TOMMOROW MOURNING (2007)

Look, I don’t want to discourage anyone from their dreams.

If making movies is something you want to do, then get out there and do it. But for god’s sake, don’t make something like TOMORROW MOURNING. And bad filmmaking should be treated like drunk driving: friends don't let friends make shit like this. When you lie to people and tell them what they're doing is good, you'll get TOMORROW MOURNING.

This shot on video mess is like CRASH, I’m guessing. I haven’t seen CRASH but the general jist of it seems the same. Matter of fact, here’s the premise straight from the horse’s mouth:

"premise.
it would seem as if we have control of our own lives and our own destinies. the life we lead is determined by the choices we make. the choices we must make are at times, if not always, somehow connected by the choices of others. do we really control our own fate? or is the randomness of it all so chaotic at first sight, that we cannot see how well organized life is, just below the surface.

this story is a glimpse into the lives of six strangers as they drift through life hoping the next door that opens will be the door to their salvation. they will all, in their own way, come to find that no matter what choices are made, life is not theirs to control. when a person hits the rocky bottom of their life they come to realize that at the bottom is where life truly begins.

each of these six people represent the foundation of the society we live in. more than a story about destiny, more than a story about prejudice and hatred, more than a look into the troubled lives of today's youth, tomorrow mourning is a harsh look into the darkest corners of society. it explores the idea that no part of society is exempt from loss and pain. there are two constants that remain true in all walks of life...time and pain. while time waits for no man, woman or child...pain does not discriminate."

The Kowalski version of the premise? A bunch of terrible actors with gay problems, drug problems, family problems and crime problems and goth problems and religious problems that come together in the same hotel room at the end.

And when I say come, I don’t even mean porno come, because if they did, it would have been a highlight of what could be the worst attempt at filmmaking.

Ever.

Actually, what’s more interesting is how I got the DVD. Walking around a Moviestop, I plucked it out of the comedy section. Apparently the makers of the film were engaging in guerrilla marketing and dropping off free copies in random places (you couldn’t ask anybody to pay for this). They even left a nice little note in Sharpie on the cellophane saying it’s free.

So I took it up to the cashier and said, Hey, it’s free. The Movie Stop employees were like what the fuck? Anyway, I took it home and waited a bit to watch it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t want to work on certain DVD players. After trying the third DVD player in the house, it loaded.

I consider myself an atheist, but I think that God people talk about may have been trying to tell me something. At least the Movie God.

Horrible overacting, cliched and miserable shakycam, a lot of meandering, a terrible script and the bad part is IT’S A FUCKING DRAMA. If you’re going to make a movie and not know how to make one, make aforementioned pornography, cheap gore, even a lame unfunny comedy.

But here’s the real kicker. THE GODDAMN THING IS ALMOST 3 HOURS LONG!

The director and co-writer, David Petlansky, is either the most egotistical man on the planet with a bunch of those friends I mentioned earlier who lie to him or he’s fucking clinically insane. Not only is it almost three hours long, but two discs chock full of crap nobody, not even the parents of everyone involved, would care about. Director and cast commentary, Deleted scenes (!), Behind the Scenes, Outtakes, Interviews.

Jesus Fucking Christ, Petlansky and Company are insane! It’s the only answer for this mess.

If they aren’t insane, it’s astounding how insulated from the real world the filmmakers are. It’s almost worth it to track down a copy to say that you have the worst movie ever made in your collection, with extras to boot. Not to kick a dog when its down, but I was so taken aback by the sheer awfulness of it all that I had to go to the film’s website.

Well, there’s no more website apparently. But there is a Myspace page. And, as no god as my witness, it’s in Myspace Music. Not Myspace Film.

Does the insanity ever stop with these people?

No, because you can go over to Café Press and SHIRTS WITH PICTURES OF PEOPLE FROM THE MOVIE AND THEIR CHARACTER’S NAMES ON THEM! Or the logo of the movie as well. For $19.

I clicked on the TM News button on the site and was taken over to a live journal page which hasn’t been updated for a year.

They sent the frigging thing to Cannes.

But this seals the deal. The people behind this monstrosity are certifiable. On Feb 1, 2007, the director (I’m assuming) wrote:

“i am so confident that tm is going to sneak up and blow some people away.”

You have. My god, you have.

When you make Andy Milligan look like Martin Scorsese, you have blown people away.

Am I being rude? If not blowing smoke up somebody's ass is considered rude nowadays. Unnecessarily mean? Not at all. Somebody has to tell these people that they've made an unwatchable vanity piece that almost begs to be seen just to prove it exists.

They've shown they've got the wherewithall to make a feature. Now they need to get some talent. Or at least work on other people's movies that have it.

My head hurts so much right now thinking about all this,I may sue.

BLADES OF GLORY (2007)

I guess at one time I was a Will Ferrell fan. I still am. I think.

However, BLADES OF GLORY wasn’t a movie I was going to run out and see. Since I no longer subscribe to the pop culture machine as much as I used to, when the trailers first showed up on TV and the theaters, I shook my head and wondered why. Another one about a marginal sport? It also seemed slapdash, like it sat on the shelf for a while and was coming on the heels of the hit, TALLADEGA NIGHTS, which really blew.

Kind of like TEEN WOLF to BACK TO THE FUTURE.

It’s showing on HBO now and I caught it tonight. Well, not the whole thing. I kept getting pestered by my drunk family members into stoking fires, hooking up a record player and eating Bojangles chicken. The dog needed some attention as well. Not once did I ever get pissed about having to get up and quit watching the movie.

It was that bad.

But it had a few amusing parts. The first male/male skate competition to get to Montreal had a chuckle or to. Jenna Fischer is easy on the eyes. Jon Heder is quite annoying though.

Ferrell’s drunk macho man shtick is funny, always has been, but it is getting a bit tiresome.

But who cares? People like it. People can do what they want. But people are stupid too.

I probably saw a total of 35 minutes of the movie, walking in and out between the beginning and the ending. I feel like I watched the whole film.

