TheGreatWhiteDope's Mecha-Blog-Zilla

So You Think You Can Name Robots?

2012-05-27T22:04:00.000-04:00

Oh, I get it; you're one of these smart-aleck wiseacres who think they know everything there is to know about robotic constructs and can put the name to the (metallic) face.

Okay then - I am hereby calling you out on your supposed knowledge.

(didn't think anyone would, didja? Well, HA!)

There's some outstanding artists over at Hopewell Studios (talented schmoes that they are) who have a good bit of talent at their disposal and have went and done the impossible... or at least the near-impossible... and made a group portrait of just about nearly every pop-culture metallic creature ever made.

Under the title "Where's Wall*E?" (Get it? Get it?? Yeah, you get it...), the sharp-eyed are invited by the arr-teestes to not only find the title 'bot but also to name off just about darned near every other one pictured. And believe me, they're all here.

That's not just an idle statement, either; when I say "they're all here", I mean THEY ARE ALL HERE. Anything that has had a robot in it... that robot is here. Sometimes in multiple incarnations.

Now before you go getting all superior and smarter-than-thou on me and doing your stretching exercises to pat yourself on the back, just back that shiny brass thing up there, pally - you still ain't seen the picture yet.

So get your eyes focused and your screen resolution sharpened because this will stretch your recognition, memory and cognitive skills to their peak and really go to prove your metal (hee hee).

Now with no further delay, here be the pic (you can click it to make the pic bigger - which I'm sure you'll need to do):

Now, no peaking or scurrying around for answers - half the fun of doing this is seeing how many of these hundreds of bots and bot-esque things you recall. Myself, I think I got at least 50-60 or so and considering my gray matter nowadays, that's pretty darned good.

Let me know how you did; one of these days I'll probably get all the rest of them recognized (or if you wanna be a big fat stinky cheat, you can go here and find the answers out yourself.... Cheater.), but for now, the search is on!

By the way, I double-checked, and Wall*E IS in there.

Dope out.

- TGWD

This Is Elske McCain's Video.

2012-05-27T11:13:00.000-04:00

Kids, it's been a while since I did any video creating and editing and such, but I figured (so as to keep myself in practice) that it was high time to get out the ol' video-making stuff and travel once again to my fickle YouTube account. Fortunately, this time out I had a superlative subject on which to make this one.

Many of my faithful few will remember a while back when I posted about an actress named Elske McCain and the many reasons why you, in fact, should watch each and every thing she is involved in. She's talented, she's versatile, she's not afraid to get down in t\he blood and gore and, naturally, she's easy on the eyes, too.

Unfortunately, as is the case with many other up-and-comers, she has a lot of naysayers, bad-mouthers, negative forces and outright trolls, all with the intent to talk her down and say as many bad things about her as possible, trying to undermine the good she has accomplished.

This is a shame, since I've spoken with her on many occasions and she is a sweet person, struggling to get by as it is and a mother of two children. You know how it is with parents nowadays... AND kids. Especially when b-movies are involved in the equation.

Needless to say, I feel she needs as much positive reinforcement as possible; after all, don't we all need to see that people like us and want us to feel good about ourselves? (just say yes and let's move on...)

With this in mind, my old moniker of Second Street Productions is back in business and I have gathered some pics, movie clips and an appropriate song to accompany it all.

You may even recognize the song - it's by a nice group of boys called One Direction who seem to have a good career ahead of themselves as well. And so, without further adieu...

Oops; I almost forgot -

[CASEY KASEM] And now, it's time for a Long Distance Dedication. A young lady by the name of Elske, living out on the Western part of America, and who just happens to be an actress, movie producer, dancer, writer and - the hardest job of all - mother of two, has been working hard at her chosen professions for many years. And, sometimes, she feels it's a hard row to plow most days. Often times she'll just want some encouragement and, maybe, just a little musical accompaniment to go along with it. Elske, this one's for you. Charting high on our countdown, here's your Long Distance Dedication: the video "Introducing Elske". [/CASEY KASEM]

Now, use one of those links at the end of this video and give this hard-working woman some kind words and good vibes. She needs 'em, just the same as you do.

Take care of yourself, Elske.

And Dope out.

- TGWD

Lee Rich Dies At 93.

2012-05-26T00:13:00.000-04:00

You may not recognize his name nor his face, but you watched his stuff a lot.

See, Mr. Rich was the man who co-founded Lorimar Productions and, from that beacon, shone out onto the vast wasteland of television programming such lasting lights as "The Waltons", "Dallas", "Knots Landing", "Eight Is Enough" and "Flamingo Road".

He even got into movies when he worked at MGM/United Artists and helped get such movies to see the light of a projector as A Fish Called Wanda, Moonstruck and Rain Man.

This was a man who was so powerful and so influential that his passing was touted as the passing of greatness as told to us by such people of power as CBS Chief executive Leslie Moonves and former NBC head honcho Fred Silverman.

Yeah, he was someone whom a lot of us TV geeks owe many an hour of their programming day to.

I'd be hard-pressed to name many TV shows that Rich wasn't involved in; chances are if you've seen a Lorimar-produced show, you've seen his work and/or ideas therein.

In short, he will be missed but his influences will doubtless be felt for generations to come who have yet to find out Who Shot JR or tell John Boy good-night.

Now to close, there is only one fitting way to send this good man into that good night: with his own logo. A frightening one for some, but hey - it's memorable.

Rest in peace, Mister Rich.

Dope out.

- TGWD

Paul (2011)

2012-05-25T23:40:00.000-04:00

If you're like me and have seen your fair share of E.T.sploitation such as - of course - E.T. The Extraterrestrial, Xtro, Mac And Me, Badi: The Turkish E.T., Nukie and the like, no doubt you've found yourself asking the same question: what does the alien of the piece think about all of this?

Oh, it's not like E.T. didn't have plenty of scenes of its title alien getting drunk, making communication devices out of Speak-N-Spells and all, but what is the little guy thinking?

Like when Elliott cut his finger, did E.T. think, "oh you stupid kid, here," and then heal him, or when Gertie dressed him up in girl's clothes, was he all like, "why did I have to leave my death ray in the ship?"

Certainly the basis of a lot of E.T.sploitation was to have a different concept of the same type of tale, but to be honest, I'd think that the easiest way to take in a new version of this kind of story would be as a comedy - an outright parody of what has come before.

Thankfully, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost were thinking the same thing.

You know these guys: not only have they given us great takes on zombie flicks (Shaun Of The Dead) and action flicks (Hot Fuzz), but now we have the boys' take on an alien displaced on our planet. The movie itself, Paul, is about an alien named... well, Paul. And, as should be expected, our E.T. here is a cynical, chain-smoking frat boy wiseacre who's just as bewildered with our pre-conceived notions of aliens as we are enamored with them.

Anal probing? Invisibility? Unlimited knowledge? It's all touched on here, and with this being a comedy, the anal probing is mentioned more than once.

But this is a plot that will make even the most hardcore sci-fi geek smile, of which Pegg and Frost seem to be the most devout: artist Graeme Willy (Pegg) and writer Clive Gollings (Frost) are two supremely geeky sci-fi geeks from Old Blighty who are taking their first pilgrimage to The States to not only visit the San Diego Comic Con but also to travel across America's desert-lined UFO heartland. Near Roswell, they witness a car crash and come face to face with a small round-headed alien named Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen) who, having been held captive by the big bad U.S. of A gummint for the past 60 years, escapes and enlists Graeme and Clive to meet with a rendezvous ship to get him back to his home planet. Sound familiar? It should.

Paul is also being chased by agents Zoil (Jason Bateman), Haggard (Bill Hader) and O'Reilly (Joe Lo Truglio), all intent on catching up with their quarry at any cost. Along the way, Paul and The Boys pick up an extremely introverted and extremely-Christian lady named Ruth (Kristen Wiig), whose Bible-pounding father (John Carrol Lynch) is intent on catching up them as well. Add a couple of rednecks (David Koechner, Jesse Plemons), a friendly diner waitress (Jane Lynch), a disillusioned woman with a secret (Blythe Danner) and a mysterious figure known only as The Big Guy, and an Ewok or two and it all leads to a final showdown in Wyoming where the story started in 1947. Oh, and some stolen fieworks and a karate punching kid (Brett Michael Jones) figure in the proceedings, too.

It helps to have a director like Greg Mottola, who himself knows something about comedy (he directed Superbad, you know), seeing that the life and liveliness of a comedy all but depends on its "look". Fortunately, Mottola makes us realize the importance of setting up a joke, framing a sight gag, punchline, or non-sequitor for the layman (i.e.: the non sci-fi geek) to understand what's so funny. And there plenty of pratfalls, fainting spells, Three Stooges-esque slaps and large-scale explosions and mayhem to balance out the little funny moments, which are numerous.

The script by Pegg and Frost, as I said, is a touching and relevent love letter to science fiction, fantasy, the geeks who love them with all their hearts and souls and even benefits from touching on the meccas of their lives such as The Black Mailbox, Area 51, Devil's Tower National Monument and ComiCon. Of course, this being a story about alien persecution as well as outsider persecution, there are also a good cross-section of such stock characters as The Dumb Hicks, The Cold-Blooded Goverment Agents, The Confused Girls Just Along For The Ride, The Complicated Final Showdown and, as we should come to expect, The Compliment of Metal Bikini-Clad Slave Girl Leias.

There are also multiple levels of reference to many a landmark science fiction epic. Not only the expected E.T., but also Star Wars, Star Trek, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Predator and Back To The Future, not to mention Titanic, Jaws, Deliverance, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Blind Fury, all the way down to Capturing The Friedmans. Everything is thrown in and every dyed-in-the-wool sci-fi fan AND movie fan is going to get the jokes here. They come fast and furious and reward the attentive viewer with many rewards.

Actors Pegg and Frost have the same chemistry onscreen as a modern-day Hope and Crosby, Martin and Lewis, or even a Bob and Ray. Having two actors play off each other so well and to such expert comedic effect is something fine and wonderful to behold. Anyone who's seen Shaun Of The Dead knows what I mean as far as the chemisty goes, and Paul goes even further as they play two guys who want only to take a vacation and not get killed, ending up in a government conspiracy, chased by venegful redneck good ol' boys and put up with an unending barrage of questions towards just what kind of grown men write books about and illustrate books about aliens with three breasts.

Having written the best parts for themselves, Pegg and Frost come across as your average modern-day everymen who find themselves dumped into an amazing circumstance and having to contain an incredibly big secret. They spend 98% of their time onscreen with eyes bulging wide, breathlessly trying to calm each other down as explosions and gunfire and speeding cars bear down all around them.

"Saturday Night Live" veteran Wiig, while it seems her part is pretty superfluous, actually has the most difficult role as a fundamentally devout Christian girl who must quite literally have a literal speck removed from her eye to see the truth in front of her. Even as she debates evolutionism versus creationism. My favorite scene is where she tries to experience the whole world that had been previously closed to her in terms of swearing, sex, drugs and other worldly delights. Seeing her go through multiple stages of marijuana highs, lows and anxieties in a matter of several seconds is delightful, as is her kind of sweet relationship wiith Graeme, even when impulsively grabbing his crotch.

Danner's smallish part is a tender tightrope walk between sad and touching as the older lady who was the first human to find Paul. Koetchner and Plemmons are good - if a little one-note - as the most doltish hicks ever to come across two British guys and an alien. Even a small bit by character actor supreme Jeffrey Tambor as a sci-fi writer has the right tone of indignance and ennui that makes you realize he could very well have studied under Harlan Ellison.

This is all effectively balanced by the team of Bateman, Heder and Lo Truglio as the trio of big bad men in black out to get Paul. Bateman especially is a revelation as is evident for anyone who remembers his early TV days and witnessed hsi development as one of Hollywood's most understated comedy straight men from TV's "Arrested Development" and other like successes. Heder, another "SNL" letterman, can alternately play humorous and serious and makes himself an effective side figure who even manages to become a somewhat threatening figure more than once. Lo Truglio, who is new to me, seems to have made a name for himself in comedies not just like this and Mottola's Superbad, but also The Station Agent, Beer League, Fanboys, I Love You Man, Wanderlust and many others. He plays the most giddy government agent I've ever seen here, especially in a scene where he just has to find out how well-... uh, developed some aliens are.

And speaking of aliens, It's easy to take for granted how effective the chracater of Paul himself is, seeing that we are just looking at an obvious CGI alien... but as voiced by Seth (Knocked Up, Pineapple Express) Rogen, what we have here is a world-weary alien. An E.T. who has seen it all and has decided to just partake in the delights this planet has to offer. Oh sure, he helps out humans here and there (as is evident ina flashback in a familiar-looking warehouse with a very familiar voice cameo), but knowing that his hosts are wanting him more than just for his ideas, Paul takes the low road, kicks back and shows his companions how life cannot be taken too seriously... even if you're from a galaxy far far away.

