JOY & JOAN -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 8/13/10

 

Where 1983's softcore sex romp JOY left off, JOY & JOAN (1985) picks up and continues with the life story of a vacuous supermodel (Brigitte Lahaie) whose successful career is overshadowed by a troublesome love life.  This time, after suffering continued setbacks in her relationships with men, Joy decides to try her luck playing on the other team for change.  Will it be a whole new romantic revelation, or just the same old grind with different underwear?

As the story opens, poor Joy is finding it hard to smile during a photo shoot.  Sometimes the life of a supermodel can be so hard!  Her heartthrob and Daddy-figure, Marc (played this time by younger actor Jean-Marc Maurel), blithely refuses to commit to her and is about to flit off to Thailand on a writing assignment.  So Joy cleverly beguiles her other older-guy lover, Bruce (played this time by older actor Pierre Londiche) into taking her there, too.  But the terminally smitten Bruce has a few perverse plans for Joy up his sleeve (among other areas) and, while staying at the luxurious villa of the creepy Prince Cornelius, things begin to get so strange that Joy is forced to flee in order to preserve her...virtue?

Stranded in Thailand without any money or champagne, Joy meets a lovely and vivacious young woman named Joan (Isabelle Solar) who divides her time between being a tour guide and conning rich old men out of their money.  Joan falls head over heels for Joy and they start making out like a couple of girl rabbits.  Things go well for awhile, but after a traumatic S&M gangbang in a dank grotto in the Philippines, Joy finds her way back to France alone.  Will Joan be able to find her again and rekindle their romance?  And what about Marc?  Will Joy be okay?

JOY & JOAN has all the slick production values of the original film but is more creatively shot and edited, with a story that actually manages to be interesting from time to time.  The travelogue elements are fine as Joy finds herself amidst some beautiful locations in Thailand and the Philippines, particularly during some stunningly-photographed beach idylls and a sightseeing tour through the waterways of Singapore. 

The first half of the film is the best, as Bruce's weird side emerges when they arrive at Cornelius' palatial estate and meet the man himself, a quivering little troll who openly lusts after Joy.  Bruce goes all out to celebrate her birthday, inviting a crowd of formally-attired pervs to queue up and take a Joy-ride after the naughty voyeur has drugged her drink and laid her out on a huge chaise lounge under the stars.  This tastefully bizarre and delightfully strange sequence is like something a more restrained Ken Russell might cook up, especially when a mock orchestra and portly opera singer start mimicking a recording of "Madame Butterfly" while Cornelius giddily hops around in a bandleader outfit and baton. 

When Joy finally gets away from Bruce with the help of his exotic Malaysian slave girl Millarca (after a tender lesbian interlude, natch), her encounter with Joan leads to several steamy erotic sequences which take place in beds, beaches, trains, and just about any other location with a horizontal surface.  The story rolls lazily along at this point but never really grinds to a halt, and, after the bad business in that grotto, relocates back to Paris for a fairly interesting resolution in which Marc gets back into the act. 

While she has a lot of loyal fans, I think Brigitte Lahaie lacks charisma and due to her often sluggish performance the character of Joy seems more vapid than ever.  However, this shouldn't matter very much to those interested in seeing her naked, because she and the other female leads spend a great deal of time shucking their clothes and making out with each other in classic soft-porn style.  When she isn't going one-on-one with Joan or Millarca, Joy sometimes finds herself akin to an amusement park ride that everyone wants a turn on, and it isn't always consensual--one of the drawbacks of being dangerously irresistible. 

The rest of the cast carry their weight and a few of them stand out.  As the pathetic Prince Cornelius, Jacques Bryland ultimately manages to give an unexpected depth to his almost farcical character as he pines for Joy from afar and ends up chasing her across continents.  Maria Isabel Lopez also makes an impression as the melancholy slave girl Millarca, who helps Joy escape from her master's clutches.  Isabelle Solar makes an appealing but not all that exciting Joan, while Jean-Marc Maurel is carefree roguishness personified as the happily faithless Marc.

The DVD from Severin Films is 1.85:1 widescreen with a Dolby 2.0 French soundtrack and English subtitles.  No extras.

Definitely more substantial storywise than its predecessor, JOY & JOAN is still pretty lightweight drama.  However, it makes up for this with some nice visuals, offbeat scenes, exotic scenery, attractive stars, and lots and lots of nudity and sex.  For this kind of film, you probably can't ask for much more than that.

JOY & JOAN -- DVD Review by Porfle

WILD CHERRY -- DVD review by porfle

I've heard WILD CHERRY (2009) described as "AMERICAN PIE for girls."  I would recommend to those girls that they skip this dud and just watch AMERICAN PIE instead.  That is, if they're looking for a raunchy teen comedy that's actually funny.

