5 Psychotronic Gems on Netflix: Badass Babes for a Bernie Nation

It's foxy redheaded sculptress vs. suicide machine in this very vividly realized post-tech future, the sort of weird termite detail we expect from the Aussie who gave us the almost-great Dust Devil and then was kicked off his own adaptation of Island of Dr. Moreau. Here, elaborately realized urban Blade Runner-esque repurposing techno-pagan loft apartment interiors protected by elaborate security systems, for the world is super dangerous outside the blast doors. Any isolating artist will relate to foxy redhead Stacey Travis in her fortress of sculptural solitude, beset from a fat sweaty leering peeping tom landlord--the film's main yuck element, and then the robot her salvage wanderer boyfriend Dermot Mulroney brings her, for her art, that ain't dead. The angry monster's answer to ET, this thing is designed to euthanize any human it can find as a last ditch effort to bring the human population down to sane levels. Its electrokinetic ability to re-build itself makes it impossible to kill; Travis' fortress-level locks makes it impossible for people to rescue her; Travis believably rocks the seamless momentum from cool artist chick into primal savage, battling this thing with a ferocity both sexy and thrilling to watch. Dylan McDermott's 80s hair, the gross dudes, and one of those snickerin "New Wave" drug buddies wearing his cheap sunglasses even at night, or no, Stanley keeps this from resembling a Corman movie via a great transcendental Buddhist death scene; and his acidhead punk friend is hilarious. The gore effects are solid, and the with its hideous drill bit phallus like GOG gone wild, figuring in the close quarter fight scenes with lovely Stacey, her fierce determination, fiery hair and pale skin, and artistic facial blood and oil stains meshing perfectly with her pale face, green eyes and autumnal red hair. You'll want to date an Irish girl all over again! But don't do it!! 

WHY THE BERN: The world is been overpopulated and destroyed and is no in mid re-build itself, making it look like a cross between Blade Runner San Francisco and Montevideo, Uruguay. Bernie's brand of arcane socialism is in the cards? Ok, fuck if I know... Just showing off I've been to Montevideo. 

The tale of a world turned to desert from global warming, the once fecund fields of Oregon now a parched desert, settlers with shrinking wells are under constant attack from the local water baron and his foxy redheaded daughter and their pack of gas-mask wearing goons. Gradually, her one friend dead, the girl decides to fight back... etc. What makes it great is this girl, who is quite impressively pro-active. Usually, no matter how badass, women characters hesitate to land the killing blow on a disarmed opponent. 99% of the time they throw down their weapon, make some remark about how there's been enough killing, turn and walk away and give the opponent a chance to reach for their weapon again, then whip around and kill them, because otherwise killing an already-beaten beeyatch would besmirch their smug morality.

Well, none of that with Haley Lui Richardson, and this bitch can shoot, sneak and stab -she doesn't miss, or pretend there's some moral high ground-- it's all dead flat, and if she throws a passing survivor a jar of water she has no illusion that survivor might not be back that night for the whole well, which is already dry (the baron's been draining the aquifer, i.e. drinking their milkshake). And if she and her friend fire at someone they hit them, maybe wound them, maybe kill them straight up, but they don't miss. I'm tired of these young characters finding a gun or whatever while someone's trying to kill them, they pick it up shoot once or stab once, the person goes down or runs off and they drop the weapon right away, like ewwww, as if the gun in saving their life somehow sullied their innocence. I've turned off movies the minute this happens in the past (recently: American Ultra,Everly). The Netflix aisles are choked with half-measure woman on rampage films, but the actresses seem to want people to know they don't really like guns. It's fucking dishonest! The characters in this aren't like that. And actually there's one of the more interesting villain I've seen lately, there's just no one around to remind them it's wrong. I like that he's impressed when Richardson comes to his ranch to kill him instead of vice versa, and it's not like his rationale is an excuse for bloodshed, stealing water rights is an old west tradition -as seen lately in RANGO, and THE BOOK OF ELI, or in CHINATOWN or half the westerns ever made, and he's right --it's really mercy killing as those wells are running dry and there's nowhere to go. with him it's not personal or even inhumane, and if the scrappy dame comes at him with a sword, he's going to fight her with a sword, not grab a gun. He almost welcomes death, and his daughter is Nicole from Cycle 13 of AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MOEL!

Aside from those sporadic, loping cello notes evoking some kind of scarcity-based frontier dustbowl past, but with poison gas cannisters, heat sensors in addition to old school artist. the score's a lovely batch of droning strings and occasional guitar. "Remember when this all rice paddies?" she asks her brother, and that's about the extent of the exposition - no trite opening monologues about global warming or montages of sped up evaporation. "You think it will ever rain again?" - her hair and clothes and skin perfectly bleached and faded to blend in with the surroundings, fearless and scrappy, sneaking across the landscape like an armed mix of sharper feral kid and less self-righteous Katniss, with impressively dark eyebrows. Even the one kid (Max Charles) is impressive; you look in his kid eyes and see a tough adult, and so often, it's vice versa.


