Steel Frontier (1995)

This is one I discussed on episode 3 of Jon Cross's PM Entertainment Podcast, which was a really fun conversation, and now we're finally giving it a review here. In addition to us and the PM Podcast, Chad Cruise at Bulletproof, Ty and Brett at Comeuppance, Outlaw Vern, Tom Jolliffe at Flickering Myth, and Mitch at the Video Vacuum have covered this as well.

Steel Frontier takes place six years ago, after the apocalypse, where the world is a big Mad Max-ish mess, and a horrible conqueror (Brion James) has gathered up a bunch of baddies and taken over all the peaceful tire farming towns in the LA County area. Is there any hope? Sure, as is often the case, a heroic lone drifter comes into town (Joe Lara). He starts off by joining the gang, and then does a bit of a Yojimbo move to get Brion James's gang to kill each other. Will he eventually succeed? And in true PM fashion, will he require a lot of explosions and car chases to do so?

This one jumped to number 9 on my all-time PM list (which you can find on the DTVC Letterboxd), that's how much I enjoyed it, and Jon felt the same way. This is PM doing the Italian late-80s Mad Max exploitation flick, but doing it in true PM style. The exploitation comes in the form of violence, with explosions and car chases, which is nice because we don't get the usual sexual assault or other sexual exploitation the Italian films liked to do. We get some great Joe Lara as the lead, Brion James is a fantastic baddie, and the addition of Bo Svenson as James's second-in-command was solid too. From there you get all the beautiful PM action goodness you expect when you see the PM logo on the spine of your VHS, including this massive chimney explosion that the IMDb trivia says is the largest PM ever pulled off--and that's saying a lot considering this is PM we're talking about! PM gets it right again, and we're all better for it.

Out of all the Joe Lara films I've seen--which isn't that many, he's only at 8 now on the site--this is my favorite. He's everything you want in the roguish, Western hero, and we can't wait to see him enter this town and take out James and all his baddies. Another place where this movie deviated from the late 80s Italian films is they didn't do the whole "hero captured and tortured by the baddies, then he recovers and gets his revenge" penultimate act, which was refreshing for me. While I liked Hologram Man better as a film overall, this is the better Lara film for sure, and it's too bad he didn't get more roles like this. By my count, we have 7 or 8 more of his films that we could review, and I don't know how many of those we'll actually cover because they look hard to track down, so he may top out at around 12 movies, and I think that's okay considering how good a job he does here.

PM is closing in on the 50 Club at the DTVC, we're only one away now, and this is one I probably could've used for that milestone, but I didn't want to wait on it too long after the PM podcast episode was released. That's okay, I think there are some great candidates for the big 5-0, there's no shortage of fantastic PM flicks. What makes this one so good, is it's their take on this post-apocalyptic/Mad Max subgenre, and they successfully make it the PM version, they never get away from what they were best at. In the PM Podcast episode, Jon interviews both Paul Volk and Jacobson Hart, and they give great insights on what made this work. Hart in particular talked about how PM didn't do sexual exploitation, that their "exploitation cinema" was the action, and they nail it, especially with two great chase scenes, and that aforementioned chimney explosion. When you see PM on the spine, or listed under company credits if you look a movie up after seeing the thumbnail on a streaming site, you expect a certain level of fun, low-budget action, and this one delivers on that in a way that exceeded even those expectations.

Part of why this works so well is the stunt team PM puts together. The stunt coordinator/second-unit director is Michael J. Sarna, who has done a bunch of other PM flicks--including my personal number two all-time from them, The Sweeper, where he was stunt coordinator under Spiro Razatos as action director--plus the David Bradley classic Hard Justice, and a personal video store mainstay of mine, The Perfect Tenant--which I can't believe I haven't covered yet! In addition to him, we have 50 Club member Art Camacho, and soon to be inducted 50 Club Member Cole S. McKay, plus "Broadway" Joe Murphy sans his stunt coordinating partner Red Horton. And as if all those names weren't enough, we have stunt legend Kane Hodder as one of Brion James's gang, though not credited as doing any stunt work. Guess with all the PM names they had they were able to let him take a break on this one! This is part of the PM magic, let these great stunt names do their thing, and the result is this high-octane alchemy that was the secret to their success.

