Directed by Malcolm Lee

Written by Norman Vance, Jr.

Starring: Bow-Wow, Jurnee Smollett, Meagan Good and Wesley Jonathan

112 minutes in CinemaScope

If truth be told, somewhere on my DVD wall, filed alphabetically by director between Leone, Sergio and Lester, Richard lurks a copy of Roller Boogie, Mark Lester’s satirically contemptuous ode to Linda Blair. Never once having donned a pair of roller skates, my major fascination with this sub-genre is purely voyeuristic, with a minor in the phenomenology of disco skating on film.

The only roller boogie scene in the history of cinema worth mentioning appears in Peter Bogdanovich’s ultra-romantic comedy They All Laughed, where a klutzy John Ritter attempts to skate his way into Dorothy Stratten’s heart. Nowhere near as stylish as Bogdanovich’s intoxicating roundelay, Roll Bounce tries hard to evoke a ’70s flavor. X (Bow-Wow, who dropped the Lil’ presumably cause he was tired of being called “Lillian”) is crestfallen when his neighborhood skating emporium closes. Along with his merry band of “welfare rollers,” B-W takes his battered skates, so old Harriet Tubman wore them, to the upper-crust Sweetwater rink. This is where superstar Sweetness (former “City Guy” Wesley Jonathan) glides supreme with his backup team, an all-male version of Denny Terrio’s Motion. Outclassed by both Sweetness’ skill with a skate key and his Jiffy-Pop Afro, Wow will have to hike up his disco balls in order to win the competition.

Meagan Good adds eye candy as Naomi, and Bow-Wow’s appeal is not strictly for the dogs. The biggest surprise is Jurnee Smollett, who gives a charming, natural performance as Tori, the wobbly rollergirl with a tin-grin. Instead of playing it bitchy, Tori supports X even when he chooses Tyra Banks clone Naomi. She’s secure enough to know that once the braces come off she’ll have her pick of the four-wheeling clique.

The period re-creation is hit and miss. Sansabelt slacks, polyester leisure suits and a vintage Pepsi can for Naomi to seductively sip from are perfectly replicated. Vanity plates and nutrition facts on Good Humor bars are a few years premature. One constant element of the genre that Roll Bounce manages to freshen up is the parental figure at odds with their kid’s love of the rink. Remember Linda Blair’s plea to Beverly Garland: “Oh, mama. I don’t want to play the flute. I want to win the Roller Boogie competition!” Chi McBride is X’s father, and if you slapped Ray Milland’s head on his shoulder you’d swear he was Rosie Greer. McBride’s scenes with the rebellious Bow actually add a bit of emotional weight to the silliness.

Director Malcolm Lee (Spike’s cousin) has been MIA since 2002’s Undercover Brother, the blaxploitation answer to Austin Powers that is hipper and funnier than both of Mike Meyer’s films combined. Lee’s eye for widescreen composition is complimented by steadicam virtuoso James Muro. Muro apprenticed on dozen’s of “A” pictures (Casino, Terminator 2, L.A. Confidential), and his confidence with the floating camera sets the breezy style of the film’s numerous skating scenes.

Call me sentimental, but I went with Roll Bounce and had a reasonably good time for it. Not to be confused with cinema, this rink redux is simply another happy reminder of the enduring spirit of ’70s cinema.

Rating: 1/2

Written and directed by Paul Etheridge-Ouzts

Starring: Dylan Fergus, Bryan Kirkwood, Andrew Levitas and Nick Name as “Himself”

85 minutes

It’s Halloween, and instead of slaughtering kids from the primetime lineups of FOX and The WB, director Paul Etheridge-Ouzts thought outside the box (office) and decided to write and direct the first gay slasher film. Listen carefully and you’ll hear the sound of Gay & Lesbian Times across San Diego hitting the floor as readers drop everything and rush out to Landmark’s La Jolla Village.

Soap star (and dead ringer for James Marsden) Dylan Fergus is Eddie, a desk cop working the West Hollywood precinct where a couple of young gays were brutally murdered early Halloween morn during a steamy automobile make-out session. Tearing him away from his private stash of hot mug shots (he dabbles in rough trade), Eddie is assigned flyer-duty, papering the neighborhood with one-sheets alerting the hordes attending the annual West Hollywood Halloween Carnival of the young men’s murders.

There’s plenty of stock footage from last year’s annual carnival, where two-thirds of the film’s action takes place. Eddie arrives with his three roommates: Chaz (Andrew Levitas) comes fresh off a little MMF action in a car, Joey (Hank Harris) is the twink who wants nothing more than his dreamboy’s phone number, and strapping Tobey (Matt Phillips) decides to break character and come in costume, sporting six-inch Lucite heels, a glitzy gown, a Dolly Parton wig and a couple of regulation-sized softballs.

