Lost Boys: The Tribe (2008)

I was definitely curious to catch this the moment I got wind of it. I was all the more interested after the episode on The Two Coreys dealt with it. Then, when it showed up on Netflix, and it listed Corey Haim and Corey Feldman, I was stoked. This is like a Direct to Video Connoisseur's dream-- potentially.

Lost Boys: The Tribe takes place in the current, where a disgraced surfer and his sister move out to Cali to start a new life. They meet up with some vampires and Corey Feldman, reprising his role as Edgar Frog. The sister drank some blood from the head vampire, and the only way to keep her from being a vampire is to kill the head vamp before she feeds. Not an easy task, but the surfer dude wants to save his sister, and Feldman can't stand vampires, so they get down to business to take care of things. Haim is only in it in a short scene during the credits, and two deleted scenes.



You know, this wasn't half bad. Okay, the first thirty minutes kind of sucked. Then Feldman shows up, talking in a fake, tongue-in-cheek, gruff voice, and the movie changes from there. Tons of blood, which I loved. A fair amount of Feldman, which was good. And the film seemed to have a sense of humor, which worked. If you can make it through the first thirty, then next hour's not bad.

Feldman was good in this. It takes a second to realize the gruff voice is a put-on. I can understand, though, if someone is annoyed by it, so proceed at your own peril. On The Two Coreys, he made it sound like he was only offered a cameo, but he's in it a fair amount. Haim, on the other hand, is pretty much not in it, and I'm not so sure that's a bad thing. In the two deleted scenes that have him, his acting is pretty bad. He's like an athlete hosting Saturday Night Live. That's kind of disappointing. Hopefully he'll be better in the future.



The head bad guy was Angus Sutherland, Donald's son, and Kiefer's half brother. I'm not sure if they used him because of the connection with the earlier film, but he was horrible. When he talked, I thought maybe he was French or something, and English was his second language. I read nothing on imdb to suggest that, though, so that just means he sounded like a moron. His speech was kind of slurred and the words all ran together, like he might have been a glue sniffer at one time. What kind of a head bad guy is that?

The hero was played by some dude that was Stiffler's brother in one of the American Pie direct to video sequels. His little sister is played by the girl that replaced the main girl on The OC. One thing that's interesting is that she's like a year older than him, but is supposed to be younger and needing his protection. As a main protagonist, he wasn't that great, and it begs the question: why was he cast at all? It didn't seem like Haim and Feldman were that busy.



And that brings me to my final point. Sure, this movie was fun after it got going at the 30 minute mark, but after it was all over, I found myself wondering why it was ever made. This was the same feeling I had after leaving the theater when Star Wars I came out. I mean, I understand wanting to trade on the Lost Boys name to make some cash in the DTV market, but you had Feldman and Haim right there, why not make a real sequel? I guess there's supposed to be a third one that rectifies that issue, so I don't know.

You can rent this. It's really not that bad. Feldman's good in it, so if you like him like I do, that's a decent reason. If you were really into the first one, you may not like this at all, though. It tries to tie things in, like the Sisters of Mercy song, which seems kind of forced to me, and might piss off a die-hard. I know this review sounds kind of wishy-washy, and I apologize for that. I guess I liked it, but I'm not sure I recommend it.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1031254/

Jill Rips aka Jill the Ripper aka Tied Up (2000)

I first tried to see this when my buddy TiVoed it on a Cinemax channel he was getting during a free preview. We'd hang out, go for some beers, come back, and a group of us would start it, only to succumb to the effects of the alcohol. Eventually it was erased, and the movie faded off as we watched other great Dolph Lundgren flicks. But it was at the local video store, so I decided to screen it for last year's Dolph Fest, giving it the viewing it deserved.

Despite what the box says, Jill the Ripper (my copy has that title) does not have Dolph as a cop named Murray Wilson from San Francisco, but rather a cop from Boston named Matt Sorenson. His brother's been murdered, and it's been set-up to look like a dominatrix did it. But something doesn't fit, and Dolph smells a rat, involving Boston organized crime and the building of a tunnel. As he digs and immerses himself in Boston's seedy underbelly, he goes toe-to-toe with some of Beantown's most depraved citizens. Will he solve the case before the undertow swallows him in?



