Midnight Madness day 5: Bitch Slap (2009)

Throughout TIFF, Kris and Joe will be doing "shared" reviews, in which we'll offer our opinions on a particular film in a single post. This is day 5.
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Well, last night's screening was an absolute blast!  Colour me shocked.  I was kinda dreading Bitch Slap, but ended up being thoroughly entertained.  Perhaps because of my low expectations, or maybe because the film was actually not bad - either way, good stuff, and tied for first with The Loved Ones as my best of the fest so far.

Godard's famous quotation of "all you need to make a film is  girl and a gun" gets multiplied by 4 here (on both fronts), and what we get is an obvious homage to Russ Meyer and sexploitation films of the 70s, all tits, ass, and big guns.  The opening credits were some of the best I've seen in years (in any genre).  Comical slow motion fetishization of the female form in all its glory (mainly the curvy bits), girl on girl action, supremely over the top dialogue, and a handful of locations all add up to something that is less a tribute to the films it clearly draws from, and more authentically one of those very films itself.  Director Rick Jacobson knows what's up (he's clearly seen an Andy Sidaris film or three), and cameos by Lucy Lawless and Kevin Sorbo were inspired.  The film was overly long, but that's a small quibble.  Also cool to see stunt person extraordinaire Zoe Bell live and in person as part of the fun Q&A (girl's seriously built, and could easily take me and Kris down).

I'm sure someone (Kris, maybe?) will write an incisive dissertation of the post-feminist politics and subversion of genre and gender in Bitch Slap, but for me, it was all on the surface.  What I saw was what I got, and what I saw was glorious.

-the coelacanth
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Bitch Slap is boobs, and cars, and fire, and boobs, and guns, and Hercules and Xenia, and boobs, and girls with boobs, girls on girls with boobs, and motorcycles ridden by girls with guns on fire with boobs and girls.

i liked the part where the girls fought each other, and the other part where they threw water on each other... and i liked the girls alot.

i wanted to go to the washroom but i couldn't because if i got up i thought everyone was gonna laugh at me.

i like movies.

-Dropkick