Finally, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention Brian Huckeba's "Chicken Boy" role. As Jon pointed out, this was a kind of character that showed up in Ozploitation films that this movie is in the tradition of, and Huckeba goes all in on his performance. It just makes things that much more fun and memorable, and with low-budget filmmaking every little bit helps. When the guys at Comeuppance reviewed this, Huckeba commented on it, and if you listen to the PM Podcast episode, Jon interviews him in addition to Paul Volk and Jacobson Hart, and he gives Jon some great jewels when recalling his experience on set. It would be easy for Huckeba to look at this part as a one-off in his career, maybe something he shows his family 30 years later so they can all have some laughs, but the fact that he's still this enthusiastic about this part today is great to see. It's more fun for us to embrace it if the people involved are embracing it too.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Tubi, Prime, the Roku Channel, and Fawesome here in the States. That's a great way to catch this, but also if you see it in the wild on VHS, pick it up. And if you haven't yet, subscribe and listen to the PM Entertainment Podcast on your favorite podcatcher. Jon is delivering the PM podcast we've wanted for years, you need to check it out.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114537/

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

American Cyborg: Steel Warrior aka Steel American Cyborg Warrior (1993)

Last weekend, my wife saw in a forum that a fundamentalist televangelist who ran a congregation that focused on women being thin for their husbands and for God, died in a plane crash, along with her family members. It turned out, her husband was none other than Joe Lara. I couldn't believe it, and felt I needed to cover one of his films in my next review, so here we are. In addition to us, our friends at Explosive Action, Ninja Dixon, The Video Vacuum, and last but not least, Ty and Brett at Comeuppance have all reviewed this, so you can go to their sites to see what they thought--in addition to Entertainment Weekly, who had some fun things to say about it. Now it's time for us to say our things about it.

American Cyborg: Steel Warrior (or Steel American Cyborg Warrior as the opening title puts it) takes place in a post-apocalyptic future (what other future is there?) where cyborgs rule, humans drool, and since we're all infertile, the cyborgs figure it's better to herd us into cities and let us die out rather than fight a war with us. Then a lady has a fertile egg that results in a test tube baby, who is now a fetus that needs to get to Europe so he can live. The problem is a cyborg is after them, and as the lady escapes, she meets a strapping young man, Joe Lara, who offers to help her get to safety.

 

Had this movie been made today, I'd be killing it for its repetitive wash, rinse, repeat plot: cyborg comes, Lara fights off cyborg, he and the lady, Nicole Hansen, run away, they relax, and the the cyborg shows up and they do it all over again. But this 90s Cannon effort had the look and feel of an Albert Pyun film from five years before--without his added Pyun-ness that made those work more of course, but it was enough of the look and feel to transcend its obvious issues. Lara works as the hero, Hansen was good as the woman toting around a yoga mat and a bank drive-up capsule for the deposit tube with a fetus in it, and John Saint Ryan was good as the Rob Halford-esque leather-clad baddie. Again, it's the kind of thing that, if it were made today, I'd be killing it; but in the 90s, it has enough nostalgia for me to work a bit more.

This is only our sixth Lara post on the site, which doesn't seem like a lot, unless you consider that he didn't do that much, and then it makes a bit more sense. One of the last ones we'd done was Final Equinox, which me, hilarious guy that I am, referred to as "Final Deep Cheek-quinox" after a porn film my buddy and I saw on a porn shop shelf called Deep Cheeks. I was also pretty rough on him when I reviewed that one, saying "I didn't understand the concept of Joe Lara." On the other hand, there's Hologram Man, which I have 4th on my all-time PM list, and it's 4th in large part because of Lara, not in spite of him. I think why Hologram Man and this film work more than Final Deep Cheek-quinox is that they knew how to use Lara properly. He didn't have the rugged good looks of a Dolph, Van Damme, or even Lorenzo Lamas; Lara was dare I say pretty, but in the right roles, he could transcend that and be a real lead. According to IMDb he hadn't really done anything since the early 2000s, but his passing is still a shock and an immense loss. Here's to you Mr. Lara, you were one of the great ones, and you will be missed.