When looking this up on imdb, I noticed a user comment titled "SURPRISINGLY TOLERABLE". That probably sums this up perfectly. It's not great, by any stretch, but it's not that bad either. We had plenty to make fun of in it, and when it was all over, we all felt like we enjoyed ourselves. I'm sure part of that was the Dolph factor, and part of that was the Boston factor; but the movie itself was just bad enough without being too atrocious to make unbearable.

This was an interesting Dolph. He was still kicking ass in bars and whatnot, so you had that, but he was also going around like Spencer for Hire trying to make it happen and solve his brother's case, and then there was the whole dominatrix thing. Dolph tied up and hanging upside down was hilarious. As you may remember if you read my post on Jean Claude Van Damme's The Shepherd, the Muscles from Brussels found himself in a similar predicament. Unlike Van Damme, who seemed, at least to me, to look like Robert Downey jr. upside down, Dolph just looks like a sillier Dolph. You can see for yourself.



I'm not going to make fun of or judge what people find sexually arousing: if tying each other up and beating each other makes a couple happy, that's cool with me. That being said, I had a big problem finding the dominatrix chick hot. Tight red leather outfit? Yes please. Red leather Mexican wrestler mask? Really, you're gonna wear that? I'm not sure what that's supposed to do for me. Is that bad? The S&M stuff is okay, but the Mexican wrestler mask is where I draw the line. Who's the weirdo here, me or them?

Though the movie's shot in Montreal, it takes place in Boston. Boston always holds a special place in my heart because it's the biggest city near where I grew up. One thing I appreciated was Dolph not attempting the Boston accent. You don't know how grating it is to hear that butchered. I don't want to say it worked as much as Harvey Keitel playing Judas with a Brooklyn accent, or Sean Connery playing a Spaniard or Russian with a Scottish one, but a Swedish Bostonian wasn't too bad.



There's this one character who's like a mysterious bad guy that I guess holds some clues to solve the crime or whatever, and as far as the movie tells us, his name is Joe Kajavia. There is definitely a hard "K" sound in there somewhere. We wanted to find out how it was spelled, so we looked for it in the credits. Lo and behold, it's a "J". Joe Jujavia. I just don't get it. It makes zero sense. Joe Kajavia is spelled with a "J". On the other hand, however it's spelled, it's a hilarious name for a bad guy.

This isn't the best Dolph film, but it's far far from his worst. If you've seen all the other greats, and haven't seen this yet, give it a shot. Don't watch it alone, though. This is definitely a get the gang together and make fun of it. I'll be honest, my review might not have been as good had I seen it alone, and I wonder now if some of the other movies I killed could've benefited from a group screening. Let's not open that can of worms.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0199650/

Bad Lieutenant (1992)

I first saw this film in high school. We were all still feeling the buzz from Pulp Fiction, and were looking for anything else that had anyone we liked from it. When someone came across this, starring Harvey Keitel, it was a sure bet, and became a quick hit amongst my friends.

Bad Lieutenant has Harvey Keitel as a cop living life on the edge. He's constantly strung out on drugs, is extremely crooked, and now is in it deep to a bookie after some bad baseball bets. As this is going on, a nun is raped inside her Catholic church. Keitel is assigned the case. We watch as a once talented police detective solves the case while his life disintegrates in front of us.



This might be, bar none, the best film ever reviewed on the DTVC. It's kind of iffy as to whether or not it even belongs on here. Really, it's an indie flick that was passed up for mainstream success due to it's NC-17 rating. But it's popularity subsequently came when people picked it up in their local video stores. Most were probably like us, and saw Harvey Keitel on the cover after seeing Pulp Fiction and Reservoir of Dogs, and figured it would be cool. Maybe it doesn't fit with a Bridge of Dragons or Out for a Kill, but we don't make that decision, the movie industry does.

