THE BIKINI BANDITS EXPERIENCE (2002) ½ *

The Bikini Bandits die in a car crash and go to Hell.  The Devil (Maynard from Tool) passes judgment on them and sentences the bikini-clad burglars to go back in time to deflower the Virgin Mary.  They then escape back to their own time and hide out in Amish country.  When an Amish woman’s son is kidnapped, it’s up to the Bikini Bandits (along with Corey Feldman and his army of Ninjas) to rescue him.    

The Bikini Bandits Experience is an inane mishmash of rock video vignettes, fake commercials (mostly products from “G-Mart”), faux movie trailers (like The Adventures of Dirty Sanchez), and stupid man on the street interviews.  There are also weird animated segments (that look inspired by Dr. Katz) featuring the filmmakers where they express their doubts that the project will ever make sense.  Trust me, it doesn’t.  This is without a doubt one of the worst pieces of shit I have ever seen. 

The perplexing cameos alone are enough to keep it from receiving a No Star review.  None of the famous folks involved are particularly good or utilized very well though.  I mean you’d expect more from a movie that features Maynard as Satan, Corey Feldman as an angel, and Jello Biafra as a porn director.  Or maybe not.  Then again, it’s the only flick I know of that features Dee Dee Ramone as the Pope, so it has that going for it.  As a fan of most of the name stars involved, it’s still pretty embarrassing in just about every regard.  (Feldman even expresses his regrets for accepting his role over the end credits.) 

The big problem is the ADD editing.  It’s all over the place.  It’s almost as if the movie was assembled by putting random scenes into an UNO Attack game and then spat out into the editing bay.  The upside is that it doesn’t stay on one subject for too long.  That’s good because the humor isn’t funny either.  It’s mostly tasteless, but it’s more annoying than anything.  It’s less than an hour long, so at least it’s short.  (Although it’s not nearly short enough if you ask me.)  

AKA:  Bikini Bandits.  AKA:  Bikini Bandits Go to Hell.

THE BLACKCOAT’S DAUGHTER (2017) *

The problem with slow burn horror movies is that there’s a very slim number of filmmakers who can pull it off.  When someone who isn’t a Polanski or an Aronofsky tries their hand at the genre, they usually fail to put their audience on the edge of their seat, and as a result, put them on the verge of a nap.  Here’s a tip for fledgling slow burn horror filmmakers:  If you’re planning on making a slow burn horror movie, MAKE IT OUT OF FLAMMABLE MATERIAL.  Without the burn, it’s just slow. 

Such is the case with Oz Perkins’ The Blackcoat’s Daughter.  The telltale sign Oz was going for a slow burn is the fact that the movie is told in nonlinear fashion.  Nonlinear plots are the slow burn horror filmmaker’s ace in the hole, mostly because if they told their film in a linear fashion, no one would give a festering rat’s ass about what was going on. 

The plot, such as it is, follows a pair of girls who are left unattended at their boarding school over winter break.  The rebellious Rose (Lucy Boynton from Bohemian Rhapsody) is supposed to be looking after the mousy freshman Kat (Kiernan Shipka), but instead, she sneaks out to break the bad news to her boyfriend that she’s pregnant.  Another plotline follows an escaped mental patient (Emma Roberts) who hitches a ride with a friendly couple (James Remar and Lauren Holly) who may or may not be the parents of one of the girls. 

The constant back and forth between the two plots gets tedious after a while.  The sad thing is, nothing very interesting is happening in either scenario, which really makes it a chore to get through.  What’s incredible is that Perkins manages to waste a rather stacked cast.  Remar gives probably his worst performance, as he is sorely miscast as the meek Good Samaritan.  Holly is given virtually nothing to do, and Boynton, Roberts, and Shipka are asked to essay paper thin characters. 

The Blackcoat’s Daughter takes a long time getting to where it’s going, and believe me, it isn’t worth the trip.  The body count is slim and the murders are mostly generic stabbings.  One decent puking scene aside, it all seems criminally underwhelming after such a long, dull build-up. 

Perkins went on to do another crappy slow burn flick, Gretel and Hansel.  At least that film had a folksy atmosphere to it.  This one could’ve possibly gone straight to the Lifetime Channel with very few edits. 

AKA:  February.  AKA:  The Daughter of Evil.

BULLET HEAD (2018) ****

Tarantino rip-offs used to be all the rage in the mid-to-late ‘90s, but they are getting fewer and fewer as time goes on.  Here’s a nifty little variation on the tropes that QT made famous while offering a few new twists of its own.  With Bullet Head, writer/director Paul (Grace) Solet has crafted a fun crime/horror hybrid that almost plays like Reservoir Dogs Meets Cujo.   

A trio of thieves (John Malkovich, Adrien Brody, and Rory Culkin) on the lam from Johnny Law lay low in a seemingly abandoned warehouse waiting for the heat to cool off.  While they bide their time, they make small talk and share stories of previous robberies gone wrong.  Little do they know they are not alone.  Roaming the grounds is a virtually indestructible killer dog who is dead set on turning the thieves into a steaming bowl of human kibble. 

Usually in a movie like this when the plot starts making unnecessary detours via flashback, it just feels like an attempt to pad out the running time.  In Bullet Head, it’s more congruous with the plot, and helps to inform the audience on the characters’ backstories.  (I particularly liked Malkovich’s ill-fated goldfish heist story.)  Speaking of flashbacks, even the killer mutt gets flashbacks!  Usually, whenever a dog has flashbacks in a movie, it’s a big old red flag (anyone who’s ever seen The Hills Have Eyes 2 or Top Dog can attest to that), but they are quite well done here, as Solet manages to make you feel a little sorry for the mangy mongrel.    

