The Avengers

2012
Written by Zak Penn and Joss Whedon
Based on characters created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Directed by Joss Whedon

ATTENTION: THIS REVIEW HAS SPOILERS for everyone, so don’t read this if you haven’t seen it or care about being spoiled and all that jazz. Because there is really no way to get into the meat of the issue without discussing everything. And just to keep people from getting too upset, I’ll throw everything under the Roll Call so you have to click a button to read it….

Tony Stark / Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) – Genius billionaire playboy philanthropist with a suit of armor and a billion quips. I was concerned his personality would be so large it would loom over the others, but he fits in nicely and has good chemistry with Steve Rogers. Steve Rogers / Captain America (Chris Evans) – The World War II star-spangled man with the plan, frozen in the ice for 70 years to awaken in modern day. His experience helps turn him into the natural leader of the group Bruce Banner / The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) – Genius scientist and expert on gamma radiation who is turned into a giant green rage monster due to an experiment gone wrong. Has learned to live with his condition. Then Nick Fury’s team comes calling needing some help… Thor (Chris Hemsworth) – Norse God of Thunder and resident of Asgard, and brother of Loki. Has learned much about being responsible, but must still prevent his brother from causing problems on Earth. Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) – Former assassin turned SHIELD agent. Expert at fighting and interrogation, and at having regrets that she wants to atone for. Clint Barton / Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) – Expert marksman and SHIELD agent, and has the mutant power to have archery bows spontaneously generate in boxes of weapons. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) – The dude in charge of SHIELD who keeps popping up during closing credits, and brings together all of the above to deal with Loki and his whole alien invasion scheme. But was bringing together all these people a good idea? Loki (Tom Hiddleston) – Adoptive brother of Thor and currently preparing to help aliens invade Earth. A crazed egomaniac wh delights in causing discord among the team.

Things go bad when the plots of the prior Marvel films collide and Loki pops out of the Tesseract to turn it into a portal to bring an army of aliens to invade the Earth and then the galaxy. After causing disasters and taking over minds, Nick Fury calls in everyone considered for the Avengers Initiative: Captain America, Iron Man, and Bruce Banner. Thor shows up, Black Widow is hanging around, and Hawkeye is mind-controlled by Loki. Everyone ends up arguing and mistrusting everyone as egos collide, but Loki’s attempts to drive them apart only end up making them work together to overcome his attacks. By the time the aliens do invade, the team has put their differences aside enough to save the world and give us a huge action sequence while limiting the damage to only hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives.


With an ensemble cast it is hard to focus too much on any one character. Everyone has to get some screen time, and with the various stars, their various styles, and the characters they play having their own egos and motives, there was great potential for this to become a huge mess. The balance seemed as good as you could get, especially since The Avengers was also saddled with the origin story baggage of dragging everyone together for the first time. We also learn more about the characters featured less in films: Hawkeye, Black Widow, and the Ruffalo version of Banner.

It was a massive pleasure to see Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk. As many have said, this feels like Hulk done right. Ruffalo does owe a debt to the prior incarnations, beyond Bana and Norton (who I liked very much) to the TV Banner, the influences from them all combined with Ruffalo being awesome and Whedon and Penn’s writing makes the perfect storm of Hulk awesomeness. Banner knows he dangerous, knows he could cause chaos at any time and kill everyone, but also dedicates himself to helping people. He has a sort of resignation and acceptance, his mentioned suicide attempt shows he thinks a lot about what he is. The later realization that the monster isn’t completely out of control gave him one of the few actual character arcs in the film, the rest of which was more of a Team going through a character arc.


Now we’ll deal more deeply with the core of the film. The Avengers continues the trend of Marvel films being bland and inclusive, not pushing any sort of message in an attempt to cast as wide a net as possible to maximize profits. But that doesn’t stop The Avengers from having messages, no matter how watered down or unintentional they are. And like it or not, things are there. There are a few hints of self-awareness (The Galaga joke is also a foreshadowing of the aliens invading with the same strategy!), but the scope of that was limited by the story outline demanded of the writers Joss Whedon and Zak Penn by Marvel. This does make The Avengers more self-aware than its predecessors, and also makes the mining of the film for meaning more fun.

SHIELD is every conspiracy theorist’s wet dream. Just think about it. We have a secret worldwide government organization with fantastic superweapons (including an invisible sky fortress, weapons powered by alien god technology, and super-powered humans) that answers only to a secret council (Majestic 12, anyone?) and can “hack the planet.” The secret council aspect was what made the actual US military decide to not help out on the film, because they didn’t know how the actual military fit in. But for every drunken idiot who screams about UN black helicopters, they were probably screaming from the rooftops about how “I knew it!”

Prior Marvel films seemed to be all over the map as to their stance on the military industrial complex. Tony Stark made his billions through selling weapons technologies, though when those weapons are turned on him he realizes the error of his ways and ends weapons production – except for his giant super war armor, which he uses to slaughter terrorists. By the second Iron Man, the armored suit as weapon technology had progressed to the point where multiple companies were working on suits and even the US military gets in on the action, physically taking one of Stark’s suits. The actions here seem more mixed between pro and anti-military industrial complex. The military seen getting their own suit is good, a major plot point is the US government trying to get their hands on Stark’s technology.

This is again contrasted as SHIELD’s Phase 2 plan to weaponize the Tesseract is played as a bad thing for the entirety of The Avengers. Not only are all the heroes Fury recruits opposed to it, it is the major factor attracting Earth to be attacked by the aliens. As Thor states, the use of the next generation weapons is a signal that the Earth is ready for a new type of war. It can only lead to escalation of all sides, directly causes an alien invasion, and directly attracts the attention of Thanos, whose assault on Earth can only be presumed to be more deadly than the Chitauri’s flying whales and jetskis attack.

The SHIELD Helicarrier is shown as a superweapon, but it is also attacked and is ineffective in countering the real threat of the alien invasion. If anything, it is a giant invisible bus with lots of guns and spy toys. In use, it is as worthless as the weapons the secret council wants to create, only the heroes, the real people, are effective. The secret council controlling SHIELD even attempts to nuke New York City, something every character does not support. Later, the same group who decided to nuke a major city are unhappy that things turned out okay but are beyond their direct control of every aspect. There is no oversight for this Illuminati secret council and their bad call, they are too top secret to fail. Whatever secret agenda they may have, we have to trust that Nick Fury is able to nudge that agenda into a better direction while still not getting fired by them.

Beyond having a secret invisible fortress and being run by a secret cabal that answers to no one and builds weapons of mass destruction that endanger the entire planet, SHIELD proves they are trustworthy by regularly committing civil rights violations. Wait, did I say proves? Oddly enough, the major thing they do is hack into everyone’s cell phone cameras to search for one person, a less Daredevil radar sense version of what Batman does in The Dark Knight. I do think Whedon knew what he was doing when he used the same basic principal, the question is, is the lack of a Lucious Fox character to object overtly a problem? Or is Stark, Banner, and Roger’s distrust of Fury’s motivations enough of a pushback against everything they are doing? Because this pushback does not happen immediately, no one seems non-plussed at all until the WMDs are found. The film is partially unclear on if the worldwide cell phone and security camera bugging was it a system developed specifically for Loki, or is it a system they can activate at any time and only do so when Asgard gods declare war on the Earth. Even with this massive civil rights violation of 7 billion people, it all proves useless because Loki is only spotted when he wants to be, and the detection of the Tesseract gamma radiation is done due to techniques told to them by Bruce Banner.

Now let’s move from there to the treatment of the Black Widow character. Beyond the fact that Scarlett Johansson has been constantly shown on posters making ridiculous poses emphasizing her butt while all the male characters look tough, Black Widow herself is often shown seducing and/or lying and manipulating male characters. We first see her busting out of a black dress at the mercy of three Russian goons, though we are aware she has the whole thing under control (and proves it seconds later), she’s sent to bring in Banner with a little black dress. Just imagine if Agent Coulson was wearing that number when he went to go see Iron Man, or yanking vintage Captain America cards out of his cleavage. In fact, her behavior is so girly, it becomes an ironic plot point when it’s used to find out that Loki is targeting the Hulk. And even in that instance, it’s all lies and deceptions, just as the statements she said to Banner when she was recruiting him.

Black Widow’s marketing is similar in tone, on the posters she’s the only character doing a pose to show off her leather-suit clad butt, while the male characters are all posed for a fight. The first clip from the film was the dress-busting scene of her taking out the Russian dudes. This is a symptom of comics in general and how they treat their female characters. While I don’t think Whedon has problems with female leads (look at his track record), in general females in comic books are hypersexualized to an alarming degree. The recent DC reboot of female characters such as Harley Quinn, Catwoman, Starfire, and Amanda Waller helped ignite a firestorm of controversy, especially when a female fan in a Batgirl costume (and others) confronted DC bigwigs at a panel and their questions on the lack of female creators were basically dismissed. Even the resulting backlash did little actual change, and you definitely don’t want to read the comments on the articles about this subject at many blogs. In some ways, it’s sad that the Avengers porn parody has a larger number of female characters.

The only other female characters of any importance are Pepper Potts (who is barely in the film) and Agent Maria Hill – who looks like she’ll be the Agent Coulson replacement. She spends almost the entire film in the form-fitting jumpsuit, though at least hers is one of the official SHIELD uniforms and there are male versions (though they aren’t as form-fitting…)

You might think with all these problems and the film failing to address any of them, that I didn’t like the film. I’m going to state once again that I did like The Avengers, and it’s currently my second-favorite Marvel film (Captain America is first, so take that as you will…) And though the massive success means we’ll have an awful Justice League film in a few years and probably a few other giant stunt films, I applaud Marvel for pulling this off and making it not horrible. What a time to not be eight years old.

Now, beyond all that, my favorite parts of The Avengers is what happened in the parking lot after the film. Now, I was at a mid-morning matinee (actually a few showings into mid-morning due to early shows beings old out) so the fights in the parking garage were really out of place because they happened in the middle of a Sunday afternoon. The first argument was a car trying to back out of a parking spot and exiting cars kept cutting her off, the driver getting more mad and more loud. Finally, a woman in a sports car cut off the exiting car, almost hitting it, and causing the driver to half-get out of her car yelling at the sports car “That’s a woman in a sports car cutting me off, oh hell no!” while her passenger gets out of the car and runs up to the sports car and starts beating on the driver’s side window and screaming at the driver (the sports car had gotten a whole six feet closer to the exit for it’s daring maneuver!) The driver of the backing out car then alternated between yelling at the other driver and telling the other passenger to get back in the car so she could pull out. Eventually, she just backed out and the passenger got back in the car. I was on the stairs during this and everyone on the stairs stopped and crowded up watching the fun.

