Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: The Adventures of Ford Fairlane (1990)

"I'm very rich. Nothing offends me. I mean, no shit, honey. You got a whip sticking out of your ass and a guy that's fucking barking." - Ford Fairlane

"You got to shave before you leave the house in a dress like that... and I don't mean your legs." -

"I could've been a rock singer, if only I hadn't been banned from MTV. Long story. But anyway, I only know that one song. Well, I do a mean "Puff the Magic Dragon," but only in the nude. Longer story." - Ford Fairlane

Here we have a pretty classic bad movie. Ultimately panned by everyone, and I feel thats a pretty big injustice. See the Diceman had it rough as he started gaining popularity in the 80s. Everyone was on his ass about his masoginistic attitude towards women and sometimes racist or homophobic stand up. And I'm the first one to jump down someone's throat when they seriously start pulling that shit, but this guy was playing a character that said things to get laughs- in the 1980s! Almost every movie from a certain era that I review on here has some homophobic slang in it that wouldn't fly now. Either way, this movie is hilarious and has an insane amount of people in it: Wayne Newton, Pricilla Presley, Morris Day, Gilbert Gottfried, Freddy Kruger, Tone Loc, Sheila E, Ed O'Neil, Vince Neil, and Andrew Dice Fucking Clay in THE ADVENTURES OF FORD FAIRLANE!!!

So this band called Black Plague is jamming, and their singer Bobby Black (Vince Neil) ziplines in and then chokes to death on stage. Our hero is going about his daily business which just so happens to be rocknroll detective. He makes sexist quips, bangs chicks, and solves crimes. His old college buddy is a shock jock DJ in LA who calls him down to look for his "daughter" Zuzu Petals. Then as Ford is leaving, someone electrocutes "Johnny Crunch" (Gottfried) and the local police chief (O'Neill) expects Ford has something to do with it.

Ford's money burned up in a fire that happened after the electrocution, so he's still broke and trying to figure out how to pay the bills that are piling up. Suddenly Elvis's ex wife shows up and asks him to search for the same little girl. She's rich and snobby. He takes the case and goes to ask his buddy Morris Day what he knows in the studio and meets Julian Grendel (Newton) a pretty shady record exec. Then Ford goes to check out Johnny's houseboat and it turns out Johnny was banging Pricilla Presley. Then Freddy Kruger jumps out and tries to kill him and the boat sinks. Now Ford knows he's on to something. So he goes to Bobby Black's funeral searching for ZuZu, and finds her. But Freddy Kruger is there and tries to kill him. They have an insane chase THROUGH A GRAVEYARD. And then O'Neil tries to nail him again, but he's got nothing on him.

Ford gets his hot assistant to come to a party over at Pricilla's house and Pricilla, even though she's a bitch, doesn't turn into the suspect that Ford thinks she is. In fact she gives some sort of disc to Jazz, the assistant. They split. Then Ford's house gets broken into, and they hang his koala. Oh yeah, he owns a koala. Then they blow up his house. Zuzu had a second disc, so they know something's up with them, and Jazz figures out they need three of them to blow the case open.

I can't remember how but they catch Ford up in the top of the Capitol Records building and they're gonna kill him, but he and Zuzu climb out of a window and climb all the way down, all the while fighting goons and Freddy Kruger. Then somewhere along the way, he ends up at a sorority house, and theres an unbelievable amount of hot 80s chicks there working out and stretching. CLASSY. Then they go to find the last disc and fight the badguys at the end. But Ill let you check that part out yourself. Andrew Dice Clay is the only comedian in history to ever sell out Madison Square Garden two nights in row. I'm not saying he's the best comedian, or even a GREAT comedian. I'm just saying that's impressive, and with so many cameos, at one time, he was on top of the world. Yes, you should give this one a spin.

Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

"Hahaha, you always make us laugh, Merc'ry! See you soon Merc'ry!" - Pluto

"We're gonna be french fries! Human french fries!" - Brenda

"Yeah well, if animals around here are smart enought to run radios we're up shitcreek without a paddle." - Lynn

A creepy flick about a family of cannibal hicks living somewhere out in Arizona or New Mexico on a reservation beside of an Airforce bombing range. "Starring" Michael Berryman (the guy on the poster) pretty much because of the way he looks. Directed by Wes Craven- I present to you THE HILLS HAVE EYES!!!