Previously when I did Street Knight I said it was the last Cannon production; and when I did Hellbound I said it was the last Cannon Group film. This film had the distinction of being the last one released theatrically in the US by Cannon--where it grossed just under a half-a-million. It was also the last team-up of Golan and Globus. It definitely doesn't have the quality of those 80s Cannon actioners, as this film bounces from abandoned warehouse to abandoned factory to abandoned tunnel--and may even be reusing sets. We can see the effects of the losses on Masters of the Universe and Superman IV onscreen in front of us. Yet there's also an inimitable Cannon quality that does shine through and makes this more endearing. Put with Street Knight and Hellbound, there's an odd vibe, similar to when you go to a store that's going out of business. Something's ending with these movies, a wave is cresting, and while we had a second wave in PM Entertainment that was building strength behind it, that Cannon wave was something special that we may never get back again. We often lament the state of the current overall DTV market, but maybe what we got with Cannon in the 80s and then PM in the 90s was a beautiful anomaly that we'll just never see again. It was definitely great while it lasted.

In the trivia on IMDb, they quoted an article Nicole Hansen did where she said a revised version of the script had her getting nude and doing love scenes every five minutes. She objected, thinking they'd use a double for the scenes, but instead Cannon agreed and cut them out, which allegedly upset the film's director, the great producer Boaz Davidson. It looked like one way he got back at her was by having as many scenes as possible where she got wet. "Oh, my skin is burning from acid rain, let me dump water all over me!" "Oh, I need to get to the ocean to meet the boat that will take me to Europe, why don't I walk out into the water and let the waves wash over me." These were the days before wet look leggings, so Boaz had to create the effect on his own I guess. To her credit, Hansen does a great job with it all. When I looked her up, I discovered that we'd seen her before, in the Michael Dudikoff Dirty Dozen flick Soldier Boyz. Brophey!

 

Finally, you'll notice we tagged Isaac Florentine. That's because he was the martial arts choreographer. That makes this the second time we've tagged him for something other than director work, the other being Boyka, which he couldn't direct due to the passing of his wife, but did produce. If you look at his filmography, I think this is contiguous with his first feature film as a director, Desert Kickboxer, which I haven't seen yet. When we think of DTV directors who aren't in the Hall of Fame, he may not have the numbers that a guy like Jim Wynorski has, but the action hits really stand out. By my count we have six more movies of his left to do, which will put him at close to 20 tags. Maybe we should see how those six go, but I have a feeling he's on his way.

But this wasn't meant to be an Isaac Florentine post, it was meant to be a Joe Lara post, so let's wrap this up. I think Hologram Man would be a better way to celebrate Lara's life and career, but this one isn't bad either. The other thing is this is only available to rent on streaming, while Hologram Man is free on Tubi. Lara may not have been at that Dolph level, or even Daniels level, of DTV action, but he still made very valuable contributions. I'll say it again, here's to you Mr. Lara, you were one of the greats, and you will be missed.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109098

And if you haven't yet, check out my novel, Chad in Accounting, in paperback or on Kindle!

Warhead (1996)

I came across this one on Watch Instantly, and have kept it on my radar until this week, when I finally decided to make it happen. The combination of Frank Zagarino and Joe Lara could be, if anything, at least a fun time-- though they could also be a boring slog too, you never know. Let's see what this spin of the roulette wheel yields. Also, our buddy Kenner at Movies in the Attic hit this one too.

Warhead has Lara as the head of a white supremacist separatist paramilitary organization, and Zagarino as the special forces soldier that leads a unit of elite troops to stop him. He has his work cut out for him though when Lara gets his hands on the codes to launch some nuclear missiles, and it looks like he has intel on the inside that warns him when Zagarino tries to take him down. Now it's do or die, as the fate of the free world hangs in the balance and only Zags can save the day.



