Jeff Krulik’s films — Mr. Blassie Goes to Washington, Led Zeppelin Played Here, Ernest Borgnine On the Bus — show a deep love and fear, often at the same time, for pop culture.

The film itself is simple: a group of young metal fans get inordinately wasted while waiting to get in to a Judas Priest/Dokken concert at the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland on May 31, 1986. Everything captured is real and that’s what makes it pure magic.

This film was a VHS bootleg fave for years until music rights issues were cleared up. Since then, follow-ups and sequels — Heavy Metal Picnic and Neil Diamond Parking Lot — have been made.  But the fact that you can easily find this movie now does not dilute its magical power. The sad truth is that probably all of these kids, including the ones who wanted to have rough sex with Glenn Tipton, have all grown up and are afraid of the next wave of music that came in its wake, as well as still out partying without masks or social distancing.

I will say, a youth of metal shows proves to me that none of this is fake. I lived this life. I had a girlfriend who tried to bring a pound of weed inside a glass jar inside a show once. I burned my feet  because Three Rivers Stadium’s field was so hot during Monsters of Rock — yes, Rokken with Dokken. And while I’ve never been so drunk that I don’t remember a show, I used to have a roommate that would routinely piss his pants instead of leaving the front row.

You can watch this on Tubi or YouTube.

Mark Lester can do a buddy cop movie. But a comedy? A movie that starts with John Candy’s character sent up the river and Eugene Levy as the worst lawyer ever throwing himself on the mercy of a judge — Stacy Keach Sr.! — to keep the mob from killing him, with Candy in a Bill Murray role instead of the likable everyman?

If anyone can handle it, it’s Lester.

With no job prospects, Dooley and Kane (Candy and Levy) apply for work at Guard Dog Security, run by Captain Clarence O’Connell (Kenneth McMillan, Cat’s Eye) and supervised by Maggie Cavanaugh (an impish and delightful Meg Ryan).

Their first night on the job, some goons take advantage of them when lead guard Bruno makes our heroes take a break. He’s Tiny Lister, better known as Zeus from No Holds Barred and Deebo in the Friday movies.

This launches them on a quest to see who has set them up — again in Candy’s case — you get plenty of great casting to help the story move, a hallmark of Lester’s work. There’s Robert Loggia as corrupt union head Michael Carlino, Brion James and Johnathan Banks (both strangely with full heads of hair) as his goons, James Tolkan (Strickland from Back to the Future), Don Stroud (Stunts), Steve Railsback (Turkey Shoot) pretty much playing the same character as he did as Manson in Helter Skelter, Tony Burton (Duke from Rocky), Teagan Clive (yes, Bimbo Cop from Vice Academy 2 and The Alienator), Tito Puente, Judy Landers (Dr. Alien!), Christine Dupree (who was one of the models for the aborted video game Tattoo Assassins) and even a blink and you’ll miss him appearance by David Hess as a gunman.

You may watch this and say, “Robert Loggia has a nice, if familiar house.” That’s because Jed Clampett used to live there. The Sport Pit, the gym that gets messed up in the film, is also in the same strip mall that D-Fens shot up the phone booth in Falling Down.

By all accounts, this movie sounded like a mess to make. Originally written by Harold Ramis as a vehicle for Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, it was resurrected by producer Brian Grazer.

Candy and Tom Hanks were cast, but Hanks dropped out, and Candy recommended Eugene Levy. Of all people, John Carpenter was initially attached to direct.

Ramis disliked the final film, saying: “It was not good. I tried to take my name off it. I took my name off in one place.” That said, he’s credited as a screenwriter, despite his demands.

As for Grazer, Lester demanded that John Candy call Meg Ryan a bitch in a scene. Candy refused, Lester walks and Grazer had to finish directing for the day. Keep in mind, this is an alleged story.

It’s an alright movie that moves fast enough. It doesn’t feel like Lester’s other films, but that may be because of studio pressures. I had difficulty locating a copy and the one I did find had Russian actors speaking over the English soundtrack, even reading out loud the credits. I think it made this a much better film.

Catherine (Florence Guerin, Faceless, Too Beautiful to Die, Demons 6: De Profundis) is an adult magazine model who is being stalked over the phone. That’s not as bad as some of the other girls she works with. After all, they’re not just getting heavy breathing. They’re getting killed.

Brigitte Lahaie is in this, pretty much a perfect fit for her background. She rose from the X-rated films of France to be recognized by Jean Rollin, who cast her in his films The Grapes of Death and Fascination. This also makes sense as to why Claude Mulot directed this, as the majority of his career was also in adult films. He’d die a few years later in a drowning accident. He also made The Blood Rose, a film so close to a Jess Franco movie that Troy Howarth would say in So Deadly, So Perverse: Giallo-Style Films from Around the World Volume 3, “one would be forgiven for thinking that Franco had made it himself.”

This doesn’t do anything special or different than any other giallo. Both Guerin and Lahaie would make Franco’s Faceless soon after, a much better film.

This 1986 late model Italian giallo — with a title that translates as The House of Good Returns  — was written, directed and produced by Beppe Cino. It is the only horror movie he’s made.

Twenty years ago, a young girl died here. Now, Luca and his fiancee Margit have come back, reopening old memories and unleashing Ayesha, a mysterious woman, and a series of killings.

Yes, Luca killed that girl accidentally when she put on a mask to frighten him. But now, that very same Onibaba mask is being worn by a killer. Of course, that mask comes directly from the 1964 film Onibaba, but this a film that shows its influences for all to see, like large chunks taken from Deep Red. But hey — remixing is art, after all, and this movie looks great, feels like a dream sequence and is the only giallo I’ve ever seen with music that would fit better into a Woody Allen film.

