Save Me (1994)

This is one I covered on a two-part episode with Jon Cross from The PM Entertainment Podcast and the After Movie Diner back in November, number 184 (part 2) in the archives, when we looked at a couple of Harry Hamlin erotic thrillers. The other thing is this is Cole S. McKay's 60th film on the site! That makes him our third member of the 60 Club, and ties him with Gary Daniels for second-most ever, behind Dolph.

Save Me has Harry Hamlin as an investment broker whose wife (Olivia Hussey) has left him and taken their son with her. Also, he was the top broker at the firm, so he's been able to coast on that reputation and do very little work since then. Anyway, one day he's out on his lunch break, and he sees a gorgeous woman (Lysette Anthony) go into a lingerie shop, so he follows her and spies on her. After another time, she gives him a note that says "Save Me" with a phone number on it. Seems she's trying to get out from under the clutches of her abusive partner Michael Ironside, which Hamlin is only too happy to oblige her. He skips work or leaves early so he and her can hook up in his Mustang. But when will this Noir-ish femme fatale show Hamlin she's not all she seems?

This isn't horrible as a fun, time-killing watch. It pops in at around 90 minutes, you get some fun performances, and the "erotic" in "erotic thriller" is there sufficiently well, even if it's not full on Shannon Whirry Skin-a-max kind of stuff. The business aspects of the story are a bit of a trip though. Hamlin has a jerk for a colleague played by Steve Railsback, and at some point their boss, Joseph Campanella, promotes Railsback to Hamlin's manager. Railsback then puts Hamlin on a performance improvement plan, aka "probation," which would lead one to believe that means one more slip-up and he's out, but according to this movie, it means Hamlin's untouchable during the probation period? Like he can tell Railsback "fuck you," and Railsback can't do anything about it? And Hamlin's character isn't necessarily likeable either, he's just more likeable than Railsback. You almost get to a point where you want Anthony to smoke them all and move onto the next town. But therein lies the charm, maybe? The erotic thriller isn't meant to be compelling cinema, it's meant to get us to the church on time, and I think this one does that.

If it feels like we were just celebrating Cole S. McKay's entry in to the 50 Club, that would be right, the thing is, he had over 50 films when we finally decided to tag him, so he skipped the usual 30 and 40 Club posts and came in in the mid-50s. The plan was to review something more action-oriented, or maybe one of the films he directed or starred in, for this 60 Club post, but reviewing The Stray last week changed all of that, and I didn't realize until I started putting everything together for this post that it would be his 60th, but I figured I'd go with it instead of moving everything around. (I also discovered that Kill 'Em All 2, which I'd planned to do here, is now gated by Netflix and unavailable if you don't have an ad-free version? Do these streamers just get more ski mask and gun-y by the day?) Anyway, since we tagged him a few months back, McKay has been cruising up the all-time lists, first passing Art Camacho, now tied with Daniels, and I think passing him will only be a matter of time, since we don't have many Daniels films left to cover, and there could be over 100 other McKay films that qualify--just 1994 alone he has like 25 movies, of which we'll now have done 8. Just his PM stuff will probably push him past Dolph. And while this movie doesn't have a ton of stunts, the ones it does have, like the person trying to run Hamlin down in a parking garage, are all excellent. We take stunts in a film for granted, and I think a big reason for that is McKay and his teams always makes them look great. 60 Club and beyond!

I believe this is our first Harry Hamlin film on the site, but we have looked at him twice on podcast, one being the two-parter I mentioned above that includes this movie, episode 184 in the archives; and the other being episode 132, "Short Shots," where we looked at a series of short films with Rich Hawes from DTV Digest, and Hamlin was in a short film called One Clean Move, which also starred Gary Busey and Luca Bercovici. The thing about these erotic thriller roles is he seems like a drip a lot of times in them, which, after seeing him in Mad Men, makes me think was more by design than I realized. Did he read these scripts and think "this guy is kind of up his own ass" or "I don't know if I'd want to spend ten minutes with someone who acted like this" and then just leaned into it? Take this movie. It looks like his character barely does any work, and often can't even be bothered to finish his day sitting in the office. When his friend (played by Neil Ronco, who also wrote the script--but wasn't the guy who invented an As Seen on TV rotisserie cooker) invites him and Lysette Anthony up to their cabin to spend a weekend with Ronco and his wife, Hamlin proceeds to use it for as a sex escape bed and breakfast with Anthony, the two of them making the beast with two backs all over the place there. Yet Ronco continues to be this guy's best friend. It creates this gray area though where we don't know if we should root for Hamlin or not. Maybe it doesn't matter if we're just having fun.

