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>True Crime in Prime Time: Tarnished Angel

November 10, 2010 Leave a comment

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(TV 1989)
Director: David Greene
Writers: Ann Rule (novel) & Joyce Eliason (teleplay)

On the 19th of May 1983 Diane Downs stops at the McKenzie-Willamette-Hospital and cries for help. She is wounded on her arm and her three children are also wounded seriously. She says that a stranger shot at them but the investigation of detective Welch bring out that Diane is a liar. (IMDB)

What possessed me to tune in for (nearly) the full four hours of the forgone-conclusion 1989 telefilm ‘based on a true story?’ I have to say, Farrah hooked me. America’s favorite 1970s Angel may have already achieved ‘legitimate actor’ status with her abuse victim roles in the more-famous The Burning Bed and Extremities, but as Diane Downs, the troubled Oregon mother and seducer, she really rises to the occasion – stringing the audience along through her continual denials to herself and her accusers that she attacked and killed her own children.

The film follows the DA (familiar John Shea) as he persistently pursues his investigation of that night that Diane claimed a ‘bushy-headed stranger’ attacked her family in her car and killed one of her children. The evidence just doesn’t add up, and Shea must unravel the actual events of that night from scattered clues, Downs’ now shocked-mute witness daughter and from Diane’s own incriminating behavior.


There are a few too many “I think she’s about to talk!” scenes with the daughter (Perkins), but meanwhile we get to see Diane’s past and present exploits. After her marriage to an abusive drunk (check!) falls apart, she falls in love with married mechanic Lew Lewiston (O’Neal, her real-life longtime partner), tattoing his name on her back and forming an obsession that inspires her to madness. See- Lew doesn’t want to have kids, so in her mind she was proving her fidelity to her lifetime love by ridding herself of her ‘baggage.’ Lew helps the investigation, bugging her increasingly crazed calls and talking to the DA. Diane, a postal worker (ha ha), becomes a master manipulator of the media circus surrounding her, playing to the camera and the audience. She forms a new ‘Fatal Attraction’ with a classical professor just to get pregnant – the jury loves that!


The miniseries resolves in a tension-filled courtroom drama in which Shea pushes Diane to the brink, forcing the truth out. It doesn’t start out well for her, as she begins tapping her fingers to Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like The Wolf,” seemingly oblivious to the gravity of the situation. It turns out the song was playing on her car stereo when she methodically stepped out to remove a gun from her trunk and turn it on her kids. Shea elicits the mute child to testify against mom, builds a nifty scale courtroom model of the car interior (complete w/dummies!) to dramatize the events, and the jury is won over.


Farrah, whose tragic death was eclipsed by the King of Pop’s last year, goes beyond the standard ‘pretty victim’ to show us the slide of a master (self) deceiver into madness, the public and her children mere pawns in the game.  Small Sacrifices is a worthy addition to the True Crime in Prime Time canon. Goodnight, sweet Angel.

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thep07a-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=6301653114&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr


Categories: B-Movie, cinema, DVD, exploitation, Farrah Fawcett, John Shea, miniseries, Ryan O'Neal, Small Sacrifices, The Obsolete Sheet, true crime, TV movie, video

>Corey Feldman shows off what he learned at the Never Land Ranch

November 5, 2010 Leave a comment

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Rock N Roll High School Forever

1991, PG-13
Written & Directed by Deborah Brock
Those rambunctious kids are back in school and back in trouble in a smash sequel to the 1978 worldwide hit. Corey Feldman leads a rock and roll rally at Ronald Reagan High, but must triumph over the evil plans of the school’s fascist principal, Vadar, who wants to halt the school dance and run their school like a prison.
A sequel to the Ramones’ classic Rock ‘n’ Roll High School!?!? Awesome!! More adventures with the mutant rocker mouse? Will we finally find out what happened to the bastard son of Riff Randal & Dee Dee?? Did Screaming Steve kick his junk habit?

