Tim Casey (Scott Valentine) is an up and coming lawyer who can’t get a break from district attorney John Doogan (Charles Napier) until the D.A.’s niece Deborah Walker (Vanessa Angel, Kingpin) helps him by blackmailing and killing Doogan and then seducing Tim. Meanwhile, like a giallo heroine, Tim thinks that he’s the one who did the murdering.
Directed and written by David Tausik, this was also known as Homicidal Impulse. The reason it looks so good is because the cinematographer was Jennifer Stoltz, who is really Janusz Kaminski. Within two years, he’d win an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for the movie Schindler’s List. He’s worked with Steven Spielberg ever since. He also directed 2000’s Lost Souls.
Scott Valentine is pretty wooden in this, except for the lovemaking scenes, which is probably what most people wanted to watch anyhow. Talia Balsam, Martin’s daughter, who was also in The Supernaturals, also shows up.
Most of Invader was produced independently by director Philip Cook and producer John Ellis, since Cook’s previous film Beyond the Rising Moon wasn’t a big success. Cook shot all the inexpensive dialogue sequences and after showing them to Menahem Golan, he agreed to finance the rest of the movie.
It starts with four men running from military police. Three are shot and killed before the fourth sees a UFO and is destroyed by an energy weapon. This ends up being discovered by Frank McCall (Hans Bachmann), a reporter for the National Scandal. After sneaking into the base and watching a secret plane equipped with A.S.M.O.D.S, software, McCall is arrested by Captain Anders (A. Thomas Smith). Before he can take him in, men in black — six years before the movie, but they had been part of UFO culture for several years by then — take McCall and try to brainwash him. He’s saved at the last minute by Anders and Colonel Faraday (Rick Foucheux). In response, the men in black kill themselves.
A.S.M.O.D.S. was taken from an alien ship that crashed in New Mexico and it’s taking over the base. McCall and Anders escape in a jet. It has also built a giant robot named HARV that has absorbed America’s nationalist and wants to rain nuclear hell on China and Russia. Can they stop the robot and save the world?
When this was released on DVD in 2006, Cook went back in and fixed up some of the effects with CGI.
This was made two years before The X-Files aired on Fox. That’s pretty wild.
Directed by Shimon Dotan and written by Stuart Schoffman, Finest Hour may seem to you to be an awful lot like Top Gun in parts because, well, it kind of is. Except that it’s about Navy SEALs and then love comes between two leads and it takes a war to bring them back together.
Lawrence Hammer (Rob Lowe) and Dean Mazzoli (Gale Hansen) are two Navy officers working to become SEALs. Hammer has a bad attitude and isn’t a team player while Mazzoli is respected by everyone. They end up becoming friends except that they both love Barbara (Tracy Griffith). Well, despite nearly making out with Mazzoli one night, she still runs away with Hammer — that very same night — and gets married.
The two nearly fight when it turns out that Hammer and Barbara are moving away, but the upcoming war in the Persian Gulf rears its ugly head and when their instructor Bosco is taken, the two work together to rescue him. Hammer ends up in the hospital and Mazzoi ends up taking care of his wife during that time. She confesses that Hammer slept with her best friend and she’s planning on leaving him.
A new mission comes up and Hammer — still injured — compromises everyone by falsifying his medical records and getting on the mission. He dies and when he does, so does anything between Mazzoli and his wife. I guess the whole forbidden fruit cucking thing was what kept them together.
Speaking of tragedy, Lowe almost died when he was dragged by a cord behind a speeding boat and couldn’t get free. One of the Navy SEALs on the crew dived in and rescued him.
The U.S. may have only seen this movie on video, but it played theaters in the Phillippines as Desert Storm: The Final Battle.
“Mad Max meets American Gladiators in the ultimate road war!”
Wow, that tagline promises so much.
Also called Badlanders, this movie moves us to the year 2200. Earth’s ruler is threatened by his brother Himshaw (Jack Wilcox). The rebel leader who is soon sent to Annakin, the prison planet that gives this movie a name, so two of his commandos named Blaine (James Phillips) and Shiba (Kim Kopf) get caught on purpose so that they can rescue him.