It turns out that the football players at Benjamin Dover High School (I'll let you think about that name for a second) have what they call the "Buccaneer Bang Book", a list of female virgins who must be devirginized before the big game lest bad luck befall the team.  Naturally, most of these guys are your stereotypical sexist pigs so we can't wait to see them get their comeuppance and blah, blah, blah.

Meanwhile, classmates Helen, Chase, and Trish are obsessed with having sex too, especially Helen who's a virgin but is planning a romantic coupling with her football player boyfriend Stanford any day now.  But when they find out about the book, it makes them mad and they vow not to "give it up" to any of the guys, while "getting back at them" in humiliating ways.  It's gold, Jerry, gold!

While such a premise may have yielded some laughs in the right hands, those hands aren't anywhere near this lame effort.  The script was written by a bunch of guys so I have no idea where their heads were at when they concocted this "girl power" story that female viewers are meant to identify with.
 


Director Dana Lustig's attempts to wring the intended laughs out of it fall short due to an inability to put together even the most cliched sequences (such as the climactic football game) without making them look like a clumsy high school AV project.  Helen's "desperately trying to have her first self-induced orgasm" scene is just sad.  We anticipate something funny when she goes after Stanny at a go-cart track, but after running him off the road once, that's it.  It doesn't help that everything's drowned out by an endless succession of loud, crappy soundtrack songs ranging from metal to emo.

Later, during a party, we're treated to the dubious hilarity of the girls spiking the boys' punch with an overdose of "boner pills" that not only leave them all stricken with painful erections but send at least one of them to the hospital.  Hey, there's a great message for teens!  Another substance ends up in the punch, too, in an attempt to outdo the "Stifler's beer" scene from AMERICAN PIE.  If you can get through it without gagging, you win a cookie.

Rob Schneider, who's used to being in bad comedies, manages to work up a chuckle or two in his role as a sad dad who doesn't want daughter Helen to move to Paris to live with her mom or to have sex.  It's funny when he tries to introduce her to various birth control methods which he clearly knows nothing about ("This is a female condom.  It goes...uh, in") and his obvious fear of being left alone actually  gives the movie a teensy bit of heart.



Tia Carrere's turn as a wacko teacher who tries to hip the girls to "the power of pussy" is unlikely to boost her career.  As Helen, Tania Raymonde is okay but she isn't funny.  Neither are Kristin Cavallari (Trish), Rumer Willis (as oddball Chase), or Ryan "Comanche Moon" Merriman as Stanford.  Jesse Moss (DEAR MR. GACY, MERLIN AND THE BOOK OF BEASTS) does display a modicum of comedic skills as Skeets, keeper of the Bang Book, but it's a lost cause.

The DVD from Image Entertainment is in 1.78:1 widescreen with Dolby Digital 5.1 surround.  Subtitles are in English and Spanish.  A trailer is the sole extra.

In one of the film's father-daughter scenes, Rob Schneider learns a disturbing fact about Helen and pleads, "Please go back in time to before you told me that story."  You might find yourself saying the same thing to the makers of WILD CHERRY after it's over.  But if you're determined to give it a try, at least keep a few boner pills handy.
 

Buy it at Amazon.com:
DVD
Blu-Ray

WILD CHERRY -- DVD review by porfle

LIVELIHOOD -- DVD review by porfle

Of all the zombie spoofs that seem to be clawing their way out of the grave these days, LIVELIHOOD (2005) is probably the cheapest. Director Ryan Graham managed to put it together for about four-thousand bucks, building much of his own equipment such as lights, camera dollies, and even a makeshift crane. He also put together a cast of enthusiastic performers who zapped their wacky characters into vibrant life and helped turn this off-the-wall screenplay into an often hilarious romp.

The story follows the lives (and deaths) of three main characters. First, there's 80s hair-metal rocker Billy Jump (Steve Thomas), who electrocutes himself one night just as he's finally discovered the perfect riff. Then there's perpetually cheerful shlub Alexander Keaton (Scott Graham), who thinks he has a wonderful marriage although his shrewish wife despises him, and thinks he's on the fast track to a promotion at work although his surly, abusive boss treats him like dog poop. While working late one night, Alexander is chased through the halls of his office building and then beheaded by a screaming samurai warrior. Finally, we have Roger and Jean (real-life couple Lewis and Amy Smith), whose marriage would be just peachy if Roger's domineering, over-possessive mother, Vida (Michelle Trout), didn't live with them and make Jean's life miserable. That is, until someone poisons the old bag and she croaks facedown in her tapioca pudding.