NO!! instead we get this low-budget Corey Feldman vehicle, with a few of the original characters thrown in for “continuity,” such as B-Queen Mary Woronov revising her villainous role, this time as Dr. Vadar and sporting a robot claw hand (huh!?! … I mean freaking sweet)
It is a few years after Riff and the gang blew up the original Vince Lombardi HS and so much has changed. Well- maybe nothing’s changed per se but one thing remains the same, and that’s the unruly kids who have little to no respect for authority, but live only to rock and roll.
This new generation of degenerates is led by ‘bad-ass’ Feldman and his band of multi-cultural cronies (black guy keyboardist, crazy Asian bass guy & hott chick guitarist). The gang terrorizes the school, (now Ronald Reagan High!) especially on “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School Day”, by dancing to rock music, throwing papers out of lockers and generally annoying the squares (preppy kids who like student council activities or something?)
The prom is coming up and Feldman and his band wanna play but Togar … I mean Dr. Vadar … won’t let them cause it’s like the devil’s music or something. So they get some advice from Mojo Nixon as the ‘Spirit of Rock n’ Roll’ and enlist the help of Eaglebauer (another favorite from the first movie, minus Clint Howard) who instructs them to simply change the name of their band (genius!)

At the audition, Feldman and the Multi-Cultural-Ettes play the worst-ever version of Fats Domino’s “I’m Walkin’” while Corey does his lamest Michael Jackson impersonation and – holy shit! the plan works. Sure the preppy kids hate the band (and who wouldn’t) but the “way-too-hott-to-be-teaching” teacher/ Feldman love interest thinks they Rock so they are in! But then in another convoluted shit-show plot twist, the preppy prom committee skanks, Whitney & Margaret, tattle to Vadar so their band Zillion Kisses gets to play the prom.
The whole thing lumbers along to the predictable climax. Will Vadar foil the cool kids’ plans and have a non-rocking prom? Will Zillion Kisses rock the fuck out of said prom or will Corey & the Rainbow Coalition butcher more, lame 50’s rock? More importantly will Feldman lay his super-hott teacher (Sarah Buxton)? Will I ever get my dignity back?
* for more about Woronov & Screamin’ Steve check out the last ish — natch

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thep07a-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B000EHSVH8&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

Categories: B-Movie, cinema, Corey Feldman, DVD, exploitation, Mary Woronov, Mojo Nixon, Rock N Roll High School Forever, Sarah Buxton, The Obsolete Sheet, video

>Revenge – a dish best served with a hook.

October 27, 2010 Leave a comment

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(1977)

Writing Credits: Paul Schrader (Original Story)
Paul Schrader; Heywood Gould (Screenplay)

Directed by: John Flynn*


Major Charles Rane comes back from the war and is given a number of gifts from his hometown because he is a war hero. Some greedy thugs decide that they want to steal a number of silver dollars from him. In the process they also manage to kill his wife and son and destroy his hand. The Major wants revenge so he enlists the help of his war buddy Johnny to meet the thugs in a final showdown. (IMDB)

A sweet, deliberate grind-house revenge movie legendary to worldwide film geeks (crown prince Tarantino named his production company after it), this is also an entertainingly moody and disturbing film, in which returning Vietnam POW Major Charles Rane’s (Devane) story seems eerily similar to good-ole maverick hero John McCain (keep bad-ass aviator shades – add bad-ass hook hand!)



Writers Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver, Blue Collar etc.) and Heywood Gould (Cocktail?) spin a tale of a hero USAF aviator and squadron commander returning to his Texas hometown after three years of sub-human captivity in a Vietnam POW camp, leaving him a numb shell of a man whose life has passed him by. His wife informs him nonchalantly on his first night home that she is planning to marry again, taking their son with her. Devane is excellent in showing his acquiescence to his non-life, going through the motions. He attends a ceremony in the small town square, in which a beauty pageant winner (Haynes) presents him with a box of silver dollars for each day he spent prisoner of the enemy, a hollow token paid for a life already spent.