The premise is simple.  The set-up is efficient.  The pacing is crackling.  The tension is high.  It would make a good double feature with Crawl.  That flick was a When Animals Attack movie melded with a disaster picture and this one is a When Animals Attack movie mixed with a heist thriller.  The final act where Brody squares off against not only the killer dog, but his despicable handler (Antonio Banderas, who is excellent) is some real white knuckle shit.   

I will say that while this thriller is top notch, it will certainly put you through the wringer.  If you are in any way squeamish when it comes to dramatized animal cruelty, stay far away from it.  However, if you enjoy a down and dirty action horror movie, this one not only has thrills and chills (there is at least one effective jump scare), but personality too.  And remember what Jules said in Pulp Fiction… personality goes a long way.

GENERAL COMMANDER (2019) **

General Commander apparently started life as a TV show.  It never got picked up and the episodes were then condensed into a feature length movie (which explains why it is credited to two different directors).  I assume it was to be a slight variation on Steven Seagal’s other program, True Justice as he once again is in charge of a team of law enforcement agents.  Basically, all he does is sit around barking orders while they do all the leg work, before he finally shows up for the fight scene finale.  The big difference here is that instead of working on the Seattle P.D., Seagal and his team are with the C.I.A.  True Justice yielded a handful of not-bad patched-together movies.  All I can say for this one is I’m glad the makers of General Commander only milked this show for one feature. 

Seagal and his team are on the trail of some black market organ harvesters in Cambodia.  When one of their own is killed during a sting operation, Seagal and his crew naturally want to go out for revenge.  The agency forbids any retaliation and orders the team to be disbanded.  They then defy their superiors and reassemble to get payback for their fallen friend. 

I feared the worst when I put this on, but it’s semi-competently put together.  It’s not nearly as bad as some of Seagal’s latter-day efforts, although it’s hardly noteworthy, that’s for sure.  If they were going to slap two episodes of a TV show together, I just wish they had picked ones that had more action in them.  Things particularly bog down in the second act where the team members go off and mourn the death of their dead pal.  The action we do get is far from Seagal’s worst, but there’s just not enough of it to make it worthwhile.  

The climax might’ve worked for an hour-long TV show, but it’s a little underwhelming for an action flick.  The final knife fight is over much too quickly and suffers from some poor editing.  That said, the first episode (err... half) moves at a fairly brisk pace.  Overall, it's mostly innocuous, if a tad forgettable.

TETSUO: THE BULLET MAN (2010) *

Director Shin’ya Tsukamoto returned eighteen years later with a (mostly) American cast for this third installment in the Tetsuo series.  Like most remakes/sequels aimed at American audiences, it gratuitously overexplains things.  We didn’t need the big long flashback that shows us WHY the hero is turning into a robot.  It’s totally unnecessary and only gets in the way of the transformation scenes and action sequences (which are unfortunately fucking awful this time around).

 

Gone is the gritty style of the original and the ridiculous flamboyance of the second film.  Instead, everything has been color timed down to look as drab as possible.  The effects lack inspiration too.  You’ll swear it wasn’t by the same director as the first two movies as it looks and feels exactly like a generic late ‘00s DTV American remake.  As with most DTV flicks, the action sequences are nearly incoherent thanks to the erratic editing and non-stop shaky-cam camerawork.  In fact, this has to feature some of the all-time worst camerawork when it comes to action, which is really saying something.  Another overly-American trait:  The laughable happy ending.

 

It’s all especially depressing seeing how creative and exuberant the previous films were.  This one feels like a cheap cash-in.  It just goes to show that some directors are at their best working with shoestring budgets where they have to rely on their own ingenuity.  Sometimes, when they are given more money and advanced technology, the results can turn out much worse.  

 

The plot is basically a rehash of part 2.  The big difference is that instead of kidnapping the hero’s kid, the bad guys run him over.  He tries to hide his inner rage, but his grieving wife wants him to stop whining and go out and get revenge.  Finally, he embraces his robotic nature and transforms into a cyborg to get the guys who killed his son.

 

The effects are watered down too.  This guy looks like a Power Rangers villain rather than a lunatic cyborg Gumby.  Also, Tsukamoto doesn’t come anywhere close to matching the inspired nightmarish transformations found in the other movies.

 

I guess this was made solely to show that Tsukamoto could work with an American cast.  There’s really no reason to watch it though.  It’s liable to only piss off fans of the first two movies and stupefy anyone else.  Out of all the painful transformations found in the series, its transformation into a shitty bastardized American sequel was the most painful of all.

TETSUO 2: BODY HAMMER (1992) *** ½

I’m a big fan of director Shin’ya Tsukamoto’s Japanese splatterpunk body horror classic Tetsuo:  The Iron Man.  Don’t ask why it took me so long to check this sequel out.  It’s flat-out nuts.   

Two men try to abduct a man’s son in broad daylight.  While he’s trying to get his child back, they shoot him with a strange bullet.  He soon finds that whenever he gets angry or is under extreme duress, his body twists into metallic forms.  When he is kidnapped by the mysterious underground faction, they hook him up to a giant headset which intensifies his powers and he turns into a gnarly, malformed cyborg hellbent on revenge.

