If any dance party were to be considered truly epic, it would have to be this one right here. Because it just doesn't get any more grand than the combination of one of music's most powerful bands, and one of cinema's campiest of films, resulting in an anomaly that is slightly baffling yet completely amazing. Not sure how one can dance to this song without looking like an ass - maybe running in place to the beat would work? It did for Jennifer Beals when she was in FLASH A-AH! Dance, so why not give it a try for yourself.
Written by Brian May - who also did vocals along with Roger Taylor and some dude with a rapey mustache named Freddie Mercur-something-or-other - Flash (aka Flash's Theme) is the theme song for one Flash (A-AH!) Gordon in the 1980 film, aptly named, Flash (A-AH!) Gordon. Flash (A-AH!) would be the title track and only single from the Flash (A-AH!) Gordon soundtrack, which was entirely produced by one of the greatest rock bands of all time, Queen.
I simply love Queen and while it may seem strange that such a well-respected band would ever do the music for a film such as Flash (A-AH!) Gordon, I don't think there could be a more perfect fit. The music of Queen, as well as its front man, is as flamboyant and flashy as it gets, and the same totally goes for Flash (A-AH!) Gordon. I haven't seen the movie in years, but the one thing that always stuck with me more than anything else about it, is the theme song itself. There are very few bands that could have ever pulled off such an outrageous song, and the video is quite the watch too. I love when Mercury takes the time to stop and watch some of the movie clips playing on the screen behind him. I can only imagine he was impressed with Ming's A-AH!some stache and gold foil fashion sense.
I just wanted to throw out a quick thanks to a few blogs (and the owners behind them) that have been kind enough to pass on The Versatile Blogger award to Chuck Norris Ate My Baby.
We've all been through this blogger award/meme stuff plenty of times in the past, and when one receives such accolades, one is "required" to list some personal stuff about them self, then pass on the award to a handful of worthy blogs. First is list 7 things about myself, second, I have to award this to 15 of my favorite blogs. Seeing as I have gone down this road plenty of times (and named plenty of blogs), I will only do ten blogs and they will be ten, somewhat newer to me, blogs that I have been digging on.
1. I once broke my arm at a playground, then lied to my mom, telling her these girls that lived down the street threw rocks at me while on a swing set, causing me to fall. She took the parents to court, and I think we sued them, but I am not really sure what happened to be honest. I was like five at the time, so give me a break. Get it…A BREAK!
2. I hate Lady Gaga with an extreme passion. She is nothing more than a performer, not a musician. Wild outfits, weird make-up, stage presence, and creative music videos does not make a great musical artist. All that glitters is not gold.
3. I took a group photo consisting of the Iron Sheik, the kid that played Boba Fett in Episode I and a dude dressed up as Batman on an elevator at a con. Shit was epic.
4. Even though this is Chuck Norris Ate My Baby, my preferred action star will always be Arnold Schwarzenegger over anyone else. I can never get enough of him and (most of) the films he has done.
5. I dressed up as Evil Ed from Fright Night for Halloween when I was a wee bopper.
6. My first ever slow dance was to the Skid Row classic, I Remember You, and it was with a girl that I had a major crush on at the time.
7. I used to bug out one of my friends by doing a Brundle Fly imitation when I was a kid. I would spit out my tapioca pudding back into the little package in which it came. He was afraid of horror films, so naturally, he wasn't too into it. Plus, it was pretty gross. I was a weird kid.
Alright, here are ten blogs that I have been checking out:
Thanks to the fine folks that gave me the award and please make sure to drop by their fantastic blogs as well. And if anyone in the future plans on passing an award my way, that would be great, but this will do it for award ceremonies for the year at CNAMB. Shit can get out of control, and quick.
Well before there was ever a "Terminatrix," there was Lady Terminator, and while Lady Terminator (1989) is a rip-off of the 1984 Sci-Fi Horror classic, The Terminator, it's somewhat ironic and funny to know that it was an Indonesian rip-off action film that would be the first to bring a female Terminator to the screen. Both Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and Lady Terminator would use their female antagonist as the main selling point, and both would do so to amp up the sex appeal of what was started in The Terminator. That's how you make money folks… big guns, big hair, big tits, but the only one that actually shows the tits is the only one that matters.
