Brain Smasher... A Love Story (1993)

This is one I've been meaning to do for a long time, but it's not that easy to find. Not only is it only available on VHS here in the States (the UK get a Region 2 DVD, lucky bastards), but it's also usually expensive on the secondary market. Fortunately a buddy hooked me up with his, and now I'm passing the savings onto you... that didn't make any sense, but it sounded good.

Brain Smasher... A Love Story is an Albert Pyun flick starring the Dice Man Andrew Dice Clay as a bouncer in Portland,Oregon who runs into supermodel Teri Hatcher escaping from a band of Shaolin Monks led by Yuji Okumoto. Okumoto wants a red lotus flower, and Hatcher's sister has it, but they think they can get it through her. Now she and the Dice Man are on the adventure of their lives, trying to save the world, and maybe falling in love in the process.



This film is fantastic. A really fun 80s-style romp, similar to Big Trouble in Little China, only on a slightly smaller scale. The music was great, the dialog was great, the action wasn't lacking, and the performances more than held up their end. Not only were Teri Hatcher and Andrew Dice Clay solid, but there were tons of Pyun mainstays that were also sweet, including DTVC faves Tim Thomerson and Brion James. Top to bottom, this just works, and works really well.

It really is too bad that it's films like the Urban Trilogy-- each of which had to be fudged together because half of each film was lost in transit by Air France--, that are available on DVD and Netflix Watch Instantly, when so much of Albert Pyun's best stuff, including Brain Smasher, is out of print and only on VHS-- again, unless you're a Brit, and then you get it on DVD. I mean, this has Teri Hatcher, who is kind of a big deal on Desperate Housewives, you'd think an opportunistic distributor would pick up the rights and mass produce a bunch of $5.88 DVDs with her all over the cover.



Speaking of Ms. Hatcher, you don't need me to tell you how hot she is, and playing a supermodel means she's even hotter. She also understood the sillier side of this movie, and really made it work. This was right before she got the Lois and Clark gig, which was what made her a big star the first time, then she fell off a bit before rising again through Desperate Housewives. I wonder what she thinks of this film looking back on it, especially kissing Andrew Dice Clay. One really cool thing Pyun did with her character, as she was running through the streets of Portland to avoid Okumoto and his gang, was have her stand in front of advertisements she did as a model that were displayed in department stores and whatnot. I liked that he juxtaposed her glamorous supermodel world with her current situation, reminding us how much of a fish out of water she was-- or she was supposed to be-- plus, it made for a great shot to have multiple images of her on screen at once.

One of the ongoing jokes in the film was about Americans lumping all Asians into one ethnicity, in this case saying they're all Japanese, and that the Shaolin Monks are ninjas. Throughout, Okumoto's gang corrects people, telling them "Ninjas are Japanese. We are monks, and monks are Chinese!" The joke of course is that Okumoto is Japanese, playing a Chinese character. For me, being a fan of both Chinese and Japanese cinema, and Chinese and Japanese cuisines-- and just being an anth major in college-- I got a kick out of this, because I'm often explaining the differences to people I know too.



Now it's time for everyone's favorite game when reviewing an Albert Pyun flick: name that mainstay; and Brain Smasher had plenty. I already mentioned Thomerson and Brion James, who played great send ups of the classic 1940s Film Noir detective, grilling the Dice Man. We also already mentioned Okumoto, who played the head of the gang of monks. Then there was Nicholas Guest, another detective, only grilling Teri Hatcher instead of the Dice Man. Deborah Van Valkenburgh, who played the accountant in Mean Guns, was Hatcher's sister (she was also in Road to Hell, which I believe hasn't been released yet). Other stars who weren't Pyun mainstays included Peter Kwong, who you may remember from the Olivier Gruner flick Angel Town, but who also had parts in Big Trouble in Little China and The Golden Child; and Liz Sheridan, Jerry's mom from Seinfeld, played the Dice Man's mom. Interesting that we had a second Seinfeld connection, the first obviously being Teri Hatcher in the "They're real, and they're spectacular!" episode.

