The Quick and Dirties: When Roku Attacks

Times change for the better, or for the worse, depending on your political leanings, I suppose. In any event, we are constantly evolving (or devolving, it seems). The easiest thing to point out as proof our relentless push forward is how quickly the average TV set went from being a heavy hunk of plastic with far more frame than screen to being a lightweight computer with a giant screen and hardly any frame, at all. All that technology can be a bad thing.

I'll explain.

If you're familiar with this particular feature, you might remember that I've done several Q & Ds subtitled "When Netflix Attacks." They all featured random movies I found myself watching after just scrolling around Netflix. Being that, this was usually a late night activity, I wound up watching some 'out there' type of movies. Things got better...or worse...a couple months ago when I bought a Roku TV. That meant I had access to lots and lots more streaming channels with all sorts of crap out there. Yeah, I wound up in some strange places.

It started off okay, with a movie I found on ol' reliable Netflix...

White Girl

(2016)

Leah (Morgan Saylor) and Katie (India Menuez) are a couple of free spirits who move in to their new apartment in the 'hood. Leah is the freer of the two and bangs whoever. She also drinks, smokes, and snorts whatever. Soon enough, she falls hard for local drug dealer Blue (Brian Marc). They fall pretty hard for each other, pretty quickly. Unfortunately for them, Blue gets busted. Leah then goes through all sorts of hell in an effort to get him out. A coke-and-sex-fueled version of Run Lola Run ensues. It's not nearly as good as that since White Girl as a whole leaves something to be desired. Leah never seems to learn anything and the final scene undermines everything she does before that. Still, the situations are very tense. More than that, Saylor delivers a compelling performance. She goes for broke, and it pays off because she makes the movie eminently watchable.


Then, I started venturing a little further into cyberspace...

Porn Star Zombies

(2009)

Sigh...yeah, I dunno how I wound up here. Anyhoo, we meet a couple of guys who work for a company that makes porn. Well, one guy works for them, He just brings his horndog buddy along who just wants to see naked women. While the movie is being made, one of the lady performers suddenly goes living dead on her male co-star. Yup, I mean right in the middle of a scene. Before long, much of the cast is zombified and trying to eat the few who remain human. How one becomes a zombie in this movie is well...the name of it is Porn Star Zombies, right? Needless to say, it was bad. Real bad. So bad it's awesome!


I poked around a bit more looking for a "legit" movie, but hey, were those boobs?

Boobs: An American Obsession

(2010)

Why yes, they were. And this is "legit," it's a documentary, after all. About boobs. Okay, let me stop being an idiot. It really does try to take an honest look at how we have historically felt about them throughout the history of America. Most important, there's lots of talk about pressure from society to have certain size, Everyone from serious academics who studied breasts to porn stars who put theirs to work gets to have a say. That includes the lady in the pic, B-movie legend and former Penthouse Pet, Julie Strain. It was a more serious examination of the subject than I was looking for in the wee hours of the night, but that was a pleasant surprise. But yeah, the things in the title make frequent free-swinging appearances.


After that, it really got strange...

A Lonely Cow Weeps at Dawn

(2003)

Ever since her husband passed away, Noriko (Ryôko Asagi) has lived with her father-in-law Syukichi (Hôryû Nakamura) on his farm. Not only has he lost his son, He has a stable full of cows and gets up every morning at the crack of dawn to milk them. Here's where it gets weird. The man's gone senile, and apparently blind, too. His favorite cow has long since died, but he still thinks its alive. I guess because she doesn't want to break the old man's heart, Noriko steps in for the cow. You're probably wondering what that means. It means, she gets up a few minutes before him every morning, hustles down to the barn, strips buck nekkid, gets on all fours, and waits for him to come milk her. When he gets to her, he dutifully squeezes her...um...udders to try and get some milk out. Yup, you read that right. The dude has an estranged daughter, Mitsuko (Yumeka Sasaki), who quite literally blows into town. She hasn't seen her dad in years, but still stops at the neighbor's house to bang him before she even gets to dad. Of course, she has no clue of what's going on at dad's. Their drama, plus her drama, plus the neighbor's drama (he's trying to buy the farm from Syukichi, and he's a humongous creep) all unfolds in surprisingly intriguing fashion. You definitely have to have an appreciation of Japanese cinema to look beyond the zaniness of it all. If you do, you'll find an interesting, if truly bizarre, story.


None of these have been reviewed on Surrender to the Void, but there has been a Blind Spot Challenge entry...

Click here for Surrender to the Void's review of Swing Time.