On the way out, traffic was blocked in both directions on one of the ramps due to another issue. First was a van that was heading up into the parking garage that had decided to just stop where they were. They weren’t waiting for someone to pull out of a spot, they just stopped and began looking around confused. This caused a huge backup behind them. While in the other direction, a car was attempting to back out of their spot to leave, and the car’s passenger was guiding him out. Except he was a moron and guided the car into backing up into a van! Then the signal guy yelled at the van (which parked at another open spot once a metric ton of honking convinced the non-moving van to slowly inch forward) and the signal guy then got into the backing up car, and they drove off, all while giving the finger.

Oh, Avengers, why do you make the real world go crazy? I can’t wait to see The Dark Knight Rises, because there will probably be dead people everywhere. Okay, maybe I can wait to see The Dark Knight Rises…

Rated 9/10 (They killed Optimus Prime!, Optimus could lift this hammer, that’s what you want to see when you own the top floor, Hulk Smash Fly, Agent Not Dead, Flying Man, The Heart of the Avengers, This cafe will protect me from alien invaders!, Rocket man!)

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Bikini Pirates

aka Harlots of the Caribbean

2006
Written by Fred Olen Ray
Directed by Fred Olen Ray (as Nicholas Medina)

You would think that one day we’ll get to the end of the Retromedia Bikini films, but you are wrong. They are being made faster than I’ve been getting copies of the films, so they’ll continue to appear on TarsTarkas.NET forever! Luckily, they are pretty entertaining, hence why they continue to appear and I haven’t given up and started reviewing The Dead End Kids films. (Okay, the Dead End Kids films are pretty good, too… Some of them.)

Bikini Pirates features a small cast, and thanks to moving the action to the remote woods, the small cast feels natural and not like they’re avoiding plot points on purpose to hide from hiring a bunch of extras. So a good call there, though it does keep people like Ted Newsom from popping up, which is sad. The opening credits play over stock footage of diving scenes set to a Pirates of the Caribbean-ish theme song. As most of these Retromedia Bikini tales open with credits over cgi effects or stills that have been run through Photoshop filters, this is a colorful and interesting diversion.

To keep from listing the prior Bikini films over and over again in the roll call below, we’ve switched to linking to the actor’s tag so you can just click that and see everything they’ve been in that we’ve covered so far:

Dustin (Voodoo as Alexandre Boisvert) – A wreck diver who tracks down sunken galleons in search of treasure. He finds more than he bargained for when he discovers the diary of Morganna the Pirate Queen in the ruins of his latest salvage. Jill (Nicole Sheridan) – Dustin’s girlfriend, who becomes possessed with the ghost of Morganna the Pirate Queen thanks to a magical necklace. She’s the center that the quest for the buried treasure revolves around. Joe (Randy Spears) – Dustin’s friend and partner in the wreck diving business, who enjoys diving wrecks almost as much as vacations in the woods and having threeways with his friend’s girlfriend. Susan (Beverly Lynne) – Joe’s girlfriend who is along for the treasure hunting ride. A bigger believer in seances than Joe or Dustin. Morganna the Pirate Queen (Rebecca Love) – The terror of the seven seas and the lover of the seven seas, Morganna the Pirate Queen ruled the waves and made waves in the bedroom. And now she’s back in ghost form! Captain Tygus (Evan Stone) – Morganna’s loyal captain who has returned with her to help find the missing treasure and help their souls rest once and for all. So they’ll be free to get it on in the afterlife!

Dusting and Joe are diving into wrecks in the ocean thanks to the magic of stock footage, while talking to Jill via radio. Just ignore the fact that they’re using diving equipment that you can’t really talk on the radio while using. We will not be over-thinking Bikini Pirates too much.

Time to head home, as it’s Sex-in-the-shower o’clock! Dustin and Jill have sex in the shower to celebrate this historic time.

When they’re all clean, Dustin gives Jill a necklace made with a gold coin he found in one of the pirate wrecks. Neither notices the necklace give off a flash when it is put on.


Dustin, Jill, Susan, and Joe agree to go to Dustin’s cabin in the mountains after they’re done with the wreck so they can have a dive-free vacation. Joe and Susan celebrate by doing the type of packing that doesn’t help get things ready to go on vacation…

Dustin’s cabin is an often used exterior in Retromedia flicks, probably best referred to as Jack’s place from Tarzeena.

They prepare for a barbeque, and Dustin shows Jill another thing he found on the wreck – the diary of Morganna the Pirate! And the cover looks like the Necronomicon from army of Darkness! The diary also has a very detailed map to Morganna’s treasure, featuring locations such as Cape Fear, Mosquito Swamp, and Morganna Lagoon. The landscape looks just like the land the cabin is on, coincidentally enough! Coincidentally on purpose.


Jill begins to read the diary, and we flashback to Morganna and her female captive/lover (Cassie Young) who stole her pearls. The captive gets the lashing. The tongue lashing! Jill enjoys herself while reading this saucy tale.

Jill later reads a passage about contacting the spirit of Morganna and Tygus the pirate captain. So she wants to hold a seance. Not sure how Morganna wrote about contacting her spirit after she died, unless she was so dedicated to her diary that she wrote entries while a ghost! Takes a new meaning to the term “ghost writer”…


It’s seance time! “This is stupid” says Joe, and I agree. Joe and Dustin break into mocking mode as the women totally get into it and attempt to contact Morganna. Lo and behold, it works, and Jill is possessed by Morganna! She threatens to haunt them if they go after the treasure! When Jill wakes up, no one tells her she was possessed and she remembers nothing.

Let’s contact the dead, that never goes wrong!

Dustin awakens when they’re done and sees them sleeping. He’s mad, but says nothing.

Morganna and Captain Tygus teleport back into the world of the living in the middle of the forest. Two Captain Jacks off the port bow! They’re going to follow the group so they can claim their treasure.


The quad squad go in search for the buried treasure at some park in the LA-area—I mean, in the woods by the cabin, as the music that is totally not the Pirates Of the Caribbean theme plays. So we get a lot of shots of them wandering around. Eventually, they start bickering and fight over the threesome from the night before, but everyone agrees to let it slide because Jill was possessed.

The gang gives up for the day and heads back tot he cabin, where Jill is quickly kidnapped by Captain Tygus. He takes her back to Morganna, who “interrogates” Jill in a lesbian sex way. Tygus tells the rest of the group about Jill’s capture, and that they will trade her back for the map in 1 hour.

They make the trade…and Tygus gets the treasure box, which was buried right where the trade took place! He doesn’t dig it up, he uses magic to zap it to the surface. Convenient! The treasure…is a teddy bear! Holy Bobo, Batman!

The group then buries the necklace Dustin gave Jill, as it has the souls of the dead it in. That’s actually respectful, and it works, because the ghosts leave. But not without giving Jill a parting payment…a bag of gold pieces!

Back in the afterlife, the ghost pirates have sex…ghost pirate celebration style!!!

And now you know the true story of Bikini Pirates! Be sure to tell your friends and neighbors!

Rated 9/10 (magic coin, Captain Jack’s, shock, boredom, magic bridge, confusion, oh really?, the treasure, Hmmmmm…..)

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Dark Shadows

2012
Written by John Augus and Seth Grahame-Smith
Based on characters created by Dan Curtis
Directed by Tim Burton

Needs more spires…

The thing about Dark Shadows is it is the type of film that Tim Burton directing and Johnny Depp starring should make it a natural hit and an amazing cinematic experience. But instead things just don’t turn our right, in fact, they go pretty wrong pretty quickly. The dark and dreary atmosphere is unfortunately too familiar with Burton’s other works, even though it should stand out here. The plot is the weakest part, the whole jilted ex-lover out for revenge trope we’ve seen time and time again. Sure, it’s dandied up with all the spooky trappings, ghosts and vampires and witchcraft, but it’s nothing new. Unfortunately, that’s a big problem. Just reading through the plots for the series, there was a lot of things going on, most of which is ignored and discarded, though there are a few references. But what we end up with is bland.

The Transylvanian version of The Help didn’t do as well

Though the period setting of 1971 is largely used on a few jokes that fall flat and hippie murder (killing hippies is soooo Kent State…) it does help in giving some characters a distinct look as they’re dressed in period clothing as opposed to modern fashion (and it helps that retro looks are in and what old is new!) Beyond that, you’ll not even notice that it is set in the past and not modern day, the few times older technology is used, it’s not intrusive and it keeps things from getting diluted with cell phone videos of vampire action being uploaded to YouTube.

The film is not all bad, there are bright spots. The strongest aspects of Dark Shadows are the actors. Everyone is bringing their A games. But they got little to work with, and the film can’t be carried by performances alone. And remember that it’s Collins, not Cullen. Let’s not say things we can’t take back and have sparkle vampires starting to wander around…

Three Stooges witchcraft

Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) – A 17th-century man cursed to become a vampire by a scorned lover. He’s imprisoned in the ground for 200 years and is freed in 1971, where he sets out to try to bring his family back to prominence. There is no actor I could have conceived of playing this part except Johnny Depp, and no one else could have done it justice. But Depp seems to be acting a constant stream of Jack Sparrow variations, eventually it’s going to get tiresome. Eventually means real soon. Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green) – A former servant of the Collins family 200 years prior and a witch, who has been enacting revenge against the family ever since Barnabas spurned her. Eva Green is spectacular and looks spectacular. Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer) - The matriarch of the Collins family, and the only thing holding it together until Barnabas arrives with help and secret treasure. Michelle Pfeiffer is frakking awesome. It is great to see a strong role for an older woman in a Hollywood film. Carolyn Stoddard (Chloë Moretz) – Elizabeth’s teenage daughter, who seems to think she’s some sort of rocker chick and is permanently scowling. Victoria Winters (Bella Heathcote) – Hired to be the governess of David Collins. Victoria is a name she made up on the train ride over. She bears a striking resemblance to Barnbas’s true love, Josette du Pres, and quickly catches his eye.

Actual photo of the original test audience five minutes after the film ended…

Who needs realistic color?