This is not our first Lysette Anthony film on the site, that distinction goes to Strippers vs. Werewolves, but this is her first starring role. She's everything you want in that erotic thriller/film noir femme fatale. She's alluring, seemingly vulnerable, yet can be diabolical when it's needed. Another name we've seen here before is Michael Ironside, who plays the psychologist that's also Anthony's lover. We never know if we can believe him or not, because he's Ironside, exactly who you want in a role like this to be this mysterious. Then there's Steve Railsback, a name we've also seen here before, but I think this is my first mention of him. He's had a great DTV career that we haven't really even scratched the surface of, the kind of name that probably should be in the Hall of Fame if we'd been reviewing more of his films. I'll definitely look for more of them now. And finally, you may have noticed two other names we tagged, Kato Kaelin and Jesse V. Johnson. Kaelin plays a broker at the firm Hamlin and Railsback work at, but I couldn't find him in the movie so I wasn't able to get a screen. And then Johnson is listed as a set designer. It's a tag, and while it doesn't count toward his director tags, it adds to his overall count, which now stands at 15. Other names that round out the cast were Bill Nunn, Olivia Hussey, and Joseph Campanella. They all do great and add that much more flavor to the proceedings, which is what you want when you see their names in the cast list.

Finally, the title of this film gets the Aimee Mann song of the same name from the movie Magnolia stuck in my head. Her hit with 'Til Tuesday, "Voices Carry," is one of my favorite songs ever. I don't know if I can name ten songs that came out after it was released in 1985 that I like better than it. I tried to get into more of  'Til Tuesday's stuff, but none of their other songs really worked for me the way that one did. I remember one time VH-1 was playing 80s stuff, and the VJ said that, while he liked "Voices Carry," their album after that one, Welcome Home, was one of his "all-time faves." It was my first time hearing "favorites" truncated down to "faves" like that, and I found it intriguing. Like, I don't know if I've ever been able to use the term unironically myself, but I do use it quite a bit in a more ironic sense, and you'll find it from time to time here on the site, like in my The Most Dangerous Game review where I call CT "one of my faves from The Real World." It's funny how I pick up these little verbal affectations over time, and how much they've become embedded in my speech, but yet how I also remember exactly where I got many of them from, all these years later.

And with that, let's wrap this up. You can currently get this on Tubi here in the States. Sometimes you just need a 90s Erotic Thriller with names you know, and this is one that'll get you to the church on time. (If you're wondering where I got that expression from, you should listen to more David Bowie.) And for the podcast episode on this that I did with Jon Cross, you can check out episode 184 in the archives, parts 1 and 2.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108045

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

Beach Fever (1987)

We're at our 1200th post on the DTVC, and I was trying to think of something that would work for this milestone. 1200 isn't a huge number, but it's milestone enough. Then I thought about this one from the late 80s that had Kato Kaelin. It was one I tried to record when it was on USA Up All Night, but it didn't happen, so it's a moment of redemption to get it done now, and thought the nostalgia factor might make it worth reviewing for number 1200.

Beach Fever has Kato Kaelin as a beach bum who meets Sake, a Japanese immigrant who is as many bad Asian stereotype jokes as you can imagine. He and Kato team up to find out definitively how to hook up with women, and in the process Kato meets a nice girl, Sandy, and Sandy has a younger brother who likes to run experiments. One of his inventions is a cologne that makes women unable to control their lust for the wearer. When a pimp and a muscle head get wind of this, they capture the brother, make him whip up some of the formula, and the pimp uses it to make women work the street for him. Can Kato and Sake find them and stop them in time?