Tetsuo:  The Iron Man was a low budget marvel that was sort of like a cyberpunk version of Eraserhead.  This time out, the inspiration seems to be American action movies, namely Terminator 2.  Whole scenes seem to copy that film (as well as C + C Music Factory’s music videos), but with a body horror edge.  Imagine if David Cronenberg was at the helm of T2 instead of James Cameron and that may give you an idea of what to expect.  (There are also nods to The Fly, Videodrome, and Aliens.)  The action sequences are pretty wild for the budget and some of the transformation scenes are downright insane. 

This is the part of the review where I admit the version I saw didn’t have subtitles.  That just enriched the overall lunacy of it all.  I didn’t need to follow the plot.  The images did all the heavy lifting for me.  I mean who needs plot when whole chunks of the movie are devoted to a large machine gun turret erupting out of your hero’s chest?  By the time the final act rolls around and your main character has morphed into what can only be described as Robo-Gumby, you just have to be in awe at the ingenious zaniness of it all.  

TENET (2020) **

Tenet is another entry in the Chris Nolan Thinks His Cinematic Shit Doesn’t Stink sweepstakes.  This time out, Nolan doubles down on the “I’m the smartest guy in the room” mentality of storytelling that botched much of his later post-Batman Begins work.  If Inception was his intellectual version of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3:  Dream Warriors, this is his riff on Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, as the overly simplistic logistics of time travel in both movies is awfully similar. 

John David Washington stars as “The Protagonist” (which gives you an idea of the level of pompousness involved), an agent who is recruited into a new Cold War.  His mission is to stop a nuclear holocaust that has already happened in the future.  Items from the future war are found and when properly used in the here and now, can sort of bind the future and the present together.  That means there are shootouts where the bullets go INTO the guns and fight scenes where guys start on the floor and then move backwards until their face lands right into the knuckles of the dude who (hasn’t) punched him (yet).   

All of this is gloriously sleek and shiny.  It looks like a million bucks, but they should’ve sprung for a better shotgun boom mic because most of the characters speak their dialogue in mutters, through thick accents, while wearing masks, or over crackling headsets full of static.  I think Nolan didn’t have the confidence in his worldbuilding, overly complicated, gobbledygook dialogue, so he fucked with the audio so people wouldn’t spend half the movie picking it apart. 

Washington is Denzel’s kid, and he looks and sounds enough like his old man.  He’s not bad.  It’s just that he really isn’t a movie star yet.  Since he’s missing some of the family swagger, he kind of gets lost in the shuffle amid all the flashy backwards effects.  Elizabeth Debicki does a fine job though as the heroine, although like most of the characters, a lot of her dialogue is unintelligible.  Many of the bright spots come courtesy of Robert Pattinson, whose shaggy dog demeanor makes it feel like he came out of a completely different (and better) movie.  At all times, he seems content knowing that he can do whatever the fuck he wants and Nolan would probably let it slide.  (He sometimes resembles Richard E. Grant after a bender.)   

I have to say as muddled as most of this is, it does have a certain allure to it.  Although it almost defies the audience to go along with the daffy plot, there are some sequences that work.  Nolan knows how to keep a story moving, which helps too.  However the results are simultaneously mind-boggling and curiously underwhelming, which in itself is quite a feat.  I just wish the overall picture wasn’t such a mishmash of heist sequences, showy action beats, and marathon exposition sessions. 

Ultimately, Tenet just feels like a mash-up of Nolan’s usual bullshit without a real singular throughline to make you care.  In Memento, he gave us a film that essentially played out backwards.  Here, we get action sequences that run in reverse.  Like Inception (the Nolan film this feels closest to), there are scenes where the scenery folds in on itself and the landscape changes before your eyes.  While some may enjoy seeing Nolan playing around with the same motifs yet again, in the end, it just feels kinda hollow.  I’d say it’s slightly better than Inception, but it’s certainly one of Nolan’s weakest efforts.

TURKISH STAR WARS (1982) ½ *

I’ve heard whispers about Turkish Star Wars ever since I was a kid.  As both a Star Wars junkie and a bad movie connoisseur, I knew I had to watch it some day.  Now that I’ve finally seen it, I have to say it’s even worse than I imagined.  Not only is it the worst Star Wars rip-off of all time, it’s one of the worst movies ever made. 

When I was a teenager, I made a Star Wars movie with some friends.  We got around doing elaborate special effects by having the actors sit in front of a TV.  Then, we put Star Wars in the VCR and cued it up to the final Death Star assault.  This way, it kinda sorta looked like they were sitting in the cockpit of a spaceship.  Much to my surprise, Turkish Star Wars pulls the same exact bullshit!  Not only that, but it uses footage from the movie for its nonsensical opening sequence.  The accompanying narration is just as confusing as the random assemblage of footage the filmmakers stole from George Lucas.

 

That confusion continues throughout the rest of the movie as the plot (and I use the word “plot” very loosely) is all chopped to hell.  It hops around so much that much of it is hard to follow.  Although it’s in Turkish with English subtitles, I have a feeling it might’ve made more sense WITHOUT the subtitles.  The sole highlight (and I use the word “highlight” very loosely) is the Turkish version of the Star Wars cantina scene.  The way the filmmakers (and I use the word “filmmakers” very loosely) incorporate footage from the original cantina scene with their new terrible-looking monsters is something else.  (One looks like a college football mascot.)  Instead of a quick-draw shootout, it ends with a Kung Fu brawl.  