In the beginning an old man named Fred is furiously packing his truck up on his little farm. Apparently he runs a gas station in the middle on nowhere and looks like he needs to get the hell outta there. He sees this dirty chick coming up to his place and he tries to shoo her away. She says she wants to trade whatever's in her bag for some food. But he tells her he doesn't have any and tells her that her and "the pack" are gonna be in big trouble for what they've done. She explains they only attacked the Airforce base because no one else passed through there anymore. Then they hear someone yelling and she hides in a closet. Fred is very scared of getting caught speaking with her.

A family in a station wagon pulling an Airstream with 2 german shepards pulls up to get some gas. They're loud and annoying and annoyed with each other. The dad, Bob, an ex detective is bound and determined to visit an old family mine on their way to California. The daughters and sons have no desire to head out that way and everyone is on each other's nerves. Fred tries hard to discourage them from going to what he considers certain death. They just dismiss him as some old kook and after looking around they head on their way with a final warning from Fred. When they leave he goes back to check and the scraggly girl is gone.

So while they're driving down the long dirt road toward the mine, they think they're lost and start passing the map back and forth and then planes fly low over their heads and scare them and Bob drives faster and faster and crashes in a ditch breaking the axle and shaking everyone up. Now they really are stuck in the middle of nowhere and being spied on by somebody in the dark. The dad tries to walk back 15 miles to the gas station and the oldest daughter's husband tries to walk to the airforce base to get help. By nightfall one of the dogs runs off and the young son finds her dead and gutted up on top of some rocks. The son-in-law gets back and they figure out something heavy is going on. Fred's truck has been blown up and he's trying to hang himself. The dad makes Fred tell him what's going on. Fred explains that his son has a gang of Satanic kids that live in the hills. Bob tries to run back to his family with his bad heart and "Papa Jupiter" captures him. They set him on fire in front of his family and the mom freaks out. Then 2 of the sons break into the camper, kill one daughter, mortally wound the mother, rape one of the girls, and steal the baby! HEAVY!

So the real hero of the movie is the second dog, Beast. He first picks off the more dimwitted of the brothers "Merc'ry" and then stalks the rest of the "pack". The son-in-law runs to find his baby and Papa Jupiter and Pluto return to kill the rest of the family. Then there's a big showdown and someone comes forward to help our sad family. Who is it? Well you'll just have to watch for yourself to see what pans out for our gold hungry suburbanites. Should you see this? Yeah, its a classic with 2 sequels and a remake with its own sequel. Someone thought it was worthy.

Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: Alien (1979)

"I admire its purity. A survivor... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality." - Ash

"Let's go over the bonus situation. We haven't - Can we just talk about the bonus situation?" - Parker

"Ash, are you kidding? This thing bled acid. Who knows what it's gonna do when it's dead?" - Ripley

A huge one for me. I tried many times to see this one. But unlike DUNE and BLADERUNNER, this wasn't some adult sci fi that I couldn't get into as a kid, this was the basis for tons and tons and tons of "somethings gonna getcha in the spaceship" movies. I mean there were some before (2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY), but THIS is the one, this was the one they copied and emulated over the years, even now, take SUNSHINE for instance. I just never saw it. I saw parts of it, pieces of it, pieces of all of them, but it was on the list. The list of embarrassing "WHAT? What are you talking about? You've never seen ______ before?" Yeah it was up there. And I wanted to see it on a big tv even if I still watched an old VHS copy of it. Throwing this out there, I think HD sometimes ruins old flicks and shows. So yeah, I present Yappet Koto, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Tom Skerrit, and Sigourney Weaver in ALIEN!!!

So this spaceship is flying in space and it begins to wake up its crew. And they are all tired and begin drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes on the ship (which doesn't seem very smart to me). The boss guy's name is Dallas and he goes to check with the ship's computer "Mother" to see what's happenin'. Mother is like the ship's HAL (except for its not trying to kill them). Mother tells them that they aren't home yet. The ship Nostromo is hauling a huge refinery back to Earth, but they aren't even close. But Mother has been programmed to wake them up if anything weird happens. And they've received a weird transmission from a nearby planetoid, so it woke them up.