Overall, this is probably one of the more successful examples of E.T.sploitation you're liable to see. If there's any failing in Paul, I couldn't see it and believe me, I look for things like that in these kinds of movies. This works as science fiction, whis words as road movie, this works as buddy movie, this works as a movie full of explosions and car chases and shootouts and, most importantly, this works as a comedy. Mottola works seamlessly with Pegg and Frost, and everything is embodied in a small unassuming little alien straight out of "The X-Files", with a little Vegas insult comic mixed in.

Needless to say, this $40 million movie made over double its budget back and all but solidified the idea of Pegg and Frost as a modern-day comedy team that would have been comfortable alongside Hope and Crosby. And as far as Paul himself goes, you have to believe that there are a lot of science fiction geeks who, along with Comic Con and Area 51, now have a whole new movie-watching tradition to add to their busy schedules.

E.T.sploitation has a whole slew of fans that already love watching movies like Pod People and so on, but when it comes to a movie like Paul - even with its high-level approach to low-brow comedy - everyone involved did their utmost to make their obsession feel... dare I say it?... acceptable.

Perhaps that was Pegg's and Frost's intentions all along: to make that which they and millions of others feel so strongly about something, and is perhaps a tad removed from the norm, something worth believing in.

I want to believe. Even if Paul is too much to believe by himself.

They Saved Hitler's Brain (1968)

2012-05-23T00:15:00.000-04:00

When it comes to Nazisploitation, you have three components that must be in your film for it to qualify as 100% authentic Nazisploitation. One, there have to be swastikas (that's a must). Two, there have to be German-accented schmoes speechifying and "sieg heil"-ing all over the place. And three, Adolf Hitler has to be involved in some way, shape or form - even if just as a picture on the wall in the background somewhere.

The Boys From Brazil is a good example of Nazisploitation, by that definition. So are Holocaust 2, The Day The Clown Cried and That Joe Eszterhaus-written flick Music Box. Death Ship at least had swastikas and an Adolf pic, but try to ask George Kennedy to do an accent....

However, there are times when a movie comes along that seems to follow the rules of Nazisploitation, yet when you watch it, there seems to be something that's just... not... Nazisploitative enough.

Now wait a minute, you ask, how can a movie named They Saved Hitler's Brain not have enough Nazisploitation in it? It's even got Adolf's name smack-dab in the middle of the title! And it still doesn't have enough of what we go to see Nazi's in movies for?? It's like watching a Godzilla movie and the title lizard doesn't show up until the last half hour of the film! Who'd believe that?

Well, it seems in the instance of our film here, we have a movie that is in the throes of its own creation and trying vainly to make up the story as it goes along. Unfortunately, it's an instance of telling two stories and trying to make them one... and using Hitler's grey matter as a linking device.

Now let's say "heil" to the plot: government agency honcho Van Pelt, whose first name I'm guessing is not Linus, has the car of a doctor named Bernard blown up (because, you see, Doc had an antidote to "G-Gas", which kills people by paralyzing their brains - this formula used nowadays for creating cell phone signals). Amazingly, the assassins get away with this despite being dressed like Jake Blues. But soon after discovering another doctor named Coleman (INSERT CAMPING EQUIPMENT JOKE HERE) has another antidote formula, Van Pelt has agents Gilbert and Gordon to investigate Bernard's death (coughMURDERcough) whilst plotting out what to do with a problem like Coleman.

Turns out during the course of this investigation that a group of Nazis relocated to somewhere in South America (namely Mandoras - more on that later) have saved Hitler’s head - including his brain - in a giant pickled egg jar sitting on a stereo amp. Now with the advent of this "G-Gas", Mister H (which he is called herein - go figure) wants to destroy everybody. Not just Jewish people: EVERYBODY. Guess that living inside a picked egg jar will do that to you.

Now it is up to some people that are introduced ion the movie halfway through to save the world, destroy the "G-Gas" and go all Inglorious Basterds on Hitler's head - brain and all - and make the world safe for mediocre-looking white people.

I guess we have a time-tested instance of using the framework of an investigation into "what happened to our agents in the field" to uncover The Horrible Truth. What doesn't make sense is the scenes in the beginning of this film - which doesn't seem like anything more nor less than someone having spliced in their own home movies made with Uncle Steve and distant cousin Bridgette using their brand new Super-8 camera. The longish hair, the turtlenecks, the miniskirts, the lazy line reads, the feeling that you're going to hear sleazy porn music any minute and the couple onscreen's going to start gettin' all naked and smoochy....

Anyhoo, it's all too obvious that the beginning is just a framing device to get to the action at hand, where what we're watching actually was filmed... what, eight or ten years later... and all under a different director, actors, cameras, cinematographer, editor and so on. The main body of this film was something different (DUH).

See, back in 1963, this was a film called The Madmen of Mandoras, and clocked in at a little over an hour's running time. This just would not do when it was sold for TV syndication so its distributor, Crown International, hired a new director to concoct a subplot with different actors, hairstyles, hemlines and so forth to clock it in at just over 90 minutes (a MUCH more acceptable run time for modern TV time slots) and released it under our title we have here. Unfortunately, this added footage gives the flick less a Godfather Part II feel as it does a Exorcist II: The Heretic feel, ifyouknowwhatimeanandithinkyoudo.

Okay, fair enough. As long as we can watch this flick without noticing too much what could be considered detrimental inconsistencies to the viewing experience. Nothing like, say swastikas pointing the wrong way (so as to look like Buddhist symbolism - don't ask me why I know this), or like Germans who speak with EACH OTHER in perfect (if Katzenjammer-ish) English, or like a Hitler (or a piece of him, anyway) that....

Okay, I've got to talk to you at length about Der Fueher's cranium. The guy performing him from the neck up, one Bill Freed, at least has the mini-stache, the shock of hair over one eye, that scowl with every "schnell" order he gives and an appropriate leer to one side every so often, but too much more often he succeeds only in suggesting the acting of Sidney Miller, who did the same thing (but with a whole body) in Jerry Lewis' Nazi precursor to The Day The Clown Cried, Which Way To The Front?. Then again, this is akin to having just seen Laurence Olivier play General MacArthur in a WWII movie. Nice, but so what???

So what, indeed does any of this "what if" speculation have to do with anything at all? Everything comes off as so disjointed and so haphazard that They Saved Hitler's Brain could have played on a double bill with The Yesterday Machine to about the same effect as Mothra could play alongside Rodan. ...no wait, I take that back: Mothra and Rodan have a far-larger fan base. All that this movie has going for it is curiosity. In short, if you've ever wondered what a movie featuring Adolf Hitler's head in a pickled egg jar would be like, then this is the movie for you.

Of course the curiosity of man has unleashed many horrors on the world. Namely, the opening of Pandora's Box, the creation of the atomic bomb and this movie.

I see I have went all this way without naming the director (or directors in this case), the writers or any of the other actors by name. And I don't think I will. A movie as bad as They Saved Hitler's Brain doesn't deserve any more recognition. Even as Nazisploitation.

"Starlog" Magazine... GONE??!!

2012-05-21T22:15:00.000-04:00

As sad as it was to discover, the fan magazine "Starlog", an absolute building block which helped develop my (un)healthy love for science fiction and fantasy during my formative years - which was, coincidentally, when Star Wars came out - and helped me realize the wide wonderful worlds of Star Trek, StarCrash, Starship Invasions, Dark Star and even more titles that didn't have the word "STAR" in them... is now gone.

I had to find this out thanks to this depressing thread over at Badmovies.org - one of my fave haunts, where my brothers bemoaned the loss of THE foremost resource any of us childhood sci-fi geeks had for getting the inside scoop on ANYTHING that had to do with ANYTHING outer space and aliens-related.

Remember, this was back before anyone had even heard of The SyFy Channel.

First created in 1976 and one of the first magazines to cater to the sci-fi geek in all of us... not to mention the first magazine to cover the development of, production of and eventual releases of 1977's Star Wars and 1979's Star Trek: The Motion Picture, "Starlog" quickly rose in popularity and readership as every movie, TV show, convention and Don Post mask-wearing fanboy worth his salt clamored for the next issue, whether to see what was coming soon, how Harlan Ellison fit into the equation or what darn fool thing David Gerrold would spout off on in his monthly "Rumblings" page.

Tell you what, back when I was a little Dope, every time I had some extra coin, I would get to the local Foodland and head right for the magazine rack to search for the latest edition of "Starlog". My folks called me "obsessed", but then I came right back at them with Rudy Vallee and Elvis Presley and that made it a standoff.

Besides, I had much more entertainment value on my end, what with issue after issue of science fiction, fantasy, role-playing, all the latest sci-fi news, interviews, what-not and what-have-you. Try getting THAT out of Rudy Vallee.

In fact I bet you that if I went and searched through this decaying old cracker box palace I live in, I could find a few of my old issues lying around. Dusty, well-worn and creased from massive reading. So with that in mind, let me entice you with the covers of what, exactly, I think I have in this place.

(covers courtesy of Weimar World Service. A cool blog, check it out.)

There you have it: the confessions of a sci-fi geek who's been brought down with news of his childhood having went by the wayside. It's like rediscovering your old teddy bear you had as a kid... only now it's being used as a brace to hold one leg up on your computer desk.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go cry in my Romulan Ale.

Dope out.

- TGWD

Happy Peter Mayhew's Birthday!

2012-05-19T23:34:00.003-04:00

RRRRARARARAerrrrarararrggghhhghghgh...

For those of you who don't know, that was "Happy Birthday" in Wookiee... I think; it might be "mazeltov".

At any rate, I'm saying it in honor of the birthday of the man responsible for making long shaggy walking carpets getting in princesses' way a respectable thing.

Yeah, I know that Peter Mayhew has done a lot more in his like than just played Chewbacca. You think I don't know that much? Sheesh; give me some credit for doing the research here, people.

Mister Mayhew is also the man responsible for playing "The Mechanic" in the 1978 film Terror, as well as... umm... oh! He was "Giant" in the TV series "Hazell"... and "The Tall Knight" in another TV series called "Dark Towers".

Aaaaaannnnd... uh, lemme check here, hold on...

(looks through IMDb)

Did I mention he played "The Mechanic" in... oh. I did.

Okay, I guess he is best-known for playing Chewie. Many times. Many many times. Even on The Star Wars Holiday Special (as if anyone needed reminding of that).

So I guess we might as well honor him the best way we can - by deciphering his language from that original fave rave of padawans the world over. Oh, and NSFW (Not Safe For Wookies).

Have a great birthday, big guy. Literally.

Dope out.

- TGWD

Movies You've Never Heard Of: The Diminished Expectations Edition

2012-05-18T17:11:00.004-04:00

It's one thing to make a movie that no one wants to see.

It's another thing to make a movie that the studio doesn't want to show.

It's an altogether different thing to make a movie that doesn't even deserve to be recorded on video tape.

It's even more of an altogether different thing to make a movie that people don't even remember enough to even go "oh yeah" when you mention its name to them.

Going through the ol' Archives O'Pain here on my end, it's surprising to see how many movies have been made that the Average Joe and Jane don't recall after the fact - either long after the fact or immediately after the fact. There's a lot of them, to be sure, but you'd be surprised to discover how many have been made that have no staying power.

You know what the saddest thing is, though? That some of the most forgettable movies of years past have been built solely on a gimmick. It doesn't matter if it's a big gimmick or a small gimmick - gimmick films almost never last long.

It's like, yeah: 3D movies are gimmicks that (sometimes) succeed and are well-regarded. Remember that movie of John Waters' that used Smell-O-Vision cards to accentuate the viewing/olfactory experience? I remember it (Polyester, 1981, starred Divine and Tab Hunter). Even a lot of William Castle's gimmick films were successful and remembered with a great fondness because they were so audacious and lots of fun, too.

Unfortunately, I'm not talking about any of these films. I'm talking about THIS one:

18. Million Dollar Mystery (1987)

director: Richard Fleischer / writers: Rudy DeLuca, Tim Metcalfe, Miguel Tejada Flores / actors: Tom Bosley, Eddie Deezen, Rick Overton

Richard Fleischer. Barabbas. Fantastic Voyage. The Boston Strangler. Soylent Green. This guy directed a movie whose whole motive and modus operandi was to be an ad for Glad Trash Bags - and to be a ripoff of It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World. Well, it sucked at both.

See, Bosley (Get it? Because he did all those ads for Glad Trash Bags at the time! HA!!) is a guy who stole $4 million dollars and, before expiring at a roadside diner filled with a dozen or so people, gives clues as to where to find the money. This is all the impetus they need to run amok, make allegedly humorous chaos on a national scale and trash various points of interest in order to find... and subsequently lose... a million dollars no less than three times.

