Combat Girls (2011/Artsploitation DVD)/Manson Family (2003/Severin Blu-ray)/Oranges (2012/Fox Blu-ray w/DVD)/Scum (1979/Kino Lorber Blu-ray)/The Telephone Book (1971/Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray w/DVD)

 

Picture: C+/B-/B- & C/B-/B- & C+     Sound: C+/B-/B- & C+/C+/C+     Extras: C+/C+/C-/C+/B     Main Programs: B-/C/D/C+/C+

 

 

There is no doubt that comedy has become crude, crude to the point that it is no longer comedy in most cases, but there was a time getting foul and vulgar might have a political point or said in ways that actually could be political in itself.  We recently found two different comedy film releases with different intents, different audiences aimed for and are even works that are politically opposite without trying in Oranges and The Telephone Book. They both are sexually crude to far more of an extent than most of what we are used to seeing, which says something, but I was not impressed that much by either.  Yet, which of them, if any, constitute an adult cinematic discourse?

 

In addition, there is out-there humor in the same crude, exploitive zone in the three dramas we also look at that all have their own mixed results.

 

 

The big surprise here is David Wnendt’s Combat Girls (2011), a major German independent theatrical release about skinheads in the country today and how females in the movement are not just the adjuncts they originally were intended to be in Arian/Skinhead hate groups.  Alina Levshin is a more aggressive member who at 22 is not happy with her life, the declining suburbs and is haunted by moments in her family past that have pushed her into her current state of madness.

 

Though there are moments that might not go far enough, I never thought the film trivialized the Holocaust, though some will be uncomfortable with the casualness of the hate group’s anti-Semitism, but it makes sense in context to the story.  It is not problematic like American History X, nor as strong as Romper Stomper (where people believed a young Russell Crowe was a skinhead) and (besides the female angle, not overdone) finds its own angle on the continuing problem in Germany and really around the world.  The rest of the cast is effective and there are surprises I will not reveal, but this is worth going out of your way for because its approach works and it is not what you might always expect.

The hate is predictable, but Wnendt might be on his way to a serious filmmaking career.

 

Extras include trailers, an on camera interview with Levshin called Combat Girl In Hollywood and an 8-page illustrated booklet with a fine essay by Travis Crawford filling in the blanks about the events the film.

 

 

I am no big fan of Jim VanBebber as a filmmaker, but The Manson Family (2003) is one of his more ambitious works by default, trying to show documentary style the how Manson and his gang moved from being annoying and trying to find an easy way to exist, to failing and moving onto all kinds of violence up to the most infamous murders they committed.

 

However, trying to recreate their lives in the most bloody, graphic ways needs narrative balance and as expected, VanBebber overplays his hand eventually despite some early contextual restraint.  I also never believed I was watching the Manson Gang and though it never trivializes the ugly events, it does not add anything new to them and never has the impact of the likes of Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers.  See it if you are very curious, but for the rest of us, once or never will be enough.

 

Extras include VanBebber’s film Gator Green, Original Theatrical Trailers, Deleted Scenes, actual interview with the real Charles Manson, new on camera interview with Musician Phil Anselmo, uncut version of documentary The VanBebber Family, feature length audio commentary track with Director Jim VanBebber and In The Belly Of The Beast, a featurette on the 1997 Fantasia Film Festival.

 

 

Julian Farino’s Oranges (2012) is the extremely obvious, extremely clichéd, extremely predictable and extremely boring waste of our time and some fine actors in a suburban tale of two couples with their suppressed problems about to let loose.  One couple is played by Hugh Laurie and Catherine Keener, the other by Oliver Platt and Allison Janney (the couples are best friends too), in what right there should have been a dream cast.  The supporting actors are decent too, but they cannot save this mess either.

 

The trouble begins when Laurie starts secretly seeing the other couple’s daughter!  As totally unwise as this is, especially when they are setting her up to marry Laurie’s son which means we get the usual sick 1980s-style quasi-incest and near-incest jokes in the myth that talking about them and making them a sick joke negates the problematic issue at hand.  This even plays like a really bad, smug, sickening 1980s film.

 

But the horrid Ian Helfer/Jay Reiss screenplay is bankrupt of ideas and though we get a few moments of humor when the script takes a few very, very brief breaks from its incompetence (Miss Janney gets two of the funniest scenes, brilliant as she is) that only stopped me from being nauseated.  It also reminds us a good film was here…. somewhere… at some point….  maybe…

 

Unless you are extremely curious, avoid this one at all costs.

 

Extras include Ultraviolet Copy for PC, PC portable and iTunes able devices, while the Blu-ray adds two Making Of featurettes and you do get a DVD version of the film so you can see that it is as awful in low definition as it is in High Definition.

 

 

Alan Clarke’s Scum (1979) was intended to be a shocking look at British Reform Schools, always a scenario for exploitation films, was originally made as a BBC drama, but the network found it too shocking to show, yet still owned it and would not allow Clarke to have it.  He reshot the film on 35mm film for theatrical release and the result was a noted British indie (just before Thatcher arrived and during the original Punk era) that featured some talented young actors and helped launch the career of Ray Winstone, who lays tough case Carlin.

 

He is not as tough as you might think, but has to deal with violence, bullies and betrayal, but not just from his fellow inmates.  Between beatings, fights, bloodletting and even sexual assault, the film was meant to be shocking, but as compared to what we have today, this sadly looks tame.  However, it was not that strong when I saw it a very long time ago and that is why it is not as discussed as other films of its kind.

