"Primate" - It's Pretty Hard Out Here for a Chimp

Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah) returns home to Hawaii, to reconnect with her sister Erin (Gia Hunter), deaf novelist father Adam (Troy Kotsur) and the latter's long-term chimp Ben (Miguel Torres Umba). But as she and her friends relax, unwind and bond, something is wrong with Ben...

(Credit: Vue)
This does exactly what it says on the tin: an excellent time and a real rip-roaring crowd pleaser. A man gets his face torn off in the first 2 minutes, Rob Delaney appears, and the finale is a monkey fistfighting a man. They use the deafness of one of its leads well (it's nice to see), there are some creative kills, great blood effects. Yes, the most charismatic character and actor (Jessica Alexander) gets killed off, and the film is not as clever as some would like, but it does the job well. Killer monkey. Excellent stuff, much my jam.

The Van Dammeathon - "Bloodsport"

Two movies in, and we're at the stone cold classic (I know he'd done cameos in other movies before these but I'm not covering those), and to be honest I'm as surprised as you are that we've hit it this early. You cannot tell the story of "Bloodsport" without breifly going into the tale of Cannon Films:
Iconic doesn't do them justice. When you think of 80s trash, nonsense and the sort of old movies people would parody and cuts clips out of to describe the excess and ludicrousness of the era, Cannon is probably who you're thinking of. Weirdly Cannon started as the kind of studio we need in the ecosystem: odd outsiders who'd take risks, gamble on foreign films and weird projects in the 70s with musicals about the garden of Eden, Dutch thrillers, all sorts of strange things we don't really get in the mainstream. Hell, they distributed "Joe" which is supremely underrated, horror classic "Blood on Satan's Claw" in between various sexploitation movies and cheap action junk. They made a fair bit of money with knockoffs (like the telepathic shark movie "Mako: The Jaws of Death") and the classic standbys of sexploitation, cheap slashers and (quite boring) action movies; then they teamed up with two maniacs named Golan and Globus who supercharged them in the best way possible.
I'd recommend the 2 documentaries on Cannon Films ("Electric Boogaloo" is the better of the two) but in short: make 'em cheap, make a striking poster, get fading stars or unknowns and make them fun. And if you want to REALLY make it? Pump out knock offs which will look good on the video shop shelves. It bloody worked: I love this 80s era of carnage, chaos and candy coloured poster and box art. It is the perfect setting for getting some friends round, having a few beers, and enjoying a good bad time. "Revenge of the Ninja" is a personal favourite (check out Junta Juleil's Culture Shock for a far funnier breakdown on that movie than I could ever do), "Seven Magnificent Gladiators" (a rip off of, you guessed it, "On Golden Pond"), "Exterminator 2" and the actually quite good, Oscar nominated "Runaway Train". We owe them a debt we cannot repay for "Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2", "American Ninja 2", "Masters of the Universe" and "Cobra".
"Bloodsport" is peak Cannon films.
Released in 1988, it was based upon the life of martial artist Frank Dux (allegedly...) and has the perfect shitstorm of chaos for a Cannon film: a hungry young star, a catching title (seriously, top 10 movie titles ever, alongside "Manborg", "Robocop", "Surf Nazis Must Die" and "Bloodfist"), low budget, violence, cheese, chaos, and a cool poster no matter which one you go for. You see this thing on a marquee or on the shelf of a video shop? You're in there. I know I am.
It's called fucking Bloodsport!
Anyway on with the show!
Premise:
Van Damme plays Frank Dux (pronounced like the old term for fisticuffs and not the animal, surprisingly, and yes they do make that joke), a budding young martial artist in the Legion, flees his military base to Hong Kong, where he will participate in a secret martial arts tournament known as the "Kumite" to honour his dying mentor Tanaka.
And that's it! Honestly, perfect. It's simple, to the point, and lean: it allows us to focus on the martial arts and athleticism, the highlights and strong points of Van Damme this early in his career.