That night, a small gang of local thugs enters the Ranes’ home, led by James Best (best known as deputy Roscoe P. Coltrane from “Dukes of Hazzard”). They want the silver dollars. Ranes won’t give in, so they force his hand into the kitchen sink garbage disposal, then shoot and kill his wife and son in their escape. Ranes is left with nothing but a hook and a need for vengeance, so he recruits the beauty queen waitress to drive him to Mexico. There, using her as bait, he penetrates the underworld to find and punish each thug, eventually pinpointing them to a whorehouse. He enlists his comrade Johnny (Tommy Lee Jones) in El Paso, arms to the teeth and they take bloody retribution. (NSFW – but but viewable here ~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3doJ3jHQ01o.)

The movie works as a revenge flick, but watch out- (or drink more) because it could just make you think. Schrader’s hollow American hero is in full form here, driven by guilt, loss and regret on his mission to kill the bastards, the only mission left.


*Flynn ~ revenge auteur? (See also Out for Justice review, natch.)


http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thep07a-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=6303471617&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

Categories: action, B-Movie, cinema, DVD, exploitation, Heywood Gould, James Best, John Flynn, Linda Haynes, Paul Schrader, revenge, The Obsolete Sheet, Tommy Lee Jones, video, Vietnam, William Devane

>Worst Cop / Cyber-Dog buddy movie ever!

October 25, 2010 Leave a comment

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(TV, 1991)
Director: Kim Manners
Writers: Michael Part, Steven E. de Souza
Starring: Chris Mulkey, Catherine Oxenberg, Dennis Haysbert, and Jerry Houser (as the voice of ‘Niner’)

A policeman and a female scientist team up to recover her latest creation, a cybernetic, crime-fighting dog. (IMDB)


The cop-dog buddy movie (Turner and Hooch, K-9, this dreck) is a much-maligned, underappreciated? genre of filmmaking magic that seems not to have made it into the new millennium. Perhaps there is a lost innocence in our willingness to believe our favorite stars (Hanks, Belushi etc.) and their quadrupedal best friends solving urban crimes in the era of suicide planes and biological warfare. But who better to sniff out dirty bombs than man’s best friend? Maybe we just need a gritty Bourne Identity-style techno-update. In the best cop-dog film, these canine pals become closer than a human partner, true confidantes that will take a bullet for ya and still hump your leg.

And then there’s this movie (speaking of dirty bombs, look out, ahem!). I didn’t have the good fortune to tune in from the very beginning. But when I did, I couldn’t look away. Mulkey (the abusive trucker husband of Shelley the waitress on ‘Twin Peaks’) plays a mulleted crude boozer LA cop in the Gibson/Russell vein (minus 75% personality) who is forced to partner with glamorous Euro cyber-scientist Catherine Oxenberg to get to the baddy weapons-smugglers that left his black human partner (Haysbert) in a coma.


When I tuned in, they were infiltrating a top-secret lab bunker in which the “K-9000” project sat in a mysterious box. Oxenberg explains it’s a special technology that involves microchip communication between specially-rigged ‘cyber-dogs’ and computer dispatchers. Only problem? During a shoot-out in the lab, the cyber-dog (a regular-looking German Shepherd) bursts out of his saran-wrap prematurely, and the cyberchip receiver somehow winds up in the loser cop’s head. (sorry-didn’t catch how).

http://www.u-tube.ru/upload/others/flvplayer.swf?20100927

So anyhoo, the cop wakes up holding a bottle of Jack in his beach cabana, with the dog staring at him inquisitively. He starts hearing voices – specifically a nebbishy Jewish voice-over asking him how he is feeling and if he would like help with his investigation. Holy shit! The dog is still talking to him, and his fucking mouth doesn’t move. (cyber-telepathy, natch) After the requisite throwing the bottle down and trying to sleep it off, the dog keeps hassling him (and won’t fetch balls, since it’s ‘canine’ brain area was removed for the chip.) Taking it in stride, it’s now a ‘Knight Rider’ deal and the cop reluctantly grows to rely on the dog’s techno-skills (like clearing an outside line on a payphone.)

It all winds up on Catalina Island (the fucking wine mixer!) where they track the baddy smugglers to the top of a tower and K-9000 pushes that Euro son-of-a-bitch right off to save Mulkey, dangling from the edge. Partner comes out of coma, Mulkey and Oxenberg recline on the beach, and K-9000 (in sunglasses) remembers how to fetch balls- and suck them. This film might have killed the cop-dog movie for good after all. Only time will tell?