This one is a definite 3AM gem. It's too D-grade and too obscure as far as the lead actors go to make for a good bad movie night flick, and the plot and action, though plenty mindless, aren't solid enough to make this one good. But at 3AM, whether you're procrastinating on a paper, trying to get the room to stop spinning after a heavy duty bender, or battling insomnia, this is the kind of thing that will get you to the church on time. It's something you'd've been lucky to find on EncoreAction, or TNT or USA back in the late 90s, but with it's availability on Watch Instantly, it's at your disposal whenever you need it.

Zagarino is a D-grade mainstay. I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing though. We need that level of action flick, and it's good to have someone to helm it. The acting is a little more wooden, the bad script isn't papered over as well, and watching him, there's almost a sense that we are seeing the scenes as they're shot, as if we can hear the director yell "cut!" after. There's a place in the market for this kind of movie, and Zagarino is the quintessential actor to cast as its hero.



The best way to describe Joe Lara's performance is to imagine a Lifetime movie where a guy plays a sleazy pimp that seduces a young girl from a small town into running off with him, not knowing he's planning to sell her on the street. A big part of it is his voice. It's this creepy monotone, and it sounded like that predatory Lifetime villain much more than the action hero main baddie. Then you factor in the ponytail too. All he needed were the double-breasted blazers and the fancy cherry apple red sports car, and we could see him pulling up to the girl's cheer-leading practice, telling her how beautiful she is and how he'll give her all the finer things in life that she deserves, and next thing you know they're holed up in a cheap motel and Joanna Kearns is teaming up with disgraced alcoholic former cop Treat Williams to track them down.

Even though this movie was shot in South Africa, an early scene took place in Idaho, making it the first time Idaho popped up on the DTVC. I imagine Idaho and New England-- especially Maine-- are as far as you can get from one another, though Maine has potato farming in common with Idaho. Like every state in the US that I haven't been to, I'd like to get out there and see it some day, if only to hike Borah Peak, maybe see what Boise's got going on too. If anyone reading this is from Idaho and can suggest some other places to check out, that would be cool.



I recently watched The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and was struck most of all by how little the film captured the essence of what made the Super Mario Bros. games such a great series. Somehow though, Warhead has done that. It just seemed like a fun ride with stuff blowing up around Zagarino, and him swinging on things and sliding down pipes and riding jet skies with bombs into militia men. The best one came when Zags was fighting some guys on an ice skating rink while some kids played a hockey game. He'd grab onto to one of the kids' backs, and instead of stopping and turning around and asking why he did that, they'd just skate away and take him for a ride. Even crazier was how they kept playing while this shootout and brawl was happening around them. It felt like one of those levels in a Super Mario Bros. game where you'd have to ride a bird or something.

This is not so bad it's good or a great bad movie night flick, it's mid-90s South African D-grade action that is a great 3AM time killer. With the advent of Netflix, Hulu, etc. and the ability to stream movies, these 3AM gems are now at your fingertips as opposed to something you stumble upon as you flip through the channels. Not a bad deal.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118119

Final Equinox (1995)

Our buddy from down under over at Explosive Action sent us this, so we thank him for that. You can also read his review of it at his site. Final Equinox features Martin Kove and Vincent Klyn, which on the surface looks sweet, but stars Joe Lara, which definitely throws up red flags. Let's see how it went.

Final Equinox takes place "in the not too distant future" (like next Sunday AD, perhaps?), where double threat David Warner-- astrophysicist and PhD in archaeology-- finds some alien artifact. That's when baddie Martin Kove has it stolen from the government, and now the government wants it back. Somehow Joe Lara is mixed up in all of this, and with his ponytail and leather pants, tries to save the day-- and the planet.