Nicole Fox, by the way, won America's Next Top Model, and deserved to, that quiet but determined competitive spirit is well used as she wrestles with qualms about killing all the settlers (the priest they bring along assures her it's a mercy) too old to carry guns and join his gas mask wearing crew. and her casual vaguely sleepy voice is a perfect match with the rest of SURVIVORS, including the eerily familiar score by Craig Deleon. Haley Lu Richardson's performance is spot perfect, more Jennifer Lawrence from Winter's Bone rather than the sanctimonious buzzkill Lawrence of The Hunger Games. You can tell she really grew up in a desert NRA environment (born in AZ) and the whole thing has a cool deadpan naturalistic approach I hate in a lot of these kind of HD post-apocalyptic bleached color indies, but this one the bleached color aspect is aesthetically appropriate. All in all it's more like a low key version of Mad Max; Thunder Road than Mockingjay Part 2 and thank fucking god for that. Booboo Stewart (Twilight - team Jacob) is way more capable in a crisis than Pippa or whatever the hell is name was - even hobbled with one leg he can still take out three guys in gas masks all in different directions, and not miss. Her final rampage, to rescue a neighbor boy, is definitely inspiring. One wonders the kind of hell Katniss might have unleashed had her moral crutch dear little Peta died. Wonder no more, instead... just wish.

I'm one of the rare who adore Neil "The Descent" Marshall's expensive flop Doomsday yet missed it in theaters due to terrible advertising, this one too, not helped that I hate gladiator movies almost as a rule. I can't get past the terrible haircuts and ridiculous shorts. To let you know how long it's taken me to finish watching this, even knowing Marshall did it: I started back before I knew or cared who Michael Fassbender was, and only came back a few weeks ago because at last I knew. Other macho craggy faces include the Dominic West as the General leading the doomed expedition and as the Ulrich "Perennial Bond villain" Thomsen as the brutal chief. The eternally gorgeous Imogen Poots is a local herbalist who helps hide the few survivors because, of course, she was scarred by Thomsen and ostracized as a witch (the fear of which keeps her unmolested from either side). Really the reason is 1) every script of this sort has to have a version of her (stretching back to 1958's DEFIANT ONES), the helpful girl who takes a shine to one of the crew and helps hide them from the hunters; and 2) it's goddamned Michael Fassbender! Who wouldn't hide him from the hunters? But the real heart and soul is the mute huntress Pict warrior, whom the commander of the Romans trusts to lead a recon mission into Pict territory, which  ain't too bright. What's not is the skeevy dickishness of the legion's Greek (Dave Legeno), who kills the Pict chief's son during a botched rescue (or something) then literally throws a fellow centurion to the wolves. And we understand their grief, these Picts, but even so the father throws a knife to Dominic West after he cuts his chains loose, to give him a fighting chance. Now that's macho.

Imogen Poots (left), j'adore

What is also shows is that Marshall refuses to judge either side. Kurylenko betrays them, but it's hard to blame her. Her chief is a dick, but so is his. The real one to blame is the Greek, yet in both his dick moves he did it to allegedly survive himself. And Romans are the invaders, after all. That makes Fassbender's party more like the German U-boat survivors fleeing across Canada in THE 49TH PARALLEL as much as the lost training maneuvers National Guard members in Walter Hill's SOUTHERN COMFORT. At any rate, in not picking a side it becomes quite the Marshall all his own thing, he continues to show he's got a thing for the fierce Pagan warrior women (as in DOOMSDAY). Kurylenko shows herself steadily growing past her previous Russian mob party girl roles, able to convey much with her eyes, as does Fassbender. Their final duel is pretty badass - men vs. women dude, it's cool. It's based on a real story of a Roman legion that 'disappeared' in the hills of what's now Scotland, aye, and the betraying scout leading the legion into ambush trap, well, that's true too, but happened in Germany. All in all it's gorgeous, supremely macho, and... is that enough? Does their really need to be a point. Sometimes, badass fights and beautiful stark mountain scenery is all we got.

Romans, during a good-natured brawl

Why the Bern? You need to ask, my countryman? Trump, lest you forget is of the Roman lineage. Olga's the American youth vote, her face painted like she got back from Burning Man, only in her case, she really did burn a man, nyuk nyuk. Hillary is the commander back across the lines who'd rather eliminate the last survivor to hush up the defeat (word of their defeat at the hands of the Picts would spark uprisings everywhere so must be suppressed, i.e. Bengazi). Poots and Fassbender are the hope for the future, the merging of cultures like Hippolyta and Theseus in Midsummer Night's Dream.