ADD THIS CRAP TO YOUR NETFLIX

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Categories: B-Movie, Catherine Oxenberg, Chris Mulkey, cinema, Dennis Haysbert, DVD, exploitation, Jerry Houser, The Obsolete Sheet, video

>January, February – Think I’ll see where they’re going with this…

October 19, 2010 Leave a comment

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1984, TV
Writers: Gregory S. Dinallo (story), Scott Swanton (teleplay)
Millionaire Richard Trainor is celebrating the fact that his new calendar featuring twelve nude woman (sic) is a huge success. However the party is ruined when Miss January is pushed off a building and later on that night Miss February is knifed to death. Policeman Lieutenant Dan Stoner is assigned to the case and he immediately strikes a friendship with photographer Cassie Bascomb. While Dan investigates the case Cassie is attacked. What connection is she to the case and will the killer be caught before he/she reaches Miss December?
Yes, the suspense was killing me. It was Saturday night, I was broke and the trains were running for shit. Then this appeared like a vision before me. ‘Hmmm- Tom Skerritt, Sharon Stone, ‘80s models in leotards, January, February – Think I’ll see where they’re going with this.’*
<span style="color: maroon; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt;" *This-TV (11-3)- My new favorite non-cable channel and only real friend.

I’ve always found Skerritt (M*A*S*H, Alien, The Thing, Poison Ivy) an appealing screen presence, sort of a Bridges/Russell everyman with a bit more world-weary baggage in the ‘stache. This movie is basically a TV-cop vehicle (maybe a pilot?) in which his LA detective (Dan Stoner!) must unravel a troubling string of (yup) ‘Calendar Girl Murders.’ For Stone, it’s a dry-run for Basic Instinct, her model-turned-photographer playing for sympathy and protection from Stoner, as the deaths point ever-closer to the blonde herself.

Robert Culp is Richard Trainor, a billionaire Hef-like publisher whose girls are dying off right after their awesome ‘80s photo-shoot and party montages. Alan ‘Growing Pains’ Thicke is the seen-it-all fashion photographer who snaps the dream-girls. (including Babylon 5’s sexy Cmdr. Susan Ivanova Claudia Christian). There is no discernible nudity (at least when I watched), but the atmosphere is undeniably arousing, along the lines of Crichton’s fashion/slasher movie Looker on a shoestring TV-movie budget.

There’s a nailbiter pool-volleyball photo-shoot sequence, in which a black-gloved hand turns the pool temperature dial ever-higher while the deliciously clueless female models toss the ball around in haunting dreamy slo-mo. There’s also a ridiculous white guy breakdance duo sequence at a swank fashion party, where Stoner awkwardly intrudes in the LA party clique.
Stoner delves nonchalantly deeper into the mystery, encountering red herrings and fake-killer ‘gotchas’  like a creepy stalker photographer and drunk has-been lounge singer along the way. A few TV standard car-chases and squad-room scenes are good times to pee. Though he has a trusty homely wife, he allows Stone to flirt (Stone and Stoner!) and serve him hot toddies in her beach house, until one day he comes upon her revealing high-school yearbook. Turns out she was just a small-town girl (living in a lonely world), and the ILLEGITIMATE DAUGHTER of Richard Trainor. See- she was just jealous.
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Categories: Alan Thicke, B-Movie, Calendar Girl Murders, cinema, Claudia Christian, DVD, exploitation, Robert Culp, Sharon Stone, The Obsolete Sheet, Tom Skerritt, video

>"This sorta thing happened before!"

