Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Gang of Roses (2003)

Directed by Jean Claude La Marre
Starring Stacey Dash, Lil' Kim, Maria Matiko, LisaRaye, Monica Calhoun
Rated R
USA

"Don't make me split your wig."

This is the sort of movie where people blow smoke off their guns after they shoot somebody. If you have ever been to a Wild West stunt show, then you've seen this movie. Just trade the Disneyworld reject "enactors" for a bunch of hip hop divas, throw in a bunch of vague Christian platitudes, and you've got the positively inglorious Gang of Roses. Conceptually, it's a hysterical idea, and if it was written, directed, and/or acted with some modicum of tongue-in-cheek humor, it may very well have become a cult classic, ala the similarly themed Straight to Hell (1987). Alas, Joe Strummer does not show up to save the day here.

It begins in the peaceful town of Flat Ridge, a multi-racial neverland of law-abiding get along-ers. Things go sour when a crew of woman-eating outlaws - led by an eye-patched maniac named Left Eye (Bobby Brown) show up to loot, pillage, and do whatever else they want. In the melee, an innocent girl named Sally (Licea Shearer) is shot to death by evil gun-toting lesbian Little Suzie (Charity Hill). Word gets back to Sally's sister, Rachel (Monica Calhoun) that Sally's been killed. And that's when the trouble really starts.

The now peace-loving Rachel was once the leader of a bank robbing pussy posse. She had gone straight and disbanded this "Gang of Roses" long ago, but now? Now, she's got to get the fuckin' gang back together, man.

First though, we meet Chastity (Lil' Kim), the amorous one. Some guy bangs her and then tries to split with her dough, but she shoots him dead as he sneaks out the door.

And then an Asian bounty hunter named Zang Li (Maria Motiko)- wearing a leather hat and a belly shirt - shows up at bar. She takes a slug of whiskey and then shoots a bunch of wanted men dead.


And then Maria (LisaRaye, AKA Da Brat's big sister!), who dresses all in white, throws a knife at some dude. That's her thing, knives.

So, Rachel reassembles her posse, and tells them the terrible true tale of Flat Ridge, about how it was once a peaceful town of "Mostly women". Rachel lived there with her sister, until an endless wave of horny outlaws began showing up, lookin' for some of that hot Flat Ridge tail they'd been hearing so much about. Rachel vamoosed to a shack in the desert, but Sally stayed in town, and was eventually murdered by the gun-happy lesbo from the opening scene. She has asked her former posse to join her to seek vengeance.

Everybody's in, except for cranky knife-thrower Maria, who doesn't care about Sally or anybody else. But then Chastity encourages them all to "Chill out a minute" (cowboy talk!) so they can figure things out. Seems there's gold hidden in Flat Ridge somewhere, which piques Maria's interest. Plus, there's a few heads to be hunted, which ropes in Zing Li. And so, the posse rides again.

But wait, what about Kim?

That's right, there's another one. Kim (Stacey Dash) is currently getting hung in the town gallows for horse theft. So, she's pretty busy. After yelling at the judge about her vagina, they let her drop. Luckily, sharp shooter Mario Van Peebles (!) shows up at the last second to shoot the rope. Kim goes crashing to the ground just as the other girls show up to spray bullets everywhere and help her make a quick getaway.

They head to Flat Ridge to look for Left Eye. They know he's responsible for the murder and the gold, but they don't know what he looks like. They figure it'll be obvious, though. However, when they get to town and case the local tavern, there's a dozen guys wearing eyepatches. Doh!

The girls find the bad guys in the cemetery, digging up graves. They are looking for the map to the lost gold. The last guy who had it buried it somewhere. Meanwhile, Lil Kim is in a barn, boning some dude named Babyface (director La Marre) while a slow jam plays. At one point, she is hesitant to sleep with a man she just met, but then he gives her a piece of jewelry. That cements the deal. No nudity, by the way. A little side-boob, but it's covered up with the guy's face. And tongue.

Bobby Brown's gang find half the map, and then stick around town looking for the other half. The girls decide to wait them out, and once they find the other half and get the gold, they'll ambush them and kill them all and then take the loot. That's the idea. So, they have to lay low for a couple days. But then Maria beats one of the grave robbers in a game of poker, which results in a big gun battle between the girls and Left Eye's gang. At one point, a Mexican guy's hat gets shot right off his head. Hilarious!

No blood, by the way. No boobs, no blood. Wild West? More like Mild West, am I right?

After killing a couple bad guys, the girls hole up on their motel room and try to figure out what to do next. They figure out that Babyface is probably a spy for the gang, so they hide out in the desert. Kim decides to go back to town to grab a necklace (?), but gets shot by some mysterious woman-in-black who sounds suspiciously like loony R&B singer Macy Gray. Meanwhile, the girls snooze away by the campfire, and Lil' Kim dreams about when they were all bank robbers who wore purple silk scarves over their faces and said group prayers before they knocked a bank over.

And then Kim shows up on her horse, and then dies. And then everybody cries. You might too, since she's the only hot girl in the whole movie.

Just when you think this fiasco cannot get any lamer, they have an impromptu funeral for her where Rachel sings "Amazing Grace" and they flashback to an all-Kim montage, which is basically just close-ups of her face as she scowls.

So, of course, there's the big revenge finale. All the bad guys are conveniently holed up in a barn. Before the girls storm it, they have another prayer circle where they hug and stare meaningfully into each other's eyes. I never knew bank robbers were so Jesus-y.

So, will they find the gold? Will Rachel avenge her sister? Will somebody shoot off one of Lil' Kim's ridiculous boob implants? And what about the mysterious lady-in-black? Is Macy Gray going to sing a song, or what?