Seldom are things worth the wait, and this was one of those ones that wasn't, but just the same, it was so all over the place that it was at least enjoyable as a bad movie to some extent. The dialog was a mess the place, sometimes people talked over each other; we'd have musical interludes when you least expect them, with women singing on the beach; and sometimes the film just didn't make any sense. It was like someone asked ChatGPT to make an 80s Beach Romp with Kato Kaelin in it, plus bad Asian stereotypes, and the Spanish Fly trope, and this is what we got. The other issue of course is how gross and outdated the Spanish Fly thing is--it's essentially normalizing and making light of removing consent, kind of the way Romantic Comedies often normalize and make light of stalking. There isn't a gun or another form of force, nor is there anything slipped into a drink, but the Spanish Fly is coercion nonetheless, as the women don't have any say in who they're hooking up with. By the same token, as problematic as that part of the film is, the Kato Kaelin element combined with how low quality this is does make it an odd entry in any beach romp marathon you might have.

Here is the story around this film for me, and it may be one you've heard me tell before. In the late-90s I was looking through the TV Guide for what films were going to be on Up All Night that weekend, and I saw this listed, along with Kato Kaelin's name, in the 3am block. Watching it might have been enough, but I need to have it, the only problem was, we had a really cheap VCR that only went up to like 13 channels, so to record anything on cable, like on the USA Network that was in the 30s, we'd need to hook the cable box up to the VCR, and turn the VCR to channel 3 to run the cable box through it. What this meant was we couldn't program it, or if we did, the cable box needed to stay on the channel we wanted to record. I figured, 3am, I was fine, no one in my family would be watching TV at that time. On the contrary, I got up at 4:30 to see how it was doing, and found my dad watching Headline News. That was back when Headline News was just a 30-minute version of CNN that ran on a loop, and he would watch the same news stories over and over. I was heartbroken, but there was no way to tell teenage Matt that 25 years later there'd be this thing called YouTube where people would upload movies like this, or that the myriad ones he did tape would either be taking up space in a landfill, or taking up space in bins in his parents' basement. So here I am at 44 making good on the disappointment that teenage Matt endured.

You may notice that the Kato Kaelin tag has more than just this film. That's because when I looked at his IMDb bio, I discovered he'd been in two films we've reviewed, Cyborg 3 and Revamped. Not only that, but he did extras casting for Bad Blood aka Viper and Red Sun Rising. The Kato Kaelin aspect of the OJ trial was one of the more fascinating of the whole thing. Professional House Guest, trips to McDonald's in the Bentley, this mop of Gen X hair combined with the Gen X blank look on his face while on the stand--though I discovered on IMDb that he was born in '59, so he was the one teaching Gen Xers to look like that! The idea that that guy was in a movie that was on Up All Night was too fantastic for words at that time, but now, almost 30 years from the Bronco Chase, it all existed in a different time, a time where we put tapes in big box-like devices and recorded things off of TV on them, a time when USA showed things other than Law and Order reruns and Fast and Furious movies. A time where a guy like Kato Kaelin can be a star just by being a professional house guest to the right famous double-murderer. He was viral before we had the term, no vocal fry or up-talk, no unboxing videos or selfies, just him on the stand looking like someone off the cast of Singles. It's kind of American Dream-ish, right down to the double homicide.

The 3am block of USA Up All Night was a bastion of fascinating cinema, and even without Kato Kaelin, this was exactly the kind of film you'd see there. Another one I remember was Kill, Kill, Overkill, aka Twisted Fate, a schlock fest directed by the late Donald G. Jackson, who was best known for Hell Comes to Frogtown. We also had Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death. In middle school and early in high school, before I discovered alcohol, it was usually sleepovers or a Saturday night by myself, and I'd usually be fading during the 1am block, and may wake up in the middle of the 3am film. Later when I'd drink on the weekends, it was making sense of what I was seeing on the screen while the room was spinning. If it was anything good, I'd need to track down the TV Guide to see what it was, and that was if the TV Guide had the correct listing. But then, how would you find that movie again to watch the whole thing? Video stores often didn't have these, they were too obscure even for them. And even if they did, how would you ask for Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death? Bikini Carwash or Vice Academy made sense, they littered the comedy sections, and the guy with the ponytail behind the counter would wink at you when you rented them; but "hey, do you have this beach movie that has Kato Kaelin in it?" would get you first a "do you mean the OJ guy?" and then a shake of the head with a dismissive laugh followed by a "no way man." But it was something we had, whether it was Up All Night, or the 3am movies on Comedy Central--where I saw another Bill Maher classic, Pizza Man, which I found in a bin at my parents' with the label "Matt's stupid Pizza Guy movie" on it, written by one of my siblings who at one time had been going through all the tapes we had to see what was on them--or the 2am block on TBS, after Road House was done, which was usually a nice Andy Sidaris flick. Now we have all of these films at our finger tips to watch whenever we want, which is nice, but it was also fun back then not knowing what we would get if we were up that late.

