Zeram
Badass female bounty hunter from outer space and two dorky telephone repairmen in brightly colored outfits and cars (obviously based on the Super Mario Brothers) vs. A creepy monster with a kabuki mask head that pops out of it’s head.
Very cool looking, although you can tell most of the budget went into the monster- most of the movie takes place in an abandoned warehouse. Lots of action, some cool martial arts and pretty decent special effects.
Followed by a sequel, and an anime prequel focusing on the female bounty hunter.
Myra Breckinridge
starring: Raquel Welch
Surprisingly good, considering it’s reputation. Very faithfull retelling of Gore Vidal’s novel, the only major change is the ending, which I feel the movie actually got better.
Raquel Welch and Rex Reed play the role of Myron/Myra Breckinridge, a transexual film critic attempting to destroy the myth of American manhood. Read the novel first, or you may be lost- not because the film is poorly made, but because it is so dense with information.
Hear! Mae West singing Hard to Handle (the same song the Black Crows sang years later). See! the infamous dildo scene.
Truly innovative editing, the TV show Dream On was considered innovative for using a technique used in this move 20 years earlier. Even beyond the use of old film clips (Myra is introduced with a scene from One Million Years B.C.), the editing of scenes within the movie is really unique- the scene where the film school students are having sex in class has some wild jump-cuts using the beep from a film header at each jump cut.
Thumbs up, see it if you can find a copy.
BTW, Where’s Poppa is on the Starz Cinema channel tonight at 2:00am central time. I’ve always wanted to see that one, and I’ll be back with a report.
Starring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour
Second of the Road movies, and slightly disappointing, for it wasn’t as funny as the other two i’ve seen(but still good). The beginning shows Fearless Frazier (Hope) being shot out of a cannon by Chuck Reardon (Crosby). But it is just a scam, which unfortunatly ends in the burning down of the circus they are employed in. Frazier and Reardon run, and what follows is a funny montage of carnival cons and personal injury. The law catches up with Reardon and Frazier in a French speaking country (did i miss something?), but they befriend a millionare who pays off the circus and sells the boys a diamond mine. Unfortunately, the diamond mine is not legally theirs because their rich friend cannot sign away his family’s property. Lamour is introduced in a slave-trading scam, and cons the boys into escorting her accross Africa to reach a dying relative (aka rich boyfriend she is going to marry), and our boys start the classic duel over Lamour up again. The best parts of this movie involve the “Patty Cake” jokes, which are nice to see carry over from Road to Singapore. And this movie has a man vs. monkey fight, as all movies should. Still, not laguh out loud like the others. 6/10
**Wild World of Batwoman**
Starring: NOBODY!!!
What the *^%# is this movie??? Somebody needs to be drug out into the street and shot over this…this jumentous wormcast! Some freaky chick called Batwoman with a bat tattoo on her chest has a squad of Batgirls that go around and watch crimes happen and then don’t do much about them. Then some incoherant stuff happens, follow by a villian named Rat Fink, who uses a potion developed by his mad scientist and “Igor-type” that causes uncontrollable dancing. Something happens involving atomic bombs and hearing aides, but by then i was pulling out my fingernails with rusty pliers to try to dull the pain. NEVER watch this movie, unless you are protected by Mike and the bots (never click on See Uncut Movie!) You have been warned!!! 0/10
**Rat Pfink a Boo Boo**
Starring: NOBODY!!! (and a dude in an ape costume)
Dir by: Ray Dennis Steckler
From one Rat Fink to another Rat Pfink. What a night! This movie was intended to be called Rat Pfink and Boo Boo, but the title guy screwed up and there was no money to fix it. You may remember Ray Dennis Steckler from The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (director) or as the guy Eegah threw into a pool in Eegah. There was no money for this movie, you can thrill as the camera changes from tinted color to black and white (sort of a reverse Wizard of Oz on acid). After some padding, Rat Pfink’s girlfriend is kidnapped, and he and his partner Boo Boo must hunt the kidnappers down.
They hop on the ratcycle (which sounds like a toilet flushing) and chase the villians. Then they fight Kogar, the rocking ape! I give this film a 1/10 for the monkey/man fight only.
Where’s Poppa
Starring George Seagal, directed by Carl Reiner.