At least you don’t have to worry if Turkish Han Solo shot first or not.  

Just so we’re clear, Turkish Star Wars isn’t merely content to rip off George Lucas’s iconic 1977 classic.  It also steals music from Raiders of the Lost Ark and Flash Gordon.  That’s to be expected since it was riding the wave of what was popular at the time.  Most befuddling is the fact that it borrows footage from Bert I. Gordon’s The Magic Sword and Robert Aldrich’s Sodom and Gomorah (which were both from 1962, a full two decades before this was released). 

I guess it goes without saying that the various action scenes and Kung Fu training montages are bad, and the shoddy costumes and special effects are laughable.  (The thing that’s supposed to pass as a lightsaber just looks like a Styrofoam cutout.)  The finale is the worst though.  It’s here where our hero karate chops the villain in half lengthwise, which sounds cool until you actually see it. (The effect is nothing more than the cameraman obscuring half the frame so only half of his face is visible.)   

Overall, Turkish Star Wars is pathetic.  I think the Star Wars movie I made as a kid was better than this.  Heck, your little sister could probably do better.  

AKA:  The Man Who Saved the World.

I WAS A TEENAGE ZOMBIE (1987) ***

I Was a Teenage Zombie is one of the more unlikely movies to wind up in the Criterion Collection.  I kind of understand why as it’s pretty good for a shot on 16mm low budget horror comedy.  What makes it stand out from the glut of similar pictures that were being churned out at the time is the fact that the comedy stuff is actually funny.  That’s good news too, since it takes an awful long time before the horror aspects kick in.  

 

A drug dealer named Mussolini (Steve McCoy) is desperate to move some tainted marijuana that has been laced with toxic waste.  Some teenage friends looking for a buzz, buy some of the deranged dope and smoke it.  After getting sick from inhaling the weird weed, they get revenge on the dealer by killing him and tossing his body into the river.  Little do the teens know the river just so happens to be contaminated with toxic waste.  Before long, Mussolini returns as a green-faced zombie and attacks the teens.  During the struggle, their leader Dan (Michael Ruben) is killed.  The only resort is to put Dan in the river too and hope that once he is resurrected, the teenage zombie will have what it takes to bring down the undead dope pusher.

 

I Was a Teenage Zombie feels like a slightly more polished version of a Troma movie (which is fitting because Lloyd Kaufman gets namechecked at one point).  The gore includes tongue tearing, neck twisting, and there’s a pretty great face ripping scene too.  At one point, the zombie gets it on with one of the heroes’ girlfriends, so fans of zombie hanky-panky will probably enjoy it.  

 

While it’s better than your typical low budget zombie comedy, it’s far from perfect.  There are some real lulls in between the highlights and the ninety-one minute running time is a bit unwieldy at times.  Ultimately, I think it would have benefitted from some tighter editing and a snappier pace (Dan doesn’t turn into a zombie until the film is two-thirds of the way over), but it’s an entertaining and amusing horror-comedy.

 

An acid head dealer gets the best line of the movie when he bemoans the modern music scene and says, “I played a Duran Duran record backwards, and you know what it said?  NOTHING!”

PADDLETON (2019) ****

As someone who felt helpless standing by while a loved one bravely fought (and beat) cancer, I must confess, Paddleton affected me in a major way.  It captured the feeling of being along for the ride while someone close to you is in the grips of a deadly disease.  There’s literally nothing that you can do or say that will make things any better, so you’re best to face it with a sense of humor and by showing your loved one how much you care.

 

Although the film is about a friend (Ray Romano) helping his cancer-stricken pal (Mark Duplass) commit legal pharmaceutical suicide, it manages to be a very funny flick.  It’s essentially a road trip movie as the two friends head out on the road to obtain the drugs that will end his (eventual) suffering.  In the meantime, they do a little living along the way (though realistically, not much).  No one crosses anything off their bucket list or anything like that, but they do have a few experiences that bring the duo closer together.

 

The performances by Ray Romano and Mark Duplass are equally great.  From their awkward exchanges with other people, you get a sense the only person they will ever be able to relate to is each other.  I especially liked the fact that they spent so much time together watching Kung Fu movies (make that one specific Kung Fu movie).  In fact, they are so much alike in their own idiosyncrasies that many people assume they’re a couple.  

 

Paddleton ranks right up there with Manchester by the Sea as one of the best depressing comedies in recent memory.  Even though the subject matter is bleak, the performances are funny and the laughs are hearty.  Some will likely be turned off by the subject matter, but I say if you can’t laugh in the face of death, you might as well give up completely.

SUPER RIDER (1975) ***

Lots of boats and planes go missing in the Bermuda Triangle.  It seems fairly obvious it’s the work of a giant robot... right?  A brilliant professor then assembles a team to pilot their own giant robot to defeat the bad robot. 

 

Super Rider (which is the actual on screen title, though it appears on Tubi under the name The Iron Superman) features some of the worst special effects I have ever seen.  The robots look like toys bought from a 5 and 10 store.  The models are a complete joke.  The scaling is hilariously wrong.  

 

I kind of loved it. 

 

Super Rider must’ve been edited from a TV show as it jumps around quite a bit.  First, our hero is hired to man the giant robot.  Then, he’s apparently part of a team of robot pilots in the next scene.  The fact the dialogue is dubbed into German and presented with poorly translated English subtitles adds to the overall hallucinatory experience. 

