Yes, I realize that this is not a Full Moon film, but they carry it in their online store and on their streaming platform and I’m quite frankly exhausted by all the puppets and bongs and miniature killers and DeCoteau movies and when I saw Sybil Danning on the poster, teenage me said, “We need to stay up until.4 AM on a work night and watch this.”
The New Order of Nations is ready to escape Earth and start exploring space, but there are these terrorists called Clean Space who realize that humans are just going to litter other planets, so they decide to kill every astronaut so the nations of the planet decide to hire Sybil Danning, who wears lots of leather and honestly, that’s more than enough plot and makes me like this movie even if they never go to space.
There are so many guitar riffs and people running around in ill-advised outfits and I watched this in French because why not?
Force Five Podcastput up the best action from this movie — honestly there barely is any — and I can admit that I’m only posting it here because Sybil Danning is lounging poolside dressed like someone ready to fight a Terminator and sometimes when I get sad, this is the kind of thing that gets me through the day.
Facts you should know:
The theme song is called “She’s Tough and Tender (Theme from Panther Squad).”
Sybil Danning kept her outfit after filming was done.
Somehow, Jack Taylor made bad movies all over the world and I love him every single time he’s on my screen. I feel the same way about Donald O’Brien and I would like to think they had several meals and drinks together where they argued over who had the craziest films in their respective histories. I’d love to debate this with someone.
Karin Schubert, Hanna D.‘s mother from that Bruno Mattei blast of ripoff insanity, is in this.
If you want to see this movie done right, I can recommend every single Andy Sidaris movie to you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sean Collier is a writer and movie critic. Listen to his podcast, The Number One Movie in America, on all major podcast apps. Follow him on Twitter for more reviews: @seancollierpgh
How can a movie about a hardass vigilante extraterrestrial — who happens to be about 13 inches tall, and is in possession of a magnetically controlled super-gun — end up stunningly boring?
For the answer to this question: Watch Dollman.
Directed by schlock maestro Albert Pyun (Cyborg, The Sword and the Sorcerer, the troubled 1990 version of Captain America), Dollman received a straight-to-video release from Full Moon in 1991. Pyun had been busy; Captain America finally saw the light of day the previous year, and he had two other films premiere in ’91 alone.
Perhaps that’s why some parts of Dollman feel much more fleshed out than others. Or maybe it’s just because the script is awful.
The titular tiny guy is Brick Bardo, played by Tim Thomerson (in one of the only recorded instances of a character name and actor name being equally ridiculous). On his own planet, Bardo is actual size; either because of some space dilation or just because his planet is tiny (it’s kind of explained in an automated message from Bardo’s ship), he’s little on Earth.
He winds up here after a showdown with crime lord Sprug (Frank Collison), a disembodied head attached to a floating life-support device; Bardo rendered him body-free, and he wants revenge. (An elaborate effect keeps Sprug’s head floating … in wide shots, with an obvious prop head. Collison only speaks in close-ups that stop at about the chin.) When the confrontation goes sideways, both Bardo and Sprug hop in their ships and head to Earth, where they get caught up in a small-time Bronx gang war.
Yup: Of all places this story could’ve gone, it ended up making its bizarre alien characters secondary players in a minor street scuffle.
Presumably, what budget was set aside for Dollman was thoroughly exhausted on Bardo’s home planet — these scenes have the only decent-looking sets — forcing the three credited writers to come up with a cheaper-to-shoot locale for the rest of the film. Other than occasional one-liners, most of Dollman is only vaguely concerned with the fact that Bardo is tiny; rather than do much with the size difference, the film plays out like an unimaginative action movie.
The only aspect of Dollman worth seeing is a committed and suitably odd performance by Jackie Earle Haley, as vicious gang leader Braxton. Haley had risen as a child star in the ’70s (“Bad News Bears”) before going into the Hollywood wilderness for quite a while; he’d mount a major comeback in the ’00s, earning an Oscar nomination for Little Children en route to playing a pair of icons, taking over as Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street remake and giving the best turn in Zack Snyder’s mediocre Watchmen adaptation. 1991 was certainly a low point for him, though — good news for anyone trying to make it through Dollman.