Truly tasteless, and not nearly as funny as I’d been lead to believe. Gordon (George Seagal) is a lawyer who still lives with his mother (Ruth Gordon). The movie opens with him putting on a gorilla suit and running into her room while she’s asleep in an attempt to give her a heart attack. Eventually he meets the woman of his dreams, but mom keeps interfering. He promised his father on his deathbed that he’d never put his mother in a nursing home, and his brother has a wife and kids, so Gordon gets stuck with mom. Mom is senile, and disturbingly attatched to her son- much of the humor is uncomfortably oedipal, such as when mom describes Gordon’s “pecker” to his girlfriend “It’s just like poppa’s”. Ewwwww.
The most disturbing plot thread involves Gordon’s brother and an undercover police officer. While real life rape is, of course, not funny, having seen Myra Breckinridge before this did prove that it is not impossible for a movie to have a humorous scene about it. The scene in Where’s Poppa where the brother is forced by gang members to rape an undercover cop while wearing a gorilla suit just proves that Vidal has more talent than most- this movie just doesn’t pull off the difficult task of making a scene like that funny.
It’s worth noting that in both films the victim is male, I’m not sure what it means, but I doubt I could have laughed at the scene in Myra Breckinridge if the victim had been a woman.It is worth noting that the version I saw was missing the notorious “here’s poppa” ending.
I’ll give it an ambivalent recommendation, it’s not as funny as I’d heard it was but it was probably the darkest comedy I’ve ever seen.
By the way, I thought Wild World of Batwoman was really slow- but the cool parts were pretty cool. The strawberry yogurt thing, and the go-go dancing were worth seeing, after the first thirty minutes it’s safe to turn it off- nothing else interesting happens except for a really bad seance.
I’m glad my chinese housemates weren’t watching when this part came on!
Tom: You know, that might not really be chinese…
International House
Starring W.C. Fields, George Burns, Gracie Allen, and Cab Calloway
No, it’s not a movie about pancake restaurants. A television style device is invented in China, and representatives of the world’s nations meet in a remote village to bid on the rights. Gracie and W.C. steal the show comedy-wise, but the real reason to see this is to see Cab Calloway singing Reefer Man in a scene that was cut from TV broadcasts for years. Some of the humor is surprisingly risque for such an old movie, I would guess that it slipped in just ahead of the Hayes Code.
Zatoichi and the Chest of Gold
Starring Katsu Shintaro
Zatoichi, the blind swordsman, travels to a village to pay respects to a soldier he killed. The village is under heavy taxation from the local governor. When the tax money is stolen Zatoichi becomes a suspect as well as a local boss Zatoichi admires, The Z-man must catch the real theives while avoiding capture himself. Some of the most bad-ass sword fights ever filmed, this was the first Zatoichi movie to reach this extreme of action. Some of the later movies were even more intense, but this one is the best ccombination of action and story that the series ever achieved.
url=“http://us.imdb.com/Title?0061733”]The Gruesome Twosome
Directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis (Blood Feast, 2000 Maniacs)
One of the oddest openings in movie history, as two mannequin heads discuss the terrible story of where their wigs came from before one of them is stabbed with a butcher knife and begins to bleed from it’s scalp. We then join the story of a nancy drew type snoopy college girl who likes to do the twist while eating fried chicken (fried chicken is a recurring theme in HGLs films, Colonel Sanders actually had a cameo in Blast Off Girls) and is investigating the dissapearance of one of her schoolmates. Mrs. Pringle is advertising a room for rent, but she actually is running a wig shop selling the scalps of the victims of her son, the idiot man-child Rodney, who likes to kill girls and then scalp them with an electric carving knife. Mrs. Pringle also talks to “Napoleon”, her stuffed bobcat. The Nancy Drew type goes to the drive-in with her boyfriend and watches a scene consisting entirely of people eating fried chicken. Mayhem ensues.
Blast Off Girls
Directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis
Con man Boojie Baker signs local rockers The Big Blast to a contract. He keeps them under his thumb and keeps them waiting for a payout even after they have a “hit”. In the funniest bit he gets them to play for dinner at KFC while Colonel Sanders boogies in the background (really). When the band starts to get suspicious and wants out of their contract Boojie plants some of that mari-juana those teenagers are talking about in the band’s room and uses a fake cop to scam the band. When Boojie makes the band perform on a live television show they do an impromptu song dissing him.
Another one of HGL’s better movies, the music is quite good organ heavy garage rock in the style of ? and the Mysterions. Thumbs up, if only for the opportunity to se Col. Sanders rock out.