Watching this in high school, it was just awesome to watch Harvey Keitel do a bunch of drugs. Now that I'm older, I think I have a greater appreciation for this film. The overall feel is more French New Wave than early nineties US indie. The shots, the beats: I felt like I was watching Goddard. The other thing that made it more European was the explicit way sex was dealt with. The only time the violence matched the sexual intensity was when the nun was raped, which was very visceral. I think it's one thing American and Asian film makers can learn from their European counterparts: sex is not anything to shy away from. As far as I could tell, the sex was the biggest reason this film got an NC-17. Maybe Captivity could've been NC-17, and this rated R.



Harvey Keitel is amazing in this. You may remember the only other film of his I reviewed on here: Star Knight with Klaus Kinski, where Keitel kept his Brooklyn accent only to mix in Shakespearian English to make himself more medieval. This film is nowhere near as comical, as you can imagine. Harvey Keitel's performance won him the Independent Spirit Award for best male lead, and it's apparent why. The raw emotion he brings to the role makes it as difficult to watch, yet impossible to turn away from, as I feel director Abel Ferrara intended. Al Pacino won his lifetime achievement best actor Oscar for Scent of a Woman in 1992, but I think anyone who's seen both pictures would've considered Keitel's performance superior. (As an aside, Pacino was nominated for best supporting actor that year for his role in Glengarry Glen Ross, which I thought was better than Hackman in Unforgiven. Of course, Alec Baldwin was better than Pacino in Glengarry... but I digress.)

The nun being raped was a very graphic scene, but it was also used as a means to introduce some real questions regarding faith and spirituality. Keitel in one moment is calling the Catholic church a racket, then later is begging Jesus to give him a direction. The nun refuses to cooperate in the investigation of her own rape, because she had forgiven the boys that perpetrated the crime, and feels that is what God wanted. Keitel tries to reason with her that she doesn't have that right, because arresting and punishing the boys could prevent other women from going through what she went through. It's interesting that religion would be debated in the midst of this depraved storyline, and yet fits organically.



One interesting element of the plot in this is Keitel's gambling problem, which spirals out of control as he bets on a playoff series between the Dodgers and Mets. The series is made up for the movie, and part of it involves the Mets coming back from an 0-3 series deficit. As many of you may know, twelve years later, the Red Sox pulled that feat off in reality against the Yankees. I considered how that would play out if the movie was remade, and I think the use of the fictitious series works better. I could see Keitel maybe betting that the Yankees win game 4, after they shelled the Sox in game 3. But betting against Pedro in game 5, and then Shilling in game 6... no one in their right mind would do that. And a lot of baseball analysts at the time were saying if the Sox could get game 4, they were set up to push a game 7, and that's what they did.

This is a case where being a person who peruses the shelves at the local video store for anything with a recognizable person on the cover can lead to more than just a silly movie that everyone can laugh at and make fun of. This is the diamond in the rough (though the film is pretty rough on it's own), and it's a film of such a high quality that it'll amaze you that it wasn't released in more theaters. Again, Hollywood's loss is our gain.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103759/

Slap Shot 2: Breaking the Ice (2002)

I would've never considered this film if it didn't have Gary Busey and Stephen Baldwin in it. I wouldn't have given it a second look. I wouldn't've condescended to look at it funny. But it had them, so I needed to watch it. Ouch!

Slap Shot 2: Breaking the Ice was a poor sack of asscrack trading on the good name of the original Slap Shot. Stephen Baldwin is the player-coach of the Chiefs, and for some reason they've been sold to Gary Busey so he can have them be the Washington Generals to his Harlem Globetrotters hockey team. (Baldwin's character calls them the Washington Nationals, and I'd think it might be the writers making a joke about the state of DC's baseball club, except they were playing in Montreal when this was made, so the script writers were just dumb, and no one called them on it.) Baldwin gets them to play ball for a bit, then is given money by Busey to bounce because he's become a problem, then he can't stay away, so he brings the Hanson brothers with him to play Busey's team in a period of "real" hockey.



