Six Feet Two, Eyes of Blue And Oh Boy What That Gal Can Do!

Galaxis (Interlight, 1995)

Before the Camera:

Brigitte Nielsen   (Red Sonja)
Richard Moll   (TV's Night Court)
Craig Fairbrass   (Cliffhanger)
John H. Brennan (TV's Bordertown)
Fred Asparagus (Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo)  (<----Wotta Moniker!™)
Roger Aaron Brown (Star Trek: The Motion Picture)
Cindy Morgan (Caddyshack)
Kristin Bauer (TV's True Blood)
Alan Fudge (Capricorn One)
Louisa Moritz (The Last American Virgin)
and
Sam Raimi (!) as the Nervous Official



Behind the Camera:

Directed by William Mesa

Produced by Patrick Choi, Nick Davis, William Mesa, Patrick Peach (Wotta Moniker!™) and 5 other assorted producers

Written by Nick Davis


    We start right out with a narrator so chatty he starts blabbering before the credits are over, proving to be the young voice of Lord Tarkin (played onscreen as an adult by Britisher Fairbrass) and setting up the story to be about him and his adventures. Bad guys are attacking Tarkin's planet, Sintaria, and scads of people are running for the bunkers as spaceships fly over zapping all with lasers and bombs. Among the runners is Ladera (Nielsen), Tarkin's Amazonian sister with a strangely nonmatching accent. As she tries to save as many refugees as she can, Tarkin is arguing with his bunker commander (Bauer) and the Nervous Official (Raimi) about what to do to save Sintaria.




In a clever bit of camouflage, the underground bunkers go up. Genius! No one would look for them there.

    Finally, Ladera makes it into the bunker, which is now under attack by a tricky undercover cyborg/robot thing (terrific mix of stop motion and animatronics here) but then Chief Baddie Kyla (Moll) strides in (very easily, I might add) and things go even further downhill. Thanks to the Nervous Official's Space Weaseldom, Tarkin is killed (so what was up with that narration then?) and Kyla makes off with the McGuffin Crystal, source of all power, energy, and birthday cake for the Sintarians. Ladera drops to her knees (a considerable distance - she's really tall!) and bellows NOOOOOO...
    ...which almost makes her miss Tarkin's dying words. We hear them though, as he whispers that although Kyla has stolen the crystal, there's a spare crystal (luucky!) hidden away on a backwater planet - all Ladera has to do is retrieve it. (Lesson #1: No matter how many resources it takes or how rare the first one is or how much it costs - always have a spare crystal constructed.)

"I just hope the spare's not one of those balloon crystals where you can only run your planet at 50 gigawatts for a few decades..."

     Cut to everyone's favorite backwater planet, Earth, circa 1995. Adventurer Jed (Brennan) has recently returned from Peru, where it so happens he found a mysterious glowing crystal that just might be his ticket to Easy Street. But as is so often the case with glowing crystals of immeasurable power, Jed finds he is in competition for it, chiefly from greasy gangster Victor (Asparagus) and his henchmen. Things take a couple of turns for the complicated as first Ladera, then Kyla show up and people start to die and things start to blow up. Lots of things. This brings police detectives Carter (Brown) and Kelly (Morgan) onto the case as Jed and Ladera team up, countered by Victor at every turn, with sporadic Kyla attacks. Everybody travels all over the city to find as many places to "pay tribute" to as many scenes from The Terminator movies as possible. And maybe, just maybe, at one of these places, someone can find the answer to why this is called...Galaxis?

    With it a given that this is an "homage" stew of several science fiction and action flicks that came before, like Star Wars, Peacemaker, and I Come in Peace, it is indeed mainly the Terminator movies on whose cinematic skeleton this filmic Frankenstein is built. Ah, but who cares? If we close ourselves off to movies like this, we'd never watch a lot of Roger Corman's New World movies of the 70's and 80's, and very few Italian genre pictures. I mean, if you pick up a movie starring Brigitte Nielsen and Richard Moll, you must have some idea what you're getting into, right? And with an Asparagus on screen, and a Peach behind the camera, I gotta ask - was this movie put together at the Farmer's Market? There's even a table (Mesa) to serve them on!
    Speaking of him, director William Mesa started out in Visual Effects, first running the Introvision process for movies like Outland and Megaforce in the early 80's all the way up to Army of Darkness in the early 90's (which explains the out-of-nowhere Sam Raimi cameo at the beginning of the movie), before turning to directing a handful of movies in the mid 90's, then back to Visual Effects ever since on flicks as diverse as The Last Samurai, White Chicks, and Clash of the Titans '10. He brings his Bag of FX Tricks along with him for Galaxis, and we have special effects all over the place, from motion control to laser battles, from rotoscoped energy beams to the aforementioned stop motion and animatronics. He doesn't skimp on the physical effects either, with copious gun battles and explosions from beginning to end. The script is serviceable, if not particularly inspired, with a couple of funny lines amidst the mayhem. The acting is a mixed bag, as might be expected. Nielsen is her usual stoic self, with not one ounce of humor or irony anywhere but with enough presence to handle this lead (and she really is tall - in a scene where she morphs into Moll (don't ask) there's no appreciable change in their height from one to the other); as always, Moll only hits one note in his Screen Villainy, but it's an entertaining note; Brennan is lantern jawed and stalwart and not much else (nice mullet!). The standouts in the cast are the cops, with Brown and Morgan pretty funny and working well together, and Alan Fudge (a VERY familiar face, seemingly appearing in every television show produced in the 70's and 80's) handling his police chief deftly in his few minutes of screen time. I also like that portly Asparagus, who would have been brought on as a quick in-and-out joke bad guy in most movies, actually proves to be as big a threat as Moll's Space Villain, tenaciously turning up at the wrong moment throughout the movie with thugs in tow. All in all, I had a good time watching this movie, and think you might too! So track it down and give it a try!


