Murphy's Law (1986)

We start our celebration of Golan-Globus with Murhpy's Law, a Charles Bronson film that works as the blue print for every Bloodfist film after part III. I vaguely remember seeing this on TV when I was younger-- one line in particular I had completely forgotten about-- but I know I definitely appreciate it more now at 30 than I did at 10. Maybe not Golan-Globus' most well known film, but a great one from which to start.

Murphy's Law stars Charles Bronson as our eponymous hero. He's been framed for his ex-wife's murder, and while in the holding cell, he escapes with a girl handcuffed to him, played by the waitress from the Double Deuce in Road House. After a short tribute to the Defiant Ones, Bronson goes after the person who set him up, a local mob boss. Turns out it's not him, but now he's pissed off that mob boss, which makes finding the real culprit that much tougher.



This really is a perfect introduction into the world of Golan-Globus. A world where every foot chase turns into a small scale riot with 10-14 innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire, only instead of these people being disembodied numbers of death tolls on the evening news, we see them as starving actors looking for a little a face time to put on their resumes. The violence, though at times extreme, is often too cartoony for anyone that doesn't have a stick up his buttocks to ever have a problem with it. If you ever wondered where the people who made Grand Theft Auto came up with their ideas, you can find them in the world of Golan-Globus.

This is the first time I've had a chance to look at Bronson on here, which I know is much to the chagrin of some of my readers. That was another reason why I did this week-long tribute to Goland-Globus, so I could look at two actors in particular, Bronson and Chuck Norris. As far as the former goes, I've often said Dolph is the modern day Bronson, which after seeing Murphy's Law, I think that's only partly true. Dolph is the modern, PG-13 Bronson. Also important to note is Bronson's age. He was 65 when he did this, meaning Dolph still has 13 years to go. In fact, he made Death Wish V in 1994, when he was 73. Maybe we shouldn't be looking for the next crop of action stars to replace this current one quite yet.



"What took you so long, butt crust?" One of the all time greatest lines in movie history. The woman from Road House says it after Bronson rescues her at the end of the film. She had tons of other good ones too, making this a much more memorable role than her than he small part in the Swayze classic. Most of her current work is done on CBS TV dramas, but it must've sucked for her knowing, nothing she ever did would ever be better than "what took you so long, butt crust?" When we were younger we used to call each other butt crust all the time, which I know one of us got from watching Murphy's Law.

I had one small issue with this movie that kept it from being perfect. The running time. 100 minutes was a little too long, and had they cut the opening 20, which I felt was pretty superfluous, it would've been an amazing 80. Bad action should seldom be longer than 88 minutes, and the further past 90 they go, the more they're treading on territory they'd be better served editing out.



I've always loved The Rockford Files, and Murhpy's Law had the guy who played Lt. Chapman as, what else?, a dick cop. This time he gave Bronson a hard time, but unlike Jim Rockford, Bronson decked him when he got out of line. Can you imagine if Bronson had played Jim Rockford instead of James Garner? I bet he would've gotten along surprisingly well with Angel. There would've been way more explosions, gunplay, and severe beatings, which might have been a bit much for prime time TV in the 70s.

Though I'm not reviewing the films in any particular order, this is as good a start point as any into the world of Golan-Globus. You get a great sense of the violence that, though at times can be brutal, is more often than not cartoonish and over the top, which is great, if you ask me. Also, Bronson works well as that quintessential Golan-Globus one-man army protagonist.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091575/

Righteous Kill (2008)

I'd been meaning to watch this for a long time, and somehow I decided it would be cool to review it on my Friday spot (which this week became a Saturday spot... sorry). De Niro and Pacino are such huge cinematic icons that did much to make the 70s what they were as perhaps the best decade for movies we've seen since the medium was invented. I must make clear again, this review contains spoilers. It is impossible for me to discuss it without giving away the ending, which, to be frank, everyone would see coming from the start anyway, and the only real suspense is whether or not they're going to be that obvious.