Finally, what milestone post would be complete without me making a McDonald's reference, but look at what the kid is making: it's a Shamrock Shake! I just happened to be up in New England for St. Patrick's Day this year, and made sure I got one. I remember during the Pandemic, St. Patrick's Day 2020 was right when things were the worst, we had lockdowns, people cheered for nurses instead of attacking them and shouting inane conspiracy theories at them, and we sprayed our packages with Lysol--not those packages, the ones from Amazon--anyway, at that time, going to McDonald's was out of the question, so I got the stuff to make my own Shamrock Shakes, and they were actually better. The thing is though, while they take more work to make on my own, we're also in a bit of a McDonald's desert post-Pandemic, with all of the Center City, Philadelphia McDonald's closed, and us without a car I'd have to take a bus or walk ten blocks to get to one--and that's not the most fun 10-block walk either. All that to say, if they don't open any new McDonald's between now and next St. Patrick's Day, I'll be like this young man here, mixing my own Shamrock Shake.

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of right now, you can either watch this on YouTube, or you may be able to find the DVD version that has a picture from Kaelin testifying at the OJ trial on it. I'm not kidding, it exists, there's a picture on IMDb, it's pretty fantastic. And with this being a milestone post, I'd be remiss if I didn't thank all of you for your support. We started this thing back in 2007, and I had no idea what it would be, but now, despite a four-year hiatus, we're still going strong, so here's to 1200 more!

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092624

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Red Sun Rising (1994)

This is one that, as far as I can tell, hasn't been released on DVD here in the US (Amazon lists a Region 2 copy). I don't remember when I first saw it, but I believe it was on a cable station in the late 90s. It has a pretty stellar cast, including Don "The Dragon" Wilson, Star Trek Deep Space Nine's Terry Farrell, Mako, Michael Ironside, and the dubious claim that it was introducing us to James Lew-- more on that later. Oh, and it also has Jacqueline Obradors from Soldier Boyz-- Brophy!

Red Sun Rising has Wilson as a Tokyo detective who watches his partner, Albert Pyun mainstay Yuji Okumoto, get killed by the evil James Lew and his magical martial arts powers. Wilson tracks him and his boss to LA, where he encounters Farrell and Ironside at the local police department, not exactly helping him, but also worried about their own problems with a looming gang war. What does James Lew and his Japanese crime boss have to do with an impending gang war in LA? And can Wilson learn enough from Okumoto's uncle, played by Mako, to defeat Lew?



This was pretty fun. Funny, yes, but fun too. Wilson has some of his better fights, and he and Lew have some good ones at the end. Mako and Ironside were great in supporting roles, though I could've done with more Ironside. The stand out for me was Terry Farrell. She was great. She was hot as always, but also very funny, very good as a tough cop, and carried Wilson in the scenes that required him to do a lot of acting. That was huge, because it allowed Wilson to focus on the fight scenes. Sure, the whole idea of the mystical Japanese martial arts energy which manifested itself in the death poke was very silly, as were James Lew's blue contacts and too sweet mullet. It was good for what it was, a 1990s DTV actioner, and I'm not sure we can ask for anything more than that.

I think we've had a bit of a string of stinkers for Wilson at the DTVC, so it was good to have this one to break that up. It goes without saying that dramatic acting is not Wilson's strength on-screen, that it's his fighting ability that sells his films. What made Red Sun Rising so great, was that it recognized that, allowing him to take a back seat in scenes with Yuji Okumoto, Mako, and especially Farrell, then making sure he had ample opportunity to show us what he could do in the fight scenes. I like that, why make someone like Wilson, who's an athlete first, and actor second, have to do all the heavy lifting, when you have real professionals that can lead, and he can follow their lead, allowing him to react naturally, more than conjure up acting skills that aren't natural.



How do you not love Terry Farrell? Not just Deep Space Nine, but also in Becker, where she was great playing off Ted Danson. According to imdb, she dated Michael Dorn. Can you imagine that? Because they both have great voices, imagine the voice work empire they could've ruled. The funny thing is, I saw her on an episode of Family Ties recently, where she played hottie neighbor Liz Obeck. Great name, huh, Liz Obeck. Anyway, also on imdb, it says she retired from acting around 2002 to focus on her marriage and family.