Let's Get Out of Here ?

It took a while, but Fred Asparagus (I never get tired of writing that!) finally throws out The Line at 1:04:00 to tell his minions he'd like to avoid participating in Richard Moll's Terminator tribute in the police station, then again soon after at 1:06:45 when he decides he doesn't like the new place either.

Eye Candy ?

If you're into Nordic ice queen amazons (and really, who isn't?), then Brigitte Nielsen in the mid 90's is just the ticket.

And here she is in an never-produced attempt at a She-Hulk movie which I'm sticking in right here because I have no better place for it.

Buddha Man's Capsule Review

Buddha Man says "Galaxis is a pretty good movie starring some freakishly tall folks!"

   Thanks BM, and til next time, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

While Venus Calls 911 Shouting...

The Earth Dies Screaming (20th Century Fox, 1964)

Before the Camera:

Willard Parker (A Slight Case of Murder)

Virginia Field (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court - she was Morgan LeFay!)

Dennis Price (Theatre of Blood)

Thorley Walters (Great Britain's go-to man for Dr. Watson portrayals from 1962-1977, including The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother)

Vanda Godsell (The Pink Panther Strikes Again)

David Spenser (Carry On...Up the Khyber)

Anna Palk (Horror on Snape Island aka Tower of Evil - UK (original title)

                                                       aka Beyond the Fog - USA (reissue title)
                                                       aka Horror of Snape Island - Canada (English title)


Behind the Camera:

Directed by Terence Fisher

Produced by Robert L. Lippert and Jack Parsons

Written by Henry Cross

We get off to a ripping start as several people around England are shown collapsing, some of them at the controls of various air and ground vehicles - trains derail, cars crash, planes drop from the sky.We then meet American test pilot Jeff Nolan (Parker) who survived whatever that was and now seeks refuge in a small British pub while he plans what to do next. He then finds himself facing down the barrel of a shotgun wielded by Taggart (Price) and his companion Peggy (Field). (Lesson #1: Right after the end of the world, keep your freakin hand on your freakin gun!) But after a tense moment, the trio decides to band together to figure out what happened. But both Taggart and Peggy are somewhat mysterious, lending a slightly ominous air to the partnership. As the three make their way around, they find copious dead bodies from the attack, all lying where they fell. Soon after they are joined by Edgar (Walters) and Vi (Godsell) who establish themselves as light comedy relief of the randy adulterous sort, and then Mel (Spenser) and Lorna (Palk) show up to round out the gang as added conflict (Mel's belligerent and Lorna's pregnant). Hail hail, the gang's all here, and they move on in their search for anyone else alive. Everyone compares stories, and it turns out all seven were using an isolated air supply when the Bad Thing happened, pointing to some kind of gas attack that they assume was launched by an enemy foreign power as the start of a war. While everyone ponders this theory, two figures in what appear to be hazmat suits are spotted. But an attempt at direct contact with these individuals reveals they aren't the authorities mopping up...but the second phase of the attack...and it definitely originated much further away than they originally thought...maybe even from Out There...  Once the hazmat guys prove themselves lethal, things take another turn for the worse when they start zapping the corpses lying around into white eyed zombies who then become the third phase of the attack...an attack which may only end when The Earth Dies Screaming!

The community theater auditions for Annie aren't until next week, sorry.

This turned out to be a well made if low key British science fiction flick. As often happens with these movies, the opening few minutes could have been the start of an episode of The Avengers, or Doctor Who. But there are no bowler hats or blue police boxes here. There is an American lead actor though, which was a weird habit these British movies had at the time, I guess to make the film more marketable across the Big Pond. I always find this a little weird, because the American actor is pretty much never a "name" (Who the heck is Willard Parker?) but it seemed to work for them and they did it a lot. Parker is fine in the role, and the rest of the cast is veddy British and up to the tasks presented them here. If you watch a lot of British films or TV from the period then Price and Walters are definitely going to be familiar faces, the rest, probably not so much. The hazmat guys are pretty cool, the blank eyed zombies are actually creepy, and the movie does not overstay its welcome, clocking in at a trim 62 minutes. It's not a slambang thrill a minute flick, but if you don't mind a calmer pace this one is definitely worth a look. It's on an MGM double feature DVD with Chosen Survivors, not a bad pair up I must say.




Let's Get Out of Here ?

At about 36:55, David Spenser uses The Line to propose peace through evacuation.






Eye Candy ?

Based on her World Class Legs alone, Virginia Field totters right onto the list in her pencil skirt and high heels.

Buddha Man's Capsule Review

Buddha Man says "The Earth Dies Screaming is a good preview of December 21st, 2012."

Til next time, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

Like the Drive-In circa 1983, in 2010!

