Motel Blue (1997)

This is one Jon Cross from the PM Entertainment Podcast and After Movie Diner and I covered on a Sam Firstenberg Erotic Thriller double feature in episode 225 of the podcast, back in August of 2025. Between the fact that Firstenberg is a Hall of Famer and needs more movies reviewed, and that this has a bunch of other names, I had to get it on here as well.

Motel Blue has Soleil Moon Frye as a Dept. of Defense investigator tasked with making sure people should still have high-level security clearances, which is something she does by breaking and entering into a lot of people's houses. Anyway, she's assigned Sean Young, but the investigation takes her into a seedy underworld of people answering coded personal ads in adult magazines for hook-ups. As a young lady, Moon Frye takes a shine to Young, but will this idolization help or hurt her in her job? And as she digs deeper into who Young is, is she going to like what she finds? And how do all these other names play into this?

This isn't horrible, but it does require some leaps of faith. At the end, loose ends are flying together everywhere, and by the time you get your safety goggles on, Soleil Moon Frye is driving a convertible down the highway with a dog in the back seat, and then the credits roll. We also have two interesting performances, with Moon Frye doing the classic "Erotic Thriller role to get me out of that child actor reputation," where she's playing it completely earnestly; and then Young, as opposed to elevating the material, feels like she's exposing it to us in the way she's playing it, like a Michael Caine or Malcolm McDowell slumming it in one of these DTV Erotic Thrillers, which is fascinating to watch. Firstenberg for his part seems to be using Moon Frye as his muse, as we get a lot of close-ups on her, and as the star who needs this to get her out of that child actor mold, he can lean on her performance to get this thing over the goal line--and I'd say he'd have pulled it off if it wasn't for that crazy loose ends flying together finish, and a love scene where Moon Frye hooks up with this older psychiatrist character, which, with how young she looked and how old he looked, just didn't sit right. The other selling point was the names. We had Robert Vaughn as Moon Frye's boss; Tropical Heat aka Sweating Bullets's Rob Stewart as Moon Frye's colleague; Ski School's Spencer Rochfort as one of Young's hook-ups; and then Seymour Cassel and Lou Rawls as ministers. For a 90s Erotic Thriller with these names and Firstenberg at the helm, it's worth checking out, even with some shortcomings.

As always, we start with our film's Hall of Famer, Sam Firstenberg. We last saw him in Electric Boogaloo, the Cannon documentary, in 2024, and then as a director in 2021 with The Alternate when we inducted him into the Hall of Fame. He's now at 13 directed movies on the site, which ties him with Keoni Waxman for sixth-most all time, after Albert Pyun (40+), Fred Olen Ray (17), Joseph Merhi (15), Isaac Florentine (14/15 depending on how you count Max Havoc), and Jesse V. Johnson (14). The thing is, I don't see many more for him, so he may sit around 14 or 15, but that's okay, because he's given us so many classics, like American Ninja 2 and Riverbend. This may not be a classic of that level, but like some of those other directors I listed above, when Firstenberg takes on a movie like this, he gives it a level of polish that takes it beyond the usual DTV Erotic Thriller fare. His decision to make Moon Frye his muse I think also helped, as Young didn't appear to be doing him any favors. If you're a fan of his work, like I am, then this is worth adding to your watch list.

For people my age, Punky Brewster was on quite a bit, and I can think of some iconic moments from the show, like when Cherie locked herself in an abandoned old refrigerator in the backyard while playing hide and seek, or guest star Mark-Paul Gosselaar saying he was "crazy mad nuts about Margaux," or perhaps my favorite, when an El-less DeBarge performed for Punky, "you're a big boy, now..." I had lost her career after that, and had no idea that, before she was cast on Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (which, as far as I can tell, never had an episode with Josie and the Pussycats guest starring, a missed opportunity), she had a brief spell in the DTV world. I don't know how much we'll explore those films, but it's something to consider, because she was good here. I don't think it achieved what she would've wanted, to get out of the child actor rut, but a few years later it didn't matter if she's getting cast on a network TV show. I was trying to think if that ever worked, making an Erotic Thriller to get yourself out of the child actor pigeon hole. Alyssa Milano maybe? And it was that double standard, that someone like a Monique Parent couldn't go make a network TV show if they started in Erotic Thrillers--making Motel Blue didn't preclude Soleil Moon Frye from getting on Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. Even with the double standard, it is fun to see former child actors like Moon Frye in one of these Erotic Thrillers.

Sean Young's case is different, and in the post-Me Too world we live in now, we can see how her career changed after she accused Warren Beatty of axing her from Dick Tracy after she refused his advances. Back then if you're a Sean Young and you accuse Beatty of something like that, you get labeled "difficult," and some of her other clashes with James Woods and Woody Allen sound about right for who those guys are, but at that time it was used to further cement her reputation as "difficult." What that means for us in the DTV world is she does more of these kinds of clunkers, and she knows she's doing them because she pissed off Warren Beatty, so she lets us know with every scene she's in, the way John Malkovich is mentally installing a new kitchen island with every line of substandard dialog in a modern DTV flick. To me, that kind of thing makes these movies more fun, and I appreciated that Young was bringing that kind of energy. She's another one who has more DTV stuff out there, so we'll see if we get to some of it.

Finally, during the episode Jon did a rendition of ELO's "Midnight Blue," replacing "midnight" with "motel." For me, it's Lou Gramm's "Midnight Blue" that I keep getting in my head once I see the title for this film. This is not to be confused with Icehouse's "Electric Blue," which is not only a different song, but sounds like it could be a Lou Gramm song too, making it all the more confusing. One thing I didn't realize until I played "Midnight Blue" and another Gramm solo song, "Just Between You and Me," is that they were on different solo albums, two years apart. I guess that makes sense that I wouldn't have known that, because I would've taped them off the radio, and if the DJ played "Midnight Blue" again because "Just Between You and Me" was a hit, all the better for me. Nowadays, post-Clinton's Telecommunications Act and the subsequent consolidation of radio stations, DJs can't just play older Lou Gramm songs on a whim, a program director who manages 150 stations is telling that DJ to shelve the Gramm and play Nickelback and Train twice an hour. It's a shame, as I listen to Gramm belt out "you're getting reckless, girl," and while it's nice that I can listen to them on YouTube, and only have to put up with the obnoxious "who's listening in 2026?" comment--seriously, what is the matter with you people who do that! We're all fucking here listening to the song! Do you need cheap heat engagement that badly? I guess so--but anyway, it's nice that a remnant from that time is me getting that song in my head whenever I see the title for this. Here's to you Mr. Gramm, you're one of the best to ever do it, there's no need to say you won't.

And with that, let's wrap this up. I honestly don't know how you can find this. It's expensive in the used VHS and DVD market. If you can find it cheap, give it a look, it's worth checking out. And for more discussion, check out episode 225 in the archives, "Cross Cross" and "Motel Blue."

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133981

And check out my newest novel, Mark in Sales, on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.

Deadly Reckoning aka The Company Man (1998)

This movie should not be confused with the great Bogart Noir flick Dead Reckoning, because Deadly Reckoning is a bad actioner from the late 90s that has nothing to do with it. I found this on Netflix Watch Instantly, and when I looked it up on imdb, the cast looked stellar. Perhaps I should've looked at the review Ty did at Comeuppancereviews, but I didn't know he'd covered it until I went looking for a cover image to hotlink-- I got mine from Amazon. It should also be noted that that cover is not the one Netflix uses on their site.

Deadly Reckoning has Frank Zagarino as a CIA agent who retires and opens a used bookstore in a bad part of LA while raising his daughter alone after his wife dies. Turns out Robert Vaughn, aka Control 5, wants a disk Zags has with the names and numbers of all the CIA agents-- he plans to prank call them-- and he assembles a team of East German convicts, including the great Matthias Hues, in order to retrieve it. Now Zags needs help, and luckily his old buddy Bryan Genesse and an old flame come to see him just in time. Can he defeat the evil Robert Vaughn and go back to his used bookstore life?



