The Cyclops (1957)

This is one of those movies you would see on in the middle of the night, or hosted by a horror host back in the day.  I don't think your average person would go around seeking this out, but I have some fond memories of seeing this movie in the middle of the night, and that's when you should be watching it.  With all the bad but kind of great effects this has, it really is a joy to watch.

A woman named Susan hires a crew of guys to help her find her missing fiance who crashed three years ago in a remote area in Mexico.  She travels with Russ, a friend of her boyfriend Bruce.  She also travels with Lee, a pilot, and Marty, a guy looking for uranium to sell.  They travel in a four person plane, so just in case they find Bruce, they won't have room to take him back.  He crashed in restricted air space so Susan attempts to get a permit from the local governor so she can go freely there.  I know, exciting adventure movie right?  Anyway he says no and wants to send a security guard with to make sure they fly back.  So they start up the plane, Marty punches the dude in the face, and they take off without him.

They finally get to their destination and right away Marty is getting readings on his science device thingy... I forgot what it was called because I really don't care, informing him there is uranium around.  Russ sees a giant lizard but assumes his eyes are playing tricks on him.  Marty decides he wants to go back and stake their claim on the uranium, but Susan isn't willing since she hasn't been looking for Bruce for more than five minutes and everyone agrees to camp out in this dangerous radiation filled desert.  Russ confesses his love for Susan and shortly after, they see a dog sized rat get killed by a twelve foot bird.  Unfazed by this, Susan refuses to believe that her husband would have died in this harsh environment.  So they go camping since it is kind of late.  Shortly into that they hear growling from a distance.  Lee wants to go get some meat to eat, but Russ informs them of what he and Susan saw earlier.

Lee, Russ, and Susan go to see what that is and Marty stays behind.  What they discover is a giant tarantula that mostly just walks away, and two giant lizards fighting so they run away.  Everyone wants to stay except Marty who is saying they are crazy, and rightly so.  Russ goes out later and gets some lizard tissue from the lizard that lost, but isn't dead apparently.  He looks at it and discovers that the animals are getting big because of radiation and they will likely never stop growing.  He also mentions that staying here for another couple days will affect them due to radiation.  So everyone agrees to leaving... except Susan.

So in the morning Susan goes off on her own and finds the wing of Bruce's plane.  But she also discovers the titular character of the film.  She screams as the cyclops caries her off.  The men go after her and find her in a cave, hysterical, and surrounded by Bruce's belongings as well as plane bits.  The Cyclops traps them in the cave with a big boulder, and he peaks over the boulder, yelling at them.  After discussing the futility of their situation, Marty tries to leave so Russ punches him in the face and Marty stops.  The Cyclops then comes back and peaks over the boulder to growl some more.  Susan is elected to talk to the Cyclops due to her feminine voice being more soothing and it seems to help, until Marty grabs a rifle and shoots the Cyclops.  The Cyclops gets angry and attacks Marty who we then assume is dead because they say so, but you don't really see it.  

The Cyclops then grabs Susan and the rest of the frame in the movie and takes them away to out of the cave where he tries to talk to her until a giant snake attacks him.  The snake is actually kind of cute.  So the Cyclops gently places the snake off screen with a thud sound effect in order to defeat it.  In the struggle, the rest of the crew tries to get away.

There's more,  about ten or fifteen minutes more in fact, but I don't want to give away the "Big Reveal".  However, if you can't tell where this movie is going or what the ending is going to be about twenty minutes in, you should probably worry about yourself.  The story is insanely obvious.  That doesn't stop it from being fun though.  It isn't the kind of movie made for deep thought provoking messages or even heavy critique, which makes this and pretty much every review of it somewhat obsolete from the start.  When you see the poster, and possibly a few stills from this movie, you are going to know whether or not it is for you.

I enjoy this type of thing.  It would be a cool late night viewing type of movie, if you like cheap 1950's atomic Sci-Fi or Horror stuff.  There are some effects that are kind of fun and a bunch of not so great stuff.  The movie is predictable but not in an unlikable way.  With that being said, I'd like to show a quick visual of the sort of effects I am talking about and let you decide for yourself.  It is also from the end of the movie, but it is likely you don't care about spoilers for a movie this old right?  The movie is also just over an hour long so it really isn't painful or anything.  I say give it a watch.

