MissLeFey Reviews

Time Chasers (1994)

He needs 'chinderwear' (spoilers ahoy!)

[1/10 · 24 January 2004]

****SPOILERS****SPOILERS****SPOILERS****SPOILERS****

You've been warned. Okay, I can't stress this enough but the 'hero's' chin really does focus your attention on him rather than what masquerades as a plot. The hero, Nick Miller, a college physics professor, invents a time machine on his Cessna using a Commodore 64 (yeah, you had one too right?). He, stupidly, sells his invention to the local evil corporation headed by the initialed JK Robertson (NOT to be confused with JK Rowling of Harry Potter fame, of course). Said evil corp duplicates the technology and proceeds to usher in Apocalypse in the year 2041. Big-chinned hero and reporter girlfriend try to change the future and in a series of events too painful (and not horribly important, though including one version of girlfriend Lisa getting killed and a duplicate Nick coming into the picture) to recount, they along with JK, flunky Pink Boy and garage mechanic end up in 1777 Vermont. Blah, blah, blah...

One of the blaring flaws is them messing with history. JK kills his Michael Medved looking flunky in 1777 with an Uzi and the body is left there. The group freely mixes with the Red Coats and the Revolutionaries at that time without either side making notable comments about these strange looking people. And somehow, after all this interaction, the future from that point wasn't affected by the fact that these differently dressed people with strange accents that came down from the sky in a flying bird. Riiiight. You could see where, with talented writers and editors WITH eyes in sockets, this could've been a decent film. Big budgets aren't always needed. Thank the heavens for MST3K! I miss you!

Girl in Gold Boots (1968)

Full body dry heave set to 'music'(spoiler land)

[1/10 · 5 January 2004]

Mike and the bots were right... The lead character, Michele (Leslie McRae who, to me anyway, kinda looks like Angelina Jolie), is an aspiring go-go dancer. She doesn't do much dancing so much as she twitches and "dance like a clown". Michele really does make Elaine Benes on Seinfeld look worthy of Broadway. She heads to LA with Buzz and Critter (I'll get to them next) to make her dreams come true. Buzz's greasy crackhead sister, Joanie, is supposedly the #1 dancer in LA. Riiight. Joanie, with the help of some oily club owners gets Michele a spot.

Then you have Buzz and Critter. Sad excuses for character. Both try to be 'hard core' and for some reason the movie characters keep referring to Buzz (Tom Pace) as a 'young man'! He's like, eighty! Our Fair Critter (Jodi Daniels) speaks flowery language that sounds like Shakespeare after a severe stroke. Buzz is a drug pusher who carries around a gun (uncommon in those days) and pours beer on motorcycle seats and talks to a guy who looks like "Arafat in the 60's". Critter is a draft dodger who apparently changes his mind somewhere between the greasy fight with the doppelganger club owners and the end when he and Michele get married. To quote Tom Servo "He decided he likes violence and is ready to fight like a manotta!" Avoid this movie unless filtered by MST 3K.

Dangerous Beauty (1998)

Let's get some facts straight...(some spoilers)

[10/10 · 5 January 2004]

The main character of the film is named Veronica Franco. I'm not sure what movie the other person was watching that they thought her name was Katherine. The actress' name is Catherine McCormack though. Anyway, Veronica Franco was a 16th century Venetian courtesan and a published poet. That was quite a feat in her day considering society thought (and still does today to some extent) that the role of women were to be wives and mothers and nothing more. They did not receive education outside of the Bible.

Courtesans were an exception. Because they were companions of educated men, whether in Venice or not, they had to be educated as well. Courtesans always had a field in which they excelled outside of sex, be it philosophy, literature, history, etc. Before I saw this movie, I had the same ignorant assumption that courtesans were just higher priced streetwalkers, but they weren't. These women were brazen and they had to be to do what they did for a living. They dared to enjoy sex in a time when women weren't supposed to and spoke out when women were supposed to be silent.

After seeing Dangerous Beauty, I decided to look up Veronica Franco and the histories of courtesans in general. I would ask that everyone do that instead of going on ill-informed and prejudiced views. The movie does leave out a great deal about Veronica's life, but it's a fair summary. Scenery is gorgeous as is the costuming. The acting is wonderful. What is unfortunate, if you look closely at society and consider how you react to things of a sexual nature, not much has changed from those times.