Lady Terminator takes out the Science Fiction elements found in its "inspiration," and replaces them with an origin story filled with some whacked out Indonesian folklore. This Lady Terminator is not sent from the future to change history, instead, she is an anthropologist who becomes possessed by the legendary Indonesian goddess, the Queen of the South Sea, for vengeful purposes. From what we learn in the film's opening, the queen - who has some seriously hot armpit hair – bones a ton of dudes in the hopes that she can find a man who can actually satisfy her deep sexual needs. When her suitor doesn’t satisfy the queen, THE EEL THAT LIVES IN HER VAGINA chomps the man's dick off, just as he is in mid-climax. Basically, she dick-capitates them and they bleed to death. Could be a worse way to go out, I suppose.
The queen runs into a bit of trouble one day when one of her suitors gets the best of her and 'snatches' the eel from her ever open cubby hole. For some reason, the eel turns into a knife, but I don't know why it turns into a knife; he doesn't stab her with it or anything, it just changes, so whatever. Anyway, the queen - pissed and without her vagina eel - curses the man's great-granddaughter (as opposed to him or his daughter), which brings us back (or forward?) to the present and to the motive of the possessed anthropologist aka Lady Terminator!
being an obvious rip-off, Lady Terminator takes many key scenes and ideas from the original Terminator. However, it does put its own sexual spin on things, like, instead of a naked Arnold forcefully taking the cloths from a couple of biker dudes, a naked Lady Terminator dick-capitates these two drunk guys, then takes one of their leather jackets to cover up her excellent titties. While the film sort of rolls off its sexual elements, unlike many Exploitation films from the 70s and 80s, Lady Terminator doesn't feel quite as dirty for some reason. Most films from that era used sex in a much harsher way, while Lady Terminator plays things so ridiculously that it makes the sexual aspects silly and goofy, but still oh so very fun.
There are many hysterical and cheese filled moments in the film, and they come from all directions without any warning whatsoever. There's a disco dance scene that is just to die for; there is a Budnick (who was in T2) look-alike, complete with a red mullet and intense sexual appeal; there are cop cars that look as if they came from the junkyard, and of course, there's the amazing character interactions which result in some of cinema’s finest dialogue.
Here are a few choice moments of the powerful dialogue for you reading pleasure:
"American Express is after my blood again…my checks are bouncing like yo-yos!"
Or, my favorite cop conversation:
"Anything to eat?"
"Just hotdogs"
"I really hate hotdogs (blasphemy!)"
"Listen, Jack and I have seen more dead bodies than you have eaten hotdogs, so shut up and eat!"
*Men smile and giggle with each other in a homoerotic way*
Seriously, it just doesn't get better than that, now does it? The answer is no.
Considering this is a Lady Terminator review, I have thus far neglected to get into the Lady Terminator herself (because if I get into her, she may chomp my dick off). As the tagline suggests, 'She mates, then she Terminates' and she does so with wicked style and sass. Her look is fitting to the times (the 80s), and while being quite attractive, her Roseanne Roseannadanna hair style and pants so high they could double as a brazier, make for a look that can only be pulled off by a woman with a bear trap for a vag. Barbara Anne Constable plays the part of the titular Lady Terminator, and as it turns out, this was her only acting gig, which is unfortunate because she is quite attractive and plays the mostly silent character as well as one could expect from this type of film. More importantly, however, is that she keeps up with the many action scenes very convincingly.
Speaking of the action, it is just that that would be the highlight of Lady Terminator. While the film starts off a little slow, there is plenty of silly dialogue and T&A to hold one over until the wild and bloody action starts up. And when it starts up, it starts up strong and keeps going, only to lull for cock-chomps or convos about hotdogs. Every character in Lady Terminator doesn't have just a gun, they have fully automatic weapons. In addition, cars aren't made of steel, instead, they are crafted out of paper-mache and dynamite, and boy do they blow up really good. The action in Lady Terminator is pure insanity, and to be totally honest, ramps up any action found in any of the "real" Terminator films as far as quantity goes, even if many of the set pieces are stolen from The Terminator.
Like with most Indonesian action flicks from the 1980s, 1989's Lady Terminator is ridiculous, sure, but it is also so much fun and completely entertaining from start to finish. If you love a fun action film with over the top explosions and bloody gun battles, while enjoying a plate full of melted cheese sprinkled with some sexy Indonesian ladies showing their vitamin D's, then Lady Terminator is the film for you.