Dolemite: The Total Experience. Part 3, Petey Wheatstraw The Devil's Son-In-Law

I bet you thought I wouldn't be back so soon.  Well you thought WRONG!  I am a man on a mission, and I'm here to give you the info you need on Petey Wheatstraw The Devil's Son-In-Law.  This movie is pretty strange compared to the original Dolemite film, but probably on par with The Human Tornado in both comedy and weird factor.  So let's not delay.

In the first scene Rudy informs us that this time around he is Petey Wheatstraw, and he was born during an infamous Miami Hurricane.  The Sheriff from The Human Tornado is a doctor who deliver the titular character during the storm in a dilapidated shack.  During birth the first thing that comes out is a watermelon.  Yep, a watermelon.  Then of course Petey is pulled out.  He is a young boy already, possibly 7 and starts beating up the doctor, and then his dad for waking him up every night.  I assume with romantic interludes with Petey's mamma.

We are then treated to a funky theme about Petey and we see teen-ish Petey being picked on and beaten up in the streets.  An old man named Bantu offers to teach him martial arts and we get a montage filled with things like Petey breaking bricks or slicing up a watermelon with a katana.  That's two watermelons in ten minutes.  Well it turns out that young Petey wants to save the world from misery with the power of stand up comedy so Bantu gives him his blessing.

Shortly after we see a very brief scene of adult Wheatstraw doing Rudy's regular comedy of being vulgar and insulting people.  Then two overweight comedians named Leroy and Skillet are borrowing money to open a swingin' club from a mafia guy named Mr. White who is a bad guy and threatens them even before they get the money.  But they should be fine as no events are scheduled around the time the club will open... or so they think.  It turns out that the infamous Petey Wheatstraw is doing a show in a place called Steve's Den on their opening night.

Petey travels to Steve's Den and hangs out with his business partners for a bit as well as the owner.  When he leaves, some guys are trying to steal parts of his car, so Petey Kung Fus them and forces them to put it all back together after a slapstick chase segment.  One of Petey's business associates, Sheila wants to bang him and he agrees after cautioning her about his moral issue of mixing business with pleasure.  Then the phone rings and it is Leroy who attempts to convince Petey to move the show's date.  Petey says no, so the logical step is for Leroy and Skillet to send cronies led by a dude called Scarface Willie to intimidate Petey's friend and business partner Ted.  Things go awry and they kill Ted's brother Larry which seems a bit over the top until you see what happens next.

So at Larry's funeral at a Baptist church Willie and the crew pull out a tommy gun and wipe out everyone there, including all of Larry's family and Petey Wheatstraw himself.  But suddenly a man named Lucifer wakes up Petey and offers to bring everyone (except Larry) back to life as well as Petey so he can get revenge and do his stand up.  In return the Devil wants Petey to marry his hideous daughter and give her a child.  Petey reluctantly agrees because he doesn't want to spend eternity in a red room for developing film but with a few couches and a mini bar in it.

Immediately after coming back, Petey tells this story to his friends including Ted who goes out to get revenge for his brother.  Petey follows and when Ted gets in over his head, Petey makes an appearance and scares the bad guys.  So Petey goes back to hang out with Sheila.  Before they can bang, the Devil calls and tells him he needs to go get Lucifer's cane from a graveyard where it resides hidden under a tire and some yard waste.  But first he needs to Kung Fu the bad guys that showed up to kill him.

With his new found powers, Petey goes to the club the next day.  The cane leads him to the restroom where he discovers a bomb has been planted.  After a short slapsticky game of hot potato during a bad audition at the club, Petey manages to take it outside and throw it in the back of a truck full of watermelons which explode all over the place.  Man I really want some watermelon now.

So Leroy and Skillet open their club and Petey sneaks in with the help of a flamboyant costume and a vague accent.  I guess Leroy and Skillet were successful at getting Petey to move the date.  Anyway Petey messes with the performance with the help of his newfound demonic powers and starts blowing up the place.  Ted chases after Willie Scarface who decides to stab himself during the scuffle to rob Ted of the satisfaction of revenge.

Then Petey abuses his powers of Satan to help the neighborhood by doing things like turning a cheating husband into a puppy at the request of his wife who was about to murder him, or saving a kid from an oncoming car.  Lucifer informs Petey that his wedding is tomorrow and he should give the cane back.  Well, Petey still needs to use it so he says he will later.  He also convinces Lucifer that he will be meditating just before the wedding so he won't be responsive.  This is so he can go out and kidnap a homeless drunk on the street, drug him up, and put a Petey Wheatstraw mask on him so they can't tell the difference until Petey has driven across the US to escape.  The mask looks good when it's on because of the power of cutting to footage of Rudy on the couch.