My soul still hurts. It hurt from the moment the Hanson brothers rolled out onto the ice in an early scene, and Stephen Baldwin was like "you guys!" What hilarity! I could hardly contain myself! It just amazes me that the people who made this film want us to believe they even tried to do anything but use up 1 hour and 44 minutes of film and send it out with the Slap Shot name on it to move some units. It was that bad.

This is Gary Busey's eighth post on the DTVC, which is big considering not so long ago he only had five, and he was way behind non-hall of famers like Daniel Bernhardt and Ice-T. We can't have that, especially with someone as awesome as Gary Busey is. In this movie he plays a guy who's made billions off a family values movement he created. He's supposed to be the bad guy, but really, because he's Busey, he was the only one worth rooting for. When his assistant slugs him at the film's denouement, it's given to us as an applause moment, but no one's really applauding that. On the Abusive scale, I'd give it a 4.5.



We like Stephen Baldwin here at the DTVC. Of course, in Cutaway, the other film of his we've reviewed, we saw his potential as a great actor in one scene where he sports a fake beard. Unfortunately, in that film, he never wears it again, and in this film he never wears it at all. The weak hockey cut mullet is supposed to be enough, but it so isn't. As far as his role went, he was supposed to be from Boston, but he was sporting a bad Canadian accent, so none of it worked. A huge disappointment.

Many Canadian's love Don Cherry, and I don't exactly blame them, but here in The States, we have a cat named Barry Melrose who holds it down for us hockey fans. His intermission reports back when ESPN did hockey were sometimes better viewing than the games they were covering, and that's saying a lot because I'm a huge hockey guy. He has a cameo in this where he comments that Busey's Harlem Globetrotters type hockey is an abomination. It was cool for a second, but then I realized that that meant he was in on this asinine movie. Why Barry, why?



I'm also a huge basketball guy, which lends the question: why would this show be a travesty for hockey, but all right in basketball? Should I, as a basketball fan, be offended by the Globetrotters or the And-1 Mix-tape Tour? I don't really think so. And I'm not sure I'd be that offended if there really was a Harlem Globetrotters-type deal for hockey. I don't think I would watch it either, like the people in this movie were. It just wouldn't matter, like the Globetrotters don't matter. This movie was just stupid.

Don't go near this. Stay far, far away. I am not fucking with you. I am dead serious. You like hockey? Watch Mighty Ducks 3. You like Gary Busey? Watch Point Break. You like Stephen Baldwin? Watch Point Break. Just don't watch this, whatever you do. I had to sit with a cute little bunny rabbit and vent while petting him to erase the black mark this pain ride put on my soul.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0282171/

Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (1989)

The title should be enough. I first saw this on Comedy Central, I think. It's now considered a cult classic. I scooped it on Netflix because it had been too long since I'd seen it. Some of my friends were put off by the name, thinking maybe it was a bit too much. I'm not sure it's ever too much.

Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death is a take on Conrad's Heart of Darkness set against the backdrop of Southern California and the late 80s feminist movement. There's a hoard of amazon women that have taken over the vast Avocado Jungle inland from California's southern coast. They kill any man who tries to harvest too deep. The US Government is not happy with that, and they send feminist ethnographer Shannon Tweed in to negotiate, and to try to convince them to move to condos in Malibu. Her guide is a chauvinist Bill Maher. Inside, she finds academic rival Professor Kurtz, played by Adrienne Barbeau, who has installed herself as the cannibal women's leader. She and Tweed fight it out to with the fate of feminism in the balance.



This is a pretty decent film. As an anth major, it's interesting to watch the movie now and understand better the issues the film makers were discussing. I was surprised that some of my friends didn't understand that the movie was purely metaphorical. They were asking where the Avocado Jungle is in California, trying to make fun of the movie. This really isn't a movie that calls for mocking, despite the silly title. It's an attempt to discuss the roles of men and women entering the 90s in the United States in a comical and satirical manner. I think it worked.

Shannon Tweed plays the role of leading cultural anthropologist without a bit of irony, despite the fact that the irony is implicit. That's a good thing. Too often actors and actresses take these parts and try too much to give us the wink-wink nudge-nudge. Tweed let the movie work on its own, and we were better for it. This might be one of her best acting jobs ever (is that saying a lot considering the other work she's done!)