Righteous Kill is about two (obviously) veteran NYPD detectives investigating a vigilante serial killer who is taking out suspected criminals that were acquitted on their various crimes. We're led to believe it's De Niro the whole time, which means it has to be the person we don't expect, though of course we expect him the whole time, and sure enough, it's him.



And it was that ending which ruined this movie for me. Out of all the characters Pacino has ever played, this was the first genuine cheeseball, the first lovable loser, and he seemed to be enjoying it, and I enjoyed watching him in it. Then, in a flash, he loses that character and is suddenly a cold calculating killer, with the only link to the cheeseball we loved being the cheeseball poems he left on his victims. I just didn't get it. Sure, maybe the script was written like that, but you've got De Niro and Pacino-- rewrite it! Call Kevin Spacey, have him be the killer. I'm sure he'd be more than willing if Pacino and De Niro were on the other end. It turned a fun experience into a fun experience with a bad taste in my mouth.

Now, don't get me wrong, this wasn't Heat or Godfather II, and we'd all expect that a film pairing these two film legends would have to be that caliber. I disagree. In 1989, yes, it should be that. But in 2008, what we have here is our best bet. Essentially, it was one of those celebrity basketball games where a couple legends get on the court and play around for fun, and I was perfectly fine with that. De Niro and Pacino, though playing off each other with a bad script, you could still see their skill in it, like a Bob Cousy still throwing it behind his back, or making a free throw effortlessly. Had the ending been consistent with what they were doing, it would've been a more complete feeling, but I was okay with what I had up until then.



I'm going to start with Robert De Niro, because his character was more like the kind of character we're used to seeing from him, that Andy Quinn playing Zampanò from La Strada indicative in his Vito Corleone, Jake La Motta, or Travis Bickle. Here, of course, he wasn't doing it in an Oscar winning fashion, but more reminding us of that style that he had once used to win him Oscars and the legendary status he now holds. Again, looking at it as a hall of famer at a celebrity basketball game, it fits better. No one really believes a 65-year-old man, no matter how good of shape he's in, is roughing up kids half his age, just like no one expects Magic Johnson to go out now and stay in front of Rajon Rondo, but seeing Magic play the point in a celebrity game and throw one of his patented no-look passes reminds us of that guy who changed the game, the way De Niro did in movies during roughly the same time period.

Now, while De Niro played a throwback to some of his more memorable characters, Pacino gives us a whole new look. Yet, he does it in a way that suggests that he too, like De Niro, is just having fun with this, like seeing Gordy Howe play goalie at an exhibition. Growing up, while De Niro was considered an amazing actor, Pacino was the one that personified coolness. When his movie was on TV, my parents stopped flipping channels. For him to go out and play a cheeseball like this was great, especially because he too took the role the way De Niro did, as another actor just having fun. One scene really stands out to me. Carla Gugino walks in on him while he's pouring a diet Sprite into a red Solo cup. I don't think I've ever seen anyone look so cool pouring diet Sprite into a red Solo cup. No matter how good or how much fun he has playing a cheeseball, he's still one of the coolest men ever, and even he can't get away from that. It's in everything he does, down to pouring diet beverages.



One of the reviews I read of this before I watched it said that Donnie Wahlberg out acted Pacino and De Niro. First off, that's not true. If you're expecting The Godfather II, you came to the wrong place, but I think the two of them, even having fun, were far and away the two stars of the film, and no matter how good Donnie Wahlberg gets, I think even he'll admit he'll be lucky if he achieves a tenth of what those two have, and I think he's plenty honored to be in their celebrity basketball game of a movie. The other thing is, and I know I've been guilty of it, this piling on of De Niro and Pacino for all the horrible films they've been in in the last 15 years or so. Sure, I'm not going to let an Analyze That (or an Analyze This for that matter), nor a Gigli or Two for the Money, off the hook when they are such bad films, but I'm not going to blame them for those being bad films like I used to. Even Cary Grant had his Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, and we can't expect them to be Daniel Day Lewis, especially when they had better careers than he did.