If you live in the States, either keep your eye out in used VHS bargain bins, or bite the bullet and make the Amazon purchase, but this is one you'll need. If you live in the UK, take a break from all that Steven Seagal buying and pick this bad boy up. You won't regret it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106475/

No Contest (1994)

I first got wind of this movie when I was looking up Rowdy Roddy Piper films on imdb. My friends and I are huge fans of his, and after Dead Tides, we were hungry for more. It wasn't an easy film to find, though, and I had to wait until I got Netflix to see it. Then it was pushed down on my queue, and when it finally made it to the top, it sat on the TV for a while before I finally watched it.

No Contest has Shannon Tweed as a martial arts film queen hosting a beauty pageant that is taken hostage by Andrew Dice Clay and his baddies, one of which is Rowdy Roddy Piper, and another of which is the guy from that Da Vinci's Inquest show. Anyway, Robert Davi was hired to protect Miss America in the pageant, and he helps Tweed make her way through the bad guys to try and save the girls.



This was what it was. I hate using that term, is what it is, but it's the only way to describe this picture. Bad Die Hard rip-off that might have been cooler with The Dice Man and Piper, but just wasn't. There were some nice explosions, but they weren't that nice. There was some weird thing going on where The Dice Man had the girls wear explosive wrist bands that would detonate if they were too far from something, and then the Da Vinci guy had one triggered to his heart that would go off if The Dice Man tried to kill him, but The Dice Man's computer nerd just reprogrammed it with some random keystrokes and it was set to his heart beat instead. Weird stupid stiff like that that just didn't do it for me.

Piper was a supporting character, so obviously he wasn't in it as much as one would've liked. Also, he was a baddie, so we knew he'd get the crap beaten out of him eventually. This wasn't the awesome baddies he's played on Highlander: The Series or Terminal Rush with Don "The Dragon" Wilson; this was a one-note baddie with no character whatsoever. His death scene was kind of cool, and he had a good fight scene with Shannon Tweed, but overall he was wasted here for my money. At the very least he could've put Tweed in a sleeper hold to give us fans of his something to get excited about.



The Dice Man. Credited here as "Andrew Clay". Really? You're gonna try the Rick Schroder approach to respectability? You're The Dice Man, damn it. "Jack and Jill go up the hill, both with a bucket of quarters...". He had some great Dice Man moments, though. His disguises were great. When he first gets on stage to take the contestants hostage, he talks about his handsome blue suit, which was pretty funny. He also had a great CGI death scene, where he fell into a green screen. It was like killing off a local weather man. Overall, considering he didn't have much to work with with this movie, he did a decent job. He just needs to cut it out with that "Andrew Clay" crap.

This is the third film I've done with Shannon Tweed in it, the other two being Of Unknown Origin with Peter Weller and Cannibal Women of the Avocado Jungle. This one was well after those two. I think if I was going to pick my favorite, it would be Cannibal Women, because Shannon Tweed seems to do funny really well. I think she wanted desperately to do it in this movie. The movie probably wasn't doing much for her, considering how crummy it was, and I think she wanted to sit with the audience and make fun of it too. As a fan of DTV films, she pops up quite a bit, so I'm surprised this is only the third film I've done of hers. I imagine this won't be the last, though.



Miss America was played by a Canadian woman named Polly Shannon. I bring it up, because she was also in Direct Action with Dolph Lundgren. At first I thought it weird that she'd play a high school girl in this movie, and then a rookie cop in the Lundgren flick, but then I realized the films were shot ten years apart. Sometimes I see so many of this things they exist in their own time: cops and action heroes and women all wearing roughly the same outfits, speaking the same lines; it's only the cell phone technology that changes... how I long for the days of the Zack Morris phone...

Skip this. No buts, just skip it. It's nothing special. Piper's not in it much, and his character's not that fun; The Dice Man and Shannon Tweed don't have much to work with; and there are plenty of better Die Hard rip-offs out there. I had a feeling this was going to be lame, I just needed to make sure for the Piper factor.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110675/

Point Doom (2001)

I first heard of this film when I saw a trailer for it at the beginning of the Don "The Dragon" Wilson film Whatever it Takes. Both films were produced by David DeFalco. In the trailer I saw Richard Greico, Ice-T, and Andrew Dice Clay, and figured it was worth throwing on my Netflix queue. Maybe I'm just subconsciously a glutton for punishment.