Michael M. Foley, who played the big bad guy Broxton, went on to play Tracey “Tracer” Swedom on WMAC Masters, a kung fu fighting show that tried to air around pro wrestling in the mid 90s. It didn’t last all that long. Hosted by Shannon Lee, the daughter of martial artist Bruce Lee and sister of Brandon, it had Ho-Sung Pak (who was Shang Tsung and Liu Kang in the first two Mortal Kombat games), Chris Casamassa (Scorpion from the Mortal Kombat movie) and Michael Bernardo (Nick from the two Shootfighter films). It was created by Chairman/CEO of 4Kids Entertainment Alfred Kahn and their President Norman J. Grossfeld along with Kathy Borland, who in addition to writing the initial episode also was the costumer for Two Evil Eyes, Monkey Shines and Day of the Dead.
Director Armand Gazarian also made Games of Survival, Double Cross, Streets of War and The Searcher. He wrote the script too, which was based on a story by James I. Nicholson, who directed Dark Harvest.
This was followed by two sequels, Prison Planet 2: The Armageddon and Prison Planet III: The Revenge. Neither of those movies share any of the same filmmakers as this movie, nor any of the actors. In fact, they are comedies about two men who steal a king’s pizza and get banished to a prison planet.
Peter Strickland also made Berberian Sound Studio, The Duke of Burgundy and In Fabric, so I always look forward to what he does next. Even if I don’t completely like it, I know that it’ll definitely be interesting.
Since the 90s, Strickland has been part of the Sonic Catering Band, which creates music from the sounds of cooking, so it’s already piquing my interest when this movie is set at Sonic Catering Institute. Run by Jan Stevens (Gwendoline Christie), it’s the setting of this film and where a trio made up of Lamina Propria (Ariane Labed), Billy Rubin (Asa Butterfield) and Elle di Elle (Fatma Mohamed) is in the middle of a series of concerts that combine food and sound creation.
They’ve added another member for the three-week stint, a writer named Stones (Makis Papadimitriou). The great food within the center has left him with both indigestion and gas, so he visits Dr. Glock (Richard Bremmer) who warns him that he may have a life-ending bowel condition.
Have you ever watched a nude woman dance while pigs are slaughtered and chefs cook behind her? Well, get ready. And at the end of each show, the group has an audience tribute which is basically an orgy that only adds to the issues between Elle di Elle’s group, who have all been her lovers at one time. There’s also a rival group called Mangrove Snacks who are trying to sabotage everything.
Flux Gourmet is a strange film. I’m certain that a ton of people who watch it on Shudder will hate it because it’s not really horror. It’s…something. Where Strickland has made a giallo, Eurohorror and a British 70s horror movie, now he’s making a film about the inherent silliness of art movements. I didn’t exactly love it but I didn’t hate it — kind of like a high end meal where I definitely enjoyed the flavor but stopped at a convenience store to get a roller hot dog on the way home.
Why yes, director and star Richard Gabai made a sequel to Virgin High and stuck with the same concept. He plays Jerry Kaminski again — the same name as the co-writer of this movie
According to David Wain on The Schlock Pit, all it took were a few stills from Gabai’s original movie to get him to sign off on a sequel. In this one, he has a new girlfriend named Monica (Melinda Clarke, who let’s face it, Tracy Dali was very cute, but this is Melinda Clarke) who is in a convent due to hypnosis gone wrong. Now our hero has to become a priest again and get his girl out of there.
This film also has a supreme meta moment for Cannon fans, as one of the nuns in training, Sherry (Karman Kruschke), confesses to Monica that she was thinking impure thoughts about Mel Gibson. Monica replies, “It’s fine. I was thinking about Menahem Golan.” Also Bruce-sploitation star (Bloody Fists, From China with Death) Bruce Ly (also known as Yung Henry Yu) wanders in as himself and saves Gabai’s character, attacks the camera crew and then realizes that he’s in the wrong movie.
To top that: Burt Ward as the Pope, somehow topping his work in Gabai’s original.
And there’s a musical number!
I have no idea why this movie exists but I’m not sad that I watched it.
As Michael Winner was to Cannon, Albert Pyun was to 21st Century Films under Menahem Golan.
In this film, Pyun is telling us the story of Brick Bardo (Thom Matthews, who has already been Tommy Jarvis in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Livesand Freddy in Return of the Living Dead). He’s hunting down the people who killed his brother and the first is Davey O’Brien (Michel Qissi, Tong Po from Kickboxer) who he knocks out and ties up in the middle of the desert. He wants to know how his Brother was pushed into fixed kickboxing fights and murdered. In pain, Davey spills four names: Brent Caldwell (Dale Jacoby, No Retreat, No Surrender), Mike Johnson (Thunder Wolf, Shootfighter: To the Death), Billy Munoz (Benny “The Jet” Urquidez) and Connie Angel (Playboy Playmate for June 1985, Hope Marie Carlton, who is also Taryn in Andy Sidaris’ films Hard Ticket to Hawaii, Picasso Trigger and Savage Beach).
