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>Wild Thing – I Think I Watched You
January 20, 2011
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WILD THING
(PG ~ 1987)
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Starring: Rob Knepper, Kathleen Quinlan, Robert Davi, Maury Chaykin
A child witnesses drug dealers murder his parents. He escapes and grows up wild in the city’s slums. Years later he emerges to help the residents of the area who are being terrorized by street gangs and drug dealers.
Wild Thing is one of those harmless, afternoon piece-of-crap pulp potboilers that seem to have gone the way of the dodo in today’s Hollywood. The ‘modern-day’ Jungle Book/ Tarzan tale tracks a child of slain hippies grown into an urban legend neo-primitive (white) ‘ghetto-warrior’ stalking the streets of ‘the Zone,’ bent on avenging his parents’ deaths. The film is also notable as an early credit for independent auteur John Sayles (Matewan/ Eight Men Out), who probably scrawled the screenplay on a cocktail napkin.
The prologue, of course scored to ‘White Rabbit,’ shows us the grizzly deaths of Wild Thing’s folks, slain in their VW bus, as they travel from the idyllic highway into the mean streets of ‘The Zone,’ and fall victims in a gun robbery by the fearsome, skull-tattooed ‘Chopper’ (dependable baddie Robert Davi) and a corrupt cop (Maury Chaykin). Their child escapes into the nearby river, presumed drowned. Next we see the adolescent Wild Thing in full Jungle Book mode, being raised by an off-the-grid bag-lady (Betty Buckley). Here Sayles entertainingly sketches the world of Wild Thing as shaped by his mother-figure- she rails against The Company (civilization) and its paper (money). On her deathbed with disease, she begs the youth not to let the ‘blue-coats’ (police) or ‘white-coats’ (hospitals) get her, and he obliges by burning her hovel down, leaving Wild Thing on his own.
Fast forward to the ‘modern-day’ Zone, a cheap set-bound 80s NYC pastiche complete with fake graffiti and dark ‘edgy’ lofts. A group of ‘urban’ street kids tell ‘boogie-man’ tales of the Wild Thing, and his werewolf/Robin Hood exploits. We are given thankfully few glimpses of the adult Wild Thing (Rob Knepper), (late of Fox’s ‘Prison Break’) a smallish weaselly guy with teased hair and Chuck Taylor high-tops.
Chopper is still the BMOC, holding the cops under his thumb and running the local vague drug/sex trades. There is a hilarious ‘pimp-lifestyle’ escort party scene set to a Michael McDonald-ish tune called ‘Business-Lady.’ Cue love story (yawn) – Jane, a social worker (Kathleen Quinlan) arrives by bus, to take over the local priest’s youth rehabilitation work at the safe house. She receives a rude welcome, as Chopper’s henchmen attempt to subdue and rape her. But she is saved by the mysterious Wild Thing, who kicks off the thugs and vanishes- in order to begin finger-painting her likeness on his loft wall (uh-oh.)
Jane’s work draws ever-deeper into Chopper’s world, as the good-hearted lesbian street-kid loses her lover in his clutches, and her building is burned to the ground as the whole Zone watches. The film takes its inevitable turns, as Wild Thing and Quinlan explore the ‘body-bump,’ and she gives him the means to finally get Chopper once-and-for-all. He throws him through a plate-glass window and stuff, then dives back into that damn river. O well- at least they use the Troggs version as the theme song.
Wild Thing [VHS]
Wild Thing [VHS]
Categories: B-Movie, exploitation, gangs, kathleen quinlan, NYC, rob knepper, robert davi, vigilante, wild thing
>Your Daughter is One.
