A FEAST OF MAN -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 12/16/19

 

I usually try to avoid describing movies as "blank meets blank" (I limit those to once or twice a month at most) but A FEAST OF MAN (2017) sorta cries out to be described as "The Big Chill meets Eating Raoul" or something equally lazy. I mean, apt.

Anyway, it's about old friends getting back together in a house, and it's about cannibalism.  That is, the prospect of cannibalism, since they discover after gathering in the house of their deceased friend Gallagher (Laurence Bond) for the reading of his will that they will each inherit one million dollars if, and only if, they consume his corpse.

They're given two days to decide, and needless to say it's a difficult choice. At first they think it's a final practical joke on their dead friend's part, but as the deadline approaches, each seriously considers if the deed is so vile that they can afford to pass up a million dollars to avoid actually committing it.

Of course, this bunch is beyond much deep thought. There's Gallagher's best guy pals, Dickie (Jesse Rudoy) and Wolf, Jr. (Chris Shields), a couple of goofy horndogs who go ga-ga at the sight of Gallagher's erstwhile live-in girlfriend, the oversexed French vixen Arletty (Marleigh Dunlap).

And then there's Judy (Katey Parker), returning home to her old stomping grounds with a fiance', Ted (Frank Mosley), who's sort of the fifth wheel of the group, especially since he considers himself and Judy to be better than everyone else there. Which they quite possibly are, but not by much.

While they're stewing over the impending feast of their dead friend--whom we assume is himself being stewed in preparation for it by his faithful butler James (Zach Fleming)--there's plenty of time in this leisurely-paced comedy for our characters to engage in amusingly dumb conversation and often crude interactions amongst themselves and certain locals.

The latter includes a charming young lass named Sue (Jennifer Golum), a Ranger intern with whom Dickie becomes smitten. He invites her over for dinner (not THAT dinner) and the sweet, innocent Sue is such a stark contrast to the boorish main characters that she is compelled to flee as they hurl invectives in her wake.

The thing is, though, that these people are likably unlikable, and I enjoyed spending a weekend with them and feeling good about how much better they made me feel about myself in comparison to them.

The entire film has a built-in suspense factor in addition to the comedy as we get closer and closer to their decision whether or not to engage in the titular feast. In the meantime, Phillip Chernyak's quirky piano-bar score adds a whimsical quality to everything no matter how socially repellent.

The DVD from Indiepix is in 16:9 widescreen with 2.0 stereo sound. English w/closed captions.  Extras consist of a trailer and a short comedy film.

A FEAST OF MAN builds to a filling final course, and I found the entire cinematic repast quite savory indeed. (Bear with me here, I'm on a metaphor roll.)  The directing and co-writing (with Dylan Pasture) debut for Caroline Golum, it strikes me as a recipe she's had simmering in her head for some time and couldn't wait to actually start cooking up in remarkably self-assured fashion.

A FEAST OF MAN -- DVD Review by Porfle

CHARLIE STEEL -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 12/12/18

 

If you've been searching for a bland, ultra-low-budget imitation of '70s blaxploitation flicks that comes off like somebody's student film, the 1984 South African thriller CHARLIE STEEL (Indiepix Films) is the pot of bad-film fun at the end of your rainbow.

Charlie (Sol Rachilo), a poor man's poor man's Shaft, is a private dick who's called into action by a rich friend whose daughter Dudu (Sonto Mazibuko) has just been kidnapped by a gang of bad guys led by the Boss (Thapelo Mofokeng) and is being held for ransom in their secluded hideout. 

As a super-cool action hero, Steel leaves much to be desired, but part of his charm is the way this lanky, hangdog dude in a baggy suit and tiny Fedora, who looks like he's been around the block a few too many times, schleps around town looking for leads before stumbling into trouble and getting himself captured two or three times. 

Meanwhile, as the incompetent bad guys endlessly play poker around the kitchen table and take turns guarding Dudu, we find that one of them, Tony (Charles Joloza), has a crush on her and may turn out to be an ally, while another, Jimmy (Davis Diphoko), is a former military compadre of Charlie's whose seething animosity toward him will ruin the private eye's attempt to infiltrate the gang.

