Skin Trade (2015)

Art is one of the most important aspects of society.  It has survived countless generations and made its way flawlessly into the modern world.  Hieroglyphics are a form of art, where the people of the distant past used pictures to convey different things happening in the world around them.  The renaissance, which saw a massive growth in civilization through the 14^th, 15^th, 16^th, and 17^th centuries, was heavily influenced by the rise of great artists.  Some of the greatest scientific minds of the time, such as Leonardo da Vinci, also made long lasting artistic stamps on the world.

The way that art can change the world has been seen throughout the history of art.  Much of what artists put into their work has a message to it.  People such as Banksy use their art to let others know about the atrocities and bad influence of the government and corporations that control many aspects of society.  The messages given through artistic work is meant to enlighten people while also showcasing the talent and skill of the person behind it.  Paintings, sculptures, photography, movies, television, literature, and music all bring out these messages in order to give different life perspectives to the everyday person.

Sometimes the messages are more obvious than others.  In the case of Skin Trade, a 2014 action movie, the message is right in the title.  There are people in this world who kidnap young girls and use them for sexual gratification.  It’s the titular skin trade.  A black market trade of female skin to get your rocks off.  The movie doesn’t do the greatest job of showing how horrific that dark spot of the world is, choosing to focus mostly on the action of a few police officers trying to stop a sex trafficking ring leader from doing what he does.  In fact, there is a fairly major loose thread left at the end of the movie, but that will come up later in this post.

Skin Trade follows two characters from different countries.  Nick Cassidy (Dolph Lundgren) is a New Jersey cop hot on the trail of Viktor Dragovic (Ron Perlman).  His precinct is helped by the FBI, specifically an agent named Reed (Michael Jai White).  Cassidy comes close to capturing Dragovic, killing Dragovic’s son in the process.  As retaliation, Cassidy’s family is attacked.  Cassidy’s wife dies, and his daughter is kidnapped and forced into sex trafficking.  Cassidy then goes to Asia to find Dragovic and get his daughter back.  Meanwhile, Tony Vitayakul (Tony Jaa) is a detective in Thailand also looking for Dragovic.  When Cassidy comes to Thailand in search of Dragovic, Vitayakul is tasked with finding him.  And that’s the basic plot of the movie.

First and foremost, Skin Trade is an action movie.  Though the premise is based around the idea of sex trafficking, the movie is more focused on the action than anything.  The action is the lifeblood of the movie and pushes it forward.  And for the most part, the action is pretty good.  Having people like Tony Jaa, Dolph Lundgren, and Michael Jai White in a movie will help with that.  Each of the three men know how to perform action on screen, from Jaa’s martial arts work to Lundgren’s overpowering muscle to Jai White’s mixture of the two.  They all have their strengths and the combination of the three make for some entertaining pairings in the fight scenes.

Of particular note are two fights in the movie.  One is a fight between Jaa and Lundgren which takes place in a grain mill or a location similar to that.  The other was between Jaa and Jai White in a location that seemed sort of like a construction zone.  Much like any fighting movie, the locations helped accentuate the moves during the fight.  Location is important to choreography.  It gives the fighters something to move through as well as use for their moves.  The locations helped to provide walls for the men to fall or be thrown through.  They gave good places for Tony Jaa to jump off of or through.  And they looked good as a backdrop to what was going on, without looking so distracting that they took focus off of the fighting.  The fighting was also good, as in both fights, the different styles played off of each other well enough to blend into an entertaining mishmash of moves.

Yet, fighting can’t be the only focus of a movie that has a message to spread.  When it comes to Skin Trade, that message is about how there is sex trafficking going on and it is bad.  The movie does perfectly well in making sure the audience knows that this sort of stuff is bad.  It shows young girls getting kidnapped, raped, and being held in small pens like some kind of farm animal.  It portrays this inhumanity throughout the runtime.  However, Skin Trade chooses to focus much more on Nick Cassidy finding Viktor Dragovic than it does on anyone saving the women.  Sure, some of the women are saved, but in the end, it was all about Cassidy confronting the man in charge.  The confrontation didn’t stop the skin trade from continuing.  It didn’t even conclude with Cassidy finding his daughter, which is a major loose thread setting up a potential sequel that will likely never happen.