Miraculously, Dollman persisted, appearing in a post-credits stinger after Full Moon’s Bad Channels and then crossing over with their Demonic Toys property in 1993’s inventively titled Dollman vs. Demonic Toys.
I will not be keeping up with his further adventures.
Earlier this week, we discussed My Father’s Brothers, a documentary about the journey that filmmaker Shawn Kelley’s father and seven survivors went through after one life-changing battle in Vietnam. Now, we’ve had the opportunity to discuss the film with him and wanted to share it with you.
The MFB 3rd Platoon before the events of June 29, 1966.
B&S About Movies: I’ve read that this film was based on a car ride with your father. Did you ever expect to make a movie about him?
Shawn Kelley: I never expected to. My dad didn’t really talk about the war when I was growing up. During that car ride, I had a lot of one-on-one time with him, and I found out things about his past that I didn’t know before. So, we kept talking. The more I learned, the more I thought this was a story worth telling.
B&S: War seems like something that the general population forgets, but we’ve been at war literally since you and I have been born. And for the soldiers in the movie, the war keeps going. Did your father keep a lot of this inside before you talked?
Kelley: Combat veterans process their experiences in different ways. I believe my dad wanted to keep his experiences in the war separate from his children. Maybe as a way of “protecting” us. That’s what it felt like in the interview process – while he told me what happened during the battle in 1966, he was holding some things back. The other veterans I interviewed did not. So much so that I was trying my best not to cry while I was talking to them. I am still amazed, and horrified, by what they went through.
The MFB 3rd Platoon after the events of June 29, 1966.
B&S: Did you know any of the men your father served with before the film?
Kelley: I did not! I even went to high school with the son of one of my dad’s platoon leaders, but I didn’t make the connection that his father and mine served together until much later. As for the veterans in the film, I knew a little about them, and I had read statements they had written about the battle as I was prepping for production. But I met them for the first time the night before I started interviewing them. Now, after traveling to reunions and film festivals with them, and getting to know them more, I’m proud to call all of them my friends.
B&S: What movies influence you?
Kelley: That’s tough to answer, because so many films have influenced me in some way even beyond the story. It could be a camera technique, how they handle foreshadowing, or even a small, unexpected moment that you just can’t stop thinking about. A few docs that come to mind are Muscle Shoals, Little Dieter Needs to Fly, and Jiro Dreams of Sushi. For narrative, Pulp Fiction, Shawshank Redemption, and Saving Private Ryan.
The MFB Airborne reunion.
B&S: What are some facts that we should know about vets and trying to understand what they’ve gone through?
Kelley: Unless you’ve worn their boots, you’ll never really understand what they experienced or how they may still be processing it. One of the vets in the film was drafted, trained, and sent to Vietnam. He was only in the army for two years, but because of what he went through, he sleeps upright in a chair, 50 years later. PTSD is a much bigger problem in our veteran community than most people know. Telling a veteran, “Well the war is over, you’ve got to just move on and forget about it,” may be the worst thing you could possibly say. It trivializes what they went through. As a country, we need to support our veterans more – they’ve given so much.
B&S: Any projects coming up?
Kelley: A friend of mine who was in the Marines called me out of the blue one day after he saw My Father’s Brothers at a film festival. He told me he had an idea for my next film. I said, “Great, what’s the idea?” He said, “Something light-hearted.” I laughed, but I am taking his advice. While I have plans to do more docs about veterans, my next film is about a craftsman and his journey to becoming a custom knifemaker.
We really appreciated the time that Shawn spent speaking with us. Make sure to watch My Father’s Brothersby checking out the watch page of the official website, as well as the official Facebook and Instagram pages.
If you can’t get Tim Thomerson, use stock footage or have him jump into the body of his daughter Josephine (Zette Sullivan). Oh Full Moon, you are as cheap as you are sometimes loveable. The Trancers are just as deadly, but you know, Jack’s a girl now. Or old footage. But mostly a lady.
We neglected to mention that there was another sequel which was to be part of the Full Moon anthology Pulse Pounders called Trancers: City of Lost Angels that was on the old Trancers DVD and shows up on the blu ray release. It has Thomerson and Helen Hunt teaming up as an old enemy of Jack’s named Edlin Shock escapes a maximum security facility and comes after our hero.