Yeah, that's right; THREE times. The fourth million was used as The Gimmick. At the end, one of the characters (I forget who, it's not important) addresses the audience and tells them that it is up to them to find the last million bucks by using whatever clues it was that were being used at the time. And it was this that DeLaurentiis Entertainment Group (yes, as in Dino DeLaurentiis) used to lure prospective viewers into the nearest cineplex to watch (uh-huh), laugh (right) and try for a million bucks....

See the actors I named in the description? Those are the ONLY big name stars in this whole thing there are - if you can call them big names. Oh, and Rich "Sniglets" Hall is in this too, but absolutely no one else in this thing is anyone you may have even remotely heard of. Shame on Eddie Deezen - he's usually got better judgment than this. Kinda. Sorta.

And then there's the outcome of the whole enterprise. This movie actually earned back LESS than a million bucks! ...but it doesn't matter, since they had to immediately shovel it off to some woman in California somewhere who guessed correctly where the bag o'cash was (in the Statue of Liberty's nose - go figure).

I dunno, maybe this would have done better if it wasn't such a blatant ripoff of a far better flick, or such a lousy excuse for advertising - TRASH BAGS! OF ALL THINGS FOR SUCH A GARBAGE MOVIE, TRASH BAGS?!!

Sorry.

We'll do this again next time. I gotta take some time and...

TRASH BAGS!!

Sorry.

Dope out.

- TGWD

The Osterman Weekend (1983)

2012-05-18T06:55:00.002-04:00

I have no logical reason as to why I should even be talking to you about this movie. There is no reason in heaven nor hell why this movie should even exist. And in spite of its cast, its director, its source material and its exciting production history, I'm 110% sure you've probably heard of this flick, but never seen it.

And this isn't one of those instances like The Extraordinary Seaman or Matilda where the studio pulled it after a week or so... no, this film got a normal release period, was shown in several hundred theaters and had the normal big screen hoopla surrounding it. Yet, this thing tanked bigger than Shamu at Sea World. It crashed and burned so bad and so completely that I had to find its little black box to write this review.

It shouldn't have bombed, though. This should have been THE movie event of 1983. And it wasn't. All the sadder that it was the final product of a great director, too.

Let me explain it like this: people who make movies for a living don't wake up in the morning and say, "I think I'll make the worst movie ever today, and let that be my elegiacal creative statement". Even Edward D. Wood Jr. tried to make good products.

And Sam Peckinpah is a man who gave his all in projects like The Wild Bunch, Major Dundee, Straw Dogs, The Getaway, Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia, The Killer Elite, Convoy... even Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid, while not the best of his work, still showed Peckinpah at the top of his abilities.

Yet with The Osterman Weekend, this is probably one of those matters of having bitten off more than one can chew, all the way around.

Try to follow this plot: TV news host John Tanner (Rutger Hauer) is approached by CIA agent Lawrence Fassett (John Hurt) with irrefutable evidence that his best friends Joseph Cardone (Chris Sarandon), Richard Tremayne (Dennis Hopper) and Bernard Osterman (Craig T. Nelson) are KGB agents plotting against the US of A and all that's American in general. Fortunately, Tanner is having a get-together with his friends and their respective wives (Cassie Yates, Helen Shaver) at his home with his own wife (Meg Foster) for the weekend, making then the perfect time to prove that his best buds are Commies.

However, at the same time, Fassett is also planning to unmask his own CIA superior Danforth (Burt Lancaster), and in turn reveal his scheming and plotting.

What do either of these plot threads have to do with each other? Who can be trusted? And I haven't even gotten to the dog's head in the refrigerator....

I think I came across the first indication that The Osterman Weekend was going to be a rough ride; it's based on a Robert Ludlum book. Robert Ludlum can write a good book; I've seen him do it a couple of times. Robert Ludlum is also good at writing serpentine plots with a labyrinth of twists and turns so as to make everything seem like a fever dream that somehow makes sense in the end. What, then, are we to make of a story that consists of troubled CIA agents, Communists, revenge, deep-seeded hurts and people setting fire to swimming pools, while arrows, guns, sewer pipes, slow-motion car chase scenes and helicopters hold court in the same kingdom? I dunno, either.

Peckinpah's direction is okay - if you can accept the fact that "okay" is a stylistic conceit being given to us by a great director - but gives the impression that this movie was already cropped to fit your TV screen. Oh, it's a widescreen project alright, but this feels so cramped and tight, focusing so much on shoulder shots and close-ups of sweaty faces that you'd almost believe the setting was Peckinpah's living room closet.

And of all the men to apply such a criticism to, Sam Peckinpah should be the LAST man you'd think of. Remember the wide western vistas of The Wild Bunch? The broad, sprawling scope of Cross Of Iron? Who would have guessed this was the same man responsible for the tight-at-the-shoulders vision here?

The script is another matter. Based on Ludlum, I already said that. But as written for the screen by Ian Masters and Alan Sharp, there is every indication that huge chunks were tossed out of the finished script at random and other things written out so as to try and make sense from... only for it to fall short. You know how they dumb down a made-for-TV movie to make it fit its predetermined two-hour slot? Right here.

...and this in spite of Sharp having written scripts for Ulzana's Raid, Night Moves and Damnation Alley (yeah, I liked it; wanna fight?) - apparently he was all used up by the time he got into 1983. AND had to carry one-(non) hit wonder Masters at the same time. Nice.

I refuse to fault the actors. Burt Lancaster is always great. John Hurt is terrific. Craig T. Nelson is perfect (in spite of his big fake mustache). Chris Sarandon is persuasive. Dennis Hopper never fails to entertain. Rutger Hauer is great at being a confused everyman while convincingly glaring at things off-camera.

The only weak spot any actor has in a Sam Peckinpah movie is if they happen to be female. ...yeah, misogyny seems to reign pretty hard in his flicks (in spite of the presence of Ali McGraw in The Getaway). We have a real stunner in Osterman Weekend, though, in the form of Meg Foster. You know Meg: she of the crystalline blue eyes and star of such past triumphs as Welcome To Arrow Beach, Carny and Ticket To Heaven. She has a quiet understatement in all of her scenes and gives a truly passionate performance as Hauer's archery expert wife Ali. There's a scene where she is speaking in hushed tones to her husband, tears streaming down her cheeks as she struggles and fails to maintain her composure, slowly growing more fearful of the doomed situation they are both in. That is an award-worthy scene that, unfortunately, won nary a thing.

And like I said at the beginning, it should have been a winner. The Osterman Weekend should have swept every award show there was and been on top of every Best Film Of 1983 list. Unfortunately, this film made no profit (making $6.5 million on a budget of just under $7 million), didn't win over any critics during its initial run, sent preview audiences rushing from the theater after the first few minutes' running time and was completely taken from Peckinpah's control when he... well, let me list the ways ol' Sam exacerbated his own situation:

He wanted to cast actors he was more familiar with (i.e.: Jason Robards, James Coburn)

He filmed a deliberately distorted opening scene that was so warped and visually off-balance that it took an astute observer to notice that it was a scene of John Hurt's character making love with his wife.

He took it upon himself to film many satirical bits that made fun of the film project as a whole.

He didn't like the book "The Osterman Weekend", didn't care much for the script, either.

He fought with the producers constantly.

Even coming in on time and under-budget as he did never made no neverminds with the suits at 20th Century Fox, since it would seem that you can only go so far in life after drinking and carousing on the movie set (aka: Convoy). All in all, this film did better business overseas than it did here and that STILL wasn't enough to pull it out of the muck, mire, blood and spray of Peckinpah's own career.

No, there is NO logical reason I should be talking about The Osterman Weekend. Nothing about this makes sense; nothing about the plot, nothing about the acting, nothing about the script, nothing about the direction and certainly nothing that you could conceivably connect with Sam Peckinpah about majestic violence, balletic blood or death with a message. This movie could have done by ANYBODY and it would still be confusing.

The fact that Peckinpah edited things together on his deathbed and perished a couple of years after makes this final hurrah in cinematic terms all the more painful. Peckinpah must have had a lot of time as he lay in his bed, probably thinking of all the things he could have done to save this forbidden flick. You have no idea how much I wanted to like The Osterman Weekend. If anything, I would have loved to have been there, cheering Sam on, urging him to do better with every scene,

Like everything else, however, The Osterman Weekend turned out to be a lie. A lie to everybody involved. Saddest of all, this was a lie to Peckinpah himself, where he thought this would be the film to put him back in Hollywood's graces. It wasn't, and it didn't. And it probably couldn't have anyway. This is a matter of a movie making everyone in it and involved with it uneasy. Not the least of which would be the viewer.

It probably would have been for the best if The Osterman Weekend had NOT been seen by anyone. Sometimes a legend is more enduring than its reality. I'd much rather have lived with "the missing last film of Sam Peckinpah" than "the worst film ever by Sam Peckinpah".

Hopefully it's not too late to re-bury this little black box....

Donna Summer Dies At 63.

2012-05-17T20:22:00.000-04:00

The sweet, sultry voice of a generation has been taken from us.

I know, I know; she's best-known as "The Disco Diva", and most all of you know how I feel about disco. But dang it, Donna Summer had something more about her than just being associated with polyester suits and glitter balls.

The woman had a voice on her that transcended any song she sang, and she sang some good ones. She could be sexy ("Love To Love Ya Baby"), she could be forceful ("Enough Is Enough/No More Tears"), she could be amazingly soft one minute ("Dim All The Lights"), ferociously independent the next ("She Works Hard For The Money") then turn right around and present the world with an outstandingly toe-tapping song that was just good enough to last outside the boundaries of any classification and just be plain good ("On The Radio", "Bad Girls", "The Wanderer", "Love Is In Control/Finger On The Trigger").

To put it succinctly, Donna Summer was a singer first and foremost. Disco diva? Ehh, probably, but I never held it against her as a person.

Saying that the world has lost a great singer is hardly enough to say. We lose great singers all the time. It is more to the point to say that, today, we have been robbed of a woman whose very soul, essence and vibrancy was poured into every single song that she gave us. That does not come along every day.

In conclusion, it would probably be fitting to play a song like "MacArthur Park" or "Dim All The Lights" in her honor, but I think it is more fitting to give you a song that was more than a song - it is a gift. From The Boss.

Yes; THAT Boss. Written by Bruce Springsteen himself. Ladies and gentlemen, Donna's one song that should have been her biggest hit ever: "Protection".

Rest in peace, Donna. Heaven has one fantastic soloist now.

Dope out.

- TGWD

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993)

2012-05-16T00:10:00.000-04:00

Before all of you movie fans get in a tizzy, or I start getting calls from the Uma Thurman Fan Club, or I get a rock thrown through my window with a blood-soaked note from Gus Van Sant tied to it, I'd better explain my position first on why I think Even Cowgirls Get the Blues is one of the most confused, confusing and overly-complicated movies ever. Believe me, this is going to be a long explanation.

Thing is, Van Sant is not a confusing director: he made such straightforward, easy-to-understand movies as the gritty and tough Drugstore Cowboy and the funny and sometimes touching My Own Private Idaho. And lest we forget later triumphs of the will such as To Die For, Good Will Hunting, Finding Forrester, Elephant and that award-winner of his Milk. He's a man who enjoys his craft, knows what he's doing and has a direct line on what, exactly, entertainment should be. Never mind that misguided, maladroit 1998 remake of Hitchcock's Psycho. He knows what he's doing. Usually.

Hollywood was still coming to terms as to what to do with this Uma Thurman person, though. Sure, she's pretty and sure, she has talent and oh yeah, she has that "certain something". But what kind of an "actress" was she? A serious Oscar-caliber actress? A fun pop culture movie actress? A symbolic art film actress? Good lord, let's not turn her into a "celebrity actress", who just shows up in a film and says a couple of lines then gets her name in the square outline of the movie poster text at the bottom (that's what happened to Lindsay Lohan and Heidi Montag, after all).

Before I started writing this review, the first thing I did was look up the man whose same-named book was the basis of this folderoi. Tom Robbins, it seems, is a writer of some note, having written some nine novels - many of them with intriguing titles. Look at "Still Life with Woodpecker", "Jitterbug Perfume", "Skinny Legs and All", "Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas" and one of almost assured future filmability, "Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates" (if just for the title).

I also noticed (thanks to Wikipedia), the following quote about how Mr. Robbins goes about writing any one of his given tomes:

"When he starts a novel, it works like this. First he writes a sentence. then he rewrites it again and again, examining each word, making sure of its perfection, finely honing each phrase until it reverberates with the subtle texture of the infinite. Sometimes it takes hours. Sometimes an entire day is devoted to one sentence, which gets marked on and expanded upon in every possible direction until he is satisfied. then, and only then, does he add a period."