And now, there’s SEMI-PRO. I think Ferrell is going to kill his career or re-make Leif Garrett’s foosball classic LONGSHOT (1981). One or the other, or possibly both.

NEVER BACK DOWN from a clichéd KARATE KID script.

Some people just don’t get it. Look at those doofs called “critics” at Rotten Tomatoes who are slagging one of the better popcorn pictures of our still young year.

I fortunately do get it. And it’s good for you that I know what I’m talking about. That I know what I know. That I appreciate a good re-hash as long as it ups the ante on the exploitation it’s exploiting. And NEVER BACK DOWN? Well, it does just that.

Without me, you’d probably just dismiss this well-handled B-movie until it showed up on Spike TV at three in the morning.

Now to be quite honest, it’s not even a re-hash of THE KARATE KID (1984). It shares the same lineage, but really it’s a re-hash of the vastly underrated SHOWDOWN (1993), the Billy Blanks vehicle that starred him as a school janitor teaching a nebbish new student martial arts so he can beat up the kid who’s the school’s martial arts master and get his now ex-girlfriend (an early role for Ben Stiller’s wife, Christine Taylor). Of course, SHOWDOWN was a direct re-hash of KARATE KID, but the camp humor that abounded throughout made it stand out from the KARATE KID re-hash pack and ultimately surpass the vastly overrated KARATE KID itself. It also helps if you have the late Brion James as an irreverent school principal in your cast. If you haven’t seen SHOWDOWN, get thee to Ebay.

In NEVER BACK DOWN, Jake Taylor (Sean Faris, “One Tree Hill”) is a football player from Iowa with natural American Streetfighting ability who moves to Orlando, FL after the drunk driving death of his father and so his tennis-prodigy little brother can attend some tennis academy. Before you think we may get some tennis circuit hi-jinks ala THE BREAK (1995), the Vincent Van Patten cult classic that was THE KARATE KID of tennis, let it be known that the kid thinks his brother’s fighting is way cooler than tennis, which worries Jake’s bitchy mom (Leslie Hope, “RoboCop: Prime Directives”) because she blames Jake for the father’s death and doesn’t really like him or his fighting. Jake was with his dad the night he died and instead of taking the keys from him, he let Pops drive. Of course, if he didn’t let his dad kill himself, then he’d have no fuel to fight and NEVER BACK DOWN would be without its driving catalyst.

Now the second driving catalyst is high school rich boy/master of mixed martial arts is Ryan McCarthy (Cam Gigandet, WHO”S YOUR CADDY?) who beats Jake’s ass in a fight at a party. McCarthy’s girl, Baja (Amber Heard, ALPHA DOG), sets Jake up by inviting him to his own ass-kicking, but really, she just wants to Greco-Roman wrestle with the new guy. Jake’s new buddy, Max (Evan Peters, “Invasion”), convinces Jake that his natural American Streetfighting ability would gel well with mixed martial arts and therefore he takes up the ass-kicking business by training with Senegal-by-way-of-Brazil Jean Roqua (Djimon Hounsou, DEEP RISING), a mixed martial arts trainer whose got some of his own demons to fight and therefore ended up near Disney World.

At the end of NEVER BACK DOWN, there’s a big tournament and a happy ending. Which I knew was going to happen. You know it’s going to happen. It’s supposed to happen. In this post-post-irony period, if he didn’t win, it would look cliché.

What works best about NEVER BACK DOWN is that it succeeds greatly in giving the intended action audience what it wants. Many films nowadays (let’s say for example, the GONE IN 60 SECONDS remake) promise a decent enough trailer and the end result when all put together is stupendously boring and contemptuous of its demographic. Not the case here.

Every cliché is lovingly rendered for the 21st Century, every punch and crunch professionally sound designed for maximum cringe-inducing effect and every ass-kicking expertly staged by fight choreographers Damon Caro (DAWN OF THE DEAD remake) and Jonathan Eusebio (MAX HAVOC:CURSE OF THE DRAGON). Mucho kudos to director Jeff Wadlow (CRY WOLF) who took this son-of-a-bitch seriously; his attention to detail shows in the final product. Hell, he even rips off the x-ray bit from Chiba’s original STREETFIGHTER (1975) so you know he’s done his genre homework.

Let’s also give it up to writer Chris Hauty, whose only other IMDB credit was writing Disney’s HOMEWARD BOUND II. Was it desperation that led him to pitch KARATE KID meets UFC in Walt’s backyard? Whatever it was, bully for him, putting the pieces together where they need be (although, Chris, you know this shit is SHOWDOWN. You can’t fool me.)

One of the most important technical parts of NEVER BACK DOWN is that logic is never even hinted at. Genre movies lately try to inject logic in what is essentially an illogical universe, i.e. the movies.

At this new school in Orlando, EVERYBODY is all about mixed martial arts, kind of like Vince Lombardi High, where EVERYBODY was all about the Ramones, a world that only exists in the movies, which is what I want when I go to the movies.

There’s no cops, no punishment for those involved in illegal fighting or uploading teen fighting videos on the Internet and no monitoring of any of the kid’s activities in any way shape or form. These people don’t really exist so their world doesn’t exist thus making it an extremely fragile netherworld whose only enemy is any semblance of logic, which at that point would disrupt its universe like bad kryptonite and render NEVER BACK DOWN unforgivably pointless.

Needless to say, a cinematic experience like this is extremely rare and deserves your attention.

But NEVER BACK DOWN really deserves you attention because it’s never boring, consistently brutal and heart-warmingly familiar throughout its whole 110 minute running time. Like RAMBO, it promises what’s in the trailer. Unlike RAMBO, it doesn’t give you more. But for a SHOWDOWN rip-off, you don’t expect it to.

NEVER BACK DOWN is a great matinee or a fun night at the drive-in. And if you frequent the megaplex nowadays, these movies are few and far between. That said, this is the second action film in 2008 I can say that about.

Maybe something is happening in Hollywood.