Well, it's Sunday, your brain is expanding past the capacity of your dome piece, there's a half eaten pot of crusty ass mac and cheese on your coffee table, and your thinking to yourself "I didn't have this rash last night?!" when it all starts to come back to you. By now, we should all know what this means…it's time for The Horror Hangover.
It's summer, so why not spend the day inside and away from all those pesky ants, snakes and wasps, so you can watch a bunch of movies about ants, snakes and wasps on SyFy. Things start off at 11:00 with The Hive, which is oddly not about bees, but instead, places its focus on ants. Maybe 'The Hill' or 'The Colony' would have been a more suitable title? Whatever, after "The Hive," SyFy is showing Vipers at 1:00, and Vipers is actually about genetically mutated snakes, not tarantulas or killer birds. At 3:00, SyFy finishes its day off with Black Swarm, a film about genetically mutated wasps (wait, what?) that may have been called The Hive, if not for some lame ass ant movie already stealing the name. All three films look fantastic in their own ridiculously awful way, but it is Black Swarm that has Robert Englund, giving it a tad of street cred. And I do mean tad.
Getting away from the not-so-great outdoors, The Horror Hangover makes its first ever stop at BET for Cooley High at 1:30. I just completely adore films that are sort of coming of age tales, or focus on the lives of youths from a different time, location, or in the case of Coolie High, race. There's usually a great mixture of humor, drama, and male teenage relatability that just speaks to me for some reason. Cooley High is one of the best of that genre, showing that most young males follow similar paths and go through familiar heartaches growing up, no matter who they are or where they may come from. Pick of the week.
And the day closes over at IFC with The Minus Man at 2:35. Never saw it, and I can't say that I really care to see it all that much either, but I will always remember seeing that wild trailer that played before The Blair Witch Project. It was definitely a brilliant trailer and caught everyone's attention, but not enough for the film to really do anything outside of having great marketing.
Even though it's still somewhat early in the season, the horror that is summer has already reared its ugly mug, causing plenty of 90+ days, filled with as much humidity as an early Schwarzenegger film. One thing that can help curb the annoyance of the summer sizzle is some snow filled cinema, and if we're in the snow, why not spill a little blood to add a hint of color to the virginal pallet? It is summer, so the flowers are blooming - The Flower of Carnage, that is.
Written by Kazuo Koike, with music by Masaaki Hirao, The Flower of Carnage (Shura no Hana) is the theme song from the 1973 Japanese samurai revenge flick, Lady Snowblood. What makes this song just a little more special is the fact that it was sung by Lady Snowblood herself, Meiko Kaji. I'm a huge fan of Lady Snowblood and pretty much anything that Meiko Kaji touches, so naturally every second of this song makes my head and shoulders sway back and forth like long grass in the wind. It's a very soft and beautiful sounding song, which is a great contrast to the subject matter of the lyrics as well as the film in which it was written for. The title The Flower of Carnage really says it all, as that is the character of Lady Snowblood…a gorgeous and delicate flower, that is capable of true carnage in the name of vengeance.
I don't know how this one got past me, but I am guessing it isn't very well known that cult film icon, Vonetta McGee, passed away on July 9th at the age of 65. I'm (not really) surprised it hasn't been a slightly bigger deal with some of the cinematic work she has done, and I might have all but missed the news if not for Ivan's post about her passing over at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear. As a fan of many of the films she has worked in, as well as a fan of cult cinema in general, I feel she more than deserves a little love here at CNAMB.
Here are a few trailers for some of her most notable films:
On an interesting side note, director Alex Cox is a Spaghetti Western guru, even writing a book on the subject. He does an interview on the DVD release for The Great Silence where he cites that film as where he would be first introduced to McGee, enjoying her so much that he would later use her in a small yet awesome role in Repo Man. I quite enjoy The Great Silence, and consider Repo Man one of the greatest cult films of all time, so it's pretty interesting how things like that come together.
It's sad that she had to go at such a young age, but she has left behind a solid batch of classic cult films for many to enjoy for years to come.
Rolling Thunder is a 1977 revenge tale that focuses on Major Charles Rane (William Devane), a man who spent seven years of his life in a Vietnam POW camp but has finally found his way home. Everything appears great at first, as he comes back to a grand homecoming celebration with much of the community there to clap and celebrate in his honor. He is a war hero, a man that survived against all odds and is being recognized by all for his time served.