Unfortunately, Van Sant didn't have the same meticulous care with his adaptation herein. Otherwise, we wouldn't be talking about it now, would we?

Okay, as difficult as this is going to be, let's discuss the plot: Sissy Hankshaw (Thurman) is a lady who was born with enormous thumbs that, coincidentally, help her in her chosen desire of a bohemian lifestyle in hitchhiking through the US. Sissy has also become something of a celebrity as a print and TV model for feminine hygiene products. Coincidentally, the ads in questions never showcase her thumbs, but then again, what do thumbs have to do with feminine hygiene?

Anyway, her effeminate NY agent known only as The Countess (John Hurt) sends Sissy on a couple of errands: one to meet up with a handsome young man named Julian (Keanu Reeves) and his entourage for a hook-up which never materializes, and another more eventful trip to the Rubber Rose Ranch and Beauty Spa in California to shoot a new hygiene commercial, using the mating dance of whooping cranes as the body of the shoot. Which means Sissy will also have to dress in crane feathers and wear a white unitard... which, again, do nothing to emphasize her thumbs.

Once she arrives at the Rubber Rose, she is taken in by Miss Adrian (Angie Dickinson), befriended by cowgirl Bonanza Jellybean (Rain Phoenix), Bonanza's cowgirl friends and comrades in arms - among their number the whip-cracking, euphemism-spouting Delores Del Ruby (Lorraine Bracco) and is introduced eventually to a mystical Asian man who lives in the mountains beyond the ranch, known only as "The Chink" (Noriyuki "Pat" Morita). Using the mistreatment and exploitation of the cranes as a means of demonstrating against the commercialism of modern society in general, the cowgirls take over the ranch from the Countess and feed the cranes a steady diet of peyote with their grain. This is all the police need to besiege the ranch, surround it and create the ways and means for a showdown.

...and of course, Sissy and Bonanza fall for each other and become romantically involved. Almost forgot to mention that.

I guess I have a handicap going into Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, seeing that I have never read Robbins' novel. Unfortunately, it would seem that Van Sant has only glanced at it himself as he wrote a script from it. Oh, there's speeches for everybody, and Uma gets the most of them, but there's also the feel that we're getting a Cliffs Notes version or, worse still, a Classics Illustrated version of the book that hits the highglights and leaves the rest in the dust.

Take for example, Sissy's childhood, which is treated as a pre-credits sequence. Aside from a birthday party, a trip to the doctor's and a visit to a fortune teller, that's it. Then she's running down the street in her best dress, after having flagged down a Pontiac with her ginormous thumb. What; no life in school? No childhood friends? No childhood enemies? No traumatic episodes where she discovers that nobody makes gloves to fit her?

Like I said, I never read the book, so there might indeed have been only a smattering of Sissy's childhood touched on. But if the script is any indication, what with everything that has been brought to life, it feels just a tad too pretentious to have made it TO book form, let alone BEYOND book form.

While we can fault Van Sant the writer, no one can fault Van Sant the director: we get some big, bright, images and sweeping panoramas of the desert and the night sky as stars speed by. there's a veritable Felliniesque parade of unusual faces, closeups, grotesque figures and a veritable clip show of comic book proportions introducing people, episodes, events, allusions and metaphysical whatchamacallits, all linked by the consistent narration of Tom Robbins himself, sounding like a world-weary, seen-it-all entity who is relating yet another of his "hey, did I ever tell you about THIS one" stories.

So the look is there, the script is half-finished, and that STILL isn't the beginning of the problems with this movie. And one of the biggest problems is with the cast. I know, and this is probably where I'm going to get the letters and rocks and so forth. Uma Thurman, while luminous and an actress of limitless talent, seems at odds as to how she performs Sissy Hankshaw. Considering her thumbs at times as if someone had stuck corn dogs over them, she seems dazes and confused as to what she is, exactly. Is she a catalyst? Is she along for the ride? Is she just looking on as everyone around her speechifies and postures? It's a toss-up as to what the script demands and, sadly, as we look into Thurman's eyes as we get closeup after closeup of her lovely face, seems to be adrift her own self. This may not be acting... Uma may indeed not have know just what, if anything, was going on.

But a worse fate is set for Rain Phoenix. Sister of River Phoenix (who gets a small cameo near the end of the film), she has an unfortunate presence for someone who is supposed to be an actress: a lazy look to the eyes, vacant smile and a voice that suggests she just read the script a few minutes before cameras rolled. I guess I should be complimenting her on being one of those "unaffected, natural actresses". More to the point that Rain is like one of those Drama Club hopefuls who over-enunciates every word without bothering to relay any difference in tone with voice nor face. Even when kissing Uma Thurman. That would be hard to do, I'd have to think.

Lorraine Bracco is a great actress, as anyone who has seen Goodfellas and Radio Flyer can tell you. But here, as she delivers 75% of her dialogue to the camera, cracks whips at snake and playing cards, gets covered with mud and grit as she sleeps in lake edges with whooping cranes and makes herself as quirky as possible, she forgets the cardinal rule of acting: to invest your character with any connectivity. But that's okay; everyone else seems to have done the same thing.

That can certainly be said of Pat Morita. Does anyone remember when he was nominated for an Oscar for his Mister Miyagi from The Karate Kid? Almost forgot, didn't ya? Understandable: he only gets about 10-12 lines in this whole movie, not even counting his "NO! NO!! NOOO!!!" shouts during the climactic shootout. As someone who is supposed to be some sort of wise desert mystic, he sure plays dumb convincingly. Maybe his character of the Chink was the same way in the book? I guess that would have been more anti-establishment that way....

John Hurt at least is flamboyant enough as The Duchess to make himself stand out among the terminal whimsy of this whole enterprise. Buck Henry has a couple of scenes as a doctor that make you realize he may just be the only actor in this whole thing that successfully got away with just being himself. Angie Dickinson really doesn't get a chance to do much else than provide exposition. Keanu Reeves does even less as he suffers an asthmatic attack and gets a hypodermic needle in his buttocks - so much for acting.

I won't even get into the cameos provided by Carol Kane Ed Begley Jr., Crispin Glover, Roseanne Barr, Heather Graham, Udo Kier, Grace Zabriskie, Ken Kesey, Ken Babbs, Lin Shaye, William S. Burroughs and a literal blink-and-you'll-miss-him cameo by Edward James Olmos. All I'll say about them is they add less than nothing to a story that is about....

Well, wait a minute: what IS Even Cowgirls Get The Blues about, anyway? Hitchhiking? Fashion modeling? Health ranches? The discreet charm of the bourgeois? Seeing as how this is set during the early Seventies (the time the book was released in), there's the whole counter-culture thing going on... but counter-cultural cowgirls? I guess they're standing in for the hippies that were so prevalent at that time. But since they are the symbol of individualism and standing against establishment - since let's face it: how many cowgirls are out there nowadays - what is it they're standing against?

Feminine hygiene products? Maybe, seeing as how their initial stand against The Duchess and Miss Adrian consist of them pulling down their cowgirls britches so as to... oh, I'd rather not get into it. Suffice it to say it was effective.

What about the whooping cranes, though? The cowgirls take over the Rubber Rose Ranch so as to save the cranes too, but then the feminine hygiene angle is dropped. So what, does that mean we have to switch gears just like they do, or let one plot thread drop in favor of another?

And while we're on the subject, what does Sissy Hankshaw have to do with any of this? At times, it's like Uma is just sitting in the corner while everyone else does their thing. John Hurt minces about, Lorraine Bracco cracks her whip, Rain Phoenix looks her over blankly, Sean Young and Crispin Glover take turns groping her, Buck Henry ponders the meaning of her thumbs. All while Uma is just kind of there, stopping cars and airplanes alike with a mighty swipe of her rubber thumbs.

This movie is really a mess, and apparently I'm not the only one who thinks so. For only costing $8 million to make - really small potatoes for any major release movie in today's world - one would expect it to at least break even. Seeing that it made back just under $1.8 million once the cow(girl)s came home, this is a classic example of throwing as much unusual quirk into a movie that should have had more grounding than what it did.

The worst problem that Even Cowgirls Get The Blues has is there is no central character serving as a barometer for all of this to be happening to/for/with. Uma Thurman is a fantastic actress, but has absolutely no involvement with what's going on, nor does anyone else do likewise for her. So many plot threads go nowhere and trail away, serving only for a visual gag or some wannabe iconic imagery. People come and go, offering nothing and serving only to let the viewer exclaim, "hey, it's Roseanne Barr!" or "hey, it's Keanu Reeves!". Even the last series of scenes, which should have had some powerful connection with the audience, feel more like things happening because they had to pad out the last few minutes.

When a character's death has little to no effect on the viewer, there is a feeling that, perhaps, something was lacking. I would say there is more of a combination of writing, acting, direction, framing, intimacy and common connection with the viewer at odds with what should be expected at the basic storyline level.

It was only a year after ECGTB that we got the same brand of story in Forrest Gump, about another innocent traveling through the world and falling into various cultural phenomenon throughout his life. I think we have a comparison that could be called less than favorable here. Much like my feelings for this movie.

Let the calls, rocks and blood-soaked notes begin.

Happy Lainie Kazan's Birthday!

2012-05-15T21:44:00.000-04:00

Out of respect for the lady herself, I will refrain from saying just how old Lainie is today. But I will say this:

There are few women who look THIS GOOD at THAT AGE.

I mean, wow; I caught a look at her in You Don't Mess With The Zohan (please don't ask me what I was doing watching an Adam Sandler movie), and saw her and almost immediately my sexist male pig homina-homina reflex kicked in as I realized how amazing she looks.

Yes, I said "homina-homina". She deserves it.

But lest I forget that she is also an extremely talented actress - as demonstrated by her appearances in Lady In Cement, My Favorite Year, The Journey of Natty Gann (one of the few GOOD 1985 movies), The Delta Force, Beaches, The Cemetery Club and My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

We have also been treated to her amazing voice since debuting on Broadway in 1961 and recording great song after great song, and even crooning alongside Dean Martin a few times. Did you know she understudied for Babs Streisand during the Great White Way run of "Funny Girl"? Neither did I. Not bad for a Brooklyn girl.

So all in all, she's still acting, still singing and - yes - still hot. Yikes.

And speaking of yikes, I guess we'd better get to the obligatory video post:

Happy b-day, Lainie. May you always make men say "yikes". Yyyyyyeah, I don't think you'll have a problem with that.

Dope out.

- TGWD

Happy Mother's Day, Mothers Far And Near!

2012-05-13T18:56:00.000-04:00

Today is the day we get to have flowers delivered, send a card, deliver a box of chocolates, ring up on the phone, send an e-mail, send an e-card, send an e-bouquet and other such to the one who brought you into this world (and who can take you OUT of it).

MOM.

I guess we can sidestep the issue of bad, inattentive mothers like Joan Crawford and Kate Gosseling and Octamom, and just focus instead on the good ones like June Cleaver and all those other TV moms who made everything better with milk and cookies and advice that wrapped up everything in 30 minutes or less, allowing for commercials.

My mom, I guess, wasn't as all-purpose as Donna Reed but, darn it, she did alright. She raised me, managed a house and dealt with my love of movies with a motherly sigh, a shake of the head and turning back to her vacuuming.

...only taking a break in her duties to ask me who was acting out the final shootout from The Wild Bunch on the front porch with my army toys and the cat.

Gotta love 'er.

So for all of the rest of you who had a mom who put up with you and, in spite of having put up with you, persevered and overcame and became a shining example in your life for what a mom should be, take a minute and let her know.

You know she'll appreciate it, even if she doesn't say so.

She does.

I'll let you wonder for yourself if Roger Waters' mom appreciated THIS little gift.

This is your day, moms everywhere. Shine on.

Dope out.

- TGWD

The Big Bus (1976)

2012-05-11T06:43:00.000-04:00

When it comes to comedy, there is a fine balance between humorous and grotesque. In the realm of spoof comedy, that balance is even more precarious, because when you spoof something that everyone is familiar with, you'd better make darn sure that you hit every point that deserves to be hit. And hard.

The question then becomes: who did this kind of spoof to perfection? Airplane! and The Naked Gun. Who did this kind of spoof horribly? Pandemonium and Jekyll & Hyde... Together Again. The differences between these two movies is simple to explain: it's all about knowing your subject.

So what are we to make of The Big Bus? A movie that is supposed to poke fun at the disaster genre and movies where things blow up and crash and so forth? You see; this was the movie that was the precursor to Airplane! itself... and even the That's Armageddon! segment to 1977's The Kentucky Fried Movie.