AMERICAN NINJA (1985)

Yeah, I know what you’re saying. AMERICAN NINJA? That old shit?

It’s old. I give you that. But I can honestly say that they don’t make them like this anymore. And that’s a shame.

AMERICAN NINJA (1985) is a classic 80’s actioner brought to us by the late and sometimes not-so-great Cannon Films. Cannon, as you know, was bought and ran into the ground by Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus. They specialized in low-budget action with the occasional foray into art-house cinema. Say what you want about Golan-Globus, but they did give us BARFLY (1987) and INVASION USA (1985).





You can’t even begin to talk about Cannon without mentioning the Chuck Norris films they bankrolled. Hell, they MADE Chuck Norris the icon he was. They also kept the DEATH WISH movies going as well keeping Charles Bronson on the screen up until the early 90’s. Can anyone forget the OVER THE TOP (1987) debacle with Sly? I can’t. I wouldn’t want to.

Wedged in all this Hollywood excess was AMERICAN NINJA, a 1985 low budget action pic filmed in the Philippines and starring Michael Dudikoff (BACHELOR PARTY, 1984) and Steve James (THE EXTERMINATOR, 1980).

Cannon even created a cottage industry for Dudikoff. How many people can say that?

So tell me about this AMERICAN NINJA, you say.

Joe Armstrong is a quiet loner who commits a crime and is given a choice: go to jail or join the army. This makes me wonder if the script they dusted off was from the 60’s. So of course Joe chooses the army. Now Joe isn’t your ordinary quiet loner. Joe is a ninja. He doesn’t even know he’s a ninja; the shit just comes naturally. You see, that’s because Joe has amnesia that he contracted from a blast that knocked him out when he was an orphan on an island being trained by a Japanese WWII soldier who lived on the island and didn’t even know the war was over.



It’s like the 60’s script was jacked up, a little bit of BLACK STALLION was attached and the story outfitted with a set of brand new ninja mania that was still in vogue at the time (Sho Kosugi’s PRAY FOR DEATH was the same year, mind you).



So now Joe is having his ninja awakening and running afoul of the military. He’s befriended by Steve James, who takes an asswhooping by Joe in front of the whole Army, and tries to convince him to stage martial arts exhibitions for money, as if they could get out of the Army whenever they want and travel around staging martial arts demonstrations like carnies.

Now it just so happens that there have been a lot of Army trucks being hijacked that have a lot of weapons on them. Instead of finding out what’s going on or Washington coming in and investigating, the brass sits around with their thumbs up their asses. This do-nothingness lets Joe poke his nose around to find out the truth about the hijackings. Any reasonable investigation or governmental action and there’d be no AMERICAN NINJA.

It’s easy to make fun of a movie like this. The writing is awful and none of it makes any sense. It’s overcast in the shot but the next cut it’s sunny. But it’s a true action movie, and goddamn if it doesn’t give you true action. It’s what’s missing from action movies nowadays. Real stunts by real people. And ninjas. Ever since John Woo, no more Americanized ninjas (who apparently like to dive out of the way a lot).





blow up, guns shoot shit up, model helicopters get bazooka-ed, and there’s hand-to-hand/sword-to-torso ninja combat all over. All of this is executed with exploitation craftmanship by Cannon action specialist Sam Firstenberg. Firstenberg not only helmed AMERICAN NINJA, he got to come back and make AMERICAN NINJA 2: THE CONFRONTATION (1987). He also made the Dudikoff/James vehicle AVENGING FORCE (1986). Firstenberg is a man’s man action director. There’s no pretense at all: set up the situation and film the destruction. An action film like I remember.





A lot of people can find a lot to laugh at within AMERICAN NINJA, but they can’t say it isn’t competent filmmaking. It’s aged well, and most people would be surprised at how well done the action scenes are and more so, how well it is all put together. The terrible plot and occasional overacting add to the fun and the exotic Filipino location and extras are wonderful to look at (sadly, no Vic Diaz). Plus smack dab in the middle is Judie Aronson, who played Wyatt’s lust object in WEIRD SCIENCE the same year. What a quinela, Judie! Way to go.



AMERICAN NINJA, while not obscure, more than likely will fade even more from view within the coming years. People remember it mostly from cable and remember it fondly but no one actively seeks it out. Dudikoff did some more Cannon actioners like PLATOON LEADER (1988) and RIVER OF DEATH (1989) and Steve James sadly passed away in 1993 after headlining in some of his own overlooked straight to video gems like STREET HUNTER (1990) and RIVERBEND (1990). Firstenberg was well versed in ninjas by this time, having already made REVENGE OF THE NINJA (1983) and NINJA III: THE DOMINATION (1984). In terms of smooth moves, he made the ninja-esque BREAKIN’ 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO (1984). He’s still workin’, thank the movie gods.

AMERICAN NINJA eventually made its way up to 5 with David Bradley taking over the titular role (Dudikoff costarred in 1990’s AMERICAN NINJA 4: THE ANNIHILATION) but none of them ever made the grade like the original. Ninjas became old hat and Cannon made AMERICAN KICKBOXER I (1991) and Firstenberg’s AMERICAN SAMURAI (1992) but by that time, poof, no more Cannon.



I’d like to think AMERICAN NINJA would become a cult classic, but the truth is, it may be too well-made for its own good to attain such status. Doesn’t matter. I think its tops and hopefully, you’ll take another look at it and agree.

CLOVERFIELD (2008)

My cousin calls me and says, “Hey cousin, let’s go see that CLOVERFIELD movie.”

I was half-drunk so I said, sure, why not? Plus it’s only $4 bucks at the drive-in. However bad it is won’t matter, because I’ve got enough beer to get full on drunk. And I’m a positive guy. I look at things as at least half-full whilst full on drunk.

CLOVERFIELD starts out with a bumper saying that the following footage is government property or some shit. I only kind of remember that part because now, I was about ¾ drunk. Anyway, there’s these yuppies in New York and they’re all rich and white and are filming the going away party of one of their rich yuppie friends whose job is sending them to Japan.