All these questions are answered in the underwhelming conclusion. You will not like the answers, but you will get them.

You will also get a cameo by Ted Lange, the bartender on the Love Boat. Guess what he plays? That's right, a bartender. Holy shit.

Retarded 'modern' westerns are nothing new. See Young Guns (1988), Banditas (2001), or Sukiyaki Wastern Django (2007) for three obvious examples. Still, Gang of Roses really takes the cake. The hair extensions, silicone, and urban vernacular would not even be an issue if they had played this for camp, but the actresses - a very loose term here - stubbornly refuse to accept that they're in the middle of a dumb goof. They play it all so earnestly that it sucks all the coulda-been yucks out of the proceedings. And so we are left with only the woeful set and costume design, bloodless gunplay, a witless story, numerous visible microphone battery pack shots, and Lil' Kim's space alien eyebrows to keep us from dying of boredom.

There is one bright spot: Bobby Brown is clearly blitzed on drugs the entire time, and that's always fun to watch. Otherwise, I can only recommend this to the staunchest badfilm fans, or Stacey Dash completists. Unfortunately, I fear I may be both. So I guess I deserved this.


Amazingly, Gang of Roses did not kill director LaMarre's career. He went on to develop two successful film series: Norah's Hair Salon, and Pastor Jones. They sound quite wholesome. I am not familiar with them, so I cannot say. The "Gang" are all doing fine. Stacey Dash was recently in Playboy, to celebrate her 40th birthday. It was awesome.



- Ken McIntyre

The Girl With the Hungry Eyes (1967)

Directed by William Rotsler
Starring Cathy Crowfoot, Vicky Dee, Pat Barrington, Scott Avery
Rated R
USA

"I was a little drinky-drunky."

William Rotsler (RIP) was a science-fiction super fan who supplemented his career of drawing cartoons for SF mags with the odd dip into softcore, sexploitation, and melodrama. Hot on the heels of the more well-known (although no less turgid) Agony of Love (1966), Rotsler wrote and directed this woozy, wrong-headed snoozer about an snarly butch lesbian and her tender girl-toy. It wobbles precariously between half-assed morality tale and balls-first exploitation, but never really commits to either. So what's left? Mush, pretty much.

Kitty (Vicky Dee) and Tiger Cat (Cathy Crowfoot) are a couple of lez-leaning hot tamales cruising the highway in their hot rod. They pass by clean-cut Tom (director Rotsler), who is standing on the side of the road, watching steam rise from his clunker of a car. At Kitty's behest, they stop for him and agree to give him a lift to the next town. Kitty, clearly the bi-curious one, plies him with booze. Before long, she and Tom are sucking face in the passenger seat while Tiger drives on, quietly seething.

Finally, she has enough of this hetero bullshit, and stops the car at the edge of some woods. She tells Tom to get out, but to her horror, Kitty goes with him. They tromp off into the forest, and proceed to make sweet late 60's love in the grass.

Jealous lover Tiger follows them and watches from afar, alternately fantasizing about whipping Kitty's naked back and stabbing Tom to death with a knife. Eventually, she can take no more. She grabs a large rock and smashes Tom's skull in with it.

Kitty's a little shaken up, but Tiger reminds her of all the horrible men in her past, and then assures her that everything's going to be just fine. They go home and Tiger prepares for Kitty's birthday party, while Kitty takes a long and soapy shower, and ponders about Tiger and Tom and whether she's really happy in this controlling relationship.

And then she flashes back to her time with previous boyfriend Brian (Scott Avery), a harmless bearded chubbo who she seemed to like pretty well. So what happened to Brian? Who knows? Tiger probably chopped him and fed him to some wild dogs.

And so, the birthday party. Seems nice enough. Cake, champagne, lesbians, cigarettes. Everybody seems to like the cigs better than the cake. Dunno why. Maybe lesbians really like a good smoke. Things heat up later on when a one of the girls (Pat Barrington, Orgy of the Dead) strips down to her panties and dances around. The party ends early, however, when a butch chick hits on Kitty, and Tiger decks her. Unable to cope with the sudden burst of birthday party violence, Kitty takes off, running down the street in a vain attempt to get away from her new lesbianic life.

Tiger chases after her, but Kitty appears to be long gone. The spurned lover knocks on doors all over town, asking lesbians with crazy haircuts if they've seen her girl, but no dice.

Meanwhile, Kitty goes to see her old beau Brian. Turns out he's not dead, just sort of a douchebag. Kitty bawls and spills the beans about Tiger's attack on Tom. The bearded know-it-all responds by explaining to her about how lesbianism is doomed to fail.

"That way is destructive, not constructive," he says. "It's death, not life." And then he tells her he's made of puppy tails and dreams. He's not that helpful a guy, really.

After zooming around all day, Tiger finally figures out where Kitty is. She bangs on Brian's door, and when he answers, she assaults him with a switchblade. So he punches her in the kidneys, and knocks her the fuck out. The end.

So, clearly there's a 'moral' here. And the moral is: All Lesbians are Evil. Also, All Men are Beasts, but at least they're, you know, normal beasts. Welcome to the 60's!

Although it started out strong, hinting at a no-budget, Sapphic-centered Faster Pussycat cop, Girl With the Hungry Eyes quickly devolves into a series of long and pointless flashbacks that pad the running time, but do nothing to advance the story. It's not particularly sleazy or lurid, either, especially given the era it sprang from. It does, however, prominently feature the exquisite bosoms of Vicky Dee - to say nothing of her still cutting-edge, two-toned punk-chick haircut - so that's something. It's not much, but it's something.

Girl With the Hungry Eyes is available from Something Weird Video.

- Ken McIntyre

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