Jonny Lee Miller is largely wasted as Roger Collins, his character’s role is so diminished and one-dimensional it wasn’t worth including in the film, we’ve already had the message that “family is the most important” beaten into our heads long before he exits the film. His son David Collins is played by Gulliver McGrath, who looks like a clone of the boy from Jumanji (straight down to the same hair!) And let’s not get into how original a creepy kid who sees dead people is. Jackie Earle Haley is the caretaker of the manor, but Ray Shirley is the standout of the two servants, because she’s just there and it’s cool. It’s not a Burton film if he doesn’t squeeze in Helena Bonham Carter, and she’s there as Dr. Julia Hoffman, who in this incarnation is a psychiatrist for David that takes an interest in Barnabas.

A prologue introduces us to Barnabas as a child and his father impressing the meaning of family onto him. And the servant girl Angelique (the daughter of another servant!) who has an eye for Barnabas. But Barnabas doesn’t love her with all his heart, which drives her mad with revenge. She hypnotizes his true love into committing suicide and curses him into becoming a vampire. Then Angelique leads a mob against him and has him buried alive. 200 years later (196 years, exactly) he’s accidentally discovered and returns to the Collinswood mansion to find it in disrepair, and what is left of the Collins family filled with dark secrets of their own. Their business is in near ruin, and death haunts them.

What kind of f’ed up Cinderella film am I trapped in?

The first thing you should do when you see a coffin buried far beneath the earth and wrapped in heavy chains is to greedily open it…

Barnabas vows to return the family to glory, thanks to his vampire hypnosis powers and his knowledge of a giant stash of treasure inside the mansion. Good thing there was all this secret gold ex machina to help the plot…

Angelique freaks when Barnabas is revealed to have returned, she’s spent the last 200 years systematically destroying his family and taking over all the fishing business. But she’s still in crazed stalker love. He spurns her yet again, so the revenge is on, big money style! or something. The rebuilding of the Collins business commences, but danger is ahead and things will soon be exploding out all over. But first Barnabas must figure out how people are in the TV! Ha, that Barnabas!

There is a weird class warfare angle to the whole plot, with the jilted servant and the rich heir to the family. Barnabas is fine to use Angelique for sex, but he doesn’t love her, and spurns her for another. She is like a toy for him to play with until he finds his true love. It’s also sort of creepy that she’s at least the second generation of her family to be a servant for the Collins.

The ghost with the most…time spent wandering the halls

Silly witch, that’s not how you bowl!

Even the killing of construction workers and hippies by Barnabas is an affront against the working class and the 99%. Why not go after the all old white male executives of Angelique’s fishing company? Heck, they are the enemy of the family and helped destroy their livelihood (and a few are used as her goons in a later scene!)

One of the major points of conflict is who owns the town of Collinsport, the Collins or Angelique. This could be seen as a takeoff of the alternate reality from It’s a Wonderful Life, where Bedford Falls is renamed Potterville. Except Collinsport is already named after rich people. And can someone really own a town? (Actually, some towns have put themselves on eBay when they went broke, so yeah, I guess you can…)

Large portions of this film are Barnabas walking places and looking at things.

Can you tell it’s 1972? Should we be even more obvious?

Outside of the class issues, let’s move on to gender roles. What happens to Carolyn Stoddard is not only a parallel to womanhood that should have been explored, it is avoided for most of the film and ends with a brief and unsatisfactory payoff that goes nowhere. I don’t want to spoil it too much. Every female character not related to Barnabas is in a race to get into his pants. Though while Dr. Julia Hoffman is pretty single note, Angelique is a well-fleshed look at the descent to obsession and madness. There was a lot of scenery chewing going on.

There is a lot of drama in the air, but Elizabeth is great as the woman holding the family together as it neared the abyss. She shows she is capable of more, and her initial hints that she might be greedy and selfish turn out to be acted for the protection of the family and not for her own interests. It is natural that she would show up at the end armed with a shotgun, the ticked off mother bear defending her clan. She may not be able to compete with the vampires and witches and ghosts, but she’s not going to sit things out.

Once I’m finished with this cup, I’m going to find the bastard who switched the coffee with Folgers Crystals and chop off his balls!

Ha ha ha! That’s our Barnabas!

The marketing for the film seems to be unable to decide if they want to call this a comedy or a drama. It isn’t really a comedy, though there are a few funny parts, the majority is more serious in tone. The fish out of water scenes were a frustrating mix of good humor and blown chances. While not a total wash (and certainly not the worst of the films we’ve gotten advanced screening passes for – looking at you, Jack and Jill!) Dark Shadows isn’t as cool as I hoped it would be. It seems more like something you wait until it shows up on TBS for endless reruns between Law & Orders.

Jessica Rabbit is alive and attending vampire balls…

The new flip-top Barnabas toys, available only with a McDonald’s Happy Meal…

It’s a miracle of plot device necessity!

Rated 3/10 (I’m pre-ghost!, is the teeth plaque he’s brushing also invisible?, Vampires in Black)

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As usual, we got more listening choices than you can shake a bowl of Daigoro chow at: downloadable mp3, embedded flash with slideshow, embedded audio player, and iTunes feed link. So many choices, Goliath will crash down from space just to punch you!

Download the mp3 (right click, save as)

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Prior Infernal Brains:
Taiwanese Giant Monster Films Part 1
Taiwanese Giant Monster Films Part 2
Polly Shang Kuan
Turkish Pop Cinema Part 1
Turkish Pop Cinema Part 2
Dara Singh
Infernal Brains Podcast – 07 – Insee Daeng
Infernal Brains Podcast – 08 – Worst Podcast Ever
The Mummies of Guanajuato – Infernal Brains Podcast Episode 09
Jane Bond – Infernal Brains Podcast Episode 10

Corporate Fantasy

1999
Directed by Charles Randazzo
Written by Catalina Larranaga and Garrett Clancy

Mystique films brings us some office-based romance with Corporate Fantasy. You know a softcore is more high class because pseudo-popish songs playing during the action scenes as opposed to light jazz. The film should be sexy, but parts of it are dry and parts crammed in. Catalina Larranaga wrote the film with Garrett Clancy, I get the feeling she wrote the main story and he “punched it up” with the models and other additional sex scenes. Which is fine, you gotta sell the film somehow, and the story is still intact.

The styles of the film date it as a 1990s film, even if it comes at the tail end of the 1990s. Office attire for women is so period specific that you can’t get around it. Thus, right now the film looks older than it is because of the fashion, but in 10 years the film will look less old because some of those fashions/hair styles will be back in style. And kids who weren’t just hitting the offices in the late 90′s won’t even be familiar enough with the fashions to recognize it as dated, so it will blow right past them. Those of use who grew up in the era and witnessed models wearing the same clothes with the same hairstyles don’t see the fashion as a big deal at all, and the glamorous fashion helps Corporate Fantasy look like a much more expensive film than it probably is.

Daisy Dawson (Tracy Ryan as Tracy Smith) – Daisy is the young new attractive employee at the advertising agency that becomes the target of everyone with a Y chromosome. Daisy is shocked, shocked that this could happen, especially after the disaster that was her last relationship. Can things come up roses for Daisy? Or come up daisies? But not pushing up daisies, because that means people die. This is Corporate Fantasy, not Corporate Massacre! Tracy Ryan was active in both soft and hardcore films (her hardcore aliases include Avalon) and had a whole pack of names she went by. Gloria (Catalina Martone as Catalina Larranaga) – Gloria is the older, more experience, more bad of the three girls, but not so bad she’s evil, she just has sex with married dudes while at the office. But she’s a hard worker and cares about her friends. Catalina Martone is familiar to anyone who saw her dozens of softcore films from the 90s and 00s. And she helped write this one. Tammy (Susan Featherly) – She’s southern. Did you know she’s from the south? Because her southern accent just shelled Ft. Sumter. Susan Featherly was a softcore actress active in the late 90s-early 00s, appearing in films such as Andromina: The Pleasure Planet, The Awakening of Gabriella, and Virtual Girl 2: Virtual Vegas. Orlando (Jarod Carey) – The sort of nice guy at the office who occasionally gets caught up in the filthy shenanigans of his fellow male coworkers. Blake Tyler (John Gallucci) – The sleazy manager of the agency and chief promoter of the sleazy guy behavior and office theft. John Gallucci is a pretty good actor, I’m surprised he’s hardly in anything. Kevin (Karl Preston) – Kevin is the blond guy who is married, but that doesn’t stop him from doing Gloria. He also rips off his workplace and commits sexual harassment. David (Brian Nowak) - Loyal mailclerk and secret CEO. Shhhh! Don’t tell anyone he’s really the CEO. Even though it’s a bit obvious…

Feisty Gloria decides she just doesn’t want to wear underwear today, so off go the panties! But she just put them on five seconds ago! I must protest this inefficient action. Daisy and Gloria are good to go, but Tammy is too busy digging for her own clam. Gloria does a good job listening at the door.

They end up late, but even though Daisy was on time, she gets yelled at for not setting up things. The three male coworkers are represented by Boss Sleazo McSleazy, Blonde Sleazo, and Only Slightly Sleazy (aka Blake Tyler, Kevin, and Orlando.) The action takes place in some sort of ad agency. Also there is a new mailclerk named David, who I mention because he is relevant to the plot. I won’t mention the several other extras of both genders who do nothing except smile knowingly every once in a while when they overhear the named characters exchanging bodily fluids in the copy room. But it’s nice to watch softcore flicks from back in the days when there were extras.

Gloria tries to get Daisy to notice the new mail guy, but Daisy is an Ice Queen Librarian, we know this due to her glasses and hair tied up. Boss sleazo tries to ask Daisy out for dinner, she refuses and he demands more coffee. Getting coffee becomes an adventure as Daisy is trapped in the break room with Gloria and Kevin, who are having illicit office worker sex on the copy machine. At the rate they are going, the office must spend a million dollars a week on toner. During the deed, some extras who are also coworkers try to get in the room, realize what is happening, and just grin and walk away. I for one would be grossed out that all the food was in there where two random people where going at it.

While on the beach, Daisy runs into a random surfer guy who claims to know her. He is David, the mailguy! See, part of the plot. TarsTarkas.NET does not lie. Daisy isn’t wearing glasses, and he is dressed like a normal person, so it is totally different and strange from their normal office zombie interactions. He gives her coffee (all surfers bring coffee to the beach) and they talk, mostly about how he loves to surf. What is this guy, Keanu Reeves? He’s trying to impress Swayze, but nobody impresses Swayze. Daisy spies that he has a fancy Mercedes, and thus might have more money than your average mailguy.