This film makes a very dubious claim: that it is introducing James Lew. Even if one were to argue that the bulk of his work before that was in bit parts and stunt work, there was still American Ninja V, where he played the main enemy ninja. What, ninja roles don't count? Okay, maybe Red Sun Rising was made prior to AMV, but released after, I'll accept that. But then there's Mission of Justice, or Night of the Warrior, or his TJ Hooker guest spot. Sure, you guys introduced us to James Lew, wink wink, nudge nudge.



Finally, there's a great scene where James Lew blows up a car with a rocket launcher. There's just something about that, a man with a well-feathered mullet, rocking a heavy duster, with the lights of LA against the black of the night in the background, taking a rocket launcher out of a cheap industrial van, and blowing up a car with it-- especially in the early 90s. People often ask me what it is about these "bad movies" that I like so much, and it's that, all of that I just described. People who know, understand what I'm saying.

VHS is your best route for this one, unless you live outside the States, and then you might find it on DVD. I wouldn't go too far out of your way, because it's not that awesome, but if it pops up on cable late at night-- or even during the day-- you could do a lot worse than watching it. Just a solid 1990s DTV actioner.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107937/

Revamped (2007)

This one caught my eye because it had Martin Kove and Fred Williamson. Of course, I mistook it for another film in my queue, Kiss of the Vampire, which has Martin Kove and Gary Daniels. Sometimes there are just too many movies for even the self-professed connoisseur to keep them straight. Of course, I now want to do Kiss of the Vampire, but I also have another Gary Daniels film in Riot I want to cover, and the Kove classic To Be the Best... so many choices, so little time.

Revamped has Jeff Rector (who has done his share of vampire flicks) as a rich dude who finds out his wife is cheating on him with Kato Kaelin (I'm not kidding). So he hatches this brilliant scheme to become a vampire-- which he can do through a commercial service offered by vampires to turn any mortal looking to join up-- and fake his death, return to life, and get his revenge. Things don't work out when he forgets she'd need his estate to pay for the funeral, so being cut out of the will, she can only afford to cremate him. His ashes are brought back to life five years later, and the world is different: vampires and humans are at war. Now it gets convoluted, and we have half-breeds, government slayers, etc. all vying for power, and Rector is the only one that save everyone and take out all the baddies.



This started out like a comedy, and on that level it worked. But then there were all these layers that were tough to follow and seemed extraneous. Not to mention it made the film boring in parts, and even the action that was there was kind of lame. So if the comedy and action are lame, then we need either the horror/gore or the sexiness to step up, and neither really did that either. That's too bad, because the initial idea of a company that sells as a service vampires turning humans into vampires, plus the some of the other comedic elements that they went away from, worked. Sometimes less is more.

And that's a shame, because Rector, Kove, and Williamson were all great when their roles demanded they be off-beat. Kove and Williamson especially are two guys that have been around for a while for a reason-- because they're good. The problem is, they're only as good as the material they have to work with, and this material was too all over the place. I think maybe the comedy was where they should've focused, because that was where they did their best stuff, and as such, it was where Williamson and Kove were able to do their best work too.



This is actually the most recent film available with Fred Williamson in it, and he's not in it much. I'm waiting for Spaced Out, a film he did with Robert Z'Dar, to come from Netflix, but I think if I'm going to really showcase what Fred Williamson is all about, I need to go further back in time, to the 80s and 90s. One that I have in my instant queue is The Big Score, which also has John Saxon and Richard Roundtree, so maybe I'll do that one in a couple weeks.

I would've liked more Martin Kove as well. He is someone, along with Richard Lynch and Robert Z'Dar, that I'm looking to feature more this year, so it's unfortunate that the first one out of the gate in 2010 has him in it in a limited capacity. Still, when he was there, he was good, and he also played a good guy, which was a different turn for him. We'll see if we can't improve upon this, whatever the next Kove film is.



