Quick Review: 5ive Girls (2006)

Why is this movie a Guilty Pleasure? Well, mainly because its best features are 7 hot chicks in Catholic Schoolgirl outfits, lots of boobs, lots of side-boob, lesbian ass-massaging, a lesbian pat-down/cavity search, lesbian kissing, girl-on-girl paddling, a horrible CGI Demon, and Ron Perlman... this movie just drips guilt and pleasure.

Imagine a soft-core Cinemax style porn (minus pretty much all of the porn) that existed only to parade a bunch of young, hot girls in schoolgirl outfits around on screen for 90 minutes. Then add some supernatural shit to it. That's pretty much 5ive Girls in a nutshell.

It's really one of those harmless, middle-of-the-road Horror flicks that is geared towards the younger crowd. It delivers on some of the goods that Horror fans come to expect, but it never really pushes too hard on the walls of good taste, which is a shame. This could have been one hell of an exploitation flick.

So shameless.

The classic "ass healing" scene is a perfect example. How many movies do you recall where hot teen girls give each other healing ass rubs?

5ive Girls is the story of... well, 5 girls. 5 bad, naughty, juvenile delinquent, hot girls, that are sent to some defunct old school for some "discipline." It's nice to see that the creepy headmaster in this movie is a chick for a change, as I was totally expecting Ron Perlman to be the rapey-perv doling out the spankings and doing the anal cavity searches. Seriously, there was an anal cavity search during the lesbian pat-down scene. Seriously there was a lesbian pat-down scene.

How is this even legal, let alone ethical?

There's contraband in her butt, and the sexy warden Will find it!

So anyways, the 5 bad girls each have special "gifts," which include telekinesis, healing, second sight and being slutty. Father Drake (Ron Perlman) pretty much plays the same part as he always does, which is the gritty and intimidating Serial Killer-looking guy (only this time he's in Priest form), is there to help them along and make them say prayers, while the evil, whorish Headmistress paddles them, berates them, and sets them all up to die at the hands of a vengeful Demon.

The vengeful Demon.

The awkward kiss.

And drugs!

There's a point to it all, but who cares really. It's all fluff, and the only reason it's worth watching is because it's full of hot chicks. I guess if you liked The Craft or any other "safe" Tween Horror movie like that, you may like this one too.

These girls do need discipline!

Much like the sassy pop stylings of 80's super-group Wham!, 5ive Girls is a Guilty Pleasure that brings us equal amounts of enjoyment and shame. Sure, you can laugh at George Michael's hair, or the fact that he just can't resist blowing random guys in filthy rest stop bathrooms, but I dare you to listen to Wake Me Up (Before You Go-Go) and not sing along. You can't. It isn't humanly possible.

On the same token, you can't really watch 5ive Girls without digging it on some perverse, shameful level. Sure, much like the music of Wham!, it mostly sucks, but while sucking, it manages to make you tingle in your pants and want to break out in a spontaneous dance routine... Ok, whatever. We're just ashamed that we kinda like them both.

P.S. I'd also like to say that despite marrying the hot chick from Bananarama, there's no way that Andrew Ridgely (the other Wham!) didn't fight George Michael's penis with his mouth at some point during their career. I guess what I'm saying is that they had their own "Bananarama" going on. Just watch the videos man... the proof is in the pudding. The man pudding.

 

Some more of Ron Perlman and his naughty bitches, because how is that a bad thing?

 

 

Quick Review: Green Lantern (2011)

We're not dwelling too much on this one, because a review of a Superhero movie doesn't really belong here, but just for the Fanboys out there, we'll give a quick word or two:

This movie was pretty fun.

This isn't a lexicon-abiding, serious comic book movie at all; no, it's more of a lighthearted popcorn flick if it's anything. It felt a bit rushed in some places, lame in others, it lagged quite a bit, and it was as cheesy as it was visually stunning.

It was fun escapism that you'll forget about 10 seconds after you see it.

We felt like this at times watching this one.

But then she made things all better.

Tell me he wouldn't be perfect for Deadpool.

If you like Ryan Reynolds and his whole wry sarcasm shtick, and prefer style over substance, then this movie is a fun ride. Hopefully, if there's a sequel, it takes a more serious road though. And sucks less.