If you were to ask for a typical Van Damme premise, the stuff where he'd excel, or ask me to come up with a "Van Damme" movie: it'd honestly be that, every ingredient from the Legion base, the underground tournament, the globe-trotting martial artists and all!
Premise: 5
A great start so far, but the devil is in the details:
Execution:
Honestly, it's simple but effective stuff, it works cometently enough. Director Newt Arnold (who worked on the fucking Godfather 2) does a good job with the framing and set up, and the story by Shedon Lettich and Frank Dux works. We open on a montage of martial arts:

From our leading villain, no less. But more on him later.

To this nice little mirroring, good job movie!
Then whatever the fuck this is...

The less said about this the better. It was a different time! It was... 1988? Fuck me...

Much better...
The movie is a simple tale of a man entering a tournament, proving his worth, making friends along the way, and defeating a proper dickbag. Classic stuff. We also have a pair of investigators tracking down Dux to bring him back and/or stop him from entering the Kumite in the first place:

But they are really only here to pad the film out to 90 minutes: though it is cool seeing a young Forest Whitaker, already a charismatic actor and the more relaxed, patient of the two. The same can be said of Leah Ayres' reporter: here to spice up the testosterone fest, but she's a likable enough performer. The movie understands what its audience wants: martial arts.
And we get those in spades! They are interspersed with flashbacks to the training, with Roy Chiao as the Master Tanaka

It's good stuff, charming, though nothing you haven't seen before. However, would you want anything different?
It's iconic for a reason and, competently (moreso than many other movies) all of Dux's training comes back later on throughout the movie, like "Lost" but only more mental.
It's earnest, and that's its strength: there's even a Stan Bush theme song during the tournament which is maybe 80% of the reason people remember it.
Cheesy and breezy, great stuff.
Execution: 3.
Now for what I think most people like about the movie: Charm.

The film is so much fun. From being chased by agents to a weirdly upbeat song, designed solely to show off the streets of Hong Kong:

To the delivery and execution of what should be simple beats, the film just feels like a glorious relic of another time. Everybody is playing it so wonderfully, there's a lot of love and enjoyment on screen, par for the course with a Cannon Film. Donald Gibb rightfully steals the show in many reviews as "Jackson", the best friend and supportive buddy character: he's introduced in that montage at the start looking a little crazy, but properly on the bus hitting on a girl with "You wanna get with a big man?" only to immediately understand that silence means no, go back to his beer and bond with Frank over videogames.

Absolute fucking Chad.
He spends the rest of the movie smashing dudes in the ring, being loud, and looking like a deranged wrestler on coke.

Seriously, I love him:

But even the smaller parts are just as fun and interesting: Ken Siu plays the lovable guide and local supporter Lin:

And he's great.
Hell, Leah Ayres' Janice has a quite funny moment where she goes "in disguise" to cover the Kumite and dresses like this:

More is more in this movie, it does not know restraint. Sassy dudes live rent free in my head when they come to see Dux screw up a brick trick:

Everybody is on the same page and I find it glorious: during an early training segment where Dux wears a blindfold to serve tea to Master Tanaka and his wife, we cut to a reaction shot of Mrs Tanaka and I can only describe it as weapons' grade thirst:

Then whilst everything is not at 11 with the acting, the filmmakers make the smart decision to show off Hong Kong and all of its beauty, horror and wonder:

And here where they shoot it like an urban Anthony Wong cop horror movie:

The tourism board should hire these guy, they make Hong Kong awesome.
Charm: 5
I love this movie.
Now we talk about Bolo Yeung.
Villain.
Chong Li is our main bad guy here, the undefeated champion, merciless martial artist, death machine and living embodiment of the Giga Chad meme:

Yeung is fantastic here: I expect nothing less from an alumnus of Bruce Lee movies. He tears his way through the tournament, sneering and boasting and bragging with his facial expressions alone:

A top tier villain, hissably devilish and complete with his own built in scoreboard at the tournament in one of those "Wait what the fuck?" little scenes:

After the cartoonish bully of the last film and the 3 or 4 others in "No Retreat, No Surrender", it's distressingly refreshing to have one guy who just sucks and is good at it.I just wish there were more of him, as he's a fun character and good martial artist. Supremely talented
Villain: 4.
I now come to the tally which is already an impresively top tier 18. But there are bonus points!
Collaborators: We have Sheldon Lettich ("Lionheart", "Double Impact", "Legionnaire", "The Order", "The Hard Corps"), Bolo Yeung ("Double Impact"), Frank Dux ("Lionheart" and "The Quest"), and a cameo from Michel Qissi ("Kickboxer", "Lionheart" and "Kickboxer Vengeance"). That's 4 there.
But wait, there's more!

We also have groin, boy do we have groin aplenty!

A veritable cornucopia of dong, ass and splits are unleashed from this point forward, I warn you now.
Sweet, sweet Van Damme splits and ass.
3 points there.
Thus our final score is 25 points! Great job movie! Will be tough to top this.
I love "Bloodsport", and hope that I've managed to convince you it's the prototype for great Van Damme works, the journey truly starts here.

"Is This Thing On?" - Good Question

Alex Novak (Will Arnett) is undergoing a separation from his wife Tess (Laura Dern), and decides to do stand-up at an open mic night when he cannot afford the door charge, and in talking about his life he gets a few laughs, an finds a new lease on life.

(Credit: IMDB)
The third directorial effort from Bradley Cooper could have been 90 minutes and a relatively strong, low key debut from a new standup or aspiring filmaker, or even a sweet much-needed and long-overdue character piece and leading role for Will Arnett (who, to be fair, is fantastic in this and the reason I watched). Instead Cooper has gorged himself on a self-indulgent platter of budget mumblecore mediocrity and boredom, sustained only by the good graces of Laura Dern (as most movies are) who is a miracle worker pulling her part out of the depths of "dickhead" and a rather excellent Arnett. The script wants to be an intimate slice of life and 70s "anti-rom-com" where the characters have scenes of them simply getting along as they make breakfast, chattering with their kids, doing the school run, together but not and trying to capture that intimacy which once was; so that when Alex turns to stand up, we see his life blossom from the misery he was in, and thrive anew as he realises what was important.
Unfortunately the script is drowning in the cum of its self-satisfied writers (Cooper, Arnett and Mark Chappell): Laura Dern at one point is made to deliver the line "You don't love me, you love the idea of me" and it's like watching her recite Oasis lyrics at gunpoint: though she is Larua Dern so she does manage to come out of this with some dignity, it's still rough. You can feel every "future acting class" seep through the celluloid, aided in no small part by Cooper's direction.
I hate this.
There were sparks of brilliance in the work: the stand up scenes capture that anxiety, that swell of the crowds, the heaving underground clubs, and the thrill as it takes off. Those are where it shines, though I can see some pretentious wankers responding well to the catnip of the facsimile quasi-spontaneous discourse. But if that's what you're after, watch something like "Drinking Buddies": it just makes Arnett's performance infuriating, as it's in service of this overlong dirge in the trenches of Cooper's exceeded reach. A trio of supporting characters stop the film dead during one of its many detours, led by Christine (a particularly odious encapsulation of everything wrong with the scripting, right down to her sitting down and delivering fancy theatrical monologues to Laura Dern. No hatred to Andra Day in the part, she's not the problem here) just to sing "Amazing Grace" whilst placing plates down. For you see, dear viewer, Alex and Tess once were lost, right, but, get this, now they are found!