So yeah. Trancers 6. Did you ever accept a wedding invite and then break up with someone and the two of you still decide to go together but it feels like an obligation and while there are some alright parts, you just can’t wait to have it all be over? Yeah. It feels like that.
That said, Sullivan is pretty decent and had some coaching — so says IMDB so take that with a grain of Trancers — from Thomerson, who told her to act like Steve McQueen, only more pissed off.
Except for a cameo in the excoriable Evil Bong, this would be the last time that Tim Thomerson would play Jack Deth. Yes, there’s a sixth movie and we’ll get to that soon enough, but this is his swan song.
Jack is trying to find his way home from the other-dimensional world of Orpheus, which is kind of like the European era of knights and swords, except that Trancers run things and living in a Castle of Unrelenting Terror, led by Caliban.
According to the IMDB, Charles Band paid Tim Thomerson for the last two films in these series with off-shore dollars which had U.S. currency value, but could only be spent in Romania. I would assume that the man who is Jack Deth (and Brick Bardo) owns an entire town over there.
There’s a recap of part 4, because you know, if there’s one thing you can expect in a Full Moon movie, it’s an eight-minute piece of other films inserted into the one that you’re watching so that the running time gets padded like a pre-pubescent bra.
That said, I would watch Jack Deth go to the grocery store. It would probably be better than this.
There’s not too many films that sell me within a minute of its two minute trailer with a want, no, a need, to see the movie it shills. Oh, do I ever want to stream this movie.
“Don’t worry. This p**y’s got teeth!”
If Quentin Tarantino decided to make another retro-homage to his video store memories of old — only trading out the blaxploitation-slanted Jackie Brown or grindhouse-inclined Rick Dalton with a doesn’t-take-any-guff drag queen by the name of Champagne White for a celebration of ’70s Russ Meyer sexploitation flicks — this brilliant, deliciously decadent feature debut by the creative tour de force that is D’Arcy Drollinger is that movie.
Practicing his craft with a series of campy stage productions at The Oasis, a famed San Francisco alt-lifestyle nightclub that he owns and operates, Drollinger (who’s portrayed Frank-N-Furter in productions of the Rocky Horror Show) takes those stage-steps to its ultimate, theatrical destiny as the writer, director and star of S**t & Champagne. During interviews, Dollinger describes his labor of love as “dragsploitation” and name-checks Pam Grier’s Foxy Brown and Linda Blair’s Savage Streets, along with the Zucker Brothers’ slapstick comedy films, as well as the ’70s TV series Wonder Woman and The Bionic Woman as his inspiration.
Just a caveat: Outside of a couple drag-kings and men playing men, no one is actually a playing a “drag queen” as a character: they’re all females, got it? So plant your suspension of disbelief firmly between the teeth and gums, and enjoy.
Champagne White, actually Champagne Horowitz Jones Dickerson White (“So, I’ve been married a few times, it’s none of your fucking business!”), is a stripper, ahem “exotic dancer,” in 1975-era San Francisco. After witnessing the murder of Rod, her walrus-stached and polyester suit-clad fiancé (Mario Diaz), then having her “adopted half-sister,” Brandy (Steven LeMay), die in her arms, by the same thugs (the chemistry-perfect Adam Roy and Manuel Caneri) who murdered Rod, the cork, as it were, pops on the whoop-ass.
As Champagne descends into San Francisco’s sex and drugs and murder-ridden underbelly — complete with a back-to-school clothing ring stumbled upon by the retail-managing Rod — a world rife with one-liners and song and dance numbers, she comes face to face with underworld king, well, queen pin, Dixie Stampede, the corporate-owning mogul of the world-famous Mall-Wart (expertly played by Matthew Martin, who gives Dollinger a run for the award-winning thespin’ money). Along the way, Champagne finds romance with an oh-so-’70s-splotitive detective named Jack Hammer (a slicing it nice n’ thick Seton Brown) as she battles the Keystone Cops-ineptness of Dixie’s minions (I’m really diggin’ on Adam Roy’s — in his film debut — Jim Carrey-comedic vibe with his Tony character; here’s to seeing him in more roles; a Kung-fu fightin’ Manuel Caneri portrays his boss, Johnny the Gun).