Here's the thing right off that I (and you) should probably understand about a movie like The Big Bus: for coming out of 1976, this film is really treading in unfamiliar waters. We have a project that is poking fun at movies that were usually very successful and very popular. Not the easiest thing to do in a time where Hollywood hated to cut its own throat by releasing something that took shots at its own hits.

The only way that a movie like The Big Bus could have made it, in fact, was if it were incredibly good at what it did and made itself better than that which it spoofs.

Is it? I guess we can only judge a spoof movie's success by how much we laugh as we watch it... so let's find out together how much fun we can get out of an Airport spoof with an airplane that's a bus. A huge segmented nuclear-powered bus. With a bowling alley.

Let's put a jake brake on the plot now: Coyote Bus Lines is in the final stages of creating Cyclops, a nuclear-powered mass-transit bus which will be the first to offer non-stop service between New York City and Denver. After an explosion kills both its driver and co-driver and gravely injures the head scientist on the project (Harold Gould) his daughter Kitty (Stockard Channing), must find as a replacement Dan Torrance (Joseph Bologna), a once-respected bus driver and old flame of Kitty's, now disgraced after being accused of cannibalizing his passengers after a crash on a snowy mountain road (he only ate a foot, though). He is soon recruited and paired with old friend "Shoulders" O'Brien (John Beck) who will be his wing man... uh, wheel man. A narcoleptic wheel man, but hey....

Unfortunately, many complications ensue as the story unspools. A sinister millionaire in a iron lung, known as "Ironman" (José Ferrer), schemes to destroy the nuclear-powered bus so as to benefit his oil sheik partners and boost oil sales or something, all while sending his bumbling jealous brother Alex (Stuart Margolin) to use many ineffectual timebombs.

Then there are a whole slew of "Love Boat"-worthy passengers on the Cyclops' maiden voyage, including Claude (Richard Mulligan) and his wife Sybil (Sally Kellerman) who want to get a divorce but still manage to get themselves into many wanton trysts together; Father Kudos (Rene Auberjonois), a priest who spends most of his time questioning God and why he ever took Holy Orders to begin with; Dr. Kurtz (Bob Dishy) a veterinarian who has a dark secret; Emery Bush (Richard B. Shull), a man with only a few months to live; Camille Levy (Lynn Redgrave), a mysterious woman who has a bone to pick with Dan.

Add to that the prerequisite little old lady passenger (Ruth Gordon), an annoying lounge singer (Murphy Dunne), a bossy boss at bus mission control (Ned Beatty), a stubborn doctor (Larry Hagman), a very ethnic barber (Vito Scotti), people nearly getting drowned in kitchens full of pop, and a family who crashes their truck into the side of the bus... all just before Cyclops teeters on the edge of a cliff. Oh, and did I mention the man-made earthquake?

Director William Frawley is a serviceable-enough lensman, considering he's filmed such projects as the comedy western Kid Blue, the tennis star comedy The Christian Licorice Store, and would go on to film The Muppet Movie and... ergh... 1985's Fraternity Vacation. Hey, can't bat a thousand all the time, I guess. Frawley at least makes us believe that he can understand the heart of comedy... at least as concerns big nuclear-powered buses.

The writers, Fred Freeman and Lawrence J. Cohen, seem to have done their best work together, considering they collaborated before and since on films like the great Gene Wilder/Donald Sutherland comedy Start The Revolutuion Without Me and... that Sutherland/Elliott Gould M*A*S*H cash-in S*P*Y*S... and the John Candy soap opera thing Delirious.... You know what, forget I said anything. Let's move on.

Now, the casting.... You may find this hard to believe, but I think the biggest failing this film has is the fact that it has such a huge cast of talented comic actors in major roles. I guess one of the reasons that Airplane! did as well as it did is because of the unexpected appearances by Leslie Nielsen, Peter Graves and Robert Stack playing it straight with grave deliveries of laugh-out-loud lines. Things here are all loud deliveries of goofy lines and super-silly nonsense aplenty. Actors like Bologna, Channing, Mulligan, Kellerman, Dishy and Beatty are best-loved for being buffoons and all-around goofs. This is just another day at the office for these guys.

And it's not like anyone does a bad job here. Everyone gets at least one good laugh here and make the most of their roles. Bologna plays a tortured bus driver haunted by his past - with hilarious results - quite well. Channing is a modern independent woman (a la 1976) and swims through a flood of carbonated drinks - with hilarious results - effectively. And their scenes together are good examples of stoic romance played for laughs quite well.

How could you expect bad examples of comedy, in fact, from the likes of Ned Beatty and Harold Gould? They're great just standing around - or in Gould's case, just lying around in a parking lot with a medal on a chain lodged in his chest. You had to be there. And Beatty perpetually wears a leather jacket, barks orders, makes stoic observations, bosses others around and makes everyone realize that he is, in fact, funny.

But so are Richard Mulligan and Sally Kellerman. Comic actors first and foremost, they are the funniest parts of the film, mugging and complaining and groping each other from beginning to end, they're a collective riot. Too bad the movie just wasn't all about them, in fact - but then what can you expect from two expert scene-stealers?

That goes without saying for Ruth Gordon, too. Foul of mouth and snide of attitude, she plays herself quite effectively and makes us all realize that perhaps if SHE had played the role that Helen Hayes did in Airport, it may have been even MORE successful... but probably wouldn't have gotten away with its "G" rating, either.

I guess you could say that the Leslie Nielsen role was filled by both José Ferrer and Lynn Redgrave. After all, who would have expected either one of these respected actors in a goofball spoof comedy? Not me, that's for sure.

Sad to say that Ferrer does little as the main villain - how much can you do when lying in an iron lung? He's a great actor, but being funny in a huge metal tube is hard to do; safe to say that he almost gets away with it.

Redgrave, I think, has the same kind of a role that Gloria Swanson had in Airport 1975, as the big-name star who flaunts what she has and throws her big-name weight around while pointing guns at people, taking bubble baths, and being the worldly lady of leisure. She manages herself well, but what did you expect from a Redgrave?

If anything, The Big Bus is not about the actors or the spoofs or the sight gags or even the genre it's spoofing as much as it is about - THE BUS. I'll be the very first to admit that this is one cool bus. It's like the most awesome double decker bus ever... one with a piano bar, a bowling alley, a swimming pool, a dining room decorated in red, white and blue with white stars and George Washington's picture in the background (this WAS set during the Bicentennial, remember). This thing is aptly-named: it IS a big bus. I hope whoever designed this thing got either a big paycheck or at least a job with Greyhound.

The thing is, a movie like this should have some scenes that are referential moments that we recognize from other disaster movies. There are a couple: one scene has Bologna's character visiting a cemetery discussing his troubled life with one of the tombstones, then the camera pulls back and you see several other people in the same cemetery having similar conversations with other tombstones. Another scene is the first reveal of the gigantic Cyclops bus in a slow, dramatic moment, complete with a bombastic orchestral accompaniment... only to be upstaged by someone observing that the huge bus line emblem was painted on backwards.

Script-wise, it also makes a point of giving us examples of comedic takes on The Estranged Lovers Reunion, The Expositional Villain, The Crippling Explosion, The Frantic Scientists/Experts Working To Save Everybody, The Escape From Certain Death, The Screaming Passengers, The Inspirational Speech, The Talking-Up Of The Troubled Hero... it's all here and, honestly, it's pretty funny.

Funny enough, in fact, to be forgiven the fact that such a goofy concept can even be pulled off without the help of Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker. I guess that the whole thing we're looking for here is an acceptable spoof of a genre. Do we get it herein?

I'll give The Big Bus a pass... but barely. Some moments are very funny, others make us smile. There are still others that are just falling flat and not as funny as they could be. Even the very end, where the bus splits in two and rolls out of sight as the passengers scream in fright... should have been the lead-in for one more set-piece... but wasn't. Roll credits. ROLL CREDITS?? Really??? I guess the most fair thing I can say about this movie is that it was, in fact, a trail-blazer in this genre, since it was THIS that came before Airplane! and Top Secret! and The Naked Gun series.

The ZAZ boys seem to be the ones who would appreciate The Big Bus the most. And why not; this is something that they probably are appreciative was as popular as it was, otherwise, how could they have gotten any of their projects greenlit? So when it comes to inspiration, The Big Bus gets props.

Or wheels. Or at least one big axle.

D.C. Cab (1983)

2012-05-09T06:49:00.000-04:00

I guess I'd appreciate this whole set-up if I hadn't already seen it a bazillion times already. The Slob Comedy has gone through so many permutations and also-rans that by the time National Lampoon's Animal House came out, we were already more-than-familiar with the routine.

"It's the [PLACE UNDERDOGS HERE] against the [PLACE OVERBEARING JERKS HERE]... and the [PLACE OVERBEARING JERKS HERE] lost"! Sound familiar? It should; not only was this used for Animal House's rallying cry, it could have also been used for M*A*S*H, Meatballs, Caddyshack, Stripes, King Frat, Making The Grade, Revenge Of The Nerds, Up The Creek, PCU... it should come as no surprise, in fact, that D.C. Cab is cut from this same cloth. What does come as a surprise is that for all the raucous, loud, dumb whooping and hollering, the makers of D.C. Cab actually tried to shoehorn in a story about redemption and self-worth fit for a live-action Disney comedy from the late Sixties/early Seventies.

Self-worth? Redemption? In a movie with Gary Busey, The Barbarian Brothers and topless waitresses? Yep. And Mr. T, too - can't forget him. Or Irene Cara as Irene Cara.

Now let's see how we fare (get it?) with the plot: in the heart of Washington D.C., the worst taxi company is D.C. Cab, owned and operated by the laid-back Vietnam vet Harold (Max Gail). And his drivers are no prizes themselves: what with the overly-jivey Tyrone (Charlie Barnett), conspiracy-laden hick weirdo Dell (Gary Busey), wannabe ladies man Xavier (Paul Rodriguez), Rastafarian goofball Bongo (DeWayne Jessie), soft-spoken musician Bob (Bill Maher), musclebound musclehead brothers Buddy (Peter "Barbarian" Paul) and Buzzy (David "Barbarian" Paul), consistently held-up at gunpoint Ophelia (Marsha Warfield), and the strong yet good-hearted Samson (Mr. T), with the ever-present Mister Rhythm (Whitman Mayo) around offering such sage advice as "If you can make from night until morning without committing suicide, then you're okay".

Into this melee of madness walks Albert Hockenberry (Adam Baldwin) a kid from the farmlands looking to make it in the world of cab-driving. His dad being an old friend of Harold's he is welcomed into the fold and taught the ropes, as well as the madness of a bunch of lunatics with cabbie licenses. After misadventures aplenty and romance in the offing with petite waitress Claudette (Jill Schoelen), Albert finds himself rallying these misfits into making a better life for themselves. But when he is kidnapped (long story), the cabbies have to pull themselves together to save Albert and themselves.

Joel Schumacher, long before he angsted up college students (St. Elmo's Fire) and glammed-up superheroes (Batman And Robin), took your basic Animal House outline and put his own spin on the "snobs vs. slobs" story. Directing from a script by himself, Topper Carew and Ramon Sanchez, Joel followed some of the same tried-and-true roads laid down by his betters. Slobs making rude noises during otherwise serious situations, topless women running about, snobbish jerks getting what-for, a car crash or two for good measure, plenty of one-liners where the punch line is usually an expletive (always good for a laugh) and the ever-popular "group of slob goons gathered together making goofy faces" routine. Never fails to amuse.

As far as a comic cast, how can you miss with these names? Barnett is a stand-up comic who wowed them in live performances and even managed a little bit of fame with his recurring role as Noogie on TV's "Miami Vice". Rodriguez manages one-liners one right after another as a Latino trying to make himself another Richard Gere, despite every woman on Earth successfully ignoring his charms. The Barbarian Brothers Peter and David, garner laughs on the sole property of their outlandishly muscular bodies and their dual big dumb lugs act - they also hoist up semi truck cabs quite convincingly.

And Gary Busey... this is a tough call. Remember when he was an Oscar-nominated actor for starring in The Buddy Holly Story? Hard to believe he went from there to here in just a few years time. Not that he isn't effortlessly funny, playing what could ostensibly be called "the John Belushi" part. It's just that for every line about sex surrogates, paranoid delusions about Bruce Lee and theories about cops lacing their bullets with PCP, we feel there's something missing. He delivers his lines hard and loud, but it could very well be that he was trying to drown out the voice in his head saying, "Gary, what are you doing here?"... just saying.