So with a bit of griping about bonuses, they decide to go check it out. After a rough landing, two of the seven are put to work repairing the ship, and three are sent out to explore the source of the transmission. They head out on the surface and discover this huge ship. Inside the ship there's this giant dead astronaut man husk sitting in a space/seat/telescope. It looks as if something has ripped out of his chest. They explore further and find a bunch of egg looking pods that look like props from GREMLINS (except it didn't come out till '84). Then a horseshoe crab alien attaches itself to John Hurt's face. They haul him back to the ship, and Ripley (Weaver) says sorry Jack, we can't let you on the ship for quarantine purposes, but the science officer Ash lets them in anyway in a direct breach of her orders.

So after trying to cut it off his face and discovering that it bleeds acid, they lock John Hurt up and then they see the crab thing is gone. They go investigate against the wishes of every single person who's ever seen the film, and it escapes. They find it dead and he wakes up to eat breakfast. Then he convulses and pukes and then a little monster bursts out of his chest and runs off loose somewhere on the ship. So the crab thing laid babies in his stomach. GROSS! So one by one the crew is picked off by this fully grown alien monster with another mouth that comes out of its first mouth. DOUBLE GROSS. SIDE NOTE: There's an orange cat on this spaceship! His name is Jones. #1 I'm not sure that cats being on a ship is believable. I know animals have been on ships before (Laika) but this seems pretty unreal. It doesn't wear a suit and I feel like the fur would get everywhere. #2 I've thought about getting an orange cat for a long time. A LOOOONG time. And I've always said I was going to name him Marmalade Jones. And maybe he would get dressed up sometime in a detective hat and tie, and maybe I'd draw a noir comic about him. #3 How did Ridley Scott know that I was going to watch this movie? How did he know about Marmalade Jones, and better yet... how did he read my mind in the future?

Ripley decides they gotta get out of there, so they start getting shit they'll need in the shuttle. Since she's in charge she goes to check with Mother to find out what the fuck is going on with Ash the science officer. Turns out the company that sent them out there told him to bring back any intelligent life no matter what, even if it means the lives of the crew. **********SPOILER WARNING --BUT NOT A COMPLETE SPOILER WARNING-- JUST PART OF ONE********** There's an altercation and Ash's head starts sparking. I thought that was weird. THEN THEY FIND OUT THAT ASH IS A FUCKING ROBOT!! Then the alien comes out for the final showdown. Jones, the little asshole runs off and causes havoc because Ripley's already set the main ship to blow up, but has to try and stop it so she can find the cat. The alien is lurking around, but I don't wanna tell you what happens. Unless you're completely sheltered, you know she's in the sequels, you may not have seen them, but you know she survives. But I won't tell you how. You'll have to experience it for yourself. Should you blah, blah, blah? Duh.

Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: The Toxic Avenger (1984)

"Hey look Frank. Teeny-boppers. You like video games teeny-boppers? Your mommy give you quarters for video games? Well cough 'em up." - Leroy

"That's where you're wrong. YOU'RE wasting our time. And now we're gonna waste you!" - Cigar Face

"You fat slob. Let's see if you've got any guts." - Toxie

A complete classic flick! I remember watching the first three of these on USA for a marathon years ago. Its one of those flicks that got paired on a Sunday afternoon with THE WILD LIFE on WJZY or WCCB in Charlotte in the 80s for a double feature after mega monster theater. Those old Troma films capture a different time in Jersey and New York City, a dirtier albeit more fun (?) time. Definitely a more dangerous, more debaucherous time, and to me that equals fun. Lloyd Kaufman's baby that started his empire, with a super young Marisa Tomei running from a shower scene, I give you THE TOXIC AVENGER!!