 

The villain is hilarious too.  He looks like a wizard with Troll doll hair, and one of his pet giant robot’s weapons is an oversized wagon wheel.  He even has a goon squad who dress up like a football team and kick exploding footballs at our hero. 

 

The good guys have their fair share of lunacy as well.  Their robot, “Super Weapon” oddly has the initials “MB'' on its belt.  I mean, shouldn’t the initials be “SW”?  Its big move is to fire rockets out of its nipples, which… I mean… why not?  There’s also a comedic cop sidekick named “Porky” who flies in a hot air balloon motorcycle.  Speaking of cool vehicles, our hero also drives around in a Mach 5-style car.  In one scene, he drives it right up inside of Super Weapon’s butt!  

 

Although the budget for the robot battles was only about $4.25, they are nevertheless fun to watch.  The villainous robots have a variety of weapons like giant maces, drill arms, and psychedelic freeze rays.  While some of the fights get a bit repetitive, I can’t help but love any movie that features a scene in which a giant robot is crucified by the villains and later returns to life to kick ass.  That’s right, folks, we’re talking about Robot Jesus here. 

 

The cherry on top is the hilarious dialogue.  I’m sure a lot of things got lost in translation, but that only adds to the fun.  My favorite line was when Porky was talking to the heroes about the evil football team and said, “These guys are unfettered by scruples!”

 

AKA:  The Iron Superman. 

SONGBIRD (2020) ½ *

When you set out to make a movie during a pandemic, inevitably you have to make a movie ABOUT a pandemic.  I mean how else are you going to explain why (most) everyone in the cast is social distancing, communicating over their computer via Zoom, and sitting alone listening to podcasts?  I don’t know about you, but I just lived through a year and a half of this shit.  I don’t need to see another ninety minutes of it.

 

Songbird was produced by Michael Bay.  That explains why the virus in the movie is called COVID-23.  You can almost hear him in a pitch meeting:  “You know what would be even more jacked than COVID-19, bro?  COVID-23!  Isn’t that boss? That’s at least four more COVIDs than we have now!”

 

Nico (K.J. Apa) is an immune courier who rides his bike through the empty streets of a pandemic-ridden America delivering packages for his boss (Craig Robinson) while 99.9% of the population is stuck indoors.  When his girlfriend (Sofia Carson) is exposed to the virus, she is immediately scheduled for termination.  Nico then breaks protocol and risks his life to save her. 

 

Songbird is mostly a shitshow from start to finish.  The lone bright spot is the always lovely Alexandra Daddario who plays a sexy cam girl/YouTube singer.  I guess the fact that she sings makes her the “Songbird” of the title?  If that’s the case, she’s not in it nearly enough to justify naming the movie after her character.  You have to wonder if originally she was supposed to be the main character, but somehow, the other plot line managed to win out during the editing process.  The highlight comes when she participates in a weird sex scene that unfortunately ends way too abruptly to be worth a damn. 

 

The movie is brimming with a bunch of fine actors (Peter Stormare, Demi Moore, and Paul Walter Hauser among them) who are completely wasted as they are up the creek without a paddle in a sea of fragmented narratives that never really gel together.  At all times, it feels like a crass, joyless cash-in to exploit our common current struggle we find ourselves in. 

 

Also, it makes it really easy to hate when it’s just so fucking terrible. The erratic camerawork and incoherent editing during action didn’t do it any favors either.  In short, the shit Songbird pulls just doesn’t fly with me.

GIRL SHY (1924) ***

Harold Lloyd stars as an awkward tailor’s apprentice who stutters every time a woman engages him in conversation. The fact that he can’t even talk to the ladies doesn’t stop him from writing a fake tell-all book about his alleged romantic conquests. On the way to drop his book off to the publisher, he meets a wealthy woman (Jobyna Ralston) who’s betrothed to a greedy bigamist.  Needless to say, he falls head over heels in love with her.  Since Lloyd is poor, he thinks he doesn’t have a shot with his true love.  Once his book becomes a sensation (the publishers, who at first mocked Lloyd’s novel, eventually decide to release it as a comedy), he sets out to stop Ralston from marrying the no-good lout.

 

Girl Shy kind of suffers from a long winded build-up, but once it settles in and finds its groove, it’s quite enjoyable.  While there are several big laughs here, I can’t help but think that some of the gags would have benefited from sound (like the scene where Ralston smuggles her dog onto a train), which was still a few years away.  Still, there’s plenty of funny stuff here to make it worth a look.  Lloyd especially does a fine job during his date with Ralston where nothing seems to go right.  (During a romantic interlude, he sits on a turtle thinking it’s a rock and winds up in the middle of a pond.)

 

The extended finale where Lloyd races against the clock to stop the wedding is action packed and contains lots of cool stunts and big laughs.  He carjacks half a dozen automobiles, a policeman’s motorcycle, and even a trolley car in order to get to the church on time.  This sequence is among Lloyd’s best work and is a real testament to not only his gifts as a comedian, but as a fearless stuntman as well.  

OUT FOR BLOOD (1993) ***

Don “the Dragon” Wilson stars as a lawyer hellbent on revenge in this better-than-expected Death Wish clone.  After his wife and kid are killed by drug dealers, Don goes into a kill-crazy fit every time he even LOOKS at drugs.  When he literally stumbles upon a drug deal in the middle of the street, he goes Batman on the dealers.  Yes, dear reader, I just may have applauded during the bit where Don grabs a brick of cocaine and tears it apart with his bare hands in glorious slow motion. 