The Expendables (Lionsgate, 2010)

and

Machete (20th Century Fox, 2010)

The Expendables - Before the Camera:

Sylvester Stallone  (Death Race 2000 '75)
Jason Statham  (Death Race '08)
Jet Li  (Black Mask)
Dolph Lundgren  (Red Scorpion)
Mickey Rourke  (Fade to Black '80)
Steve Austin  (The Condemned)
Randy Couture  (UFC champion!)
Terry Crews  (Idiocracy)
Gary Daniels  (Fist of the North Star)
Charisma Carpenter (TV's Buffy, the Vampire Slayer)
Giselle Itié (Telenovela star)
and
Eric Roberts  (Doctor Who '96)
and if you look fast -
Bruce Willis (TV's Moonlighting)
Arnold Schwarzenegger (political figure from the West Coast)


Machete - Before the Camera:

Danny Trejo  (From Dusk til Dawn)
Steven Seagal  (Hard to Kill)
Jessica Alba  (The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer)
Jeff Fahey (Planet Terror)
Michele Rodriguez  (TV's Lost)
Cheech Marin  (Born in East LA)
Tom Savini  (Knightriders)
Lindsey Lohan  (I Know Who Killed Me)
and
Robert DeNiro  (Bloody Mama)
and
Introducing
Don Johnson  (Dead Bang)


The Expendables - Behind the Camera:

Directed by Sylvester Stallone

Produced by Avi Lerner, Boaz Davidson, Danny Dimbort and 12 other assorted producers

Written by David Callaham and Sylvester Stallone (story by David Callaham)


Machete - Behind the Camera:

Directed by Robert Rodriguez & Ethan Maniquis

Produced by Robert Rodriguez and 16 other producers, including Quentin Tarantino

Written by Robert Rodriguez and Álvaro Rodríguez


    This is turning out to be quite the summer for maniacal movie fans - first Piranha 3-D swims into our faces, now this double shot of old school action rocks 'em and socks 'em at the theater.

    The Expendables starts right off with the titular gang (including Stallone, Statham, Li, Lundgren, Crews, and Couture) taking out a couple of dozen bad guys with action packed alacrity before heading back to pal/guru Tool's (Rourke) combination motorcycle repair shop/tattoo parlor for some rest and relaxation, which mainly involves booze and more thrown knives. Barney (Stallone) is then called in to a meeting with the mysterious "Mr. Church" (Willis) who needs someone to travel to the island of Vilena to knock off the military dictator there. But the job is up for grabs, and in walks the Expendables' main business rival Trench (Schwarzenegger). Trench passes, but Barney takes the job. In Vilena the general is working with rogue CIA agent Malone (Roberts) and his henchmen (Austin and Daniels) running drugs and arms, and there's an army numbering in the hundreds ready to cut the Expendables down - can even a gang of mercenaries consisting of some of the most popular action stars in the world stand up against that kind of firepower?

Every action fan's dream scene, or a Planet Hollywood shareholder meeting?

      
Speaking of firepower, there's also plenty on display in Machete. Longtime movie hardass Danny Trejo gets his first lead role, as Machete, the legendary cop-turned-avenger out to stop evil wherever he finds it. Which is absolutely everywhere. All the time. Nobody ever calls Trejo anything but Machete, leading one to wonder, is he called Machete because it's his weapon of choice, or is it his weapon of choice because it's his name? Well, you actually get the answer to that in the film, but I'll leave you to look for that tidbit on your own time. The movie Machete is the feature expanded from the at-the-time faux trailer on the front of Grindhouse (2007).  After an opening sequence in which Machete is ambushed, forced to watch some family be killed and is then left for dead by Mexican crimelord Torrez (Seagal - really?) he hits rock bottom and ends up a day laborer eking out a living on the streets of some city in Texas. He is drawn into an assassination conspiracy by the shadowy Booth (Fahey), with the target right wing anti-immigrant Senator McLaughlin (DeNiro). Nothing is quite as it seems, and soon immigration agent Sartana (Alba), Mexican activist Luz (Rodriguez), nasty vigilante border guard Stillman (Johnson), Booth's druggie daughter (Lohan), and Machete's priest brother (Marin) all get wrapped up into a pretty convoluted story for a movie like this. In the end, can even the raw power of Machete cut through this Gordian knot of plot?

The last guy who wore this coat tripped. They found him in 37 pieces.

    Truly, sitting in these two movies in the same afternoon was like reliving a weekend from one of my high school summers. The Expendables is a meat and potatoes action flick with the added gravy of an incredible cast of action stars of the past and present. Machete is a grindhouse style thriller with an amazing cast done to a T and that stands for trashy which rhymes with flashy and that all describes this movie.
    Everyone in The Expendables is up to the game, and director Stallone gives all of his costars some moments along the way. The standouts are Statham, (not usually one of my fave action guys) but terrific here supporting Stallone as his right hand man; and the diabolically dynamic duo of Roberts and Austin, superb in their screen villainy. But don't get me wrong, the entire cast is first-rate and it's great to see every one of them back on the Big Screen, even if this might be the first time for some of the usually direct to video stars. And how about that Stallone, still ripped and rippling at the age of 64? And speaking of Stallone, as a director he keeps the movie zipping along, with enough fists a'flying, knives a'slashing, guns a'firing, and bombs a'blowing to make The Expendables a must for action fans.
    As for Machete, it completely fulfills the promise of the original fake trailer that was the first thing seen when the lights went down in Grindhouse. And amazingly, they managed to weave almost every shot from that trailer into the movie! Rodriguez showed with Planet Terror (his half of the Grindhouse double feature) that he knew exactly how to make this kind of fast paced homage to the low rent action flicks he used to watch back in the day, and he suffers no sophomore slump here. His cast sparkles, with kudos going to Trejo, for handling his first lead with aplomb; Seagal, for jumping in as the movie's villain with Raquel Welch's unidentifiable accent from Bandolero!; and Johnson, "introduced" in the credits and wonderfully nasty in a role that I'm guessing was originally meant for Michael Parks. Everyone in the cast is in on the joke, showing up on set with tongue firmly in cheek; and if the joke doesn't always work, as is the case with Lohan's turn as the druggie daughter (it might have been funnier to get an actress less known for hijinks to play the part), at least in the end she's actually okay in the role, so I'll shut up about her. The R rating kicks in in the first couple of minutes, and once it starts, the movie never lets up with a constant stream of action, graphic violence, nudity and hilariously profane dialogue from beginning to end. I will say that Machete might be overlong by about ten minutes or so, but that's just quibbling. If you don't mind your action fare gory and gratuitous, then by all means check Machete out!



