JFL

The expectations attached to Earwig and the Witch are exceedingly high, because it is branded with the Ghibli studio logo at the beginning and the studio’s key personnel appear in the credits. The paradox of the project is that it was evidently initiated by Ghibli’s court producer, Toshio Suzuki, as part of a long-term technological experiment in which they would try out 3D computer animation, as that seems to be the dominant current trend. Hayao Miyazaki tried a combination of computer and hand-drawn animation in the short Boro the Caterpillar and his son Goró lent his patronage to the TV series Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter, which combined 3D models with a cell-shading visual whose sketches were created in the Ghibli studio. Goró Miyazaki then got the green light from the studio’s veterans for the feature-length Earwig and the Witch, but with a lower budget, as it would not be shown in cinemas, but would be only a special made-for-TV movie. The target medium could theoretically explain the shortcomings of the screenplay. The film gives the impression of being a television pilot and, instead of dramatic conciseness, it relies on an episodic nature and only basic outlines of the characters and their development and mutual dynamics. Unfortunately, that does not change the fact that the screenplay doesn’t work as a whole and it comes across as a very shoddy adaptation of the book by Diana Wynne Jones. Whereas the amazing Howl’s Moving Castle drew out the essence of its source material by the same author and further developed it, Earwig and the Witch tries to get by with merely scratching the surface of the book’s basic concept. Paradoxically, the film’s end credits, where the further development of the characters and their lives together are shown in drawings (similar to what Katsuhiro Otomo did in Steamboy, for example), are more fun and bring out more emotion than the whole preceding story. However, the main drawback of the film consists in the 3D computer animation, or rather in the idea that viewers would want to watch something that was intended from the beginning to be a technological test. This assumption points out the overall outdatedness and confused nature of the project, which attempts to return to times long ago when everyone excitedly watched the leaps and bounds made by early computer animation in Pixar’s shorts. In Earwig and the Witch, unfortunately, Ghibli relates its level of animation, or rather shading textures, physics and virtual lighting, to those wooden years. Whereas the competition took its first CGI baby steps a long time ago, Ghibli is just now attempting its first hesitant steps and going back to the beginning on the level of the first Toy Story, but unfortunately without a sufficient degree of self-reflection. At Pixar, they were aware of the limits of the technology of that time and therefore came up with a story from the lives of plastic toys. At Ghibli, they immediately attempted to find out if they could, with their limited possibilities, create the equivalent of their renowned animated films with human and fantastical characters. Unfortunately, the result looks like someone shot a variation of Ghibli films with action figures. It is necessary to acknowledge that in its constituent elements, particularly in the expressive movements of the figures and the design of the characters and exteriors, the film asserts its origins and demonstrates the creative abilities of the animators, though it lags behind technologically. When Hayao Miyazaki reportedly compared Earwig and the Witch to Pixar, he meant Pixar’s early days. As previously mentioned, the main problem with the film consists in the fact that viewers do not expect a mere animation demo, especially not one that is technologically underdeveloped in comparison with the current mainstream standard. The sad result is that Ghibli, which embodied the global peak of feature-length animated films and was a role model for all other animators, is presenting to the audience a half-retro work that can stand up to comparisons with the antediluvian stage of computer animation, which has long since moved on from generic visuals and plastic textures and, in projects such as Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) and The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run (2020), demonstrates a broad new scope of technological possibilities that the veterans evidently haven’t even dreamed of.