I'm hoping, since I gave away the ending, that anyone reading this has already seen it, and I'm curious to see if I'm alone in my take on it, or if I'm giving them too much leeway for a horrible film. If you haven't seen it, I really haven't given away as much as you think by telling you who the killer is, and you may want to check it out anyway, just for the novelty of having De Niro and Pacino together.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1034331/

Cybernator (1991)

I had a post to fill before tomorrow's review of Righteous Kill, and I had Cybernator in the can after I watched it as part of a two-pack with Richard Norton's Hyper Space, which you may remember I covered last week for as his induction post. I can't think of a better time than now to (take this passion and) make it happen.

Cybernator takes place in a future that's pretty anachronistic based on the cars and scenery, but anyway, in this future there's cyborgs everywhere, and a group of killer ones are taking out senators and stuff. A couple cops are on the case, and things smell foul when they find the military is involved. They smell even worse when that military guy is William Smith.



Okay, so remember last week when I said American Ninja 3 was like MST3K quality. This was MST3K quality. It even had the opening credits with the font and grainy film like and Cave Dwellers and Pod People. And the quality was right there. Laser beams that look like cartoons shot out of unfuturistic modern firearms. The cyborgs were a collection of cyberpunk rejects with plastic parts raided from Toys-R-Us spray painted and stuck onto them. But this is all pedestrian. It's little things that make a film like this great. In one scene, the hero and his partner cross the street in real time to a building, and when one of them tries to open it, it's locked. In the next scene, they're inside, indicating that had the previous scene played out like it should, the door would've been open. To quote Billy Ocean, it was "simply... awesome."

The hero was amazing. I'd never seen him in anything before, and when I looked him up on imdb, I recognized a few things, but didn't really remember him. Anyway, more on that later. Between this guy's facial expressions, and the bear skin rug he had on his chest, I couldn't stop laughing. In one scene, he's lying in bed with his shirt off, and he looks like the frickin' Wolf Man. Are you kidding? No one decided to put a T on him? As far as the imdb stuff goes, he won an award for some film he made in 2008 called Beneath the Mississippi. So I looked it up, and didn't see much, till I got to the bottom where the message boards are. On the first one, his friend posed as someone else and completely trashed him, and some guy they didn't know came to his defense. When it was revealed who the trasher was, the defender said "I just saw him in Cybernator and thought he was pretty good." Ya did, did ya?



If the 80s loved the ninja, and the oughts love the vampire, the 90s loved the Cyborg. Sometimes it's done well... I'm sure I'll think of some.... Anyway, sometimes it's done badly but in a way that's awesome, like Cyborg. And sometimes we just don't know what we're getting, like this one. One guy has a white face with tubes running out of him. Our hero does what anyone else fighting him would do, and rips the tubes out. Okay, only he thinks to do that at the very end of the movie, but I'll give him points for thinking of it. The reality is, everything from Star Wars to Cyber Tracker loves the idea of fixing humans with cybernetic parts and then asking "Are they still human?", which makes no sense, because I'm sure you ask any person who lost a limb and now has a prosthetic whether or not they feel more or less human, they'd say more. You're just less human when you have shit from Toys-R-Us stuck to you.

And this had William Smith. I know it's bad form to start a sentence with a conjunction, but I think I needed to here, because William Smith was just kind of tacked on. I was going over his more recent films on imdb, and one of them was a Skin-aMax flick entitled The Erotic Rites of Dracula where he plays Dracula. Gonna skip that one. I want to see William Smith in a Skin-a-Max flick as much as I wanted to see Dreamboat in this movie with his shirt off showing off the mole skin sweater he called a chest.



The weirdest thing about this was the song at the strip club our hero's woman worked at. Not the song they played while she danced, but the one before. It went something like "come here little school girl, don't be afraid..." What? Are you serious? Someone call Chris Hanson. I'd give odds that someone associated with this film was busted in some kind of a sting like that. The movie had that kind of a feel to it.