So basically, in no way, can I relate with any of these people. Something needs to stomp these people now.

About 15 minutes in, the shaky cam is getting to me. And I’m waiting on some stomping. I ask my cousin if its me or is the movie really that shaky. He tells me the whole movie is going to be that shaky.

It’s about now that I realize being full on drunk at CLOVERFIELD is not a good thing.

So this BLAIR WITCH/CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST with a Harryhausen tinge sci-fi’er takes a bit of time to get going. I guess to set up the characters enough that you want them to get stomped by something. Although that Malena or Marena girl is hot. I don’t know her name in the movie; it was something to that effect…Marena, Malena. I don’t know.

Look, I was drunk…

Anyway, then the thing shows up. It’s some kind of monster. Matter of fact, my cousin says it looks like that thing from THE MIST. And what little you see of it is kind of cool because the movie really is about the rich white yuppies’ trying to find this girl the Japan-bound guy loves and kind of fucked up his chance at smoochies with. Actually he did more than smoochies. Then he didn’t call her. Then she shows up at his going to Japan party with another dude. I also think one of the rich white yuppies was actually black or not all white. But she acted pretty white. I don’t know.

Look, I was drunk…

What’s most important to know is that CLOVERFIELD isn’t a monster movie as much as it’s a road-trip love story, kind of like Charlie Sheen’s immortal THREE FOR THE ROAD from 1987 with Kerri Green from THE GOONIES but filmed by an epileptic who obviously has no respect for Charlie Sheen movies from the 80’s. Because if he did, he would put the fucking camera on a tripod.

Look, I may be a tad drunk right now…

Towards the end of CLOVERFIELD, the camera finally comes to a stop. No shaky. By about halfway in, the thought of puking my guts out occurred to me about 300 times. This shit is really, really shaky and made me physically ill. But when that camera stopped, and my eyes tried to focus after 70 + minutes of Chinese-Olympic-caliber eyeball ping-pong, I puked.

All over the side of my cousin’s car. All the way to the shit-stank restroom. Right onto a piss-splattered toilet with a roll of toilet paper shoved in it for good measure. After puking, I looked over to the right of the stall to see these words etched into a 50th coat of red paint: WILL WORK FOR HOME DEPOT.

Jesus, I wish I was going to Japan. Chicks apparently like the vomit over there anyways.

I’ve seen the videos. I know these things. And in no way are they shaky like CLOVERFIELD. But the funny thing is, those videos didn’t make me puke.

Moral of the story: Don’t go see CLOVERFIELD drunk. Maybe don’t go see it all at the theater. For you general well being, it may be safer to watch it at home.

And stay away from those Japanese shit-puke videos.

They’ll scar you for life.

For more information on Charlie Sheen’s immortal THREE FOR THE ROAD, please go to its IMDB entry at

STORM WARNING (2007)

For a horror-thriller that breaks no new ground, the Australian STORM WARNING is a passable DELIVERANCE meets TEXAS CHAINSAW hybrid that delivers the gore (briefly) but fails in the brutality department. This damn thing needs to be a lot more brutal than it is. And the brutality that’s there doesn’t have any conviction.

This Australian lawyer and his French artist wife get lost in the mangroves while boating and take refuge in a perfectly art-directed slob palace. You’ve seen them before: houses in a horror movie that are designed to let the audience know that, hey, the family that lives here are psycho rapists.

They also happen to be pot growers. And the lawyer ruins their pot. Which also makes the psycho rapists a little more psycho rapisty in the long run.

So the father and his two sons who psycho rape the place up on a regular basis lock our two protagonists in the barn for most of the movie and terrorize them. They also have to contend with a psycho rapist mutt named Honky. Of course, using their artist and lawyer cunning, they fight back. Actually the French artist fights back because the Australian lawyer is too pussy to fight and gets a broken leg due to his pussiness.

As far as acting goes, the pussy lawyer is pretty much a statue. The French artist is perfectly realized by Nadia Fares (CRIMSON RIVERS). She’s no Ripley, but she lends the character a nice blend of femininity and resilience. The psycho rapists aren’t a bad lot of actors either, providing the off-kilter menace scumbags like these need.

However, the film itself is so pedestrian, it’s hard to recommend it, even as a weekend time-waster. The film looks good overall, but we’ve seen this so many times that this exercise in commendable, competent filmmaking is a crushing bore (Jamie Blanks, director of URBAN LEGEND and VALENTINE helms the pic, which now makes me realize why STORM WARNING is so blah).

STORM WARNING’s biggest mistake is that it pulls back on its brutality on numerous occasions, as if the makers are almost too scared to push anything over the limit. The new-jack horror filmmakers today who do push it do it with such fan boy glee that it neuters the subject matter’s impact. STORM WARNING had such a good shot at being a total bastard of a movie but it’s telling that the film’s only real attempt at pushing any boundary, the slaughtering of an obviously fake baby kangaroo, is such a self-conscious attempt at being edgy that it completely distracts from where the real brutality and taboo breaking lies: are these psycho rapists going to rape and murder BOTH of their city-bred captives?

At numerous points in the film are references to their sexual deviancy. The best the filmmakers can do is slaughter a wallaby and have the psycho rapists watch horse-porn (which is about as perverted here as a Zucker Brothers comedy, given the ridiculous overdubbed whinny of the horse).

STORM WARNING is released on the Dimension Extreme label but the only thing extreme about it is how extremely yawn-inducing the film as a whole ends up being.

This type of film is better handled by Canadians. Somebody should have slipped the script to Paul Lynch (who was born in the UK, but makes Canada a viable exploitation mecca).

LEGEND OF BIGFOOT (1976)

Sometimes catching the first flick of the night at the drive-in is a bummer. Tonight was a triple feature at the Rita, a drive-in I found in Clarkston, GA, that started with THE LEGEND OF BIGFOOT, which I was pretty excited about. I love that Bigfoot. The way he just walks around, leaving footprints, taking a shitty picture and stinking up the place. It turns out though that THE LEGEND OF BIGFOOT, while having a bit of Bigfoot in it, was really just one of those nature films from the 1970’s padded with stock footage.