David Winters transformed himself from a recognised dance choreographer into a relatively successful trash-movie producer in the 1980s, when his company Action International Pictures, which he established together with the trash fantasist David A. Prior, supplied the global video market with appropriately cheap, disposable genre flicks. The market changed in the 1990s and, in an effort to stay competitive, Winters and Prior tried to bolster their movies by casting bigger names. Body Count was made at Prior’s suggestion in a co-production project of Winters’s new production company, West Side Studios, and the Japanese giant Toei Video Company, one of the leading players in the Asian video market. For a brief time in the mid-1990s, Toei tried several co-productions with American genre-movie companies in order to secure exclusive American action flicks tailored to the Japanese audience. Like previous projects with other American companies – Distant Justice (1992) and New York Undercover Cop (1993) – Body Count was also built on a combination of famous American faces and Japanese action stars. Sonny Chiba dominates the magnificently low-grade cast here as a flawless killer who, with Brigitte Nielsen’s assistance, eliminates members of the detective corps played by the remaining names from the opening credits. Thanks to the financial participation of Toei Video, this flick is characterised by noticeably more competent direction and production compared to the usually hopeless level of the movies made under the patronage of David Winters (including the concept of the kindred Raw Justice, featuring Pamela Anderson). However, the movie is essentially cut off at the knees by its simultaneously overwrought and half-baked screenplay. In fact, the concept actually offers a potentially inventive combination of police thriller/buddy movie and a slasher flick in which the identity of the killer is known from the beginning. Individual killings of police officers by a professional hitman oscillate between action thrills and horror torture scenes, but the useless script causes the whole story to quickly slip into boring repetition due to the incessant piling up of new characters and insipid twists. The ridiculous climax, with a fight aboard a streetcar barrelling (at the blazing speed of six miles an hour) toward a gasoline tanker passing through downtown New Orleans like a monster, is amusing, but it can’t save this shambolic and generic VHS dreck.

The once very lucrative and democratic VHS market, where almost anyone could succeed with an action flick, began to fall apart in the first half of the 1990s. The existing low-budget producers began to be pushed out not only by young, more aggressive B-movie companies like PM Entertainment, but were overshadowed by mid-budget films with less luminous stars co-financed or distributed by the major studios. While some of the leading trash producers of the previous era, such as Shapiro-Glickenhaus Entertainment, gradually threw in the towel, other veterans still tried to take one last futile swing at the competition. In the preceding decade, the duo of trash fantasists David Winters and David A. Prior had managed to get by with unreasonably juvenile, low-budget action flicks shot with a bunch of non-actors in the woods behind the house. But then the new decade forced them to increase their budgets and, mainly, to upgrade their casts with famous faces. In a certain respect, Raw Justice is the absolute peak of this trend (the thriller Raw Nerve stands a rung below it). In its day, this otherwise typically ridiculous Priorian dreck was considered a desirable gem thanks to the silicone advantage of Pamela Anderson, whose appearing nude in two scenes easily made up for any shortcomings of the film. The contemporary sex icon from Baywatch at least somewhat tries to imbue her role with a bit of charisma beyond what the hopeless screenplay calls for. Facing the same challenge, other members of the stellar ensemble tried to do the same with varying degrees of success, with the underappreciated David Keith doing the best, while Stacy Keach took on an air of complete resignation Admirers of David A. Prior’s movies will be pleased not only by the presence of the master's brother Ted in a supporting role, but also by the fact that higher ambitions did not in any way diminish Prior’s haphazard intuitiveness as director. After paying all the famous faces’ fees, there was apparently not much left in the production budget for any other proper attractions. The movie’s few shootouts, two explosions and one motorcycle chase (evidently filmed at a maximum speed of 15 miles an hour) show rushed sloppiness, which is also exuded by other mechanically rendered sequences. In the hands of anyone a hair more capable, Raw Justice could have ended up as a decent buddy movie, but as it is, it remains nothing more than a work with a hopelessly underused cast and a screenplay and execution that hold it down. Which is a very sad outcome, as Prior’s ’80s gems were no masterpieces, but they were tremendously entertaining and fascinating with their guileless naïveté and obstinate artlessness, as well as the paradoxical symbiosis of the abilities of all involved. The greatest tragedy of Prior’s filmography thus consists in his career trajectory, whereby the amateur fantasist worthy of cult status gradually became just another in the ranks of hopeless plodders.