This was a definite pain cave, and believe me, it will bludgeon you. Very little action, and what there is is pretty run-of-the-mill. Not sure why Joe Lara is the star, because he barely uses any martial arts, and is here for his acting prowess [cough cough]. Kove is a great baddie, and Warner is fun as the double threat scientist, but the plot is dull and lifeless, scenes go on longer than they have any right to, and ultimately we're left wondering why this movie was made at all. There were a few interesting ideas this movie could've explored that might have made for a better movie, in particular the idea that life was created by an alien race's Genesis bomb, but it was beyond this film's ken to go deeply into anything, yet the mindless action wasn't there to make the paper thin plot forgivable. As an aside, about ten years ago a buddy and I saw a movie called Deep Cheeks on the shelves at the local gentlemen's cinema outlet, and for years we've been calling this or that "Deep Cheeks". With that in mind, for the rest of this post, I'll be referring to this movie as "Final Deep Cheek-uinox".

Martin Kove was an excellent 90s style baddie in Final Deep Cheek-uinox. Bad clothes, cigar, willing to give the order to waste someone at the drop of a hat. We can at least say this was an improvement on Kiss of the Vampire, which for one reason or another couldn't recognize Kove for the great main baddie he is, but this had so much bad in it that even Kove couldn't save the day. Too bad.



If you're like me, you don't understand the concept of Joe Lara. The hair, the leather pants, the pretty boy eyes, the lack of acting ability, it all adds up to "huh?" But then there's Lara here in a straight jacket with some kind of elaborate harness gag that looks like a watch or something's been shoved in his mouth. This made sense. When I think of Joe Lara, and I wonder why he's cast for this or that part, or wonder why he doesn't cut his hair because it's not doing him any favors, or why he's wearing leather pants because they make him look like a cheeseball, I see now that it all adds up to this. Without all of that, I wouldn't buy him in a straight jacket with an odd looking harness gag in his mouth getting kicked around by a prostitute or thrown out of a moving van. An odd oasis of getting it right in a desert of getting it wrong for Final Deep Cheek-uinox.

As I mentioned above, Final Deep Cheek-uinox broached a really cool idea, that some alien race planted a Genesis bomb here that started life on the planet. I guess the problem is, you'd have to account for eons of time between when an alien race would've dropped the bomb, and then would've come back to marvel at their work; or eons of time that they'd be studying their work. Maybe the better play would be that they forgot about it, or maybe they did it on another planet, and those people came here to see what we were up to. I think from Final Deep Cheek-uinox's standpoint, this is all way too complicated for what they wanted-- but maybe they should've thought of that before they bludgeoned us to death with a boring-ass plot that wasn't any better.



Final Deep Cheek-uinox had some interesting co-stars. There was DTVC favorite Vincent Klyn, who was one of Kove's gang. He's killed by blue electricity to the temples. Then there was a poor man's Sam Jones, which, as you can imagine, is a bad sign for your movie if you can't get the real Sam Jones-- I mean, isn't the poor man's Sam Jones Sam Jones? Finally, there was veteran character actor David Warner. Who knows what he was doing here. Hopefully he thanked his agent after shooting by leaving a flaming paper bag full of dog crap on the guy's front porch.

We've completely spiraled out of control here, talking about flaming bags of dog crap and Final Deep Cheek-unox. I apologize for that, I must have a case of the sillies as I'm writing this review. That's a lot more than I can say for the entertainment value of this movie though. Steer clear of it, I suffer the pain so you don't have to.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113065/

Armstrong (1998)

I've been meaning to get to this one for some time now. First it was on Netflix Watch Instantly, then it wasn't, then I went on hiatus at the end of the summer, then I came back, it came back, but other movies kept bumping it down the pecking order. Now we're finally here. Also, this has been done by two other blogs that are well known to readers of the DTVC, Ty at Comeuppance Reviews, and Sutekh at Explosive Action.