So the day of the wedding arrives and Lucifer comes a bit early to give his Son-In-Law a present.  He takes him to a hidden bachelor pad in a condemned building and summons a bunch of devil women for him to bang ON HIS WEDDING DAY!  After banging them to unconsciousness Petey does his switcheroo and shortly after the homeless guy gets in the car, he wakes up and is discovered for a fraud.

Lucifer and his daughter use their powers to create an earthquake which Petey fights back with the cane.  So Lucifer sends some devils after them, but Petey makes them go away again with the cane.  Maybe Lucifer should've taken that cane.  Petey and company attempt to make an escape but it comes down to a rooftop battle with Petey and the Devil.  Petey stops him with the cane, lights the Devil on fire, throws him off the building, and breaks the cane.  However Lucifer can't be killed so he forces Petey Wheatstraw to marry his daughter anyway.

Man this is a weird movie.  If you like The Human Tornado, you will probably like this.  It is essentially, comedy, Kung Fu, and clubs.  The Satan angle makes it unique and thank god because otherwise I would have been bored having just watched a Dolemite movie two days ago.  I would say, if the things I described sound great to you and you don't mind low budget black comedies, this is for you.  Otherwise it really wouldn't work well for you.  I like bad Kung Fu, funky tunes, and Satan so it works well for me.  I think I'll get myself a watermelon now.

Dolemite: The Total Experience. Part 2, The Human Tornado

That's right, I thought I'd get to this sooner, but I've been pretty busy lately.  That is not gonna stop me however from giving you the lowdown on these Rudy Ray Moore Classics.  Especially since you can go and pick up a Blu Ray of the original Dolemite and The Human Tornado now.  Anyway, The Human Tornado is a crowning achievement in cinema.  No other movie in the history of ever has been as bad ass or entertaining.  So let's talk about it real quick.

This film opens exactly the way it needs to, with Dolemite doing a Kung Fu demonstration during the opening credits while a theme song for The Human Tornado himself plays.  Then we are quickly transported to the world of stand up.  Dolemite does his normal thing, being as offensive as possible and making fun of his audience.  One joke in particular is very confusing during this.  I will have to paraphrase because in our modern SJW community, I would probably be considered racist for doing something as simple as quoting The Great Man that is Dolemite himself, but here is the joke. This guy interrupts him, and Rudy mentions this guy has to be the center of attention all the time.  Then he states that he is the kind of guy that farts in the bathtub, then turns around and bites the bubbles.  What does that mean exactly?  I mean what kind of person is that supposed to be indicative of?

Well that's not important, because the movie starts up now.  Dolemite is apparently pimping himself out now and a woman comes to him to get services during an event at Dolemite's Florida estate.  Dolemite is a good guy who gives to the community and is donating his place to make a boy's home of some sort that sadly didn't raise enough funds to be built.  Dolemite announces this and then goes back to give the woman some Tornado.

Some racist rednecks see the party and tell Sheriff Beatty who does a raid on Dolemite's place because he is also racist.  During the raid the Sheriff finds his wife sleeping with Dolemite and orders his friend to shoot them.  His friend starts with Beatty's wife and kills her with a shotgun.  Dolemite retaliates with a handgun and kills the guy, then jumps of a nearby cliff and down a hill.  The Bad Dolemite (bad meaning awesome) jumps naked too, and just to make sure you know he really did it, we get some instant replay action.  We then get a funky car chase with some of the Sheriff's men, and it ends with Dolemite blowing up both his and their cars with a shotgun.  Dolemite and his friends are left without transportation so they hijack a gay guy's car and take him with to California.  This gay guy is kind of offensive and annoying so I will assume he is also insane and that is why.  But Dolemite is pretty nice to him and not only takes him with but gives him money for his troubles and the dude really is excited to go to California too.

Dolemite is going there to meet up with his partner in the sex trafficking business Queen Bee.  A rival escort service owner named Joe Cavaletti is angry about losing business to Queenie so he kidnaps two of Dolemite's girls and forces Queen Bee to start working for him.  So Dolemite must get his empire back... again, but first he must bang his lady friend Hurricane Annie.  She tells Dolemite he is out of shape so they work out naked, but he gets bored and they get down to business.

Sheriff Beatty blames his wife's death on Dolemite so some other white cop dude hires Detective Pete Blakeley, the very best there is in Florida to take on the case.  He happens to be black and the Sheriff doesn't like that much but doesn't really have a choice.  This Detective wants to capture Cavaletti anyway so off they go.  Meanwhile Cavaletti is busy killing guys in the street for no reason and bossing Queenie around.

