Shameless Self Expression

Julie Voth, Erin Cummings, and America Olivo are a trio of bad girls (Voth being a stripper and Cummings the hardened leader) who have fled to a remote desert area after stealing a whole lotta diamonds from a Vegas kingpin (a scummy Michael Hurst). We get their back stories via a series of flashbacks, as they wait it out, splash water on each other, and even get down to some Sapphic lovin’. Minae Noji turns up as a freakin’ insane Asian assassin in the GoGo Yubari mould, whilst Lucy Lawless and Renee O’Connor play a couple of nincompoop nuns who get duped by one of our trio. That’s stuntwoman Zoe Bell ( “Xena: Warrior Princess” , “Death Proof” ) getting pummelled by Cummings in a fight, and “Hercules” himself Kevin Sorbo plays a rather mysterious figure. This ought to have been really something, folks. Seemingly heavily influenced by Russ Meyer’s “Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” , there was potential here to update that film with more exploitation goodies, as that was one of

Godzilla defends Little Godzilla from an alien entity known as SpaceGodzilla, whose existence happened about due to Mothra, Biollante, and a black hole. On the human side of things, a mecha creation called MOGUERA and psychic Miki Saegusa each try to play their part in stopping Spacegodzilla’s threat to Little Godzilla and Japan itself. Toho kaiju veteran Kenji Sahara (looking pretty good for his age) turns up briefly in a cameo as a politician. Although it’s not often listed among the best in the long-running franchise, this 1994 kaiju effort from director Kensho Yamashita (who was a bit more prolific as a 2 nd Unit Director) and screenwriters Kanji Kashiwa (strangely their sole credit of any kind to date) and Hiroshi Kashiwabara (who co-wrote the excellent Millennium Era films “Godzilla 2000” and “Godzilla vs. Megaguirus” ) was a bit of a pleasant surprise for me. It’s sadly overlong and a bit cheap, but superlatively shot and worthy of at least a soft recommendation.

Steve Martin stars as P.I. Rigby Reardon, contacted by the mysterious and sultry Juliet (Rachel Ward) to look into the mysterious death of her father. What follows is a criminal conspiracy through clips of 40s and 50s crime/noir cinema and some of the most famous movie stars of all-time. Steve Martin has always been a favourite of mine, but for me his career in film didn’t truly take off until 1986’s underrated “Three Amigos!” . Some of you will disagree with me on that, and even more of you will likely disagree with me that this 1982 Carl Reiner ( “The Jerk” , “The Man With Two Brains” , “All of Me” , “Sibling Rivalry” , “Fatal Instinct” ) spoof of film noir/detective films is the best of Martin’s early films. To the latter all I can say is I’m not entirely sold on “The Jerk” , don’t like “The Man With Two Brains” at all, and from memory, neither “All of Me” or “The Lonely Guy” were that much better than “The Jerk” . This is a one-joke spoof idea, but done pretty well,