October 16, 2010 Leave a comment

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Mannequin Two: On the Move 
1991, PG
Director: Stewart Raffill
Writers: Edward Rugoff , Michael Gottlieb
A young department store intern falls in love with a female store mannequin possessed by the ghost of a young 17th Century princess who comes to life whenever her necklace is removed by him only.
This is the kind of steaming turd of a movie that lulls the mind of the viewer into a Moebius strip of speculation on how it got made (and necrophilia) – anything rather than watch the painful events unfolding on-screen. It’s a Moebius turd.
“OK – so we got a green-light on another ‘Mannequin.’ No we don’t got that pussy McCarthy, but that douche from Herman’s Head is available. Fuck McCarthy- you know “Weekend at Bernie’s?”  We got Bernie the stiff to play the heavy in this one, some count. And that effay Negro, Hollywood, is a lock. (He’d work for a sandwich.)”
The train-wreck opens with a bargain-basement unfunny Borscht-belt “Princess Bride” fairytale costume set-up in the enchanted land of ‘Hauptmann Koenig,’ and it’s all downhill from there. Even those admirers of Kristy Swanson’s ‘talents’ will be hard-pressed to endure the whole ordeal, and will marvel at how none of the mannequins used for her scenes actually resemble each other.
Cut to ‘modern times.’ Our hero (William Ragsdale) is a ‘likeable’- enough faceless nebbish whose doting Jewish mother runs her own dating service and just wants him to find a nice ‘goil.’ He takes a new job at a Philly department store run by a ruthless dictator (Stuart Pankin, the fat guy from ‘Not Necessarily the News’). After a few forgettable characters are introduced and discarded (security guy, perfume girl), the kid is quickly scuttled to be an apprentice to good-ole over-the-top Hollywood Montrose, in charge of staging the climactic store musical production.
Meanwhile, the evil sorcerer Count from H-K (Terry Kiser) is hatching a plot to steal the store’s jewelry by delivering a fake goodwill shipment of his country’s products to the store. (containing Swanson the enchanted princess mannequin with the magic necklace.) So there’s this truck mishap, where the enchanted mannequin fall out the back of the truck and into the river. Our hero quickly jumps in the water to rescue the ‘goods’ which underwater turns into a real woman. The confused kid brings her back to the store, and after removing her necklace discovers the stiff is his ‘dream-girl,’ who is destined for him. He tells Hollywood, who helpfully reassures him, “This sorta thing happened before.”
After a night of introducing Swanson to the ‘crazy world of today,’ and some nice leopard-print nightclub outfits, he must defend and protect her from the evil Count’s fiendish plot. (and much painful ‘comedy’ is made of the Count’s facial mole hair and his bumbling homo-erotic leotarded henchmen.) Yadda yadda- he is caught dry-humping his dream stiff by his mother, and eventually foils the plot at Hollywood’s big (terrible) show, in a ridiculous duel with the Count, who is himself turned into a mannequin that crumbles to pieces from a hot-air balloon. Aah- sweet justice.
Keep yer fingers crossed for a Hollywood ‘reboot!’
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http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thep07a-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B0012RWQJ8&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

Categories: B-Movie, cinema, DVD, exploitation, Kristy Swanson, Meshach Taylor, Stuart Pankin, Terry Kiser, The Obsolete Sheet, video, William Ragsdale

>I’m making these woods a part of me! (son-of-a-bitch.)

October 15, 2010 Leave a comment

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GRIZZLY
1976, PG
Director: William Girdler
Writers: Harvey Flaxman (screenplay), David Sheldon (screenplay)
A fifteen foot tall grizzly bear terrorizes a state park.
One of the best ‘Jaws’ knockoffs out there – Grizzly aka Claws aka Killer Grizzly (This time-he’s a bear!) Christopher George plays an increasingly frustrated Roy Scheider-like Park Ranger (go-to line: Son-of-a Bitch!) who must deal with a murderous 18′ monster Grizzly on the loose in his state park. From the maniac bear POV shots as it lops off heads and limbs of bathing beauties in spurts of glorious orange blood, to the priceless dialogue (“Well let me tell you something Kittridge, while you’ve been sitting around here on your fat ass, I’m out here making these woods a part of me -while you’re going back to your brown plastic office in Warshington!”). This is one to remember.
The ranger’s antagonistic relationship with a greasy local politician furthers the ‘Jaws’ dynamic, as does the Richard Dreyfuss flair of the resident eccentric bear expert (Richard Jaeckel) who lives among the forest creatures and can think like them. And then there’s the jaded local cokehead helicopter pilot, the last friend our ranger’s got. Together, this triumvirate must put a stop to the Grizzliness as only they know how. Two paws up, girlfriend.
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http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thep07a-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B000CSTKDI&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

Categories: B-Movie, Christopher George, cinema, David Sheldon, DVD, exploitation, Grizzly, Harvey Flaxman, Richard Jaeckel, The Obsolete Sheet, video, William Girdler

>Steven Seagal is – Out For Richie.