Let's Get Out of Here ?

The Expendables gives us The Line at around the 30:00 mark, as Stallone wants Statham to accompany him away from their plane and into town.

Machete did not go for The Line that I heard, but I will need to confirm that with a second viewing before I'll commit 100% on the no.



Eye Candy ?

The ladies definitely take a back seat in The Expendables, with neither Giselle Itié or Charisma Carpenter qualifying for the list on the basis of lack of screen time and import to the movie.

Machete, on the other hand, gives us plenty of Jessica Alba and Michele Rodriguez, so welcome to the list, ladies!

Buddha Man's Capsule Review

Buddha Man says "If you want testosterone and explosions, The Expendables is indispensable. If you want the three B's (boobs, blood, and beasts) then Machete will cut your mustard. Check 'em both out!"

Til next time, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

Mob Better Blues!

The Outfit (MGM, 1973)

Before the Camera:

Robert Duvall (THX-1138)

Joe Don Baker (Walking Tall)

Karen Black (Airport '75)

Robert Ryan (Captain Nemo and the Underwater City)

Timothy Carey (The World's Greatest Sinner)

Richard Jaeckel (The Dirty Dozen)

Sheree North (Maniac Cop)

Bill McKinney (Deliverance)

and if you look fast -

Marie Windsor (Abbott and Costello Meet The Mummy)

Elisha Cook, Jr. (College Confidential)

Joanna Cassidy (Who Framed Roger Rabbit?)

Henry Jones (Dirty Dingus Magee)

and

I think Hoyt Axton (Gremlins) is in there too, but he's not listed in it anywhere. Still, if it's not him he had a twin...

 

 

 

Behind the Camera:

Directed by John Flynn

Produced by Carter DeHaven

Written by John Flynn, based on the novel by Richard Stark (Donald Westlake)

 

 

 

    Here we have a down-n-dirty lean and mean crime melodrama, based on a novel by Donald Westlake writing under his harder edged Richard Stark pseudonym. Macklin (Duvall) is released from prison and finds out from his longtime girlfriend Bett (Black) that his brother has been killed gangland style. A little digging turns up the info that the last bank Macklin and his brother robbed was a front for the mob (or Outfit) run by Mailer (Ryan). They put the hit on Macklin's bro, now they want to make it a double Macklin funeral. But he's not going to go gently into that good night and instead goes on the run with Bett. Through one of Mailer's captains, Menner (Carey), Macklin gets word to Mailer that all will be forgiven if the mob will shuck out $250,000 to him. Otherwise, he will commence an attack on their enterprises like they've never seen. (Lesson #1: When a guy like Macklin comes to you asking for $250,000, give it to him. Then kill him later when he's drunk and covered in hookers...) The Outfit respectfully indicates their answer is no, sure their torpedoes will find their mark before Macklin can cause too much trouble. But Macklin's a crafty devil, and re-teaming with his old pal Cody (Baker) they start running and gunning on The Outfit's operations, stealing thousands of dollars that Macklin has already warned would not reduce the $250,000 debt he feels he is owed. Gunfire, fistfights, pistol whippings, girl smackings, and car chases all ensue.


Duvall and Baker discover laundry is the most dangerous chore of all.

Thematically it's very similar to Westlake's novel The Hunter (filmed twice - 1967's Point Blank and 1999's Payback) - with a lead character not likely to win any church or civic awards looking to score a very specific amount of money from a gang of criminals he feels wronged him; but it's also different from both of those films and stands on its own. It's nice to see character pro Duvall get the lead here, and he's ably supported by that cast of familiar faces, with standout awards going to Baker, Carey, and especially Ryan, in his final role - he died before the film was released. The ladies don't have all that much to do, and the movie will never be mistaken for a National Organization for Women training flick, but the actresses do get in a couple of nice moments, Black with that strange allure she always brings to the table, and North nearly falling out of a flimsy little nothing she almost wears in her scene. Director Flynn handles his duties adroitly, keeping a solid pace but not forgetting some solid character moments along the way. These aren't people you would want to have over for Sunday dinner, but it's fun to watch them run around waving guns at each other for an hour and forty minutes.

Let's Get Out of Here ?

At about the 10:00 mark, Karen Black goes large with The Line, proposing a new start on life to Robert Duvall. He declines, natch.