The others.... I know Marsha Warfield is a funny woman but here she is stuck playing the serious black woman role without much of a chance to shine in a comedic sense. Bil Maher would become best-used as a political commentator and judging from his soft-spoken deliveries here, it was probably for the best. The lines he gives about being a cab driver and Judas picking up the check for The Last Supper are good for a smile, but a Slob Comedy needs constant belly laughs. And Max Gail, looking nothing like "Barney Miller"'s Wojciehowicz, is in the proceedings far too little to make much of an impression other than when he lights up his flamethrower to start up his fireplace. DeWayne Jessie... he was Otis Day in Animal House too, so maybe this was a token gesture thing, since he doesn't really do much else but show up in his Rastafarian dreads, knitted cap, little vest and tie dyes?

Baldwin, three years after starring in My Bodyguard, is playing a character so bland and wholesome that he seems to be outside of the entire situation. His incredulous wide eyes and simplistic ideals belong in a different movie than one where there's supposed to be loudness and tackiness as the rallying cry. Unfortunately, he seems more like the guy who would clean up after the party, rather than the one who would join in the revelry.

Then we have the Mr. T factor. How can we ignore the man? He was made to stand out with his Mohawk, gold jewelry, feathers hanging from his ears and a voice like he gargles with gravel every day. Rocky III was an impressive career starter for him, and as what ends up as the voice of reason and (at least in a scene with a hooker and a businessman) of morality, he shows us that he can make us laugh and also show us his good heart in scenes with his niece. Of course, this being Mr. T, everything he does is unquestioned, even speechifying in front of The Lincoln Memorial. He almost pulls off this entire thing.

But why did we need a kidnapping of two little brats that Albert gets involved in? Wasn't their enough drama with the cabbies being threatened by Emerald Cab's gleaming fleet of taxis and clean-pressed jerks behind the wheel, gloating with their every appearance? What about the occasional appearance of cabbie union president Mr. Bravo (José Pérez)? What about the disappearance of some concert violinist's prize violin and its subsequent search with promise of reward? See what I mean about too much plot? Movies like this aren't about plots and dramatic turns of events; they're about seeing how the slobs end up turning the tables on the jerks and making their insouciance and laziness an integral part of their life AND their eventual outcome on top of the situation.

Was nothing learned from Bluto Blutarsky and company waylaying an entire college parade with marbles and drunken stupidity? Was nothing learned when Hawkeye and Trapper John boozed themselves to the gills and fought against military ignorance with verbal ballets and consistent humiliation of their betters? Was nothing learned when Carl Spackler dynamited an entire golf course into oblivion to destroy one gopher?

Watching a movie like D.C. Cab shouldn't involve uplifting scenes or inspirational speeches. If anything, this should be the ANTI-Uplifting Movie movie. Jerks getting what's coming to them is the message and, with any good Slob Comedy, that should be the ONLY message. Am I missing something here? Was this actually so good of a parody of message films that it struck too close to its source material and was mistaken for one itself?

I am more than willing to admit that there are scenes here that made me laugh out loud. The scene where the topless waitress runs out (or bounces out in this case) on her fare is funny. Barnett is so animated and verbally creative that he forces you to pay attention every time he's on screen. Busey is at least enthusiastic about his lines. Mr. T is as he is and that's entertaining in and of itself. And even the expected chase scene at the end has an entertaining ending involving a van and a movie screen. The rest of it...?

The biggest problem is that there just isn't enough SLOB in this Slob Comedy. There should be MORE slobbiness in this. MORE stupid boneheads backing into stupid situations and making it out of them by being just as stupid as the situation. MORE raunchiness. MORE dumb jokes. MORE Bluto Butarsky-ness.

You know what would have made D.C. Cab even more fun? Instead of Baldwin, make Gary Busey the newcomer who makes everyone realize that the only way to deal with the rules is to make your own and fight the system/the man/the situation with your own unorthodox ways.

I guess what makes me sad about this movie is that I went in expecting National Lampoon's Animal Taxi Service. What I got, thanks to Schumacher and company, was what could be kindly called a generic version of the same idea that has some comedy, forgets about the slobs and replaces belly laughs with occasional giggles. And while you expect laughs in a comedy, the one thing you should get in a Slob Comedy - that D.C. Cab doesn't give - is more.

As far as Irene Cara goes, all she does is smile, sign an autograph and sing in the parade that ends the movie. That's it. Unfortunately, this isn't the same parade that ends Animal House, or else Irene would have gotten grabbed up by Bluto or Flounder and driven off with in a tank-modified Oldsmobile.

What a difference five years make.

Happy Krista Errickson's Birthday!

2012-05-08T22:34:00.001-04:00

This is a woman who got out the gate running, had some big roles and then, just when she was heading somewhere, the worst thing possible happened....

...she became a journalist. Poor thing.

Then she was an Intelligence analyst in a prestigious Washington DC think tank. Isn't that heartbreaking?

She then had to go and win several awards for journalism and her work on many documentaries and investigative specials. My heart breaks for her.

To think she left the prestige of being in such TV shows as "Hello Larry", "Fame" and "Making The Grade", as well as such movies as Little Darlings, The First Time, Mortal Passions and Killer Image, just to gain the uneasy mantle of journalistic integrity.

How COULD she??

I guess Krista had her reasons, but for those of us who grew up watching her do various silly, sexy and smoldering things on screens both big and small, something was lost when she became just another lady with a microphone and camera and "PRESS" tag sticking out of her fedora.

We will always have our memories, though.

And THIS final scene for a movie that wasn't the best of its kind, but was pretty representative of what she got to work with. Good? Bad? You tell me.

Happy birthday, Krista!

Dope out.

- TGWD

20 Cool Things About Glenn Close

2012-05-07T23:03:00.000-04:00

1. She made Andie MacDowell sound classy.

2. Anyone who wants to kill off a bunch of dalmatians - twice - can't be all bad.

3. Not only did she make a convincing vice president, she's probably do better than whoever's in office now.

4. Popped out a baby, took an Advil, and started filming Dangerous Liaisons.

5. Came really close to pulling off a part being Spanish.

6. Lived in the same apartment building as Jerry Seinfeld, but resisted the urge to slap him.

7. Plays doomed mothers almost as well as she plays guys.

8. The only Glenn to take home at least three Tonys....

9. So good at being a mother, she even pulled it off as an animated ape!

10. Just like every other woman in Hollywood, she tried to kill Michael Douglas.

11. If you're wondering whatever happened to that beautiful gowns she wears in movies, just check her closet.

12. The only award she hasn't been nominated for is The James Beard Award.

13. Dat jawline.

14. If you ask her real nice, she'll usually belt out a few bars of "Bali Ha'i".

15. Apparently, John Malkovich's comfortable around her.

16. Never worked with Pauly Shore. Never will.

17. She usually wins any stare-down because no one can look her in the eye.

18. Cooks a mean rabbit stew.

19. Of all the people she's been mistaken for, could do a lot worse than Meryl Streep.

20. Even if she really was a crazy woman who would stab you, 98% of guys wouldn't mind.

Dope out.

- TGWD

Plugging Up A Site: Church Sign Maker

2012-05-06T20:47:00.000-04:00

Why in the world would I shill a site like says-it.com?

A site that contains many links to make your own fake concert tickets, Uncle Sam posters, VHS store-bought video tapes (remember those?), audio cassettes (remember those, too?), vinyl records (remember those, three?), work safety signs, and plenty of other fun-to-do online projects to make, print, share with your friends and all?

But, most importantly, gives you the ability to create your own fake church signs on which you can make any kind of message and create any kind of church?

Oooh, no reason, except to pray at the church of your choice.

Which now, as you can see below, have limitless possibilities:

THIS, my friends, is what the Internet is made for.

...this and porn.

Now, you have the tools and your assignment. Go make a new church and a fitting sermon. I know you can do it. The power of [PLACE DEITY OF YOUR CHOICE HERE] compels you!

Dope out.

- TGWD

The Worst Posters EVER!!! Part 23

2012-05-05T15:09:00.000-04:00

How many times do I have to state the obvious: bad movie artwork doesn't HAVE to be a fact of life!

We can advertise movies without causing partial to permanent damage to our brains and/or eyes!

Just because you want to get a picture representative of your film product out into the public consciousness does NOT mean that pain is part and parcel with the package, pal!

(ah, alliteration....)

Still, I know that I'm preaching to the choir here; you know that these lousy examples are far and away the mail reason you ignore a lot of these movies to begin with... why, then, is it that the creators of these paper disasters consistently see fit to torture us so?

Me, I think it has something to do with being little weasels.

But join me in the ongoing torture by calling out the following bozos and their bozo-centric stuff they call "poster art".

EVERBODY'S FINE

No they're not. This is another example from the Jingle All The Way school of poster wrecks; slap a Christmas tree in the background and they don;t even HAVE to mention a holiday in the poster. That'll get the holiday crowd in. And while everyone else looks okay, somehow Bob DeNiro got stuck in the Brundlefly machine with Luke Wilson, then got airbrushed, then someone went and Magic Markered some eyebrows on him. Vandals!

THE LAST SONG

I love how the photographer got a pic of Miley Cyrus here by saying, "Hey, Cyrus!", to which she turns around with a "buh?" look on her face, gets the pic taken, the photog runs off and Photoshops it in. Oh, and Thor in the background just kinda looking indifferently off to one side with the same guerilla camera work in evidence. Now it just looks like giant disembodied STUPID heads are attacking a couple on the beach. And you can't see it, but the lettering just above the title of this Lifetimne Channel Movie has all of the plot points in capital letters, like "The Road Back Home" and "First Loves" and Second Chances". You know, for people who didn't understand this was a family friendly love story. Whoo.

MY ONE AND ONLY

There we have it: SIX different Photoshops in one poster. TWELVE if you count the fact that each head is on a different body. FOURTEEN if you notice that Renee's legs look like they're pointing if different directions from different times of day. Oh, and FIFTEEN if you realize that the picture frame wasn't even there originally. "Yeah, Renee; just hold up your hands like you're holding up something... no, further apart, kinda hook your fingers... now bend your elbow. More to the right... your right... there!" Now that you mention it, I have my doubts as to her fingers, too.

THE DEAL

Yeah, we have more disembodied heads on beheaded bodies, placed at odd angles on an artificial surface which completely ignores human physics and sand displacement. But what sets THIS one apart? The gigantic, inhuman smile on Bill H. Macy's face. I know this is out of the ordinary for me to do this, but I just gotta prove this one to you.

Apparently Bill's been using new and improved Joker products!

YOU CAN COUNT ON ME

Okay, how bad does a poster have to be to Photoshop a crappy Polaroid, or at least make it look like Laura's cradling a disembodied head on a sack of potatoes, then slap THAT PICTURE in the middle of the poster??? I'm... at a loss. I can't... it's not... I... ouch, my brain.

I know there's gonna be more of these. I just know it. That doesn't make the pain go away....

Dope out.

- TGWD

Chained Heat (1983)

2012-05-04T18:00:00.000-04:00

If ever there was a blueprint for the sub-genre of grindhouse known as "women in prison" flicks, we have a most likely candidate in our subject today, Chained Heat.

True, there have been WIP films before this'n here such as The Hot Box (1972), Barbed Wire Dolls (1975), Bamboo House Of Dolls (1973), Prison Girls (1972), but they all seem to have the same basic structure: innocent waif is arrested for trumped-up charges, waif is placed in prison which is terrorized by a corrupt warden, prison is filled with varying degrees of sleazy deviate who make life miserable for waif, waif makes one friend (who is eventually killed later on), waif feels all is lost until a riot spontaneously erupts and pits the desperate prisoners against the more vile guards and detestable warden, waif escapes or is freed, end of movie.

That may sound a bit too basic, but look at other films like Women Of Devil's Island (1962), The Big Doll House (1971), Caged Heat (1974), Black Mama White Mama (1973), Women In Cages (1971) and tell me I'm wrong. After all, if it ain't broke, why fix it?

The Seventies especially were a veritable breeding ground for such films with, what, six or eight released a year at least. This is the (sub-)genre, after all, that helped make Pam Grier, Candice Rialson and Phyllis Davis household names, more or less... okay, and Sid Haig and Jonathan Demme, too.

Oh, don't get me wrong, this goes far beyond the Seventies and even the Sixties. We have other examples the likes of Caged (1950), Women's Prison (1955), So Young So Bad (1950)....

But how about the Eighties? Oh, they didn't slack on WIP film, either. Take a gander at Hellhole Women (1981), Amazon Jail (1982), Bad Girls Dormitory (1986), The Concrete Jungle (1982), Women In Fury (1985!!), Ten Violent Women (1982), Maidens Revenge (1987), Women's Prison Massacre (1983)... there's so many more, but we're not here to talk about them.

No, no - we're here to discuss Chained Heat, a film that has all of the cliches we're familiar with, plus the added benefit of Linda Blair.