Point Doom is about an LA talent agent played by Richard Greico. He's looking for a nice girl to settle down with and thinks he found her at his friend Andrew Dice Clay's strip club in the person of waitress Jennifer O'Dell. The only thing is she's involved with a biker dude (played by the guy who gets his brains blown out by Dolph in Missionary Man) who's very possessive, addicted to drugs, and into it bad after he double-crosses and kills a bunch of fellow bikers for a shit ton of coke. Now Greico's caught up in this tangled web of crap. Is he in over his head? Probably, but not in the world of movies.



This was a pretty bad film. Maybe not even pretty bad, it was atrocious. But it's got so many famous people in it it's hard to write it off immediately. Between Greico, Ice-T, O'Dell, and The Dice Man, it's all right. Then you throw in Angie Everhart in a weird role as a woman with epilepsy, Sebastian Bach as a biker, the guy from Gremlins and Gremlins 2 also as a biker, and then the guy who gets his brains blown out by Dolph in Missionary Man, and just on star power alone you can almost transcend everything else's atrociousness. Maybe that was producer David DeFalco's plan. The reality is you can't polish a turd.

Greico was Greico. I think he was better here than in the depraved Final Payback. It's always hard for me to fully place Greico, because the name evokes memories of his 80s glory, yet films like these remind just how far he's dropped. I guess everyone's gotta eat, but I get the sense that in each of these poorly made DTV stinkers he doesn't quite feel right: like he's playing back the 80s in his mind and wondering how he fell so far. This wasn't the way his career was supposed to go, and he can only hope another Tarentino will resurrect his career the way Travolta's was in Pulp Fiction. John, not Sam.



Ice-T's popping up rather frequently here at the DTVC. This will be the sixth film reviewed that he was in, making him tied for second with Norbert Weisser behind Daniel Bernhardt for the most movies of a non-Hall of Famer. Looking at the films lined up for future review, there's a good shot he can catch him soon. That begs the question: why isn't he in the DTVC Hall of Fame? The reality is it's a personal taste thing with some of the committee. He's kind of in that C. Thomas Howell area, where the resume's there, but a lot of people just don't like him. I must say he's growing on me. He was cool in the small amount he's in this film. Other than a part when he's slicing up his own hand with a knife, he was great as a drug lord looking for money from the guy from Gremlins. With a good showing in Crazy Six as well, I'm looking forward to what's next from him.

Art Camacho directed this. I see his name in a fair number of all the bad movies I watch. I decided to finally look him up and found he's directed five films I've reviewed if you include this one (also Crooked aka Soft Target, Final Payback, Gangland, and X-treme Fighter). Not only that, but in his roles as fight choreographer, producer, stunt man, and bit part actor, he's been in countless others. For the time being I'm just going to tag the films he's directed and call it good. Maybe if I have the time I'll go through the others and tag them as well. He's a pretty busy guy.



In terms of all the other stars, Angie Everhart's part made the least sense. She played O'Dell's sister. The deal was she had epilepsy, and the film treated it like a debilitating disorder where she couldn't care for herself, as if she was severely mentally handicapped. She wore these drab clothes in an attempt to make her less attractive, which, considering it was Angie Everhart, didn't work. In one freaky scene, the baddie, after attacking O'Dell, grabs Everhart, and she goes into convulsions. Eww. Then she's kidnapped by the same baddie, and her health issues suddenly play no part, probably for the convenience of the plot. She's treated pretty roughly. After she's rescued, instead of being allowed the comfort of her sister, she's taken away by the Dice Man so Greico and O'Dell can get it on. It was just weird.

I can't really see recommending this. It's got some sweet B,C, and D-list actors, but beyond that, it sucks. It's supposed to be a sexy suspense thriller, and it's really none of the three. I can't lie, I like really bad films, so I picked this up, but you've gotta be in that small percentile of people like me who take it too far and need a film like this to pull us back from the ledge. Your best bet is to stay away from it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0186454/

Whatever It Takes (1999)

I learned about this film from a trailer I saw with Gangland. I believe the connection to the two films is producer David DeFalco. In Gangland he played the cut yet weird looking bad guy with the greasy ponytail. He casts himself in a smaller role in this as a biker tough, and he's a bit buffer than he was in the other film. What's odd is how he's wearing a whisper thin tank top, because in Gangland he wore no shirt, yet had a poorer physique. Who knows what goes through the minds of bad action movie producers that cast themselves in their own films?