Back at the girls’ place, Daisy comes home and sits outside, where a topless Gloria joins her. This is the best house ever! Daisy tells about how she used to be engaged, but the guy left her at the altar. Thus, she doesn’t date. And Daisy has a thing for Orlando. The guy, not the city. Sure, Orlando has Nickelodeon Studios, but it also is in Florida. So stick with the guy Orlando.

Daisy goes by the set for the swimsuit shoot the company is putting on, and has a jungle fantasy with Orlando as Tarzan and her as Jane. The fantasy becomes R-rated for a while, until the boss Mr. Sleazy yells at her. Then she catches David the mailguy snooping in the files.

The three main male coworkers have some sort of bet going on to see who can nail Daisy, $500 is the prize. It is Orlando’s turn to go on the attack. Gloria and Tammy buy Daisy a vibrator, because we’re gonna have another one of those scenes. That night, she tries it out. Riding the rabbit, if you know what I mean. Her favorite toy is Buzz Lightyear. Her favorite movie is *Batteries Not Included. She was looking for Mr. Right, but is settling for Mr. Needs D-batteries.


Orlando scores a date with Daisy despite his best efforts. She must have burnt out the motor of her gift. So fast! That’s why things have warranties! But first, the girls must get Daisy some good clothes. Fashion montage! Why do so many softcore films have makeover montages? Probably it is an easy way to get the actresses into lingerie. Hey, I just answered my own question. Aren’t I clever?

Daisy worries that by wearing high-heeled shoes she might send the wrong message to Orlando. Yeah, that will totally happen. The message is “If Orlando notices your shoes, he’s probably not into women.” Orlando is going to ditch Daisy after being pressured to by the boss for a bigger bet, but he screws over the boss and dates her anyway! Take that, boss! Instead of showing us dinner, they just talk about it afterward. That way we don’t have to pay for a restaurant set!

Orlando takes her back to her room…Sex time! Almost… She’s naked, but she can’t go through with it! Doesn’t she know the man has a bet going on? Orlando leaves, disappointed.

Enough of that, it is photoshoot time. We are saved from the lingerie-only shots thanks to the boss just imagining them all naked. We find the girls are all Czech girls looking to gold dig. Hey, at least they are honest! When the photoshoot is over, two of the models reveal they are from the Isle of Lesbos. They get to know each other, sisterhood style! Mr. Sleazy Boss watches the whole thing. Because he is sleazy. And because he is male.

Daisy has spotted some irregularities in the accounting, and points it out to the boss Mr. Tyler, but he wants to keep it on the down low (because he did it…duh!) Now it is time for the third model to have sex with the fake Australian photographer! Because viewers demanded that fake Australians have sex.

Daisy and Gloria have a chat by the hot tub. It is girl talk. Gloria talks about how being assertive sexually gives you power. Then they have lesbian sex, so Daisy can learn to open up. Open up her labia, no doubt! Also, they stopped the lesbian sex at some point to light about 100 candles, luckily all of that candle lighting is edited out of the film and we just have non-stop lesbian sex.

See, Catalina Larranaga can write a good story and pack it with lesbianism that is relevant to the plot, she knows the score.


The next hot date for Orlando and Daisy is him cooking at her place. Since that always gets you laid, he gets laid. By the fireplace. At work, Orlando tries to shrug off the bet, but admits he nailed her (okay, “made love”) but then he gets all graphic. Orlando is being a jerk all of a sudden. Boss Mr. Sleazebag lets spill that he knows everything to Daisy, who stars to cry until the Mailguy comforts her.

Orlando tries to explain things, but he is only mildly convincing. That’s not a good sign from someone who is a high profile ad executive who needs to convince people of things for a living! At the company party, Mr. Tyler and Kevin brag to David the Mailguy about how they use the company for all their expenses.

Later at the party, two of the models ties up Mr. Tyler and have him watch as they go lesbotronic on each other to Mambo music. He starts to get desperate when he realizes he can’t join the fun. Haw-HAW!

This is like the third scene where people have sex while someone watches.

Daisy does some research on the accounting. She’s late the next day, then shows up all sexy. Doing accounting research is the same thing as a total body makeover! She tells the boss to meet her at the breakroom at noon and also tells Kevin to meet her in the breakroom at noon, getting them to meet each other in their underwear. HA! This movie is now a sitcom!

There is an important Head Office meeting in 20 minutes! Oh no! The CEO comes in, and he is the mailguy David! Who didn’t see that one coming? Probably people coming in late, flipping over to Cinemax after the Sopranos ended. The boss Mr. Tyler is fired, as is Kevin! Gloria gets promoted, Orlando gets more responsibility, Tammy gets a promotion and a date. Wait a minute, isn’t that inappropriate office behavior? Daisy gets a meeting about a future awesome job not to be discussed at this time. So we won’t discuss it. Daisy and Orlando get back together. They were the Ross and Rachel of Corporate Fantasy, it’s so happy to see them together! Too bad Chandler and Joey got fired. I guess that makes David the mailguy Gunther or something. Or Mike Hannigan. I’m sure you can figure out who Monica and Phoebe are. And until the next film that I turn into a random 90s sitcom, we’re outta here!

Hey, don’t watch this scene, epic spoilers!

Rated 7/10 (old school paintings, don’t copy that floppy, on a mail clerk’s salary…, the fakest CEO in the West!, shock and awed, listening in, model mayhem!)

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A Little Bit of Heaven

2011
Directed by Nicole Kassell

There have been a few tries to put cancer in comedies in the past couple of years, most of which have had mixed-to-bad results, because cancer isn’t really that funny. So of course the next step is a weepy romantic comedy about dealing with cancer and finding love! Even weirder, it’s pretty much marketed as a romantic comedy even though is blurs more over into the drama category. But, despite the fact it’s getting awful awful reviews, A Little Bit of Heaven isn’t awful (or even awful awful), it’s far more complicated than that…

Marley Corbett is a carefree woman who seems like she has it all going on. She’s a young hip girl in the city, just scoring a big promotion and living life and partying. Working hard and playing hard. All that cliched jazz. Her biggest worry and biggest love is her pet bulldog, while men are nothing but a list of bootycalls. She has a whole cadre of friends who join her on her adventures.

But things aren’t going all that great in Marley’s life, unexplained loss of weight, bloody stools…something bad is on the horizon. After a visit to the very handsome Dr. Julian Goldstein, she’s diagnosed with advanced colon cancer. Of course, Marley is too busy having fun to take any of this seriously. She shocks her friends with her announcement done in a flippant way, unaware or uncaring about the shock she put them through. Her attitude begins to have some cracks after a colonoscopy shows things are worse than they thought and the only hope in an experimental procedure that might work or might not. It’s also during this colonoscopy that she has her first vision of the afterlife…


Visions of heaven and God sort of seem out of place due to the film not being that spiritual outside of those instances. They are sort of a deus ex machina (pun intended) that sets up the love story plot of the film. Whoopi Goldberg plays God (sort of making this a sequel to It’s A Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie!), who grants Marley three wishes after dropping the news that she’s going to die. Marley treats the first two wishes as a joke, then waits on the third one because she doesn’t really have anything she wants. Of course, once back in the world of the living, the first two wishes randomly come true.

Marley’s attempts to take nothing serious reveal a major problem with her not dealing with her friends’ feelings. It shows her character’s flaws, going beyond the idyllic modern woman to a self-absorbed caricature. It is a subtle thing that you don’t notice at first, but the little things of how she acts while her friends are obviously suffering begin to add up. Marley spends so much time having fun she doesn’t deal with her emotions at all, in fact she never really did, always avoiding anything that went serious. Her avoidance and stress builds up. She soon has outbursts in public as the emotions she’s dealing with but not releasing become unleashed in raw form.

The feelings have extra weight with the budding romance between Marley and her doctor, Julian Goldstein, who is square as square can be (to the point where he can’t even tell jokes!) It’s tough work being a manic pixie dreamgirl, though it just gets added to the list of things Marley has to take care of before she dies. Besides the love story and trying to make it up with her friends, she also has her divorced parents to deal with. Both of them she finds annoying in different ways, though her father spends most of the film across the country. Her mother I don’t really see much wrong with, she’s just a typical worried mother, Kathy Bates doing a great job. The relationship with her father is more complicated, but is dealt with in a satisfying way, and a way that seems realistic considering the father is a man who would rarely show emotion or be able to talk about emotions (gee, where did Marley get some of her emotional difficulty from?)

The supporting cast is the brightest part of the film, everyone dealing with their conflicting emotions of horrible sadness while trying to put on a happy face for Marley. Peter Dinklage steals the middle of the film during his brief scene as a special guest from one of Marley’s friends. Treat Williams plays a great estranged father, his strain to actually try to express some feelings when he’s spent his whole life trying not to are heartfelt.

Ultimately A Little Bit of Heaven is about finding what you want in life, even if you didn’t know you wanted it, before it’s too late. It is also a good way to show coming to terms with the untimely end of your life. But it isn’t just about Marley, it becomes more than that. It’s about her friends and family just as much as it is about her.

Most films about cancer seem to act like Marley, blithely prancing around in their own funny world while their friends and family (the audience) are dealing with a whole host of emotions, mostly emotions they don’t want to have while watching a light-hearted comedy. While I don’t support keeping your emotions segregated, I do see why the audience for these films is rather limited. Not many people want to go on a amusement park ride knowing there will be tragedy at the end, slowly killing any possible fun that would have been had. Sure the story is good and I liked the film, but the ride will be one chosen by few. Had I not gotten free passes I’d wouldn’t have watched this, though I am glad I did. But I will be one of the few, and I can understand perfectly well why the cancer part will keep people away.

Also here’s a Roll Call that didn’t fit in anywhere else above:

Marley Corbett (Kate Hudson) – Marley has it all, so she thinks. But sometime a girl can have too much, like cancer. Maybe moderation is the key. Moderate cancer. Julian Goldstein (Gael García Bernal) – Straight-laced doctor who’s too busy working to be able to ask people “Why did the chicken cross the road?” But will a patient who takes nothing serious change Julian’s workaholic attitude? I hope so, otherwise this film will be even sadder! Beverly Corbett (Kathy Bates) – Marley’s long-suffering mom who spends the film worrying and being a mom. Kathy Bates shows that she can even make a character who seems to be weak and have no notable personality into someone memorable. God (Whoopi Goldberg) – You didn’t like Jumpin’ Jack Flash? Cancer! You didn’t like Burglar? Cancer! You didn’t like Fatal Beauty? Cancer! You didn’t like Star Trek Nemesis? Okay, that one sucked. You’re just sentence to watch Theodore Rex!