That's right; Miss Blair starred in two - count 'em, TWO - WIP films in the Eighties. This one and 1985's Red Heat. (three if you count that other 1985 edited and re-edited mash-up Savage Island but heck, even Blair herself doesn't count that one, so forget it...) She was even in the 1974 made-for-TV dealie Born Innocent, playing an innocent waif who blah blah blah. Chained Heat, however, was the most ambitious of these efforts, seeing as it starred not only her but a veritable "who's who" of b-moviedom. Sadly, Tim Thomerson (aka: The Grand Old Man of B-Movies) is nowhere to be found.

However, to make up for this grievous error, we DO get John Vernon, Tamara Dobson, Stella Stevens, Edy Williams, Henry Silva, Greta Blackburn, Louisa Moritz, Irwin Keyes... and that figure of figures, that woman of women, The Grande Dame of B-Movies herself, the one and only Miss Sybil Danning!

I'll get to everyone's contributions shortly but, for now, let's lock down the plot: Carol (Blair) is a young woman who is arrested and beginning to serve 18 months in stir for accidentally killing a man (but this movie being a WIP flick, the jerk probably deserved it). The warden (Vernon) of said prison turns out to be one of those wardens who oversees a whole big heap o' corruption, racism, slave trading, sexy underhandedness, drug-dealing, lesbianism, rape and decadence. Of course, the convicts are even worse (ba-dum-bump). We have sleazy head guards (Stevens), sleazy pimps (Silva), sleazy ebony prisoner leaders (Dobson), sleazy ivory prisoner leaders (Danning) and other sleazy background players, leading up to a final prison riot that makes us believe that prisons have not improved much in conditions since back in The Shawshank Redemption's day.

Director Paul Nicholas is no stranger to such b-movie fare, having helmed titles like Julie Darling, The Naked Cage (yes, ANOTHER WIP thing) and Night Of The Archer. Therefore, the gritty, grimy look is a given, the fact that it's set in a prison is just a coincidence, really. And the script by Nicholas and Aaron Butler gives us sleaze aplenty. And small wonder there: Butler's other donations to the cause have been scripts for... well, actually he wrote only one other script. For 1985's Hellhole, yet another WIP flick - and a lousy one, too!

(and before you say anything, yes: I'm aware that I've mentioned a lot of 1985 flicks here that are - non-coincidentally - really bad. Is it my fault that a flick so thick-witted and dense draws such comparisons? It sure feels like one, but it ain't. It's all tying together, from one bad movie to another... to another... to another....)

Okay, the script follows every other WIP flick before and since, but is that necessarily a good thing? Sure, the patrons of such art are going to gobble up every detail from fade into fade out, but that doesn't make Chained Heat a shining example of things. More that it makes it yet another in a field of seven-foot tall centers who can dunk the ball, so to speak. There ARE highlights, though: like the fact that warden Vernon has a hot tub installed in his office, so he can invite drugged-up ladies in for a little splashing around ifyouknowwhatimeanandithinkyoudo. How about a garroting by fishing line where one effectively stupid convict lady runs through a hallway and gets sliced in the throat for her troubles? How about where Blair is first brought in to prison and, there in the holding room, another convict is slammed face first into the window where she can effectively spit out stage blood as she slides down the glass?

Now I'm not going to get into the level of acting in Chained Heat, because that would be like looking at an ice cube and thinking, "boy, I bet that's cold and wet". But speaking of cold and wet, anyone expecting hot smoldering excitement in a movie is going to be grievously disappointed (in spite of the word HEAT in the title). Blair is already far from her glory days on The Exorcist and gives every indication that she took this role to make a house payment or a new Schnauzer or something. She is no waif here, in spite of her casting as such, looks like she stumbled in front of the camera on her way to pick up the kids from soccer practice and doesn't even put any acting into a scene where she is being kissed by Sybil Danning. No, not even then. Disinterest seems to be in every one of her close-ups and those eyes... not only do they look dead but also they constantly gaze off-camera, as if looking for a route of escape. And who can blame her? I found myself looking longingly at the "OFF" button on my TV remote through this.

The other top draw, Sybil Danning, at least puts her all into playing a pro-white lesbian... or maybe bisexual, I dunno... prison leader. This is a woman who has a legacy of playing tough, powerful, domineering women as far back as 1980 with Battle Beyond The Stars and Day Of The Cobra. It's not unthinkable that she can be sexy, domineering and, of course, naked in a movie like this. Unfortunately, she isn't given half the screen time of Blair, just proving that neither Nicholas nor the producers understood the appeal of such a woman in such a movie for extended periods of time. I mean, come on, guys: this is Sybil Danning we're talking about. Even when she says such priceless lines as "Look what Santa sent us" and "It's not a matter of what you know, it's who you know... and how you know 'em", people are going to pay attention.

Casting Dobson as a tough, no-nonsense prisoner is only a second-nature response. This is Cleopatra Jones we're talking about here. The way she knees prisoners, slaps 'em around, talks tough and calls everyone every name in the book makes all the sense in the world. Dobson makes the most of her role and, even though she gets dumped in a washing machine during the end riot, she still shines through as a tough cookie.

Stella Stevens. Wow. She sings, she dances, she struts, and in this flick she beats down every woman within reach and hides behind a badge. I'll at least say she's an interesting casting choice, what with the main exposure most of us have has with her has been in films like Girls! Girls! Girls!, The Courtship Of Eddie's Father, The Nutty Professor, The Silencers and The Poseidon Adventure. To be honest, I thought she'd get more of a showcase here, you know? Have more of a part in the proceedings? Instead, she gets cornered in one of the many basements of this prison (more on that in a sec) and gets offed by angry prisoners. Ah well.

And speaking of being far from their glory days... John Vernon?? This was the man whom I really appreciated in Tell Them Willy Boy Is Here, Alfred Hitchcock's Topaz, Dirty Harry, Brannigan, even National Lampoon's Animal House benefited from his blue-eyed, cold-hearted presence. Here? He's a sex-crazy buffoon warden with a hot tub in his office!

There, I said it again: A HOT TUB IN THE WARDEN'S OFFICE!! I'd have loved to try and explain that to the contractors installing it, how no taxpayer monies went into its construction, why the warden of a women's prison NEEDED a hot tub, and so on. But here I am trying to apply logic in a movie where a 24 year-old Linda Blair is playing a fresh-faced prison waif. My bad.

No one else matters - Henry Silva plays his umpteenth variation on himself, Louisa Moritz plays a bubbly ditz yet again, Edy Williams proves yet again why she is best known for showing up at The Oscars in tight, low-cut dresses and... dang it, I can't even remember the part played by Irwin Keyes, and this is a man who has one of THE MOST recognizable faces in Hollywood! I just KNOW he was in this movie and I can't for the life of me remember who he was! AND I JUST WATCHED THIS MOVIE AN HOUR AGO!

I guess the best thing I can say about Chained Heat is that there is something happening here every five minutes or so. Someone getting naked, someone getting killed, someone glaring ans swearing at someone else, someone doing a striptease, someone licking some kind of crud off of a switchblade, someone pouring champagne on people in a swimming pool, someone pointing a gun as Blair, someone storming out of a room while a boom mic bobbles happily overhead, someone rubbing their hands all over one of the generic prison women, someone stabbing someone else... constant action.

Speaking of action, remember what I said about the basements in this prison? I'm serious: all of the action in the final prison riot (cliche #217 firmly in place) takes place with prisoners running through a hallway with arms, head guard Stevens running through another hallway, other armed prisoners shouting and stabbing guards in another hallway, Blair racing for her life in another hallway, Danning kicking and punching and stabbing her way through another hallway.... The blueprints for this prison probably looked like the topiary maze in The Shining.

By the end all the bad guys die, Blair hobbles down a generic hallway with Danning and Dobson and the end credits come up, a sudden realization comes up. That was it. All of that blood and thunder was for a wrap-up where little to nothing was resolved and it feels like, if anything, we were shorted a reel of film. Not that I'm complaining about getting out of Chained Heat early, seeing what we ended up getting, but is that really all they thought was needed?

I don't ask for (nor expect) a lot of cohesion in a movie like this. Nay, I don't expect much from any WIP flick to begin with. But even the end of The Savage Sisters had the title Sisters walk off in the sunset while Sid Haig was buried up to his neck in sand at the ocean's edge. No to say that this movie would have benefited with seeing John Vernon buried up to his neck, but Chained Heat, for all its activity and nudity and bloodletting... it still misses something.

The fact that this little WIP film, which cost some $950,000 to make and earned back over $6 million, was made isn't hard to understand, seeing as how it has everything you expect in this genre. What's hard to believe is that they made two sequels to it. Over a decade later. That have little to no connection with this film. And were even less successful.

I kind of liked a few scenes here and there, appreciated seeing Sybil Danning (and even more of her in the shower scenes), and many lines came so far out of left field that they were amusing in and of themselves. But overall, Chained Heat was too much of some elements and too little of others. It's like hoping for that old Seventies magic in a revival of that era's popular genres. Worked so well for 3-D in the Eighties....

Guess I have to hand it to Hollywood; even in the realm of Women In Prison flicks, they just don't know when to quit. At least they're admirably consistent. Even with Sybil Danning.

Happy Star Wars Day - May The 4th Be With You!

2012-05-03T21:37:00.000-04:00

Yeah, get it? The 4th? Sounds like "The Force"? May The 4th Be With... yeah, you get it.

Kids, this is coming from someone who still has his original action figures from back in the day, the bubble gum cards, that little toy Landspeeder that had the really small wheels set near the center of the thing so it looked like it was really hovering when you pushed it across the kitchen floor. I even ate C-3P0s Cereal when it came out. Back in school we had an English project that we had to submit at least one haiku for. I put in five based on Star Wars, and they ended up on the first page of our project book. I was proud.

I was a Star Wars geek, yeah. Still am, I guess. So much so that I have a computer desk with various action figures across it. Yep.

I even reviewed all the movies, so there you go. Look for 'em; they're here somewhere.

I can even tolerate Jar-Jar. THAT'S how much of a fan I am.

So Happy Star Wars Day, younglings, and here's a trailer for the day, too:

Obi-Wan Dope out.

- TGWD

The MOST UNNECESSARY Sequels Ever Made

2012-05-03T20:53:00.001-04:00

Now before we get started, let me just say that I am not against sequels... in PRINCIPLE.

After all, if a story is worth investing your time into, if you enjoy the story being told and want to see how it evolves, then a sequel is just the remedy.

Look at the many sequels we've had to such movies as Frankenstein, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Dracula, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Superman: The Movie, all those James Bond films... some would place the Emmanuelle movies here too, but that's personal opinion for ya.

But then what are we to make of movies that get sequels made to them that are so bad that we questions the producers' sanity, the studios stock portfolio and the actors' intelligence, all for being involved with some odious dreck that purports to be a continuation of a story that should have been better told but wasn't?

Or shouldn't have been continued at all?

Here I have some proper examples of movie sequels that should have remained in Production Hell, along with the souls of all involved... if those involved could be said to have souls at all, that is. I've put them in ascending order, saving "the best" for last. You'll see what I mean....

JAWS: THE REVENGE

Okay, after three sequels (and one or two UNofficial sequels), why single this one out? Not only will I refer you to this review, but also the fact that Roy Scheider refused to get involved this time out, nor did Steven Spielberg or Peter Benchley. And the only reason Lorraine Gary was in it is because she owed the producer/her husband. Not even the shark looked like it wanted to be here.

ROAD HOUSE 2

Jonathan Schaech is no Patrick Swayze. Nor is Jake Busey a Ben Gazzara or whoever he's supposed to be here. You'd expect an appearance at least by Terry Funk, but no. Not even the ghost of Sam Elliott could've kept this out of DTV purgatory (EDIT: no, Sam Elliott is not dead as of this posting - I'm referring to his character in Road House. Relax. Jeez.)

ANY DIRTY DOZEN SEQUEL

Robert Aldrich knew how to direct an action flick. And you couldn't get any more tough guy than a cast with Lee Marvin, John Casavettes, Charles Bronson, Telly Savalas and Jim Brown. But from 1985 (!!) on, they cast sequels (THREE of them) with surviving cast members (one of which - Savalas - was killed in the first movie!!), threw a woman in the cast at one point (Heather Thomas?) and put in less action! WHY??!

SON OF THE MASK

Let me get this straight: a Mask sequel without Jim Carrey - the main reason the first Mask was successful to begin with. Okay, so I'm sure you have an actor with a face as rubbery and expressive as his... Jamie Kennedy. Okay, okayokayokay, you at least have a story that follows the original comic as closely... Loki (Alan Cumming) wants the mask back Kennedy wears it and gets his wife pregnant, their baby walks, talks acts all cartoony, and the dog tries to kill the baby. You know what, New Line, you're all idiots.