November 18, 2010
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(R ~ 1980)
Directed by Allan Moyle
Writing credits: Jacob Brackman writer, story: Allan Moyle & Leanne Unger
Two ill-matched teenage girls form a punk band and soon have New York by its ears. (IMDB)
Sleez Sisters Unite! Director Allan Moyle’s (Pump Up The Volume) 1980 theatrical flop/cult fave is a lost classic of New York punk romance- an urban Tom and Huck adventure between two teen female runaways seeking love and meaning in the gnarled heart of the city. Filmed on location amid the ruined neon marquees and docks of seedy pre-Giuliani Manhattan, it also foreshadows the struggle that would transform the neighborhood in the next decades to a Disney-fied grotesque mall, its grimy soul melted away with the sleaze. Along with the later Stigwood-produced rock fable Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains (1982), this film provided ground zero exploitation/inspiration for a new bunch of kids lost in a plastic world.
For Johnny LaGuardia (reliable Tim Curry of Clue, Rocky Horror Picture Show etc.), a ‘celebrity’ overnite DJ at rock station WJAD, Times Square serves as his muse, as he spins mellifluous odes to the filthy streets of Gotham as an Oz to be savored. Trini Alvarado is Pamela Pearl, his biggest fan and privileged daughter of the up-and-comer ‘liberal’ mayoral candidate, who rails against the dangers of letting the streets be – fabricating fables about how he can’t take her to a movie safely on 42nd St.
Pamela protests the lies so Dad takes his emotional ‘troubled’ daughter to a hospital psych clinic for study, where she meets her rocker counterpart, Nicky Marotta, (Joan Jett-like Robin Johnson), a streetwise juvie lifer who plays The Ramones’ “I Wanna be Sedated” on her duct-taped boombox in bed. After a few days, Nickie has left her mark on Pamela, inspiring her to write journal poetry and stuff. She persuades Pamela to stay off the meds cause they ‘take your fight away,’ and the two bust loose into the city.
Pamela protests the lies so Dad takes his emotional ‘troubled’ daughter to a hospital psych clinic for study, where she meets her rocker counterpart, Nicky Marotta, (Joan Jett-like Robin Johnson), a streetwise juvie lifer who plays The Ramones’ “I Wanna be Sedated” on her duct-taped boombox in bed. After a few days, Nickie has left her mark on Pamela, inspiring her to write journal poetry and stuff. She persuades Pamela to stay off the meds cause they ‘take your fight away,’ and the two bust loose into the city.
Soon they are shacked up in a waterfront pier warehouse, coining the name The Sleez Sisters. Nicky finds Pamela a dancer job in the Cleopatra Club (“You don’t take yer clothes off – I like that.”) and begins writing her own poetry – rock songs like ‘I’m a Damn Dog Now.” The Sisters exploit and provoke themselves to punk legend status through guerilla ‘street art’ like dropping TVs off tenement roofs and putting bandit masks on Pamela’s bus-side ‘missing’ posters. They even gleefully provoke their paranoid ‘grownup’ pursuers live on the air (to LaGuardia’s mutual benefit) – “Spic, Nigger, Faggot, Bum – Your Daughter is One!”
Pamela’s father eventually closes in to her whereabouts, locating her smoking onstage at the Cleo as the colored girls sing ‘Walk on The Wild Side.” She’s all grown up, daddy. Nicky (did we mention she’s troubled?) begins to realize that Pamela will return to her path on her terms, where she has nowhere to go but further out.
She lets LaGuardia have an exclusive ‘scoop’ They will stage an impromptu farewell show atop a marquee that night – their own ‘Let It Be’ moment, an underground spectacular hyped to those ‘in the know.’ We see a montage of chaotic female fans (the Sleez Army) roaming the streets, street vendors selling plastic trash bags as ‘Sleez Bags’ to the tourists. After performing a rousing ‘Damn Dog’ reprise, the cops come to shut them down, and Nicky says her goodbye, falling into the adoring arms of screaming girls as Pamela rejoins ‘civilization.’
Times Square is more than another ‘cult classic’ with an amazing double-LP soundtrack (Roxy Music, Gary Numan, Suzie Quatro etc.) It is a wide-eyed ode to the power of the city, youth, transformation and rock n’ roll – and it all seems like a fairytale now, which is alright by me. Whatever happened to the Teenage Dream?