You know the kind I’m talking about. The ones that put animals together that would normally not ever interact. Like cats and coyote puppies. Coyote puppies and skunks. Coyote puppies and chickens. Cougars playing with rabbits. There’s a lot of that here in BIGFOOT. It’s pretty cool, but you either need to be shit-faced drunk or terribly hung-over to appreciate it. Why? I don’t know why. It’s just one of those strange genres that can’t be enjoyed unless your inebriated or suffering.

The pic focuses on Ivan Marx, a tracker who hunts renegade animals for various people when the animals come around and start fucking up the natural order of things. Then somehow he gets hooked on Bigfoot to the point that his “head is reeling with Bigfoot”. That’s a pretty fair description of my mindset going in. Except I got no Bigfoot. I got coyote puppies and skunks, but no Sasquatch.

Marx is a pretty dramatic motherfucker, too. Throughout the narration, he’s “mystified”, “uncomfortable” and “prejudiced”. For a backwoods tracker, he’s a complex man.

Once he gets the Bigfoot bug, he gets all self-righteous in his demand for people to believe in Bigfoot and the use of Bigfoot’s name to sell things, like Bigfoot was God or something. All I know is that this shit is boring. This ain’t no NIGHT OF THE DEMON, I’ll tell you that. Ain’t nobody getting their junk ripped off by an evil Bigfoot.

So around the time of the eviscerated dead bear frozen in death with a seig heil pose, I wandered over to the other lot to see if Freddy was in row 8 to get some weed. Freddy, I was told by the management of the Rita, always has the best weed if not the best taste in movies. I scored a dime bag, smoked that shit and LEGEND OF BIGFOOT didn’t get any better. It was too late.

I expected better from director Harry Winer, the gaffer on Ken Osborne’s WOMEN UNCHAINED. Lately he’s been doing a lot of TV, directing VERONICA MARS and stuff.

ROAD SCHOLAR : Codrescu Don’t Know Shit About America. Maybe.

ROAD SCHOLAR used to be a big rental at the video store I worked at in Atlanta. I never disliked the movie, but I always found it a bit condescending towards its interviewees. I attributed it to the fact that no matter where he was from, the narrator/star, Andrei Codrescu, still comes across as a stereotypical intellectual elitist. I mean, for god sakes, he gets Allen Ginsburg to bless the trip. One problem I had was that there were so many other positive things he could have turned the spotlight on but he chose the more freaky people as a way to ridicule America. Another problem I had upon reflection was that the movie itself completely misses, what I think, is one of the most unique American pastimes: attending the drive-in theater.

Considering the car motif and his desire to find the true America, thiswould be a natural shoo in for inclusion in the film. Codrescu was obviously in this country when the drive-in was still popular so how could he miss this American institution started by Richard Hollingshead in Camden, New Jersey back in 1933? Thinking about this made me want to go to the drive-in here in Jacksonville, The Playtime Drive-In on Blanding Boulevard, which has been in operation since 1948. GRINDHOUSE was opening and a perfect cinematic fit since the films contained within, PLANET TERROR and DEATH PROOF, tried to replicate the American exploitation films that were tailor made for the drive-in crowd and inner city movie palaces that found themselves short on supply with the proliferation of the multiplex. And by the way , quit using the word grindhouse. Makes people think you only read Maxim or The New York Times. Plus you may get drunkenly punched in the face by my compadres, Jimbo and The Murph.

It was a perfect night for the drive-in. The sky was clear and the air was cool. The show started at 9:30 but I figured I'd get there a little early and stake out a decent spot. The Playtime is pretty dirt and I mean that literally. To set the scene, the rows are grass and the areas to drive on in between can't remember what asphalt looked like. The marquee has these thin slide-in plastic letters that seem to blow off with a decent breeze. It advertises GRINDHOUSE as GRINDE.

Pulling up to the ticket booth, there's a little black felt sign with the slits you can stick white letters in advertising tonight's movies. The choices are FIREHOUSE DOG, ARE WE DONE YET, BLADES OF GLORY, DEATH PROOF and PLANT TERROR, which is not my typo. The lady at the booth asks me what movie I want to see and I tell her GRINDHOUSE. Taking my money, she flubs, "Screen 1...no...3." I get my ticket and the flyer that tells what time each movie is playing, the radio station the sound comes through on and on what screen the movie is playing. The flyer indicates GRINDHOUSE is playing on screen 2.

All the new movies released on Friday usually play on screen 3, which is the biggest one. Since the info is skewed on which screen GRINDHOUSE is actually playing on, I go with the aforementioned mental reference and drive over to screen 3. The drive-in is packed tonight, which is a heartwarming thing.

I think of Andrei Codrescu, sitting in his ivory tower or pontificating about poetry on NPR. No way he’d lower himself to spending a night under the stars with us lower middle class rejects too stupid to realize the same movies are playing right down the street in a modern megaplex. After a few moments driving around, I find the perfect place to park up front and head to the concession stand for a Coke and a confirmation on GRINDHOUSE’s correct screen showing.

The concession and projection are in the same rickety old garage looking building and stepping into the place is an absolute time warp. I grab my Coke and the guy who's usually doing the cooking takes my money. I ask him very politely on what screen GRINDHOUSE is actually playing:

GUY: (gruff and loud and white trash southern) It says #2 on the flyer!

ME: Yeah, but the ticket booth lady said “Screen 1...no...3"

GUY: (rolls eyes) Pssh!

There’s no real answer to my question, just the guy being a complete fucking asshole.

My perfect spot is useless so I fire up my old Mazda MX-3 and slowly maneuver through the potholes and broken glass to screen 2. I actually find a decent spot off to the right and get situated. Screen 2 was the last screen erected several years ago and is awfully makeshift. Since there was never any real schematic for actual spaces, people just park anywhere they please and hornet’s nest doesn't even begin to describe the nightmare that this area of the drive-in can be. Off to my right, in a field of weeds sits a decaying motor home. I've never noticed it before and it's creepy as hell.