Brent also has a paerner by the name of Max Manduke — man, can Pyun put names in his movies or what? I mean, Cyborg has every character named for a guitar — who sleeps with kickboxing champion Brent and knocks him out with ether while still on top of him. Mike is running from some hooligans and Max saves him to go to Vegas. Brick kidnaps Billy’s daughter. As for Connie, she’s now an executive for the World Martial Arts Council — is this a WMAC Masters crossover? — and has been sleeping around behind her husband’s back. Brick arrives, destroys her boytoy and then knocks her out. The team of Brick and Max bring all four to Vegas. There, a kickboxing ring will be the courtroom so that they can get the answers about Wood, the dead brother, who was forced to put over Connie in a man vs. woman match.
How serious are they? Well, they already killed the promoter and as a carny who has worked for way too many bad wrestling promoters, I am full behind making Brick the hero of this movie.
Brick lays out the rules: if Mike fights him an dwins, everyone gets to go free. If Mike dies, the trial continues. Mike puts up a decent battle but just as Brick is about to, well, drop a brick on him, Billy offers what he knows. Brick responds by informing him that he already killed Billy’s little girl. Billy goes shithouse and nearly kills Brick, but he’s too emotional. As he lies there nearly knocked out, Brick claims that he will spare Billy’s son’s life if he says who set up his brother. Billy says he doesn’t know, so Brick informs him that he plans on killing his son and then, to hammer his point home, he breaks Billy’s back, killing him.
Mike pulls a knife on Max but gets shot. Brent jumps in to fight and Connie realizes from his words that he’s the guilty one. Connie, still tied up, deciphers that Brent is the one who killed Wood Wilson. Brick tells Brent, who is begging for his life, that Wood didn’t beg. He knows because he was there. Meanwhile, a nearly dead Mike hands Connie the knife.
Connie frees herself and kills Max. She faces off with Brick and learns the truth: Brick is Wood.
Huh?
He was destroyed by Brent five years ago and changed his face through plastic surgery. Connie tells him the truth: she set everything up because she was in love with him and wanted to escape the fight underground, but Wood wanted nothing of her plan. So Brick/Wood reveals that Billy’s kids are alive and they’ll be set free if she wins a fight against him. So, to affirm that this is a 90s direct to video movie, he tries to sexually assault her, so she ends up killing him.
And that’s, well, a happy ending I guess.
The name Brick Bardo also gets used in a few other Pyun movies, like Dollman, Cyborg and Radioactive Dreams. And this was probably made — I agree with the always awesome Bulletproof Action — at the same time as Pyun’s Kickboxer 2: The Road Back, which also has Qissi and Jacoby in the cast and was also choreographed by Urquidez.
As a bonus, Vincent Klyn, who was Warchild in Point Break, Fender Tremolo in Cyborg and Wild One in Double Dragon, has a brief part in this.
Directed by Stephen Cornwall (who also made Philadelphia Experiment II), who co-wrote this with Andrew Deutsch (Mercenary Fighters, Platoon Leader, River of Death) from a story by Menahem Golan, Killing Streets is about Chris Brandt (Michael Paré), who learns that his twin brother Craig has been possibly killed in action in Beirut. The government — in the form of diplomat Sandra Ross (Jennifer Runyon) and operative Charlie Wolff (Lorenzo Lamas) — has done nothing, so he decides to head over there himself and get answers.
Now, Chris is just a basketball coach, so he’s going to need some help. Luckily, Wolff comes to his side and he has an amazing cab driver named Gilad (Gabi Amrani) who is really going all out for that 5 star review. Oh yeah — being twins, Chris and Craig have a mental connection, so he knows his brother is still alive. So there’s that.
This is no Streets of Fire. But I mean, really what is? Paré is kind of wooden and double Paré means twice the wood. The last ten minutes, once everything starts blowing up real good and guns get shooting and terrorists begin to pay for their crimes, well, that’s what we wanted all along.
Born and raised in New York City, Steve James was born into an entertainment family. His dad was trumpet player Hubie James, his uncle was James Wall (Mr. Baxter on Captain Kangaroo) and his godfather was actor Jon Seneca, who often took him to 42nd Street to watch action movies.