It's a solid C, for what it is.

Blake Lively made this one a better movie.

Quick Review: BreadCrumbs (2011)

I've seen far worse Direct-to-DVD Horror flicks than BreadCrumbs, though that hardly means this was a "great" movie. It really is just your standard backwoods stalk-and-slash flick, and it's fairly by the numbers.

The synopsis on IMDb says "A group of Porn Filmmakers are systematically attacked by 2 children on the set of a remote shoot."

That's basically about right, although the children part leaves me scratching my head. Why you ask? Because the killers in this movie are billed as being children, but they look more like they're in their mid-20's to me. They also act like they were sired by Forest Gump and Nell, which means I think they were retarded.

"Padaw dasaw mowmoe mo roo do." God, I hated Nell. Google it. You will too.

Shira Weitz is a QT.

BreadCrumbs is a fairly well made movie for a cheapo. I really liked how it was shot in Techniscope. The script was a bit dull though, and made the story drag................................... out........................ way.................. too......................long, which gave us a little too much "down time." With a little more T&A and some extra gore replacing the endless talking and walking, this could have been a pretty cool movie. There are a bunch of hot chicks in this movie too, which is always nice, and some of them actually get naked or close to it, which is even nicer. The blood and kill scenes are decent enough when they happen, though most of the movie is exposition or a group of characters running here or there.

Yeah.

Again, a good trimming of the exposition verge would have done this movie wonders. Still, it's not a terrible movie to waste 80 minutes or so on.

C 

Here are some final thoughts for you...

Sean Bean was stabbed defending the honor of a whore... I am not even kidding.

As if anyone needed more proof that Sean Bean is awesome, they have it now. If anyone deserves to be out having drink with a hot Playboy/Porn star, It's Eddard Stark. Boromir. Odysseus. John Dawson. I could go on listing his awesome roles, and there are a bunch more, but we all know he's a bad-ass mofo to begin with. Anywho, some chav shot his mouth of to to Bean's lady friend, and Bean told him to piss off. The guy went away, but came back later and punched Bean in the eye, then stabbed him in the arm with a broken bottle. Here's the best part: He refused to go to the hospital, had the pub staff pop a band aid on him, and ordered more drinks. If that's not pimp, I don't know what is.

Game of Thrones just upped the ante on us...

*I'm going to try to keep the spoilers at a bare minimum here, because if you haven't already, you really should start this amazing series from ep.1 and watch them for yourselves. I'll be as ambiguous as possible, but if you haven't seen last night's episode yet, stop reading. You're only cheating yourself if you don't. With the ending of last night's 9th GOT episode, Baelor, HBO and George R.R. Martin did what very few shows have ever done, so early on -They killed off the main character. Now, here's the rub on the statement that I just made; This show, as well as the books, really has a bunch of main characters, though 4 tend to stand out as focal points. Dany, Tyrion, Jon Snow and Arya are for the most part, the "main" protagonists. That said, the character that left us last night was a huge blow, and it killed me to watch them go. Then again, the rest of the series is fueled by their death, so it serves a large purpose. I give Martin credit for having the balls to kill off a character so important to the story, though it makes sense why he did so. This series isn't Frodo running to Mount Doom to save the world. One person isn't the hero here, and it can be argued that no one in the story really is. This show has already been decried by some as being on the level of another HBO show, The Wire. When I think of the definitively perfect TV show, I think of The Wire. I won't go into why here, because this is a horror site after all, but if you've seen it, you already know. If you haven't, then I really wish I could give you all 5 seasons on DVD, hug you and say "You're welcome." It was that good. Game of Thrones is already at the same level as The Wire, though I do say that hesitantly. There's still a lot for this show to prove, but I'll be damned if it hasn't already shown and proved on about every level thus far. We just need more. If HBO keeps up the high level of drama and characterization, and continues to translate the books so well, my claim won't be hesitant for very long. If this show can give me its version of Omar Little, I might even come to love it above all other shows. First though, let's see how they handle the dragons. "You come at the king, you best not miss. Ya feel me?"

Review: Yellowbrickroad (2011)

Click your heels together three times and wish for another movie."

I must be missing something here, because everybody who has written a review about this movie so far seems to think this movie was pretty damned good.

