bad/awesome flixxx review: Blue Velvet (1986) by David Lynch

-[peering into bag that Jeffrey brought]
Detective Williams: "That's a human ear all right."
***
-Frank Booth: "Don't be a good neighbor to her. I'll send you a love letter, straight from my heart, fucker! You know what a love letter is? It's a bullet from a fucking gun, fucker! You receive a love letter from me, you're fucked forever! You understand, fuck? I'll send you straight to hell, fucker!"
***
-Sandy Williams: "...it means that there is trouble until the robins come."
***
-Jeffrey Beaumont: "Do you see that house? I used to know a kid who lived there, he had the biggest tongue in the world."





First things first. Rest in peace Dennis Hopper. I've always dug Dennis Hopper from watching Easy Rider and Apocalypse Now with my pop when I was little. This little gem slipped by my peepers growing up, even though I'd heard of since I was young. But the description was always something like "very weird" or "too hard to understand", when the real description should have been, "unbelievably beautiful" or "something very noir, and very creative in its storytelling". Then I would've watched this years ago. There are so many awesome lines in it, I had to use them as the intro to the trailer- & I may start doing that all the time. What a cast. The funny thing is, thinking of all the films i DID see with Hopper around this time, like RIVERS EDGE or TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2, I never knew I was missing one of the best roles of his career. Frank Booth. What a dastardly character. What a hilarious and awful/perfect villian. I just think this a must see, and I missed it all these years, maybe you have as well, go give this fucker a chance.
I absolutely wouldn't dare ruin this one for you, but here's a brief synopsis: Kyle Maclachlan (DUNE, TWIN PEAKS) is a dude who comes back to his hometown cuz his pops had a stroke. He finds an ear in a field and takes it to this cop who has a hot daughter in high school. He starts hanging with this chick and she tempts his curiosity with info about the case. There's a chick singer (Issabella Rossalini) who's wrapped up in it somehow. They go see her sing, and then the dude says fuck it, lets pretend we are exterminators, get a key, break in her house, and then see what happens. What happens is this dude gets caught up in some heavy shit, with the crazy dancer wanting him to pork her, and a dangerous wildman on his ass bigtime. Sounds pretty simple, but put together, I think old David Lynch really made his masterpiece here.
To follow, another trailer that'll tempt your tastebuds to go buy or rent or whatever to get this in yer hands.
3 thumbs up.

bad/awesome flixxx review: Riki-Oh- The Story of Ricky (1991)

a favorite of mine for years... one of the first, and one of THE goriest japanese flicks of all time. Based on a comic book of the same name, a bunch of dudes you've never heard of in- THE STORY OF RICKY aka RIKI-OH. Below is a pretty good homemade English trailer, as there was never an original English one made, and the one that they made later on for the dvd release makes it look too serious and stupid. So this is what you get... (way down at the bottom is the og Japanese trailer too.)



Wow wow wow. I can't tell you how many times I wondered what the hell the movie the clip was from that came on the Daily Show way back when Craig Kilborn was the host during his "5 Questions" segment. It depicted this giant dude smashing this little dudes head into a million pieces. All of my friends used to wonder what it was from and this was way before the days of the internet explosion. Luckily there was a cool older dude down at the local video store who was up to snuff on his gory martial arts imports. As we settled down in my buddy's basement to watch this "Story of Ricky", none of us knew what we were in for. This was like 1992. (i know some of you are like, hey man, they had the internet way before 92, yeah, well, not in the town i lived in smartass. you can't even get wifi there NOW... hence the trips to the coffeeshop, but i digress). What unfolded was the most low budget- yet most awesome- punch dudes thru the face- exactly what every dude wants out of a movie-movie that was ever made (besides maybe roadhouse). I still get excited thinking about an invincible dude who is imprisoned for revenge for the death of his love, fighting for the rights of all of the prisoners, and just decimating this fucking place.



the first version I saw was with subtitles, the original. Since then, a dubbed version has been released that is pretty great as well, because its makes a few things funnier in ways they weren't before.
Again, this is one i highly recommend finding, so I don't wanna ruin it for ya, but here's a general plot run down: In the year 2001 (its like saying 2025 now) all of the prisons and government institutions are privatized and franchised. Ricky has been imprisoned for manslaughter. The dudes running the prison are dicks. The warden is off in Hawaii, and the asst warden is in charge til he gets back. The four blocks of the prison are ran by these badass dudes called the "gang of four". They basically beat the shit out of the other prisoners and treat them terribly. But, these badass dudes are nothing compared to the awesome power of Ricky. This dude punches down walls, punches thru dudes bellies, ties his own goddamned tendons together after being having them severed. There's heads chopped in half, people getting skinned alive, people exploding, heroin trafficking, dudes getting their faces sawn off, and that ain't even the tip of the iceburg. If you've never seen this, get yerself a copy at all costs. It can be easily ordered online. Below you'll find the original trailer in Japanese.

bad/awesome flixxx review: Rubin & Ed (1991)

So, after years of looking for a copy (it has never had a dvd release and has long been out of print on vhs) I finally got to witness ol Jonny Fever and George McFly in one of the weirdest sought after independant flicks out there. Howard Hesseman, Crispin Hellion Glover, and Karen Black in- Ruben & Ed.



