The Eyes of Laura Mars (1978)

Directed by Irvin Kershner
Starring Faye Dunaway, Tommy Lee Jones
Rated R
USA

“I'm completely out of control!”

I was nine when this much-hyped film came out in '78. I remember seeing the TV spots and correctly pegging it as 'grown-up stuff'. Well, now I'm pretty much 'grown-up', so I figured it was high-time I checked it out. Laura Mars is a “psychological thriller” about a controversial and very successful fashion photographer (Faye Dunaway, as the titular Mars) whose ultra-violent fashion mag spreads closely resemble a series of unsolved murders that occurred in NYC a couple years prior. Even worse, a new spate of murders – all models this time, and all of them friends/associates of Laura's – is underway, and Laura keeps having episodes wherein she catches POV glimpses of the murders.

Tommy Lee Jones co-stars as the detective on the case. He eventually falls in love with her, which muddies up the investigation considerably. Also, there's a good baker's dozen of potential killers/red herrings all around her, including Raul Julia as her rape-y ex-husband and various loony assistants and hangers-on, including creepout character actors Brad Dourif and Rene Auberjonois. Eventually, all the could-be killers get eye-stabbed to death, which brings us to the shock-twist ending. Of course, anyone who's ever seen a movie, ever, in their entire lives, will have already guessed the ending in the first five minutes. But hey, life's a journey, not a destination.

So, bad news first: Eyes of Laura Mars is pretty dull. Dunaway is pretty much sleep-walking through the whole thing, the surprise ending is hardly a surprise, and for an R-rated film, it's pretty tame. I mean, it's about an eyeball killer, and there's no eye-gore? Also, it mostly just looks and feels like an extra long episode of any generic cop show of the era. Jones could easily be replaced by Kojak or Ironside or Starsky and/or Hutch, and none would be the wiser.

There are, however, a few meager rewards for your time and effort: Laura's apocalyptic photo-shoots are pretty cool, there's some brief-but-tasty model nudity, Barbara Steisand's overwrought disco-dirge theme song is awesome (Babs was originally slated to play Laura, but backed out somewhere along the way), there's some random zaniness along the way (what's with the out-of-nowhere dwarf?), and there's some nicely gritty shots of pre-Disneyfied NYC. Also, John Carpenter wrote the script. That seems notable.

So, there you go. My nine-year old instincts were correct. The Eyes of Laura Mars is definitely for grown-ups. Boring grown-ups. If you're looking for primo Dunaway, stick with Bonnie and Clyde or Chinatown and leave this bloodless thriller on the shelf.

PS director Kershner followed this up with The Empire Strikes Back!

- Ken 

The Sex Merchants (2011)

Directed by John Niflheim
Starring Tyrone L. Roosevelt, Jackie Stevens, Mia Copia
Unrated
USA

"I'm reliable, experimental, and very accommodating when I have to be. All for business, of course."

I'm just gonna come out and say it; I didn't really like this movie. Now with that out of the way, let me try and explain why I didn't like it while also trying to not come off like a jerk. I suppose being a movie reviewer, critic, or just some dumb guy on a laptop (take your pick) inherently puts one in a position to tell people that you think the thing they've worked so hard on and laid everything on the line for sucks, but I still don't feel very good about doing it.

Anyway, such is the case with this little confusion of a film called The Sex Merchants. Firstly, the title doesn't even make sense. Sure it's got sex and there's a guy who buys photos, so I guess he could be called a merchant, but there's only one of him and he's not even in the movie for more than 5 minutes! Small complaint, yes; but I've only just begun.

The Sex Merchants, not being about sex merchants at all, is actually about a young fellow goes by the name of Pete. Young Pete is photographer - an erotic photographer. Pete operates out of his apartment by inviting ladies over to model. Said modeling is mainly based on fetishes: Foot worship, ball gags, bondage, and even some whip action - which Pete handles all by himself.