When Rane and fellow POW, Johnny Vohden (Tommy Lee Jones), make their way back home - even through the gloss of celebration - they clearly have nothing to celebrate. You can see they are hallow men by the empty looks in their eyes, a blank stare caused by spending seven years in hell. Even the interactions Rane has with other people are off, as outside of the "glad you're homes" and the "you are a true heroes," people aren't even sure how to react to Rane, even his own wife.
Everyone thought Rane was most likely dead, and seven years is a lot of time for a women - who bore his child just before he left - to stay alone. She met another man and planned to marry him, and those plans are not changed by Rane coming back home after all these years. Now, Rane is a man that lost everything mentally in Nam, he sacrificed his life, went through horrors that no one should ever go though, and now he comes home only to find out he's lost everything there too. He has nothing…
What Rane does have, unfortunately, is what the lasting effects of his trauma have left on him. He becomes very solitude and while people aren't sure how to react to him, he isn't sure how to go back to normal, especially when normal is not as he left it. In one very telling and uncomfortable scene, Rane has an interaction with another character and decides to show him an example of one of the torture he faced everyday. He does so by acting it out, showing how he learned to deal with the pain he went though. Rane goes a little too far, far to the point where it is clear that he is not yet able to separate himself from what he spent doing for the last seven years. It's almost become a part of his being – it's what he knows.
There is a clear but calm rage in Rane, a rage brought forth by going through what he did, by losing his life and himself. He has no release for this rage, but his opportunity would come when he is even further destroyed. When his return home from Nam was celebrated, he was presented with a red Cadillac and 2,555 silver dollars - one for every day he was a prisoner. These gifts are of no value in comparison to what happened to him and the loss he has faced. However, these gifts have plenty value to men that are less than honorable and carry absolutely no value.
Rane is attacked at home by a group of gun totting men who saw all the shiny silver dollars that he received on TV. They want his more than hard earned wealth, but Rane - being as strong as he is due to his recent past - will not give it up too easily. Even when they torture him, it is for not, and while Rane might not want to give up what is his because of sternness, he also may want to be tortured, because that is all he now knows. Rane's soon to be ex-wife and son come home right as all of this is happening, and afraid for his father's life, his son tells them where the silver dollars are.
Unfortunately, when the thieves get the money, they kill his wife, his son and shoot Rane, but he doesn't die. Rane, who essentially had nothing, did at least have one thing, a chance to become the father to his son. Now that chance is gone, and while they left Rane for dead, he isn't, and now this is his opportunity to get out all the rage that is built up inside of him. Rane can exorcise all of his demons, and these demons are on a collision course with a group of men that made the biggest mistake of their lives, wronging the devil.
It's incredibly bleak with how Rane gets this almost meaningless payment for his time served, or, for his pain served - I should say. Sadly, it is this payment for pain that would only serve to cost him even more heartache. The only way to get this heartache out is to go after the men who did this to him, to take out all of his suffering that he has endured for the past seven plus years, and all of it is going to come down on them.
He now has a purpose again and a reason to live, which is to kill those that took the very last thing he had. All of that emptiness, all of that anger and all of the pain will be projected onto taking revenge on these men. He's a dead man with a goal, and at one point, he even says to a female that he befriends: "My eyes are open, I'm looking at you, but I'm dead." That line alone is very telling of this character and where he is in his life, or lack thereof.
Directed by John Flynn, with a screenplay by Paul Schrader and Heywood Gould, Rolling Thunder is a revenge film, yes, but not one that is exploitative like many of it's time. It is more a deep character study, one that has been seen in plenty of movies involving characters coming home from war, only to be something other than what they left as. It's well made, rough around the edges and gritty but avoids the over the top aspect of many films of the genre, until the films climax where shit hits the fan, and the payoff is given with an amazing little whore house set gun battle that is sure to pump up even the lamest of viewers.
Rolling Thunder's performances are great from all, especially Devane, who has a lot of shit laying on his character shoulders, and he carries it well. I also found Linda Haynes (who plays his love interest and possible path back to some form of happiness) to be really good and a character that developed quite well as the film went along. Of course, I have to touch on Tommy Lee Jones, who has the coldest look in his eyes and is simply great in his small but important role. You can really see why he became the star he did, and it is awesome seeing him play a character like this…I only wish he had done it more.
Rolling Thunder is a very subtle but powerful film that works as a window into what many have gone through but few can truly understand. Sometimes what you see when you look through such a window is devastating, but it is something we all should see from time to time as a reminder of other's suffering.