Armstrong has Frank Zagarino as an ex-CIA dude in Russia training their new version of the KGB that's supposed to be more US friendly. At the same time, a very moist Charles Napier has been sent by the President to look into some nukes being sold by rogue members of the Russian military to terrorist organizations. He's killed by Joe Lara, but not before Zagarino gets the proof he needs on a video tape. The problem is, how far up the military chain does this go in Russia? As far as Richard Lynch?



I kind of dug this one. It was a little long, but the whole thing was so gratuitous that I kind of let that pass. I mean, the plot was pretty well worn but funny, the action scenes were hilarious but in a fun way, plus, this was directed by Menahem Golan, and we know he knows how to do bad action. In fact, this felt like something that was made in the early 90s, not 1998-- only the style of the Pepsi logo in one scene gave the shooting date away-- so you could see how it might have fit Golan's other "Cannon", get it? This is the kind of movie you're dealing with here: Kimberley Kates has a full-frontal scene when she comes out of the shower, which transitions into her putting on wet clothes, no underwear, Lara pointing a gun between her legs and looking up her skirt, then her running around in a see-through wet blouse during a foot chase. The foot chase goes on way longer than the action warranted, and really kills the film's momentum, but there was a sense that Golan and whoever else that was involved in making the film were like "hey, we convinced Kimberley to do the wet T-shirt scene, let's get our money's worth." If you dig that kind of thing, you'll dig this.

Frank Zagarino is back again. This will be his fourth film, but only his third starring role. We didn't do this one though solely for him, though having him helped. The Napier and the Lynch didn't hurt things either, plus, having Lara as the heel really worked. I mean, replace Lara's double-breasted suit with a Star Trek: The Next Generation T, and he'd be one of those guys they showed in Trekkies selling replica Klingon weapons at the convention. It would've been nice if he and Zagarino had a better end fight, but it was still good.



Richard Lynch was in this as a Russian colonel, so he affected a Russian accent. It was funny, because his native Brooklyn accent is still pretty apparent. Try to mix those two together. He was also kind of a secondary baddie to Joe Lara, which didn't feel right-- Lynch should always be the big baddie. This is only his sixth film on the DTVC, and I know we had talking in the past about making a concerted effort to get more of his films up here, because he is such a great DTV baddie. He's always on my radar for that reason, it's just a matter of making it happen.

This had to be the most moist film we've ever reviewed on here. Everyone was just covered in Patrick Ewing style perspiration. First it was Napier, but then the rest of them followed suit. I'm talking like "I've been hiking in 90-degree weather" dripping wet kind of moistness; or "I'm way overweight and the AC doesn't work at the Chinese food buffet" kind of moistness. Whose idea was that? It wasn't appealing, it was gross.



As I mentioned above, Kimberley Kates has a full-frontal nude scene-- we're talking top and bottom. Then she runs around for a good ten minutes of screen time in a wet see-through blouse. There's even a very tasteful part where she sits down in front of a room service cart to eat, and Lara pops out from underneath it and points his gun between her legs, making sure he gets a good look too-- she's wearing no underwear. She also gets punched in the face a few times, tied to a chair, and when all is said and done, she's rescued by Zagarino and his Russian friend, and the three walk off into the sunset together, none the worse for wear. One of the funnier things she did was make this pirate "Arrgh!" when she's first getting tied up.

This is pure bad Menahem Golan, reminiscent of the Cannon days, but not quite as good. I saw it as a solid bad movie night film. It's not just so bad it's good, but it's gratuitously bad it's good, and sometimes that gratuitousness (gratuity?) can be too much for some people, i.e. the film takes on too much of that lowest common denominator principle. I can see that, and Armstrong definitely pushed it, but in the end it worked for me.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139029/

Sunset Heat (1992)

I saw Sunset Heat about five years ago on EncoreAction. It not only had DTVC Hall of Famer Dennis Hopper, but also Michael Paré, Adam Ant, Little Richard, and a musical score done by the legendary Jan Hammer (as an aside, Michael Talbott, Switek from Miami Vice, is also in this for two scenes as a bartender). The problem was, when I started the DTVC a couple years later, I couldn't find it. It took me a while before I finally tracked it down, but here it is, kicking off our Dennis Hopper tribute week.