Categories: exploitation, NYC, punk, Robin Johnson, rock 'n' roll, The Obsolete Sheet, Tim Curry, Times Square, Trini Alvarado, video
>Flash – I love you, but we’ve got 30 seconds to save the Universe!
November 12, 2010
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(PG ~ 1980)
Directed by Mike Hodges
Produced by Dino De Laurentiis
Starring: Sam J. Jones, Melody Anderson, Max Von Sydow etc.
Writers: Lorenzo Semple Jr. (screenplay), Michael Allin (adaptation)
Based on characters created by Alex Raymond
In the long and sordid history of comic film adaptations, this Dino De Laurentiis-produced oddity based on the 1930s action comic serial strips, doesn’t often rise to the top of the pack. But taken on its own, it is a weird achievement. In full disclosure, this was the first film I was allowed to see in the theater without my parents. Therefore the sci-fi S&M atmosphere must have seemed just that much dirtier. (I didn’t know about this yet.) And the marriage of awesomely grandiose Queen soundtrack (later sampled by Public Enemy) with ridiculous visuals like Hawkman gladiators attacking in flight just doesn’t get old. In its wooden acting (aside from Von Sydow’s seminal Ming the Merciless) and fetishistic camp sets/costumes, the movie’s true cousin is the infamous Barbarella. (also Dino’s baby)
Though instead of Fonda cheesecake, here we must watch Sam Jones, blank block of beefcake (dubbed badly) whose only other notable role was in the delightful My Chauffeur. Flash is here a star quarterback for the New York Jets, who along with Dale (Melody Anderson) is marooned in a rocket with mad Jew scientist Hans Zarkov (Topol from Fiddler on the Roof!). They are bound for the planet Mongo, controlled by the evil Emperor Ming himself. Ming plans to scrape their brains clean through an evil found-footage machine (see A Clockwork Orange), and use Zarkov’s vague technology to destroy the Earth and enslave the universe- he’s bored.
Right away, Flash’s football skills come in handy, as he plays keepaway and smear the queer with Ming’s valuable booty. Dale is taken captive into the royal harem, and Flash must resist the ample temptations of Ming’s daughter Princess Aura (sexy Ornella Muti), who hopes to seduce him telepathically to the dark side. She wears amazing skin-tight red satin pantsuits, and straddles him as he tries to operate a stick-shift. (Dale even hears his incriminating telepathic VO: “Oh my god – this girl is really turning me on.”)
Flash’s strategy? Recruit the leaders of the planets currently under Ming’s thumb to rebel and overthrow the tyrant. He finds mustachioed Prince Barin, (Timothy ‘Bond’ Dalton) a simpering Errol Flynn-lite suitor of Aura, on his planet Arboria, and must stick his arm in a bunch of holes to overcome the scary random stump monster (which really terrified me as a kid) in order to gain his loyalty. They also draft Prince Vultan (bearded Brian Blessed) and his Hawkmen, half-man/falcon creatures sort of like the Hell’s Angels (they still ride righteous flying motorcycles even though they can fly.) Together the rebel troops attack, and Flash must defeat Ming’s robot commander Klytus in a duel over metal spikes (oozing eyeballs-check).
Flash leads the rebels to victory over the fiendish Ming, turning the telepathy machine against him (that’s gotta hurt). The football hero saved us all! (Every single one of us.) As I said, taken on its own terms, this version of the 1930s comic serial works perfectly. Like the old film serials, it creates an absurd, campy universe that believes its own BS, not a clueless, sterile ‘futuristic’ CGI-enhanced empty vessel like we’re all stuck in.
Categories: B-Movie, comics, exploitation, fantasy, Flash Gordon, Max Von Sydow, Melody Anderson, Ornella Muti, Sam Jones, science fiction, serials, The Obsolete Sheet, Topol, video
>True Crime in Prime Time: Tarnished Angel
November 10, 2010
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Starring: Farrah Fawcett, John Shea, Ryan O’Neal, Emily Perkins etc.