 

The ending is a real problem and though some moments hold up well and most of the BBC cast returned to make this, knowing their roles especially well, Scum is ultimately a mixed bag, but at least it is ambitious filmmaking like we rarely see anymore.

 

Extras include Cast Memories featurette, Original Theatrical Trailers, EPK interview with Roy Milton & Cliver Parsons, second interview with Parsons and Davina Belling who produced the film, on camera Milton interview and a feature length audio commentary track with Ray Winstone.

 

 

While those last two films rightly received R ratings, Nelson Lyon’s The Telephone Book (1971) actually received an X-rating before that was hijacked by the sex film industry.  A under-discussed comedy out of the counterculture cycle of independent cinema, it fit right in with several other such films like Brian De Palma’s Greetings and Hi Mom!, Robert Downey’s Putney Swope (all originally X rated) and similar short subjects and underground media.  This is the tale of a sexy young woman (Sarah Kennedy) who falls in love with an obscene phone caller.

 

Yes, that is the idea and this is a comedy, not a murder thriller, though there is still a sense of darkness over all the people we meet since everyone is sexually dysfunctional and troubled.  It is also amazing how many familiar faces show up, including some when they were unknowns.  Barry Morse (of The Fugitive, before showing up on The Adventurer and Space: 1999) shows up as one kind of pervert, while longtime character actor Roger C. Carmel shows up as another kind of “perv” and we get a soon-to-be-major star Jill Clayburgh as a woman in bed who always seems to be wearing blinders to sleep better, character actress Lucy Lee Flippin lands up with some of the most vulgar lines by any woman in this or any other film, future Gimme A Break star Dolph Sweet has a scene where his character spouts a kid of old school ignorance and we also have Matthew Tobin, Ultra Violet and Ondine.

 

We would have also had Andy Warhol spoofing the idea of an intermission in the middle of the film, but it was cut (the audio commentary explains this terrible mistake) and that footage has never been recovered.  This film is shot mostly in black and white with a little live action color footage and full color animation in the final reels that show how different the film aimed to be.

 

Producer Merv Bloch, an amazing veteran of the studio system, produced this as his one big attempted project to be an outright filmmaker, but it was too different, too sexually crude and vulgar despite it all being intended as a comedy.  Now, it has a cult following (Steve Martin is supposed to be among its fans) and now you can see for yourself a real time capsule of the era.  I felt it got carried away with itself and sometimes in a way that seemed desperate, but it has enough interesting moments and enough historical significance that all serious film fans should see it once.

 

As well, it is made for intelligent adults who can think for themselves, while the likes of Oranges is made for yuppie-like people and teens who think they know everything, think they are more mature than they are and is not aimed at viewers who are able-bodied.  The Telephone Book at least is ambitious and targeting a mature audience with the challenge of sexual perversion as humor.  It may not work much, but at least it is not predictable.

 

Extras include an incredible feature length audio commentary track by Producer Merv Bloch that is both a crash course on independent filmmaking and a history of Hollywood at its peak as it turns out he was a major player in dozens of classics.  That alone makes this a must have set.  We also get a Still Gallery, Theatrical Trailers and Radio Spots.

 

 

The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on Combat has some good shots, but also has degraded shots, shaky camera work and bad cellphone video that is not too overdone, but is still too much here.  Some of this we can account for as the intended look of the film, but it is a little softer than I would have liked and maybe a Blu-ray would look better.

 

The 1080p 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Manson has its moments, looking like its older time period sometimes, but other times, you can tell it is faked and this is especially true when the script goes over the top.  Still, color is not bad, but the fake film scratches and other intended flaws hold the playback back.

 

The 1080p 1.85 X 1 AVC @ 22 MBPS digital High Definition image transfer on Oranges is good, but not great, constantly having a slight softness, some motion blur and a color range that is not great, while the anamorphically enhanced DVD version is far softer and almost unwatchable. 

 

The 1080p 1.66 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Scum shows its age, but is very narrowly the most consistent transfer here with no silly style choices and a straight forward shoot that enhances the realism of the film and script.  Color is the most consistent and we get some interesting shots despite the low budget.

 

The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image on The Telephone Book is mostly black and white 35mm film, with some color 35mm, but it looks decent for its age.  The print shows its age, but the black and white has real silver content so it looks just fine and like real monochrome film should, while the color live action footage looks even a little better and full color animation also aged but fine.  The anamorphically enhanced DVD version is a bit weak as expected, but it could not look much better in that format.

 

 

The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Combat sometimes becomes limited stereo or monophonic sound with cellphone footage or older audio from Nazi propaganda on the soundtrack, but this also has more than its share of quiet moments or dialogue-based moments, so the surrounds are only used on occasion, while the same lossy Dolby 5.1 mix on Manson is meant to be monophonic often and rarely has a soundfield to speak of with any consistency, but that does not add to any authenticity for the film.

 

The PCM 2.0 Mono sound on Scum is lossless but the source shows its age, budget and harmonic distortion makes more than a few passages of dialogue hard to hear and I am very good with British accents.

 

The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Oranges is towards the front speakers, never really taking advantage of the multi-channel sound, the surrounds are filled with the so-so music score and dialogue is sometimes not as well recorded as it should be.  The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on the DVD version is weaker and sometimes hard to hear details in a few brief parts.

 

The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Telephone Book shows the films age and limited budget, but I cannot imagine it sounding better.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo