Drive-In Saturday Night #5: MALIBU BEACH (Crown-International 1978) & VAN NUYS BOULEVARD (Crown-International 1979)

Posted on September 14, 2019 by gary loggins

The kids are back in school, the days are getting shorter, and the nights are getting cooler. Yes, my friends, summer’s almost over, but before it ends, let’s take one more trip to the drive-in and enjoy a pair of Crown-International Exploitation classics. Crown was responsible for a slew of “teen sex” drive-in flicks in the 70’s and early 80’s. You know the type: the “teens” are all over 21, and the “sex” consists mainly of topless babes and some heavy necking!

Our first feature, 1978’s MALIBU BEACH, is the quintessential Crown-International “teen sex” romp. School’s out, and all the hardbodied California kids head to said beach for some frolicking in the sand and surf. Pretty Dina gets a summer job as a lifeguard, and meets handsome football hunk Bobby. A leather jacket wearing musclehead named Dugan tries to get between them, but we all know he’s got no shot!…

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Hellhound On My Trail: Walter Hill’s CROSSROADS (Columbia 1986)

Posted on September 10, 2019 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

‘Well the blues had a baby/and they named it rock and roll” –

Muddy Waters

Hi, my name’s Gary, and I’m a bluesoholic! Whether it’s Deep South Delta or Electric Chicago, distilled in Great Britain or Sunny California, the blues has always been the foundation upon which rock’n’roll was built. Yet there aren’t a lot of films out there depicting this totally original American art form. One I viewed recently was 1986’s CROSSROADS, directed by another American original whose work I enjoy, Walter Hill.

Hill was responsible for cult classics filled with violence and laced with humor, like HARD TIMES (with Charles Bronson as a 1930’s bare knuckles brawler), the highly stylized THE WARRIORS , the gritty Western THE LONG RIDERS, and SOUTHERN COMFORT (a kind of MOST DANGEROUS GAME On The Bayou). He scored box office gold with the 1982 action-comedy 48 HRS, making a movie star out of…

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Lifetime Film Review: My Evil Stepdad (dir by Stacia Crawford)

Posted on September 10, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

AGCK!

As you can tell from looking at the picture above, the stepdad in My Evil Stepdad is even more evil and pervy and shady than the usual Lifetime evil stepdad. Lifetime, of course, has a long and proud tradition of airing films about dangerous stepparents. They all usually seem to follow the same basic plot. A widow (and it’s almost always a widow as opposed to someone who has just gone through a divorce) meets a seemingly charming man who quickly marries her. Her daughter is suspicious of her new stepfather. Around the halfway mark, the stepfather commits a murder, just in case we were still entertaining any doubts about whether or not he’s a really bad guy. Eventually, the daughter does a Google search and discovers that her new stepfather has either changed his name or is lying about some other important detail from his past. Eventually, the stepfather is either killed or taken off to prison, the widow realizes that there’s nothing wrong with being single, and the daughter is proven correct. The most important thing, of course, is that everything returns to normal at the end of the film.

In My Evil Stepdad, the widow is Tracy (played by Jennifer Lafluer). Tracy has still not fully gotten over the death of her husband and, while she’s open to dating again, she has a strong aversion to Tinder and almost anything else that came into existence after 2011. Her daughter is Ashley (Addy Stafford), who has inherited her father’s love of photography and who is looking forward to attending college in the fall. And then, finally, the evil stepdad of the title is Jared (Chris Johnson), who seems to be nice and trustworthy and whose claim that he’s started a wind chime business is kind of charming as long as you don’t think about it too much.

When Jared comes across an online dating profile that Ashley set up for Tracy, he quickly manages to make his way into Tracy’s life. Of course, he gets a little bit of help from Ashley who, unfortunately, doesn’t realize that he’s totally evil until after he’s already married Tracy. It’s after the wedding that Jared starts to push Ashley out of her mother’s life. Not only does he pressure her to take out a student loan to help pay for college but he also takes over her photography studio, changing the locks and turning it into his mancave. Even worse, he tells Ashley that if she needs any money, she’ll have to ask him for it. He even says that he will be her “sugar daddy.” Like seriously, ewwww!

While all of this is going on, Tracy continues to defend Jared even as everyone else in her life tells her that he’s kind of a jerk. Of course, every since the wedding, Tracy has been feeling ill. Hmmmm …. could Jared possible have something to do with that?

In many ways, My Evil Stepdad is a standard evil stepparent film but it manages to go through all of the expected paces with a certain panache. Director Stacia Crawford keeps the action moving at a nice pace and Abby Stafford and Jennifer Lafluer are believable as daughter-and-mother. Chris Johnson is wonderfully sleazy in the role of Jared and the film also features a good comedic turn from Belmont Cameli in the role of Ashley’s best friend. If you like Lifetime films, you’ll enjoy My Evil Stepdad.

Lifetime Film Review: The Wrong Cheerleader (dir by David DeCoteau)

Posted on September 9, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“You messed with the wrong cheerleader!” Vivica A. Fox announced towards the end of Lifetime’s The Wrong Cheerleader.

“Hell yeah, he did!” I shouted back at the television.

Now, one reason why I yelled that response is because Vivica A. Fox is a totally badass. She has appeared in almost every installment of Lifetime’s “Wrong” franchise and she always plays a no-nonsense authority figure that no one in their right mind would want to mess with. When Vivica A. Fox gives you advice, you better listen. And when she gets mad at you, you better run because she does not mess around!

The other reason I cheered was because she was telling off one of the most unsympathetic and evil abusers to ever appear in a Lifetime film. After spending two hours watching this guy gaslight and threaten his girlfriend, I was ready for Vivica to show up and verbally kick his ass and she did not disappoint.

Fox plays Coach Flynn in The Wrong Cheerleader. She’s the cheerleading coach at the local high school and it’s a job that she takes very seriously. As she explains to a new recruit, being a part of the squad means that you’re a part of a family. When a prospective cheerleader says that she understands what Flynn means, the Coach tells her that she won’t be capable of understanding until she actually experiences it for herself. And I’m just going to say that I probably would have been scared to death of Coach Flynn in high school because she would have taken one look at me and probably told me to drop the attitude, stop showing so much skin, and behave like a responsible young lady. And I probably would have done it too because, seriously, you don’t want Coach Flynn mad at you.

Coach Flynn is concerned about her newest cheerleader, Becky (Cristine Prosperi). Becky is dating Rob (David Meza) and, from the minute he first shows up at school, it’ obvious that Rob has issues. Along with having a violent temper, Rob is a relentless manipulator, the type of guy who tells Becky that everything he does wrong is because of how much he loves her. When he gets into a fight, he tells Becky that it was because he was defending her and that it’s actually her fault because she was wearing her cheerleading uniform. If Becky so much as looks in the direction of another guy, Rob loses his temper. Rob, of course, has a hundred excuses for his behavior, most of them having to do with his dysfunctional family life. Everyone can see through Rob. Everyone, it seems, but Becky.

If you’re looking for an expose into the sordid world of high school cheerleading, you’ll probably be disappointed with The Wrong Cheerleader. To be honest, Coach Flynn could have been a soccer coach and Becky a goalie without changing the film’s plot. (Though “You messed with the wrong goalie!,” doesn’t have as much of a ring to it as “You messed with the wrong cheerleader!”) But no matter. The film does a pretty good job of revealing the techniques that an abuser will use to maintain control over the woman that he’s abusing. Anyone who has ever been in a toxic relationship will recognize exactly what Rob is doing. The film also makes the very important point that if you do witness abuse, you need to say something. Just shrugging away the problem or hoping that things will somehow get better is not a solution.

For those of us who remember her as the always quirky Imogen on Degrassi, it’s interesting to see Cristine Prosperi playing a far more conventional character in this film but she does a good job in the role and she still looks young enough to pass for a high school student. (The same could not be said of some of her classmates.) David Meza does a good job playing up his character’s manipulative nature and, of course, Vivica A. Fox is a total badass as Coach Flynn.