This is one of many low-budget films made in South Africa for black audiences during apartheid, when their access to mainstream films was prohibited, and subsequently rediscovered and restored as part of Indiepix Films' "Retro Afrika" series.  As such, it's a fascinating example of really indy filmmaking that tries to make something entertaining with severely limited resources and manages to succeed in spite of itself. 

In this case, the fun is in watching writer-director Bevis Parsons and his cast of earnest but unpolished actors put together a semi-watchable detective thriller that is endearing in its badness, filling it with tough-guy dialogue, limp action scenes, and a simple, repetitive plot that plays like a feature version of a grade Z serial.

After playing private eye for awhile, Charlie gets serious and goes into military attack mode, trading his rumpled suit for black cat-burglar attire and launching a one-man seige on the bad guys' backwoods HQ. 

Naturally he gets captured again, but that merely sets up the mildly exciting finale in which he and the Boss face off against each other one on one.  Along the way super-suave Charlie even finds time to meet a comely lass and give her his address so that they can meet for dinner the next evening. 

Technically, the film is a bit more competent that some of these apartheid-era films I've seen, but that's not saying a whole lot.  Still, for bad film fans, that's exactly what gives movies like CHARLIE STEEL their irresistible charm, something this one is steeped in.  And with expectations thus adjusted, one almost can't help having a good time watching it.


http://www.indiepixfilms.com
https://retroafrika.com/

Tech Specs
Format: Color, NTSC
Language: English
Subtitles: English
Number of discs: 1
Rated: NR 
Studio: Indiepix Films
3:2, Color, Stereo
DVD Release Date: December 18, 2018
Run Time: 87 minutes
Extras: Trailer

CHARLIE STEEL -- DVD Review by Porfle

ONE MORE SHOT -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 6/12/19

 

It's hard to explain why I look forward to these Retro Afrika DVD restorations from Indiepix so much.  They're no-budget, totally amateurish productions that imitate Hollywood films on a home movie level, and are often hilariously bad.

But they're often so bad they're good, which is why movies such as ONE MORE SHOT (1984) are so perversely entertaining to me. Granted, those who demand that their viewing material actually be "good" or at least "competent" might well be expected to run the other way as fast as they can. But they'd be missing out on the fun.

Made specifically for black South African audiences who were denied entrance to mainstream theaters during Apartheid, these films are simple, earnest efforts to entertain using practically non-existent resources.

Just seeing how the filmmakers and their players struggle to overcome such drawbacks to produce something worth running through a projector for paying audiences is interesting in itself. And I find it fascinating to see what they were able to come up with.

This time, burly bad guy Tap Tap gets out of prison with one desire: to get revenge on famed kickboxer Johnny Tough, whose testimony sent him up the river. Tap Tap goes to sinister (but in an amusing way) nightclub owner and human trafficker Fly for help, so Fly has the daughter of Johnny's lawyer kidnapped to force him to divulge the location of Johnny's secluded ranch where he trains with his Asian martial arts buddy Chan.

Fly sends three strongmen out to Johnny's ranch, setting up the first in a series of action scenes that have to be seen to be disbelieved.  This is the kind of stuff that kids do in the front yard after watching a kung-fu movie, consisting of a lot flailing hands and feet punctuated by loud "thwack!" sound effects.  Johnny's biggest talent is doing backflips, which don't really help in a fight but look pretty good in slow-motion.

The big finale takes place at Fly's country estate where he's conducting a transaction with a visiting shiek who's in the market to purchase several young kidnapped women.  Johnny and Chan take on all the guards in various slap-fight vignettes, showcasing some of the worst fight choreography ever, until finally it's just between them and the main bad guys.

Technically, ONE MORE SHOT is a mess, even more so than the previous Retro Afrika films I've seen, with more meandering sequences to pad the 59-minute running time such as an opening duo doing incredibly limp breakdancing in Fly's club for eight minutes before the plot even starts. 