Producer David Winters reached deep into his pockets for the first time and secured a famous face for his sidekick David A. Prior, the self-taught direction from Action International Pictures. It is appropriate to recall that David Carradine had never actually been a star and the roles he played under the direction of Hal Ashby and Ingmar Bergman were anomalies in his otherwise strictly trash career. At the end of the 1980s, he would take absolutely any role and his sluggish acting and conspicuous beer belly successfully overshadowed the last remaining memories of the dubious fame he had garnered from the series Kung Fu. Prior sets out here beyond his favourite groves and even aims at a high-concept mix of action and dystopian sci-fi, but apart from his lofty words, he remains faithful to his creative signature. So, even though he doesn’t play army with his brother and friends this time, his boyishly naïve vision and intuitive direction again create an absurd spectacle with sudden Brechtian flashes of meta reflexivity. True to his juvenile fantasies, Prior resorted to the second most common genre replicated in boys' games, i.e. the western, in an urban setting. His version of a dystopian future thus lends itself to reviving the tradition of sheriffs and bounty hunters, who in this merciless world represent the roles of cops, as well as the combined role of judge, jury and executioner. At times, the lines that issue from Carradine’s mouth bring to mind Judge Dredd, but unlike the subversive British comic book, Prior is being serious. The master’s narrow vision is again asserted by his radical work with the framing, which comes across as even more tenacious in the urban environment. Budget constraints were never an obstacle for the Peter Pan of action movies when it came to spinning fantastic adventure yarns, so this time, following the example of children’s games, he stages his crazy dreams with no regard to his surroundings. In larger shots, the characters move around in obviously uncoordinated scenes shot without a permit in the usual commotion going on around them. A highlight is the sequence involving a shootout during a car chase, which is transported by means of a cut from the streets of the city’s outskirts to a natural quarry, where the protagonist pushes his adversaries’ car off a cliff, and then immediately back to the city. In addition to that, Prior lives up to his unrecognised status as the inspirer of future greats when he foreshadows John Wick, or at least key aspects of that franchise. Future Force’s world of the dystopian future of the 1990s is inhabited by cops in fine clothes who meet in a neutral place where drawing weapons is prohibited. Except in the case of this low-budget trash churned out by AIP, that place is not a classy hotel frequented by luxuriously dressed distinguished gentlemen, but a sleazy strip club packed with guys in denim vests decorated with patches and pyramids.

Let's leave aside the media hype and hysteria of outraged parents beyond the borders of Scandinavia. This stop-motion series about a man with an extendable penis offers wonderfully absurdist humour in the style of A Town Called Panic, Michel or the Finnish series Boris the Rat. Like those Dadaist gems, John Dillermand combines the innocence of a child’s view of the world with anarchistic playfulness in conveying everyday situations through its unconventional protagonist, who shows that being normal is terribly boring and a greater curse than standing out. In this case, however, that means standing out because of one’s penis, but as all parents of boys up to the age of five can confirm, there are few things that are such a source of fun and fascination for little boys (and yes, this is also true for little girls; just remember all those times of playing doctor). The Danes are simply a step ahead and offering children the entertainment that they, not their parents, want.

This documentary very well retraces the development of the exploitation and trash side of American cinema. Particularly valuable are the interviews with the greats of the category, such as Doris Wishman and Samuel Z. Arkoff, who did not live to see the boom of renewed interest in their films in the new millennium. Furthermore, in comparison with today’s fan-pleasing documentaries, Schlock! is characterised by its healthy detachment, humour and effort to address its subject from every possible angle. Therefore, there is not only emphasis on the almost artistic qualities of the obscure gem Carnival of Souls, but also the relativisation of poetic interpretations and, conversely, an exploration of the systematic and commercial side of the entire trash segment.

This Philippine variation on Predator is even more macho than the original, though rather in an embarrassing and timid way akin to a high-school locker room. It also scores points with its unexpected use of wu-xia elements, toilet humour, a wet t-shirt contest and heaps of action. The movie’s commando manages to raze two insurgent camps to the ground and another one is crushed by the monster itself. Though Bangis cannot be compared to the American classic in terms of craftsmanship and the professionalism of production, it playfully offsets that with unbridled explosiveness, clichéd characters, guileless naïveté and trashy visual bombast. In addition to that, instead of an invisible hunter lying in wait for humans among the trees, this one hunts underground like a mole and has an even more powerful laser cannon.