Besides leaving you wondering how he's getting any decent shots without a camera, the scenes, although amply supplying more flesh than bargained for (did any one say buttholes and vulva?) ultimately become tedious and far less edgy than I think they wanted it to seem. Again, small complaint, but in combination with everything else here (or perhaps lack thereof), it doesn't help any. Well, maybe still a little bit.

"So, this Pete guy takes photos", you say.

Well yes, this is true.

"So, what else is going on here", you ask.

Well, he sells them to an old dude who works at some silly magazine that dares call itself Esoteric, and...ooh! He masturbates obsessively to a recurrent memory and/or fantasy of an unidentified woman rubbin' all up on herself. That's something, right?

As you may have guessed, the lack of a head means we don't know who it is, but we should want to. Oh, and we find out. Now, I can't say it was completely expected, but it also wasn'tunexpected, if you know what I'm saying; which you probably don't, but will if you watch this (which I can't say you should - although I also wouldn't say you shouldn't).

Even though Pete spends the majority of his time thinking about, looking at, surrounded by, and inside (like, sexually) women, he thinks very little of them, believing that all women secretly want to be abused and mistreated. Most of this animosity towards women stems from his controlling and verbally abusive mother (played by Jackie Stevens), with whom he also shares a weird psychosexual relationship with (hint, hint).

Okay, Pete's a misogynistic erotic photographer (check) who likes to abuse women (check), masturbates obsessively (check) and has a bitchy mom (check). What else could make him a complete cliche of a man on the verge of a breakdown (at least in that Afterschool Special meets Cinemax softcore flick way)? A drug problem (ring-a-ding-ding-ding)!

So where I'm going with this is that this dude Pete's got all this drama. Now, this drama could go a few ways. One that I can think of is to make said drama as extreme as possible. Another is to water the content down and make it all preachy and unrealistic. Well, The Sex Merchants did a little bit of both.

You see, my problem here is not the lethargic pacing, the flat acting, or the odd angled 90's indie feel (complete with quirky jazzy score), but instead how painfully serious the film takes itself even with all the opportunities it gives itself to play up the ridiculous situations. Pete's supposed to be an egotistic douche bag whose deep into extreme porn and hard drugs, but it never feels like it ever gets there. Most of the time Pete is just sighing or lackadaisically pontificating about pretentious art philosophy bullshit while every once in awhile making a laughably affected sexist comment in a dismissive manner. Come to think of it, I don't even think they show him doing any drugs at any point in the movie, but somehow we're supposed to think he's totally fucked up on them and desperate for the next hit. His mom is supposed to be a soul sucking wretch, but comes off as no more than a Valium intoxicated Housewife of New Jersey. And don't even get me started on the teddy bear of a drug dealer who asks the forehead grabbing and frantically pacing Peter relatively nicely to at least pay for half of the drugs he brought for him (see,even though Pete is supposed to be this rich ass photographer, he gots no money).

Shit, that's about all I can say about The Sex Merchants. It could have at least been entertaining, but unfortunately that didn't happen. I suppose if you want to give a shot to a movie that feels a little like an unfunny The Room that got really sleepy (and hopefully feel differently than I did about it), you can visit Alternative Cinema, MVD, or whatever place still sells DVDs and pick up a copy.

- Jeremy Vaca

Scream Queens Illustrated: Swimsuit Sensations & Knockout Workout Double Feature (2010)

Directed by John A. Russo

Starring Melissa Moore, Veronica Carothers, Jasae

Unrated

USA

"It's very physically demanding and perhaps the best shape I've been is when I'm home working with the horses."

Originally released on VHS in 1992, and since thought to be lost (or so the box says), this double bill of ridiculousness makes its triumphant return from oblivion via SRS Cinema. Although the original masters (which were probably just camcorder tapes) have disappeared from their vault (which was probably just the camcorder this was recorded on), SRS has lovingly restored this collection for future generations to enjoy (they ripped the VHS copy and burnt it on a disc).