There's a health club in Tromaville where our pre-protaganist works as the wimpy janitor. A gang of creepy thirtysomethings... maybe they're supposed to be teenagers hang out there and smoke. The two couples have this sick game where they run over people with their cars and take pictures of the gore and probably beat off to it. The gang led by the aptly named "Bozo" torment the shit out of Melvin. But Melvin, never the brightest of bulbs is always suckered into their pranks. One afternoon, the blonde chick cons Melvin into thinking he's going to get some from her. Instead he ends up making out with a lipsticked sheep in front of the whole health club at the pool. Melvin runs down the hall and is so torn up he jumps head first out a window into a vat of toxic waste on the back of a truck thats stopped so the truckers can do some blow.

Melvin, who was dressed in a polka dot tutu to further add to his embarrassment begins to burn and change into another creature. He runs home and tries to hide from his mother only to be chased out once she sees him not knowing whats happened. That night some pretty intolerant goons try to buy off this Irish cop who's not buying their bullshit. So they decide to lean on him. Out of nowhere, Toxie rolls out and starts bashing. Then he sticks a mop in their dead faces. The one called Cigar Face gets away with only his nuts smashed. The cop realizes Toxie is there to help and reports everything to the other cops and the newspaper dubs Toxie the "Monster Hero".

The real main bad guy is actually the mayor. He's got all kinds of schemes going down and when Cigar Face tells him what happened, he just goes on with his act sending the cops out in force to catch Toxie. So then 3 bad guys try to rob a Mexican joint and are foiled by Toxie who kills each of them more brutally than the last. Here he meets the love of his life, a blind girl named Sarah. Then we have a montage of them falling in love. Then Toxie cements himself as a goodie goodie in town with the kids and the citizens. Then he goes for revenge on those who turned him into the monster he is. First after smashing a drug dealer's face in, he gets one of the girls who disfigured him.

So the mayor sends more goons after him, but Toxie is a super badass and takes care of them no problem. He ends up getting all of the gang who transformed him, but then the mayor goes after him bigtime against the will of the people. Toxie kills this little old lady. He knew she was bad, but no one in town did and so he gets painted badly in the press. The mayor uses this to his advantage and gets the national guard on his side against Toxie. Pretty soon they have him cornered in a tent with his girlfriend on the edge of town. Does Toxie give in to his murderous tempations, does he lose control? Does the fat bastard mayor defeat our sludgy hero? You'll have to watch and see for yourself! If you're unfamiliar with Troma movies, this is about the best one to start with.

Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: The Golden Child (1986)

"Ha! I got the knife! Now turn on the goddamn lights!" - Chandler Jerrell

"My dear, sweet brother Numsie!" - Chandler Jerrell

"Hey Bird - Did you just see a little Hare-Krishna midget in the tree, floatin'?... Or is it me?" - Chandler Jerrell

So, 1986, one of the best years ever for music, movies and all the things that root themselves deeply in some of our nerdcenters. This flick has a dear place in my heart as I've seen it a multitude of times. I've always viewed it as kind of a sister flick to my favorite movie BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA probably for the sheer fact the Egg Chen basically plays himself in it. I always had this idea that Egg Chen just went around having adventures and fighting with the Wi Kong and Sardum Noomsie and maybe taught a class on ultimate evil in his spare time (PRINCE OF DARKNESS). But yes, one of Eddie Murphy's classics, and surely in my top ten, cameo by Randall "Tex" Cobb, I present to you THE GOLDEN CHILD!!!

So a little monk brings a bird back to life and then is kidnapped by a dude in a cape with some henchmen who kill all the other monks. Cut to LA, where we see all the typical Hollywood scenes (Pink's Hotdogs, etc) and meet our protagonist Chandler Jerrell who finds lost children. Chandler is on a mission to find a lost girl and is spotted on a local cable access show by a lady who wants to enlist him to find the little monk. Turns out the little monk is very special and Chandler Jerrell finds himself being called the Chosen One who will help find the "Savior of mankind".

Jerrell dismisses the lady as crazy and goes back to playing basketball. Days later they find the missing girl in a house where bikers were putting her blood in oatmeal. The lady tells Jerrell that they had the child too and were trying to feed him the blood to make him unclean. They go meet a dragon lady and she tells them where to find the bikers. The chick kicks the bikers asses and the caped guy "Sardom Numsi" comes to Chandler in a dream. Finally after being burned in a dream and seeing the apparition of the kid in a tree and spotting the boys parakeet everywhere, Chandler agrees that something is going on.