One of the harder parts about doing the DTVC is getting images for the films I review, especially off DVDs. I should probably buckle down and pay for a good movie player for my computer, like say register my version of WinDVD, which worked well in the trial phase. As it is, I'm using a Beta version of BSPlayer, and often it won't open the part of the film I need for the picture I want; and with this film it wouldn't open anything at all. I was able to go to the film's official website, and though they weren't the exact pics I wanted, they did in a pinch. I'm not sure how they or any of the other people who make the movies I review feel about me putting images of their films on here. Albert Pyun didn't seem to mind when he commented about liking what we do, so I take that as a good sign. At the very least, I'm getting the name out there for all of these films, even if I'm giving them poor recommendations.

For a film that started out so well, it was disappointing to see it fall off as it did. It wasn't atrocious-- I mean, I've seen much worse here-- but it suffered too much from an identity crisis. It tried to cover too much ground in one story, and ended up covering very little and leaving more to be desired. Still, it was an interesting take on the vampire genre, so they should be given credit for the effort, even if the film itself fell short.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0918558/

Bad Blood aka Viper (1994)

I saw this on Netflix's Watch Instantly. The Lamas on the cover was all I needed. Mid-nineties Lamas is a sweet thing, especially when the director uses it the right way. A poor usage of mid-nineties Lamas breaks my heart.

Viper has Lamas as a truck driver slash disgraced cop whose brother is into the mob for five mill, and they want it back. They make the mistake of asking Lamas for it, and he gives them a Renegade style beatdown. Now he's got to protect his brother, father, and brother's girlfriend (who used to be his girlfriend) from the mob, while he tries to procure the missing cash. Also, Lamas flips over a moving car.



This isn't a bad deal. It has some slow parts, and it's more guns than hand-to-hand stuff, but it's a good bad action movie. I've seen better from Lamas in this genre from this time period, but that didn't mean it wasn't watchable. There was plenty to goof on. Lamas playing piano, Lamas coaching Little League, and Lamas flipping over a moving car. All great stuff.

Sometimes people look at the list of Hall of Famers and ask why Lamas is there when some other notables aren't. I think it's the cheese factor. No one exudes it better. Whether he's traveling cross country with Bobby Sixkiller, or sharing scenes with Jack Wagner on Bold and the Beautiful, or judging people on Are You Hot?, it's all cheesy, but it's all a fun cheesy. What's great for us is he tends to ply his cheese trade more often than not in DTV movies. After Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, I felt like I needed to go back to my Lamas roots for this post, and I got my fill. I think I might go here for my next Lamas flick: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ybvFa_yV0Y&feature=related. It was suggested by my friend at Movies in the Attic.



The bad guy in this is Joe Son, famous martial artist and trainer of Kimo. You may remember Son in UFC 4 getting punched repeatedly in the balls until he submitted. They don't let you do that anymore. Anyway, according to imdb and Wikipedia, he was charged in October 2008 for his alleged participation in a gang rape. Not good Joe. Also, imdb says he was born on November 22nd, 1970, but Wikipedia says he was born April 1st, 1971. If the latter is true, he's the third April Fool's Baby we've had here in a month or so. If the former's true, then I couldn't give a shit, because I was born on April 1st, not November 22nd. I wonder, though, if he has two birthdays. I'd like two birthdays too. I'd go for October 1st, so I could have them spaced out six months apart.



I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but Lamas flips over a moving car. It's hilarious. I wish I hadn't watched it on Watch Instantly, because on DVD I could've ripped the scene and linked it on here from YouTube. I have a picture, but it doesn't do it justice. He gets some air too. This isn't Kobe Bryant jumping a car. This is quality. If you watch this movie for anything, watch it for this.

This is a good time. If you need something to make fun of with your buddies, by all means. There's just so much there to work with. Two things I should mention, Joe Son shoots and kills a little girl after he gives her doll (I think it's a doll, but I can't remember. Might be an ice cream, or another toy. A balloon maybe. Does it matter?). That's kind of bad. Also, the bad guys torture Lamas' brother for information. That's not as bad as it could be. He gets a hot poker to the hand off-screen, but later has no ill effects from it. So, those things aside, it's more silly than sick.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108495/