Dolemite gathers some intel about a torture den that Cavaletti has from some druggie guy, and finds out that Cavaletti has a woman who would know where it is and she lives in Cavaletti's house.  So Dolemite seduces her with some art of a white woman in a passionate embrace with a black man and she is transported to a dreamworld where a bunch of strong black men come out of a toy box to please her and go down a slide with her.  Yes this really happens.  Meanwhile in the real world Dolemite is "pumping" the info out of her.  We learn why he is called The Human Tornado.  He is so good at sex that he literally brings the room down around them.

What follows in the finale is Dolemite's men infiltrating a party Cavaletti is throwing with the help of Queenie's girls, and Dolemite sneaks into the torture den where he saves the girls with the power of his killer kung fu.  You would have to see it to understand why it's so hilarious so just look it up.  The fight scenes are sped up and Dolemite makes the most amazing kung fu noises ever recorded.  There is a little bit more, but I'll just say that evil is mostly punished and Dolemite lives on.

The Human Tornado succeeds at surpassing the original film in every possible way.  The acting, the music, and the action is all better.  It is also more focused and much more funny.  This movie is so ridiculously watchable.  It really is the best Rudy Ray Moore has to offer.  The only issue is that it makes a bit more sense if you've seen the original so you can't introduce people with this unless you brief them a little on the history of the character.  It also seems like some of the story was cut out but that is okay because the movie really seems like an appropriate length.  Seriously though, this is the movie that made Dolemite a legend for me.  Go see it, the movie has it all and Dolemite once again proves he is the baddest there ever was or ever will be.

Don't Look in the Basement

Don't Look in the Basement, or The Forgotten is a true classic of the Drive-In world.  Often when given a watch from a modern audience, they tend to find it boring and stupid.  In some ways they have a point.  This movie is the very definition of pinning all hopes on a strong premise, and it is strong.  The major problem with this movie is just how wacky psychology is in the movie.  But I'm generally a positive guy when I review stuff, so what did I think of the movie?

Well we start off in a sort of big house that is a mental institute run by a man named Dr. Stevens.  He doesn't believe in a doctor patient relationship and prefers to deal with the patients by letting them act out and treating them as family.  This seems strange when you realize that most of his patients are prone to bursts of violence, but apparently he has spent years gaining their trust.  That doesn't stop a patient named Judge Cameron from getting carried away while chopping wood and the honorable Judge gives Dr. Stevens the axe.

Another doctor named Masters takes over for him being the only qualified person on staff.  She has a patient named Sam help her with the clean up of Stevens.  I should mention the people who stay there.  Sam is a big black guy who has the mind of a child.  He also loves to play with toy boats.  He is pretty tame.  Allyson is a nymphomaniac with schizophrenia.  There is the previously mentioned Judge Cameron who may only think he is a Judge.  A guy they call Sargeant who has PTSD and killed members of his platoon.  There is an old woman named Callingham who speaks in ominous poems and really loves flowers.  Jennifer mostly cowers in corners and looks creepy.  Danny is a prank playing red head who is also childlike.  Then there is Harriet.

So Harriet has a baby doll that she thinks is real and is protecting her with violent tendencies.  She murders a nurse working there shortly after the death of Dr. Stevens.  This leaves them with a staff consisting of just Dr. Masters.  As it turns out a woman named Charlotte Beale applied for a job there with Stevens a week prior to his death.  After a week she comes there to claim the job only to discover that Stevens is dead and has told Dr. Masters nothing at all about the new employee, or even that there was to be one so Masters is reluctant to hire her.  Charlotte gave up her whole life to take this job and despite the news of violent patients, is determined to work there regardless.  So Masters hires her.

Not all is well here though.  It turns out the phone lines don't work and very shortly after Charlotte makes a bit of progress with the patients, Jennifer attacks Charlotte with a knife and Danny becomes infatuated with her, and is caught looming over her.  She wakes because Judge catches Danny looming.  Judge is also looming, but with an axe and makes mention of wanting to kill her... sort of.  Another occurrence is Allyson seducing the phone repairman with a rampant sex drive and threats of violence.