Being early, I'm forced to watch the last hour of FIREHOUSE DOG. Anybody who knows me knows I'm a sucker for funny animal humor and boy, does this have it in spades. I tell you, when the dog gets taken away from the kid by his real jerk owner and later he hears the kid’s dad’s fire truck drive by and jumps from a high rise balcony onto an awning and bounces off , landing on all four paws, then runs after the fire truck and they see him and the music swells and all the firemen yell “Come on, Boy!” and he jumps, in slow motion, onto the back of the fire truck, well damn it, I almost cried like a baby. As a whole, the film is competent but is incredibly juvenile and unexciting. With so many kids’ movies today that have proved themselves more sophisticated, FIREHOUSE DOG is kind of like that kid who really doesn’t have a learning disability but somehow gets stuck in the remedial classes every year. The credits show it was directed by Tom Holland, director of FRIGHT NIGHT and CHILD’S PLAY, writer of CLASS OF 1984, PSYCHO II and THE BEAST WITHIN. What the fuck happened there?

Then come GRINDHOUSE. The movie starts and the trailer for a fake action film called MACHETE is squished. The projectionist has got the wrong aperture lens on. I figure, maybe they’ll notice it, but of course they don’t. After 15 minutes, I goto the concession stand to let them know. There’s a girl working the register who looks like Mo’Nique and old It’s-On-The-Flyer Guy is back flipping burgers. There’s a good number of people in the concession stand and the burgers actually smell good. I step up to the register and inform the girl that I think they got the wrong lens on because the picture’s squished:

GIRL: (Covers eyes with hand in exasperation and turns to Flyer Guy) There’s a customer saying the picture on GRINDHOUSE is all squished.

FLYER GUY: (turns around, spatula in hand, speaks in condescending tone) It’s supposed to be that way. It’s GRINDHOUSE.

ME: I think you got the wrong lens on, man. It ain’t supposed to look like that.

FLYER GUY: It’s GRINDHOUSE.

ME: But it’s still not supposed to look like that.

FLYER GUY: It’s GRINDHOUSE. It’s a drive-in movie. YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHING YET!

I really can’t believe I’m having this conversation. I really can’t believe he thinks I’m that stupid. I just say whatever and go back to the car.

After getting back in the MX-3, I watch the film in all its squishy glory for about 5 more minutes and decide I’m going to get my money back. I was all stoked to see this at the drive-in and now it’s ruined, but I stop myself and say “Hubbs, yer being a little bitch, just like Flyer Guy.” Then the film does that thing where the frame slips and you can see the frame line in the middle of the screen. This puts the actor’s eyes and nose at the bottom and his mouth and chin at the top. I don’t know what this is called but let me know if you do. For now I’ll just call it annoying and annoying goes on for 5 minutes. To hell with this, I say…then it gets fixed, and so does the aperture lens. From then on, it’s pretty smooth sailing until after PLANET TERROR, when they just shut the projector off. These people are nuts, but at least I get to go to the bathroom.

While in the bathroom, I have all these really mean and elitist thoughts about how much of a jerk that guy was and how much he deserves to be flipping burgers in a ramshackle drive-in. Then I think that maybe Andrei Codrescu wasn’t so wrong after all. These freaky people do dot our lives everywhere and anywhere and when we least expect it, there they are. I should embrace their kookiness, not project my own personal insecurities on them. So in retrospect, ROAD SCHOLAR takes on a whole other life for me now and beckons for another viewing. As I head back to the Mazda for DEATH PROOF, I silently offer apologies to Codrescu and Flyer Guy for my judgmental ways. For the record, DEATH PROOF sucks the balls but the car chase and stunts are pretty fucking killer.

GROUND RULES (1997)

(Additional review material provided by my Dad, who wandered in and was so entranced by this film’s awfulness, he couldn’t leave)

Welcome to the year 1997. Hong Kong will revert to China, TITANIC will rule the box office, and in California, there will be Guys On Dirt Bikes With Metal TracBall Claws Trying To Throw A Metal Sphere Into A Hole On The Back Of A Speeding Dune Buggy While A Bunch Of Schmoes Watch It Live On Closed-Circuit TV In Shitty Strip Mall Sports Bars-Ball, or Battle Ball for short.

Thus explains the game in GROUND RULES, a film by Patrick G. Donahue, creator of the goofy action classic KILL SQUAD (1982). This mess stars Sean Donahue (Pat’s son), the ever badass Frank Stallone and forever creepy Richard Lynch. The sport is called Battle Ball but every one in the film just refers to it as “the game” most of the time.

It’s probably just as well since calling it Battle Ball constantly would only make the movie more stupid than it actually is. Stupid is not a bad thing. With the no-budget and general lack of any original ideas (it took four people to write the script), stupid is all this movie has to propel it along.

Within the first few minutes, we have plenty of motocross action, a dune buggy flipping every time someone scores a point by lobbing the ball in the hole on the back of it, terrible crowd reaction shots and porn star extras picking up extra scratch by walking around taking book from horny, drunk non-actors. Did I mention the guy who fights back against some goombahs (their boss, Case (Lynch), wants to take over the dude’s bar) by grabbing a hockey stick, jumping on his desk, then slipping on his desk calendar, making him fall backward off the desk and into his chair, which proceeds to roll right out the window and onto the hoods’ car below?

Stupid is all this movie has and it knows it. Jack, (Sean Donahue) wants to ride in “the game” so bad, he’s a mechanic for bad guy Case’s team, where he’s bullied by dirty rider Rick (Frank Stallone). He applies to ride with a team run by Blue, an old drunk guy resembling Joe Eszterhas, who owns a shitty sports bar in a strip mall. When Rick takes out Blue’s best rider, Matt, during a game and renders him a paraplegic vegetable, Jack is in. From there he makes it his mission to bring Rick and Case down “because they’re ruining the game.”.