Flesh Gordon
This is not-quite-a-porno
Emperor Wang, of the planet Porno, has developed a “sex-ray” which causes everyone in it’s field of effect tobecome extremely horny and get bizzy. Flesh Gordon, along with Dale Ardor and Dr. Flexi Jerkoff take off in an experimental rocketship (guess what it’s shaped like) in an attempt to stop him.
This movie actually has a lot to offer besides the nekkid people, it has really cool effects and some beautiful matte paintings, some actually funny humor, and a giant monster screaming “Myyy AASSSS!!”. The stop motion animation is actually very good, the fight with the robots is as good as anything Harryhausen ever did. The lesbian space pirate’s ship is a black swan, which is a really cool image.
According to the directors commentary (yes, I actually have this on DVD) this movie was filmed as a hard-core porno but due to legal hassles was neverreleased in that form, although in certain scenes it looks like some stuff slipped by the censors.
A short (approx. 60 minutes) DTV anime about two NYC cops taking a vacation in Europe. Dee just wants some “alone time” with Ryu, to make his feelings known, but they stumble upon a murder case. There is a definite lack of realism going on, (how do all these people travel from New York to Britain so quickly, how does a DNA test get done so quickly) but the story is charming. The mystery works despite the DNA test quirk, the Ghost story is handled effectively, and the humor is actually quite funny. The romance between Dee and Ryu is sweet, but it doesn’t pay off- I understand that this was based on the first two volumes of a manga and the characters didn’t get involved until the seventh volume. Some of the character relationships were not fleshed out enough- I get the impression that J.J. was Dee’s ex who is still in love, but it wasn’t explained much. I have no idea what the kids Carol and Bikky had to do with the main characters.
Basically if you want to see an animated film with a bishounen romance and a cool murder mystery this is your best bet.
Okay, Warcraft III and Harry Turtledove’s new book have kept me busy, otherwised i’d have updated sooner. First up are 2 sequals to previously mentioned HK films
Naked Killer 2: Raped by an Angel aka Xiang Gang qi an zhi qiang jian Spoilers!!
Starring Chingmy Yau, Simon Yam, Mark Cheng, Jacqueline Ng
Not really a sequal to Naked Killer, just a movie with the same writer and Yau and Yam. This time Yau and Ng are two actresses that catch the attention of local rapist scumbag (Cheng). Local Rapist Scumbag (LRS) vows to have sex with Yau, and precedes to move in on Ng. Ng has no idea that LPS is setting her up, but after getting several people to see them together, one night he breaks in and rapes her repeatedly (in very disturbing scenes). Yau was out with her boyfriend, Triad leader with a heart of gold Brother Tat (Yam) (Triads are HK gangsters). Ng charges LRS with rape, but LRS makes out like he was a jilted lover who was blackmailed into giving Ng money or he’d be charged with rape. Unbeleiveably, he gets off and precedes to set up going after Yau. Yau tries to inflame LRS’s desire by dancing for him, trying to get him to break in so Yam can kill him. LRS ain’t falling for it, and gets the cops to bust Yam so Yau is alone, and goes after her. Luckily, Yau has bear traps set up and nitric acid in her bathtub, but LRS catches her in the end and starts to go to town, but the lights turn on, and it turns out to be her friend with AIDS, then the cops take LRS away to rot in jail. LRS is one of the most evil bastards i’ve seen in films. This film was disturbing to watch during the rape scenes, but is mild compared to some of the asian rape films out there (Japan, i am looking in your direction!) Anyone who hates clowns should stay away from this movie. 6/10
**Black Cat 2** aka Hei mao II
Starring Jade Leung
Disappointing sequal to the good Black Cat, this time it opens with Black Cat (Leung) getting the new BC2 chip implanted into her brain. Then we are treated to 20 minutes or so without Leung, and something with Russian goons. We learn that the CIA headquarters in North America is a small ski lodge (huh?) that gets shot up by some crazy russkis killing a defector with info on the theat on Yelsin’s life. Then the movie goes all James Bond with ski chases, snow mobile chases, snow boards, and finally parachutes off a mountain. Suddenly, Black Cat shows back up, and the movie can get back on track. The evil Russians are using a new type of Radiation that enhances performance to soup up their assassin. BC’s new chip can detect it, so the CIA drives around town waiting for her to go off. She does, and kills the target, who turns out to be a 75 year old grandmother who was taking radiation therapy. This ticks off the CIA director to no end, but sends BC to Russia to stop the assassin anyway. Due to Bad Writing, BC has been turned from the rebellious vixen from the first movie into a cyborg non-talker (or rarely talker). This makes the film lose some of the appeal of the first movie. I won’t give away what happens at the end, but the underlying theme is BC is a human, and the CIA treats her like property. Gets 6/10, but only because Jade Leung is in it.