He also crossed over from the action film genre and made stuff like Mask, Johnny Be Good, The Brother From Another Planet and by beng Kung Fu Joe in I’m Gonna Git You Sucka and its little-seen TV sequel Hammer, Slammer & Slade.
Sadly, James was often the second banana in his films but is always memorable. Even sadder, he died way too young at the age of 41 from pancreatic cancer. He was going to play Jax in the movie version of Mortal Kombat before his death and man, I can’t think of a cooler thing that could have happened.
There are two constants about James: everyone that worked with him speaks glowingly of him and Cannon fans absolutely love him. This movie is one of his few opportunities to be the lead and man, I wish we had received so many more.
James is Logan Blade — has there every been a more 90s name? — a former cop turned bounty hunter. He was blamed for several crimes as a cop and cleared, but he never went back, because he’s a man of honor. Now all he has is a trailer and a dog named Munch, a girl named Denise (Valarie Pettiford who is almost fed up with him and, well, still a job to do.
That job is to stop Angel (John Leguizamo), who leads the Diablos in a street war against another gang, the Romanos. He has a weapon to help him do exactly that in the form of Col. Walsh (Reb Brown), who surgically strikes and takes out most of his rivals in the opening. He follows up being a worthwhile asset when he rescues Angels from being transported to prison after Blade catches him.
Reb Brown never got to be a bad guy all that often and that is also a shame. He’s great in this — actually he’s pretty great in everything he did — as he wants to start a new war in the U.S. because he never got to win in Vietnam. He’s pretty much the darkside Rambo, if Rambo constantly wanted to be compared to Alexander the Great and kept referencing historical warfare. He ever tries to bring Blade over to his side, but we know that these two have to fight to the death after he kidnaps Blade’s girl.
Also, yes, Reb Brown screams pretty much for this entire movie. That’s what we want. That’s what we get.
The Romanos are led by Frank Vincent as Don Mario Romano. Vincent is pretty much required if you make a mob movie, as he also appeared as BIlly Batts in Goodfellas the same year as this movie. He was also Phil Leotardo on The Sopranos and Frank Marino in Casino.
Another actor in this, Thom Christopher*, is pretty important to me, as he was Hawk on Buck Rogers.
Yet this entire movie is all about Steve James, who dresses like a western gunslinger with a long duster and cowboy hat, walking the mean streets of New York City wiping out bad guys. This is everything I’ve ever wanted for James and it’s — again that word — sad that this was the only Street Hunter movie when this could have been a direct-to-video series that went on for a long time.
James co-wrote this movie with its director, John A. Gallagher, who is still making movies today.
*Thanks to Andrew Chamen for helping me fix the typo on this name.
In the divorce of Golan and Globus, it seems as if Menahem got not only Charles Bronson — 21st Century FIlms released Death Wish 5: The Face of Death — but also Michael Winner, who directed, co-wrote*, produced and edited this film. This would be the final collaboration between Golan and Winner.
Michael Caine and Roger Moore are Dr. Daniel Hicklar and Sir John Bavistock, nuclear physicists who believe they have invented a limitless supply of cold fusion energy. They are also con men Sidney Lipton and Gerald Bradley-Smith, who want to use their resemblance to those two men and steal their formula and get rich.
This movie has more dog sex than a Linda Lovelace loop, which should tell you the level of humor you’re about to get. At least it has a cast that you can be excited seeing when they show up, like Sally Kirkland as a former lover of both men, a closing cameo by John Cleese, Deborah Barrymore (the daughter of Moore and Italian actress Luisa Mattioli) playing a British agent named Flo Fleming, Patsy Kensit, Alexandra Pigg (star of British soap opera Brookside), Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart on Dr. Who) and Jim Bowen, who hosted the ITV game show Bullseye.
The final scenes for this film have one of the smallest crews ever on a major movie. Winner operated the camera, cameraman David Wynn-Jones held the reflector and Cleese moonlighted as the sound man as the sound recorder was concealed in a book he carried.
Caine’s agent told him not to do this movie, but he had always wanted to work with his friend Moore. His agent was probably right; he did a much better version of this movie two years earlier with Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
*The other writers were Leslie Bricusse (Doctor Dolittle, Scrooged), Nick Mead, Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran (Marks and Gran worked on the TV shows Goodnight Sweetheart and Birds of a Feather together).
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