October 14, 2010 Leave a comment

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OUT FOR JUSTICE
1991, R
Dir. John Flynn 
Writer. David Lee Henry

Brooklyn cop Gino Felino is about to go outside and play catch with his son Tony when he receives a phone call alerting him that his best friend Bobby Lupo has been shot dead in broad daylight on 18th Avenue in front of his wife Laurie Lupo and his two kids by drug kingpin Richie Madano, who has been Gino and Bobby’s enemy since childhood. As Gino is hunting Madano down, Gino discovers the motive behind Bobby’s murder. This is when Gino’s hunt for Madano leads to the showdown of a lifetime.


“I’m lookin’ for Richie.” This is Steven Seagal’s mantra in this largely entertaining Brooklyn-set cop out for vengeance vehicle. Richie (William Forsythe), ya see, was Seagal’s childhood buddy from the ‘old neighborhood’; only he turned into a bad egg; first with The Mob, then as a loose cannon druggie murderer on a bloody rampage. His most recent victim is Seagal’s partner. Only one man can take him down. As Seagal demands from his chief (Jerry Orbach), ‘give me a sawed-off and an unmarked and I’ll take care of it.’


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Seagal’s cop must go deep into his Brooklyn (Toronto) roots, sorting the truth from the Mean Streets, and uncovering his partner’s less-than-saintly secret life (whores). Along the way, we get butcher-shop baddies, stereotypical Mob cronies, Brooklyn ‘goils’ Gina Gershon, Julianna Margulies and plenty of fake I-talian talk from the star. It all culminates when Seagal finally finds Richie (his White Whale) and engages in a mano-a-mano face-off in a house of ill-repute. Is there anybody who can do martial-arts above the waist ass-kicking any better?

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thep07a-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B000RL6GBY&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

Categories: B-Movie, cinema, David Lee Henry, DVD, exploitation, Gina Gershon, Jerry Orbach, John Flynn, Julianna Margulies, Out For Justice, Steven Seagal, The Obsolete Sheet, video, William Forsythe

>1994 – the year that the music industry apparently had nothing to offer

October 13, 2010 Leave a comment

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1994, PG-13
Dir. Michael Lehmann
Writer. Rich Wilkes

Three band members hoping for a big break head to a radio station to play their demo tape and wind up holding everyone hostage with plastic guns when the head DJ refuses to play them.

When the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame opens its doors to include films, I hope they have the foresight to include this seminal dreck from the auteur of Heathers and Hudson Hawk – Airheads.

The entire script is one meaningless cliché after another as this star-studded cast takes you on a trip almost as bad as the time period of rock it portrays. The “kill me please” soundtrack includes lost “classics” from Primus, Prong, 4 Non-Blondes & White Zombie (who make a live cameo) Don’t fucking believe it? – yeah well you better start, cause that’s how hard this movie fucking  rocks!

It’s the classic story of Midwestern kid (Brendan Fraser) with dreams of stardom coming to the seedy underbelly of rock that is the LA strip – complete with ‘rocking’ demo that will make him an instant star. (Axl??) One problem – the slime-ball record exec Jimmy Wing (Judd Nelson) won’t listen to an unsolicited demo. Boo-hoo!

After the “girlfriend throwing out the deadbeat rocker” scene (one of the better moments since it includes Amy Locane wearing that lost 90s fashion staple – the bodysuit)

The “band”, The Lone Rangers, (drummer Adam Sandler & bassist Steve Buscemi) decide to go down to the local rock radio station to get its demo played on the air by resident cool shock-jock Joe Mantegna. (obviously) Oh and btw? They just happen to bring water guns filled with hot sauce that look just like real uzis. A series of wacky misunderstandings later and oops!, the dumb rockers are apparently holding the station hostage until their demo is heard.