 

It’s not all perfect.  You have to put up with a lot of flashback/deranged visions/waking nightmare sequences that are intercut with the action.  Some of them kind of play out like the final Tommy Gunn fight at the end of Rocky V.  They aren’t too intrusive on the action though. 

 

Most of the nightmare/flashbacks are due to the fact that Don has “selective amnesia” and can only remember snippets from the night his family was killed.  When he beats up a random bozo who’s high on PCP, he seems to remember a little more.  In an effort to further jog his memory, he puts on a purple and black outfit, goes out into the city at night, and beats up on more bad guys!  (The press eventually dubs him, “The Karate Man”.)

 

Don does a respectable job, all things considered.  I mean, most of the time he just furrows his brow like he’s got an ice cream headache during his flashback scenes.  However, when it comes to kicking ass, he excels.  The supporting cast is strong too.  We get an early performance by Return of the Living Dead 3’s Melinda Clarke as Don’s dead wife.  With her pale, sexy features, she looks positively ghostlike in the dreamy flashbacks which help make them pretty effective.  Shari Shattuck is also around to essay the role of the prissy love interest, and Andy Sidaris staple Roberta Vasquez pops up as well playing a cop. 

 

Overall, Out for Blood is kind of dumb, but it’s my kind of dumb.  (The twist ending is especially ludicrous.)  Even though it’s a bit uneven in spots, I’d still rank it as one of Don’s best.  It’s highly enjoyable and lots of fun. 

 

Naturally, Don gets the best line of the movie when he tells his wife:  “I feel naked without my beeper!”

 

AKA:  Karate Man.  

WILD GALS OF THE NAKED WEST (1962) **

The first ten minutes or so of Russ Meyer’s Wild Gals of the Naked West did not inspire confidence.  In one scene, Russ stages an Indian attack on the beach where the only prop is a flag planted in the sand?!?  Next, he recreates the shootout at the OK Corral without the benefit of any cowboys.  In fact, no actors can be found in both sequences, which rely heavily on narration and camera movement to create a nonexistent action scene.  I think these two scenes were probably added after the fact to bolster the running time because immediately afterwards ANOTHER narrator (this time an onscreen drunk prospector) shows up to tell us about the titular women.   

 

Fortunately for the audience, things improve drastically from there.   

 

Russ keeps the gags and jokes coming at a steady pace.  Some are less successful than others, but there are a few hearty laughs to be had.  Mostly, the film plays out like a series of loosely connected Laugh-In-style sketches with a fair amount of nudity thrown in there to disguise the fact that much of it isn’t very funny.  (Some, but not all the women wear pasties.)  There are scenes inspired by Harpo Marx as there’s a guy in a red clown wig who chases women around.  We also get a guy in an ape suit that shows up randomly.  Halfway through, something of a plot emerges as a stranger moseys into town looking to tame the Wild West and encounters its wacky inhabitants.  

 

It ultimately doesn’t amount to much, but the rest of the movie isn’t nearly as terrible as the first ten minutes would suggest.  Most of this is so lightweight that it will barely even register.  However, if you want to watch a lot of bouncing bosoms in a Wild West setting, Wild Gals of the Naked West should fit the bill.  

 

AKA:  The Immoral West.  AKA:  Immoral Gals of the Naked West.  AKA:  Naked Gals of the Golden West.  AKA:  The Immoral West and How It Was Lost.  AKA:  The Naked West and How It Was Lost. 

THE PINK BIKINI GANG VS. THE BLACK COBRAS (2013) **

The Pink Bikini Gang vs. the Black Cobras is sort of like a south of the border version of Charlie’s Angels.  The only difference is that they don’t speak English and wear pink bikinis all the time.  Their evil rivals, the Black Cobras all wear black bikinis and have cobra tramp stamp tattoos.  When the Black Cobras steal a valuable microchip, it’s up to the Pink Bikini Gang to recover the chip and take down the bad bikini girls.   

 

This has slightly better production values than a typical shot on video movie.  The acting is pretty bad, and because I understand very little Spanish, the plot was virtually indecipherable.  The fact that it was apparently the second entry of a trilogy of which I haven’t seen the first and third films didn’t help either.  However, it has a lot of girls in bikinis, so it’s certainly easy on the eyes.   

 

For a Lucha Libre fan like me, it helped that it featured Hurricane Ramirez in a supporting role.  It’s obviously not the original Hurricane, and it’s possibly not even his son or one of his other descendants.  (It’s hard to tell for sure because he’s wearing a mask the whole time.)  However, his participation alone made some of this foolishness go down smooth.  He’s involved in a couple of training sequences where he whips the heroines into shape in a gym, and he also spars with another luchador named Poco Rojo.  Unfortunately, there’s not enough wrestling action here to qualify it as a Lucha Libre movie.   

 

Overall, The Pink Bikini Gang vs. the Black Cobras feels like a cheap Mexican variation on an Andy Sidaris movie.  It’s not awful or anything.  It’s just that there’s not enough action or skin to make it recommended.  Like the Sidaris films, there are tantalizing scenes where the ladies in the cast get dressed.  To me, it’s a true sign of sexiness when a woman can get you hot while putting their clothes ON.  Too bad the heroines wait a long time to change into their supposedly trademark pink bikinis.  At least the Black Cobras wear their black bikinis throughout.   