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.
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
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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?
>All the chicken you can eat!
October 29, 2010
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BLAST-OFF GIRLS (1967)
Written and Directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis
Starring: Dan Conway, Ray Sager, Tom Tyrell etc.
w/music by ‘The New York Square Library,’ performances by ‘The Faded Blue’ & ‘Charlie’
A sleazy record promoter tries to make it big with a local Chicago garage band and plans to make them famous while keeping the profits for himself. (IMDB)
Fuck Almost Famous. There is a select few films that actually ‘get it’ when it comes to the experience of being in a rock band, and meeting Lester Bangs doesn’t immediately qualify you as a rock muse (though divorcing Nancy Wilson might.) Low-budget schlock-slinger H.G. Lewis’ 1966 ‘exploitation’ cheapie Blast- Off Girls joins this elite group, along with the untouchable This Is Spinal Tap (natch), that tell it like it is- summarizing the rise and fall of an ‘everyman’ American garage band in the 1960s as they are chewed up and spit out by ‘the biz.’ And yes- the ACTUAL COLONEL SANDERS makes a cameo!
The film follows real-life Chicago garage shlubs The Faded Blue, as they are ‘discovered’ by the slimy ‘Boojie’ Baker (Dan Conway), a slimy sandy-haired Svengali with a cane who’s always on the lookout for the ‘next big thing’ to rip off. In Brian Epstein-fashion, Boojie remolds the band’s image, dressing them in matching suits and rechristening them ‘The Big Blast.’ Boojie’s go-to promotional strategy is (of course) blackmail- in order to secure the recording of The Big Blast’s first single, he snaps photos of a recording engineer being seduced by one of his ‘Blast-Off Girls’ – loose ladies in his employ. The record sails up the charts with a bullet, but the group becomes disgruntled at Boojie not sharing the wealth. After giving the band his blessing to leave, he invites them to a hotel party, where he and his main flunkie (Ray Sager) set up the boys up to be busted for pot and liquor, complete with fake ‘police’ paid off by Boojie. The band must sign on with Boojie again to stay out of the clink.
Along their path to fame, we get some amazingly inept (but groovy) pop ‘60s montages, and the infamous promo performance outside a certain chicken chain restaurant, where the Colonel himself! pays them (lunch for a buck each) and the audience with fried chicken from a bucket and frugs with the crowd. (Bitchin’ organ solo!)
In addition to being an amazing coup, this scene captures the shallow rewards of a band on the road, not seeing any fruits of their talent as their rich manager gets richer. It all becomes too much for the boys, (this shit isn’t fun anymore!) as a second recording session breaks down. They decide to get back at Boojie just for the hell of it (see below), and show up soused to a TV promo appearance, where they play a goof song and flip him the bird repeatedly. They walk out on Boojie and rip up their contracts, willing to take their chances on their own, and leaving him to seek out the next bunch of saps in the circle of life.
Sometimes it takes a cheap drive-in flick to summarize the cheap truth – in this case the music business and its rigged roller-coaster of pop success. But I’m sure it’s much different now, with the internet and everything.
Blast-Off Girls is available in a 2-movie ‘Drive-In Double-Feature’ DVD w/Lewis’ awesome teen-delinquent film, Just For The Hell of It from Something Weird Video and our delicious sponsors below.
ADD THIS CRAP TO YOUR NETFLIX
http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thep07a-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=B000059H8L&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr
Categories: B-Movie, bands, Dan Conway, drive-in, exploitation, garage rock, music, Obsolete Sheet, Ray Sager, video
>Revenge – a dish best served with a hook.
October 27, 2010
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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<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr
*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<1=_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
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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’)
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.
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?
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
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1984, TV
Director: William A. Graham
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.
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
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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!’
Categories: B-Movie, cinema, DVD, exploitation, Kristy Swanson, Meshach Taylor, Stuart Pankin, Terry Kiser, The Obsolete Sheet, video, William Ragsdale
The Obsolete Sheet 