The Wrong Cheerleader isn’t quite as over-the-top as most Lifetime cheerleading films but it has a good and heartfelt message and that’s definitely worth something.

Lifetime Film Review: Identity Theft Of A Cheerleader (dir by Christie Will Wolf)

Posted on September 8, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Poor Vicky Patterson!

All she wants is …. well, actually she wants a lot but none of it is really too much to ask. Vicky (pictured above and played by Maiara Walsh) wants to grow up to lead a successful life, like the life led by her wealthy and demanding mother (Gail O’Grady). She wants to be one of the popular girls at school. She wants to date a star athlete and she wants to be the girl who throws the legendary party that all of her classmates will be talking about for years after they graduate. She wants to be the captain of her high school’s cheerleading squad. Not the co-captain or anything like that. No, she wants to be the captain.

The only problem is that Vicky is 31 years old and she dropped out of high school a long time ago. In fact, she dropped out after it became obvious that she would never make the squad, the popular girls would never accept her, and she’d never be able to make her mother happy. So, now, Vicky is working in a dead-end job at an outlet store and supporting her good-for-nothing boyfriend, Darren (Matty Finochio). When Vicky talks about going back to night school and maybe even trying to earn a degree, her mother informs her that she’s too old to have any hope of successfully breaking into any worthwhile industry. In short, Vicky’s life is pretty much over.

However, Caitlyn’s life has just begun! Caitlyn is what Vicky starts calling herself after she steals the identity of one of her co-workers. As Caitlyn, Vicky enrolls herself at the local high school. She tells all of her new classmates that she’s 18 years old and that she and her mom have just moved to town. As Caitlyn, Vicky finally makes the cheerleading squad and gets to experience the life about which she’s spent the past decade dreaming. Suddenly, she’s hanging out with the popular crowd. She’s got an athletic boyfriend. She’s got a future to which she can actually look forward!

Of course, there are some problems. No solution is ever perfect. For one thing, Darren wants to know why his girlfriend is suddenly dressing like a teenager and spending so much time out of the apartment. For another thing, another girl is named captain of the squad so Vicky has to arrange for her to break her ankle. (Vegetable oil has so many uses.) There’s also the fact that one of her fellow cheerleaders, Heather (Karis Cameron), is suspicious that Vicky may not be who she claims to be. This is a Lifetime film, so you can probably guess that this is going to lead to murder and attempted murder. But seriously, what else could Vicky do? Go back to working at Big Lots?

In the long and proud history of Lifetime cheerleading films, Identity Theft Of A Cheerleader is perhaps the best yet. I don’t say this lightly because there’s been some great Lifetime cheerleading films. But what sets Identity Theft Of A Cheerleader apart from all the others is the wonderfully unhinged — yet, at times, oddly sympathetic — performance of Maiara Walsh. As played by Walsh, Vicky is both dangerous and relatable. I don’t think there’s anyone alive who hasn’t, at some point, wished for a chance to relive a year from their past and make some different choices, if just for the opportunity to see what would happen. Identity Theft Of A Cheerleader embraces the melodrama as all good Lifetime film should but, at the same time, it also taps into a very real human emotion. Who hasn’t asked “What if?”

Despite the rather unwieldy title, Identity Theft Of A Cheerleader is an entertaining and undeniably enjoyable Lifetime film. Director Christie Will Wolf and screenwriter Barbara Kymlicka craft a fun melodrama that’s rooted just enough in reality to stick with you even after the final cheer.

Film Review: Shadowplay (dir by Tony Pietra Arjuna)

Posted on September 5, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

When he was just a child, Anton Shaw disappeared, the victim of an apparent kidnapping. He was missing for days until he was found with little memory of where he had been or who had abducted him. He’s haunted by dreams of his mother being taken away from him, her farewell cry of “Adieu,” ringing in his mind.