Eye Candy ?

Although Karen Black could qualify, she doesn't get the necessary showcase here. Sheree North, however, tramps right over and takes the prize for this flick.

Buddha Man's Capsule Review

Buddha Man says "The Outfit is good actors, good action, good times!"

Until next time, you can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

Still Biting After All These Years!

Piranha 3-D (Dimension Films, 2010)

Before the camera:

Elizabeth Shue (Adventures in Babysitting)
Ving Rhames (Casualties of War)
Jerry O'Connell (Stand by Me)
Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future)
Steven R. McQueen (grandson of Steve McQueen!)
Jessica Szohr (TV's Gossip Girl)
Adam Scott (Torque)
Dina Meyer (TV's Birds of Prey)
Kelly Brook (The Italian Job)
Riley Steele (adult entertainment aplenty)
and
Richard Dreyfuss (Jaws)

Behind the camera:

Directed by Alexandre Aja

Produced by Alexandre Aja, Mark Canton, Grégory Levasseur, Marc Toberoff and 13 other assorted associate and executive producers

Written by Peter Goldfinger & Josh Stolberg

 
 
    Although it sports the same title, this is less a remake of the 1978 drive-in classic produced by Roger Corman and directed by Joe Dante than it is a VERY rated R Syuh Fyuh (SyFy - but I write it phonetically) channel Saturday night premiere flick. But this one has the clear advantage of being in 3-D! We start to realize the tongue might be in the cheek in the opening moments as the old guy we see fishing in a small boat turns out to be Richard Dreyfuss in his Matt Hooper outfit from Jaws, singing “Show Me the Way to Go Home” (the song he and Roy Scheider and Robert Shaw sing out on the Orca in Spielberg’s classic) and drinking “Amity” brand beer. Moments later, seismic activity in the lake bed underneath results in our learning several lessons: Lesson #1: this movie is keeping things nice and simple. No long scenes of the local seismic monitoring station predicting quakes to come, no town officials being mad about impending quake activity, none of that. Richard Dreyfuss, Jaws jokes, quake, killer fish swimming up out of resulting crack in lake bed. Lesson #2: there is going to be a lot of CGI in this movie, and it’s going to range from pretty good to PlayStation 1 cut scene in quality; and Lesson #3: they could only afford Richard Dreyfuss for one day.

"What? Was Lorraine Gary too BUSY?"

    From there we get 3-D credits, and then settle in for a little plot as we meet our characters. Young Jake (McQueen) is the son of the town sheriff (Shue) and is on a very short leash, forced to miss out on the town’s annual spring break festivities again to babysit his younger brother and sister (who seemed cloned from the youngest duo on the Partridge Family). He has an almost dating thing going on with Kelly (Szohr) and gets 3-D sodas thrown on him by the town bullies. His luck changes when he meets the gorgeous Danni (Brook) then changes again when he meets her boss Derrick Jones (O'Connell), the hyperactive producer/director of the naughty "Wild Wild Girls" DVD series. With his hormones a'ragin' Jake makes plans to pay off the little ones to stay home and is hired to join the production crew on Jones' rented yacht ostensibly to show the producer the most visually sumptuous spots on the lake but really to see Danni and her co-star Crystal in bikinis and hopefully even less. In the meantime the sheriff and her trusted deputy (Rhames, wasted here, sad to say) find Dreyfuss's chewed up body and send it off for autopsy. The next day, we gear up all of our subplots: while she waits for the autopsy results, Shue also welcomes a scuba crew from that local seismic activity organization I mentioned who plan to dive down and take a look at what the quakes did to the lake's bottom; Jake heads out with Derrick and crew, but not before finding Kelly invited along by the ultra lecherous video producer; to better their fishing (and put more people in jeopardy in several different places) the Partridge Family twins leave the house, jump in a rowboat and paddle over to a small island nearby where they promptly lose the boat back out into the middle of the lake, stranding them; and the producers manage to get about a thousand extras into the town harbor for the Spring Break party. At about the same time, everyone figures out there are prehistoric piranha in the lake when people near them go into the water and red spew foams up. Eventually one is captured and taken to the local pet shop owner (Lloyd) who doubles as a prehistoric fish expert. (!) He warns Shue to get everyone out of the lake, but that's not going to be easy, starting with her kids. Who will survive, and what will be left of them?

After thirty seconds, anyone in the water was Eli Roth's date for the night.

