No.243 : The Sisterhood (1988)

 The Sisterhood at the IMDb

This pile of nonsense could be seen as a companion piece for the recently reviewed The Aftermath, what with both being post apocalyptic films that were largely filmed in the same quarry.

The film is set in the far off future of 2021. The world has been devastated and people have to dress like extras from Mad Max, apart from one woman who wears Levis in what IMDb describes as a product placement deal. A group of brigands attack a couple of woman on horseback - but they have foolishly engaged with ‘the sisterhood’. A poorly choreographed swordfight takes place with the sisterhood coming out on top, partly due to beams that come out of one of their eyes and dislodge a small pile of rocks. They send the bad men on their way, with their one injury quickly healed by one lady’s blue light emitting hand.

We learn that all of the sisterhood’s members have a special power, which is usually quite cheap to demonstrate, which was no doubt a boon to the budget. Levis girl isn’t in the sisterhood but is soon alone when the bad men set free by the sisterhood attack her camp and kill everyone apart from her. She can talk to a fortune telling hawk however - is that the kind of power that gets you in the sisterhood?

We follow baddie Mikal, who really hates the sisterhood, and plans to attack their base. He joins forces with a couple of local militias, one whose leader is always screaming for parts - as long as they are car parts and not acting ones, we’ll be all right.

Meanwhile the two members of the sisterhood join up with Levis woman and take the gamble of crossing the Forbidden Zone so that they can warn their sisters of the impending attack. The Forbidden Zone is populated by savage mutants - all of whom wear the same outfit. Well, coordination is important in a radioactive wasteland.

Back at the Sisterhood’s base, ‘Calcava’ things aren’t looking great as the sisters have all been captured and the evil baddie is ripping their tops off one at a time. Can the Sisterhood be saved? Will that pristine cache of 20th century weapons and vehicles come in handy? You bet!

This film was clearly in the ‘awful but we know it’ category. The whole affair takes place in the same quarry with the actors looking dizzy at having to drive their cars in endless circles. It tries to be ‘The Road Warrior’ with a bit of ‘Logan’s Run’ thrown in, but it looks like a film school project completed as a dare.

There are endless swordfights with every individual battle choreographed the same way - clank, boot, slash and cut to bloody wound shot. The acting is as risible as the pathetic script demands, and the special effects amount to some blue ‘beams’ being drawn onto the film.

For the big finale they obviously thought another sword fight wouldn’t cut it so our heroes find a fully functioning fall out shelter complete with guns and armoured vehicles. How the armoured car and weapons all still work isn’t really covered - maybe the women are all just great mechanics? Any suggestion of this being a ‘girl power’ event is quickly lost when a couple of scenes of topless women are slotted in for no discernable reason - apart from the worried producers looking at the first cut and realising no one but perverts (and honest reviewers) will watch this rubbish. The nudity is all body doubles so clearly done after the fact; as was the poster - spoiler alert - there is not one golden bikini in this film!

A mindless distraction or dated sexist rubbish? Have no fun finding out!

THE Tag Line : Sisters Shouldn’t Do This For Themselves - 27%

No.171 : The Dirt (2019)

The Dirt at the IMDb

I’d read the book ‘The Dirt’ a few years back and rally liked its sleazy, grimy feel, so I was looking forward to this Netflix produced movie version. It’s pretty good but not a patch on the book, which leaves you needing a shower after reading a few pages.

The film follows the book closely and uses it’s same narrative devices with characters breaking the fourth wall to explain situations or to give opinions on the events unfolding. In the book the band members all write separate chapters and often contradict each other on key events. This is harder to show on film, so at times it does seem a bit of an unstructured mess - that’s not always a bad thing as the chaos and mayhem intended come across vividly.

The film opens with a young Nikki Sixx leaving his family for the rock and roll lifestyle. He’s wearing a Judge Dredd t-shirt from the ‘Judge Death Lives’ story line that post dates the timeline being shown - I hope someone got fired for that howler!

After the usual round of trashy gigs and failed auditions they end up with the starting line up for their band ‘Motely Crue’ - sorry can’t find the umlauts. After five minutes of struggle the band are soon playing stadium gigs and are behaving very badly.

There are some funny scenes with them trashing hotel rooms and sniffing ants with Ozzie Osbourne and oh so many groupies. There are more tits on show here than in the RSPB annual survey.

The band soon starts to fracture with their relationships with each other and their partners failing, leading to break ups and fall outs. They all get sober and fall off the wagon before splitting up and then reforming. It’s basically every rock band bio-pic that you’ve ever seen.

The cast is pretty good with most of them unknown to me apart from Mick Marrs who was played by Ramsay Bolton and their manager who was played by Gale Boetticher off ‘Breaking Bad’ - that’s were the drugs came from!

The Netflix description says the film is “Unflinching” and that’s true - the band come across as a shower of self centred dicks with few redeeming features. That’s good in terms of it being an honest piece of work but you have very little invested in them - a tour bus explosion wouldn’t have been a bad thing!

Of course as a bio-pic you have to stick to the facts and that is done to the smallest detail with the closing credits showing real and recreated images of the same event. It’s good they went to that level of detail with the authenticity, but they could maybe have delved a bit deeper into the band’s motivations and the consequences of their actions. Still you don’t watch a Crue bio-pic for some deep naval gazing.

There was a decent budget in play with the costumes and sets all well done. There were limits however, with the stadium shows looking a bit light and Tommy’s rotating drums cage just being a couple of metal bars over his head.

I liked that real people such as Ozzie and Heather Locklear were shown and there were some genuinely funny moments. I especially liked the A&R man turning to camera to say ‘Don’t leave your girlfriend with Motely Crue - they’ll fuck her”.

There were a couple of bits that took you out of the story such as when the voice over tells you certain characters aren’t going to be shown in the film - I don’t know why that was needed as it wasn’t billed as a documentary. Still I guess it’s in keeping with the book’s ‘warts and all’ approach.

I did think that the bands struggle to the top was a bit quick and they missed out the best story from the book where they all bought breakfast burritos before going home so they could stick their dicks in them to prevent their girlfriends smelling the groupies on them. I guess smelling of a McMuffin was fine!

Overall this was a good effort. It wasn’t quite as sleazy as I‘d have liked with the band looking a bit clean cut in places. They did however not shirk from the sex and drugs, with the rock n roll also present although they didn’t do my favourite Crue song ‘Wild Side’.

Well worth a look on you lock down Netflix odyssey.

THE Tag Line : Needs More Dirt!   73%