In 2016 The Oasis gang put on a drag-king version of one of the original Star Trek episodes, “Mudd’s Women,” with actress Leigh Crow (center) as Captain Kirk. Also known throughout the Bay area as a popular Elvis impersonator, Elvis Herselvis, she stars in S**t & Champagne as Al, the owner ofthe Shaboom Boom Room,
Yeah . . . I had a lot of fun watching this: It is quite clear the cast is cognizant of their material’s John Waters, Mel Brooks (think of a glitzier-slanted High Anxiety), Russ Meyer (one of Drollinger’s stage productions was Above and Beyond the Valley of the Ultra Showgirls, if that’s a clue), and Charlie’s Angels (even campier) roots. They’re having a lot of fun . . . more fun than any Don Edmonds flick of old starring the awesome Dyanne Thorne.
D’Arcy Drollinger has made it quite clear: his celluloid jam is the ’70s drive-in exploiters of yore, which, for many of us, were absorbed during the VHS ’80s. So, if you feel a warmth in the ol’ analog cockles for sexually-liberated bachelorettes (or multiple divorcee/widows!) who work their long blonde hair and even longer, silky legs, à la Cherie Caffaro’s James Bond’in Ginger McAllister from Ginger (1971), The Abductors (1972), and Girls Are For Loving (1973), or Joyce Jillson working it in Crown International’s Superchick (1973), as well as Francine York and Tura Satana kicking it Ted V. Mikels’s The Doll Squad (1973), and 1967 Playmate Anne Randall takin’ names in Andy Sidaris’s Stacey (1973) — each which, ironically, foretold Charlie’s Angels — then you’ll appreciate Dollringer’s over-the-top homage. Is there a tip o’ the hat to Chesty Morgan’s Doris Wishman two-fer of 1974’s Deadly Weapons and Double Agent 73? You bet!
To that “’70s” end: A special shout-out is necessary to Production Designer Olivia Kanz, Art Director Elena Nommensen (the upcoming Venom: Let There Be Carnage; the great Texas-bred horror shot, The Devil’s Passenger, and looks awesome horror-western, Ghost in the Gun), and Costume Designer Maggie Whitaker, as this film is a retro-junkie feast of the senses that looks way more expensive than its production budget probably allowed.
Drollinger, left, a stellar James Arthur as club-pal Sergio, and a just nails it RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars’ Alaska Thunderf**k as Dixie Stampede’s retail minion, Janis.
So, what’s the deal with the title . . . and the coprophilia of plot? Well, to hear Drollinger tell it, many of those films and TV series of the ’70s always had a subplot with the bad guys shootin’ up prostitutes or those “too smart for their own good,” with heroin, then selling them into white slavery. But heroin “isn’t funny.” So he developed the “Booty Bump”: a new, fab drug raging across San Francisco that causes, well, a very bad case of diarrhea.
Considering the just-go-for-it scripting and over-the-top thespin’ of the material, I can see Drollinger’s comedic point. However, I feel the coprophilia “drug addiction” sub-plot is actually to the determent of the brilliance of the material, as not everyone thinks defecation is funny. Part of my inner critic wishes the film was simply titled Champagne White (the title of the originating stage play) and another “comedic” drug addiction, à la a Kevin Smith or Cheech and Chong joint, was developed for the story, instead of an overly-extreme Todd Phillips (think The Hangover series meets the retro Starsky and Hutch) or Judd Apatow (think The 40-Year Old Virgin meets Pineapple Express) raunch-approach.
Does that mean I am hating on the film? No, not at all.
If Dollringer sold this script to a major studio shingle, and Phillips or Apatow took hold of the production reigns, how could you not see Amy Schumer as Champagne, Eddie Izzard as the terrorist-pimp-retail mogul Dixie Stampede, John Goodman as Al, the owner the Shaboom Boom Room, Jim Carrey as Tony, Bruce Willis as Johnny the Gun, Steve Carell as Jack Hammer, and a cameoin’ Nick Cage as Rod? Sounds like a friggin’ Coen Brothers “Raising Champagne” joint, right? But, hey, I’m the smarmy critic who loved George Gallo’s ’70s retro-remake (that everyone else seems to hate) of camp-meister Harry “Tampa” Hurwitz’s The Comeback Trail (2021), so what in the hell do I know about film.