I know I'm a little late on this, because it was released on DVD like 6 weeks ago, but better late than never. Fast and Furious is the fourth in the franchise, but the first one to reunite Vin Diesel and Paul Walker. It's really silly, and it was so bad in the first fifteen minutes, when Diesel and his crew were robbing a truck shipping oil in the same manner as the first film, that I almost turned it off. I was glad I didn't, because it slid back into something I could laugh at, which was what I wanted. Diesel didn't do it for me too much: he was essentially omnipotent, which is good in Chronicles of Riddick, but here just manifests itself in him slamming people around and through windows. I never thought I'd say this, but Paul Walker was actually pretty cool. I know what you're thinking, am I high? I was actually rooting for him over Diesel. I think what it is is at the beginning he didn't have a lot of lines, and was just running around beating people up in a smartly tailored black suit. It's when he has to deliver lines that he loses me. If you give him close-cropped hair, a slick suit, and more action than dialog, he's actually entertaining. I know, who'd've thunk it. There was a definite lack of great one-liners, which is the real reason why I watch Diesel, so it failed on that account. Not as much fun as part one, and bad in the Diesel department, but still worth a gander if you need to laugh at a movie.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1013752/

Cyborg 2 (1993)

I first saw this on Spike really late at night. The crazy thing about it is that it flew completely under my radar. It came out in 1993, but I had no idea it existed until like 2006. And not only that, it has Oscar winners Jack Palance and Angelina Jolie in it. I figured with the Academy Awards last Sunday, this would be an apt post.

Cyborg 2 takes place some time in the future after the first one. Things are somewhat better, and two companies, Pinwheel and Kobayashi are vying for corporate supremacy in the field of cyborg technology. Pinwheel has created a cyborg that doubles as a bomb, and they've made Angelina Jolie into one. Elias Koteas is her fight trainer, and Jack Palance, playing a disembodied voice, convinces the two of them to escape Pinwheel. Pinwheel sends the always gross Billy Drago after them, but Pinwheel's CEO has other plans, and he sends a cyborg of his own to get things done. Palance manages to get the two on a ship to Mombasa, the free-zone for cyborgs.



This wouldn't have been a bad film, except for Billy Drago. Not only was he in it, which was bad enough, but they made his face all bad after he gets glass in it. Eww. He has a fight scene with Koteas at the end, but with a gross face, I didn't enjoy it. Why do people do things like this? Whose idea was it to A: have Billy Drago, and B: make him grosser than he already is? He was all preening in the mirror and pulling his face apart like he's trying to make himself look nice for William Holden in Sunset Boulevard, and it made me cringe the whole time.

I'm not saying it totally ruined the film. The future was pretty cool. I'm not sure what happened to the great Atlanta from the first one, but this was a pretty bleak time. Koteas, Jolie, and Palance were all good. What wasn't Billy Drago all gross was pretty awesome actually. But like Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight, the specter of Drago lurking made even the scenes he wasn't in intense.



Obviously The DTVC doesn't come across Oscar winners often, so when we get one, it's kinda a big deal. This time we got two. Jack Palance technically did win in 1991 for City Slickers despite the fact that Gary Busey should've won for Point Break; and then there's Angelina Jolie. I realized when looking her up on imdb that other than this and Hackers, I haven't seen any of her films. I think I saw five minutes of a Tomb Raider movie on TNT, and who knows why that was. Anyway, even with Elias Koteas and Jack Palance, Jolie is head-and-shoulders the better actor/actress. I didn't realize she's only 33 years old. That's four more than me, but also 12 less than Brad Pitt. I don't know why, but I always thought she was older and closer in age to him.

Speaking of Brad Pitt, Elias Koteas was in the Oscar nominated The [notso] Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Personally, I liked his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Crash better than either this movie or the one that garnered all the award nominations. And let's be clear, the Crash I'm talking about is the good one with James Spader, not the sack-of-asscrack that won best picture when Brokeback Mountain was ten times better. Also, Koteas is the second TMNT alum featured on the DTVC, Corey Feldman being the first.



I wasn't sure what to do about tagging Jean-Claude Van Damme. He's in it in the form of clips from the previous movie. I guess I'll tag him, and then whoever reads it can see that he's really not in it, only sorta kinda. Word on the street is that he and Dolph are teaming up again for another Universal Soldier. I hope it's DTV, though if it is in the theater, I'll make an exception and review it here.

If you think you can handle the Drago grossness factor, I say give this a shot. It may just be something wrong with me, too. Most people probably don't find Drago that gross, even when his face is all cut up and falling apart. This isn't as good as the first Cyborg, but how many Godfather II's are there out there anyway? It's good for what it is.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106639/