Rated 5/10 (Finger lickin’ good, someone’s about to be ADORKABLE!, a friend indeed, I believe I can fly…, I ran out of things to use from screencaps…)

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Sweet Prudence & the Erotic Adventure of Bigfoot

2011
Written and directed by William Burke

I must go, but you can always catch my lone movie role in Robot Monster!

Sweet Prudence & the Erotic Adventure of Bigfoot gives us what we want – Bigfoot running around a nudist camp! Also we got UFOs, crazy dudes, the Loch Ness Monster, and goofy fun. It all rolls up into a Sasquatchtacular adventure and some fun late night viewing.

The overall plot is fun and quick paced, there never seems to be a point where things drag out, which can be a problem with some of the softcore films. The actors are all energetic, and most put on a naturalistic approach to acting, feeling like real friends that you are hanging out with rather than characters. Albina Nahar is the standout actress who almost steals the show, she’s having a lot of fun. But everyone does their jobs very well, the chemistry is great, even the chemistry of everyone hating Dirk! The Sasquatch costume is well built, though it looks a tad familiar. There are a few technical problems, some of the outdoor scenes are a bit overexposed. There is also an editing problem, where there are a few shots that seem to be focusing on an item (for either a joke or an emotional punch) but we either don’t get a clear view of the item or a shot of it wasn’t edited in in post. A notable examples is the floating tarot card of The Lovers at the end of Veruca and Flower’s sex scene, the card is not seen clearly and I only recognize it because I’ve seen a copy of the tarot deck they are using. This actually made me sad, because that stuff made the scenes more creative. William Burke obviously had fun setting up the many many many many weird positions for some of the sex scenes, and several other examples of having fun with sex scenes (i.e. the speed up sequence that explains why Mike is tired) show care was taken in every part of the film.

Prudence and Veruca watch the funniest episode of 2 Broke Girls ever!

Let’s talk about Bigfoot! Longtime readers will probably not be surprised to know this is not the first film I’ve seen with Bigfoot sexing up a girl and with Bigfoot raping a dude. I’ve even seen Ape Canyon in a theater with the director there! There is a whole subgenre of films with Bigfoot sexing up women or raping them, and let’s not even get into the books/fan fiction. Just look up Sasquatchploitation for more info than you ever want to know. Another common Bigfoot trope is UFOs, both in films and in real life Bigfoot sightings. It’s just cooler to say you saw Bigfoot and UFOs instead of just one.

Where did you find a waiter in the middle of the swamp??

The Sasquatch in Sweet Prudence & the Erotic Adventure of Bigfoot is not mean spirited or Bigfoot being overly perverted, he just seems to get aroused when the women are already running around naked for various reasons, though he’s perfectly willing to do the deed when offered (or not offered!) The opening credits take form of comic book cover and panels by Aaron Lane and help give us the feel that the whole thing is too pulpy to take serious. And will we see a whole series of Sweet Prudence dealing with erotic paranormal encounters? Maybe we will, if you buy enough DVDs/watch it on Cinemax/Maxgo!

Hey, that UFO has a “Mystery Spot” bumper sticker!

Prudence (Angie Bates) – Former cryptozoology major looking to regain her reputation and degree by capturing photos of Bigfoot. Innocent and sweet, incapable of lying, and incapable of lying in wait without pleasuring herself. Best friends with her roommate Veruca. Veruca (Albina Hussain as Albina Nahar) – An erotic blogwriter under the pen name Salimae, Veruca is more interesting in looking for thrills instead of looking for Bigfoot. But she supports her friend Prudence and dreams of lumberjacks to help spice up her writing. Instead, she finds commune girls, but that’s just as good or even better… Flower (Heather O’Donnell) – A hippie tarot zen master guru in charge of the local naturalist retreat where Bigfoot has been spotted recently. A big believer in visualizing good thoughts and manifesting them into reality. Mike (Michael Slade) – Prudence’s friend and schoolmate who was unjustly dragged into the loss of his degree due to her shenanigans. Helps her track down Bigfoot thanks to some convincing, and finds love while doing so. Ginger (Lynzey Patterson) – Freespirit worker at the naturist retreat who is the first to spot Bigfoot. Is practically insatiable. Dr. Dirk (Luke Gallo) – A Bigfoot hunter who also came to the resort in secret. Is abrasive, loud, obnoxious, foulmouthed, and seems totally out of place from the rest of the cast and their granola free love attitudes. The Creature (Daniel Moshe Johnson) – He’s Big! He’s got a foot! Okay, he’s got TWO feet! It’s Bigfoot, and he’s trapped on Earth and naked women are everywhere! What’s an ape to do?

Nothing can go wrong with this plan!

Tee-hee, we’re gonna get so many parasites!

Just another weekday in the orgy pool…

The jokes and the softcore scenes both flow fast and furious. We open with Ginger and her girlfriend of the moment Faye (Bianca Gross) skinny dipping at the camp lake, until they notice they have an audience…Bigfoot!

Once this hits the news, every deserts the resort. But someone is interested in Bigfoot, former cryptozoology student Prudence. She sees the bigfoot sighting as a chance to finish her degree. She also wants to take her roommate along with her, Veruca the erotic blogger. Veruca is more interested in hot guys to spice up her blog stories, though she’s lured in with mentions of possible lumberjacks and forest rangers. Prudence gives us a flashback to why her degree remains unfinished, it seems when her, her professor, and her crush Mike went in search of the Loch Ness Monster, disaster struck. Prudence gets aroused when needing to wait, and the noise of her self-pleasuring event scared off the Loch Ness Monster. The professor kicked them both out of school. This is her chance to set things right for both her and Mike.

Sweet Prudence: The Motion Comic!

This chart proves I’m not crazy and Bigfoot is a lizard person…

Speaking of Mike, he’s coming over in a few seconds to get some books, so Prudence enlists Veruca to convince him into joining the trip by any means necessary. As this is a softcore romp, you can guess what means are necessaried. Prudence hides behind the curtains to make sure everything goes well. After being convinced in the biblical sense, they party is on their way to the camp. A naturist camp. Which means nudist, for those of you unfamiliar with such terms. Owner Flower and her cook Ginger celebrate the impending new customers by also doing some biblical convincing to each other in the pool.

Of course, Prudence’s group isn’t the only ones, a bigfoot hunter named Dirk (or DOCTOR Dirk!) is there, hiding as a clump of grass. He’s abrasive, loud, obnoxious, foulmouthed, and has a secret – he plans to kill bigfoot for a million dollars!

Bigfoot noses around, interrupting Veruca and Flower’s magical time alone together. They yell at him for having his li’l Sasquatch hanging out. But if you like seeing Sasquatch dong…you will love this film! Bigfoot is hard at work stealing electronic devices for reasons unknown. Dirk is exposed as a pervo due to his numerous videos of Ginger showering, and is ostracized from the main group.

Sorry, folks, I got a 6 o’clock with the Yeti I got to get to…

We’ve come to find naked Sasquatches.

Turning me into a cartoon won’t stop me from meeting up with Yeti!

And now for the centerpiece nude sequence of the film…NUDE YOGA!!!!

Yes, all four girls are doing their yoga thing, and every yoga pun you can think of is mentioned at some point or another, so let’s just skip the jokes and get back to the show. Both Bigfoot and Dirk manage to spy on them, with Bigfoot making his special sauce, which Dirk tastes not knowing what it even is!

The plane: Dirk dresses as an ape to lure Bigfoot while Prudence and Mike lie in wait to take photos (Dirk’s real plan is to shoot Bigfoot then and claim his million bucks!) As we know from before, Prudence can’t just lay in wait and soon her and Mike are getting it on, Bigfoot waiting style! Bigfoot shows up around then, while Dirk has fallen on all fours while having a temper tantrum. One thing leads to another and soon Dirk is getting Deliveranced by Bigfoot! Eventually Bigfoot realizes Dirk is a dude in a suit and runs off.

Guess what jewelry I sell on Etsy!

Now, don’t you girls rush me all at once, I know I’m rocking these suspenders pretty sexy like…

Don’t mess with the Veruca!

Dirk’s killer plan is exposed, but by then he’s a changed man, in love with Bigfoot. Prudence goes into the woods to warn Bigfoot that there might be more hunters soon, and some of them might not be stupid! Veruca goes with her, they plan to lure Bigfoot in with technology, including a supervibrator from China.

Once she finds Bigfoot, there is a Harry and the Hendersons type scene where she tells Bigfoot to get lost. Except things don’t go exactly like Harry and the Hendersons and Prudence kidnapped by Bigfoot!

If you don’t have a pipe in your author photo, your book sucks!

This gun means I’m not a repressed homosexual!

Bigfoot modifies the vibrator into a communication device…which needs to be inserted into the vagina to work. He can now sort of talk by telepathy through the device with modulated voice. This voice is sometimes hard to understand. Bigfoot explains he’s an alien and needed the electronic devices to fix his ship and go home. Then we lead into the scene we all knew was going to happen…Prudence having sex with Bigfoot!

She also gets the photos she needs to get her and Mike’s degrees.

Bigfoot leaves while wearing a space helmet – holy Robot Monster, Batman!

Don’t worry, Prudence can still hear his thoughts with the device after he leaves, so a sequel is easy to write!

Many softcore films have a lesbian scene with a billion candles…

Sex Injury: The Movie!

I don’t want to be a tattletale, but Sasquatch is warming the pool in the corner…

Let’s all celebrate with giant orgy! Prudence, Ginger, Flower, Veruca, and Mike all get it on…successfully helping Bigfoot style!

Also poor reformed Dirk, waiting for Bigfoot to come back…will he ever find Bigfoot love? Probably not.