As so often happens in zombie movies, the dead suddenly start returning to life for no reason. This time, though, they're not interested in killing people or devouring their flesh--they just want to return to their former lives as though nothing had happened, which becomes a problem for the living when these reanimated corpses start showing up again. In Billy's case it actually turns out to be an advantage when shifty record exec Kris Kashgrab (John Bennett) conjures up a scheme to transform Billy's return into a big comeback event. Alexander has no such luck, however--he staggers home, duct tapes his head back onto his neck, and discovers his wife in bed with another woman. Ordered out of the house, he returns to work to find that he no longer has a job. As for Roger and Jean, the horribly decayed Vida's sudden reappearance as the mother-in-law from hell turns Jean's life into a waking nightmare, although mama's boy Roger is tickled pink.

The "Billy Jump" segments are okay although I found this storyline a bit tiresome after awhile. His bandmembers are pretty funny, and are played by actual members of the Dirty Maramaduke Flute Squad, which also includes director Graham on guitar. Putting the old band back together a la THE BLUES BROTHERS, Billy discovers that his lead guitarist and bassist are now an openly-gay couple, while his deaf keyboardist Beat Ovin (Mike Bennett) is tinkling the ivories in a snooty restaurant.

Alexander, who reminds me of alien leader Mathesar from GALAXY QUEST, finds forbidden love with his boss' misfit Goth daughter Zoey (Kara Webb), but their subplot isn't really all that exciting, either, until the surprise conclusion. The best part of LIVELIHOOD for me was the mother-in-law story. Amy Smith's energetic performance as Jean is consistently good, and the escalating tensions between her and Vida, with doofus Roger in the middle of it all, finally culminate in a wild free-for-all battle to the death that's wonderfully staged.

Gross-out moments include the vomit-inducing tapioca pudding scene (the second one, that is), a couple of groupies collecting Billy's body parts to sell on eBay, the equally vomit-inducing apple cobbler scene, and other comically disturbing highlights. The return of the dead also results in some great new television programming, such as a soap opera entitled "The Dead and the Breathless", a take-off on those Matthew Lesko infomercials which promises "Free Money Now!" for the dead, and a really wrong commercial for a product that claims to cure the zombie malady known as Deteriorating Bowel Syndrome.

As can be expected from a movie with so many gags flying fast and furious, LIVELIHOOD is pretty uneven and some sequences tend to drag. Still, the cast is so talented and the script (by Ryan and Tracey Graham and Curtis Crispin) so packed with bizarre jokes and ridiculous references that I was kept fairly entertained most of the time. Several of the scenes resemble good sketch comedy found on such series as Mr. Show. In fact, there's a fake music video by country singer Junior "The Senior" Young Jenkins III for his song, "Leave the US to the Livin'", which bears a striking similarity to the fake country music videos featured in Mr. Show's "Blow Up the Moon" episode.

One of my favorite sequences is the one in which Roger's abrasive, zombie-hating boss, Larry Tate (Davon Hall), shows up for dinner on a Rascal scooter with his bimbo wife Lucy, while Vida does everything she can to disrupt the occasion and get Roger fired (leading to the aforementioned "apple cobbler" scene.) I think this entire storyline could've easily been expanded into a separate movie of its own.

As for extras, not only are there two cast and crew commentary tracks, but a second disc of stuff as well. The deleted scenes are mostly better off deleted, and some of them, such as Alexander's long, dead-serious monologue to Zoey about his parents getting killed by a drunk driver, make you wonder what the hell they were thinking. The bloopers are pretty good but are interesting mainly for some glimpses of low-tech SPFX wizardry such as the "flying plates" scene. This is also true of the featurette "MacGyver DIY Filmmaking", in which Ryan Graham gives a highly-instructive demonstration of how to build your own moviemaking equipment on the cheap. Finally, there's a short about the Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad ("The Real Billy Jump Band"), which is interesting although I don't plan on purchasing any of their CDs anytime soon.

Watching LIVELIHOOD is like going through a buffet blindfolded--you have to take the bad with the good. But it's a respectable effort for such a low-budget flick and the talent in front of and behind the camera makes it pleasantly watchable and, at times, downright funny.




(Note: This review was originally posted at Bumscorner.com in 2008 and covers the DVD edition that is pictured above.)

Buy it at Amazon.com

LIVELIHOOD -- DVD review by porfle

HKCFN Podcast 2: Godzilla Final Wars!

Derek and I take a look at the most controversial Godzilla film ever.

We also take a peak at:
-The Awesomeness of Don Frye
-Why Mike Schlesinger is pretty darn cool too.
-What were people expected with Kitamura and his post-modern Godzilla film.
-Fanboys (young and old).

HKCFN Podcast 2: Godzilla Final Wars!