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Hank and Mike
2008
Maybe you've never really understood how those Easter baskets get
filled every year. You see, Easter Inc. is a division of an important
holiday conglomerate, and they employ bunnies throughout the world, each
of whom has a route in every Christian land. It's a lot like UPS, except
they only work one day a year. As you can imagine, this is not a very
profitable enterprise. First of all, the company pays a bunch of bunnies
enough to live on all year, even though they only work that one night.
Second, the production staff spends all that money to create the chocolate
treats, which gives children a taste for chocolate, but the little
chocolate addicts then give all their money to Reese's and Hershey's and
Nestle's, not to Easter Inc.
The head office brings in a new hot-shot to restructure the Easter
division. He comes up with an elaborate plan which consists of three
parts: (1) Cut back on chocolate costs by moving to large flat pieces with
oval shapes. The cost of goods is cut to a fraction of its former level.
(2) Add revenues by selling advertising on the Easter chocolates. (3) Make
the workforce more efficient by cutting about 11% of the staff. That third
element is the key to the plot of this film. It means that one of every
nine Easter Bunnies will be the victims of downsizing. The stars of the
story are Hank and Mike, two bunnies who get cut in our local area because
they missed a house last Easter.
The film is about what the Easter bunnies do after they get fired. What can
they do? They are not qualified to assimilate into the modern world. They
have no computer skills. The only thing they know how to do is deliver. Of
course, they try UPS, but that just doesn't work out, because they don't
just deliver things - they deliver and HIDE them, which doesn't jibe with
the UPS philosophy. They eventually lose everything and end up homeless
alcoholics, with only one chance to get their jobs back. It's a long-shot
and kinda crazy, but it's so crazy that it just ... might ... work ...
Hank and Mike are played by two human guys in bunny suits, and the
characters are supposed to look like that as well, except that the bunny
suits are not supposed to be costumes. In the film's alternate reality,
these guys are the real Easter bunnies, and they're just regular lunchpail
guys, except with rabbit fur and ears, which nobody finds unusual.
Therefore, when they get laid off from Easter, Inc., they are bunny-guys who
are forced to make a living by performing other jobs which do not call for a
bunny appearance. Apart from the bunny fur and ears, they are like two two
assembly line guys replaced by automation and/or corporate downsizing. Their
jobs once provided them with the only identity they had, and they are
nobodies without that identity.
Pretty funny idea. It's a dark, dark comedy in the general tradition of Bad
Santa, and it works for a while. Not for the entire movie, but for a while.
The problem comes when the scriptwriters (the same guys who play the
bunnies) have to transform the concept from an idea to a story. They've
padded the film with surrealism, an insane song, and a "slobs versus snobs"
overlay, but the truth is that very little of that exoskeleton works. The
characters are fun, the idea is funny, and the film delivers some "WTF?"
laughs right off the bat, but the whole concept just kind of runs out of
steam when it tries to deliver a traditional storyline about the triumph of
underdogs.
Still, you may get a kick out of this film if you enjoy indies which stray
far from the beaten track. It's anti-establishment, surreal, obscene, foul,
and politically incorrect. And has some good nudity.
And, in its own lusty and coarse way, it's also kind of cute and
warm-hearted.
Aniela Kurylo and Tania Russo got naked. Kurylo showed her breasts and a bit
of bum in a dark sex scene, then showed her breasts in good light the
"morning after" scenes. Russo showed the full monty as an artist's model,
but in a dimly lit office. You can see the clips and captures in yesterday's
edition.
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OTHER CRAP:
Catch the deluxe
version of Other Crap in real time, with all the bells and whistles,
here.
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Layover
(2001)
David Hasselhoff is about to leave Chicago for a monthly business trip to
Japan with a layover in San Francisco, and has a fight with his wife, where he
accuses her of infidelity. On the airplane, he meets Gregg Henry. The two
share several drinks, and talk about their lives, including suspicions about
their wives and their work. Henry is a diamond salesman, and Hasselhoff sells
a cell phone that includes a PC, and can record, transmit over the Internet,
and automatically contact the police.
When they arrive in LA, Hasselhoff stops in an airport bar, and is picked up
by Yvonne Scio, who takes him into a baggage area, and fucks his brains out.
Hasselhoff returns to the bar, and runs into Henry, whose wife was late
picking him up. Then Scio returns, and, of course, she is the wife. Henry
insists that Hasselhoff join them for dinner at Allioto's on Fisherman's
Wharf. Over dinner, Henry is increasingly abusive towards Scio, eventually
starting a fight over her with another diner. Scio begs Hasselhoff to help her
leave Henry, so he takes her home to pick up some things. Harry returns in a
cab, Hasselhoff threatens him with a gun he found at the house, and is knocked
unconscious. He awakes as the San Francisco PD are reading him his rights. He
is charged with murdering her husband.
At the police station, he sees a photo of Henry, who, it turns out, is a
homicide detective who has retired that day. The dead husband is someone
Hasselhoff has never seen. Hasselhoff sees all of that as pretty bad news, and
escapes to work on clearing himself. You now know everything you need to
reason out all of the subsequent plot twists and betrayals, of which there are
several.
IMDb readers say 4.9. Although I was several steps ahead of the plot beginning
to end, I found the story engaging, and time passed quickly. This is adequate
genre fare.
Scoop's note: I agree. I was pleasantly surprised by
this film. It is a Brian DePalma homage, and not a bad one at all, and the
Lord of the Beach is adequate in his role.
Yvonne Scio shows breasts and buns in a very hot sex scene that is not very
explicit, but didn't need to be.
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Michelle Bauer
part 4
Today's clips are third party offerings from 1982's Cafe Flesh,
post-apocalyptic medium-core porn with Michelle again working under the name
of Pia Snow. This is the highest-rated film in Michelle's filmography.
Granted that she only appears in B films, that's still fairly impressive
because she has been in 111 films and vids!
Michelle Bauer film clip.
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Notes and collages
Boys on the Side
1995 |
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Drew Barrymore at 19. What a cutie.
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88 Minutes
2007
Al Pacino turned in a solid performance as usual in this thriller.
Unfortunately, the movie itself had an almost made-for-TV feel to it. I
kept waiting for the commercials.
Jack Gramm (Al Pacino) is a renowned forensic psychiatrist and college
professor. Nine years earlier, his testimony caused the jury to sentence
serial killer Jon Forster to death. In appealing for a stay of execution,
Forster claims that Jack manipulated a witness who was at first unsure of
who she had seen at the crime scene.
With only 12 hours to go before the execution, and with a copycat killer
murdering women in the exact same way that Forster had been accused of,
Jack receives a call that he has only 88 minutes to live. Meanwhile,
Forster receives a stay of execution.
This all sounds better than it is. While not a bad movie, it drags at
the beginning, and the big suspense at the end is not really big, nor much
of a surprise. Despite having several well knowns in the cast including
Pacino, Amy Brenneman, Alicia Witt, Leelee Sobieski, Deborah Kara Unger,
and a few others you'll recognize, the director stated this was a
low-budget movie, and I'm afraid it showed.
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| Leah Cairns |
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