So the main concern is whether the rape scene of Dirk and his subsequent reaction is awful or funny. I don’t subscribe to the notion that every film should be 100% PC sanitized or that rape can’t be played for more than a traumatic event. But I can understand arguments that will claim that the rape scene is in poor taste, and Dirk’s subsequent turning homosexual is offensive. In fact, I’m more upset at Dirk turning stereotypically gay than him being raped. While the audience of this film will be predominantly male heterosexual, there will undoubtedly be a few Dirks in the audience who are repressed homosexuals, and this will reinforce their desire to hide further in the closest instead of accepting who they are. Then again, you can’t really hold a Bigfoot movie accountable for the way society views people. But it does give you something to think about besides how hot Albina Nahar is.

The filthiest picture ever on TarsTarkas.NET!

Remember: Bigfoot is from an advanced alien race, but can’t tell a fake costume ape butt from the real thing…

Kidnapping the girl? How stereotypical, monster! Try something original for once!

Rated 8/10 (So shocked, so reporting, so tenured, so camouflaged, so bought at Ross, so graphic designed, so headset, so playing Peter Gabriel on his boombox)

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Note: Sasquatch died on his way back to his home planet…

UPDATE!!!!
Have we got an update for you! Sweet Prudence director William Burke and actresses Albina Nahar and Angie Bates liked our review so much, they made a personalized video response! So enjoy the first ever response video to a TarsTarkas.NET review, and what is by far the best response ever to one of our reviews (beyond the occasional badly-spelled legal threats!)

Bikini Jones and the Temple of Eros

2010
Written and Directed by Fred Olen Ray (as Nicholas Medina)

Hey! Zip it while I’m translating ancient ruins, buddy!

We’re back in black and back in bikinis for yet another entry in the ever-growing Fred Olen Ray Bikini Movie Madness! This time, the world of Indiana Jones gets bikinied a Bikini Jones! Join that ever-sexy science field of archeology as Bikini Jones seduces her hands onto the Idol so she can unlock its secrets before the never-do-wells get their mitts on it and on Bikini Jones’s own golden idol. Bikini Jones features many of the regular cast members circa 2010, most of which have appeared in enough films it’s simpler just to link to their tags than to list all the films over and over again for each actor. Fred Olen Ray reuses the talent because they can get the job done, and done right, and done quickly. But mostly done right.

The later seasons of The Dog Whisperer started to throw in gimmicks for ratings…

Bikini Jones is fun, has fun things going on, and is worth your time. But don’t take my word for it, read the review and then take my word for it! Wait a minute…

Olsen Twin Cop! She’s a cop, and an Olsen Twin.

Dr. Bikini Jones (Christine Nguyen) – A famous archeologist and expert in translating ancient languages. And at having lots of sex. What do you expect when you name your daughter Bikini? The Jones family should be banned from handing out names… Evilla Cruella (Heather Vandeven) - Again with the names that force their owners into a life out of their control. Evilla Cruella was doomed from the start. She’s from Hobokin, but comes from a long line of Morons. Wants to be ruler of Moronica. Carol Summers (Rebecca Love) – An excellent cypher from the Department of National Antiquities…or is she???? Drago (Frankie Cullen) – Frankie Cullen shows up playing what probably would have been the Evan Stone role, as Evilla’s main henchman. Does the dirty work and the dirty deeds. Mr. Martin (Ted Newsom) – The CIA boss who hires Bikini Jones so they can stop Evilla from getting her hands on Moronica. Mark X (Billy Chappell as Tony Marino) – Oh….THAT GUY. Janette the Security guard (Brynn Tyler) – A security guard straight from that school from the Armed and Dangerous movie… Brynn Tyler is the only newcomer in this flick. Sacred Idol of Eros (himself) – The most famous idol from Eros….ever! The Guardian of Moronica (CGI) – Moronica is full of rocks, Morons, and this guy, who eats everyone. No wonder Moronica’s economy is in the toilet…

What do you call a tyrannosaurus that talks and talks and talks? A dinobore! I’ll be here all week, folks.

The most thorough maid service ever!

The totally a real cleaning lady “maid” Dr. Bikini Jones has infiltrated Cruella Industries’s headquarters and locates the Golden Idol. Luckily, people just leave Golden Idols lying around! She checks into her boss Mr. Martin, telling us, the audience, that there is an agreement she can study the Golden Idol before turning it over to the CIA. But in comes a security guard. A female security guard. A naive young lass who is easily fooled by Dr. Jones’s cover story of just being the cleaning lady. A naive young lass who is also easily seduced into sealing the deal with a kiss. A kiss of vaginas! I mean, together the two women read the book A Pocket for Corduroy and learn a valuable lesson about having a pocket for your name card to be in.

As they have their afternoon nap after storytime, Bikini Jones sneaks off with the Idol. This guard is so fired.

Back at CIA HQ, we learn that the Golden Idol is the sacred Idol of Eros, which according to legend has the key to the Temple of Eros encoded on it. We all know that the Temple of Eros has the Tiara of Ayesha, and whoever wears the Tiara of Ayesha becomes the ruler of Moronica! That is Evilla Cruella’s goal, and from her secret lair she demand her manservant Drago go get it! Then she laughs and laughs. It’s joyful to see someone so full of merriment.

Good work, Bikini Jones, I didn’t even have time to make “Throw me the whip. Throw me the idol” jokes!

It looks neat, but the heating costs are through the roof in the winter…

Dr. Jones is late for a date with a shower to get rid of the security guard smell. And as always happens in these shower scenes always do, she pleasures hersel– I mean, she reads The Berenstain Bears Go to Camp. Important camp lessons, these bears teach.

Outside the shower, a woman waits….wait a minute, that’s not how these scenes happen! Usually the second woman is in the shower as well! Also reading. But this woman is a lady Dr. Jones hasn’t seen before, Carol Summers from the Department of Antiquities. Sent by Martin, as confirmed by a phone call. Carol actually uses the “guys don’t make passes with girls who wear glasses” line when describing herself. Dr. Jones mentions she wears contacts, hopefully with the money from the treasure at the Lost Temple of Eros she can pay for lasic. She also mentions a whip fight in Istanbul and having cobras in her pants, so that earns a massage from Carol Summers…which leads to what you think it would lead to…reading McBroom’s Zoo! Ha, those Silver-tailed Teakettlers are awesome, I want one in my zoo.

Hey, that’s not how you scrub clean!

I’m totally a doctor of agentology or something!

Drago dresses as a Mexican wrestler and sneaks around the house while the girls sleep, steals the Idol and Jones’s notebook…but Jones pulls a gun on him and avoids his bribes and threats. Carol knocks her out because Carol is also an agent of Cruella!

After reporting in to eht CIA, Dr. Jones is still recovering from the blow to the head with memory lapses. She doesn’t know if Carol is kidnapped or in on it. Bikini Jones did put a tracking device on the Idol, but in a stroke of pad the film luck, the tracker’s locator device is broken so they need to send a tech over. The tech is Mark X, and he’s currently banging a random chick- I mean, he’s currently reading to his girlfriend Fox in Socks. Yes, this is the Mark X from the Tanya X films, except he’s pronounced Mark Ten, and she’s pronounced Tanya X. Neither are related to Malcolm.

As they have no clue how to translate the runes on the Idol of Eros (the notebook they stole was blank), Cruella sends Carol back to spy on Jones some more. And then Cruella rewards Drago with se- Rewards with reading Mr. Happy and the Wizard. Actress Heather Vandeven is very into telling Drago that he’s being rewarded, she probably had more se– read more Mr. Men books to him.

Bikini Jones and the phallic symbol of doom!

Carol tells Dr. Jones a cover story of kidnapping, which totally works with her change of clothes into a long fancy dress, something Dr. Jones herself points out. Mark X arrives to fix the device, while Dr. Jones goes to see a Dr. Xavier to check her head. But Dr. Xavier is Drago! So he just gives her some drugs and has sex with her– I mean, he gives her warm milk (best song) and reads Sideways Stories from Wayside School. That Wayside School sure is wacky…

And he kidnaps her.

Mark X fixes the tracker, and as he and Carol wait for Dr. Jones to return, they have sex to pass the time- I mean, they pass the time by reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Then he handcuffs her because she’s evil and heads to Moronica!

Look, I’m sorry I wandered off the Santo vs. Los Robocops set!

Drago leads a leashed Dr. Jones to Cruella’s lair. Holy crap, a dinosaur! The Guardian of Moronica! No one has seen it and lived to tell about it, which is why people know about it and we see Dr. Jones and Drago run away. Somehow I think there are holes in that story…

Cruella tries to recruit Dr. Jones to help her find the Temple, and they seal the deal by sexing it up with Drago. No, wait, all three of them read Harold and the Purple Crayon.

Time to go treasure hunting. Mark rescues Dr. Jones as the Guardian of Moronica distracts everyone, then they head to the Temple of Eros and find the Tiara of Ayesha. But Cruella and Drago come in with guns! Then Mr. Martin comes in with a gun..and a dress…and makeup. He’s going to be Empress of Moronica! Holy gender-bender! Ted Newsom totally hams this up, which is awesome.

Somehow we knew it would all come to this…

Mr. Martin prances away, but gets chomped by the Guardian. The characters all realize that the Tiara will be in dinosaur poo! “Let’s get our poop hands on!” say Drago and Cruella. Luckily, the film ends before our characters start digging around in dinosaur dung. Let’s leave that to Jurassic Park.

Bad Dinosaur!

I can’t believe it…this Temple of Eros is really a gazebo!

Rated 8/10 (My ID, My seal, My Jayden Cole, My nervous system, My anatomical model, My eye, My villa, My TIE fighter window)

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The Blonde Hair Monster

aka 黃毛怪人 aka Yellow Giant

1962
Written and Directed by Wong Fung

The Blonde Hair Monster is a story from the pulp series Wong Ang the Flying Heroine Bandit. These tales originated in 1940′s Shanghai from intelligence worker Siu Ping (aka Xiao Ping), who used his stories to speak out against the social and economic injustices of the time, creating a hero to fight for the people. Siu Ping fled to Hong Kong as the Chinese Civil War intensified and the Communists declared victory. The Wong Ang character spoke to the citizens of Hong Kong just as she had to the citizens of Shanghai, and became big sellers in the 1950s. Wong Ang is a play on the word for Oriole, and thus is known as Oriole in several title translations.

Wong Ang fits the profile of the virtuous female fighter character. While not being a nuxia (swordswoman), she is set in modern day and works with modern tools to take on modern problems. The rich and the powerful who think they can get away with crimes meet their matches, and the innocent and forgotten find the justice they need in their lives.