This is a wonderfully silly horror flick done to a T, with gratuitous EVERYTHING, and that goes triple for the cameo by Hostel director Eli Roth. Among the highlights: a nude underwater ballet between Brook and Steele (after they'd been down for about four minutes without air my niece and movie watching bud Sandra leaned over and said they sure were holding their breath for a long time - I pointed out they were wearing their air tanks right up front); more ways to kill people with fish and boating equipment than you ever would have believed possible - good mix of Greg Nicotero & Howard Berger makeup effects and CGI gore here; hundreds of babes in bikinis, a couple of dozen babes out of bikinis; one cheeky piranha who swims into closeup and all but winks at the audience; and 3-D that was added later but obviously planned for early enough to get quite a bit of the usual stuff into your face, and some things I never expected to see floating before my eyes in a 3-D movie. Just when you think this movie has gone as far as it can go in terms of outrageousness, director Aja finds a way to take it a bit further. Rumor has it that Aja wanted Piranha director Dante and Piranha II: The Spawning director James Cameron (yes, that one!) to pop in for a shared cameo as boating safety instructors. As might be expected, Dante was up for it, but Cameron "couldn't fit it in his schedule." That's too bad, as it would have been a hoot. And, despite this flick being almost a complete departure from the original, there is one very welcome climactic nod to the 1978 gem involving McQueen, a boat, and a long (almost magically long) rope that ties them together. As for the acting, Shue, McQueen and Scott play it straight, which does give the later reels some decent suspense, but everyone else is showing up for a wink and a paycheck, which is just fine too. Kudos must also go to O'Connell, who pulls out all the stops in his depiction of Screen Weaseldom right through to his expected messy end. The biggest disappointment is that Rhames, who has a bravura last scene, is given almost nothing else to do. Why hire him if you're not going to let him throw off some wry lines like he does in the Mission: Impossible movies? Still, that's quibbling in a movie like this. It is a lot of fun, and you know going in what you're going to see, (or maybe you don't - all the more reason then) so by all means throw on the glasses and give this one a try!


Let's Get Out Of Here ?

Well, I hate to say it, but with all of the visual assault that is Piranha 3-D unspooling before my eyes, my ears let me down and did not catch The Line in my one viewing in the theater. But I would bet real money it's in there somewhere, and as soon as I confirm it, this section will be rewritten so I don't come off looking so bad...


Eye Candy ?

You tell me.

Kelly Brook (l) and Riley Steele (r)

Buddha Man's Capsule Review

Buddha Man says "It's got almost everything you could want in a movie called Piranha 3-D. Except Dick Miller."

Until next time, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

Now You Don't See Him, Now You Still Don't!

Abbott and Costello Meet The Invisible Man  (Universal, 1951)

 

 

Before the camera:

Bud Abbott (worked with Lou Costello a lot)
Lou Costello (worked with Bud Abbott a lot)
Nancy Guild (Francis Covers the Big Town)
Arthur Franz (Invaders from Mars '53)
Adele Jergens (Beware of Blondie)
William Frawley (Fred Mertz himself!)
Sheldon Leonard (Another Thin Man - and our first digression - Sheldon Leonard is a pretty danged cool guy -  he went from playing gangsters in almost every acting role he got - from a movie in 1934 to an episode of Dream On in 1992 - the IMDB lists over a hundred acting credits - to being an incredibly successful television producer and director - some of his producing credits include The Danny Thomas Show, The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Gomer Pyle USMC and I Spy. I'm guessing he must have had a hand in the early days of currently prolific writer producer Chuck Lorre's career since the lead characters on The Big Bang Theory are named Sheldon and Leonard in his honor.)



Big Bang Shmig Bang, but I'd make time with that blonde they got!

Behind the camera:

Directed by Charles Lamont

Produced by Howard Christie

Written by Robert Lees, Frederic I. Rinaldo, and John Grant (story by Hugh Wedlock Jr. and Howard Snyder)


    By the early 50's, Abbott and Costello had been making movies for ten years, but after spending several years in the mid-40's as the biggest stars in Universal Studios' stable of contract players their stars began to wane a bit. Their formula of a wisp of a plot stretched around several of their old vaudeville routines had gotten a bit stale. Then, in 1948, their stars rose again when they went high concept and starred in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein which pitted them against the titular monster as well as Count Dracula and the Wolfman. This film did boffo box office, so the studio looked for lightning to strike again by putting the boys up against more scary folk every second or third picture, like 1949's Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff. More big time box office ensued, and that led to this picture in 1951, Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in 1953, and Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy in 1955.
     The boys play their usual characters, here named Bud Alexander and Lou Francis, which happen to be the actors' middle names, which I guess kind of makes up for their later work when they stopped even coming up with character names and just called each other Abbott and Costello. The boys graduate detective school (thanks to Bud's bribe on Lou's behalf) and they immediately find a case when they get mixed up with Tommy Nelson (Franz), a prizefighter wanted for the murder of his manager. Tommy asserts his innocence, but A&C don't believe it. Tommy forces the duo to take him to his girlfriend's house, where they conveniently continue to hang around long enough for events to take a turn for the contrived when it just so happens that Tommy's girlfriend (Guild) has a scientist uncle who just happens to have been bequeathed The Invisible Man's formula by the Unseen One himself - and there's a framed photo of Claude Rains on the wall, making this a direct sequel to the first movie! Tommy wants to use the formula to turn invisible and seek out the real murderers but Uncle Philip nixes this, explaining about the formula's degenerative effect on its user's mental stability. But then the police, led by Frawley, show up, and while they are making their way inside, Tommy grabs a needle full of no see juice and plunges it into his arm. From there we get invisible slapstick aplenty, as the boys go undercover as a boxer (Lou) and his manager (Bud) and the Invisible Man goes naked to get the goods on gangster Morgan (Leonard) who really sent Tommy's manager to the Great Beyond. (Lesson #1: if you're a gangster guilty of murder, and you insist on talking about your crimes with your henchmen in auditoriums and such, pay attention to the next row of seats - if one often folds out like someone is sitting in it, listening in, assume someone is!) Morgan retaliates by sending his confederate Boots (Jergens) to spy on the boys.

   

Boy, are we glad this isn't Abbott and Costello Meet The Invisible Woman!