Well, I know that Drollinger’s 44-keyin’ is that good . . . and I’m already jonesin’ for D’Arcy’s next flick. I want more Champagne! Anne Randall’s Stacey Hanson was a private eye who sidelined as race car driver. Perhaps an Andy Sidaris homage: Champagne Express. Make it happen, D’Arcy!
Yeah, this is a great film, but the title — and the meaning behind it — may turn away streamers. But, to be honest, isn’t the fact that this is a “dragsploitation” movie already turning the weak of humor, away? That’s their streaming loss. S**t & Champagne isn’t a drag . . . it’s a full-on retro-celluloid hip thrust that sold me within one minute of its two-minute trailer.
Making its debut as a festival rollout from June through September, S**t & Champagne was acquired for international distribution by Utopia Media, which also brought the British rock document on Suzi Quatro, Suzi Q, to the world stage. Utopia’s other award-winning documents are Martha: A Picture Story, concerned with Martha Cooper, a New York-based, trailblazing female graffiti artist and street photographer, WITCH – We Intend to Cause Havoc, about the ’70s Zambian progressive-rock band of the title, For Madmen Only: The Stories of Del Close, regarding the influential comedy writer, and Sara Dosa’s really fine The Seer & the Unseen.
Utopia is headed by Robert Schwartzman — of the band, Rooney, and a writer and director in his own right — who made his feature film directing debut with the really fine comedy, The Argument, released last September. You can learn more about the launch of Utopia Media with this February 19, 2019, article at Deadline.com.
Release Information: You can enjoy the VOD release of S**t & Champagne exclusively on Altavod on September 7. If you’re an AppleTV subscriber or Amazon user, you’ll be able to stream it on October 12, 2021. For those who prefer a hard copy, a special edition Blu-ray of S**t & Champagne will also be available for purchase from Utopia Media exclusively at Vinegar Syndrome.
You can learn more about the film’s digital roll out at its official website and Facebook. You can also follow D’Arcy Drollinger at his official site.
Disclaimer: We were provided a screener copy of this film from the production’s PR firm. That has no bearing on our review.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.
Talk about a release that’s of the moment. My Childhood, My Country: 20 Years in Afghanistan was made by Phil Grabsky (who produced and directed several of the Exhibition On Screen films and an early version of this story called The Boy Mir in 2011) and Shoaib Sharifi (who has worked on several films in Afghanistan) to tell the story of Mir, who starts the film as a seven-year-old child who lives in a cave alongside the recently destroyed Buddhas of Bamiyan in central Afghanistan.
Over the next two decades, the film follows Mir’s journey from boy to man in one of the most damaged parts of the world. By the end of the film, Mir is 27, with children of his own, and he’s never known a time when his country was not at war. And now, with the Taliban reclaiming his country, that may never change.
So often, we watch the news or read opinions about it online, but we never see what it’s like to endure life in wartime as a captive of a country forever in the midst of conflict. This may be the closest we ever get and for that we should feel some level of blessed.
You can learn more about this film at the official site. It is exclusively screening from August 27 to September 2 at two theaters: Laemmle Newhall at 22500 Lyons Ave, Santa Clarita, CA 91321 and Laemmle Monica Film Center at 1332 2nd Street, Santa Monica, CA 90401.
When asked of how HipBeat was inspired, director Samuel Kay Forrest said, “HipBeat is based on true events from my sibling’s experiences as well as myself and friends. It is a fictional narrative scripted film that has moments of realism because we really shot at protests in the film and trains. Everything else in the film was closed set locations except for the protests and train sequences. It was inspired by the films of Jean Luc Goddard, John Cassevetees, Sidney Lumet and very early Martin Scorsese. We wanted to capture the realism in the streets of Berlin. Where they blended real life into their films.”