There’s a terrible subplot involving a U.S. senator involved with Case that doesn’t make sense, a horrible love interest Jack never kisses until the end (they always hug, whichprompted my dad to ask, “Why doesn’t he kiss her or fuck her or something?”) and some of the worst acting I’ve ever seen. Ever. And I’ve seen a lot.

That said, there’s some pretty good stunts including a car jumping another car and shearing the top off, a couple of people run over and bounced across the hood, roof and trunk and the same Battle Ball race repeated over and over. Now when anything gets too boring during the race, Donahue cuts to consumer video cameras that are placed around the track that miraculously shoot 35mm film which gets broadcast to the bars. There seems to be only two bars that cater to Battle Ball, which I find hardly appealing enough to corrupt a U.S. senator (as well as bring him down in one of the worst sub plot wrap-ups I’ve ever seen), much less provide a steady stream of revenue that requires killing folks. To be fair, it’s implied that the crooks have muscled a lot of other people out of their bars. They just didn’t have enough money to show it.

Poor Richard Lynch is a long way from INVASION USA, playing a germaphobe gangster in a white suit. Frank Stallone looks right at home as the bad boy biker and Sean Donahue…well, he should stick to professional stunt work. Cue cards have more presence.

The best part of GROUND RULES was near the end when Richard Lynch is dragging Donahue behind an S.U.V. while the love interest Sharon is running behind them yelling “Jack, I love you!” My dad turns to me and says, “They sure didn’t have no money for this thing, did they?” They probably could have used more talent then money, Pops.

By the way, the print I saw optically fogs out the scene where the paraplegic vegetable gives the finger. I thought you should know.

OVER THE TOP (1987)

So Stallone drives up to his estranged son’s military school graduation in a beat-up semi, bearing documents that prove his paternity and a desire to make up for not being around the kid’s whole life. The kid wants none of it. I wouldn’t either, because Stallone is fucking insane. How else would you characterize a guy who’d drive his 18-wheeler through a rich guy’s iron gate, over his beautiful fountain and straight through the front door, all for the love of a kid he met two days ago? If I was the kid, I’d run. But then if my dad was trying to become the world champion of arm wresting, I’d give him another shot.

OVER THE TOP stars Stallone as Lincoln Hawk, ne’er do well trucker and part time arm wrestling hustler, whose ex-wife (Susan Blakely) is dying of cancer. At her behest, he agrees to make peace with their son and drive him to see her in California, over the objections of her rich father (Robert Loggia). Along the way to California, the kid runs into traffic, sleeps in trucks by the side of the road, arm wrestles 12-year-old truck stop trash and generally learns how to be an all around lout like his crazy father.

Stallone’s big dream is to win the arm wrestling championship in Las Vegas, the prize being a shiny new truck, which he’ll use to start a business that lets him and his son ride around America being louts together. The boy’s rich grandfather has other plans, like proper schooling, proper food, college in the near future. Ideas Stallone’s character would arm wrestle to the ground.

So the mom dies, the kid runs back to grandpa, then Stallone drives his truck through the house, gets sent to jail, signs over the kid to grandpa then goes to Vegas. He sells his truck and bets all the money on himself, then has to beat ‘Bull’ Hurley (Rick Zumwalt), arm wrestling champion from Jacksonville, FL who hates Stallone with a passion. The kid changes his mind after finding letters from Stallone his mom hid from him, steals a pick-up, somehow gets on a commercial flight to Vegas with no one asking questions and shows up in enough time to give Stallone roughly the same speech Talia Shire gave him on the beach in ROCKY III.

The best part is the guy in the arm wrestling championship who drinks motor oil to Psyche up. The worst part could be Kenny Loggins warbling “Meet Me Half Way Across The Sky” the whole goddamn movie.

This Cannon Production had a lot of press, a lot of toy marketing and no audience. The script is downright horrible, credited to Stallone and Stirling Silliphant (writer of THE ENFORCER (1976) and SHAFT IN AFRICA (1973)), but to be honest you can’t produce a decent bowel movement without the proper food. How anyone thought this story would make a decent film is beyond me.

Nice to see the late Rick Zumwalt (actual five time arm wrestling champ) here, who was in three films for Cannon in 1987 including this crap, the Fat Boys’ DISORDERLIES and Jamaa “Let’s put a crack-smoking midget wrestler in there” Fanaka’s immortal PENITENTIARY III. If you’ve never seen PENITENTIARY III, kill somebody for the chance.

SUPERSTITION (1985)

SUPERSTITION was one of the last of the unrated horror releases of the mid-80's. Some of the murders are pretty gruesome but most of them happen off screen. Other than the exploding head, I can't figure out why this movie couldn't secure an R rating.

It seems in 1692, this witch was drowned in a pond behind where this old ass house sits now. The new reverend and his family are moving in, until they find other accommodations. Are they building him a house? Possibly, because if you go by the logic of this movie, the land this house sits on is the town (the police hang out there constantly, as if they have no other place to go).

And you really get to know this house, kind of like EVIL DEAD. You're always in the kitchen or on the stairs. You hang out in the basement a lot or chill by the pond. The only time you're on another set is a trip to a makeshift Catholic Church library or when you're cinematically transported back to around 1692, and you end up in the ruins of a church or a wine cellar on the same property. You still get to chill by the pond though. This is classic low-budget, one-set location shooting.

Anyway, to make a long story short, the house is cursed and everybody except the new reverends (one old and drunk, one young and likable) know about it yet they do nothing except hang around and wait for others to get killed or get killed themselves.

There's a creepy old woman with a mute son subplot that goes nowhere. There's a drunk reverend who's losing his faith subplot that goes nowhere. There's turmoil within the drunk reverend's family that goes nowhere. And you got the young reverend who slowly (and I mean slowly) digs up the past and finally becomes a believer in the curse of the witch.?

By all accounts, he should've got the fucking point that this place is bad news when the head inspector (Albert Salmi, by the way) tells him about all the deaths at the place over the years, not to mention the ones that happen right before everybody moves in (the beginning of the movie starts out with a head exploding in the microwave and a window cutting a guy in half).