Tokyo Raiders aka Dong jing gong lüe
Starring Tony Leung, Kelly Chen, Ekin Cheng, and Cecilia Cheung
Chen is Macy, a jilted bride going to Tokyo to hunt down her mobster boyfriend who left her at the altar. Cheng is John, a interior decorator given a bum check by Macy’s boyfriend, and follows her to Tokyo. There they fight with some goons, and John is a Kung Fu extrordanaire. They get rescued by Len (Leung) a detective with 4 women working for him. He is also looking for Macy’s boyfriend. Would be just another HK action flick were it not for the Hip techno music during the fight scenes (probably top of the charts songs for HK in 2000, and having singers in the cast doesn’t hurt getting songs) and the fact that none of the characters are really who they say they are (expect to have to draw a chart to figure out some of the details). Also intoduced me to the concept of TTTTT drugs (TTTTT=Till They Tell The Truth, i.e. truth serums). Pretty good, but not great. 7/10
**Road to Utopia**
Starring Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour, Bob Hope
Someone rented Road to Morocco, causing me to have to go out of order again (the bastards!!!). I sent out 20 hired thugs on motorcycles to case the city and find the missing movie (hey, was easier than going to another video store). So as for Road #4, Opens with Robert Benchley explaining that he is the narrator hired to explain film techniques and the unclear parts of the movie. He’ll also pop in from time to time to make a smart remark. Sal Van Hoyden’s (Lamour) father’s gold mine map is stolen by two thugs (Sperry and McGurk). Crosby and Hope are con artists (again!) who work on vaudeville. Hope decides to go to New York, but Crosby wants to go to Alaska (what he calls Utopia) and look for gold. Hope wants no part, but Crosby tricks him into getting on the boat. They lose their money and have to work their way to Alaska. While onboard, they come across the stolen map, and beat up Sperry and McGurk and assume their identities, much to the fear of the townsfolk. Van Hoyden is also in town, and tries to get the map from our boys by seducing them. She thinks her father’s friend will help her stake a claim, but he is really going to take the mine for himself. One of the best road pictures yet, this movie does not take itself seriously at all. One of the funniest parts involves a magician that walks through the coal scene, explaining he’s taking a shortcut to Studio 19. I highly recommend this picture to anyone. Pour yourself a lemonade in a dirty glass and watch it today!!! 9/10
Road to Morocco
Starring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour (who else?)
My Hired Thugs hunted down the copy of Road to Morocco and delivered it to me. Opens different from the other Road pictures, as Crosby and Hope aren’t in the middle of a scam preparing to run for their lives to random far away place in the title, but instead get shipwrecked (though they were stowaways, but they are in every picture). They land in the dessert, and head for Morroco. There, Crosby sells Hope into slavery, and Hope gets bought by Princess Shalmar (Lamour) and is set to wed her, in place of an evil Sheik (Anthony Quinn). This turns out to be a ruse, as Shalmar’s first husband is set to die in a week, freeing her to marry the Sheik. But, the prophecy turns out to be a mistake, and by then Shalmar has fallen for Crosby and Hope has fallen for one of the handmaidens. This annoys the Sheik, who kidnaps the girls and jails the guys. One of the best Road pictures, the magic ring scene is one of my favorites. 8/10
Project A aka ‘A’ gai waak
Starring Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung
Classic HK Stooge Fu film. Jackie Chan is at the top of his game, and as writer/director/star, excels in all three. Chan plays Dragon, who is a member of the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard is getting geared up to take on a gang of pirates that have taken over a nearby island chain. Unfortunately, the Pirates are well connected with local officials, and destroy the Coast Guard’s boats, causing the Coast Guard to be absorbed into the local police force, who were their rivals. After a great boot camp, Dragon gets sick of following orders and beats up a bad guy himself, then meets up with his acquantence Fei (Sammo Hung). Fei is a theif, and Dragon joins him in stealing rifles from the pirates, but tells Fei he must sell the weapons to the army. Fei tries to sell them to the highest bidder, but Dragon gets rid of the weapons before he can. Then Dragon is hunted by the police who figure out he was in on the robbery, and some of the best scenes begin. The bicycle chase is pure genius, has to be seen to believe. Jackie ends up hangin from a clock, which is a tribute to Harold Lloyd. If you like Kung Fu at all, you must see this movie. 10/10
**Lover of the Last Empress** aka Ci Xi mi mi sheng huo
Starring Chingmy Yau, Tony Leung
Story of a peasent girl (Chingmy Yau) who rises to Emporer’s concubine, to favorite lover, to wife, and then to Empress. Period piece, written by Jing Wong, who wrote the Naked Killer movies and was having a fling with Yau. Unfortunately, this movie plays out like his earlier exploitation flicks, and while Yau’s acting has improved, she is still not up to task to pull off this movie. A good try, but nothing to write home about. 5/10
Half Human aka Jujin Yukiotako
Starring John Carradine, Directed by Ishiro Honda
This was Ishiro Honda’s first film after Godzilla, and like Godzilla, American distributers got ahold of it with razor blades, and added american actors doing flashbacks. This actor is David Carradine, star of half of the bad black and white movies ever made. Carradine plays Dr. Rayburn, who talks to two other people for most of the movie, and they only leave the room to go to the Abominable Snowman coroner. Carradine narrates the entire film, talking in place of the actors (must have been cheaper than dubbing) and explaining things that we are seeing currently on the screen. A group of Japanese students are attacked on a ski trip by a mysterious monster, soon dubbed the Abominable Snowman. One Professor Tanaka sets out to find the creature, and locates an area where the monster is, but loses a student in the process (called The Boy, no name given). The Boy is rescued by a native mountain girl (the token hot chick for the village, the rest of which must have been beaten by the plague stick). The villagers think The Boy brings bad luck, so they string him up over a cliff. Suddenly, Professor Tanaka gets a paper published on all this, complete with a detailed map to the Monster’s cave (which he hasn’t been to yet) that several circus workers use to find the monster so they can use them in their show. They shoot the monster’s son in the melee, causing the Abonimal Snowman to go beserk and kill all the circus people, then the villagers, and starts stalking Professor Tanaka’s group and steals The Boy’s sister, The Girl (i guess names are just to difficult a concept…). This movie was destroyed by the US cut, hopefully one day i can track down the uncut version and see what it was really supposed to be. Besides not naming the Japanese children, the Abonimal Snowman is called at various times Peking Man and the China Giant, proving the Americans can’t even look at a map of Asia, let alone name characters. my vote: Bleh… 2/10
In 1954, the cold war got hot. The US was bombed, the only surviving city being “lost” Vegas where Elvis was crowned king. 40 years later the king is dead, and every rock ‘n’ roller in the country is out to claim the throne, but Death is out to stop them. Buddy is the six-string samurai, a bespectacled rock ‘n’ roll swordsman who will become a legend.
The film is pure cool, the look is incredible (supposedly the oversaturated look comes from being shot on expired film stock), the music is cool (the Red Elvises rock), and the swordfights are actually pretty good for such a low budget film. The use of 1950s icons as characters (like the big bopper as a bartender) was interesting, and I think the movie actually had a message- Death is into heavy metal and looks like Slash, Buddy and most of the good characters play rockabilly or surf rock, and the final battle is real rock vs. heavy metal for control of a child’s spirit.
The only part I felt was a let down was the cannibal family, the acting was awful and the whole sequence felt like it was from a different movie.
Excellent rockin’ fantasy, slightly better than the Guitar Wolf movies I reviewed earlier.
The “rock fantasy” is one of my favorite subgenres, and one movie I’ve been looking for for a while is Legend of Hillbilly John, based on the Manley Wade Wellman fantasy stories- If anyone has seen it please tell me where it can be found.
Japanese giallo with style to spare, but nowhere near as violent as the original Italian gialli. A murderer kills every monday in the subway, the psychiatric profiler investigating the case comes to suspect a former colleague.
There are some disturbing parallels with the Aum Shinrikyo cult- the former colleague is involved with deprogramming cult members, the killer strikes at random in the subway…
pretty good, but for an excellent Japanese giallo see Perfect Blue.
Animated Japanese giallo. Mima is a pop singer who has just started a new career as an actress, guided by her managers. She starts getting hate mail from an obsessed fan upset at her career change, her character in the show gets gang raped, people involved with her change are murdered…
Interesting variation on the giallo formula, the murder of the photographer is beautifully staged in a way that would be impossible in live-action. [spoiler]One interesting difference from the “standard” giallo style is that the victims are male, and the killer is female. The murder of the photographer is of not once again in that the killer stabs him in the eyes and crotch, lashing out at his visual fetishising of women.