This all seems pretty fascinating and scary, but I assure you most of what happens is spread out between a lot of nothing or back loaded at the end of the movie.  Not that it's bad or anything.  In fact for my tastes if more happened I would think it was a bit of overload and start to wonder why Charlotte hadn't left earlier.  Much of this happens in the last half hour by the way except the phone guy banging Allyson.  There is something else that happens too, but I won't get into it.  Many people get killed in pretty brutal ways in this movie, and you see Allyson's upper assets a few times as well which is nice.  What really sells this is the ending.  Nearly every review you will ever read will talk about this awesome ending, and they will either spoil it, or tell you to watch it for yourself.  I choose to go with the second option because I think this movie has fallen into relative obscurity and it could be enjoyable for those that want to watch it to enjoy it for themselves.

Don't Look in the Basement is a prime example of Drive-In cinema in all it's glory and if you want to know what it was like to be a young teen in Texas watching sleazy gore and nudity in the comfort of your own car, I suggest this highly.  But get some snacks because you will want to munch and zone out partway through.  The good stuff actually makes this movie worth it I think and to be honest I like this movie a bit more than some other well know Drive-In fair such as Color Me Blood Red.  Normally I don't give movies ratings but with this one I will.  3 out of 5 I'd say.  This I feel is a good score.  Young folks nowadays think that average or slightly above means it sucks which is totally not true.

Heed these words well, a rating that is half of the full, like 5 out of 10, means that at the very least it is better than half the things you've seen in your life.  So a rating of 3 out of 5 should mean that it is better than average.  2 out of 5 means it's better than a fifth of what you've seen but nothing too great, and 4 out of 5 is pretty damn good.  this means 1 out of 5 is bad and 5 out of 5 is as good as it gets.  So now you know how to actually rate a movie, but does this mean I recommend Don't Look in the Basement?  Not really.  I would say if you are a casual movie watcher just don't bother, especially if you are young and have no attention span.  If you are a horror fan though then you better sit yourself down.  This is something you should see at least once.  Especially if you know what the hell I mean by Drive-In fair.  Remember folks, as Joe Bob Briggs said, "The Drive-In will never die."

Terror of Mechagodzilla

I was very into Godzilla movies as a kid.  I tried my best to see them whenever they were on TV no matter what time they were on.  I also rented them when available at rental stores.  For whatever reason, one of the Godzilla films that sticks out the most for me is Terror of Mechagodzilla.  This is indeed a sequel to the previous Mechagodzilla film, but like most of these movies, you can catch on pretty quick.

The film stars off with a montage of Godzilla history, some a little inaccurate, but awesome regardless because right away you get to see monsters fighting.  Most importantly you get to see the most awesome part of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla where Mechagodzilla shoots Godzilla a bunch and Godzilla sprays blood all over the place.  Then Godzilla uses some kind of magnetic radiation power to shoot the rockets out of his body and keep Mechagodzilla grounded so he can behead him.  It is important to know that Mecha was created by Aliens that want to take over the world.

Anyway in this movie some scientists are looking for the remains of Mechagodzilla in the ocean when they are attacked by some Aquatic Godzilla-like Dinosaur known as Titanosaurus, who doesn't look like a Titanosaurus.  They are attacked and killed which leads a team of biologists to investigate this incident with Interpol.  I forgot to mention the Sub is body slammed into the ocean and explodes.

The biologist main character in this movie is called Ichinose.  Meanwhile, aliens disguised as Japanese people who look that way without any real disguising want to destroy Tokyo and make a Neo-Tokyo with the help of a shunned scientists named Mafune, who believed he could control a dinosaur he was looking for known as Titanosaurus with some device he made.  Got all that?  Well it gets weirder from there.  You see, Mafune has a daughter named Katsura who helped him with his research.  Sadly due to some faulty wiring, Katsura was shocked to death during an experiment and the Aliens revived her by making her a cyborg.  This makes Mafune in debt to the Aliens.  Combine that with his hatred for mankind for not believing in his life's work and it leads him to help the Aliens with a new Mechagodzilla as well as controlling Titanosaurus.

Interpol and the scientists now believe Mafune and want his help to find this creature, but they are too late.  This does introduce Ichinose to Katsura however and the two fall in love basically over a couple meetings and one date.  So Katsura warns Ichinose about going after Titanosaurus but he doesn't listen.  They build a better Sub and narrowly escape dying.  This meeting in the water does help them to discover that Titanosaurus is weak against super sonic waves, so they build a sonic oscillator.