I remember seeing the trailer and reading various things about the plot of Yellowbrickroad last year, and being extremely geeked to get a chance, any chance, to see it. The idea of a group of filmmakers willing to go down the "Yellow Brick Road" to find out what happened to an entire town that disappeared (ala the colony at Roanoke), sounded fantastic. The movie, as it turns out, was not as fantastic as its premise.

This is an actual picture of one of us watching this movie.

Many reviewers have called this movie "a slow burn" which I don't agree with, mainly because there is no burn. It's slow, yes. No burn though. It felt uneven and directionless, like they had no idea where to go with their own awesome premise and set-up. From the advance buzz I read about YBR, I was expecting a tense, atmospheric creeper, and to be totally honest, aside from one or two scenes, there wasn't much creepiness in this movie at all.

There was a lot of this, though.

The acting was decent, though some of the characters were a bit annoying at times, but if felt as if I was watching a bunch of actors pretending to go insane rather than characters losing their grips on reality. Some of it was even goofy. The part in which a girl just walks of a cliff made me giggle; they must have sped up the film during her fall, because it was so fast that I couldn't help but laugh and say "what?!?" Then again the fact that the characters just kinda stood around and watch a guy bash a chicks leg off with a rock -and did nothing- was nearly laughable as well. Like how long does it take to bash through someone's leg with a rock? A while, right? And no one ran over to stop him until he had removed the leg?

There's also a rather jarring sequence about midway through the movie that grated on my nerves. Music loudly flared on and off while they cast stumbled around like the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise during a Klingon attack, and I'm talking 70's William Shatner-style here... it would have been funny, if it hadn't been so horribly annoying. It felt like the scene went on and on too, so much so that it elicited a cheer from us when it finally ended.

Yeah, that was pretty much our reaction.

I'll give the movie credit for a few things, such as the sound mix/editing. The filmmakers made some bold moves involving sound in this one, to the point where it almost became its own character in a way. Aside from the majorly annoying "on/off scene," the sound throughout the movie was used to great effect. There's also a scene where a guy is hiding in a little cave which was pretty good too.

There are some good things at work here, mainly sound, location and premise, but they're just never really used to any good effect, and that's the real problem. The director and writer never really make us feel dread or any sort of impending doom for the characters as they make their way further and further down the road, towards whatever waits at its end. I really just don't get it.

She's so good on Longmire that we're just going to forget she was ever in this movie.

The movie was slow, uneventful, and tediously frustrating. Walk, talk, sleep, act odd, repeat. And there was nothing even close to a payoff at the end. Oh yeah, we didn't mention the ending, did we? I won't spoil anything by going into any sort of detail, but I will say that Horror filmmakers need to stop being afraid to conceive and deliver actual endings for their films. Enough with the twist and/or complete ambiguity bullshit, let's have a little bit of resolution, or at the very least, some sort of explanation at the end of these 90 minute journeys that we're asked to go on.

Even if there's no "payoff" to be had at their end, how about at least make the rest of the movie gripping and absorbing? I kept waiting to tense up, and feel some sort of permeating doom creep into my bones, but that moment never came. 1940's music and melodramatic over-acing are bad enough, but when they're the centerpiece of a movie and are counted on to raise its level of tension/atmosphere with absolutely nothing else to help them, it's a tough sell. At least for us it is.

At least this yellow brick road led somewhere...

Yellowbrickroad is not an awful movie, it just really drops the ball in the most important areas, which makes it awful enough to us.

Like I said earlier, it seems as if a lot of Horror sites out there think that this movie is some sort of uber-effective triumph of Independent Horror Cinema. Aside from the ones that usually seem to be shills for certain movies/filmmakers, maybe they saw a completely different cut than we did? We really wanted to love this movie, but if we sat here and said it was lovable, we'd be lying.

*And before some jerk-off leaves us a clever comment like "You just don't appreciate the slow burn" or "You need everything spoon-fed to you!," please know that I loved the TV show Rubicon. If there's anything that spoon feeds less, or that burns slower than that, I have yet to see it. That show got cancelled because "nothing really ever happened" on it, and I still thought it was brilliant. So no, we in no way prefer style over substance, and in fact we will take substance every time. This movie just fell short. 

D+

Anessa Ramsey and Cassidy Freeman are in this.