Johnny and Chan's training sequence offers another musical montage, as does a long helicopter ride with Fly and the Arab shiek out to the country estate, all accompanied by bad 80s-era techno (including a title song).

As usual, all of this ineptitude is both endearing and strangely compelling as all involved work to put a watchable movie together. When the plot finally gets a head of steam going, the fight scenes (interspersed with shots of Fly displaying his female wares to the shiek) come one right after another.

The cast do their best and are fun to watch. They're much more racially mixed this time--most films in the series have almost all-black casts with the occasional white actor, but this time it's a pretty even mix. 

The clumsy dialogue is all in English this time, another rarity, but with subtitles to help us with the heavy accents.  Two talented Retro Afrika faves, leading man Innocent "Popo" Gamede and comedy star Hector Methanda (ISIBOSHWA, UMBANGO, RICH GIRL) are sorely missed. 

As I've often emphasized, films such as ONE MORE SHOT can be a real hoot, but only if you're inclined to appreciate them for what they are--simple, charmingly amateurish attempts to create entertainment practically out of thin air.  If you're open to that, then this should be yet another chance to have some really offbeat film-watching fun.



Buy it at Amazon.com

Format: NTSC
Language: English (with subtitles)
Region: All Regions
Number of discs: 1
Studio: Indiepix Films
DVD Release Date: June 11, 2019
Run Time: 59 minutes
Bonus: Trailer

ONE MORE SHOT -- DVD Review by Porfle

SUFFERING OF NINKO -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 7/26/18

 

For those with a taste for the unusual, SUFFERING OF NINKO (2016) should prove a delectable, perhaps even sumptous treat. While hardly the nuttiest Asian supernatural film set in ancient Japan that I've ever seen, it easily ranks as one of my more keenly unusual movie-watching experiences.

The establishing shots alone let us know that we're in for a beautifully rendered film by first time feature director (and writer and producer and editor) Norihiro Niwatsukino, whose credits on the project mark it as an intensely personal vision.

Set in Japan's Edo period (around the 16th century or so), the story begins in a monastery where young monk Ninko (Masato Tsujioka) is the most ardent and hardworking of all his peers. But for all his virtue and spiritual purity, he suffers from a terrible burden--he is incredibly, insanely irresistible to every woman he comes into contact with.

At first this is depicted with subtle hints of lighthearted comedy despite the film's solemn tone, with Ninko's excursions into a nearby village with his brothers to beg for alms descending into chaos as all the women in the area converge upon the group to grab, grope, drool over, and attempt to seduce the hapless Ninko with every feminine trick in their book and a few that are clearly made up on the spot.

Ninko's ordeal is deftly portrayed by showing us how his zen meditation sessions first serve as a source of peace and spiritual comfort but gradually evolve into furious psycho-sexual fever dreams that have him writhing in sexual agony before finally driving him out of his mind.

This sequence is the most surreal of the film and is enhanced by Edo-inspired drawings and animations (which recur throughout the film to add to its old Japanese storytelling style) and an unusual rendition of Ravel's "Bolero" played with traditional Japanese instruments.

Here we also get one of the first hints that Ninko is being haunted and perhaps stalked by a powerful supernatural female entity with long black hair, whom we see dancing seductively behind a bland-expression mask.

After recovering his senses, Ninko is ordered to set off on a journey of self-discovery to confront his problems and deal with them head on.  The narrative really gets going when he meets a mercenary ronin named Kanzo (Hideta Iwahashi) and the two of them are hired by local villagers to hunt down an evil sorceress, Yama-onna (Miho Wakabayashi), who seduces men with her irresistible sexuality and drains them of their lifeforce, leaving only lifeless, mummified husks.

We've seen hints of Yama-onna appearing teasingly to Ninko throughout the film, as though she senses his own sexual power and sees it, and him, as a challenge.  Ninko, meanwhile, suffers even more when it occurs to him that he may in fact be some kind of inhuman sexual creature himself.

