Loqueesha
I was made aware of the film Loqueesha by my sister-in-law. "You like terrible things, John. Here is a terrible thing."
I thought I knew what I was getting into. Increasingly I'm not that bothered about films that are just shit. Time was I'd sit down and watch "House of Nine" or "The Deadly Bees" or whatever tank-top heavy, CGI light arse-water that The Asylum was spraying about like diuretic dog in a new town. But not any more. I prefer my bad films to have something about them. No one could possibly claim that Queen Kong was a good film but it is so impressively awful, so cheerfully and good naturedly crass and so joyously misconceived that is genuinely enjoyable. The same with Horror Hospital or Black Zoo. Marvelous, dreadful films.
Loqueesha isn't like that. Loqueesha isn't quaint. It doesn't have the excuse that is from another time, it doesn't have the charm of a bygone age. Loqueesha, remarkably, was made this year. It is offensively bad. I mean jaw-droppingly, achingly awful. Jeremy Saville, whose name is presumably not quite so red-flaggy in America, is the visionary behind this Magnum 'Opeless, as writer, director and star. The buck stops with Jeremy. This is the film that Jeremy thought would be a good idea:
Joe is a bar man in a bar that is a lightless cave that people enter from under a curtain. No one drinks beer in this bar, its all hard liquor and no money changes hands. There are never more than two people in and one of them is basically Joe's hypeman: he sits at the head of the bar telling Joe how great he is and how fabulous his advice is and when an attractive woman comes into the bar that it won't be long till she becomes his girlfriend. What a nice, supportive guy.
When the attractive woman starts belly-aching about the problems of her life Joe opens a can of TRUTHS on her and instead of throwing a drink over him and rinsing the prick on Tripadvisor, she reflects on his unbidden wisdom and, a few days later, comes back with a clipping from a paper about a local radio station looking for an agony aunt type. He applies but they're looking for minorities and women. "No one wants a white guy like me." he says. However after kicking back and watching two African-American women trash-talking on television he decides to record himself doing an impression of a sassy black woman and immediately gets the job. This is good news as his ex-wife (how does he have an ex-wife? He's the wisest and best guy ever! She must be mental. Maybe she couldn't handle his 24 hour realness) decides that their son is gifted and needs to go to an expensive new school.
Joe contrives, with his black mate who can just work the desk in a radio station despite never having done it before AND is just fine with him doing a "black" voice, to get the strangest ever contract with the dim radio executives: they never get to see Loqueesha because she suffers from, uh, "xenophobia". Everything is going great: people are in love with Loqueesha's no nonsense telling it like it is and she really starts getting the numbers and is moved to the drive-time spot. Joe is a victim of his own success: people want to know about Loqueesha so he hires a black actress to play Loqueesha in public. He's also starting to fall in love with the attractive woman from the bar (who is black - all of Joe's enablers are black, so you know against all available evidence that he is not racist) but every time they want to take it "to the bedroom" he can't help but do his Loqueesha voice which, understandably she finds off-putting. Meanwhile the actress he has hired is demanding a bigger cut or she will reveal all, leading to the best lines in the film: "Are you blackmailing me?" "No, I'm black femaling you!"
I'm going to leave the plot there because I know you're going to rush out and watch this film and I don't want to be accused of spoiling it. That's very much Jeremy's gig. Actually, that's unfair - you cant spoil a premise that is this wrongheaded from first principles. This is a film based around Jeremy thinking that he does a pretty sweet impression of an African American woman and reverse engineering a story out of that, including the spirited defence that its "just a bit of theatre" and therefore could never be offensive to anyone.
It is profoundly offensive, Jeremy. Also, you sound nothing like a woman. Also, the writing is poor throughout: great, long-winded, would-be-smart nonsense, trotted out like a series of aspirational memes. I expected to see David Avocado Wolfe's name in the writing credits. But no, this is a Jeremy Saville joint: his clumsy finger-prints are all over every single frame.
The lighting is bad. The sets are basic. The acting generally perfunctory. It has the aesthetic of one of those films that Christians in America make about the Rapture. But the worst thing is Jeremy himself. His Joe is a loud-mouthed bore with a full deck of truisms and a pathological fear of silence. On and on he chunters as whole herds of donkeys limp around the paddock. He says nothing clever or wise and yet is constantly praised by everyone around him for his sagacity and excellence in matters pertaining to the human heart. His advice to a would-be suicide standing on a bridge is to jump and, when she questions this freshly minted aversion therapy, he changes tack and suggest she might want to visit Paris. The minute that she agrees that she'd rather go to Paris than kill herself he hangs up and the show goes off air. Not much aftercare from Joe.
Jeremy obviously thinks Joe is a great guy and wrote him to be the smartest guy in the room (at one point Loqueesha-wannabe Renee tells him that "he's a better black woman than I'll ever be". He agrees) but he has no charm, few acting chops and, crucially, never ever sounds like a woman. Also if his advice is so fucking good and the only people he talks to all day are alcoholics how come they are still alcoholics at the end of the film? Oh yeah, he'll give you good advice as long as it doesn't hurt his paycheck.
This film is offensive. Deeply, troublingly so. The notion that anyone thought this might be pretty cool is quite terrifying. It also fails on every aesthetic level. There is nothing good to say about it. I would advise you not to watch it. Its no Queen Kong.