This isn't "A Good Person", but the alarm bells began ringing. There are enough little bits like that to really rustle my jimmies: the volleyball comparisons (get it? She was a volleyball player in her prime, right, and much like the ball her marriage has come back down to Earth), the use of "Under Pressure" for the finale (because "Give Love a Chance", "This is our last chance". Though much like that fairly dreadful album "Hot Space" it is the token soaring highlight) and the constant conversations about marriage. I get it, I want a diet of more emotionally engaging, knotty, interesting movies - I've complained about it here multiple times and it's a common refrain. I appear to be in the minority here, and it's fine.
Oh, and Cooper plays Balls (har-har), the husband of Christine and the kooky comic relief support character and best friend, who is supposed to be funny and charming (delivering the big turning point advice in the final act): but Cooper is not charming enough to pull it off.
I slept on this film after seeing it because I was tired and not expecting it to be 2 FUCKING HOURS LONG, thinking that I'd be nicer. But holy fuck my sleep has just refilled my bile tanks.
Yes, Cooper's not good in the part and I realised that I don't like him: he's been something on the periphery existing for a while now, vaguely there but not something I'm interested in. He's the equivalent of bean bags.
And yes, this has made the penny drop and have me go "fuck I don't like this guy." however his character is a little emblem of the film: middle class smugness and mediocrity as wealthy shitheels vent about their non problems to fellow wankers rather than going to therapy. And Will Arnett does go "Oh Jesuc Fucking Christ" when Balls arrives at his flat, in the most relatable part of the movie.
OH and ANOTHER THING!
"Is This Thing On?" refers not to the microphone but their marriage, get it? Get it? DO YOU FUCKING GET IT?!
I loved Arnett and hope that he gets a shitload of work off the back of this, and I liked Chloe Radcliffe as the comedian-magician: I want an indie movie from her.
"Wild At Heart" was playing in the same cinema at the same time I saw this, I should have watched that.
Fuck me.

"Rental Family" - Review

Actor Phillip Vanderploeg (Brendan Fraser) lives in Japan, 7 years after he found success there in a toothpaste advert, seeking his next role. After an unusual job comes up, he is invited to the business Shinji (Takehiro Hira) - that of "rental families": clients will seek the services of a child, parent, sibling, or even just a friend, in order to fulfill a missing part of their lives. Hesitant, but in need of steady work, Phillip tentatively dips his toes into the world as their "token white guy". In helping people with their lives, Phillip learns more about his own along the way...

(Credit: Nerdist)
I saw director Hikari's previous film "37 Seconds" a couple of years ago, and rather enjoyed it: a wonderfully observed, low stakes little tale of a woman with cerebral palsy attempting to lose her virginity in order to make her doujin work better; though I feel it strayed too far in the final act and became about something else entirely. "Rental Family" has no such problems: it doubles down on the strengths of her works (low stakes, emotional beats and themes of being adrift and alone, and attention to detail with softer character beats) whilst working on the final act a little more and tightening the reins. It's a gentle, warm film about discovering a little about yourself, and the importance of human connection and those tiny moments we take for granted: I really enjoyed the little scenes of Phillip with his bearded client playing video games, and his time with a sex worker (Tamae Ando, who gets a sweet moment with a fortune teller). There are well shot parallels with a mirror and a funeral, and the supporting cast come together wonderfully: whilst it's a showcase for Brendan Fraser, I really enjoyed Mari Yamamoto as his colleague, and Takehiro Hira ("Tornado" is pretty good) as Shinji: who got a 3rd act joke so good it honestly will be the thing I remember most from the film, perfectly timed and immaculately executed.
The film is well directed by Hikari: she weaves between two lovely stories about fatherhood, where the tension comes from knowing exactly how this is going to end, and simply believing that knowing a person helps one to know oneself in those moments. She makes the film feel intimate yet also adrift, a fine balancing act and tightrope to walk. I feel like Phillip in this movie: I'm in this city, very "Rear Window" gazing at my neighbours, briefly glimpsing true happiness when I speak with and glimpse these characters around him, only to then return to my own life, perhaps slightly changed from watching it...
It's warm and sweet and none too saccharine, light stuff and well done. I feel it's a palette cleanser before "Primate"...

The Van Dammeathon - "No Retreat, No Surrender"

Part 1, let's do this!
We begin our Van Dammeathon with "No Retreat, No Surrender", a movie I am only familiar with due to finding a copy of the unrelated cash-in sequel starring Cynthia Rothrock. This was an early effort from one Keith Strandberg, who apparently had never written a script before (Not to tip my hand too early, but we can tell...) and rewrote it over the course of filming, on set. But he's not important, in the greater scheme of things. For my purposes we are more interested in director Corey Yuen. An absolute legend of Hong Kong cinema, masterful choreographer and:

He's had something of a mixed/bum rap in Western films: his last effort as a director was the masterpiece of trash cinema "DOA: Dead or Alive", and his best work was with Statham in the fight scenes of "Transporter" and "Transporter 2", he's essentially the reason we have "Matrix" and "John Wick" movies (themselves influences on action movies today) now; like a Russian nesting doll of stylish violence.
So far we have all of the ingredients for successful fun: any script can be elevated by being given to a hungry unknown young star (Van Damme's big beautiful face is all over the box)

(Photo credit: Amazon. Fun fact too, my copy is a 12. Presumably everybody saw sense.)
Directed by Corey Yuen? What better way to start off the marathon by showing us what Van Damme can do!
Premise:
The film focuses on a young martial artist and Bruce Lee fanatic by the name of Jason Stillwell (Kurt McKinney), forced to move to Seattle after his karate instructor father (Timothy D Baker) has his leg broken and jimmies rustled by some mobsters out to shake down the various dojos.

(They also look like a slightly melted Serpico and are led by a machine-washed James Remar)
Van Damme plays the otherwise mute trump card of the mob, Ivan, and Jason must rise to the challenge of becoming a worthy warrior to defeat him!
Concept:
What we have here is a rather atrocious knock off of "Karate Kid". You'd think that the movie would be a coming of age tale, or a dude learning to channel the warrior spirit, but somehow the makers got confused and told the cast to play it as a romance between a city slicker and his new black neighbour R.J.

Seriously, the scenes feel like something out of a Canon Film (later a huge ally and backer of Van Damme's career), but I get ahead of myself. The big man himself is only at the very start of the film:

(Admittedly he does this pretty sick jump kick) Where he fights against a budget John Saxon lookalike:

And then only reappears again right at the very end, in the final battle, which to be fair remembers that he is the main villain.
So, casting JCVD in a supporting villainous role in a "Karate Kid" knock off where he's not even the main bad guy?
Concept: 1 Point
So, onto Execution.
The movie disregards the conventions of cinema and feels like a facsimile of a homosexual romance, punctuated by fights scenes peppered through with the grace and coherence of a concussed emu reciting "Finnegan's Wake":

Be they birthday parties.

Homosexual grappling festivities enacted by Tommy Tallarico

His mother would be very proud.
Or dance offs:

It's not exactly the finest hour of Yuen for all of his talents, and seems to struggle to weave its script together into anything coherent, though we get some good young Van Damme kicks and fights in the aforementioned final act. You may not get that far, however, because the sound design is atrocious.
Is that the best I've got? Sound Design? Well, who the hell gives a shit about sound design and audio in the greater scheme of things on this hellish island?
Nobody!
So imagine why I noticed this horseshit? Every piece of dialogue was recorded in a bin they used to play the drums on "St Anger", and every sound effect from their bootleg VHS tape recordings is drowned in a swathe of synthesisers which make the scenes spooky for some reason.
Execution: 2
Charm
I cannot help but enjoy this Canon-Spawn progenitor of a movie. It's like a rough translation of a competent martial arts film, punctuated by some of the most ludicrous figures in cinema, but played with such confident earnestness by everybody except Van Damme (who remains stoic and deathly serious, here to show off his chops and prove that he belongs)

There's some sort of cartoonish, ridiculous over the top stylings to it all. Like, within moments of meting his gay lover R.J, our hero Jason is beset by a bully and chase scenes of R.J being hunted down by the large fellow ensue, and I swear that there is a moment when he pauses to do this:

(His name is Scotty and we shall get to him)
Seriously, the ludicrous sillines of it really works for me. It's a great time if you get some friends round and have a few beers to watch it with. And on one final note, the movie has the gall to be pure Brucesploitation (briefly: a genre so odious I cannot help but respect it, where lower budget movie makers capitalised on the death of Bruce Lee by making movies about it or featuring him as a character) by having his ghost arive to give advice to our protagonist after his beatdown.