Kanzo, the roguish swordsman, looks upon all this as an amusing (he likes Ninko) and profitable challenge to his skills.  Writer and director Norihiro Niwatsukino brings them all together for a surprising and, in some ways, exhilarating climax (in more ways than one) in which the film's narrative subtleties and eye-filling supernatural wonders intertwine. 

Old-fashioned storytelling blends with modern sex and violence to create a unique viewing experience in SUFFERING OF NINKO.  Those indulging in this enticing buffet of ancient Japanese delights will be well served.

TECH SPECS
Running Time: 70 mins.
Genre: Drama/Comedy
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audio: Stereo
Language: Japanese w/English Subtitles
Street Date: August 14, 2018
DVD SRP: $19.95

SUFFERING OF NINKO -- DVD Review by Porfle

PASTOR PAUL -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 3/8/18

 

In case you didn't know (I didn't), "Nollywood" refers to the Nigerian film industry, with PASTOR PAUL (2015) being the first American-Nollywood co-production. 

That's not what really matters, though--the important thing is that it's a well-done film that's involving, intriguing, and not a little bit mystifying.

Director and co-writer Jules David Bartkowski plays Benjamin, a Caucasian who's in West Africa to study the mathematical properties of the local drum rhythms. 

Benjamin's slight of build, mild-mannered and very unassuming, and, most of all, extremely impressionable and easily led.  That's how he ends up being talked into appearing in an independent film that's in need of a white actor.

The shoot, however, takes a dark turn when Benjamin, playing a ghost in what turns out to be a weird adaptation of "Hamlet", suffers a bizarre seizure after being repeatedly harassed by a bullying director. 

His new actor aquaintance Kubolor (Wanlov Kubolor) says he shows signs of being possessed by a malevolent spirit and should immediately seek help from a sort of witch doctor.

The rest of the story shows Benjamin bouncing between various influences, some grimly repeating Kubolor's advice while others sternly warn against it, while still attempting to pursue his studies in drum-rhythm mathematics in a neighboring village. 

There, a night of drum-beating revelry draws him into an even more intense seizure that leaves him so distraught that he wastes no time seeking out the witch doctor's help--which, unsurprisingly, draws him even deeper into fear and confusion.

But even with all this going on, the main appeal of PASTOR PAUL for me is simply taking in all the sights, sounds, and cultural eccentricities of the film's setting, a medium-sized West African city that's just brimming with local color in which Benjamin is the quintessential "fish out of water."

While playing his character with a disarming innocence, Bartkowski directs with a part documentary, part art-film style that looks crisp and eye-pleasing even when filming scenes of squalor and/or supernatural rituals that leave the viewer in a state of discomforted unease.  The score is an interesting sort of angular African jazz.

For a Westerner such as myself, Benjamin is the mundane element while all else is exotic and appealingly different (except the food, which I found anything but appealing).  To an African, the opposite would probably be true. 

This gives the film a constant feeling of newness and discovery that's rather refreshing until, of course, Benjamin's gradual crossing over into the dark side of this alien world steers things toward a strangeness that's increasingly nightmarish.

The DVD from IndiePix Films has a 1.78:1 ratio with Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo sound and English subtitles (due to some very heavy accents and dialect).  Bonuses include a behind-the-scenes short, two music performances (including Bartowski's own rendition of "I Put a Spell On You"), and a teaser trailer.

PASTOR PAUL (the title refers to Benjamin's character in the fictional film he appears in) seems more involving, both visually and intellectually, than a film this modest has a right to be.  The ominous ending sneaks up on us and may seem a bit abrupt at first, but that just gives us something to keep thinking about when the credits start to role.

PASTOR PAUL -- DVD Review by Porfle

TROMPIE -- DVD Review By Porfle

 

A milestone in "bratty kid" cinema, the South African comedy TROMPIE (IndiePix, 1975) features one of the most bratty kids ever to slime his way across a movie screen.

This lone adaptation of author Topsy Smith's popular "Trompie" book series is an entry in South Africa's Apartheid-era independent film industry of the 70s and 80s, whose works have long fallen into obscurity save for those few that IndiePix has managed to restore and re-release for not just their entertainment value, but for their historical  and novelty value as well.