??You'd think when a saw blade magically pops off a saw, spins backward with amazing velocity, imbeds itself into the outgoing reverend's chest (in front of, like, five people) and keeps spinning until it's gone through the reverend and the chair, that somebody would tell the new reverend and his family, "Hey, you might want to stay at a Motel 6 until we get you a proper living arrangement."

If this is not the most blatant "get out" sign ever in a horror film, the second one should've really got them packing. If my daughter were pulled out of a pond with a severed arm clutching to her leg, I'd be out the door.

The witch likes to throw people around a lot. She also likes to slam doors, then break them down obviously for the dramatic effect. She's good for a couple of creepy moments but all in all, is wasted.

And that's a bad thing, because SUPERSTITION had all the elements to go somewhere, but it all got totally fucked up somehow.

How far out of control does your movie get that the characters seem like inexcusably clueless idiots and the proceedings makes no sense? SUPERSTITION begs for answers to these questions many, many times throughout it's 83 minute running time. The filmmaking is surprisingly good, the acting adequate for a horror movie from this time period and the deaths are quite inventive. Unfortunately, SUPERSTITION feels like pages and pages of the script got ripped out as if the production fell behind schedule. There's even a pajama change gaffe on one of the reverend's teen daughters in the thick of the finale (no nudity, though).

The writer, Michael O. Sajbal recently directed the theatrical Christian films, ONE NIGHT WITH THE KING and THE ULTIMATE GIFT. The director, James W. Roberson, was the cinematographer on REDNECK COUNTY and THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN.

SQUEEZE PLAY (1980)

SQUEEZE PLAY may be the best ladies softball film ever made. And it holds the distinct honor of being the only movie where a softball gets batted into a guy's ass

I think it also has the distinct honor of being the only movie where all the main characters work at a mattress plant.

Samantha seems to hate softball, only if because it keeps her fiancé Wes from spending time with her. After making him promise to give up softball, Wes reneges after a winning season, so Samantha, just to be bitchy, comes up with the idea that he should put a woman on the team. Mary Lou, a Georgia Peach with the worst southern accent ever, is on the run from her father (because he thinks she's a lesbian, I'm not really sure) and just happens to be a world-class pitcher. After Mary Lou's disastrous try-out, the girls at the mattress plant start their own team, challenging the men to a battle of the sexes in the climatic game.

Of course, they all have to enter the wet T-shirt contest beforehand.

The horrible jokes and sight gags come fast and furious and the more they miss, the more fun the movie becomes. You can't help but love a film that ends a scene with someone off screen yelling, "fuck".

I have to use that old cliché: they don't make them like this anymore. There's barely a plot, it's strung together with various low jinks and Lloyd Kaufman never misses an opportunity to ogle some tit.

It also makes me wonder what the hell happened to Troma and Lloyd Kaufman.

My buddy,Murphy, put it best when he said that recent Troma films started sucking because they began pandering to their demographic. I've found recent in-house Troma productions somewhat funny, but when they start veering off into self-referential shtick, I'm reminded why their early films like SQUEEZE PLAY work so well; they're real comedies with likeable characters, not commercials for Toxie and Sgt. Kabukiman with a few forced laughs thrown in.

SQUEEZE PLAY presents good-natured buffoons having good-natured raunchy fun in what feels like a real world situation, albeit skewed with patented wacky Troma humor.

The new stuff is mean-spirited not to mention they come off as parodies of a Troma film. What happened to the Troma where everybody was invited to the party instead of the hardcore fans? I've never been partial to cliques and I think that's the reason why I find the new stuff rather lacking.--5/22/07

THE HARD CORPS (2006)

The Hard Corps (2006)

Action heroes were a dime a dozen in the 80's. Around the mid-90's, the careers of the newer guys kind of fizzled out. Steven Seagal,of course and Jean Claude Van-Damme. I enjoyed Seagal's antics up until FIRE DOWN BELOW, but honestly was never a fan of Van-Damme.

The recent Straight To Video output of these once exalted ass kickers has sped up recently. Seagal, though, is by far just out for a fucking paycheck. His shit ain't even fun. He really doesn't do anything except point a gun at people and look fat while neophyte actors and actresses run around pretending they're in a real movie that might jumpstart a career as an extra.

Van Damme (this is his second film to be released in a few months) actually seems to be trying to act, bless his heart.

They actually seem to be spending money on his movies as well. Not a lot, mind you, but some.

THE HARD CORPS stars Van Damme as Phillipe Savauge, a Desert Storm vet in a VA hospital nursing some psychological wounds. He's handpicked by his military buddy to help bodyguard a "hard-headed" boxer named Wayne Barclay (Raz Adoti). Apparently, Barclay has pissed off a Suge Knight caricature named Terrell (Viv Leacock)who wants Barclay dead. That's pretty much the plot of THE HARD CORPS (title's even better now, isn't it?) and I won't ruin any other plot points in case you want to watch it.

The movie is cheap jack. The same war scene that Van Damme flashbacks to is repeated numerous times. He really doesn't even fight. There's some gun play but nothing spectacular. The supporting cast is halfway decent, with Vivica A. Fox (as Barclay's sister and Van Damme's love interest) second billed, but it doesn't add up too much. At an hour and fifty minutes, this shit is waaaaay too long. There is one good scene and, fuck it, I said I wouldn't say anything else about the movie, but I'm gonna ruin the one good scene for you. Here I go...

The Suge Knight's caricature's right hand man stabs a guy to death then rips out his liver and feeds it to some dogs. That's the best part. Because they actually show the liver.

The director, Sheldon Lettich, has had a working relationship with Van Damme for many years now (he was also second unit director on Josh Becker's THOU SHALL NOT KILL EXCEPT and directed the cable cult classic ONLY THE STRONG). He's a competent director which is why this is way better than most STV action films. But it ain't good. It ain't BLOODSPORT good, which I watched last night to combat the lameness of THE HARD CORPS.