The band also makes a bunch of odd and obviously “rocking” demands like football helmets filled with cottage cheese and a PRS guitar with dragon inlay (fuck – that rocks!)
The cops (captain Ernie Hudson + fat partner Chris Farley) arrive and just give in to the demands especially since there’s a crowd of cool kids starting to gather.
“Cause this is like to most rocking-est thing fucking ever. Wooo! Take over the radio station – yeah that fucking rocks! Play some fucking Candlebox instead of the corporate crap they usually play. Woo yeah!” Fuck!

Frazer gets the crowd all riled up by chanting “Rodney King!” (Really!?! Jesus how am I still watching this pile). The hostages start to go “all Patty Hearst” on the band in a lame montage (which includes David Arquette playing an Atari Lynx).

The old (but still cool) rocking shock-jock lays down the “what’s up with kids’ music these days” rap, with the apparently “finger on the pulse” lead singer of a band who bring a freaking reel-to-reel demo to a modern radio station. All of this “drama” is interspersed with pointless scenes involving the un-cool owner (Michael McKean) + accountant (Michael Richards) changing the format from awesome rock to lame easy listening. (Boo! – Kenny G sucks balls, dude!)

Long story short :
Slime-ball record exec finally shows up with the magic record contract – but  wants them to lip-sync ala Milli Vanilli – which no self respecting rocker will do (duh), so they trash the stage and dive into the crowd they’ve driven to a rocking frenzy! (wooo rock! yeah they fucking love us wooo! Wait did they even play, wooo! No, who cares! Woo Rock!)

Finally, they all go to jail (including the three girlfriends Locane, Siemaszko + Mantegna) and record the platinum album “Live In Prison” (did you also hear Johnny Cash’s corpse turn over or was it just me) and we finally get our “pay off” and get to hear the rocking demo (ugggh – I mean wooo)

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http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thep07a-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B000008MRF&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifrhttp://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thep07a-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B00005NGAY&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

Categories: Adam Sandler, Airheads, Amy Locane, B-Movie, Brendan Fraser, Chris Farley, cinema, David Arquette, DVD, Ernie Hudson, exploitation, Joe Mantegna, Judd Nelson, Michael McKean, Michael Richards, Nina Siemaszko, Steve Buscemi, The Obsolete Sheet, video

>Now everyone is living it … Fear City!

October 12, 2010 Leave a comment

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“FEAR CITY”
aka “RIPPER”
1984, R
Dir. Abel Ferrara
Writer. Nicholas St. John
Strippers in Manhattan are being stalked and murdered by a psycho. A hard-nosed police detective and a conflicted ex-boxer-turned-private-eye, hired by the strip club owners, set out to find him before he strikes again.

Here’s an OK, seedy Abel Ferrara thriller with a glimpse of the real pre-Giuliani NYC, and more than a glimpse of Melanie Griffith’s boobies. It’s a modern take on ‘Jack-the-Ripper’ (ever heard of it?) as a psychopathic stalker hunts Times Square strippers. Tom Berenger and Jack Scalia play the Rossi Bros., two brothers running a stripper-placement agency forced to deal with the extinction of their talent. Oh yeah – Berenger’s ex-boxer killed a guy in the ring once and has some kind of romantic history with Griffith.

Along the way, we get nice Times Square flavor, pseudo Taxi Driver psycho purification training, homicide dick Billy Dee Williams and the aforementioned boobies of Griffith & Rae Dawn Chong. Berenger must get involved again to protect his old flame, who has a nagging junk-habit from back in the day. The climax in a dark alley is a bit of a let-down (The Ripper knows Karate!) but all-in-all this crap is still recommended.
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FEAR CITY THEME SONG “NEW YORK DOLL” by David Johansen


Categories: Abel Ferrara, B-Movie, Billy Dee Williams, cinema, David Johansen, DVD, exploitation, Fear City, Jack Scalia, Melanie Griffith, Nicholas St. John, Rae Dawn Chong, Ripper, The Obsolete Sheet, Tom Berenger, video