This is the story of Angus, or Angy, whose life is a mix of violent political activism and a search for love and belonging within Berlin’s queer community. He’s played by Forrest, who also wrote and directed this movie.
Despite falling for Angie — a rich girl from a family that would never accept Angy, not like he would want them to — his time in Berlin is one of experimentation, not only as he rails against the far right, but as he explores his own fluid gender and sexuality. Yet the man who wants equality barely treats his lovers the same way.
HipBeat is now playing select theaters, such as Arena Cinelounge in Los Angeles. It’s an intriguing story that is very of our time.
Remember how Radu fell off a castle, landed in a tree and burned up? Well, he was able to make it out alive just as everyone else from the last movie died in a car crash except for, of course, Michelle, who is saved by Ana, who takes her to the mysterious Dr. Nicolescu, who realizes that she’s a vampire.
While Dr. Nicolescu promises to cure her of her vampirism, the truth is that he’s also one of the undead and uses science to make himself immune to all of the negative parts of being a vampire. Now, he wants the Bloodstone.
Radu has traveled to Bucharest to claim the financial wealth one of his previous henchman Ash, who we met in Vampire Journals. Meanwhile, Ash’s own underling Serena wants the two vampires to kill one another. Yet when Radu comes for Michele and is attacked by the evil doctor, she’s the one who saves him.
Of course, the end of this all has Radu, Ana, Ash and Serena engaging in so much drama over who controls the Bloodstone and our favirite vampire dead again, his head chopped off and burning in the sun.
For more than twenty years, that’s all we saw of Radu. But now, thanks to Full Moon’s Deadly Ten project, Blood Rise will tell the story of five hundred years in the life of Radu. This prequel will show “Radu’s descent from a noble warrior for the Church to a depraved creature of the night. Stolen by crusaders on the night of his birth, he has no knowledge of his bloodline: his mother a demon; father a vampire.” Anders Hove and Denice Duff will come back and so will I, because as we all know, once I watch every film in a series, I have to watch everything that comes out after like some kind of obligation.
If you watch the Full Moon remix movie I, Vampire, you can see this movie in short form as “Spawn of Hell.” You also get to see all the flashbacks from the other films.
I was thinking that this movie was worse than some of the sub-VCA adult films that I endured in my teens, back in the days before gonzo when every single porn had to actually have a story that you suffered through.
This all makes sense when watching this movie, because I could tell that Bill Fisher had done adult — he has a movie called His Cock Is a Monster on his IMDB list, after all — and his bio on that site says, “His drive for perfection is what keeps his TV, DVD and motion pictures selling. Coming from the “photography” world, he knows just how to get the shot that he wants. Extremely creative cinematography, excellent writing and great story ideas are why his films are so successful.” He also claims that Helmut Newton recognized his talent, so who are we to deny the story someone posts on their IMDB bio?
Originally known as The Woman In Apt 2C, Full Moon bought this and unleashed it on the world all over again, hiding it amongst the streaming movies they’ve sold to sites like Tubi and making this absolute piece of steaming dung smear itself all over my eyes and brain.
They compare it to Rear Window and yes, both of these movies — actually this is not even really a movie, so wrong already before you get started — have an injured man obsessed with the goings on next door.
But unlike those Caballero, Western Visuals and Coast to Coast movies of my past, the sex in this movie never really happens. It has all of the build that you expect from the form and then it just fades out. This is beyond even Cinemax After Dark — those movies are wonderful, thank you very much — level blandness. This is something that Full Moon is making money off of, despite how bad it is.
Nobody cares about this movie. I had to hunt down who was even in it and all I could find were the actresses Elita Sanders and Mara Kelle, who don’t list this movie on their IMDB page. That’s because it was part of another softcore effort, Erica’s Erotic Nights. That was directed by Francis Locke, who has sold the majority of his work to Full Moon, so this is all starting to make sense. He owned Torchlight Pictures, which released more than 200 erotic thrillers and adult dramas for cable television channels like HBO and Showtime like Bikini Time Machine.
Yet according to this article on The Schlock Pit, Torchlight was “the erotic subdivision of Full Moon that Charles Band had tasked the prolific auteur with overseeing.” Who would that filmmaker be? Oh yeah. David DeCoteau.
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