Well, I say the ghost of Bruce Lee, it's more like a crayon-drawing of the man:

Charm: 3.
Villain.
Hooo boy.
So Van Damme is the main villain, right?

No, our main villain is a large kid named Scotty. I love his energy. He's like a Stephen King bully made manifest, then unleashed into a Saturday morning cartoon. His pursuit of R.J reads less like a grudge and more of an attempted lynching, especially when later (having immediately taken a disliking to our "Bruce Lee Freak", and deciding that violence against the martial artist teenager is a good idea) he tracks him to a car park and surrounds him with a bunch of other kids to attack, and then lies about the subsequent ass kicking in order to sic the local Tommy Tallarico lookalike on him in the karate studio (like I said, this movie's confused about villains and writing), but then we're expected to feel bad when the Russian annihilates the team of Seattle at the end, and he rushes to help one out of the ring.
I have so many pictures of this kid, I love him.

It was so hard to only pick one.
But I do have to deduct points because he is supplanted by the Tommy Tallarico lookalike in the confusing plot, who is then taken out by Ivan who saves the film again:

Man, Van Damme fucking rules in the finale, and really shows the star power he would later have, he's a natural here, and even gets to be a bit crazy when not forced to be stoic.
Villain: 4.
Final Score: 10 out of 20.
Bonus points!
We don't get any later alumnii for JCVD's later works, they probably would not wish to have come back, and I doubt he would have been on set long enough to make future allies, though I am gutted Yuen never came back to coreograph his later works.
So no points there.
No brotherhood either. Our lead guy Jason doesn't even have one. What the hell are we even doing here?
Groin!
This we can allow:

No dong, but hot holy hell, we get peak splits!
Bonus Point: 1.
Final Score: 21.
Not the strongest showing. But I suggest if you have the right kind of friends and enjoy trashy bad kung fu flicks, you'll get a laugh out of this. And Van Damme is the best bit, think of it as a taster for his later works.

"Marty Supreme" - Review

The year is 1952 and Marty Mauser (Timothee Chalamet) is determined to be the greatest table tennis player in the world. All that stands in his way are a lack of funds, a domineering mother (Fran Drescher), a pregnant girlfriend (Odess A'zion), crippling poverty, and Abel Ferrara.

(Photo Credit; Vanity Fair)
I went into this fucking movie solely because the 4th on the billing was crack fiend, cult director, maniac, true-blue New Yorkian legend Abel Ferrara, and that insanity being in service of a gritty, wild, exciting, see-sawing free-wheeling adrenaline shot to the soul is simply a bonus.
The movie is a frenetic, frantic good time, bouncing from place to place in a picaresque adventure, where Chalamet is absolutley on the form of his life and the first performance where he is not only having fun and relishing the chance to go nuts, but it truly charismatic as well, a far cry from the introverted "Bones and All" and subtler Paul Atreides. The movie has a ground's eye view of people and places and relationships, and uses its cast wonderfully: as usual A'zion is on a tear (though, for fun, imagine her lines said as Bobby Hill: "My dad says ping pong's a bastard sport." "That's my paddle! I DON'T KNOW YOU!") between this and "Hellraiser", and Gwyneth Paltrow has put down her snake oil and decided to act again, I honestly like her in this.
But I'm here for my man Ferrara, a truly inspired piece of casting, and between the collapsing bathtubs, con-games, hustling (Tyler the Creator is fantastic here) and bullshit spin; Ferrara spikes the madness as an unpredictable, incredibly dangerous maniac with a dog. It's like "John Wick" but on heroin when he's here. I love him.
Watch "The Addiction" and "King of New York".
Anyway the movie's great, it flies by.