As an adult, Anton (played by Tony Eusoff) is a private investigator, working in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia. He’s not a particularly successful detective. In fact, as the film begins, it seems like he spends more time reading old paperback novels about other detectives than doing any investigating of his own. Even as an adult, he’s haunted by dreams and random flashes of memories, all linking back to the trauma that he suffered as a child.

When Anton is hired to investigate the disappearance of a college student named Lumya (Jurias Hartman), he soon finds himself plunging into the underworld of Kuala Lampur. Everyone from Lumya’s dance instructor to her art teacher seems to have something to hide and, for once, Anton’s problem is not having enough options but instead having too many. Everyone seems as if they may have had something to do with Lumya’s disappearance and the more that Anton digs, the more he finds himself obsessing on his own disappearance. Could these two mysteries somehow be linked?

While Anton investigates, he also reads a book. The book, with is credited to no author and no publisher, appears to be a choose your own adventure-type book from the 1980s and the choices that it asks the reader to make are unmistakably similar to the choices that Anton will have to make to solve not only Lumya’s mystery but his own as well. Does the book hold the answers to Anton’s questions or is both his disappearance and Lumya’s destined to just be another unsolved mystery in a world that’s full of them?

Shadowplay is a wonderfully surreal mystery from director Tony Pietra Arjuna. Tempting as it may be to call Shadowplay a film noir, perhaps a better label would be neon noir. The city of Kula Lampur is definitely one of the stars of the film with, Arjuna capturing the urban landscape with its mix of beauty and danger. The neon of the city glows in each scene, adding a progressively more and more menacing tint to each chapter of Anton’s story. When Anton’s investigation leads him to a bar, Ich bin ein Berliner glows, in purple lettering, from a wall, a reminder that all things will ultimately be commercialized. Towards the end of the film, when Anton meets some very bad people, the neon gives off a red glow that warns us of the blood that will soon be spilled. Throughout it all, the synthpop score (provided by Stellar Dreams) pulses in the background, adding to the film’s dream-like feel.

Shadowplay is a film that keeps you off-balance. It’s a film that keeps you wondering what’s real and what is just a fragment of memory or a figment of imagination. It’s a film that welcomes a second viewing, just so you can pick up on the clues that you might have missed the first time around. In the lead role, Tony Eusoff makes Anton into a sympathetic character and, even as the film grows progressively more surreal, the sincerity of his performance keeps you watching. You want to know what’s going on in his mind. You want to know the answers to his questions and the solutions to his mysteries.

Playing out like a filmed dream, Shadowplay is an existential journey worth taking. It’s played in some theaters and is currently available on VOD. I watched it on Vimeo.

Bruce Lee vs. The Star Whackers: Game of Death (1978, directed by Robert Clouse)

Posted on September 5, 2019 by Jedadiah Leland

Billy Lo (played by archival footage of Bruce Lee and two stand-ins) is the world’s biggest film star and the Syndicate (represented by Dean Jagger and Hugh O’Brian) want a piece of the action. When Billy refuses to allow the Syndicate to take control of his career, the Syndicate responds by threatening both Billy and his girlfriend (Colleen Camp). After a Syndicate hitman sneaks onto the set of Billy’s latest film and shoots him in the face, Billy allows the world to believe that he’s dead. Using a variety of disguises, Billy seeks revenge on the Syndicate and all of its assassins, including the 7 foot tall Hakim (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar).

Lee’s original plan for the Game of Death was that it would feature him as a retired martial artist who, in order to save the lives of his family, had to make his way up a five-level pagoda, defeating a different guardian on each floor. Each guardian would represent a different fighting style and the journey up the pagoda would allow Lee to discuss his beliefs regarding the principles of martial arts. Serving as both director and star, Lee did during the making of the film, of cerebral edema though some said Lee was either murdered or that he had faked his own death.