Sunset Heat has Michael Paré as Eric Wright (not to be confused with Easy-E), a photographer with a past who returns home to LA from New York to see his buddy, Adam Ant. Turns out Ant's get rich quick scheme involves robbing some dudes involved in a drug transaction, and when the Candyman (the guy who played him I mean) recognizes his accent, and then his (Ant's) bumbling partner (Joe Lara in a tiny role) gives away that the Candyman is right, all hell breaks loose,a nd Ant runs off with the cash. Turns out the drugs were Hopper's, and he and Paré used to be partners in crime, before Paré went straight. Well, Hopper wants his cash back, and he has some leverage on Paré to get him to retrieve it.



I really enjoyed this movie. It isn't so much an action film as much as a sexy Film Noir thriller, with sex scenes that are more at home in a Skin-a-max flick. Paré and Hopper are at perfect in their Film Noir roles, definite throwbacks to their 1940s counterparts; but the film itself is definitely a product of its time, from the music to the clothes. The Jan Hammer music was great, but a little sparse, and that might be my only complaint. Throw in a bunch of great cameos, including Little Richard, and you have a winner.

It's great to be able to say this for the first time, but as always, we start with the film's Hall of Famer, which was Dennis Hopper. He always makes a great baddie, and Sunset Heat was no exception. You could tell that he understood the type of movie this was trying to be, and he really sold it. There's one great scene near the end, where he's in a limo with Paré's girlfriend-- who was Hopper's girlfriend, but before that, she was Paré's, it makes more sense when you watch the movie-- and I don't know if he forgot his lines, or the script called for him to improvise, but he seems to be looking for anything to say, and is going for anything he can find to prompt him. I think he said like five times "we're going to see your boyfriend!", and then he grabs her hands, which are bound in front of her, and he's like "and your hands are tied!" For me, that's part of what made Hopper great, that he could roll with punches like that in these lower-budget movies.



Mr. Kenner at Movies in the Attic has been wanting me to get more Paré up here for some time now, and I couldn't agree with him more, but every time I make an effort, something else always comes up and he gets pushed to the back. Watching him here, though, made me realize how bad that is of me, and that I need to make him a priority again. Yes, you get to see a lot of his bare buttocks, so depending on whom you're attracted to, that could be a plus or a minus. (There is plenty of hot chick nude action as well, so there's enough for everybody.) In Sunset Heat, he had a great combination of 1990s cool, with a throwback to 1940s Film Noir leading man aesthetic. His Brooklyn accent definitely helped, but just the way he carried himself, I can't think of any actor currently in the Hall of Fame that could've pulled his role off the way he did.

This film had a great supporting cast, as I alluded to above. You had Adam Ant, the Candyman, Little Richard, John Talbott, and Joe Lara. There was also Diagnosis Murder's Charlie Schlatter, and Daphne Ashbrook, who was in the Olivier Gruner film Automatic. This is one of the funnest things about watching DTV movies, seeing how many people I recognize in them. Sometimes it's like "oh, it's That Guy, who is that?", while others I'm like "holy shit, Little Richard! Yes, that's so awesome!" More DTV movies should recognize this and load up on as many recognizable names as possible, even if they're only in the film for a scene or two.



Speaking of which, do you recognize the woman above? If you do, you're better at this game than I am, because I didn't know who she was until I saw the name in the credits-- I didn't even think it was an actor worth knowing, I thought it was just an extra. Well, I was wrong, it's Julie Strain. What do you know, huh? This is it, her only scene. She plays a human statue, and hands this character actor in the picture with her a plate of strawberries or something. Can you imagine how much that catering company must cost? Hey, it was Hopper's party, he can afford it.