Skin Trade is a movie that is easy to appreciate.  It brings human trafficking to the forefront in an attempt to get people to help prevent it.  It also has some good fight scenes scattered throughout.  All around though, the movie doesn’t stand above any of the other lower budget action movies that have been recently released.  It is simply another movie to add to the bargain bin at whatever local store is still selling physical copies of movies.

And this is simply another post ending with notes:

• With his inclusion in Skin Trade, Michael Jai White has reached the top ten of the most frequent actors featured in the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  He was previously in Exit Wounds as well as two of the Toxic Avenger movies.
• Michael Adamthwaite is making his third Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance with Skin Trade.  He has already been featured in The Marine 3: Homefront and Repeaters.
• Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa has now been featured in three Sunday “Bad” Movies.  This week’s movie follows his appearances in the two Mortal Kombat movies.
• Sahajak Boonthanakit and Gigi Velicitat are both making their second appearances this week.  Both actors were in The Marine 2.
• Mike Dopud was in Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever before reappearing in the Sunday “Bad” Movies this week with Skin Trade.
• Finally, we have Ron Perlman.  He plays the main bad guy in Skin Trade.  He also played a pirate in The Ice Pirates.
• Have you seen Skin Trade?  Have you heard of it?  Do you like any of the actors in the movie?  Use the comments section if you have any comments about this post or movie.
• If you would like to see me watch a movie as part of the Sunday “Bad” Movies, feel free to suggest the movie in the comments or on my Twitter timeline.
• Next week’s movie is Fateful Findings, which I had previously mistitled as Faithful Findings.  Either way, it’s a Neil Breen movie and I don’t know what to expect from it.  We’ll find out soon though.  See you next week when I’ve seen it.

Why Chicks Dig Gay Guys (2014) is a Bad Influence

Among the circles that I frequent on Twitter, I have noticed a raised awareness and demand for equality among races, genders and gender roles.  People want to see more women and people of non-Caucasian races in higher positions in movies, and more movies influenced and featuring people who have sexual orientations other than heterosexual.  And that is what is happening currently on a small scale.  The independent film world is picking up on this demand and showcasing movies that aren’t of the strictly straight white male driven kind.

It becomes troubling when a movie like Chicks Dig Gay Guys comes out.  This movie is a movie for straight white males that makes being gay a joke.  It does nothing to help further the cause of equality.  Instead, it sets it back for the dudebro crowd who might not be on the equality train.  Rather than showing people how gay people are just like straight people, but with different orientation, it makes them into cheap jokes and a way for straight people to get hot women.

There are a lot of different ways in which Chicks Dig Gay Guys manages to heed the progress that much of society has been attempting to speed up.  The story and humour found within it manage to encapsulate what people are trying to prevent.  With a few reasons, I want to explain to you why this movie sets a bad example for the audience that it is looking for.

The premise is that pretending to be gay will get you laid by “teh wemenz”

That’s right.  The entire premise of the movie is that two guys pretend to be gay in order to get women.  One of them, Scooter (Nathan Anderson), is a womanizer who is looking for a way to break his dry spell.  He discovers that if he pretends to be gay, women will be more open with him.  The more open they are, the closer they get.  Eventually they will want to “turn” him (something that isn’t a real thing, if you’re gay, you’re gay) and have lots of naughty, dirty sex with him to do it.

The other main character in the movie, Brad (Brian Patrick Murphy), is looking for a relationship.  He meets a woman in a bar and falls in love at first sight.  When she doesn’t reciprocate her feelings, he pretends to be gay in order to get closer to her.  If he can’t have her, he can trick her into being his friend.  His best friend, actually.  Aside from Scooter.

Apparently, women are automatically friends with gay men.

You know that cliché where all women want a gay best friend?  Chicks Dig Gay Guys plays right into that idea.  The reason that the guys pretend to be gay is to get on the good side of the women.  The first instance of this is when Scooter is in a bar and gets shot down.  He then pretends to be gay.  It doesn’t completely work because he sounds like the stereotypical womanizer’s idea of a gay man.  The next time we see him in a bar, he is dressing and acting the part, with women hanging from his arms.

When Brad is shot down by Rachel (Maitland McConnell) due to her current boyfriend, he then decides it would be the right time to take on a gay persona.  This persona, Frankie, is an immediate success with Rachel and allows Brad to become closer to her than he would have been otherwise.  All it takes to convince a woman to let you into her life is to be gay.  Why?  Because, as the title says, chicks dig gay guys.  According to this movie, women want a gay friend.  And that’s what the guys do.  It works.

SPOILER: The guys get the girls in the end.

In the most dickish writing manner, the two main characters each manage to land a relationship after having posed as gay men.  Scooter manages to end up with a woman who has a similar personality to him without any problem whatsoever.  She doesn’t care at all that he pretended to be gay in order to get women into bed with him.  It means absolutely nothing to her.  In reality, it means that a man can get what he want by pretending to be something he isn’t.  Namely, gay.

Brad, on the other hand, gets into trouble for pretending to be gay.  Rachel takes offense to it.  Not because he pretended to be gay.  That doesn’t matter at all.  It’s because he wasn’t who he said he was.  He could have pretended to be Santa Claus and it would have had the same conclusion.  Yet, all of the difficulties he has when he reveals his true self are brushed under the rug at the end of the movie because Rachel’s boyfriend is a lying, cheating asshole.  Impersonating a gay man and making a mockery of gay people isn’t a bad thing because at least he wants to be there for the girl.  Bleh.

Even the real gay friend character is okay with it.

About halfway through the movie, a character named Bruce (Espie Randolph) is introduced.  As far as I know, he is an actual gay character and not a character pretending to be gay.  In fact, there is evidence to show he is gay, and no evidence against that stance.  This character has no issues with the two main characters pretending to be gay when he finds out about their deception.  He actually becomes closer friends with them because of it, which seems rather out of place in that kind of situation.

I feel the need to mention how he discovers that Brad is gay.  At one point in Chicks Dig Gay Guys, a good majority of the movie’s characters go on a camping trip.  During one of the nights in camp, Bruce goes into Brad’s tent and attempts to seduce him with various sex toys, in what feels more and more like rape as the scene goes on.  After reaching a breaking point, Brad tells Bruce to back off and reveals (offscreen, mind you) that he is really a straight man.  Bruce doesn’t seem angry about it the next day.  He seems perfectly fine with this news.

The movie is based upon reality.

The story that writer Nathan Anderson, the actor playing Scooter, told through Chicks Dig Gay Guys is based on stuff that he actually did in his own life.  He would pretend to be gay to hook up with women.  That is a rather despicable thing to do in order to pick up women, and to write a movie about it seems even more morally corrupt.  Shame on you, Mr. Anderson.

Making things worse is all of the above in this post.  The idea is bad, assuming that all women absolutely love gay men is worse, and having your main characters getting full on relationships in the end is the worst possible outcome.  Why?  Because it instills an idea in the audience that this kind of behaviour is alright.  It isn’t.  This is deplorable behaviour and only sets back the momentum of equality that has been building in society.

Equality is an important aspect in the modern world.  Women do as much for humanity as men.  Every race of people can be as productive as any other race.  We can all be as compassionate, as friendly, as intelligent, and as important as one another.  Our sexual preferences don’t make us a completely different species.  A man who loves a man or a woman who loves a woman are no lesser humans than a man who loves a woman or a woman who loves a man.  So why are movies like this still being made?  Why do people think it is okay to use communities in this way?  Why is it okay to make a whole sexual orientation into a joke for the movie and have no real consequences stem from the actions?  I don’t know.  What I do know is that Chicks Dig Gay Guys makes fun of gay people while also saying that it is okay for straight men to pretend to be gay in order to pick up women.  That’s a terrible message.

A better message is in the form of these notes:

• Chicks Dig Gay Guys was suggested by @MarceloJPico.
• This is the interview where I found out that the movie was inspired by true events.
• Eric Roberts briefly appears in Chicks Dig Gay Guys.  If you remember, he was also the voice of the cat in A Talking Cat!?!
• Mindy Robinson also makes an appearance in Chicks Dig Gay Guys, after having previously appeared in The Coed and the Zombie Stoner.
• Finally, Mara Marini was in Chicks Dig Gay Guys.  She was also in a movie called Metal Man.
• Have you seen the movie Chicks Dig Gay Guys?  Do you think it has as bad of a message as I believe it does?  Did you like it?  The comments section is here if you have anything to say.
• Have you seen any bad movies recently that you think I should cover?  Tell me what movies and I might include them in a later Sunday “Bad” Movie post.  You can put your suggestions in the comments section, or message them to me on Twitter.
• Next week, the movie I will be writing about is Skin Trade because why the hell not?  Look at that cast!  Dolph Lundgren, Tony Jaa, Ron Perlman, Michael Jai White, and Peter Weller.  That’s something I need to see.  I hope you’ll join me next week when I write about it.

Five Things That Make Orca (1977) the Movie It Is

In 1975, the movie Jaws was released into theaters and helped to change the course of movies.  It is commonly cited as the first major blockbuster film and ushered in the modern age of blockbuster filmmaking.  Another thing that the success of Jaws bred was a slew of nature horror movies.  In the five or ten years following Jaws, many other movies playing on similar themes were released.  The late 1970s and early 1980s saw the release of movies such as Piranha and Grizzly.  The movies attempted to capitalize of the same sort of fear that Stephen Spielberg’s movie tapped into, with varying degrees of success.  Another movie in this wave of animal attack movies was 1977’s Orca.

Orca came out in 1977 in the wave of the success of Jaws.  But you already know that.  I already said that.  It stars Richard Harris as Captain Nolan, a ship captain who goes out hunting a killer whale that has been killing sharks and stuff.  When he shoots the wrong whale, the targeted killer whale comes after him with a vengeance.  This leads to death, destruction, and a lot of insanity in this nature horror movie that has become a cult classic of sorts.  I probably won’t do it justice in this week’s post, but I sure will try.

Like most movies that I have watched for the Sunday “Bad” Movies, there are some crazy things that happen in Orca.  I want to take this post to list off five different details within the movie.  These are aspects of Orca that make it into the movie that it is.

1.  The killer whale knows who it is hunting.

One thing that doesn’t usually go over too well in a movie is having the animal be getting revenge on the people who wronged it.  For example, in Jaws: The Revenge, the great white follows the Brody family away from Amity Island and goes after them for what happened in the previous films.  That’s why it is The Revenge.  The shark is going out of its way for revenge.

Orca has a similar story.  The killer whale that witnessed the death of another whale (and the fetus inside that whale) goes after the man who did the killing.  Through any means necessary, it tries to kill the man in some form of whale justice.  These means become exceedingly more ludicrous as the movie goes on. 

2.  There is a dead great white shark found at the beginning of the film.

In a pointed attack at Jaws, near the beginning of Orca, the killer whale murders a great white shark that Captain Nolan is hunting.  Thus, Nolan changes his target to the killer whale.  The murder of the great white shark is what causes the entire story of the movie to take place.  If it weren’t for that death, Nolan wouldn’t have been hunting the whale, wouldn’t have caused the death of the wrong whale, and wouldn’t have been targeted.

Clearly, the death of the great white shark at the beginning of the film was a jab at Jaws.  The first Jaws had come out two years prior to Orca and this movie needed to find a way to top it.  Everyone was afraid of the great white shark at the time.  The only way to make the killer whales more frightening was to have them kill a great white.  It was a moment of “Step over Jaws, Orca is here.” And it set the movie in motion.  This would later be countered by Jaws 2 when a shark killed an orca.  This was like the late 70s film version of two rappers writing songs about each other.

3. The movie was filmed mostly in Newfoundland.

There is a whole lot of Newfoundland in this movie, from the fishing towns to the animals to the icebergs that appear later on in the movie.  Also notable is the fact that Richard Harris is Irish and Charlotte Rampling is English.  Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949, before which it was a British territory.  Many of the people there in 1977 still had ties to their British ancestry or lives, as many still there probably do.  So having the main characters be infused with this British touch is semi-realistic to the way Newfoundland is and was.

4. The killer whale is a good strategist.

The whale in Orca knows what it is doing when it comes to getting revenge on the man that wronged it.  It seems as though it has planned out its attacks well enough that it can almost perfectly execute them.  This good strategy begins when the whale goes into a harbour and punctures the hulls of a bunch of boats, ensuring that the people will not be able to come after it.  Later on, the shark manages to destroy the supports of a house built over the water so that the house will collapse.  During this scene, the whale manages to eat someone’s leg, so that plan worked for that much.  Finally, near the end of the movie, the whale launches an attack on Captain Nolan and his boat by pushing an iceberg towards it.  The whale knows where to push on the iceberg so that it doesn’t tip right over, and it knows what direction to go so that the iceberg will hit the boat, without being able to see around the obstruction.  This is a smart whale.

5. The movie begins with a bunch of killer whales splashing in the water.

Most horror movies tend to start with a scene meant to bring the audience into the action.  Jaws had the first death of the movie.  Scream had Drew Barrymore not knowing the killer in the first Friday the 13^th movie.  Orca… Well, it had whales splashing in the water.

This is a common thing I have seen in nature horror.  The first scene might not be a horrific scene, but rather something to set up a theme within the movie.  In the case of Orca, that theme is the familial nature of whale pods.  Pods of whales treat each other like families and will travel together through the ocean waters.  The first scene of Orca sets that up by showing a pod of whales surfacing and going under water; jumping out of the water and landing with a large splash.  It gives a little bit of background to the whale revenge story that the movie has.

Orca is a movie that makes a whale out to have the same intelligence and emotional range as a human.  I don’t know anything about the intelligence of a whale, but it seems unrealistic to me that a whale would have the same emotions in regards to revenge as a human being.  The concept of whale revenge is one that might seem interesting on paper.  It doesn’t completely work as a movie.  Orca is still entertaining enough for a watch.  It is hard to take seriously, yet it’s still fun to watch.  For a movie made to capitalize on the success of Jaws.

I’ve got a few notes here for you guys before you head off for the week:

• Other animal horror movies I’ve covered are Two-Headed Shark Attack, Shakma, Big Ass Spider!, Snakes on a Train, Anaconda, Frogs (which might be the best comparison to Orca that I’ve covered), Birdemic, and Zombeavers.
• I mentioned Friday the 13^th in the post, and would like to remind you that I’ve covered two films in the franchise.  First, I covered Friday the 13th: A New Beginning.  Later on, I covered Jason Goes to Hell.
• Have you seen Orca?  What did you think of it?  Did I do it justice with this post (I don’t think I did)?  There’s a comments section below if you want to discuss the movie.
• You can also use the comments section to suggest movies for me to watch in the future.  If you want me to watch something for the Sunday “Bad” Movies, suggest it.  Either in the comments, like I said, or on Twitter.  I take 95% of movies into consideration when making the schedule.  I did reject someone’s idea of Gladiator once, so I’ll admit to that.
• Next week’s movie is Chicks Dig Gay Guys and I am super afraid of what this movie is going to be.  It’s likely going to be a terrible comedy.  I watched the trailer once and was astonished at what I was seeing.  So, that’s going to be an interesting one.  See you next week.