Last night I wasted my time, literally, with
Superstarlet A.D., and I literally mean 'wasted'. As I've said before, I rarely worry about whether a movie is 'good' or 'bad' and instead just try to be entertained for a few hours or so...take it for what it is. This was an exception, I really thought this was a bad movie, bad in the sense that I felt it wasted my time and I wish I hadn't bothered.
The general plot was that, some time after an apocalypse, all wemen are beautiful and all men have reverted to neanderthals. The women form 'beauty cults' based on hair color (blonde, brunette, redhead) and go around wearing corsets and undewear and nylons and such, toting machine guns, and spending their days...um...back stabbing each other and looking for old stag films...or something. Hard to really tell what they do, or want to do, or...
On the surface, this sounds like some good B movie fun...something in the low brow vein of maybe Roger Corman's "Dinsosaur Island". not too ambitious but some silly fun with cute babes. Oh, I wish....
For starts, a combination of the cinematography, the clothes (believe it or not), the over-the-top makeup and hair, and the constant grimacing and sneering, manage to make the actress, who could otherwise probably have been attractive, look pretty ugly. When your movie is based on throwing up a bunch of half-dressed women on the screen, and you make them unattractive, you've got problems...
The biggest problem is the lack of plot or story; scenes are short snippets of dialog, or voice over, with very little purpose or cohesion tying them together. I didn't get the feeling that anything was happening. More of "A Day In The Life Of Post-Apocalyptic Bimbos" than any real attempt to tell a story or provide motivation or reason for why characters were doing what they were doing and why I should bother to watch. Too many references to charater in third-person voice overs to catch who was who, too many scenes that just start and stop with no connection to each other to figure out what was happening
In the credits. writer/directer John Michael McCarthy lists himself as "Auteur Savant"...I really hope that was tongue in cheek. Hard to be pretentious on a budget of $16k but...much of this films comes across as that. From the mostly-black-and-white with a few color scenes to the voice-over monologues trying to offer clever commentary on American culture, this movie with a premise of post-apocalyptic beauty cults flashing some T & A actually seems to take itself seriously as a work of art. My only saving thought is that maybe the film makers were trying to parody or homage sexploitation films or something else that, since I'm not familiar with I didn't get it but otherise...this movie was really bad..
Post Edited (08-13-05 12:04)
