|
Rap Sucks
2011
It is one of the many movies written by,
directed by and starring Bill Zebub. Others in the
long list of his triple-threat cinematic achievements
have titles that imply Jesus was a serial rapist, or a
douchebag or, worst of all for many true believers, a
woman. So okay, Rap Sucks is a less offensive
title, but the movie does indeed offend because that is
what Bill wants.
Most of the two-hour runtime has four people sit around
a table in a cluttered back room, playing some game akin
to Dungeons and Dragons. These folks talk.
And they talk. And then when they are done
talking, they talk some more. It’s My Dinner with
Andre, without the solid acting. When they ain’t
talkin’ no more, the movie switches to flashbacks and a
few scenes of Bill, his friends and his would-be
girlfriends, looking for love in all the wrong
places. Turns out Bill is an incurable
romantic.
To bring it all together and spice up the proceedings,
Bill throws in several live performances by death metal
groups and interviews of a sort with their
members. Seems Bill – the real Bill, not the
character in this movie – has another lucrative hobby of
writing about the hardest forms of metal, which makes
all these inclusions sensible in some twisted way.
I would be tempted to call Bill Zebub a modern Ed Wood,
but that would be unfair. Sure, Bill the actor
flubs some of the lines that he, himself wrote and then
Bill the director keeps the scene going rather than
utter the magic word, cut! And Bill the director
of photography uses two cameras for many scenes but when
it comes time to edit the bit and pieces, Bill the
editor deliberately neglects to sync the two. You
will see this repeatedly, where one camera is Bill’s POV
and the other points in Bill’s direction, but camera 2
does not pick up where camera 1 left off – it starts
from the beginning of the scene and shows it all to us
again. This is Ed Wood, not on steroids, but on
crack.
Unlike Ed Wood, however, Bill has a point to make and he
will not let the niceties of mainstream cinema get in
his way of making it. There is not so much a
method to his madness as there is a madness to his
method. He knows what he is doing whereas Ed Wood
had no clue, ever.
It came to me out of the clear blue sky that Bill
doesn’t want people like me to get his movies. He
makes them with the lousy acting and the minimal
production values for a certain group of people.
He wants me and folks like me to be offended or bored or
outraged, with finger on the fast-forward button, or
better yet on the eject button. Bill Zebub makes
movies for the same reasons that death metal artists
make music. Now, if only I knew what that was – in
either case – I would be a wiser man and a better
one.
For us, the readers of the Funhouse, the key point to
Bill Zebub’s work with a camera is the large number of
nekkid gals, many of whom are plenty attractive.
You will notice that Bill the actor likes to grab their
tasty hoots, even though he does it without a hint of
prurient interest, more like a medical exam than
foreplay.
Anyway, one long-ish scene shows us four of Bill’s
previous GFs as he cavorts with them. The
actresses go by the names of Taylor
Trash, Eidolana, Angelina Martin and Kathy Rice.
Taylor Trash
Eidolona
Kathy Rice.
IMDb tells us that Ms. Rice was once a glam TV
wrasslin’ babe. She has the body for it.
Carolina
Schumann wears skimpy clothes but goes no
farther in the undressing department.
... dance around as a friend of Bill’s treats his body
like an amusement park. By the look and skill of
this actor, we’d have to conclude he was shopping at
Walmart when Bill the producer signed him to a
contract.
Curious fact: even though she is pornstar with about 550
hard-core credits to her resume, Ms. Lynn goes only
topless in her performance. Must be a delayed
sense of modesty.
Lydia
Lael also dances and strips, but does so in
front of Bill instead of Bill’s friend.
And Jordana
Leigh has the longest scene with the most
amusing dialogue.
Real fans of cinema will have no use for Rap Sucks or
for most of Bill's work, but those of us who eagerly
await the next edition of the Funhouse, Bill is a gift
that keeps on giving.
|
|