This is the second Bill Maher film I've reviewed here, the other being 1991's the Pizza Man. Looking at his imdb bio, he hasn't been in that many movies, which is kind of surprising considering how famous he is in Hollywood. He's hilarious as the chauvinist, though not as good as he was in The Pizza Man. Maybe it was the role: here he was playing a goofball that didn't know how uncool he was; while in The Pizza Man, he was the hero, trying to get paid for his extra anchovies pizza. I'm not saying The Pizza Man was a better movie, just that I liked Maher better in it.

As a white man in the United States, I feel it isn't really my place to comment on the feminist movement. In my mind, the success of Sex in the City signaled the end of the feminist movement, but who am I to say? As far as I can tell, The Hills is my generation's Mary Tyler Moore... okay, have I gone too far? Maybe. Probably. I'm totally not soapboxing it here, just comparing feminism in 1989 to 2008. Very different picture, and I think that makes Cannibal Women all the more interesting when watching it with 2008 eyes. It makes for an interesting question: have the Cannibal Women finally bought condos in Malibu? Let's hope not.



This is not the kind of hecklefest its title implies. Sure, it's silly enough, but under the silliness are some real concerns about both feminism in America, and the ever-changing relationship between men and women in society. The film is smart, funny, and insightful, and well worth a look if you're into that kind of thing. If not, there's always plenty of Dolph out there.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094834/

Snakes on a Train (2006)

Most of my friends know about my blog and my penchant for bad movies, and it's usually titles like this that elicit that laugh and head shake. Snakes on a Plane is a funny enough idea, but when I tell them I'm watching a film called Snakes on a Train, I get one of those: "Only you, Poirier." Perhaps, only me.

Snakes on a Train is about a rural Mexican couple. The girl is cursed with some snake hex that makes her regurgitate the reptiles, and, if not cured, will turn her into a giant one. Her boyfriend is a pretty decent witch doctor, but this is too big for him and he needs his uncle's help-- who's in LA. So they hop on a WWII era passenger train in El Paso, and all hell breaks loose. Sorta kinda, I guess. Eventually the women turns into a big CG snake and tries to eat the plane-- I mean train. Whatever.



Blah. A big ol' pile o' blah. While Snakes on a Plane was fun and goofy and had Samuel L. Jackson, this was dumb and boring and had Frank from When a Killer Calls in it for like five minutes. The plot was worthless, the acting was beyond mailed in, and I just wasn't sure why this was made. I mean, I understand they wanted to package a film with a similar title to get people to rent it. But my buddy's girlfriend and her friend suggested a better script where the snakes were banditos with sombreros and moustaches robbing the train. Why didn't they do that?

I really loved Snakes on a Plane, and I think the people at The Asylum missed what made that a great film. It's possible that they don't get what makes anything a good film. Maybe I should invite a representative of their production company or whatever up to my place for Dolph Fest 2008. If I just hit them with the Showdown in Little Tokyo Bridge of Dragons two-fer, we could eliminate all their Snakes on a Trains and When a Killer Callses. That's my dream, anyway. It's like they work from such an awesome premise: rip-off popular movies in the theater with DTV releases that have similar titles. But then they forget the most important ingredient: Fun. Well, Love, then Fun. The Asylum, I want to give you that, if you want to take it.



Peter Mervis Directed this. He's also the dirty bastard behind When a Killer Calls. In this one, he's credited as the Mallachi Brothers, and his acting part isn't credited at all. Did he not want this one on his record? The acting part was so gross and slimy, I can understand not wanting his name on that: he plays the DEA dude who gets a chick to make out with him after he busts her with a bunch of coke. Eww. He supposedly directs Da Vinci Treasure, which I may find myself watching, because it has C. Thomas Howell. We'll see what happens there.