As far as I can tell, here in the States, this only available on VHS. Total shame, because it's really great, and worth checking out. I'd keep an eye out in bargain bins for it, or if you have digital cable, you may see it on one of the Encore channels sometime in the future.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103006/

Hologram Man (1995)

This movie was thrust into my queue after I saw American Kickboxer 2 and wanted everything I could find with Evan Lurie in it. Of course, other things took precedence, from Dolph films, to getting more reviews for guys like Olivier Gruner and Gary Daniels, to our new Wild Card posts on Friday that spotlight mainstream films. Mr. Lurie, along with Hologram Man, was simply lost in the shuffle.

Hologram Man takes place in one of those futures that looks suspiciously like early 1990s LA, where John Amos and Joe Lara play cops after Evan Lurie's gang. In case you're wondering, Lurie's character is named Norman "Slash" Gallagher, and though a relation to the prop comic isn't explicitly mentioned, it's definitely apparent. Anyway, Slash is arrested by Lara after Lurie kills Amos, and Slash is sentenced to holographic detention, or something like that. His likeness is turned into a hologram, and an attempt is made to reprogram him. However many years later, a corporation has taken over LA, runs it like a dictatorship, and when Slash comes up for parole, they want nothing to do with letting him go. That's when Larry from Larry, Daryl, and Daryl from Newhart turns Lurie into a walking hologram with special powers, and all hell breaks loose. Slash wants to start a revolution from the corporate dictatorship controlling LA, but Joe Lara knows that Slash's brand of government will be no utopia either.



I loved this movie. And I know you'll like it too, at least I hope you will, because if you're reading this there's already an unsaid agreement that films that start with shootouts where John Amos blows away bad guys with exploding bullets, and then some vehicle appropriated from the Mad Max lot cruises in and blows up cars too, are the most amazing films ever. And if we have that unsaid agreement, then when an Evan Lurie (who also wrote this gem) rocking braids appears in hologram form, it's understood that we both feel like life can't get any better for us at that point.

Bad movies, or really any movies for that matter, are like wines. The person with no experience drinking them can only discern the difference between red and white. The novice knows what makes a Pinot a Pinot, and a Cab Sav a Cab Sav. It's the person who loves wine that can tell you what makes a Russian River Pinot different from a Chilean one, can taste fruits when everyone else can only taste alcohol, and will get angry if you buy him or her a bottle of Yellow Tail for Christmas. I realized just how much I was that way with movies, when I found myself knowing subconsciously what made Hologram Man a distinctly PM Entertainment bad action movie, as opposed to one of the Golan-Globus variety. I could spend days boring you with the minutiae between the two major action producers, but let's just say that in 2010, I'll be exploring more of PM Entertainment's contribution to the world of DTV.



Man we love us some Evan Lurie here at the DTVC. Again, it's a shame that he has such a small filmography. Who saw American Kickboxer 2 and didn't think this was one of the greatest men alive? imdb is very scant on details about him, so who knows if he's still alive, but he hasn't made a film since 1997's Operation Cobra. Seriously, Evan, if you're out there, and you're reading this, we love you. Get back in the game. Write Hologram Man 2 if you have to. Anyway, there are about 8 more films we can review from Mr. Lurie, so I guess I better do that before I go asking for more movies from him.

As much as Evan Lurie is awesome, Joe Lara really isn't. It is surprising that 400+ posts in, and this is the first time Mr. Lara has made an appearance. There are a few, like Armstrong, which I've been meaning to get to, so expect to see him a little more as 2010 rolls on. That may or may not be a good thing for everyone. You be the judge.



 I should say something quickly about the science behind the holograms that become people in this film-- it's hilarious. I'm sure if you went over all the other reviews we've done here at the DTVC, you'd find occasions where I read someone the riot act for how ridiculous whatever they were selling us in terms of how realistic or plausible it was. In this case, to do that would make me look stupider than the holograms dipped in a space age polymer so they became humans again were. Sometimes it's better to sit back, laugh, and enjoy it, instead of being critical.

I got this on Netflix, which is a huge score considering the quality of film it was. That this is on DVD at all is amazing, and I'd rent it while you can before it falls out of print, which isn't all that unfathomable. As Martha Stewart would say "It's a very good thing."

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113318/

Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/