Wong Ang’s popularity made it a natural that she would appear on the screen, with the first entries appearing in 1957 or 1958. The first known film was Shaw’s Oriole, the Heroine (also known as Miss Nightingale, the Flying Fencer), which starred Pearl Au Kar-wai as Wong Ang and Fanny Fan and Chiang Feng as her sidekicks. There is some uncertainty to the exact release date. Beginning in 1959, Yu So-Chow played her in a series of films, four featuring veteran female action star Wu Lizhu and Yam Yin as her two sidekicks. 1959 gave us How Oriole the Heroine Solved the Case of the Three Dead Bodies and How Oriole the Heroine Caught the Murderer. 1960 was the Year of the Oriole with four films: House No. 13, Apartment Murder, Miss Cranery Vs. the Flying Tigers, and The Story of Wong-Un the Heroine. The Breakthrough was released in 1961. The Blonde Hair Monster is the last of the Yu So-Chow Wong Ang films (and the last Wong Ang film period, unless you count Michele Yeoh’s Silverhawk!), though by now the focus had begun to shift to Connie Chan, who plays one of her sidekicks. Thanks to DurianDave from SoftFilm for his work compiling the list of films above.

My favorite part of Blonde Hair Monster is how the vcd is missing an entire reel of the film! Luckily for me, I tracked down a guy on YouTube who uploaded the middle chunk of a TVB broadcast of the film for some reason, and that middle chunk has the missing reel! That’s also why some of the screencaps look different. TarsTarkas.NET goes the extra mile to give you the review you deserve, because we care, when we’re not being lazy! What is even more weird is the TVB broadcast is also missing pieces that the vcd had. So I’ve put together an extended edition of The Blonde Hair Monster that just might be the most complete copy of the film in the world. And yet there still is no title card…

Because this film is obscure as frak and I had to composite it together, this review will be detailed and long. So, sorry if you aren’t into that sort of thing, but bully if you are! And for more, much more on the Jane Bond films that this is a prototype of, listen to the Jane Bond Infernal Brains Podcast!

Wong Ngan (Yu So-Chau) – The champion of the people and solver of mysteries. Wong Ngan the Oriole fights for justice, and for just being there when stuff goes down. She and her girls will solve any mystery that comes along and won’t take any crap while doing so, though Wong Ngan is more likely to dispense with the villains with a polite smile than her sidekicks. Heung Ngan (Connie Chan Po-Chu) – Wong Ngan’s younger sidekick, who is sassy and tough, and not afraid to fight a gigantic yellow-haired monster on occasion. Or a lady in a skeleton costume. Or a jerk homeowner keeping her from having a banana. The film is well aware Connie Chan will be the cat’s meow in another year or two, and makes sure to keep her on screen. Wu Nga (Chan Hiu-Kau) – Wong Ngan’s other sidekick, who wears a K on her jacket (for Krazy!) She’s more reserved than Heung Ngan, but isn’t afraid to kick some butt if need be. Inspector To (Walter Tso Tat-Wah) – Walter Tso shows up as his Inspector character that he played from time to time when not starring in a period piece. It’s a good thing Inspector To let these women wander around and solve his case for him, because he’s wrong on just about everything until Wong Nang politely explains what happened. Cheung Yan-Lei (Sek Kin) – The framed younger brother of Cheung Yan-Chuen who spent years in jail and recently escaped. He’s plotting revenge, but a jerk like Cheung Yan-Chuen has so many enemies Yan-Lei is going to have to get in line. Cheung Yan-Chuen (Ling Mung) – The evil brother who framed his brother for murder and screwed over a lot of people in his life. A list of his enemies would just be a copy of the phone book (Cheung Yan-Chuen wouldn’t be there, as he’d have an unlisted telephone number just to be away from everyone else!) Learns why you should never turn your back on your enemies, especially the ones with knives. Cheung Kai-Ting (Cheung Ying-Tsoi) – Son of Cheung Yan-Chuen who now has to deal with his idiot father’s enemies coming to cause problems. You think you have dad problems. Yau Tin Lung (Lam Liu-Ngok) – The servent to Cheung Yan-Chuen who is listed here because she’s a major character with a secret. And just ignore the fact there is a mystery character who is obviously female… Sifu (Lok Gung) – A one-eyed sorcerer who helps Cheung Yan-Lei after his escape from jail and just happens to have a giant manservant and an orangutan on hand in his lab. So did Cheung Yan-Lei escape from jail into a pulp novel? You’d be surprised, because this film is based on a pulp novel! Blonde Hair Monster (Siu Gam) – Was originally Sifu’s servant Mo Mo before a horrible accident and the addition of orangutan blood turned him into the fearful Blonde Hair Monster! Is that blonde hair real? Only his hairdresser knows for sure! Ghost Lady (It is a mystery!) – Who could this mysterious ghost lady be? And why is she wearing a skeleton head when she is a ghost?

Two escaped criminals (complete with classic striped suits!) are on the run, chained together like they’re some sort of defiant ones or something. They escape the cops and their “shoot randomly at some bushes then go home” strategy to recapture the prisoners. One prisoner is Sek Kin, playing Cheung Yan-Lei, who was framed by his evil brother. The other prisoner isn’t Sek Kin, but he is a jerk, and forces Cheung Yan-Lei to hang from a train track bridge while the passing train severs their chains. Cheung Yan-Lei falls into the river below and half drowns, while the other prisoner just don’t care, and goes off by himself until GOON ATTACK!!!

Yes, a random giant goon in the middle of the forest beats up the bad prisoner, and saves Cheung Yan-Lei – who awakens at the lair of the goon’s master, an eyepatch-wearing Sorcerer. Sorcerer brings in the battered other prisoner, who tries to escape by throwing a pitchfork into the Sorcerer. Instead, he’s brought downstairs to the special dungeon lab full of all sorts of awesome things. There is a woodcarving of a monster in the corner, a wheel with giant snakes and scorpions suspended on the edges that constantly spinning, and a chained orangutan (man in suit!)



The prisoner stabs the servant Mo Mo, and is shot dead. So Sorcerer injects Mo Mo with the orangutan blood and he transforms into a Monster man! The Monster is now the Blonde Hair Monster, and when he’s injected with a proper supply of blood, he is invincible to kung fu.

But enough of that cool stuff, let’s look at a guy and his three golden buddhas. Wait, don’t fall asleep yet! This is Cheung Yan-Lei’s evil older brother, Cheung Yan-Chuen. And the three golden buddhas attract three hot babes as they sneak around outside. This is our introduction to Wong Ang and her two sidekicks, Heung Ngan and Wu Nga. We know these girls are connected because they all wear the same shirts, but with different letters on them: Wong Ngan has a W, Heung Ngan has an H, and Wu Nga has a K. K for KRAZY! Just kidding, she’s not crazy. Not that crazy.


But when these girls aren’t playing peeping Tom, they watch dancing lion parades in town. At a position that allows them to spy on Cheung Yan-Chuen’s family. Focus on Heung Ngan as she goes to buy ice cream, and ends up beating up a guy at the ice cream vendor because he gives her a hard time, shoving his ice cream pop into his shirt pocket and twisting his arm. Heung Ngan don’t take no lip from some ice cream eating guy! Afterwards, she runs into Cheung Yan-Chuen’s son, Cheung Kai-Ting, who is talking to Chun Ngai, the daughter of the Cheung’s maid Yau Tin Lung. Heung Ngan pretends to get her ice cream spilled by him so he’ll buy her more and she can overhear some of his conversation.

The new ice cream doesn’t get eaten either, as it ends up spilling onto a goofy policeman who is the sidekick of Inspector To. He’s a comic relief guy, and the remaining ice cream is slammed in his face by Connie when he gets lippy. When will characters learn not to get lippy with Connie Chan when she has ice cream?



Later all three women beat up guys who block their view of the parade. Parade watching is serious business! Or at least surveillance of suspicious golden Buddha-having people is serious business! In an effort to not look suspicious, the three women are all wearing sunglasses while they do this.

Cheung Yan-Chuen and Chun Ngai are hanging out by the beach, but he finally has to go do some work and leaves. At the same time, Cheung Yan-Lei and Sorcerer are arriving by boat. Yau Tin snoops around their boat, and out comes the Blonde Hair Monster! He grabs her and carries her away, looking just like one of those beach movies where monsters carry girls away! But Inspector To and his sidekick are wandering by and shoot the monster in the heart, it staggers off with the gaping hole in its chest and drops the girl. This is as close as we’ll probably ever get to a Hong Kong beach monster film.


Back at the Cheung house, the son has returned home to find his dad has invited in Wong Ngan, Heung Ngan, and Wu Nga for tea. Dad reveals he knows the 3 girls were there when his brother was arrested, as he’s even carrying around the newspaper with their pictures in it. Does he normally carry that newspaper around with him? Because it’s weird.

Cheung Yan-Lei drops by to smugly announce his presence to his brother Cheung Yan-Chuen. The brothers argue, because Yan-Lei is talking some smack as he’s got dirt on his brother and a chip on his shoulder for the jailtime. But servant Fook (played by Sai Gwa-Pau from How the Ape Girl Stole the Lotus Lamp – who stutters once again in his role!) enters because the police have returned with Chun Ngai, who is still unconscious from her beach terror.



And now we enter the portion of the film that is NOT on the vcd. The TVB print is much cleaner/less scratched up, though it is washed out and during bright scenes there are black blobs where dark color is at.

The cops put Chun Ngai into her bedroom and explain there was a monster, though not everyone is convinced…until an extra-worldly roar starts yelling outside! They look, but there is nothing there. The cops say they’re on the case. Wong Ang and her girls say they’re on the case. I’ll side with Wong Ang and her posse on this one.

The Monster climbs a tree and creeps around the house peering in windows, though no one notices him blatantly looking inside. The cops and Wongs hear the Monster laughing, and decide that means they should go to the beach to poke around for clues, finding a mauled body.



The two groups head back to the Cheung house for some food and theorizing. At the dinner, Heung Ngan and Wu Nga (mostly Heung Ngan) harass the fat detective after he gets lippy again, causing him to get food spilled all over himself, which makes him freak out even more. This guy is fun to harass.

That night, Cheung Yan-Lei, Sorcerer, and Monster are sneaking around, when someone stabs the evil brother Cheung Yan-Chuen in the back. He dies as his son comforts him. Then a lady in a skull mask (referred to as a Ghost in the HKFA synopsis) menaces the recovering Chun Ngai. She screams, but the door is locked and no one can get in!