This is straight up hilarious. If you and your friends want to sink your teeth into a real winner, Cybernator is the one for you. It's not a matter of whether you can make fun of it, it's a matter of how well you can make fun of it, because the material is all there to work with. Do it, England.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137452/

Citizen Verdict (2003)

I've been meaning to watch this movie for a long time, ever since I saw a trailer for it on the Dolph film The Defender. I didn't really care what it was about, all that mattered was it had Roy Scheider, Armand Assante, and Jerry Springer. It could've been a remake of City Slickers or Grumpy Old Men, I didn't care. Anyway, for whatever reason, this kept getting pushed down on my Netflix queue. Between all the foreign films, new Dolph films, Gruner and Daniels, etc., I guess it just got lost in the shuffle. Well, the shuffle's done, and it's here now.

Citizen's Verdict takes place in Florida, where the crime rate is out of control, so the governor, Roy Scheider, decides on a drastic measure: he hires TV producer Jerry Springer to make a show where one of the most violent offenders is put on trial on TV, and the people of Florida can vote on his guilt or innocence. After, if he's guilty, his execution will be televised on pay-per-view. Armand Assante is hired as the defense attorney, and his first case, that of a man accused of raping and killing a national TV cooking celebrity, isn't the slam dunk it seemed at first. Can he prove this guy's innocence, not only to the courtroom, but the rest of Florida as well?



This wasn't that bad. Okay, who am I kidding? Without its three main stars, it would've eaten a fat dink. But it was just so awesome having them there. At the end, the three witness an execution, and all we hear is music and watch things unfold in slow motion, as the three of them sit there and react with only their subtle facial expressions. They just exude coolness. In all their faces we see "not so fast, younger generation. We still do it better than you. We're still just that much cooler than you." And they're right. There were a few other cool things, like a guy being taken away to the lethal injection room with "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" playing. Still, beyond the talent, you really just had another "Should we give the people what they want?" moral dilemma movie that's more silly than poignant.

We'll start with Armand Assante. When we last saw him on the DTVC, he was a mobster organizing underground fights with Flavor Flav in Confessions of a Pit Fighter. He was great there, and he was great in The Killing Grounds as a Turkish cop in Berlin, but it was as a hot shot defense attorney who smells a rat in Citizen Verdict that's been the best role we've had him in so far. He was smooth not in a sleazy used car salesman kind of way, but in a I'm good at what I do, and I do it in style, but I'm also in it for what's right kind of way. There was no one else to root for in this movie, and Assante made it easy for us to root for him. I saw that he was in The Chaos Experiment with Val Kilmer. I may have to check that out now, even if it seemed like a silly concept.



Roy Scheider is stellar again playing a person of authority. He makes a great senator, president, FBI bureau chief, military general, bishop, company CEO, what have you. I think governor of a southern state is one of his best, though. He pulls off the sophisticated southern accent well. Very few have that capability-- they often hit us over the head with it, making it more hillbilly. Last Tuesday would have been his 77^th birthday, and his imdb resume is huge. People have suggested putting him in the DTVC Hall of Fame, but something about him doesn't fit, like he's too good for it-- not to imply that the other members aren't great.

This is the second Jerry Springer film we've had on here, the first being Dolph's The Defender. I liked him better as the Pres than I did as a slimy TV producer. He's not a bad guy in real life, so to play a really bad guy in a movie is a stretch from him. At the end, though, when he gives a venom filled monologue, he's good. It's almost what I bet he wished his Final Thought could be on some episodes. I don't see anything else coming down the pike for him according to imdb, so this may be our last look at Jerry. At least it was a good look.



I'm not sure how many of my readers are from or are familiar with Florida, but I have some experience with it having family down there, most notably my grandparents. As a Mainer, I have a sense of uneasiness, especially at night. Their night isn't like our night. Bad things seem to happen at night there. Just the same, nothing bad has ever happened to me, so I can't complain, but I think if one would set a film like this anywhere, Florida would be it, even over Texas-- though I get the sense that bad things happen at night there too...