An early entry in the genre, this one is different from later ones I've seen in that the production values are quite good and the cast is predominantly white. Yet it retains all the earmarks of pure independent filmmaking with a modest budget and an overall casual atmosphere.

 

The focus is on young scalawag Trompie (Andre Laubscher) and his mates Blikkies, Rooie, and Dawie, who form a neighborhood gang they call the "Boksombende." They're the typical rough-housing, trouble-prone little kid types who like to play army or cowboys and Indians in the woods when not causing a ruckus during some adult social situation or scheming to get out of school and domestic chores.

Trompie, however, carries it several steps further by being one of the most obnoxious, spoiled, selfish jerks in all of children's cinema. It's hard to empathize with the little twerp when he shows no empathy for anyone else, no regret for his actions when caught, no self-awareness whatsoever, and no sign of any redeeming qualities of any kind.

What the resolutely slow-paced film does offer is a pleasingly nostalgic, rustic sort of quality as the boys cavort amidst sunlit natural surroundings, carefree and uninhibited, when they aren't stuck in the daily drudgery of school and having to stay after class for acting up.

 

Trompie's misadventures include messing up his older sister's social life, disrupting a school play (after which a classmate is unjustly punished for his own actions), and stealing the local pastor's pet baboon, all of which he lies his way out of or blames on someone else.

Laubscher's performance as Trompie is fairly good, and it isn't his fault the part is written to be so unlikable--so much so, in fact, that it comes as a genuine relief when, in the final minutes of the story, we're allowed to feel some sympathy for him when he develops a deep attachment to a dog belonging to the family gardener's visiting brother and begs the man to leave the dog behind before departing.

Not sure this is enough to save TROMPIE from being an overall unpleasant experience, however, unless one enjoys watching a rotten kid do all kinds of rotten things and get away with them without ever learning anything positive or growing as a person. Maybe I'm being too picky about what is basically just a mildly entertaining kids' movie, but by the end I was fervently wishing Trompie would get eaten alive by wild animals or something.


Release date: December 15, 2020
Available from Amazon on DVD and Prime Video

    Product Dimensions : 0.7 x 7.5 x 5.4 inches; 2.72 Ounces
    Media Format : NTSC
    Run time : 1 hour and 24 minutes
    Release date : December 15, 2020
    Actors : Andre Laubscher
    Studio : Indiepix
    ASIN : B08FTF9Z82
    Number of discs : 1

 

TROMPIE -- DVD Review By Porfle

UPONDO & NKINSELA -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

During Apartheid, South Africans who were denied access to mainstream entertainment would go to their local theaters to see a variety of very modest, very low-budget movies that were made just for them.

These films quickly sank into obscurity and most are now lost, but a handful have been rescued from oblivion and released by IndiePix under their "Retro Afrika" DVD label.

While some were so amateurishly made as to barely qualify as feature films, others manage to rise above the rest of the pack and are quite watchable and sometimes quite entertaining.  This is especially true in the case of the raucous comedy UPONDO & NKINSELA (1984), perhaps my favorite of all the Retro Afrika films that I've seen so far.

 

Composed of 13 short vignettes, it's the story of a mismatched duo named Upondo and Nkinsela (played with unpolished but energetic aplomb by Ndaba Mhlongo and Masoja Mota) who bumble their way through life trying to either succeed in various unlikely occupations or get the better of some gullible mark (which invariably backfires on them).

Tall, lanky Upondo, he of the missing front teeth and ever-present trenchcoat and fedora he inherited from his father's grandfather's grandfather, usually gets the two into trouble while the short, relatively smarter Nkinsela (who reminds me of a young Redd Foxx) struggles to get them out of it.

The vignettes are basically blackout sketches with simple plots and hardly any resolutions--they show our heroes getting in hot water for awhile before moving right on to the next one--and are so slapstick silly, with such over-the-top performances, that they can't help but generate a fair amount of genuine hilarity at times. 

 

The first segment introduces us to the guys as Upondo tries to pass his driving test but is defeated by the parallel-parking task. Next, we see them with their own taxi service, as an attempt to transport a bride and groom to their wedding on time ends in mud-splattered disaster.