Vice Academy can only dream of being so bad that it’s good. It is just breathtakingly awful. When they try to make a joke in the movie that porn screenplays have a maximum of twelve pages, it’s most likely a moment of self-reflection, because it's hard to imagine that Sloane would sweat out something so lengthy. That’s despite the fact that most of the runtime is filled with blather resulting from on-the-spot improvisation instead of from actual scripted dialogue. However, it is worth paying tribute to some of the actors, particularly Linnea Quigley, who is, as always, incomprehensibly enthusiastic and full of energy. In spite of the surprising zeal of the actors, however, a bizarre and obscure contribution to the slow-cinema trend was created. The individual scenes are so static and drawn-out that it is ingenious in its own way. I wondered at times if Rick Sloane was Béla Tarr’s commercial pseudonym. It turned out that it was not, because even the films of the Hungarian art-cinema master are funnier than this attempt at comedy. However, it is necessary to acknowledged that the shabby locations (the highlight of which is the transformation of a warehouse into a labyrinth simply by arranging some cardboard boxes) and some of the ways of setting up gags when the production didn’t have the means to do it are actually pretty comical.

The Italian purveyor of dreck Bruno Mattei again went to see his friends in the Philippines, but instead of watching the second Rambo, this time they put on Predator and reminisced a bit about RoboCop. And just like a lot of little boys, they were inspired to run off into the woods and make their own version. Except in their case, they had cameras and, instead of sticks, actual weapons and piles of blank cartridges. To insult the movies that Bruno Mattei, Rossella Drudi and Claudio Fragasso foisted upon the world by calling them mere copies is the absolutely wrong way to look at them. While some VHS trash flicks try to look like original works, albeit while parasitising on popular hits in every possible way, Mattei’s best remake-sploitation larks provide wild entertainment by thoroughly adhering to the models on which they are based, transforming their key elements and scenes through ultra-cheap production with a bunch of somnambulic amateur actors. Mattei's copying almost rises to the level of sweding, but instead of zero-budget DIY creativity, it is appropriate to admire the low-budget foolishness and deduce the production circumstances that led to the distillation of copied scenes, characters and various details into the vastly futile form that his movies present to us. Seen through that particular lens, Robowar is an epic spectacle (though in that respect, it plays second fiddle to Mattei’s later Shocking Dark), enriched with the most magnificent example of absolute framing in the history of cinema (i.e. the scene in which the characters pretend not to see something that is right next to them, until it appears in the shot). By the way, they shot their own local copy of Predator, called Bangis, in the Philippines eight years later.

As other witnesses have written, the early 1990s were quite an adventure for prepubescent boys without much contact with Western pop culture. We enthusiastically got together with a classmate whose family had a living room equipped with a VHS player, that portal into the world of juvenile fantasies. It was a blissful time when it occurred to us that making a comedy flick with ninjas was a fantastic idea (maybe if we had known the words, we would have said it was “cool” or perhaps even “progressively meta-genre”). But it was also a time when we thought that Czech magazines Trnky brnky and Ruda Pivrnec were the apex of humour. Compared to those low-brow publications, however, Ninja Academy was nothing special, beyond the fact that there were ninjas. At that time, together with other ’80s relics, ninjas got a second wind thanks to the floodgates opening into the former Eastern bloc and the kids there, which also led to the resuscitation of the Police Academy model, typically a flick set behind the defunct Iron Curtain. Nico Mastorakis was one of those who vehemently milked this new wave of silliness for ignorant fledgling viewers. From today’s perspective, Ninja Academy shows itself to be a hopeless relic of its time. The strongly mechanical script is composed predominantly of random scenes based on the premise that a group of walking clichés and superficial allusions to genre icons will enrol in, well, a ninja academy. In the 1990s, we had our eyes glued to it, because fights, shootouts and breasts were fortunately enough for us (regardless of the fact that all these attributes are represented only very modestly in the film and not very well at that). We also learned an important lesson, as we knew what nunchucks were and some of us got the reference to Rambo (I didn't; I wouldn’t see Rambo until it later appeared on television, but I was aware of Police Academy). Today, one sees these points of desperation show up in drawn-out forums far in advance and nod off in the excessive vacuum that fills the runtime between that surprisingly small handful of embarrassing gags and improvised fight scenes. Not even the few scenes with the mime, whose inclusion is the most imaginative idea in the whole screenplay, can turn this generic VHS dreck into something that would still stand up after taking off the nostalgia glasses. Ninja Academy remains a terrifying example of the futility that we enthusiastically devoured during that wonderful time when our window to the wide world of cinema was the generic selection of a video rental shop operated in the former bicycle storage room in communist-era concrete apartment building.