This is worth renting just for Scheider, Assante, and Jerry Springer. You'll enjoy it. I think it would've been better had they made this a Grumpy Old Men or City Slickers rip-off, and now that Scheider's no longer with us, that opportunity is gone; but what we got was plenty good enough.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0342207/

Black Eagle (1988)

One of my favorite readers, Jill, is also a huge Van Damme fan, and she warned me that this is a dull film. "I know," I said, "but I still need to do them all for my blog." So I watched the trailer while Ian (another one of my favorite readers) was checking his mail, and I must confess, based on the trailer, it looked pretty hot.

Black Eagle is a Cold War spy vs. spy yawn fest starring Van Damme as a bad guy hatchet man for the Soviets who are in Malta trying to get some kind of weapon. Shô Kosugi is called in by the CIA despite his vacation to make sure this weapon or whatever is kept in safe hands. Stuff happens, Kosugi and Van Damme have a disappointing fight, and that's it.



Okay, so she was right, and it was dull. Very dull. But, at the DTVC, our job is to review everything, good and bad... and this was bad. First off, Kosugi was wasted. He had some good fight scenes, but his hair looked ridiculous and his clothes were worse. In one scene he was supposed to be this cool spy playing roulette with the hot chick spy working with him, in one of those tense Bond-esque scenes where the Soviets are at the same table, making small talk. The problem is, Kosugi looked like Ernie from My Three Sons. "Hey Uncle Charley, can we take out some Commies today?" And that fight at the end with Van Damme, what the hell was that? Two great martial artists, and you give us a boring stalemate? It looked like a couple karate guys on the local news advertising their dojo, only they weren't wearing their Gi with the company logo on the back. Lame, lame, lame.

You could see, though, in this effort in total lame-itude that Van Damme had talent. He was going to be somebody. I was looking for images of this on YouTube, and someone put a video of his first kill, which is in this movie. Why is that a big deal? I'm serious, who gives a shit who the first guy he faked killed in a movie is? Anyway, Bloodsport came out the same year as this, and Cyborg came out a year later, so he didn't have long to wait for his eventual fame. My friend at Movies in the Attic mentioned that Van Damme really came from the DTV world and made it big, as opposed to Dolph and Seagal, who started in the mainstream. It's something I never considered before, but it explains why he's been so reluctant to come to terms with his fall from the Big Time. He doesn't want to make another Black Eagle, and he feels like he's one Cyborg or Bloodsport away from making it back. He needs to be more pragmatic. If Val Kilmer and Cuba Gooding jr., are joining him in the ranks of the DTV, it means that's probably where he's fated to remain as well.



Shô Kosugi is someone I need to have more of up here, and I've known that for some time. Next week, when I do my Golan-Globus tribute, he'll be there with Enter the Ninja, so that should be good. If you're someone that's a fan, or looking to get into Kosugi, this isn't a great place to start. I am curious to see how he does in the new film Ninja Assassin. I'm kind of surprised it's taken this long to bring back Ninjas, since everything else from the 80s has been.

This film took place in Malta. I guess it's like a poor man's Sicily. That was the impression the film gave anyway. Good thing the Iron Curtain fell and Eastern Europe is becoming a part of Europe now, because I'd much rather have my low-budget actioners in Sofia or Bucharest. Malta, at least in this film, seems like the tired old country store of Europe, where people stop, look around, and then sigh and say "Geez, we better get back on the road.", and walk quickly to their cars and drive off, probably a little faster than necessary.



I don't really have a seventh paragraph for this movie, but I thought since I was bashing a Van Damme film, I might bring up some good news regarding him. In two weeks, when I hit my 400^th post, I'll be celebrating by outlining a Jean-Claude Van Damme film fest. I'll go over 8 of my favorites from him, most of them not DTV. It should be a fun time, much more fun than this snoozefest.