Subsequent misadventures include a stab at hairstyling, failed efforts to become television repairmen and door-to-door shoe salesmen, performing in a talent show, and an attempt to earn some quick cash as pool sharks.

Other tales involve Nkinsela getting his finger stuck in a cigarette machine and a harrowing brush with gangsters in which they end up out in the woods digging their own graves at gunpoint.

 

 

Technically, the film is slightly below the standards set by Ed Wood, yet compared to most films of its genre it's quite well done. The pace is never allowed to lag as we go briskly from one segment to the next and the main characters are always likable and sympathetic even at their most obnoxious.

If you've never seen one of these Retro Afrika films, UPONDO & NKINSELA is an ideal place to start. If you're already a fan of this unusual and often fascinating brand of rock-bottom-budget filmmaking, chances are this one will become one of your favorites too. 

Release date: December 15, 2020
Available from Amazon on DVD and Prime Video

    Product Dimensions : 0.7 x 7.5 x 5.4 inches; 2.72 Ounces
    Media Format : NTSC
    Run time : 1 hour and 12 minutes
    Release date : December 15, 2020
    Actors : Various
    Studio : Indiepix
    ASIN : B08FTHQBBS
    Number of discs : 1

UPONDO & NKINSELA -- DVD Review by Porfle

FAMILY -- DVD Review by Porfle

Here's a dysfunctional family for you--when we first meet Lily, she's arranging the other four members of her family on the living room couch so that she can sit between them for a selfie which she plans to enter in a family portrait contest, and there's no need to ask everyone to hold still since they're all dead. 

FAMILY (Indiepix, 2017) begins with this clearly insane (or, at the least, very very disturbed) young woman engaging in the most unimaginable things in a matter-of-fact way, telling us in voiceover that sometimes you just go ahead and do things you shouldn't because you refrained from them often enough as to have become numbed to the possible consequences.

And since Lily has obviously "gone ahead" and done whatever she's done, we're made to wonder what in the heck led up to all this, which writer-director Veronica Kedar's morbidly absorbing little nightmare narrative then reveals to us in its own sweet time.

Lily takes a nocturnal bike ride to her therapist's luxurious apartment for what she describes as an "emergency session" through the closed door to the shrink's bratty teenaged daughter Talia (Tommy Baremboem).

Finally allowed admittance, Lily must then contend with the abrasive and aggressively curious young girl's insistence on hearing what has led Lily to such a desperate state. Gradually, Lily is coaxed to reveal it all in dribs and drabs that draw us in right along with Talia, herself a troubled girl with Mommy issues.

What we discover is a fervidly Freudian spookhouse which serves as Lily's everyday world, twisting her already warped psyche a bit more with each passing day. Her bleak family home is a daily psycho drama populated by severely disturbed older sister Smadar (Hen Yanni), who must be kept locked in her bedroom, and a harried wreck of a mother who doesn't know whether to slap, comfort, or ignore them, finally doing all three while sinking slowly into her own mental morass.

Lily's abusive father (Eli Danker) has long since skipped out and washed his hands of the whole bunch, while her brother Adam (Arie Hassfari), whose creepily incestuous nature betrays his own mental maladjustments, seeks refuge in the military but is driven over the edge when he returns home to find that things have finally taken a turn for the worst.

Lily herself is an interesting study in quiet, passive madness, disaffected to the point of expressing little or no outward emotion during the most profoundly distressing events. Not quite a powderkeg waiting to explode, she's more like a mechanical device whose inner workings are wearing down to the eventual point of critical malfunction.

With all these elements in play, Kedar (who gives an absorbing performance as Lily) draws us down an ever-darkening path which will include murder and suicide, with Lily acting as both victim and instigator of the circumstances leading to her family's demise as well as her own deteriorating mental state.

FAMILY is a dark but beautifully-shot film whose formal directorial style contrasts with the madness and dizzying imagery we witness and makes it even more jarring, showing us both the dreadful tragedy and unspeakable horror which can emerge from the intimate interactions of such a way-wrong combination of disturbed individuals.