    It all comes down to a wild finale involving a boxing match between Lou and Tommy's archenemy, who doesn't realize there are two opponents in the ring with him. The final gag doesn't make a lick of sense, but I'll bet you remember it if you saw the movie long ago or you will remember it if you watch it now.
    All in all, this shapes up as one of the better latter day Abbott and Costello films. It's not really one of the A&C monster movies, since the Invisible Man here is on their side. There is a subplot about the invisibility formula's effect on Tommy's psyche, but little is made of it and he never threatens the boys. The special effects are very good, as was typical of Universal Studios. A lot of people who review this film, however, really go out of their way to praise the effects. I wonder, do these people realize how little of the film's scenes actually feature an "erased" Arthur Franz? I almost think they believe he's actually there and erased in every shot the Invisible Man is in, but that is not the case. I'd say the shots where Franz was actually "on camera" but rendered invisible is probably around a dozen or so. The rest of the movie uses a lot of other tricks, like props on wires, empty shots with voiceovers, doors opened by off camera stagehands, and even a really cool shot when the now unseen Tommy shucks his pants which actually uses a physical wireframe model wearing pants with remote controlled unbuttoning. Still, regardless of how the effects were achieved, they combine very well to give Abbott and Costello their most transparent co-star ever and make this movie a solid recommendation for the comedy team's fans or anyone who enjoys a little old fashioned comedy now and again.


Let's Get Out of Here ?
Oh my, The Line gets a real workout here, occurring at approximately 10:00 as Lou reminds Bud they're with an accused murderer; again at about 23:30 when Tommy sees the police arriving; again at 54:00, right after a bar patron takes a punch he didn't see coming; and finally once more at 1:13:00 when Bud takes the prize by saying it twice in quick succession to get Lou moving.


Eye Candy ?
Sadly, though both Nancy Guild and Adele Jergens are kind of cute, neither qualify for the coveted title to these jaded eyes. Guild has a jawline only Jay Leno could love, and Jergens is a bit over the top in her blonde glory, getting dangerously close to "possible drag queen" territory. Better luck next time, ladies!

Buddha Man's Capsule Review

Buddha Man says "Re: Abbott and Costello Meet The Invisible Man, my advice to you: always bet on Bud and Lou."

Thank you sir, and until next post, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

Run for the border!

Bandolero! (Twentieth Century Fox, 1968)

Before the camera:

James Stewart (Airport '77)
Dean Martin (Airport)
Raquel Welch (Mother, Jugs, and Speed)
George Kennedy (Airport, Airport '75, Airport '77, The Concorde: Airport '79)
Andrew Prine (Grizzly)
Will Geer (Grampa Walton himself!)
Clint Ritchie (TV's One Life to Live)
Denver Pyle (Uncle Jessie Himself!)
and if you look fast -
Dub Taylor (Back to the Future III)
Harry Carey Jr. (Back to the Future III)
Perry Lopez (Death Wish 4: The Crackdown)
Jock Mahoney (Tarzan in Tarzan the Magnificent)
and
Roy Barcroft (Retik, Ruler of the Moon in Radar Men from the Moon)

Behind the camera:

Directed by Andrew V. McLaglen

Produced by Robert L. Jacks

Written by James Lee Barrett and Stanley Hough (story)


    When bank robber Dee Bishop (Martin) and his gang (including Geer and Ritchie) ride into the small town of Val Verde with larceny in mind, things go awry and some locals are shot, including the husband of Maria (Welch). The gang also finds Sheriff July Johnson (Kennedy) and Deputy Bookbinder (Prine) a little better prepared than they expected and soon after they are sitting in the town jail, watching some gallows being constructed.

    Elsewhere, older brother Mace Bishop (Stewart) hears that his little brother is about to put his head in a noose, and is soon on his way to Val Verde disguised as the very hangman meant to do the neck stretching. On the day the hanging is to occur, Mace does a little of the old "slip your brother a gun" trick and shortly thereafter the Bishop gang is on the way out of town with a posse led by Sheriff Johnson hot on their trail. This leaves the unsuccessfully robbed town bank completely unguarded, and Mace (whose complicity in the escape has not been revealed) helps himself to $10,000 in his first bank job ever.

    Four plot developments and one crossing of the border later, Dee and his boys have kidnapped Maria, Mace has worked around in front of the posse and joined up with his brother, Dee Bishop starts to make googoo eyes at Maria, and the posse finds itself losing men one by one as Mexican bandits (the bandolero of the title) pick off the last guy in line with deadly efficiency time and time again. (Lesson #1: if you're headed into Mexico as a part of George Kennedy's posse, don't ride the slowest horse. It's like throwing on a red shirt on the Enterprise...)
Eventually the groups meet up in a ghost town looted to the bone by those bandits, and enemies may have to band together to survive when the bandits return to make their final attack. Otherwise, perhaps no one will escape...the Bandolero!




I'll tell Sammy he's got to move out. What do you say?