Thoughts of Freddie Krueger chasing down Hedwig’s angry inch with a bushido blade came to mind, but the filmmakers wisely play most of it for thrills instead of camp. One by one, studs are decapitated by Himself (queer muscle punk musician Nick Name), his weapon of choice a sharecropper’s sickle. How the muscular madman instantaneously rammed the curved blade through a chain link fence remains a bigger secret than his masked identity.

“Serial killer” and “beefcake” are not terms that generally go hand in hand, and casting a perfect physical specimen like Hellbent’s horned slayer lacks verisimilitude. The closest a bloated John Wayne Gacy ever came to a six-pack was the one he polished off after completing his nefarious rope trick. The general consensus among psycho-watchers is that Ted Bundy is America’s pin-up serial killer, and he looks like Ed Gein compared to the chiseled Himself.

Throughout the film we sense a connection between Eddie and Himself. An accident at the Police Academy cost Eddie depth perception in his right eye, something the killer seems inexplicably aware of. Why Himself targets Eddie and his cruisers remains the movie’s biggest mystery. Inasmuch as all motivation is withheld, the substitution of gay hunks for Hollywood’s standard busty anorexics really adds nothing new apart from a fresh demographic to tap.

Hellbent is not void of chills: a strobe-lit, ecstasy-enhanced dance-floor beheading gives the film at least one genuinely frightening (and reasonably cinematic) scene. And I guess there’s something downright proper about hearing gay characters call each other “faggots” and talk about sucking cock as opposed to the homophobic jocks spouting identical dialogue in just about every straight teen comedy. In spite of Etheridge-Ouzts’ love of horror films (Nosferatu, Halloween and Donnie Darko’s dirty bunny all pop up during the opening credits), this is still a byproduct of arguably the most reviled genre of all. To paraphrase my grandmother, “Make it gay or make it straight, it’s still a slasher film.”

Rating:

Directed and edited by Steve James

110 minutes

John Pierson was the cinematic guru who helped sell distributors on the virtues of such indie classics as She’s Gotta Have It, Slacker, The Thin Blue Line and Roger & Me. He met his faithful wife, Janet, while the two worked New York’s legendary Film Forum. The theater doubled as another house of worship: John and Janet were married there, the ceremony followed immediately by a screening of Buster Keaton’s foreboding nuptial prophecy Seven Chances. John quickly learned that, “Independent film on a certain level gets as tedious and boring as generic Hollywood film does.” While visiting the most remote movie theater in the world to film a segment for his television show, “Split Screen,” Pierson decided to buy the Meridian Cinema and move his family for a year from the Garden State to Taveuni, Fiji’s Garden Island.

For the first 20 minutes of Reel Paradise, John Pierson was my personal Christ. He took the reigns of a secluded single-screen built in 1953 by a man who knew only one thing: “Movies are good.” The Meridian Cinema welcomes patrons to its 288-seat venue with primitive, marquee-sized drawings of Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse. (My guess is that five minutes after Disney lawyers caught wind of this, the theater was slapped with a cease and desist order.) Watching the entertainment-starved locals howl during a screening of Some More of Samoa, one of the Three Stooges’ more politically incorrect outings, reminds John of a time “back when movies meant everything to people.” Financially comfortable, John chose to give something back to the movies by not charging admission.

Before it’s over, paradise’s proprietor turns out to be a slumlord. It’s one thing to watch Pierson fight with locals and finger his landlord as a robbery suspect. Forget these minor infractions of common courtesy. What about an exhibitor with a complete lack of pride and integrity? Despite drunken absenteeism and incompetence among his crew, John, who boasts a mastery of regulation 35mm equipment, refuses to learn the intricacies of the Meridian’s hair-triggered projectors, thus causing the cancellation of several screenings. Even more reprehensible, instead of taking the quality and/or revival route, Pierson lulls the natives with the same pap that fills American multiplexes. His justification: “I entertain with The Hot Chick, but I lift people up with Bend it Like Beckham.” Fiji or AMC Mission Valley – no matter where you catch X-Men II, the experience is distant.

Not unlike the Osbournes’ kids, John and Wyatt Pierson prove to be infinitely more entertaining than their parents. Comely 16-year-old daughter Wyatt goofs on spelling and grammar infractions in love letters the locals bombard her with. Young John is a theater owner’s nightmare, fighting dad tooth-and-nail over his screening selections.

As overrated as it was overlong, Steve James’ debut documentary, Hoop Dreams, was pure exploitation: a film that blew smoke up the ass of any teenager who owns a basketball and took delight in lovingly chronicling its characters’ shortcomings. Instead of celebrating cinema, Reel Paradise finds more pleasure in the reality television aspects surrounding James’ island castaways. Save your money. This will be on PBS soon enough.

Rating: