Chattanooga Film Festival 2025 Red Eye #4: The Girl Most Likely To…(1973) and Mooch Goes to Hollywood (1971)

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The Girl Most Likely To…(1973):  My acting career pretty much begins with an appearance as Sergeant-Major Morris in The Monkey’s Paw and ends with my role as Dr. Green from this story. No, I was not in the movie. I was in a stage play version and the kiss that gave me a fatal heart attack was the first kiss I ever had from a non-family member girl. She said I tasted like a chili dog. A much cuter blonde girl offered to give me lessons after the play (and some mints).

Inspired by The Second Face, this was written by Joan Rivers and Agnes Gallin It was directed by Lee Phillips, who starred in Peyton Place and also made The Stranger Within and The Spell. It was the ABC Movie of the Week, first airing on November 6, 1973.

It’s also Stockard Channing’s first movie and she’s Miriam Knight, an intelligent young lady who is overlooked because of, well, her looks. Her roommate grows jealous when Miriam gets the lead in a stage play, so she sneak attacks her with roses. Miriam’s allergies send her running from the stage and into an accident which changes her looks and life forever.

Once the bandages come off her face, she’s a totally new girl. One who is now willing to do whatever it takes to get revenge — murderous revenge — on everyone who has ever wronged her.

The Girl Most Likely To… has a great cast, such as Ed Asner, Jim Backus, Joe Flynn from McHale’s Navy, Chuck McCann (a voice of a ton of animated characters), comedy magician Carl Ballantine, Fred Grandy from The Love Boat, CHiPs star Larry Wilcox, future director Dennis Dugan (who, before directing a LOT of Adam Sandler movies, such as Just Go with It, acted in films, such as 1980’s The Howling) and the man who would be Captain America and Yor Hunter from the Future, Reb Brown.

This is a comedy, but man, it’s a really dark one. How was my school allowed to put this play on?

Mooch Goes to Hollywood (1971): Mooch is a new girl in town, fresh off the bus to Hollywood, wanting to be a star. We’ve seen it all before, but have we seen it with Mooch being played by Higgins the Dog, whose 14 year career in Hollywood had him on Petticoat Junction and playing the original Benji. His daughter Benjean took over the role of Benji and trainer Frank Inn loved this dog so much that he had his ashes buried with him. He also wrote this poem when Higgins died:

My Gift to Jesus
by Frank Inn

I wish someone had given little Jesus
a dog as loyal and loving as mine
to sleep by His manger and gaze in His eyes
and adore Him for being divine.

As our Lord grew to manhood His own faithful dog
would have followed Him all through the day
while He preached to the crowds and made the sick well
and knelt in the garden to pray.

It is sad to remember that Christ went away
to face death alone and apart
with no tender dog following close behind
to comfort His masters heart.

And when Jesus rose on that Easter morn
how happy He would have been
as His dog kissed His hand and barked its delight
for the one who died for all men.

Well the Lord has a dog now, I just sent Him mine…
My old pal so dear to me
And I smile through my tears on this first day alone
knowing they’re in eternity.

A movie narrated by not just Richard Burton but also Zsa Zsa Gabor, this is everything I love about 1970s Hollywood. How else can you explain a movie where a dog meets Vincent Price at the Brown Derby, goes to Dino’s and the Playboy Club with Phyliss Diller, runs into Ricky Ricardo’s Jerry Hausner, James Darren, Jill St. John and Jim Backus and his wife Henny. All narrated, again, by Zsa Zsa, who is basically unintelligble.

Meanwhile, the theme song plaintively warbles about Mooch’s adventures. It sounds like the “went to see the movie, went to see the show” drive-in commerical for the snack bar.

It was directed by Richard Erdman, who was in a ton of movies and also played Leonard on Community. He also directed The Brothers O’Toole, which was the first movie produced by Sunn’s Charles Sellier Jr. Speaking of Backus, he wrote this with Jerry Devine.

Some facts: This was Edward G. Robinson’s final movie. Higgins’ various costumes were provided by Frederick’s of Hollywood. The theme song is sung by Sonny Curtis, who wrote “I Fought the Law” and would follow this by singing the theme to Benji. Man, Sonny Curtis! He was in the Crickets and stayed in the band when Buddy Holly died. He also sang “Love Is All Around,” the theme for The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

This is a movie for kids and yet Mooch becomes a stripper with Zza Zsa saying, “Keep it on. Keep it on!”

Higgins was so well trained that he learned a new trick every week.

NOTE: I said this was Edward G. Robinson’s first movie when it’s really his last. Thanks to Kris Erickson for finding the typo!

You can watch this and many other films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting reviews and articles and updating my Letterboxd list of watches.

CHATTANOOGA FILM FESTIVAL 2025: The Spirit of Halloweentown (2024)

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In 1998, the Disney Channel Original Movie Halloweentown was filmed in St. Helens, Oregon. Since then, it has seen 50,000 visitors every October, even 25 years later. Yet, just like the town in the series of Disney films—Halloweentown II: Kalabar’s Revenge, Halloweentown High and Return to Halloweentown—the locals believe that there are real hauntings. And beyond that, like any small town, there’s plenty of gossip to listen to.

Directed by Bradford Thomason and Brett Whitcomb, this film feels like a real-life Waiting for Guffman. A zombie dance is choreographed by a girl who had to drop out of dance and wants to reconnect with her father. A newcomer to the town has bought a favorite restaurant, the Klondike Tavern, and his social media mistake causes his entire staff to mutiny. A woman claims to the town council that she is being attacked in her dreams and that the town is becoming possessed by demons. A team of paranormal investigators is also investigating the hauntings they claim are real.

This film never makes fun of its subjects, instead allowing them to tell their stories. I absolutely loved this and have been raving about it to everyone I can, as it’s a perfect non-spooky way to get yourself ready for the Halloween season. Here’s hoping it finds a streaming home soon so more people can enjoy this fun hangout in a town that has embraced its history as a spooky location.

You can watch this and many other films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting reviews and articles and updating my Letterboxd list of watches.

CHATTANOOGA FILM FESTIVAL 2025: Good Night (2025)

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A young Brazilian girl, Laura (Rebecca Rosato), has come to Argentina to visit her aunt but once there, schedules don’t work out – her aunt has forgotten that she’s coming to town – and all her luggage is lost in her taxi and what follows is an all-night adventure through a crazy night, ala After Hours. Usually, it’s men that have these late night adventures, but this movie puts its female traveler into some strange places with even odder folks.

Directed by Matías Szulanski, who wrote it with Victoria Freidzon, this was quite the journey. Buenos Aires offers a strange birthday party, a broken nose and so much pizza. It feels dirty, haphazard and at the end, authentic, even if these are the kind of nights that can only happen in a movie. I really liked the look of this film. It feels like being out all night with nowhere else to go, nowhere better to be and we all know nothing good for you happens at 11 PM.

You can watch this and many other films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting reviews and articles and updating my Letterboxd list of watches.

CHATTANOOGA FILM FESTIVAL 2025: The Harbor Men (2025)

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Directed and written by Casey T. Malone, this is about Stephen Doore (Aiden White), a dock worker who refuses to be vaccinated against a strange harbor pathogen in a black and white world of conspiracies. The acting is strong and I understand the understand how we’re still trying to make sense of the pandemic that we all lived through, as well as the waking nightmare that we find ourselves in today. But a hero who refuses to be part of the program feels strange in today’s climate and I don’t know what that says about us, me or this movie. There are a lot of soliloquies that discuss the secrets that are behind the world, but so many of them seem to go nowhere, as does a lot of this film. Yes, there’s a briefcase that has spirals of something inside it. But like this film, it all feels like wisps of what could have been something more. The bones are there, the muscle and flesh covering it let me down.

You can watch this and many other films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting reviews and articles and updating my Letterboxd list of watches.

Sizzlin’ Summer of Side-Splitters 2025: Teenage Catgirls In Heat (1993)

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June 23-29 Cat Week: Cats! They’re earth’s funniest creatures (sorry chimps, you’re psychos).

Directed by Scott Perry, who wrote it with Grace Smith, this has two guys — a hitchhiker, Ralph (Dave Cox) and a cat exterminator, Warren (Gary Graves)  — up against an Egyptian god who turns cats into human women all set to procreate and take over the world.

Made for Cinemax, this has people dressed as cats, The Great Litter being the name for the end of the world, and yeah, it’s a Troma movie, so it wastes that great title without being interesting or funny. More fun to make than watch, I think.

CHATTANOOGA FILM FESTIVAL 2025: Hacked: A Double Entendre of Rage Fueled Karma (2025)

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Less a movie and more a true confession – director and writer Shane Brady and his wife Emily Zercher really did lose money in the same way as a hacker stole $20,000 of their money as they bought their first house  – Hacked is them living out what they wish really did happen. Or as the filmmakers say, ““The first ten minutes of this film are based on true events. The rest is what we wish we could have done to that bastard.”

Mark Rumble (Brady) and his wife Amy (Augie Duke) are getting through the pandemic, even if it means selling vacuums to people they are terrified of. Their kids Freddy (Collin Thompson) and Ralph (Owen Atlas) are unfazed – this is a time to play. They’ve seen through the lies of the world and just want to make their videos. And play a video game that causes them to abuse The Chameleon (Walking Dead’s Chandler Riggs), the most wanted hacker in Florida. In response to the ways that they troll him, he steals the family’s downpayment on a new house. The bank doesn’t care. The police can’t do much. And now they’re living in a motel and Mark is forced to donate bone marrow to make ends meet.

Working with CIA agents Nova (Mia Castillo) and Kate (Katelyn Nacon), they plan on taking down the hacker, who has done so many horrible things, including stealing a giant axe like the one in the game the brothers are obsessed by.

I also enjoyed Brady’s Breathing Happy and this is even better. Richard Riehle as Santa? Two brothers whose videos abuse almost everyone they meet? Revenge on banks and those who take advantage of people? I mean, maybe $20,000 isn’t a lot of money to you, but to the average person, it’s life-changing.

This is the kind of film that I love. It’s what I call a hijinks ensue movie. The idea is basic: a hacker goes after a family and erases their lives and steals their cash. But the rest is in those hijinks: moments of sheer lunacy, goofball over the top humor that you can come into and watch at any time. Hacked is a movie made for lazy Sundays, lying on the couch and coming into it wherever you end up, knowing the great parts about to happen. That’s about as high a compliment as I can give.

You can watch this and many other films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting reviews and articles and updating my Letterboxd list of watches.

JUNESPLOITATION: Visa to Hell (1991)

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June 24: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Hong Kong Action!

A cop played by Jiu Mou (Lam Wai) wants to catch a criminal, Black Panther, played by this movie’s director, Dick Wei. It gets personal when the killer wipes out the cop’s family. When he finally corners the bad guy, instead of facing up to his punishment, the Triad member jumps to his death. That won’t stop our hero cop, who finds a Taoist priest and goes the whole way to Hell to get his revenge.

In Hell, you can shoot people, which is going to be great when all the people who thought they were following Jesus over the past few years but were in a cult that didn’t follow any of His teachings all die. It’s also awesome news for Jiu Mou, who is fighting ninjas, demons, Dracula and Black Panther, who is working for the Ghost King, a man who runs part of Hell. Also: Hell has a place where you can chill, drink beer and watch women dance.

At least Jiu Mou’s family all get umbrellas and can fly to heaven. Hell looks a lot like Earth, though, and there, everyone has the same problems they had up above. Sounds like Hell, right?

CHATTANOOGA FILM FESTIVAL 2025: Four Evil Deeds (2024)

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Directed and written by Richard Peter Hunter, this is , quite simply, a movie about people being bad. Six people give in to their impulses; this can happen no matter your station in life, whether you’re an ex-con trying to get back to a normal life outside of jail or a rich lawyer in a dead marriage.

Shot on digital video, this feels like life being captured, even if the way the screen fades to black instead of a resolution may frustrate some. My issue with it was that the BDSM was used as an indicator of weirdness or sin; yes, it’s someone cheating on their life and at odds with what they preach, but the desires of this lifestyle aren’t inherently wrong. This came off as a vanilla judgement.

It’s exclusively men behaving badly here, from a dry cleaner who misreads signals and touches a co-worker to a minister obsessed with dead mice, a stray cat and pornography. Some of these evil deeds may just be mistakes. Others are sins. I wonder if we’re complicit for judging between them.

You can watch this and many other films at CFF by buying a pass on their website. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting reviews and articles and updating my Letterboxd list of watches.

ARROW 4K UHD RELEASE: Cobra (1986)

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Crime is the disease. He’s the cure.

I’ve opined that if we compare the two God-tier action stars—Arnold and Sly—Arnold may have the best overall catalog, but Stallone has the better individual films. One wins the battle, the other wins the war. Or, as he’d say, “Don’t push it, or I’ll give you war you won’t believe.”

Somehow, Stallone was going to be in Beverly Hills Cop and wanted it to be not so funny. Then he wanted to be in an adaptation of Fair Game by Paula Gosling—which got made nine years later, and the less said, the better—and then he ended up making a movie that pretty much is every 80s over-the-top—no pun intended—action movie cliche all in one film.