Whatever It Takes is about two undercover cops, Don "The Dragon" Wilson and Andrew Dice Clay, who are sent by the DEA to investigate Fred Williamson and his trafficking in a designer steroid. As the case unfolds, Wilson falls in love with a really hot personal trainer in one of Williamson's gyms. Wilson now must mitigate his desire to put Williamson behind bars, with his desires of a more carnal nature.



It's crazy how ahead of it's time this film was. DeFalco must've known something, being the buff guy that he is, about designer steroids and high profile athletes' use of them. Of course, Fred Williamson is way cooler than Victor Conte and his BALCO people, unless Conte was whacking people in his private nightclub and we just didn't know about it. On the other hand, Williamson's steroid didn't have a name, which made it less cool than BALCO's The Cream and The Clear. For a really bad action movie (and this is bottom of the barrel kind of stuff), it's weird to see it out in front on something like this.

This was a rather poor outing martial arts wise for D "The D" Dubs. His moves seemed really telegraphed and not choreographed well. I'm not sure if he mailed this in, or was feeling a little under the weather, but it was obvious, and the film lacked some for it. There was this two second delay between when a guy left himself open for an attack, and when Donny hit him. Knowing what a top notch martial artist Wilson is made this even more disappointing.

Andrew Dice Clay was interesting. He went on a few trademark Diceman riffs, which brought me back to a simpler time when my friends and I were in grade school repeating his nursery rhymes at recess. When he tried to be serious, like when he discussed an on the job tragedy with Wilson, he fell flat, and it seemed way too contrived. When he was funny, though, his pairing with Wilson made for a very interesting buddy picture. DeFalco should work his magic and pair these two together again.



I can't say enough about Fred "The Hammer" Williamson. As a baddie or a hero, he brings it every time. He was absolutely amazing in this as the drug lord. He had a love affair with the chick from Cleopatra 2525 that wasn't Cleopatra or the chick that went on and did Firefly. She got naked in front of him in his bedroom, and he asked her if her high heels were uncomfortable. She answered in the affirmative, and his reply was: "then leave them on... then you'll have to work that much harder to forget how much they hurt." That's 40 to 50 times cooler than anything Van Damme's done in any movie with any chick. Van Damme wishes he was as cool as Williamson.

SPOILER ALERT
Wilson's love interest in this was really hot. In order to gain her affections, he goes to the gym she volunteers at, and loses on purpose in basketball to her little brother. Anyway, so their love affair ensues, he gets some, naturally, and then all hell breaks loose. Williamson gets wind from the chick he's doing that Wilson'll be divulging some secrets to his woman, and this leads The Hammer to get proactive on Donny's ass. What he does shocked the hell out of me, though. After a night of love making, Wilson's woman takes his car to the store to buy milk or whatever. Unfortunately the car's rigged with a bomb, and she blows up. It was so sudden, my mouth fell open. I felt like I needed to mention it in the blog, but I felt like if someone read this and it ruined the surprise I had, I'd feel bad. I've always felt the classic damsel-in-distress situation where the hero's love interest is kidnapped by the baddies is a little cliched; but now, seeing the alternative, I'd say go back to the perfunctory kidnapping.



One other thing got me in this. Williamson employed some white Italian guy that was supposed to be his nephew. Whenever he did something wrong, Williamson would cut off a small appendage, like a pinky finger. It was supposed to be funny, but it was just gross to me. Who comes up with shit like this? I'm blaming you, DeFalco.

I think this film might be too much for a lot of people. You have to be a real bad movie honk to get any kind of enjoyment out of it. I'm that guy, so this hit the spot for me. Also, I dug the sports implications, and I know not everyone out there's a huge sports fan like me. I'd say only rent it if it's a rent on get one free kind of deal. Otherwise, proceed with caution.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0161084/