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!

That was no lady, that was Andrew Stevens's mom!

Las Vegas Lady (Crown International, 1975)

Before the camera:

Stella Stevens (Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold - she was the Dragon Lady!)
Stuart Whitman (Guyana: Cult of the Damned - he was the Reverend Jim Jones - er, Johnson!)
George DiCenzo (Back to the Future - he was Marty's grampa!)
Lynne Moody (Scream Blacula Scream!)
Linda Scruggs (Salty)
and
Jesse White (TV's first Maytag Repairman himself!)
and if you look fast -
Andrew Stevens (Stella's son, later a lead actor - The Fury - and more recently a producer - The Boondock Saints)
Frank Bonner (Harb Tarlek himself!)

Behind the Camera:

Directed by Noel Nosseck

Produced by Joel B. Michaels, Noel Nosseck, Gene Slott and Joseph Zappala

Written by Walter Dallenbach

    Lucky (Stevens - Stella, that is, not Andrew) is tired of hanging around Las Vegas making a few bucks here and there being arm candy for low end gamblers like Big Jake (White) and waiting on her casino security guard boyfriend Vic (Whitman) to dump or get off the pot. With the help of a shadowy figure, Lucky and two of her pals, Carol (Moody) and Lisa (Scruggs) plan to pull off a heist at the Circus Circus hotel and casino, which in this movie is managed by the really mean Eversull (DiCenzo). (Lesson #1: Maybe you should choose a heist target with a really old, nearsighted, sweet natured manager?) The plan will require flawless execution from each of the ladies - Carol as a fill-in serving girl, Circus Circus high wire acrobat Lisa mountaineering around the outside of the building, and Lucky opening some doors and windows on the upper floors by slipping away from a big game she gets into thanks to an unwitting Big Jake. It's not going to be easy, and each lady has an external complication that could trash the whole deal: Carol is in debt to a weaselly loan shark, Lisa has recently developed vertigo, and Lucky is dallying with a security guard at the place she's trying to rob. Will they be able to get it together and steal the cash? Who is that mysterious planner who set the whole heist up? And most importantly, will they be able to get away with it, or will Eversull figure the whole thing out and stop them cold?





Eversull figures it out and stops them. From the evidence, it wasn't too cold, though.

 I had very high hopes for this one, with it being from the mid 70's, set in Las Vegas, and with that cast. And though it's watchable, it isn't exactly what I was hoping it would be. This was only the second film for director Nosseck, made the same year as his first, and it shows. The first half hour is edited in a very ragged fashion, with several scenes just getting up to speed before suddenly cutting to a different unrelated scene that seems to start out on pause. Finally, as the second half gets going and we get to the heist, the editing problems fade out and the movie improves, staying mostly on target through to the end. The other big problem I had is the film's PG rating. I don't need every movie I watch to wallow in human filth and degradation (just some of them) but this movie sets up some harsh plot points and then ends up only hinting at them and dropping them. How mean was that loan shark, and what did he do to Carol? And what did Eversull do to that extremely frightened prostitute? We never find out. Again, I don't need to see hours of torture and gore, but if you're a filmmaker and you want to introduce these elements, give us some kind of a payoff. Leave what you want to the imagination, but give our imaginations something to work with. What we get is the girl grimacing as Eversull grins and moves toward her. Cut. We never hear another word about the young woman, and the whole subplot is dropped. Instead, why not have Eversull pull out some horrendous, evil prop (knife, blowtorch, Lady Gaga CD) and advance on the girl as she screams. Cut away. Later, have a lesser light in the cast mention the girl died from the wounds. Now I know Eversull is a REALLY bad guy and you still didn't show anything. But then, the movie is truly squeamish about the rough stuff all around. In fact **Major Spoiler Alert** no one even dies in the movie. At all. Ever. Including the bad guys.
    On the plus side, we've got good location work in Las Vegas, especially at Circus Circus, where James Bond had visited four years previously in Diamonds are Forever, and where I stayed when I got married in Las Vegas decades later. We've got the always welcome leads - the cool Stevens, and the earthy Whitman; and good support from Moody, Scruggs, and even ol' Jesse White. It's also cool to see Andrew Stevens and WKRP's Frank Bonner in small roles. The biggest acting kudos go to DiCenzo as a truly despicable jackwagon of the highest order, always angry, always grimacing, and never speaking anything approaching a kind word to anyone in the movie. There is also some stuntwork involving Scruggs' stunt double climbing around the outside of Circus Circus that looks like it came from a bigger budgeted movie (though there are also a couple of shots where the giant neon letters on the building look like weird miniatures combined optically with the stuntman). All in all, if you're really into heist movies or Las Vegas movies or you're a fan of the stars, this squeaks by with a recommendation. Others, not so much. Finally, a word on the presentation: I saw this on a double feature "Welcome to the Grindhouse" DVD from BCI/Eclipse. It's paired with Policewomen (which will turn up here sooner or later) and features trailers for Chinese Hercules, Weekend with the Babysitter (narrated by Casey Kasem, I do believe), Chain Gang Women, and Superchick - some or all of which are available on DVD from the same company.



Let's Get Out of Here ?

Approximately 43:00 in, Jesse White drops The Line on Stella Stevens to get her to leave the lounge and accompany him to the gaming tables .




Eye Candy ?

Stella Stevens might still qualify even now, but she definitely did in 1975.



Yeah, I know this is The Poseidon Adventure and 1972, go with it.

Buddha Man's Capsule Review



Buddha Man says "Las Vegas Lady isn't playing with cold dice, but it is a little choppy. That's gambling jargon, by the by."

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!