Or maybe I’m full of shit…[/spoiler]
Very good, highly recommended. The DVD is much preferred, as the VHS version is the R-rated edit which cuts not only some sexual violence, but an important character related scene.
Beach Blanket Bingo
starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello
By far the best of the beach party movies. Features Linda Evans as a pop singer who fakes a parachute stunt for publicity, Don Rickles as a nightclub owner (who acts just like Don Rickles), Buster Keaton chasing a girl in a bikini, and Jody McCrea falling in love with a mermaid. Eric Von Zipper is cool as always.
Thumbs up.
Six-String Samurai Rules, you forgot to mention the awesome soundtrack by the Red Elvises, who also cameo as villians in the beginning of the film.
Now for our feature presentation:
The Mysterians aka Chikyu Boeigun
Dir by Ishiro Honda
After Toho had big hits with Godzilla and Rodan, they mad this sci-fi alien invasion movie. The alien invasions themes would soon be integrated into Big G films in such a way that Big G films that don’t feature aliens seem to be missing something. But back to the movie, a Scientist is having a personal crisis, and his friend and sister are worried about him. But there is no time for that, as a forest fire breaks out. But this fire is weird, it seems to be coming from the ground. The scientist vanishes, leaving behind only a half completed thesis on the Mysteriods. The Mysteriods are a group of small stars between Mars and Saturn (i know, i know, i’ll give ground and assume the translator didn’t know “asteroid” from “star”). After some mysterious landslides, disapperaing villages, dead fish, and hot roads appear, we can only assume Japan is once again the target of aliens and monsters. As if to prove our theory, a giant robot appears and starts blasting everything with its lasers. This robot looks like a fat penguin with a cone nose, and reminds me of Mogura from Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla. Unfortunately, this robot also has a fancy for walking over explosive laden bridges, and so bye-bye birdie. but: “Strange things are happening behind the moon!” And and alien dome comes out of the ground, with Power Ranger rejects demanding 3 Km of land and Japanese women to breed with (sounds reasonable to me…). These demands are given to five scientists, who are wearing Dracula capes to help with the atmosphere in the spaceship (at least they addressed that). The Japanese are less than thrilled to share their fairer sex, so they open fire. Bullets bounce off the dome, which lasers everything it can laser, and has Saucers flying cover. The mysterians claim to be peaceful, but are in fact building a underground base to take over Tokyo. Japan prepares to build a super weapon to take out the aliens, while the missing scientist attempts to take down the aliens from inside. Good for an early 50’s alien flick, but the giant monster goes away too fast. Still worth the look for Daikaiju fans. 9/10 fun, 5/10 quality
The owners of a small porno movie studio finance a big budget musical in a last ditch effort to stay in business. Featuring a cameo appearance from Opie himself, Ron Howard.
Slightly dissapointing, considering the potential. The dance of the dildos is as funny as I’d heard, as are a few other scenes, but overall the humor is pretty weak. Upon asking one of the “actresses” to sing scales she sings “Scales, scales.” Ha freakin’ ha. There is quite a bit of nudity, naturally, but if that’s what you want to see you’re better off watching a real nudie movie- might I recommend The Lickerish Quartet or Score both directed by Radley Metzger.
**Gen X Cops** aka Tejing xinrenlei
Starring Nicholas Tse, Grace Yip, Stephen Fung
HK cops bust up an arms shipment full of rocket fuel destine for mobsters, only the cops who cracked the case get blown up. The mobster who set up the deal (Dinosaur) is killed by his own brother (Daniel). Daniel joins up with Mega-Bad Dude Akatura, former Yakuza and current HK gang big-wig. Pretty much the entire police force is put on the case, except the partner of the dead head of the arms investigation, Agent Chan. Agent Chan has mental problems, and is given a “special assignment” to keep him busy and quiet. Chan is to get some cadets for undercover work. The cadets he chooses are three just kicked out troublemakers, Jack, Match, and Alien. These cadets like to skydive, which they do to techno music. The trio go into a nightclub, and look around, leading to conversations such as:
Match: How about a date?
Goth Asian Chick: I’m going to kill myself at midnight.
Match: So I’ll pick you up at 11:00 then?