Released seven years after his death, the final version Game of Death has little in common with Lee’s original vision. Only about 11 minutes of footage from the original film was used in the revised version and most of Lee’s philosophical concerns were abandoned for a plot that, today, feels like it could have been lifted from Randy Quaid’s twitter timeline. (Also, when watching the film today, it’s also impossible to watch the Syndicate’s assassins disguise Billy Lo’s shooting as an on-set accident without being reminded of what would happen to Brandon Lee on the set of The Crow.) Game of Death opens with footage lifted from Lee’s battle with Chuck Norris at the end of Way of the Dragon and the other fight scenes are full of close-ups of Lee that were obviously lifted from other films. There’s even a scene in Billy’s dressing room where a cardboard cut-out of Lee’s face has obviously been taped onto a mirror. After Billy fakes his own death, footage of Bruce Lee’s actual funeral is shown, including a shot of Lee in his coffin.

If you can overlook the ethical issues of making a Bruce Lee film without the actual participation of Bruce Lee, Game of Death is actually a pretty entertaining movie. Director Robert Clouse had previously directed Enter the Dragon and obviously knew how to direct a fight scene while even stock footage of Bruce Lee has more charisma than the average action star. Best of all, Bruce Lee battles Kareem Adbul-Jabbar, in an epic scene that Lee himself directed for the original version of Game of Death. When the 7’2 Kareem Abdul Jabber plants his foot in the middle of Bruce Lee’s chest, Game of Death achieves pop cultural immortality.

Thorny ethical concerns aside, Game of Death proves that Bruce Lee will live forever.

Lifetime Film Review: The Secret Lives of Cheerleaders (dir by Peter Sullivan)

Posted on September 3, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

When I first started high school, quite a few people told me that I needed to follow my sister Erin’s example and try out for cheerleader and I have to admit that I was occasionally tempted to do so. I never did because I already had ballet and drama club, I wanted to establish my own identity, and Erin told me that being cheerleader meant that I had to be perky all the time and, quite frankly, I’ve always needed my time to sulk. Add to that, I’ve always been a natural contrarian so my usual response to several people telling me that I need to do something is to do the exact opposite. (That was perhaps even more true in high school than it is today.)

On the one hand, I can honestly say that I have never regretted not trying out for cheerleading. On the other hand, it’s only natural to occasionally wonder, “What if?” Would I have been the nice, responsible cheerleader like the type that Kirsten Dunst played in Bring It On? Would I have been the bitchy cheerleader who cruelly maintained the school’s status quo? Or would I have been the one trying to make fetch happen? Personally, I like to think that I would have been the cheerleader who dressed in all black and who came up with snarky cheers that sarcastically commented on modern culture.

That question of “What If?” is one of the reasons why I always make sure to catch all of the Lifetime cheerleading films. The other reason is that I enjoy making Erin watch them with me so I can ask her if they’re a realistic depiction of what it was like to be a cheerleader. For instance, earlier today, I made Erin watch The Secret Lives of Cheerleaders with me and I asked her, “Is this an accurate portrayal of cheerleading?”

“Maybe if you were a cheerleader in Hell,” she replied.

In The Secret Lives of Cheerleaders, Savannah May plays Ava. Ava and her mother, Candice (Denise Richards), have just moved to a new town and that means that Ava is going to be starting at a new high school. With her mother’s very strong (some might say too strong) encouragement, Ava tries out for cheerleading and makes the squad. Soon, Ava is not only a hit with the other cheerleaders but she’s also on her way to becoming the most popular girl at school! That doesn’t sit well with Katrina (Alexandria DeBerry), the cheer captain and homecoming queen who is all about three things: trying to control everyone’s lives, hazing the Hell out of all the new recruits, and being more popular than everyone else. When Ava makes it clear that she’s going to date whoever she wants (even if he isn’t a starter on the football team) and that she’s not really that happy with all the hazing either, Katrina plots to take down her only potential rival.