Ichinose tells Katsura this and they are overheard by the Aliens.  Then when Titanosaurus and Godzilla are about to fight in Tokyo the Aliens capture Katsura and put Mechagodzilla's controls in her stomach.  Then they also capture Ichinose and tie him up in the control room where Katsura now controlled by the Alien's lackey Tsuda, is controlling Mechagodzilla and Titanosaurus with her eye beams and a computer, all while Mafune looks on in the same room.

So anyway, with less than a half hour left Mechagodzilla finally comes out to play.  What follows is a damn fine Godzilla battle where the King of Monsters is clearly outmatched.

Ichinose gets free and goes after Tsuda while this one Interpol dude who is in the movie a lot comes in and shoots Mafune and Katsura.  Once Mafune and Tsuda are taken care of, Katsura can think again.  Interpol and the scientists finally use their oscillator to stop Titanosaurus for a bit so Godzilla can focus on Mecha.  Ichinose holds the hurt Katsura and says, "Even if you are a cyborg, I still love you."  Katsura however reveals that the controls are in her stomach and shoots herself with a ray gun.  This allows Godzilla to take down the monsters, blow up the escaping Alien ships, and return to the sea once again.

This movie is awesome, at least by Godzilla standards.  There is so much monsters and models destroyed, as well as monsters fighting.  Just as importantly, the human story is equally ridiculous which makes it so much more watchable than some of the other movies.  The main problem with these films is that for the most part the humans follow the same formula, even in this one sort of, so that story always seems like it gets in the way of the crazy big monster fights that everyone wants to see.  Luckily the story is so entertain and strange in this one that the whole movie really feels worth the watch.  I like scientists walking around in rooms and discussing things by the way.  Pacing isn't always an issue for me as long as something is going on.  Sameness is the problem with most Godzilla films, but not so with Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, and Terror of Mechagodzilla.  Really I love to watch all of them, but if I were to introduce someone to Godzilla and I didn't start with the original, this is probably a great place to start.

Django... The Real One.

Around the age of 11 or so, I became aware of what spaghetti western was referring too.  Before this I had seen a handful of them, and even heard them referenced as that.  I had no idea what it meant.  When I was 6 and my dad mentioned it while I was watching The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly for the hundredth time and I assumed people used to eat spaghetti while watching them, though I couldn't imagine where.  Maybe at the Drive-In, because at the time I knew that's where people watched westerns, but I thought that was way too messy.  Give me a break, I was 6.  I could barely understand what was happening in the movie to begin with.  Shortly after I forgot about it completely and continued on with my life.  Then five years later I saw Django.

By this time I was aware that The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly was directed by an Italian person and that much of the extras were Italian as well.  I saw this name on the list of what was playing next on a movie channel and I couldn't figure out what it was about so I decided to watch it.  Boy was I happy that I did.  Finally I figured out what people meant by spaghetti western.  Not that I gave it much thought or anything.

Django is the story of a stranger travelling with a coffin in tow.  He comes across a woman named Maria being tortured by some guys who are whipping her on a bridge because she tried to escape them.  These bad hombres are then shot down by some guys in red bandannas.  The bandanna guys are going to burn her to death because she left with the Mexicans.  This woman cannot catch a break.  Then Django comes by and shoots them all down.  He helps the woman get back to town where he hangs out with his muddy boots and coffin inside a hotel/bar/brothel, when a guy named Jackson comes in.  Jackson is a leader of some kind of gang who is racist against Mexicans and kills them for fun.  Well Django for whatever reason hangs out to meet this guy, pisses him off, and shoots all his men down.  Then he tells Jackson that he should bring all his men next time so it would be fair. The amount of men Jackson has is 48 by the way.

How bad ass do you have to be to challenge 49 guys to a gunfight in the streets?  What we don't know is that Django has a personal vendetta against Jackson which should be obvious if you listened to the theme song, and that Django has a trick up his... coffin.  Yeah it is pretty easy to guess but hey the guy is still the most bad ass man ever.

Django is the kind of movie you don't really question the story during.  Django's motives change multiple times, and you wonder why he has any interest in helping people outside of being a random vigilante.  This doesn't matter though because this movie is straight up awesome.  Violence, drinking, hookers, its all there.  It's the kind of movie that's made just for it's audience.  But at least it is made well.  It looks great, and the music is fantastic as well.  I highly recommend this movie.

Joysticks

Joysticks is a weird film.  Sometime after the popularity of films like Porky's and Animal House, low budget film makers from all over decided they too could make classic adult comedies with less money.  The problem with this is that most of them have less charm.  For every Screwballs, you have at least ten Joysticks, and sadly they are not worth playing with.