A fight in the dance club ensues, making it an excuse for more hip techno music to be playing during fight scenes. Pretty good HK action flick with some up an coming young stars, cameo by Jackie Chan (whose company helped make the film). Also, the actress who plays Haze is hot hot hot. 7/10
Wargames
Starring Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, Ally Sheedy
I wasn’t planning to review this, but since it showed up on late night cable, and it is one of those movies i have to finish if i catch it on TV, here it is. This is the archetype kid hacks the Pentagon movie that made all wannabe H4><0r5 go out and buy a modem. It also happens to house a good chunk of semi-famous actors. Besides Broderick, Sheedy, and Coleman, this film has Barry Corbin, from northern exposure and Command and Conquor; Micheal Ensign, who was the hotel manager in Ghostbusters and has about 1 billion other credits; James Tolkan, also known as Prinicpal Stricklan from Back to the Future; Eddie Deezen, classic 80’s nerd, also in Midnight Madness; and the late Jason Bernard, who was in Herman’s Head. And those were just the one’s i recognized at 4am! Anyway, while looking for a Computer game company, Broderick inadvertantly hooks into the DoD megacomputer WOPR, aka Joshua, and starts playing a game, Global Thermo-Nuclear War. Unfortunately, Joshua doesn’t think it is a game, and begins arming the nukes. A classic, will be recognized as one soon enough, despide the sappy music playing during all the “nukes are bad!” scenes. 10/10
**Road to Bali**
Starring Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Dorothy Lamour
Road picture number six opens in Australia, with two Vaudeville preformers (Hope and Crosby, of course) fleeing women who they proposed to. They meet up with a prince from Bali, who hires them as divers to get a lost treasure, and fails to mention the treasure is guarded by a giant squid. Lamour shows up as the sister of the Prince, Princess Lala. Of course Hope and Crosby immediatly fight over her.
Lamour: Do you alway fight over women?
Hope: What else can we fight over? We never had any money? *::to camera::*Thats for Washington!
After the treasure is recovered, the evil Prince tries to kill the trio, but is foiled by the squid. The trio is shipwrecked, and must make their way back to Bali, but the tribe they stop at first is blackmailed by the Prince and our heroes are captured! Excellent movie, one of the best Road pictures, the funny flies fast and furious. it is also the first in color, so it is neat seeing our boys in technicolor, and a few color only jokes are thrown in to celebrate. Also, cameos abound, Dean and Jerry, Bob Crosby (Dean’s brother), and Jane Russel all show up, just to name a few. The train scene in the beginning is particulary funny for how they are defrauding the train company. 8/10
The Devil’s Backbone
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
During the Spanish civil war an orphanage raising the children of slain leftist soldiers is disguised as a Catholic school. Carlos is the latest arrival; he hears talk of “the one who whispers” named Santi, he finds that name scratched into the wall over his bed, there is an unexploded bomb in the middle of the schoolyard. The headmistress and the teacher seem to be hiding something, the handyman and the cook are having an affair, and the handyman shows a violent temper. When the school bully dares Carlos to go to the kitchen late at night to get some water, Carlos runs into the ghost as well as the handyman. Mayhem and the Spanish civil war ensue.
Beautifully atmospheric, with some memorable images, but I didn’t like it as much as the director’s first film, Cronos. The story is intriguing, but slow moving and the characters are not as well developed as they were in Cronos.
Taken on it’s own it is a very good movie, but if you are a fan of the director hoping for a return to form you will likely be a little dissapointed.
Gory serial killer film from Korea. A cop is tracking down a serial killer who dismembers victims and leaves the parts to be found in garbage bags. The victims all seem to have been involved with the same woman, who the cop may be falling in love with during the course of the investigation.
The first hour of this movie is a dreary, by the books thriller. The ending manages to be a little more interesting, but it never reaches the level of even a bad Argento movie. My biggest problem with the movie is that it is shot in a very drab almost TV-movie style, which cuts the tension from a supposed thriller. Not recommended.
**Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster** aka Gojira-Ebira-Mosura: Nankai no daiketto
Starring Akira Takarada, Kumi Mizuno Dir by Jun Fukuda.