 

While The Pink Bikini Gang vs. the Black Cobras is fitfully amusing, it ultimately leaves a lot to be desired.  The low budget is probably the main culprit.  (There are lots of scenes set in hotel rooms and lobbies.)  Whenever things get slow, we are treated to endless scenes of girls in bikinis walking down hallways while brandishing handguns.  I’m sure this a fetish for someone out there, and I have no doubt that when they see it, they’re going to love it.  In the end, these scenes didn’t do much for me, especially after about the tenth time.

 

I might’ve been able to get on board with all of this if the climactic Bad Bikinis vs. Good Bikinis showdown wasn’t such a long time coming.  I will admit that the extended yoga ball training sequence that concludes the movie is pretty great though.  More pictures should end this way, if I can be completely honest. 

EVE AND THE HANDYMAN (1961) * ½

The persistent Eve (Eve Meyer, wife of the director, Russ Meyer) follows a handyman (Anthony James Ryan) all around town.  Wherever he goes, she spies on him (usually while he’s peeping on various women) and takes notes.  After about an hour of foolishness, we finally learn why Eve has been stalking him.   

 

At first, Eve and the Handyman seems like it is going to be a clever switcheroo on the old Peeping Tom plotline as we have a woman Peeping Tom (would that make her a Peeping Thomasina?) peeping on a Peeping Tom while he’s peeping.  However, very little is done with the concept as it’s just a clothesline to hang a bunch of innocent, unfunny, and just plain dumb comic relief scenes.  The jokes and sight gags are all pretty lame, but I guess that’s to be expected in a nudie-cutie, a genre that’s not exactly known for its crackling wit.  

 

The most perplexing scene occurs when the handyman dips off into the woods where a nurse is waiting for him.  He then changes into ER scrubs and delivers a baby tree?!?  (He even spanks the sapling’s bottom.)  I have no clue what the heck all this had to do with anything, except maybe pad out the running time.   

 

I could deal with all the scenes of the handyman perving on women in the bathroom as he cleans toilets, ogling secretaries while washing windows, and looking down the blouses of waitresses in an ice cream parlor.  The other comedy shit was downright painful.  The big reveal at the end is corny too. 

 

I guess most of this would’ve been easy to stomach if the nudity was up to Russ’s usual standards.  Unfortunately, the skin quotient is appallingly low.  (I guess Russ wasn’t about to let his wife be projected nude onto hundreds of movie screens nationwide.)  Mostly, all we get is a woman shown nude from behind in a laundromat and another who has a brief skinnydipping jaunt in a creek.  Alas, no frontage is shown.  The only real nude scene comes during an artist’s model sequence near the end, but it’s too little too late. 

 

I know most of Meyer’s early movies are a little on the tame side, but this one is awfully lightweight and cheesy.  It’s neither funny nor sexy and has to rank among his worst films.  It’s not all bad though.  There is one sequence in particular that showcases a glimpse of Meyer’s brilliance.  It’s a great send-up of the old hitchhiking scene from It Happened One Night that would’ve made its own great stag loop or one-reeler (if it featured any nudity, that is). 

MORTAL KOMBAT (2021) *** ½

Nostalgia is a tricky beast.  I’d say Mortal Kombat 1-3 are the last video games I have any real nostalgia for.  (At least in the arcade anyway.)  Would I have enjoyed this new Mortal Kombat movie if I didn’t have nostalgia for the old games?  Probably, but the nostalgia factor certainly helped put it over the top.  I mean, I really enjoyed the original film when it came out in the midst of Mortal Kombat mania.  However, with the benefit of nostalgia, this one seems… even better?   

 

Let’s face it, I haven’t played a Mortal Kombat game since Part 4, so I’m out of the loop when it comes to the new stuff.  The games now have Robocop and Rambo and shit in them, which to me makes it seem less like Mortal Kombat and more like Ready Player One.  The good news is, this new adaptation is pretty much aimed at old video game nerds like me who are only familiar with the older games. 

 

The original movie was the best film you could’ve made from that material.  What makes this version interesting is that it usurps our expectations.  Instead of having the plot take place almost entirely within the confines of a fighting tournament, it’s about the bad guy trying to kill off all the heroes BEFORE the tournament even happens.  Some fans may be dismayed by this, but i kind of dug it.  I mean, the tournament fighting plotline has already been done to fatality… I mean, death, so this was a nice little change of pace.   

 

While it may not be the film some Mortal Kombat fans were hoping for, it’s filled with plenty of great gory deaths and little moments that fans of the games will love.  I mean there’s a scene where someone is defeated by leg sweeps alone.  In the game, this was a cheap move that even the most novice player could do to beat someone.  It’s such a deep cut that it makes me want to give the movie Four Stars just for this scene alone.  I can’t quite do that though as the flick overall is far from perfect.  However, it does offer up tons of goofy, gory fun.

 

The cast is fairly strong too.  Josh Lawson is awesome as Kano.  Trevor Goddard was great in the original movie as Kano, playing him as the guy you loved to hate, but Lawson really ups the ante here.  Every time he’s on screen talking shit to the other combatants, it’s a pure joy to watch.  He steals every scene he’s in and gets all the best lines like, “Maybe your [special move] is getting beat up by a hat!”  Kabal was my favorite character in the Mortal Kombat 3 game, so it was a real treat to see him being brought to life, especially when the filmmakers made him such a total asshole (although maybe not as big of an asshole as Kano).  Damon (Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood) Herriman’s voice work for the character is outstanding too and he gets some big laughs as well.