And you know what? It’s great.

Like, honestly, non-ironically great.

It’s Stallone suddenly deciding what if a slasher movie broke out in the middle of a one cop against the world movie? Zombie Squad cop Marion Cobretti against an entire cult of lunatics called The New World, led by the Night Slasher (Brian Thompson, who had to buy his own ticket to see the film), all to save the life of Ingrid Knudsen (Brigitte Nielsen)? Do you have any idea how many times I watched this movie? Stallone stealing Steve McQueen lines and saying, “This is where the law stops and I start, sucker!” is the kind of thing that made a young me continually watch and rewatch and take notes.

There’s a two-hour-plus X-rated — for violence — cut of this movie that I’m dying to see. Throat cuttings, hands sliced clean off, children discovering said hands, David Rasche getting killed with axes and an extended ending — these are the things I want to see!

Stallone has talked about making a sequel with Robert Rodriguez — as late as 2019 — but it just seems like cutting the robot out of Rocky IV, Sly sometimes likes to play with my heart.

In case you think George P. Cosmatos’ name is familiar, his son — using the royalties from this movie — would go on to make Mandy and Beyond the Black Rainbow. And I’m not the only fan of this movie, as Nicolas Winding Refn used a toothpick in the hero’s mouth in Drive to show his fandom.

So, how is this Cannon? After all, the Cannon logo isn’t anywhere in the movie. Golan and Globus only get a production credit, as it was mostly a Warner Bros. movie, but they got that title in return for voiding a prior agreement the Cannon had with Stallone.

Finally: I am a movie gun nut, so just like another Cannon actor, Charles Bronson, Stallone had his own custom gun made for this movie, a 9mm Colt Gold Cup National Match 1911 that fires Glaser Safety Slugs. This bullet was designed in 1974 in response to the possibility of having to use a handgun on an airplane by the Sky Marshals and having to deal with ricochets on hard surfaces and possible excess penetration. It’s a pre-fragmented bullet that uses a traditional copper jacket, which means that instead of a solid lead core like conventional hollow-point ammunition, it has a compressed core of lead shot.

It does not shoot through schools.

Finally, action movies are mirrors upon themselves. While Cobra reunites Dirty Harry actors Andrew Robinson and Reni Santoni, Sylvester Levay’s song “The Chase” would end up in trailers for Bloodsport and Marked for Death.

The Arrow Video release of Cobra has a brand new 4K restoration of the film from the original 35mm negative by Arrow Films. There are two new commentary tracks, one by film critics Kim Newman and Nick de Semlyen and the other by film scholars Josh Nelson and Martyn Pedler, as well as an archival audio commentary by director George P. Cosmatos. Plus, there’s a TV version of the film featuring deleted and alternate scenes, presented for the first time on home video (standard definition only), a new interview with composer Sylvester Levay, visual essays by film critics Abbey Bender and Martyn Conterio, archival interviews with Brian Thompson, Marco Rodriguez, Andrew Robinson, Lee Garlington and Art LaFleur as well as a making of, trailers, TV commercials and an image gallery. Plus, you get it all inside a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tommy Pocket, as well as an illustrated collector’s booklet containing new writing on the film by film critics Clem Bastow, William Bibbiani, Priscilla Page and Ariel Schudson and a double-sided fold-out poster.

You can order it from MVD.

Sizzlin’ Summer of Side-Splitters 2025: Catnado (2022)

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June 23-29 Cat Week: Cats! They’re earth’s funniest creatures (sorry chimps, you’re psychos).

Why did I watch this? Well, look at the directors and you can pick out the ones I would be obsessed by: Curtis Everitt, Donald Farmer, Alaine Huntington, Blair Kelly, James M. Myers, Melvin Pittman, Tim Ritter, Jerry Williams and Logan Winton.

That’s right, Farmer and Ritter.

I mean, even on the line that describes it on IMDB, it doesn’t even make the effort: It’s like Sharknado, but with cats.

It’s also an anthology as so much microbudget horror seems to be these days. I mean, cats do abuse a priest in it, so there’s that. I imagine there;s a YouTube category for that. I do have a weakness for stuff like this, usually if it has a Ouija board or is in Amityville or has a shark, but I’m trying to do this cat movie challenge and how many Garfield movies can one man watch?

I expected nothing from this and was awarded in abundence.

The cover looks nice, the actual cartoon isn’t all that horrible, and cats are always fun to watch. There, I’ve said a few nice things. At least everyone got paid.

You can watch this on Tubi.