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| This was always going to be a good idea |
I thought I knew what I was getting into. Increasingly I'm not that bothered about films that are just shit. Time was I'd sit down and watch "House of Nine" or "The Deadly Bees" or whatever tank-top heavy, CGI light arse-water that The Asylum was spraying about like diuretic dog in a new town. But not any more. I prefer my bad films to have something about them. No one could possibly claim that Queen Kong was a good film but it is so impressively awful, so cheerfully and good naturedly crass and so joyously misconceived that is genuinely enjoyable. The same with Horror Hospital or Black Zoo. Marvelous, dreadful films.
Loqueesha isn't like that. Loqueesha isn't quaint. It doesn't have the excuse that is from another time, it doesn't have the charm of a bygone age. Loqueesha, remarkably, was made this year. It is offensively bad. I mean jaw-droppingly, achingly awful. Jeremy Saville, whose name is presumably not quite so red-flaggy in America, is the visionary behind this Magnum 'Opeless, as writer, director and star. The buck stops with Jeremy. This is the film that Jeremy thought would be a good idea:
Joe is a bar man in a bar that is a lightless cave that people enter from under a curtain. No one drinks beer in this bar, its all hard liquor and no money changes hands. There are never more than two people in and one of them is basically Joe's hypeman: he sits at the head of the bar telling Joe how great he is and how fabulous his advice is and when an attractive woman comes into the bar that it won't be long till she becomes his girlfriend. What a nice, supportive guy.
When the attractive woman starts belly-aching about the problems of her life Joe opens a can of TRUTHS on her and instead of throwing a drink over him and rinsing the prick on Tripadvisor, she reflects on his unbidden wisdom and, a few days later, comes back with a clipping from a paper about a local radio station looking for an agony aunt type. He applies but they're looking for minorities and women. "No one wants a white guy like me." he says. However after kicking back and watching two African-American women trash-talking on television he decides to record himself doing an impression of a sassy black woman and immediately gets the job. This is good news as his ex-wife (how does he have an ex-wife? He's the wisest and best guy ever! She must be mental. Maybe she couldn't handle his 24 hour realness) decides that their son is gifted and needs to go to an expensive new school.
Joe contrives, with his black mate who can just work the desk in a radio station despite never having done it before AND is just fine with him doing a "black" voice, to get the strangest ever contract with the dim radio executives: they never get to see Loqueesha because she suffers from, uh, "xenophobia". Everything is going great: people are in love with Loqueesha's no nonsense telling it like it is and she really starts getting the numbers and is moved to the drive-time spot. Joe is a victim of his own success: people want to know about Loqueesha so he hires a black actress to play Loqueesha in public. He's also starting to fall in love with the attractive woman from the bar (who is black - all of Joe's enablers are black, so you know against all available evidence that he is not racist) but every time they want to take it "to the bedroom" he can't help but do his Loqueesha voice which, understandably she finds off-putting. Meanwhile the actress he has hired is demanding a bigger cut or she will reveal all, leading to the best lines in the film: "Are you blackmailing me?" "No, I'm black femaling you!"
I'm going to leave the plot there because I know you're going to rush out and watch this film and I don't want to be accused of spoiling it. That's very much Jeremy's gig. Actually, that's unfair - you cant spoil a premise that is this wrongheaded from first principles. This is a film based around Jeremy thinking that he does a pretty sweet impression of an African American woman and reverse engineering a story out of that, including the spirited defence that its "just a bit of theatre" and therefore could never be offensive to anyone.
It is profoundly offensive, Jeremy. Also, you sound nothing like a woman. Also, the writing is poor throughout: great, long-winded, would-be-smart nonsense, trotted out like a series of aspirational memes. I expected to see David Avocado Wolfe's name in the writing credits. But no, this is a Jeremy Saville joint: his clumsy finger-prints are all over every single frame.
The lighting is bad. The sets are basic. The acting generally perfunctory. It has the aesthetic of one of those films that Christians in America make about the Rapture. But the worst thing is Jeremy himself. His Joe is a loud-mouthed bore with a full deck of truisms and a pathological fear of silence. On and on he chunters as whole herds of donkeys limp around the paddock. He says nothing clever or wise and yet is constantly praised by everyone around him for his sagacity and excellence in matters pertaining to the human heart. His advice to a would-be suicide standing on a bridge is to jump and, when she questions this freshly minted aversion therapy, he changes tack and suggest she might want to visit Paris. The minute that she agrees that she'd rather go to Paris than kill herself he hangs up and the show goes off air. Not much aftercare from Joe.
Jeremy obviously thinks Joe is a great guy and wrote him to be the smartest guy in the room (at one point Loqueesha-wannabe Renee tells him that "he's a better black woman than I'll ever be". He agrees) but he has no charm, few acting chops and, crucially, never ever sounds like a woman. Also if his advice is so fucking good and the only people he talks to all day are alcoholics how come they are still alcoholics at the end of the film? Oh yeah, he'll give you good advice as long as it doesn't hurt his paycheck.
This film is offensive. Deeply, troublingly so. The notion that anyone thought this might be pretty cool is quite terrifying. It also fails on every aesthetic level. There is nothing good to say about it. I would advise you not to watch it. Its no Queen Kong.
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