Buy it from Indiepix Films


RUNTIME - 101 minutes
RATING - Not Rated
YEAR - 2017
FORMAT - DVD Region All
COUNTRY - Israel
LANGUAGE - Hebrew
SUBTITLES - English
ATTRIBUTES - Widescreen, Color, Stereo
BONUS - Trailer

FAMILY -- DVD Review by Porfle

YESTERDAY WAS A LIE -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Any modern movie that's shot in moody, darkly expressive black and white is already after my own heart, and if it's a smoky noir liberally interwoven with elements of sci-fi, weird fantasy, mind-bending metaphysics, and melancholy romance, then it really stokes my desire to come up with lots of colorful adjectives to describe it.

Writer-director James Kerwin ("Star Trek Continues") has created just such a cinematic novelty piece in the languidly compelling YESTERDAY WAS A LIE (2009), now celebrating its ten-year anniversary with a digitally remastered Blu-ray release from Indiepix.

The film is beautiful from the moment we first see Hoyle (Kipleigh Brown), a young blonde woman dressed like a 40s private detective and making her way through a black and white cityscape of steamy alleyways, mystery men in trenchcoats, and bodies with hot lead slugs in their brains (one of them played by none other than Peter "Chewbacca" Mayhew himself).

She seems anachronistic, as though snatched up from the modern era and sent back in time to replace someone else. We soon realize, though, that her entire life is a series of anachronisms that she can't fathom, as though she were unstuck in time (like Vonnegut's Billy Pilgrim), unable to find where she currently belongs within the storyline of her own life.

This is also reflected by the clashing elements of different eras which surround her, with characters right out of classic film noir looking up information on their laptops (with an antique typewriter two feet away) or using old-style rotary phones one minute and cell phones the next.

Changing from her trenchcoat and fedora into an evening dress, Hoyle hits the bar circuit and encounters a gorgeous torch singer (Chase Masterson, looking way sexier now than she did back on "Deep Space 9") who is known, fittingly enough, as "The Singer."

When not crooning slow jazz ballads for the customers--Masterson does her own vocals, and very well--she reveals herself to Hoyle to be a medium, a seer, a prognosticator. In other words, just the ideal person to help sort out the scattered jigsaw pieces of Hoyle's life from a spiritual perspective.  But is the solution to her existential angst mystical or scientific?

It all hinges on an elusive guy named Dudas (John Newton) who seems to hold the key to everything if she could just find him, along with a mystery notebook that also promises to illuminate. What, we wonder, was/is her relationship to this guy? Meanwhile, the Singer does what she can to guide Hoyle through it all while remaining maddeningly enigmatic.

Definitely not one of those time-wasters one watches passively while mentally composing a grocery list, YESTERDAY WAS A LIE keeps the viewer on his or her figurative toes trying to sort out what's real and what's not during Hoyle's encounters with scientists espousing incredible theories on time and space as each plunge into the surreal has her struggling through what seems like a print of "Groundhog Day" cut up and spliced back together wrong.

I won't try to explain any more of the plot (which, admittedly, I still haven't completely deciphered) because much of the fun comes from wading through it all yourself.  What matters most to me, in fact, is that Kerwin has created such a superbly atmospheric, richly artistic work of indy cinema that one can revel in like a sumptuous indulgence.

The Blu-ray from Indiepix is in HD 1080p 1.78:1 with English Dolby 5.1 sound (English SDH subtitles available). In addition to an audio commentary featuring Kipleigh Brown, Chase Masterson, and James Kerwin, there are several making-of featurettes and interviews, camera tests and outtakes, trailers, and a Wondercon panel with cast and crew.  (Look for an Easter egg, too.)

YESTERDAY WAS A LIE is painstakingly crafted, seemingly with the same loving care that David Lynch lavished on "Eraserhead" and with much the same stunning visual impact and cerebral engagement.  And although the knotty plot never quite untangles itself before the fadeout, we're left pleasantly pondering the mysteries of the universe while still buzzing on that beautiful black and white fever dream in which we've just been immersed.



Order it from Indiepix Films

Facebook

Release date: November 12, 2019

YESTERDAY WAS A LIE -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

LOLA -- DVD Review by Porfle

When LOLA (Indiepix, 198?) was over, I felt a bit as though I'd just been released from custody. Watching it is almost a punitive experience, not so much "entertainment" as punishment for whatever bad thing you've done in the past that you thought you'd gotten away with.

Not to say that I didn't find it interesting, as I do all of the Retro Afrika films from the 1980s-90s which were made for black audiences during South African apartheid. As a cultural artifact, it has the same kind of fascination common to these films which, thankfully, are now being restored and preserved for posterity.

Most of them, however, are way more fun to watch because they really try hard to imitate Hollywood films of various genres (action, crime thriller, martial arts, comedy, even science fiction) but with no budgets or resources, resulting in amateurish yet engaging efforts that are often quite endearing.

LOLA is, in fact, the first of these apartheid-era films which I found truly difficult to finish.  The sparse story could have been thoroughly explored in ten minutes, and as far as technique goes, I've seen security-cam footage that was more cinematic.

Indeed, many scenes are simply master shots so interminable that we begin to feel as though we're keeping the characters under surveillance, waiting for them to do something worthy of attention. There's minimal editing, and most of the dialogue is clearly improvised chatter that goes on for minutes at a time. 

The actors do seem quite comfortable in front of the camera, and have no trouble keeping up these lengthy conversations while in character.  Director Tony Cunningham is content to just aim the camera at them and let it run, as one would while taking the kind of home movie footage that puts your houseguests to sleep.

As for the story, we meet Lola (Constance Shangase) and her high school friends pondering where to go to university after graduation, which is the subject of the first long dialogue scene set in their homeroom at school.  Then, while walking home, they're taunted by a gang of no-account dropouts (one of whom has a crush on Lola), and the two disparate groups challenge each other to a volleyball match.

What follows are extra-long scenes of Lola's gang discussing and making plans about the big game and the after-party, as well as whatever else they can think of to gab about while pretending to drink big cups of tea. 

In a way, these scenes are almost mind-blowing in their incredible blandness and lack of noteworthy content.  When one finally ends, another begins, and the cycle is repeated yet again.

A couple of training scenes break the monotony a bit, and, eventually, game day arrives.  Lola, her BFF, and their three male friends take on the five-man team of arrogant dropouts in a match that's little more than ten people who don't really play volleyball all that well bouncing it around until it's time to declare the winner. 

Oh yeah, they take a break at halftime during which their teacher (the only white cast member, who speaks English) serves snacks on a plate and asks everyone to please return the peels.  Will everyone return their peels? That's about as suspenseful as the scene gets.

But it's not over yet. There's still the after-party, during which the ten of them squeeze into a tiny room for some awkward dancing and socializing. Then, incredibly, it's back to the schoolroom for another ten-minute random dialogue scene that meanders on until a merciful jump-cut to the closing credits.

 

Not only was I proud of my endurance, but, strangely enough, the film managed to deliver that same kind of fascination which all of the Retro Afrika titles do, not only as cultural artifacts but as examples of filmmakers putting actual movies together with less money and resources than most people spend on lunch.

And yes, I can imagine black South African apartheid-era teens having quite a good time sitting in a theater watching this harmless comedy, getting off on seeing characters like them with whom they can identify, and basking in its familiar, feel-good ambience.

LOLA is a film so obscure that it can't be found on IMDb and there's barely any reference to it at all online. Nobody even knows exactly what year it was made. But here it is, a survivor making it onto DVD in 2019 when so many of its kind have been lost, and in its own small, utterly unimposing way, I found watching it to be time well spent.


Buy it at Amazon.com

Format: NTSC
Language: Zulu, some English (subtitles)
Region: All Regions
Number of discs: 1
Studio: Indiepix Films
DVD Release Date: June 11, 2019
Run Time: 75 minutes
Bonus: Trailer

LOLA -- DVD Review by Porfle