller skates?!) makes it totally worth checking out. Gotta love Maggie's silver bolo thingamajig, too. Steve K made a good call comparing Patch to Iago, but let's see Shakespeare try to write dialogue like "Everybody knows your crank can hook a tuna"

    ...yeah, I didn't think so.

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    1. Ya burnt, Hook! Or as your girl likes to call you, "cripple-dick."

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  4. I took the dare and watched INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS. I’m afraid the chicks in my badass chicks movie aren’t all that badass. Sure, they murder some horribly misogynist men, but those same horribly misogynist men are also the movie’s heroes, so it’s a mixed message. The movie’s centerpiece is when an ordinary woman gets transformed into a bee girl in a scene that’s all birth-death-rebirth metaphor (Existential-sploitation!), but everything else is just dour and ugly.

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    1. The movie is like if The Stepford Wives was way less classy.

      I'll take the blame because I recommended it, but it was for Sci-fi and not Badass Chicks. Like you, I wouldn't describe them as badass. More as Bee Girls. Bee asses.

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  5. VIOLET & DAISY (2013) in theaters for the first time.

    Teenage hit girls Violet (Alexis Bledel) and Daisy (Saoirse Ronan) are such bad-ass chicks (what "Kill Bill's" Gogo Yubari would be like if she was American and killing were a means to a material end instead of an obsession) they can take down rooms full of thugs while chewing bubble gum and, afterwards, obsess over celeb-endorsed dresses while remaining guilt-free and "innocently" pure in their own youthful world. As the movie starts and ends (don't want to spoil it) you feel like Violet & Daisy are more than qualified to earn the #1 hired killer title they aspire to one day earn.

    Here's the twist though: the movie isn't about the cool, collected and Tarantino-patented killing professionals that Violet & Daisy are in 99% of their jobs we don't get to see. It's all about the one hit (James Gandolfini, who doesn't steal the movie like he did "Not Fade Away" because he's totally in synch with Bledel and Ronan's pitch-perfect performances) that they allow to get too close to them that changes their lives from that point on. "Violet & Daisy" doesn't try to reach beyond the limited scope of the genre it thinks it's commenting ironically on by having young women being bad-asses and play paddycake afterwards, but it's fun and worth seeing.

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  6. Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill (1966)

    Oh, no. You guys, Faster Pussycat (both the film AND the hair metal band) has not aged well. This feels positively tame, dare I even say BORING, in light of some of the other movies that have been released in the last...oh...40 years. It's a bad girl movie featuring strippers that never take off any clothes, committing violent acts that we see every day on television. DISNEY television. Okay, not quite, but I find it hard to believe that this was anything other than quaint even in the 60s. I'm bummed.

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  7. Switchblade Sisters (1975)

    Not really what I was expecting, but still engaging and ridiculous (which IS what I was expecting). Why didn't Maggie have a big movie career? I also read that Jack Hill modeled the story on Othello. Makes me wish he adapted the rest of Shakespeare's catalog. Sincerely LOVE the line at the end of the film (and I'm paraphrasing): "I'd kill him again if it meant keeping him away from you!" So good.

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    1. I'm having skip-a-day remorse (its a thing). Might try to fit this in tonight before the next post goes up.

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  8. Hustler Squad (aka The Dirty Half Dozen) (1976)

    A rape victim, a prostitute, a terminally ill woman and a convicted murderer are trained by the U.S. army to infiltrate the compound of some Japanese generals in the Philippines and assassinate them. It's a great sounding movie, but less so in practice. Most of the normal exploitation elements -- the nudity, violence and craziness -- are held until the last 15 minutes. Everything before that is pretty tedious. This was a great example of what most exploitation movies really are, which is to say not that good.

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    1. So like most of "Death Proof" then? ;-P

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    2. You don't seem to be having much luck so far. Oh well, 2 thirds to go, hopefully things will pick up for you mate.

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  9. Switchblade Sisters (1975)

    While I definitely want an eye patch right now, I'm having a difficult time determining how I felt about this one. On one hand, it's probably one of the best things I watched so far for Junespoitation, but on the other, I really couldn't stand the dynamic between the males and females in this movie, especially Maggie/Dominic. Also, I wanted bloody ass-kicking for every single male character in this movie. And I wanted it in the first 15 minutes. It took a bit longer than that. And Robbie Lee's voice was super annoying.

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    1. I was wondering how a woman would feel about this film (not that I'm expecting you to speak for WOMEN EVERYWHERE in your opinion). The scene between Maggie and Dom in her apartment is easily the most problematic of the whole film. I'm not really sure what the director was going for here, and I'm not sure the actors did, either. I've been reading some reviews of the film, and this scene appears to be a big reason why Roger Ebert gave it 1 star. It stands out like a sore thumb, because so much of the movie is about these girls realizing how the men in their lives have been letting them down. Dom himself is shown to be a huge coward. When he reads Lace's letter in front of the other guys, he appears uncomfortable about it himself - but he's not strong enough to stop (it's Maggie who stops him). His behavior when he learns Lace is pregnant is deplorable, and the movie clearly thinks so too. So to have Maggie kind of/sort of like him after he rapes her is a pretty big blot on an otherwise stellar movie.

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  10. Ultraviolet (2006)

    Went on my own and figured I'd watch this old lemon I barely remembered. Ten seconds into the comic book cover opening credits (W.T.F.?) I said, fuck this, why aren't I watching...

    Switchblade Sisters (1975)

    As a man who enjoys face-pushing his mother-in-law around, this movie really spoke to me! Seriously though, what a blast! Like a couple of others have said, this was my favourite so far - it's got a little bit of just about everything. If you missed out on it for Badass Chicks! feel free to watch it for Teensploitation! because yeah, all these stone-cold killers are supposed to be in high school!

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    1. Great tip. I just missed the cutoff for badass so I'll be saving this one.

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