I'd almost go as far as to say even if you're a Van Damme completist, stay away. I probably should've skipped it for the review, despite the fact I want all of his DTV films up here. We still have No Retreat, No Surrender to do, and it looks like after we do that that will be it for a while, because The Eagle Path looks like it's coming out next never.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094750/

Highlander 2: The Quickening aka Highlander 2: Renegade Version (1991)

In this edition of the box office bomb, we're going with one that was more of a critical bomb than a financial one, though it didn't make back its budget at the gate. It's also a fascinating case, because I'm not reviewing just the original, but the new "renegade" edition, which is supposed to have cured the ills of its predecessor.

Highlander 2 takes place a lot of years after the first one, and Connor is an old dude. The ozone layer had become depleted to such a degree that MacLeod has created a shield to protect us from the UV rays. We also find out that immortals are people from the distant past who are sent to the future for their crimes and forced to fight it out. Connor was sent because he staged a rebellion against Michael Ironside, and on some technicality, Connor could come back to the past and kill him, so Ironside comes to the future. Then Connor calls Connery's name, and he comes back to life. Now they're converging on the shield to take it down, and Ironside and the shield's CEO, John C. McGinley, are there to oppose them.



Let's be frank, the only way to redeem the previous film would be to Lucas Reno Raines and Bobby Sixkiller into it and make it a real Renegade version. I know a lot of Highlander fanboys and girls out there would think Lamas has no chance against Connor MacLeod, but I beg to differ. He doesn't have to kill him, just incapacitate him and take him to jail for the money. Does this all sound ridiculous, a Highlander movie that's essentially a long Renegade episode? Well, let's delve into the actual film and see what we think.

The original Highlander 2 told us the immortals came from a planet called Zeist. That was ridiculous, yes? That means the new version must be somehow less ridiculous, otherwise why make the film, right? So instead of being from a distant planet, they're from a past that's really more like a future, where humans have great bomb making technology, but no guns. This is my improvement? Sean Connery has no concept of modern technology, but Michael Ironside, also from the distant past, is fully familiar with how the subway system works, down to its specific lingo. To be quite frank, the original actually worked better.



The biggest issue was the first Highlander painted the series into a box with its finality. They had to get crazy with it to include Connery, and it only got worse from there. I really felt, as I was watching this, that there was no way they were serious. Think of the scene where Connery, Lambert, and Virginia Madsen are in that room where the fan is coming down on them. When Connery tells them to leave, and then the bagpipes start in-- how can that be serious? So I watched that part with the commentary, hoping Russell Mulcahy would tell us how silly it was, and all I got were crickets. Nothing. They not only made that scene on purpose, they were serious about it!

I just love the idea that had Mulcahy had his way, this is what he would've done, considering he didn't want to have his name associated with the original. Why would he have his name associated with this either? The truth is, the TV series had some two-part story arcs that were much more entertaining. I agree that everyone had every right to trash the original version of this movie, but if you're the director and trashing it, that means you need to have something better that you would've done, and you definitely didn't.



This wasn't all bad, of course. There was plenty to make fun of from start to finish, just because of the basic premise. Then, there were the amazing hairdos. Michael Ironsides sports such an amazing set of lettuce that it makes every misstep Mulcahy made worth it. Not only that, but his scenes with McGinley were nothing short of cinematic gold. And you can never discount what it means to have Connery in another bad film. Just because this was a bad movie, doesn't mean it's not a fun one too.

And here we are, paragraph 8, and I forgot to mention the film's one DTVC Hall of Famer, Christoher Lambert. What is there to say, really? He was as funny as everyone else trying to make sense of this thing. And that's what makes it great for us the viewer too: the fun we have trying and failing to make sense of it all. I'll never forget the review Siskel and Ebert did when this was in the theater, because it was the first time they killed a movie that I really agreed with them on. At 12, I was becoming better aware of what was around me, and as such, less willing to accept as good something that was in actuality utter crap.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102034/

Hyper Space (1989)

The last of our inducted actors, but by no means the least, Richard Norton has been a staple of DTV for decades. Known in part for his role as sidekick to Cynthia Rothrock in films like Rage and Honor and China O'Brien, he also has a solid resume of films where he himself is the star, and I've picked one of those to celebrate his entry into the DTVC Hall of Fame.