    This is kind of an old fashioned Western that makes some attempts to be modern a la 1968: we cast our cast in shades of gray (the heroes are kinda bad guys, the sheriff is a little creepy - it is pointed out often that he's leading the posse to recover Maria and put the moves on her, not catch the bank robbers); there are very visible bullet holes on those who get shot, and there are a couple of bloody moments when the Mexican bandits start slicing and dicing the supporting cast. And it is an entertaining film. We never believe Stewart and Martin are brothers, but it's fun to watch them pretend to be. Stewart is a rock as always, and Martin impresses whenever he shows up to actually act, as he does here. We never believe Welch is Mexican (what is that accent?) or anything less than a 1968 woman dressed old timey (nice false eyelashes!) but she's easy on the peepers and no less welcome for her acting issues. And Kennedy and Prine both turn in sterling work and have great chemistry together. It's great to see so many familiar faces sprinkled throughout the cast, and director McLaglen keeps the flick moving along and provides some stunning landscapes for the action to play out against. All in all, Bandolero rates a solid recommendation for anyone who enjoys a Western now and again and is a must for fans. Check it out!

Let's Get Out of Here ?

Approximately 34 minutes in, someone in the Bishop gang proposes they all vacate Val Verde vivaciously.

Eye Candy?

Yes, despite (or because of) her refusal to leave her makeup bag at home, Raquel Welch definitely makes the list.

Buddha Man Capsule Review

Buddha Man says "Esta película es buena y usted lo debe mirar!"

Until next time, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, 'Cause I Am Outta Here!

Snakes?! Why did it have to be snakes?!

Cult of the Cobra (Universal, 1955)

Before the Camera:

Faith Domergue (This Island Earth),
Richard Long (TV's Nanny and the Professor)
Marshall Thompson (Fiend Without a Face)
Kathleen Hughes (It Came from Outer Space)
David Janssen (The Fugitive himself!)
and
Jack Kelly (Bart Maverick himself!)


Behind the Camera:


Directed by Francis Lyon

Produced by Howard Pine

Written by Jerry Davis, Cecil Maiden, and Richard Collins

In the 1950's, Universal Studios had their last great run at the science fiction, fantasy, and horror pictures they'd been pwning since the monumental releases of Dracula and Frankenstein in 1931. They had zipped through the previous decade mainly cranking out sequels starring different conglomerations of their famed Universal Studios Monsters, but those horror worthies were relegated to facing off against Abbott and Costello by the end of the decade. Universal rather admirably turned to a series of new monsters, and while some of them were a little out there (The Monolith Monsters, anyone?) having all new beasties to marvel at was probably more exciting than a ninth or tenth entry on the Frankenstein monster's resume'.

     The story here gives us six servicemen stationed in Asia in 1945, looking for kicks as World War II nears its end. They hear tell of a local cult who worship snakes and are even legendarily able to transform into snakes. One well placed bribe later, the sextet find themselves duded up in robes and watching one of the cult's rituals, warned to keep a low profile or face possible death. The ritual itself seems to consist more of variety show dancing than snake transformations, but finally there is a snake on a string that comes out of the same woven basket a woman crawled into. It's not much different than a bad Las Vegas magic show, but that doesn't stop the dumbest member of the group whipping out his trusty camera, which of course is the size of a lunch box and is equipped with a giant flash bulb.

    Flash! Sure enough, this causes no end of consternation among the cultists, and the film's biggest surprise occurs when the boys are summarily cursed by none other than the Chief of Control himself.

What do you mean I'm uncredited? I'm Ed Platt, dammit!

    One guy runs a bit faster than the others, and he is soon after found snakebit outside the cult clubhouse. Luckily this doesn't kill him, but a second run-in with a snaky shadow in his hospital room sends him to the Great Beyond. Wow, that's just like what Ed Platt said, but the rest of the boys have to get packed to head home, so la-de-da.



Richard Long goes Hef before Hef.

    Back in America, the guys go about getting back to their lives, with Long and Thompson rooming with each other heterosexually and fighting over the winsome Julia (Hughes). Then just as Julia decides to go Long, Domergue shows up as a mystery woman and new girlfriend for Thompson, and shortly after, the boys start to find themselves facing off against that same snaky shadow, now backed up with low level snake-eye camera shots. Although the deaths seem to be accidents (car crash, fall off a balcony) only Long notices the bite marks seeping deadly cobra venom...

    What is Domergue's secret, and will Long be able to convince Thompson she's not what she seems? Or will Thompson assume Long is just c-blocking him again after winning over Julia? The answers await those brave enough to face...The Cult of the Cobra!



This is what James Garner might have seen
if he had astigmatism...

    This is not a bad little flick, helped immensely by the presence of familiar faces like Long, Kelly, and Janssen. Top billed Domergue is okay, a little too conflicted in her mission perhaps - it might have been more fun if she took more evil delight in her misdeeds, but that's a quibble. The movie is also a little light on monster action, as we only get a few shots of that String Cobra, er, I mean, King Cobra, in action, mainly making do with the aforementioned snake shadow and snake-eye camera. But it's fun in that 1950's horror flick way, with almost nobody working any kind of visible job - Hughes is in some kind of show, and Janssen runs a bowling alley back in the states, but the rest just hang out, drinking and smoking and not worrying about death curses. For that alone, this one gets a recommendation, just keep the anti snake venom serum handy!

Let's Get Out of Here ?

Around the 15:00 minute mark, Marshall Thompson uses The Line to advise Richard Long to drop the basket so they can vacate the area to avoid further encounters with angry snake cultists.

Eye Candy ?

Kathleen Hughes qualifies for the list in all her slender blonde glory.

 



 

Buddha Man's Capsule Review



Buddha Man says "Cult of the Cobra is a little
slow, but I've seen worse movies. This week!"

Till next time, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!