Chun Ngai is saved by the Monster, who goes through the window and menaces the Ghost lady, who escapes through a secret passageway. Inspector To shoots the door open and everyone runs in, only to start a big fight with Monster – who is more than a match for all of them! People get tossed around, Monster roars, guns are fired to no effect, a gun is stolen by Ghost Lady as she reaches through a hand-sized trap door (there is no logical sense why that would ever exist!) It’s an action sequence that comes to an end when Sorcerer enters the room with a gun and kidnaps Chun Ngai!

The cops and Wongs discuss what to do next with Cheung Yan-Cheun, an the lights suddenly go dark and the Ghost laughs at them and runs away. Cheung Yan-Cheung, Fat Detective, and Fook chase after her while the rest of the group heads outside to look for clues. The three manage to fall down trap doors on the stairs and are captured by Ghost.

And now we pick up where disk 2 of the vcd begins…


Wong Ang, her girls and Detective To are investigating a nearby house when Ghost Lady walks up with the gun and starts shooting at them. Thanks to Wong Ang blasting out the lone lightbulb via shooting one of her hairpins into it with her magic watch, the Ghost mostly misses (she does hit Wu Nga, who is grazed on the arm, so no one important is hit!) and then wanders off.

Wong Ang and Detective To follow as Ghost disappears down a well. The door to the building opens and Heung Ngan and Wu Nga are both grabbed by the Monster!

Inside the Ghost’s well hideout, Cheung Yan-Cheun, Fat Detective, and Fook are held captive. Fook and Fat Detective are tied to planks above some burning coals, while Cheung Yan-Cheun is tied to a chair. Ghost Lady starts rotating a crank which makes the planks the guys are tied to lower closer to the burning coals. Ghost gives us a flashback story explaining origins of the three golden buddhas. They used to belong to her father, were filled with diamonds, and were stolen by Cheung Yan-Cheun, who killed her father, raped her, and forced her to be his wife’s servant. The wife yelled at her non-stop out of resentment over the rape, until she kills the wife in a fit of rage. And now the rest of the family will suffer…



Ghost returns to cranking the two tied to planks closer and closer to the coals. Inspector To and Wong Ang arrive down the well just in time to see this. Wong Ang swings over to fight and try to crank the guys back up. Ghost Lady flees. So some brief actin before we jump to Sorcerer’s lair.

At Sorcerer’s lair, the two captive girls are tied up and Sorcerer and Cheung Yan-Lei are prepping another evil experiment! Sorcerer has some boiling acid that skeletonizes a snake! I’m sure that won’t be important later, so just forget about it. The two take blood from captive Chun Ngai to transfuse to the Blonde Hair Monster, powering him up.

Ghost Lady throws Wu Nga a gun just as she unties herself, so she can free herself and Heung Ngan. But there is a struggle, and Sorcerer gets shot. Ghost Lady laughs and reveals herself. She has a paper with something on it, but then is shot by the wounded Sorcrer, and Cheung Yan-Lei fights the two girls, besting Wu Nga, but Heung Ngan proves a match as they trade blows. The Blonde Hair Monster roars to life and grabs her. No fair!



Wong Ang and Inspector To come in, with the freed captives. Wong Ang and Heung Ngan fight the Monster, while Inspector To and Wu Nga take on Cheung Yan-Lei. Yan-Lei meets his fate as his head is put in an electrical vice device that was shown earlier in the lab. It sparks up and his head becomes a toasted toasty.

The battle of the wills

The dying Ghost Lady is revealed to be Yau Tin Lung – Chun Ngai’s mom and Cheung Yan-Cheun’s servant. But that was already known, because she’s the only older female character in the film! What a mystery…



Sorcerer is still not dead, and escapes with the paper Ghost Lady had. It is a map to the golden buddha statues, which have gone missing like they were reels of the film or something! They’re hidden in the Cheung family mausoleum, so now Sorcerer opens coffin after coffin looking for the golden buddhas. We see the very dead Cheung Yan-Cheun’s arms pop out when his coffin is opened, a skeleton, and an upright coffin featuring a guy who falls forward and out of it. Another coffin contains a vampire and vampire bat! The bat bites Sorcerer, who then dies! This is the fasted acting rabies in the history of the planet!

Inspector To and the Wongs find the three golden buddhas in the last unsearched coffin, and leave satisfied. I guess. Even though many people are dead. This is like the weirdest Scooby-Doo mystery ever.

Rated 8/10 (logo, tunnel, bat time, magic, hatchet, silly detective, over exposed, secret hand door!)

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Dirty Blondes 2

2006
Directed by Francis Locke

Good thing these ancient Indians wrote “Made in Malaysia” on this ancient pot in English…

Dirty Blondes 2 is the Speed 2: Cruise Control of the Dirty Blonde Franchise. Which I think is just these two films, as another feature called More Dirty Blondes doesn’t seem to be related at all. Dirty Blondes 2 continues the riveting Dirty Blondes story, as two teams search for evidence of American and Polynesian contact, though this time instead of looking for pottery, they’re looking for a stone dildo. Because that proves…something. Whatever. The classic Dirty Blondes tropes are there – sexy archeology, female archeologists don’t wear pants, female archeologists take long showers and have sex with all of their digging partners, and long-missing ancient artifacts with Earth-shattering secrets are just lying on the ground in mint condition.

Torchlight Pictures, Francis Locke, and Blade Simpson combine together for another softcore with almost three minutes of plot stretched between many long long long long long long long sex scenes. And let’s not forget a liberal use of one long long long long long long long sex scene from the previous film. My theory is the budget was whatever Torchlight Pictures found while rummaging though the couch cushions. We all know the name of the game, so let’s meet the players:

The Dirty Blondes Collection, coming this fall to Marshall’s!

Tina (Nicole Oring) -Tina is an archeology student who is very lucky at finding amazing discoveries lying in plain sight. Can she find something amazing by the end of the film, in between her constant getting naked? Find out! Nicole Oring is a model and softcore star (including Pretty Prisoners of Chloro Conspiracies and Bare-Skinned New Girls’ Scary Bondage Surprise!), but also was in Single White Female 2: The Psycho! Professor Rich (Ben Campezi) – Professor running the new dig for the ancient dong. He has the diary from the first film, which you would think would be in a museum or something. Someone call Indiana Jones to punch this guy until it hits a museum! is an adult film star who usually works in male on male cinema, he’s handled more hogs than a pig farmer in such films as Musclemen Moving Company Inc, Oiled Up Hunks, and Straight Jocks Confess Lisa (Xara Diaz) – Lisa is one of Professor Rish’s students, and instead of digging she just wears the artifacts! Except for when Rich takes them off to have sex with her. Xara Diaz is an adult actress who has handled more packages than UPS in such fine films as We Were Tied Up and She Was Naked!, Sexz Latinas, and Finger Licking Good. Guy at Basecamp A (Dino Bravo) – This guy doesn’t even get a name, and he spends most of his time staring at Tina, except for when he’s having sex with Tina. Dino Bravo is an adult star (who ganked his name from a wrestler!) that’s given more rides than one of the coin operated kiddie machines outside a grocery store in such films as Gov Love: The Eliot Splitz-her Story, Boning Bonita Chicas, and Not Married with Children XXX

La-la-la, getting naked for no reason, la-la-la

Once again, ladies at archeological digs barely wear clothing. Tina does manage to put on a dress (but nothing else) before her hard day of looking at pots that were bought at Ross, and calling her professor via satellite phone to say how good a job she’s doing.

Professor Rich is at the other desert dig site, and he has the diary from the first film. Good to know they kept that prop all this time!

Gah, I totally can’t play Angry Birds on this satellite phone!

Tina has had enough of pretending to talk on a phone, and now she must strip off her clothes to wipe herself off with a rag. Then she gets herself off with her fingers for six minutes.

Professor Rich wanders around and sees a hot chick dressed in skimpy tribal wear – she’s Lisa and she’s wearing the artifacts! So they have sex. For 12 minutes. They have sex so long that Tina is calling Basecamp B and complaining that they’re having too much sex to answer the phone.

They want me to put a stone WHAT? In my WHERE???

Tina’s complaining lets us know the plot, that they’re looking for a stone dildo – she’ll get an A and a $10,000 research prize. And she’s deciphered a code off of a pot to track down the location. What is this, the Da Vinci Code? The Dil Vinci Do?

Tina calls Team Borneo, which consists of April and Debbie from the previous film, and this whole sequence exists just to show us 11 minutes of the lesbian sex scene from the prior film.

April (Holly Hollywood) – One of the dirty blondes from Dirty Blondes. You already read her bio last time. Holly Hollywood’s credited as Tracy Browne for some reason. Debbie Korvich (Jana Cova) – The other Dirty Blonde. Due to her lighter hair, I’ll declare here the dirty blonde who is less dirty.

Someone did do a bit of research work, as the characters discuss how this site predates both Ute and Anasazi burial sites. Back when this was filmed, the Wikipedia articles for those two subjects were probably only single sentences! (everyone was still focusing on Batman and Ayn Rand articles)

Soon Tina is wandering around, finds a wooden Indian artifact just sitting out int he open, and next to it a rock sort of shaped like a dong with some jagged edges. It’s filthy with dirt and if it is an ancient dildo probably covered in fossilized bodily fluids, but that’s of no consequence as she’s instantly naked and taking it for a test spin! This test drive goes on for seven minutes.

When Tina is done, she calls Basecamp B to brag. Basecamp B has sex for 11 minutes in celebration.

Basecamp A (Tina and the guy who never got a name) also has sex, but they first take a dig at Team Borneo and the Dirty Blondes, mentioning that when they made the archeological breakthrough in the last film, they stopped doing real research to just have sex with each other all day long. Remember when Einstein did that? It was gross…

The stone dong that changed history. Somehow.

To prove they’ll probably just do the same, that’s when Basecamp A then starts their sex scene – though finding a stone dong is not as earth-shattering of a breakthrough as proving that cultures on two continents connected thousands of years ago. But maybe it is in the world of Dirty Blondes.

The end! The Dirty Blondes will not be back, unless Legally Blonde is somehow in this same universe. Which it is, in my view.

Rated 2/10 (tattoo, totally a real ancient artifact)

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