The premise here harkens back to a time long passed in which people were somehow under the impression that watching sexy workout videos could A) be sexy, and B) be entertaining in any other way than ironically.

Basically, we get a trio of "Scream Queen" movie actresses of whom you've never heard of and have them share their experiences of being an "actress" and how they keep in shape for the "movies" that they are in.

In the interview portions, we get to learn about the ladies interests and stuff. Sadness, confusion and nervous chuckling ensue as we hear the ladies share their dreams, goals and workout routines.

After we hear of the womens struggles to rise to the top of the Straight-To-Video pile, we get to see their routines in all their glory. First, of course is stretching:

Then you gotta do this:

And then this, for some reason.

And lastly, you gotta pump some iron.

So yeah, this isn't really a workout video that's gonna do much for you but get you really good at pooping without a toilet (see relevant photo above) or frustratedly wondering who stole all the porn from your porno, but its still a pretty sweet time (for all the wrong reasons, of course.)

Without a doubt, Scream Queens Illustrated is totally lame in a lot of ways (hell, both features are just the same video clips re-edited), which is really the only reason it was re-released, but for a laid back evening of surreal VHS flashbackery (which actually feels a lot like a good cold syrup buzz), Scream Queens Illustrated will fit the bill nicely.

- Jeremy Vaca

Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968)

Directed by Peter Bogdanovich
Starring Russian dudes, a robot, and Mamie Van Doren
Unrated
USA/Russia 

"I never thought I'd see your ugly face again!"

It's the future! 1998! Ok, that's the past, but it sounded pretty way-out in 1968, when this hodge-podge was slapped together. Two astronauts - plus an overweight robot cleverly named "Robot John" - blast off into space for the first manned exploration of Venus. After many life-draining minutes of generic "space travel" footage, they crash-land at their destination and get out to wander around. They find the planet overrun with 4-foot Godzillas, which are thankfully easy to swat away.  Much worse then the creatures, however, is the brutal Venusian atmosphere, which is quickly draining the life out of our space explorers.

Back on Earth, NASA (or whoever) are closely monitoring the astronauts' movements. When they lose radio contact after the crash, they fear the worst and send another crew to Venus to find out what happened and, if possible, to rescue the first team.

Well, ok.

So those guys show up. They search around for the first guys, but their radio signal keeps getting jammed with what sounds like the mythical 'siren song'. And then they spot a chintzy looking Pterodactyl puppet, which they kill.

Turns out, there's a telepathic, Pterodactyl-worshipping cult of sea-shell bra and silver Capris-wearing blondes - led by Mamie Ven Doren - on the planet. And they're pissed about the indiscriminate murder of their rubbery bird-god.

So, while the dopey astronauts stumble around on the rocks, the ladies use their all-blonde brains to conjure up a volcano to swallow the fuckers up.

Will the first group of space-travelers meet up with the second and get off of this crazy planet before they get swallowed up with the lava? And will they make peace with the foxy natives?

If you can stay awake long enough, you will get the answers to these burning questions.

Shoddily produced by Roger Corman, 95% of the footage in Voyage is from a 50's era Russian sci-fi fantasy called Planeta Burg. The film was re-edited and reconstructed to achieve Corman's flimsy alternative narrative, and the Bogdanovich-shot footage of Mamie and her glamorous pals was clumsily inserted into the mix to sell off the whole ugly mess as a brand new adventure. Unfortunately, the bits with the sexy Venusians amount to about three minutes of (silent) footage, and the rest is just a slow and bewildering slog through Soviet space madness. Even in an era when films were indiscriminately re-titled and re-purposed for maximum profits, Voyage is still one of the biggest rip-offs of the cinematic 60's. That same year, Bogdanovich used the same cut and paste approach with the vastly superior Targets, so at least Voyage was good practice, but for unsuspecting viewers expecting a shlocky, Queen of Outer Space-type romp with Mamie vamping it up as a sultry space vixen, you are in for a major disappointment.