This was a rough watch. Not a lot of action, a lot of bad padding, and what action there was had very few inspired moments. What would I rather do, listen to Frank Zagarino recite bad dialog in his best National Weather Service computer voice, or watch him kick the ass I've seen him kick in better movies? What would I rather see, gunfights with a purpose, or just people shooting from indiscriminate locations at targets that they never seem able to hit? I get one excellent fight between Bryan Genesse and some other dude, and what does this movie do? Kill Genesse off! My one hope for great action killed. Also, there was a decent fight between Hues and Zagarino, but that came after some atrocious plot convenience theater where Hues had Zags at gunpoint and could've killed him, but opted for a fight instead. Bad bad bad, but should've been so great with the cast we had.

A big disappointment here was seeing that this was an Art Camacho directed film. The fights were substandard based on a lot of his other work. He had to know a lot of this stuff wasn't up to snuff, and maybe he didn't have any choice, he just needed to get it out there, but still, with guys like Zagarino, Genesse, and Hues, more needed to be done there. Keep Genesse in the film more, cut out the crap with Zagarino and his kid, and Zagarino and the old flame, and line up some stuntment for these guys to get into it with. Mr. Camacho, you're known for you're great fight choreography, not your dramatic scenes-- at least not with Frank Zagarino and a bad script-- cut that crap out and give us some ass kicking action!



One of my rules to action films is that kids almost never work-- they're a dicey proposition at best, but at the worst they really hurt the overall quality. That was the case here, because Zagarino's daughter was one of those never listens kinds of child parts. You know, Zags tells her to stay in the car and hide, and what does she do the first chance she gets? hits the road of course and ends up a hostage by one of the baddies. She also screams, gives Zags a hard time about crap, and doesn't contribute anything worthwhile to what is going in the plot. Whoever came up with this idea to give Zags a daughter when writing the script was sautéed in wrong sauce.

We last saw Robert Vaughn in the Michael Dudikoff flick River of Death-- in fact, that was the only time we'd seen him to that point, making this only his second film at the DTVC. His imdb bio is littered with DTV flicks, so I'm surprised we haven't seen more of him. He wasn't bad in this one, but the material was pretty atrocious, leaving him a neutered baddie, which is kind of a waste, considering you cast Robert Vaughn. Rewrite the script and give him a character worthy of him and the name Control 5.



I was trying to figure out where to go with this seventh paragraph. I could the usual route, and discuss the local landmark that I'd been to before, in this case Union Station in LA. I could go the lowest common denominator route and discuss the sweet rack on Zagarino's old flame, which was pretty stupendous. I decided instead to talk about Zagarino's wooden acting style. His voice sounded exactly like the monotone computer voice the National Weather Service uses when they announce warnings. Part of me wondered if he was doing that on purpose. I guess it makes sense that he played a robot in the Project Shadowchaser movies.

Even at a free-fer on Netflix Watch Instantly, the 90 minutes involved my not be worth it. Bad padding, bad plot, and not enough solid action to make up for all those shortcomings. A shame too, considering the great cast we had here and with Art Camacho directing them. It just shows that a bad plot and an approach sautéed in wrong sauce can kill even the best accumulated talent.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1086274/

River of Death (1989)

I came across this really cheap on VHS, like a few bucks or so, and decided to just pull the trigger. I hadn't seen it in years, but I figured, even if it sucked, it would be cool to own a movie with Michael Dudikoff, Donald Pleasence, and Robert Vaughn. Wouldn't it?

River of Death is based on a book I haven't read, but it takes place in 1965, 20 years after a Nazi doctor, played by Robert Vaughn, who performed horrible experiments on people has escaped to the Amazon. Michael Dudikoff is a guide/adventurer down there, who takes another doctor and his daughter into the jungle for the source of a disease that is ravaging the tribes. The doctor is shot, and the daughter captured, and Dudikoff barely escapes with his life. Back at a nearby town, he's itching to recover and get back in the jungle to find her, and he discovers that other people, including millionaire/former Nazi that was kneecapped by Vaughn played by Donald Pleasence, want to go in with him. Who can Dudikoff trust? And will he escape the jungle alive?