I haven't go anything left to give you. This was a pile of suck. And something tells me it was an intentional pile of suck, which made me more annoyed. I could've spent that 90 minutes of my life watching Live by the Fist again. The Asylum is now 1-for-3, and o-fer-the last two, so it's not looking good. At this point I'm limiting myself to only Asylum pictures that have actors I know in them, until I see a couple I enjoyed, like Transmorphers.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0843873/

Live by the Fist (1993)

This movie was a suggestion from my friend over at Movies in the Attic (a link to which you can find in the section titled "Other Great Sites"). I checked out the trailer on YouTube, and knew I had to shoot it to the top of my Netflix queue. You're talking Jerry Trimble and George Takei, does it get any better? Sure, Heat was able to boast the first ever on-screen pairing of Pacino and De Niro, but in my mind, Trimble and Takei was a much more anticipated combination. Sometimes I wonder how I get to be so lucky.

Live by the Fist has Trimble as an ex-Navy SEAL who's framed for killing a woman he tried to save from being raped. He's sent to a corrupt Philippine prison, where he befriends George Takei, a kind of wise man leader of the inmates. Takei's trying to contact a human rights group chick to draw attention to inhumane treatment from the warden and guards. Trimble, as you can imagine, is always in trouble, and always has to kick some ass. He kicks plenty until the calvary's called, and he and the human rights group chick can escape.

Now this is what I'm talking about! Amazing! It just frustrates me to know I sit through so much crap, when all DTV directors have to do is watch a gem like this to understand what makes quality cinema. Where do I begin? First fight scene, we hear this amazing electric guitar riff in the background. Think WASP "Blind in Texas" with a little early 80s Crue and mid 80s Dokken mixed in. And that riff plays during every fight scene. And it never gets old. Every time I heard it I did a Tiger Woods hitting a birdie putt at 18 in the Masters to seal the win fist pump.

Trimble shows up here. It's amazing to think I'm just north of 200 posts at the DTVC, and this is the first time a film of his was reviewed. Actually, I found out looking him up on imdb, that that's not exactly true. He was in a gang in Seagal's Today you Die, and I totally missed him because also in that gang was Karo "The Heat" Parisyan. Anyway, this is the first film I've done that he stars in, and I'll have to make sure I do more, because he was the bomb. He has this awesome voice that's like the best parts of Martin Sheen, Joe Estevez, and Judge Mills Lane all mixed together. And he's a very solid martial artist. I can't think of a better guy to root for.

I know you all want to know, and I'll tell you: how awesome was George Takei? Was the voice there? Did he say anything fantastic? The voice was there, but he didn't have any too amazing lines to go with it (not like his trip to Howard Stern's show). His character name is Uncle Coronado, which is probably good enough. I mean, just having Takei is really enough. As long as he's there and talking, the viewer's usually entertained. I'm surprised more DTV film makers-- as in all of them-- don't cast Takei more often. If I made movies, he'd be in all of my films. I'd break the bank to get him, too. If my budget was 2 mill, I'd take out a loan and give him 3. I mean, come on, it's George Takei.

Roger Corman produced this, and that brings up a question I get all the time: why isn't he in the Hall of Fame? Who better to be in a DTV Hall of Fame than one of the creators of the genre? Well, the reason is that before Albert Pyun was inducted last year, only actors were allowed in. Perusing Corman's vast production credits, it looks like he's produced 10-15 movies that have already been reviewed on the DTVC, which would put him second behind Dolph Lundgren for most times tagged. Look for his induction to the HOF this October.

The prison sub-genre of the bad action movie comes up often. When I watched bad action in the 80s and 90s, I'd say one out of five took place in a prison. It's just such an easy way to make a movie: the set's cheap, wardrobe's a cinch, and the plot can be written in a day or two. Unfortunately the (to my eyes, anyway) overrated Shawshank Redemption changed the way we look at prison films. Maybe I don't speak for many people, but I'll take a Live by the Fist over Shawshank any day. The guitar alone makes it for me, but I also think Jerry Trimble is a better actor than Tim Robbins.

Do you even need me to do the last paragraph? You what I'm gonna say. Rent it, buy it, do whatever you have to, but get your hands on this puppy. It's frickin' awesome. It's also only 77 minutes long, which has to be another selling point. Who needs a 3-hour epic, when you can watch this twice in less time.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107430/

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/