Opens with a boat crew in the middle of a storm, they are tossed and turned, and were not for the courage of the crew, the vessel would be lost. Actually, it is lost, as a giant freaking claw appears! Jump to land, where the mother of one of the crewmembers is visiting a Japanese John Edwards, who claims that her son Yata isn’t dead yet. Jump to a dance contest, where the missing boy’s brother is desparate to get a boat and go brother hunting. The brother gets his two friends to go with him to the shore, where they go onto a boat to look around. The boat’s owner is aboard, and so is his shotgun. He tells them that it is his boat, but for some reason lets them spend the night there. Of course, the brother takes the boat out and dismantles the gun. Then the boat owner makes a skeleton key, which he apparently does for a hobby. The radio mentions a bank robbery and a boat theft, and our heroes realize the boat owner is really a bank robber. But there is no time for that, as the weather starts getting rough, and the tiny ship is tossed. But for the courage of…wait! This boat is lost too!!! The crew washes up on shore, where they see a fortress, they go to it, but the fortress belongs to evil Red Bamboo, dead set on being an evil military mercenary group. They have inhabitants of Mothra’s island enslaved on the island, making yellow dye that causes their giant Lobster to not attack the boat. Hot Native Girl Daiyo (Mizuno) escapes and meets up with our heroes.
Our heros find Godzilla taking 40 ton winks in a cave, who wakes up and takes a shine on Daiyo (can’t blame him!). Big G also gets attacked by lame condor-like bird, who becomes Japanese Fried Chicken in no time. All this leads up to the main fight, Godzilla vs. Lobster (Ebira). OK Godzilla film, was originally written for King Kong (which explains why Godzilla suddenly gets funny feelings when he sees girls). And if you are a international terrorist organization, don’t make your headquarters on an island Godzilla likes to use for naps! Ebira is widely regarded as one of Big G’s lamest villians, and with good reason. Ebira wasn’t even bothered with to make an appearance in Destroy all Monsters. Overall, as far as Big G films go, good, but not spectacular. 6/10 fun, 2/10 quality.
If you love monster movies, just go see this now…
A desert town that is slowly dying is invaded by giant spiders, the son of the owner of the old mine returns to town to prevent the crooked mayor from convincing everyone to sell their property. The sheriff and her daughter are both really hot. There are a few annoying technical errors in the script towards the end After making a big deal out of how no one could fire guns in the mine to prevent the methane gas from exploding, the hero rides a motorcycle (internal combustion engine) through the mine. The sheriff uses a taser to start a generator- maybe if she had connected it across the outgoing leads I could have bought an electrical surge…
The effects for the spiders are really dissapointing, they don’t look as good to me as the old “big-bug” movies with stop-motion or rear projection.
What the movie does have is a pretty good script- I’d say this is the best monster movie since Tremors, which it remins me of quite a bit.
City Hunter aka Cheng shi lie ren
Starring Jackie Chan, Joey Wang, Chingmy Yau
Based on the “City Hunter” manga series and TV series, this movie plays like alive action cartoon. Chan plays Ryu Saeba, the City Hunter, a private eye with an eye for the ladies and where he goes, trouble follows. Saeba’s partner Makimura is killed, and Chan raises his sister, Kaori (Joey Wang), but promises not to woo her when she is older. Unfortunately, when she is older, they both have feelings for each other. Saeba is hired to track down the missing daughter of a Japanese buisiness man. The daughter, Kiyoko, doesn’t want to be found, and escapes while a gang of skateboarders chase down Saeba. (some good fight scenes here). Kiyoko steals a man’s clothes and escapes past Saeba, and the man has a ticket for a Boat cruise. Kaori gets mad at Saeba, thinking he is romancing lots of women, when actually a gang of wives of criminals he’s put away are trying to kill him. Kaori goes on vacation with her cousin to get away from Saeba, who follows her, but he must sneak on board for he has no ticket. Chingmy Yau shows up as a police women sent to watch a criminal organization that is on the boat, her friend is a women whose breasts cause her to lose her balance and tip over constantly (i think a man wrote the script…).
Kaori’s male cousin wants to marry her (Jerry Springer, anyone?), but she is not interested, and her cousin is the whipping boy geek for he movie. The bad dudes take the boat hostage, and the guests must play baccarat for their lives. A Gambler who uses cards as weapons stalls for time while Saeba sets up a rescue effort. Saeba fights two large black men in a theater that is playing Bruce Lee’s Game of Death when he fights Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Saeba gets ideas from the movie. But Saeba must hurry, as the Bad Dudes are planning to send the poor prisoners to the sharks, and ransom the rich.
Very campy movie, words pop up on the screen sometimes when people get hit, and characters turn into Street Fighter characters in one of the fights. The City Hunter theme plays constantly, and “City Hunter” is whispered everytime something cool happens, adding to the camp atmosphere. I really enjoed this film, and recommend it to anyone who likes the genre. 8/10