PSYCHO IV: THE BEGINNING

Why not Psychos II or III? Frankly, I thought they were tolerable at best, and at least Anthony Perkins acted and directed III. But IV, going straight to TV as it did, only featured Perkins in the beginning, then became one of those flashback prequels with a whole different cast telling how Norman Bates got his Oedipus Complex. Pretty darned flat and boring. And don't get me started on 1987 Bates Motel thing. guuuuhhhh.......

ANY DISNEY CARTOON SEQUEL

Bambi II. Pocahontas II. The Hunchback Of Notre Dame II. Beauty And The Beast: The Enchanted Christmas. Peter Pan II: Return To Never Land. The Jungle Book II. Cinderella II and III. The Little Mermaid II and III. The Lion King 1 1/2 and 2. What else do I have to tell you??

AIRPLANE II: THE SEQUEL

Who in their right mind would make a sequel to the greatest Airport spoof ever, only without the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker team writing and directing, and play it about three times slower with lame jokes and lazy performances? And NO Leslie Nielsen? Paramount Pictures, that's who.

DUMB AND DUMBERER: WHEN HARRY MET LLOYD

Really? Was there ever really a point in history where someone said there should be a sequel to Dumb And Dumber? And without Jim Carrey (AGAIN) and/or Jeff Daniels? I'll be the first to admit they got some dead ringers for the boys but again I pose the question... WHY??!!!!!

THE BIRDS II: LANDS END

Any film that tries to continue a story originated by Alfred Hitchcock is asking for it. They knew that even with the Psychos discussed earlier. But The Birds? What the hell? And with more blood and gore? And actors less expressive than Rod Taylor? And stupidest of all there's a music score; isn't that, you know, counterproductive to everything Hitch built up carefully for us in 1963? And you thought Psycho IV was bad....

But then we have the one, THE MOST unnecessary sequel of all, the one which should never even have been conceptualized of and, if you mention it to anyone, why will deny it even exists.

Kids, you may now prove to them it exists with my inclusion of....

FRENCH CONNECTION II

Okay, the first film is rightly honored as a tough, gritty cop drama with fantastic performances by Gene Hackman, Fernando Rey, Roy Scheider and Tony Lo Bianco, a tight script by Ernest Tidyman and sharp direction by William Friedkin. Did you know there was a sequel to it? Four years after the fact, even? Probably because it had a different director (John Frankenheimer), weaker script (by Alexander Jacobs, Robert Dillon and Laurie Dillon) and spent most of its nearly two hour running time in a cell with Popeye Doyle (Hackman) going through heroin withdrawal. No WONDER you've never heard of it.

So there you have them. Sequels that should never have been made, let alone watched, let alone shown, let alone considered entertainment. Oh there's more to be sure, and I may get to more of them someday, but for now, I need to lie down; that was a lot of pain to recall in one posting.

Dope out.

- TGWD

Happy Ari Lehman's Birthday!

2012-05-02T15:33:00.003-04:00

Yessir, this is the man's birthday! The man! Yes! The....

...

Again with the blank looks? Why is it every time I announce someone's birthday on here all I get are blank looks??? YOU KNOW who this guy is!

Anyone who has seen the movies I've talked about here has seen this guy. Several times, in fact. Or at least twice.

Look at him. look at the face. The eyes. Recognize him?

Okay... he's been in Manny's Orphans. No? ThanXgiving? You get it; with the "X" in the middle? No... no, it's not a prono. What about Hell-ephone? Terror Overload? Night On Has Been Mountain?

Oh come on: Night On Has Been Mountain! Haven't you... no? Really??

I mean, you don't know who this guy even is?? Did you even look at him? Look again. See? This guy, you've seen him! I know you have. If you've ever been to a horror con or like that you've seen him! He's been to a ton of 'em! Even more than Alex Vincent!

Alex Vi... nevermind.

Okay, I can see I have to go the low road with you so fine: you've probably recognized him more in a setting with a lake, a boat and covered in algae. ...no, not Swamp Thing. Come on!

How about THIS pic? That's him on the left; your left, Adrienne King's right.

Therrrrrrre. Yeah, NOW we're on the same page, right?

Obligatory video time.

Happy birthday, guy that I seem to be able to recognize, at least. You're welcome, guy.

Dope out.

- TGWD

Turkish Rambo (aka: Korkusuz) (1985)

2012-05-02T09:13:00.000-04:00

Time yet again to cross the pond and dive head-first into the madness that we call Turkish cinema.

And from 1985?? Might be a double-whammy here....

Any regular reader knows I loves me some Turkish movies and go to great lengths to watch what I can - especially if it is based on an American better.

So many Turkish actors, directors and screenwriters have tried to earn an honest drachma (or whatever they spend in Turkey) by looking at an American film then scribbling down a few unreadable notes then taking to the camera. This has been shown in how well they've received notions of making their own versions of Star Wars, Star Trek, The Wizard Of Oz, Superman: The Movie, The Exorcist, Spider-Man and even Captain America and El Santo! And I haven't even gotten into Turkish takes on James Bond and Batman!

It would seem that Turkey admires American heroes almost as much as America does! But how about our war heroes? No, not Turkish Sergeant Rock or Turkish General MacArthur. I'm talking about Lieutenant John Rambo.

Yes, THAT John Rambo: the Sly Stallone creation brought to life in that classic 1982 monument to testosterone First Blood. then expounded on in many big-budget/big-profit sequels, like 1985's Rambo: First Blood Part II, 1988's Rambo III and 2009's simple-to-spell Rambo. Winning a war seems to be what Rambo was all about as he destroys every semblance of bad guy known to man; exploding arrows preferred... but not essential.

Turkey would naturally jump on a band wagon of carnage, atrocity and explosions like this, and did their utmost to essay their own all-American war machine. Only make him Turkish, set it mostly in a rocky (get it?) desert landscape and lower the budget about 90%. And call it Korkusuz. Why Korkusuz? I don't know and I'm sure if I tried to explain I'd get it wrong anyway, so let's just get to the plot: a muscular soldier named Serdar (Serdar Kebapçilar) has to go undercover to infiltrate a mountain-based semi-military base which is more like a better-fortified Bart's Hideout in the old Roy Rogers westerns, only without the singing.

The head of the outpost, a man named Ziya (Huseyin Peyda), allows him to get close to their sinister operations thanks in part to Ziya’s thicker-than-hummus brother and finds himself helping the bandits or soldiers or whatever they are in making raids and attacking another bandit encampment/headquarters. Why? Don't ask. It all ends with one of the most amazing final attacks you will ever see in a movie in your entire life.

I understand that the situation in Turkey at the time this film came about gave a certain urgency to the idea of desperate fighters struggling to fight against other factions. And director Çetin Inanç gives a certain something to this that he gave to another film you may have heard of... Dünyayi kurtaran adam, anyone? Of course, with the lands of Turkey at his disposal, we have mountains aplenty to work with and, surprisingly, some verdant fields and a few trees here and there, too. Guess I was more used to the deserts and rocks, but hey....

The script, by Inanç and Cagdas Agirdas, certainly seems to hit the aspect that this is all happening during a period of war and that everyone is in dire peril... but I cannot separate that this is all happening in the same visual universe where Murat and Ali fought against a spiky-helmeted outer space villain with red cels and flash cuts. Or that Turist Omer may threaten to pop up at any minute, mugging and hopping about like a Turkish jack-in-the-box. Or that Turkish Captain America will turn up to fight alongside Rambo (or Serdar or whatever).

As far as Serdar goes... this looks like another casting conceit that they use the same name of the actor for the actor's character - probably to make direction easier... who know the Turkish had trouble understanding themselves? Yet this guy has the same muscles, same hair and I think even the same jawline as Sly Stallone, which means as far as a visual double, they at least made a bigger casting call this time than they did with Turkish Superman. Maybe they outsourced. And Inanç uses every possible opportunity for Serdar to lose his shirt, flex muscles in dour thought, get part of his short ripped off by the mere fact that he was careless enough to wear one, flex his pecs in anger, twist up his six-pack in consternation or look desperately around for something to lift for 20 reps. In short, yes: just like Sly Stallone.

I love the fight scenes in this; so many helpful Turkish stuntmen jump and flip and twist themselves mid-air in time to Serdar's punches and swings that this is more like "Turkish Dancing With The Stars" at times. But the Turks seem to all be in good health; seeing as how they all leap up in the air quite well as explosions appear behind them. You wussy American stunt guys, having to use spring boards... see what they can do in Turkey from the ground up?

For those of you who seem to remember nominal villain Peyda from something else, then congrats: you paid attention during Turkish SW, seeing as he played The Old Man (aka: Turkish Obi Wan) therein. Here, he performs more along the lines of Turkish Vincent Price with that sinister glare, sinister mustache and sinister tone of voice whenever he makes sinister declarations, gives sinister orders or makes some off-handed sinister observation. Peyda is, overall, very effectively... oh, what's the word? Can't think of it. Oh well....

Hmm? Oh yeah, the dialogue. Not knowing any Turkish (which is funny, since I've seen so many Turkish films I feel like an expatriate) I couldn't begin to tell you any of what's going on, since there are no errant English utterances here like in 3 Dev Adam ("Adios, Mafia!"), which puts me even further at sea. But watching Turkish Rambo is akin to seeing something like Bonnie and Clyde without any sound. It's the visuals that carry you.

Speaking of which, this is a film that many of you, while probably not ever having seen the thing, will recognize solely for its final battle sequence. Just like his 'Murrican counterpart, Turk Rambo decimates all the bad guys by using one shoulder-mounted rocket launcher... but for those of you trying to visualize this scene, you're not even coming close. They may have had guns and ammo and uniforms and bandannas and shirts to rip open, but no rocket launchers. What they DID have, though, was a wood carver on the set who carved, painted, shellacked and presented a wooden rocket launcher for Turkish Rambo to use. How nice of them to import a tree into Turkey for just that purpose.

Of course, rocket launchers being as they are, they need ammo, since you can't very well use just one to destroy an entire encampment. Thank God these guys left so many rockets lying around the camp at random spots for our boy to pick up, screw on the muzzle of his teakwood launcher then, just at the right minute, flinches his shoulders to shake the thing off, so as to simulate a might explosive launch.

(hey, wanna play a fun game? During the last scene, every time the rocket launcher is ready to launch, wait for the ammo to dislodge from the gun and make a "BLOONK" sound out loud. That is the sound I imagined this weapon making each time it launched, since there is no smoke, no jet of pressurized air or recoil from this weapon. Just a BLOONK. Go ahead. Try it. And thank me later.)

I tell you, friends, there is no war movie like Turkish Rambo. This is about as much fun as you'll ever have watching simulated foreign war that doesn't involve a subscription to a LARPing community. So much fun has been truncated into this little thing that every minute is pure Turkish heaven... with explosions and wooden rocket launchers roundabout. And Serdar. Can't forget Serdar.

You know what? I've went to the end of this review and completely forgotten all about thgat peasant girl that Serdar falls in love with partway through. What's-er-name. Hiow could I have forgotten ol' what's-er-name? Must've been distracted by the BLOONK.

Trending RIGHT Now: 5/1/2012

2012-05-01T19:15:00.004-04:00

01. Scarlett Johansson - In a surprising reveleation, Ms. Johansson has been described as "stunning" and "unattainable". In other news, fish live in water.

02. Kelly Ayotte - A woman named Kelly today arrived at Ellis Island and was forced to take a last name containing all the leftover letters of the day. A similar event occured 12 years ago to an Ishmael Poertnuytag.

03. RFK assassination - Today, the president of European fast food franchise Romanian Fried Khicken admitted that lining up the chickens to be shot was the biggest contributing reason as to why their meals took so long to prepare.

04. Maggie Gyllenhaal - Today a record-breaking 50 people consecutively asked Miss Gyllenhaal, "Aren't you Dana Plato?", breaking the previous record of 47 when she was pestered with the same question by Conrad Bain.

05. Maria Menounos - Maria today admitted her original last name was Smith, but admitted she always wanted a professional name with "ME" and "NOUN" in it.

06. 2012 NFL draft grades - As was expected in today's grade releases, the NFL scored "A"s and "B"s in Gym, but "D"s and "F"s in such classes as Quantum Physics and Health & Hygiene.

07. Jordan Hill - In an online poll, 47% of all people polled insisted Jordan Hill was a top-selling country singer, whereas 42% believed him to be the funny tubby kid from Superbad. 11% actually watched basketball games.

08. Weight loss - Of all the mistakes made during his career, Wayne Knight admits this was his most erroneous.

09. Mark Ruffalo Hulk - For the fourth time in his career, The Incredible Hulk has once again changed human appearance. He has been quoted as saying, "Hulk look like dweeb AGAIN??"

10. Chrysler sales - Still in production after all this time, the respective CEOs of Ford, Saturn, Subaru and Dodge all commented, "I had no idea".

Dope out.

- TGWD