This movie happens to have two actors I like, Joe Don Baker, and John Gries.  Joe Don Baker plays the main bad guy, Joseph Rutter, a man who hates the arcade and thinks his daughter spends too much time there.  Jon Gries plays a guy named King Vidiot, the other sort of bad guy.  This is the reason (if any) you should see it.  King Vidiot is a punk guy with weird hair who has a small gang of punk girls, and it's pretty much the best.  You may have seen Jon Gries in Napoleon Dynamite, but I know him best as O.D. the infamous rocker dude from TerrorVision.  Luckily he is just as awesome in this.  I'll get back to him, but let's talk about what the movie is actually about.

So there is this kid named Eugene that is going to his first day of work at a video arcade run by a guy named Jefferson Bailey.  The arcade is frequented by somewhat attractive ladies who all don't seem to mind getting naked or being touched by random people, as well as "colorful" characters such as Jonathan Andrew McDorfus.  Now Dorfus is supposed to be the lovable gross overweight scamp in the film, and only three of those words could be used to describe him.  He is absolutely annoying in this film.  Anything that is gross or is supposed to be "funny" that characters like this do, he does.  The legend goes that Dorfus was class president or something, but shortly after graduating he started to frequent this arcade where he became friends with Bailey.  Sadly, he also became insanely overweight due to the Arcade food, and a complete waste of space, but as far as video games go he can't be beat.

There is this girl named Patsy Rutter who hangs out there and has a pretty terrible valley girl accent.  It brings the arcade to the attention of Joseph Rutter, her father, who thinks that everyone there is terrible.  This is further helped by some college girls who, when convinced the arcade is on fire, are forced to run through the arcade wearing nothing but panties and end up running into the man.  The arcade is obviously a den of filth and scum, so he forces his daughter to leave.  The problem is that this place really is a den of filth and scum, but we are supposed to love it.

So Joseph's cronies try to steal the arcade machines and put the place out of business.  Eugene overhears this and a bunch of guys go there to stop the dudes.  Meanwhile Eugene and Dorfus sneak into the Rutter house for... reasons and Eugene ends up in the arms of a sex starved, drugged up Mrs. Rutter.  Anyway, after the pointless interlude they leave and Rutter's daughter goes with.  Bailey is having some sort of after hours party to celebrate and many of the guys bring their ladies over in the PJ's.  King Vidiot and his crew want to hang out so there is a showdown between Vidiot and Dorfus where the stakes are if Vidiot wins he stays, if not he goes.  They play Satan's Hollow, a pretty awesome game.  The weird thing is they have these big screens that come down near the bar and play it with these huge joystick that you must stand to use.

So Dorfus wins but Bailey lets the punk gang stay, so none of this was relevant.  Then Joseph Rutter comes by and gets angry that his daughter is there.  This launches a battle for Joseph to try and get the arcade closed down.  King Vidiot joins the dark side and attempts to help Joseph with the promise that he will be awarded his own arcade machine.  At some point this comes to a town meeting where Rutter claims the place is tainting the youth, and you know what?  He's right.  It has ruined McDorfus' life and turned Vidiot into a crazed violent punk dude.  Not that I have anything against punks, but this guy is just stupid and mean for no reason.  More importantly it has turned into a place where kids can go to drink, and have sex or sexually assault each other with reckless abandon.  The case is brought to it's knees when Bailey shows a picture they shot earlier with Rutter and the two girls that ran into him in the fake fire incident.  This proves somehow that Rutter is morally bankrupt.  Then the Mayor says that there is no evidence that anything illegal is going on so the arcade will stay open.  The problem with this is that they just saw physical proof that there has been, by way of the slide with Rutter.  There are two naked girls next to him in public, more specifically in the arcade which proves that the patrons are at least guilty of indecent exposure.

For whatever reason Bailey agrees to a match against Rutter's champ King Vidiot, and the arcades chosen valiant warrior Dorfus in a game of Super Pac-man, Vidiot's favorite game.  Then Dorfus is nowhere to be seen and Bailey must face his fears.  Earlier in life Bailey lost his virginity to this girl in an arcade, but right after her dad came in.  Bailey sees the father in the reflection of an arcade screen and the girls father starts hitting her.  Then he takes the girl away and they move somewhere.  This scars Bailey and he can no longer play games or he becomes physically ill.  So Bailey is forced to play against King Vidiot and starts failing bad.