Hyper Space takes place in one of those futures based on one small issue from our past-- in this case what to do with all that nuclear waste. I'm not sure if it's a company or the US government that decides dumping it way out in space is a good idea, but they do, and Norton, a former Ranger (though they made it sound like he was a Marine too, which doesn't make sense), decides going on these dump runs is less excitement than almost getting killed on a regular basis by androids. But something goes wrong on the ship, and it ends up way off course with very little fuel, and to get back would take 22 years. That is until a crew member figures out a way to get the escape pod back. Only catch: only one person can go on board. After they draw straws, the rest of the crew start offing each other to get on the escape pod, and only Norton can keep order.



This was pretty funny. Ron O'Neal was good. So was Don Stroud. I liked Norton, but too much on the ship was kind of dull, and there was a bit of a gap between his fight at the beginning, which was a flashback, and his fights with crew members later. In the first scene he fights Big John Studd, and it was pretty amazing, so for that to not be indicative of what we got after was kind of a bummer. Also, after a few minutes of the dilemma of who to send home, the characters sort themselves out as good and bad and kill each other off so there's no decision really at the end on who to send home. In a way, I kind of liked that, because action films shouldn't make me think too much, especially when they're of pretty poor quality.

Richard Norton has probably belonged in the Hall of Fame for a while, we just needed to watch more of his films, especially the ones where he's the star. In January he'll be 60 years old. He's the second of the great action stars of he 80s and 90s to hit that milestone, after Arnold Schwarzenegger who is 62. I don't know why it always surprises me that these guys are whatever age they are, considering a lot of the movies they did were made 15 to 20 years ago, and they weren't teenagers then. I guess I need to come to terms with how old I am. Norton is still making films, but I don't know how much in the way of martial arts he does in them. That's fine, he's done enough, and he has a large library that I still need to sift through, much of which is only available on VHS.



It is always funny to see what we considered such a big deal in the past as solved now, like nuclear waste. I mean, it's still an issue, but we're not producing so much of it at so high a rate that we don't know what to do with it. I haven't even heard of a new nuclear power plant being built in the US. We have one here in NH that my dad worked on, but the one in Maine was shut down. We can only hope in ten years, global warming will have been accepted by enough people that we'll have taken the steps to reverse it and it too won't be the issue it is now, and we'll watch DTV movies from this time and think how dated they are.

One of the best parts of the low budget sci-fi film is what kinds of ordinary everyday products they use in unique ways to make them futuristic. This one used that plastic flooring with the raised circles all over it that make it look kind of like a Legos. They used it as counter tops, place mats-- you name it, it was everywhere. Someone mush have gotten a deal on it, or maybe a building went down that had a lot of it. I remember the old Omni Mall in Portsmouth, NH had that stuff as it's floor, but they were still open in 1989, so it wasn't from there.



The late Ron O'Neal was rocking the coolest T-shirt. It had a USC Trojans logo sewn on it, and the fabric was worn and riddled with holes. Based on the color, the fit, and the wear, it would probably cost between $30 and $50 now, depending on who made it. Can you imagine? Sometimes you can find cool stuff like that at a Goodwill. I once found this amazing T that was blue with the word "Suomi" in white letters on it, and it looks and fits like a designer T. It's funny when people ask me what it means, because when I tell them it's Finland in Finnish, they don't believe me.

Considering the star power, this was a pretty good deal. Norton, Ron O'Neal, Don Stroud, and then wrestlers Big John Studd and Professor Toru Tanaka all made it more fun, plus there's a Van Patten (James). It's low-budget silly sci-fi, but the plot, after you get over the concept of shipping nuclear waste out on large space going expeditions, isn't too bad for it's genre. You could do a lot worse.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0249591/