Years ago, I remember some friends talking about Crispin Glover appearing on David Letterman dressed up all funny and acting completely distraught and confused like he was on acid, and ended with him trying to kick Letterman in the face and saying "I'm strong, I can kick... I can kick" and Letterman walking off the set during the interview. That was long before Youtube, and I continued to hear about this legendary interview over the years, and finally someone somewhere explained that he wasn't on acid, he was playing a character that ended up being in a movie he did four years later. AGAIN, EVEN THOUGH IT SAYS HE IS IN THE TEXT, HE IS NOT ON ACID.



Since then, I had watched the clip many times, but never could land a copy of the flick. We even saw a copy on vhs at a place on tour one time and offered the guy at the shop a good amount of bread for it, just so we could see the damn thing. He wouldn't even let us rent it for fear that we wouldn't bring it back since we werent from around there. This only made us salivate for it more and more. So blah blah blah, we got our hands on a copy, and I just rewatched it last night.
Talk about a weird flick. And I'm not talking Crispin Glover "What is it?" weird, I'm just talking about a very strange movie about an eccentric young hermit, and a middle aged divorcee trying to pull his life together through a "get rich quick" scheme. Since it'll probably be a while before you find a copy of this gem, Ill give you a quick plot rundown. Ed has joined "the organization", a pyramid scheme disguised as a real estate money making seminar. He is instructed to get dudes to the seminar. Ruben is a home body who lives in a motel that his mom manages. He listens to Mahler and dances around squeaking a toy mouse. His mom desperately wants him outta the motel and wants him to make some friends. She takes away his jam box, and says he can have it back when he makes a friend. So, these dudes meet each other and Ruben says he'll go to the seminar if Ed will come pick him up. Ed comes over, and Ruben says he has to meet his mother first. Ed is gonna split, but decides to wait and drink a glass of water. He goes to get ice out of the fridge and pulls a dead frozen cat out of the freezer. When he asks what the hell Ruben is doing with a dead cat in his freezer, Ruben says he needs to find a place to bury it. Ed says why not the desert, and Ruben agrees to go to the seminar if Ed will drive him out to the desert to bury it. So they go, and they are fighting and bickering the whole time, and Ruben keeps NOT burying the cat because its the wrong spot. Anyway, it gets weirder from there. I don't wanna ruin everything, its kind of slow in a few spots, but could have been a second rate Raising Arizona if it got more publicity. There are several sequences that are fucking hilarious, such as the cat waterskiing dream sequence. Anyway... this one rules. If you can find it, I highly recommend it.

bad/awesome flixxx review: Cobra (1986)

Fucking H. You know it. You've seen it, and you don't remember it. You need to go rent it again for the first five minutes alone. Its great, it sucks, and its even better than that, all rolled into one. Stallone. a cop. Bridgette Nielsen, a chick, and the ugliest dude I've ever seen yelling "you wanna go with me to hell, PIG?" in- COBRA.



Let me start out by saying, sorry its been such a while. Ive watched some hideous flicks that I have yet to review, but touring didn't allow me a lot of free time these last few months. So we begin this run with Cobra, an old favorite. Some of the lines in this movie are unbelievable, and some are REALLY bad... Some of the shit Stallone pulls in the beginning make you think this may be the best movie ever made. Then thirty minutes later you are like, what the fuck is this? My pop rewatched this guy with me last week, and he made the comment that it came out during the 80s when the production in cop shows and flicks was all the same. The song montage with Bridgette Nielsen herself couldve been straight outta Miami Vice. And what was up with those weird prop robots she was dancing with??? They were terribly constructed (haha). So, I don't think I'll ruin this one with a total walkthru. Let's just say that there's a gang of dudes who hang out in a warehouse somewhere with barrels of fire lit, and they stand around like they are in an old 80s workout video and clang axes and hatchets together in unison. When confronted, they shout about the "new order" and try to kill "pigs" or whatever. Stallone is Sgt Cobretti, and he is supposed to protect this chick who may be able to identify the "Night Slasher" or head of the "new order". Anyway, if you are looking for a badass and cheesy 80s action flick, you gotcherself a wiener here. ***bonus shit*** supposedly Stallone wrote this script for Beverly Hills Cop, but wanted a grittier less comedic movie, and split (according to Wikipedia.) word.