This was a take off the Indiana Jones movies, but as Lucas himself discovered with the lackluster parts 2 and 4 of his own series, this isn't a paradigm that always works. It can go from fun and awesome to dull and drawn out in a heartbeat, and despite the great Cannon infused action quotient, and our man Dudikoff chewing up tons of scenery, its 107-minute runtime was its own downfall. It had plenty of great moments, where, as you'd expect from a quality Cannon picture, almost out of nowhere our characters are in a gunfight and using all the explosive ordinance at their disposal; but as we hit the 75-minute mark, it became excitement by repetition, and I was feeling like the wrap-it-up guy at the Oscar's, wanting to start the bumper music to cut to commercial. In the end, a fun time that stretched its luck just a little too long.

When we think DTV leading man, I'm not sure any have the range Dudikoff does. He goes effortlessly from highly trained ninja warrior, to Indian Jones style adventurer, to greenhorn Army Lieutenant in Vietnam. The movies around him don't always work, but it's not because of him if they don't. With this post, he becomes only the second actor, after Dolph Lundgren, with 30 tags here at the DTVC, which is no small feat. I loved him in River of Death as the adventurer. He was a little bit darker and angrier than Harrison Ford's iconic character, but you could tell he was still having fun with it. How can you not, though, when you have all that explosive ordinance at your disposal?



Two great villains, Donald Pleasence and Robert Vaughn. Pleasence did a better job affecting the bad German accent, i.e. Vaughn didn't really try, but they both worked as baddies. They were pitted against each other, because Vaughn kneecapped Pleasence earlier in the movie, which Donald wasn't too pleased about. In Maine, we have ads for a lawyer named Joe Bournstein, and Vaughn is his pitchman. I don't know if that guy does law in other states too, but it never gets old to see Vaughn in the ads, so hopefully people who live outside of Maine have seen them too.

You gotta love Cannon. One minute you're watching a group of people riding in a helicopter, the next they're in an enormous firefight on the ground, and the next after that someone's got a grenade launcher. The thing is, like every film that uses the Indiana Jones paradigm, it's just a series of mishaps, one after the other, and if it's not done well, it becomes excitement by repetition. That's why these kinds of things worked much better as serials, and to try and cram a bunch of episodes into one can be trickier than you'd think. This one would've had it, but they pushed their luck and went about 20-30 minutes too long.



I know there's a lot of nostalgia for VHS, a certain charm in finding one of these bad boys cheap, and popping it in the VCR and firing it up. Then there's this added nostalgia if it's a big box VHS, right? Damn, this one was just the cardboard box. As I was watching River of Death, and I was capturing images and fast forwarding around, I thought, nostalgia is great, but give me some DVDs. This isn't like vinyl records over CDs, where the vinyl actually sounds better; unless you get a bad transfer, these movies look worse on VHS, they don't have the special features, like interviews and commentary, and it's harder to skip through them to find certain moments. Hey, I'm all for nostalgia too, but let's not get carried away with nostalgia just for nostalgia's sake. What's next, people start using dial-up and AOL again because they're nostalgic for the sound of their modem?

This movie, oddly enough, can be bought new at Amazon on VHS. I'm not talking about from one of their sellers, I mean from them. It is on DVD, but not on Netflix, and to get it on DVD at Amazon will set you back in the neighborhood of $30, so VHS is the best you can hope for. If you're feeling nostalgic, you can always go to the local flea market, hope it's there, then try to haggle the price down with the guy behind the stand rocking the ponytail and wolf T-shirt. That'll be the next big thing-- it has to be a big box VHS bought, at a flea market off an old dude with a ponytail and wolf T-shirt, and you have to haggle him below $3.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098205/