Kee (the girl) talks Jerrell into going to Tibet after a lot of arm twisting and when they arrive, he is put through a series of tests by Egg Chen, who at first disguises himself as a street salesman. They came all this way to get a sacred knife basically to keep it out of Numsi's hands because that's really the only thing that can kill the kid. That or eating blood I guess. So he gets the knife and they go back to LA. Jerrell and Kee are attacked while sleeping and Kee gets shot and killed and she tells Jerrell that she loves him. The doctor (who is Lo Pan from BIG TROUBLE!!!) (actually there are a lot of extras from BIG TROUBLE in this) tells him to bring the kid back to save her before its too late.

So Chandler drives his shitty car out to like an abandoned warehouse where the shit goes down. Numsi ends up turning into a flying bone dragon demon and its pretty rad. Also the kid turns a pepsi can into a little dancing man and amuses a clearly brain damaged Randall Tex Cobb. Oh, and one other killer part I'll tell you about instead of relaying the final plot points is that Numsi talks to Satan in one part and the room falls away and reveals that he is on some kind of hill in Hell. That part is pretty rad. Should you see this? Shit man, you should OWN this.

Bad/Awesome Flixxx Review: D.C. Cab (1983)

"Why are women are so uptight? They've got half the money and all the pussy." - Dell

"Bruce Lee ain't dead you know. They got him frozen in carbonite down under Chatsworth. They're gonna melt him down as soon as the economy gets better." - Dell

"My father came back from the Korean War with his brains so scrambled, he thought he was Jesus! They put him in a nuthouse for five years, when he came out, he didn't think he was Jesus no more, he thought he was God. Which made me Jesus. Then shit got pretty heavy." - Tyrone

An old favorite of mine and my Earth pops. I remember watching this with him back when he used to sell cars. He had a handful of movies like this he'd watch. CAR WASH, USED CARS, this one. All of them remind me of those old Saturday mornings when it was cold as hell and his car lot was one of the first places in town with cable television. Wild shit. Bill Maher, Marsha Warfield, Mr. T, The Barbarian Brothers, Gary Busey and more in D.C. CAB!!!!

So this young dude Albert comes to DC to meet up with his dad's old army buddy who runs a pretty shitty taxi service. Everyone who works for him is a character. Mr. T, Gary Busey, The Barbarian Brothers... etc. They keep getting in trouble with the taxi regulators in DC for operating without a airline license and overcharging. They are getting beat up badly by their competition The Emerald Cab company. The only good cabbie they have, Marsha Warfield is constantly about to leave the company to go to the green side because she keeps getting robbed at gunpoint and has no other way to support herself. So they're in bad shape.

Albert really wants to be a cabbie. His old man died, and he wants to help out the cab company. Most of the cabbies are cool to Albert, but they don't really give a shit about their job, they all have dreams of what's coming next for them. So then somebody leaves a really expensive old violin in one of the cabs and this bum finds it. Since they don't know whos cab it was left in, they give the $10,000 reward to Harold the owner. Harold is going to split the bread with the cabbies, but his wife Myrna is totally against it. Harold offers the cabbies a chance to invest their money into the cab company to make it great, the best in town. At first everyone says "bullshit", they couldn't care less. But then Myrna steals their money and kicks Harold out of his own house. They all get super pissed then.

Luckily Albert comes to the rescue and tells them that he'd saved up like 7000 bucks or it was left to him or something, either way, he puts his money, all of it up so that they can stay in business. Everyone is super psyched on his vibe, and they paint all the cabs and fix them up and start taking business back from the Emerald cabbies. Everything is good until a kidnapping happens.

So Albert is taking like some senators kids to school or something and they usually do this everyday, but they get hijacked and they throw Albert and the kids in a van. The news reports that Albert is involved in the kidnapping and so the cabbie regulator shuts down DC cab. Everyone is pissed because they know Albert wouldn't do it. So Harold finds out the head cabbie regulator dude is sleeping with his wife so he takes a blowtorch and chases him, and then they bust the cabs out of the clink and go on a rescue mission to save Albert and the kids. There are other subplots, but if you're looking for a no thinking type of 80s comedy, here ya go.