There’s not a subtle moment to be found in The Secret Lives of Cheerleaders, which is why it’s perhaps the best Lifetime cheerleader film ever made. From the minute that Katrina gives Ava the side eye, we know that we’re in store for an epic battle between two differing philosophies of high school popularity, with Ava representing the way we wish things could be while Katrina represents what we secretly suspect the world to be like. The film’s signature scene is perhaps the moment when Katrina and Ava get into an impromptu dance-off on the football field. It’s so thoroughly and unashamedly over-the-top that it’s also more than a little brilliant.

I mean, seriously, this is a Lifetime cheerleader film. You don’t watch a film like this for a subtlety. You watch a film like this for scenes of Katrina live-streaming a hazing and forcing her rival to stand on edge of the roof of the school. We watch a film like this for the moment that the entire high school breaks into applause as they watch one of their classmates get led away in handcuffs. Savannah May and Alexandria DeBerry are well-cast as the rival cheerleaders and DeBerry especially deserves credit for making Katrina the most joyfully evil cheerleader in recent memory.

Whether it’s an accurate portrayal of high school cheerleading or not, The Secret Lives of Cheerleaders is an undeniably entertaining Lifetime film. It fully embraces the melodrama and we’re all better for it.

Pre-Code Confidential #29: Joan Blondell is BLONDIE JOHNSON (Warner Bros 1933)

Posted on September 3, 2019 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

There are many contenders for the crown Queen of Pre-Code – Jean Harlow, Miriam Hopkins, Barbara Stanwyck, Mae West, and a slew of other dames – but there’s only one Joan Blondell! Rose Joan Blondell was “born in a trunk” (as they say) to vaudevillian parents on August 30, 1906, and made her stage debut at the tender age of four months. Little Joanie took to show biz like a duck to water, and worked her way up to Broadway, costarring with a young actor named James Cagney in 1930’s PENNY ARCADE; the pair went to Hollywood for the film version, retitled SINNERS’ HOLIDAY, their first of seven screen teamings.

Our Girl Joanie struck a chord with Depression Era audiences: she was a tough, wisecracking, fast-talking, been-around-the-block tomato whose tough-as-leather veneer cloaked a heart of gold. Joan and Glenda Farrell had ’em rolling in the aisles as a pair…

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Empathy Inc. Movie preview, review and trailer

Posted on September 1, 2019 by paddiesthoughts

Don’t worry, what you are about to read does not exist out side of your own mind.

Let’s get the technical out if the way before I gush all over this film.

Cast:

Zack Robidas as Joel

Kathy Searle as Jessica

AJ Cedeno as Sonny

Eric Berryman as Nicolaus

Director:

Yedidya Gorsetman

Preview:

Hotshot venture capitalist Joel has a multimillion-dollar deal go up in smoke, and he and his actress wife Jessica are forced to move in with her parents and start from scratch. At the lowest and most desperate moment in his life, Joel meets old friend Nicolaus
and his business partner Lester, who are seeking investors in a new technology known as XVR—Xtreme Virtual Reality—from their company Empathy, Inc., which is said to offer the most realistic and moving experiences for users by placing them in the lives of the less fortunate. Joel gets the startup its funds but soon discovers that the tech’s creators have far more sinister uses in store for their creation and that the reality it provides its customers isn’t virtual.

Review:

I got sucked into this movie from the minute I started watching. And I’m still not sure if I’m watching real life or a VR of real life. Eric Berryman steals this movie and Zack Robidas closes the deal. Yedidya Gorsetman takes you on a fantastic ride of real life and what real life could be. There are other VR movies out there, but I don’t think I have seen one as completely put together as Empathy, Inc. is in a long time. They are two people (characters) in this movie that I haven’t even mentioned that their performance is so amazing I got lost in them.

Would I Recommend this movie?

Absolutely! Yes! Go spend your bitcoins and virtual dollars on this movie!

Now that I recommended it where can you watch?

Empathy, Inc. will have limited theater releases by Dark Star Pictures on September 13th and on VOD September 24th

If you are still hesitant and want to see a trailer first, here you go into a VR world you might not escape from!