It turns out the cronies kidnapped Dorfus, but when they are not looking, Rutter's wife smells Dorfus' essence and remembers that night of drugged up passion so she goes down to bang him.  He convinces her to let him free with the promise of a gang bang later and goes off to save the day.  When he gets there, King Vidiot has already stopped playing because he was so far ahead of Bailey.  Eugene convinces Dorfus not to take over for Bailey and let him face his fears.  Then he gets good and wins the game, so the arcade is saved.  Bailey and Dorfus rent a motel room so Eugene can go lose his virginity with Mrs. Rutter.  The End.

Wow, this movie is bad.  There are positive things however.  If you want it, there is a lot of ladies wearing virtually nothing.  The music is pretty fun overall.  There is a decent amount of arcade machines to look at and people play them in head to head competition.  Most importantly however, is King Vidiot himself.  He is so awesome that he makes every scene he is in worth it.  He is way too good for this movie.  John Gries is great, and if you want to see him be great in a movie that doesn't suck, watch TerrorVision.  If you already love O.D. from that and simply must have more, I guess you could fast forward through this.  Otherwise just skip it.  Nothing here worth while.

Ghost in the Shell

A this blog is mainly a hobby for me, sometimes it takes a back seat to real life.  It is no secret that I suffer a great deal from depression, but that's not relevant to this really.  I just wanted to note that I have been away for a while.

I grew up watching anime in the early 90's.  When I was young, it all seemed so cool to me.  Often times I would go to a comic shop, and get denied the ability to buy The Invisibles or some other more mature themed comic, but for whatever reason I could rent anime at rental stores.  Perhaps the people at the rental stores didn't know (or care) about the content in these cartoons.  So when I looked at the cool covers, I imagined all the things I was missing from picking up Bloodshot, or Spawn, would be in there somewhere, but also animated.  It was exciting and bad ass looking.  Plus there were adaptations of Fatal Fury or Street Fighter to be seen.  Sadly, my predictions were usually correct when it came the bad end of the spectrum.  For every Ghost in the Shell there were like 50 M.D. Geist's, just like for every Invisibles, there were 50 Heroes Reborn's, but being filled with teenage lust and angst, this was just fine.  I was willing to overlook the problems of these movies for the 5 minutes of awesome that was usually within.

You may have noticed that I mentioned the title I am about to review.  Yes, Ghost in the Shell is one of those pretty good anime titles.  Practically everyone who was into anime at the time had seen it, or owned it.  This was the gold standard for anime at the time and for good reason.

This movie is about a cyborg woman named Motoko Kusanagi, who works for Public Security Section 9.  This is of course a sort of government agency that employs a bunch of specialists to do insane things and protect the public from stuff like robots or whatever.  Anyway, she is a Major of some kind and loves to hang out on top of buildings at night, mostly naked in order to use her super camo thing to become invisible-ish and shoot up bad guys.  With her are other employees like Batou, and Togusa.  Batou is a white haired dude with cyber eyes that do... something, and Togusa is a mostly human guy who is seemingly employed for that reason.

A large portion of this movie is people musing over what it means to be human, and if it's any different or more special than being an AI.  There are a bunch of action scenes though and that it sweet.  I like the themes explored in the movie, but honestly there isn't enough time to really go through it all.

So a Robo-Chick body escapes a facility and gets run over.  Section 9 recovers it and discovers that it got up and left on it's own without any AI or Ghost inside.  It turns out that... Something is inside.  It awakens and goes on a bit of a rampage.  What is this something?  Well is it an AI, a soul?  These are the questions that attempt to get answered along the way as Kusanagi gets naked and blows stuff up.

Though the movie is not too long, it leaves a lot of weird questions, and usually one wants more.  I felt that way.  The only real option for a while however was a not so well translated, blown up, and flipped comic version of the manga.  This was pretty undesirable as it would cost way too much to really get much out of it.  Luckily Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex would come out later, and this is where people really became obsessed with the franchise.

The movie was meant to be sort of "Stand Alone" in it's own right and has an ending of sorts.  It can be viewed as a bit of an oddity of fandom and 90's nerd culture, but it is also a very good looking movie, and totally worth watching.  I recommend it very much.  It isn't all that fantastic in retrospect however.  Most of it's special nature is based around the time it was released so i could see how people could just watch it and not care too much.  It is a part of anime history, and is very important to America as a release that helped popularize anime as a media format to view though.  For this reason, fans of the whole anime thing should just watch it anyway, but it's better than most of the others of it's era.  Take that for what it's worth I guess.