 

I was a little hesitant about the new character, Cole Young (Lewis Tan) who acts as the leading man.  He’s not in the games, and is more of an audience substitute, which really wasn’t necessary.  Thankfully, his character worked out as well as could be expected.  At least they give him an important lineage that connects him back to the game.   

 

I could probably nitpick this down to a *** review, but it’s hard to dismiss some of the big crowd pleasing moments and gory demises that makes it so much fun.  My favorite death came via a buzzsaw, but the old school Kung Fu fan in me appreciated the nod to Riki-Oh too.  As a fan of the game, I will admit I applauded at several junctures, something I haven’t done with a movie in a long time.

 

Overall, I think I enjoyed this more than the first movie.  I liked the way it expanded the world and scope of the game and integrated more mythology and backstories into the mix.  It may not be a "Flawless Victory", but it's one of the best video game adaptations ever made and a helluva lot of fun. 

UNHINGED (2020) ** ½

Unhinged was the first major release of the pandemic and it’s easy to see why because it’s a thoroughly disposable (but mostly enjoyable) little thriller.  While at first glance it may seem like a loose remake of Duel, it’s actually closer in spirit to those ‘90s “From Hell” thrillers in which the protagonist finds themselves at the mercy of a psycho who intends to make their life a living Hell.  In this case, it’s the Road Rage Driver From Hell. 

 

Single mom Rachel (Caren Pistorius) finds herself running late on her way to work.  In a rush, she honks the horn at a truck who refuses to go at a green light.  When the driver (Russell Crowe) demands an apology for her rudeness, she ignores him, and takes off.  He soon follows her and sets out to terrorize her both on and off the highway. 

 

Unhinged is a perfectly serviceable thriller.  It would’ve looked right at home on video store shelves twenty-five years ago next to the likes of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Unlawful Entry, and The Temp.  It played just fine for me at home with zero expectations and little fanfare.  I think I might’ve been a little pissed if I paid money to see it in a theater during a global pandemic though.   

 

Pistorius is a solid heroine.  What’s interesting is that she probably could’ve diffused the situation early on.  Instead, she only enraged the driver more.  I know she was having a bad day and running late, but his day was even worse (he killed his ex-wife and her lover and burned their house down).  They say you should always be kind to others because you never know what they are going through.  This isn’t exactly what they meant by that, but I guess it is the extreme version of that proverb. 

 

Crowe packed on the pounds and sports a shaggy beard as the aggressive driver.  I’m not sure if this was his test run for an eventual DTV career or if he was just looking to sink his teeth into a villain role, but he’s not bad.  It might’ve been better if they went with someone who really knew how to chew the scenery though. 

 

The first and third acts work the best.  It’s here where the film leans heavy on Duel for inspiration as the cat and mouse chase plays out on the highway.  These sequences also give us a few quality vehicular homicides and crashes.  The middle section where Crowe makes a couple of pit stops to terrorize Pistorius’ nearest and dearest are kind of unnecessary and help drag the pace down.  However, whenever Unhinged keeps it on the road, it’s a decent flick. 

THE CUTTER (2006) **

Daniel Bernhardt kills a bunch of archaeologists in Egypt and steals some priceless jewels from a mummy’s tomb.  He then travels to Spokane, Washington and kidnaps the only diamond cutter (The Love Boat’s Bernie Kopell!) capable of cutting the stones.  His niece (Joanna Pacula) then hires an experienced private investigator (Chuck Norris) to find her father and recover the jewels.   

 

The Cutter finds Norris in fine form.  He’s a little older and not quite as spry as he used to be, but he delivers a good performance.  The supporting cast is equally good.  Bernhardt fares pretty well as the villain, who in addition to being a martial artist and assassin, is a master of disguise and is fluent in several languages.  He usually seems stiff and uncomfortable in a lot of his movies, but he makes for a solid adversary this time around.  Pacula is a strong (and age-appropriate) leading lady, and it was fun seeing Tracy Scoggins popping up in the mix as a sexy cop.  Love Boat fans will probably enjoy it just to see Kopell in his largest role in some time as the titular cutter.   

 

While The Cutter contains some solid performances and a decent premise, the shitty action sequences really take the wind out of the movie’s sails.  In addition to the lackluster fights, shootouts, and car chases, there’s also a bunch of unnecessary zoom ins and outs, rapid fire editing, shaky-cam camerawork, and camera shuttering during many of the action moments and/or transition scenes that will almost immediately get on your nerves.  I know, I know, you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a DTV action flick with terrible editing quirks in the ‘00s, but every time I see one it just further reinforces why so many of these things are sometimes painful to watch.  Fortunately, these little ticks become less and less frequent as the film wears on.  It’s just a shame that the big Bernhardt vs. Norris fights are close quarters affairs with uninspired choreography. 

 

Also, the flick is filled with a lot of unnecessary flashbacks that help pad out the running time.  It’s one thing for Chuck to have nightmares about the girl he couldn’t save early in the movie.  It’s another thing to have Bernhardt flashing back to killing the archaeologists, especially when we just saw him do it fifteen minutes earlier in the film.  If these moments had been cut, The Cutter would’ve moved along at a tighter clip.