While this was released on VHS in countries like Italy, Spain (The House of No Return) and Germany (The House of the Blue Shadows), it was never put out on DVD until its 2020 TetroVideo reissue. It still hasn’t been dubbed into English. In a strange way, it’s Japanese look reminds me of another completely off-kilter movie that makes dream logic sense, Blood Beat.

Also known as Florence! The Killer is Still Among Us and The Killer Has Returned, you have to admire the chutzpah — or the gall — of a film to have the disclaimer “This film was made as a warning to young people and with the hope that it will be of use to law enforcement to bring these ferocious killers to justice,” after you’ve just watched 83 minutes of a killer graphically mutilating women and their most intimate of parts, as if this were some bid to outdo Giallo  In Venice or The New York Ripper.

Based on the true story of the Florence serial killer “The Monster of Florence,” this was written by Ernesto Gastaldi (The Whip and the Body, All the Colors of the Dark, My Name Is Nobody) and Giuliano Carnimeo (who directed four of the Sartana films under the alias Anthony Ascott, as well as The Case of the Bloody Iris, Exterminators of the Year 3000 and Ratman).

Directing this movie — and helping with the script — would be Camillio Teti, who produced The Dead Are Alive and Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi’s attempt at a non-mondo, the ironically named Mondo Candideo.

Much like a scene out of Maniac, a couple on lover’s lane is blown away mid-aardvark by a gloved killer. What separates the uomini from the ragazzi is that the killer then uses a knife and a tree branch to do things that made me turn my head from the screen for an extended period of time.

Christiana Marelli has been studying the killer in criminology class to the displeasure of her boyfriend, the cops and her teachers. This leads to her being stalked via phone and in person by the killer. Of course, seeing as how Alex, that formerly mentioned boyfriend, is never around during these killings, you can see why she starts thinking he could be Il Mostro.

The film moves from the giallo into the supernatural as our heroine attends a seance where the medium has a vision of the killer decimating a camping couple, soon developing the same wound that the victims just received.

What does Christina do? Run to the theater to see if Alex is there or not, proving that while he is waiting for her, he certainly could still be the killer. If I were her professor, I’d have given her a zero out of thirty.

After all this, she just sits down to watch a movie with him and it ends up being the same film we’ve just been watching. That’s either a huge cop out or just how you expect a giallo to end.

This is Penny Marshall’s directorial debut. She replaced Howard Zieff, the director of the two My Girl movies, and the script — originally intended for Shelley Long when people actually thought she’d be likable enough to open a movie — was rewritten as the movie was shot. You know how Hollywood works. If you can’t get Shelley Long, get Whoopi Goldberg.

Whoopi is Terry Doolittle, a computer operator at a Manhattan bank surrounded by really funny people like Carol Kane, Jon Lovitz and Phil Hartman. You also get minor parts for Tracy Ullman, Annie Potts, Jim Belushi and Michael McKean.

The story itself is a Cold War spy movie that has computers do things that they could not do in 1986. There are also more Rolling Stones references than just the title, if you’re looking for a movie with those kinds of things.

Is it sad that I know that Jonathan Pryce, who plays Jack, was also the President in two G.I. Joe movies?

Somehow, in the midst of quarantine, I was subjected to two Penny Marshall movies. This means that I have the horrifying Awakenings and Riding In Cars with Boys before COVID-19 is done.

Bert Convy directed one movie. This is it.

The rest of the world doesn’t remember it. I’d like to celebrate it for you, as it’s a monument to the late night cable stupidity that I spend a good chunk of my teen years on. Who am I lying to? I’ve spent a good portion of my life watching movies like this.

When TV Guide reviewed this movie, they said, “Honestly, there isn’t one moment in this alleged comedy that anyone over the age of seven would find even remotely funny.”

When I reviewed this movie, I stood on my couch and screamed, “I love Vic Tayback!” like some kind of imbecile.

Also known as Hollywood Air Force, this film is all about the adventures of Hollywood actors, stuntmen and writers who have been drafted into military service during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

After getting in trouble, they must pass an inspection or be sent to actual military service. Led by Vince Tucker (Chris Lemmon), they use movie magic to appear that they look like they know what they’re doing.

In addition to the beloved Tayback, Lloyd Bridges, Matt McCoy (Sgt. Nick Lassard, of course), Tom Villard from We Got It Made and Deep Roy — yes, Fellini from Flash Gordon — all appear.

If you’re the kind of TV junkie who would get excited when E.Z. Taylor from the Three’s Company spin-off Three’s A Crowd shows up, much less also know that he was Kevin in The Final Terror, then this is a movie that you should come over to watch with me after this pandemic ends. Or maybe we’ll just watch it over the internet.

Mayor Bagley learns that the governor is coming to his town of Clam Cove  to announce that they’re getting a freeway. To make sure nothing goes wrong, he demands that Police Chief McGruder (Mike McDonald, who was also in Oddballs and Screwballs II) add more people to the police force. That means that anyone can be a cop. And before you can ask, “Isn’t this almost the same movie as Police Academy?” I’m ready to answer that this is a Canadian tax shelter movie made in Ottawa’s Wasaga Beach, just like Fireballs, which was filmed at the same time.

If you want to win a trivia contest — actually I don’t know who would ask this question — this would be Lolita Davidovich’s third movie. It’s also the first movie for Jon Mikl Thor, who would make Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare the very next year.

Director Rafal Zielinski would also make two Screwballs movies, as well as State Park, which you know that I’ve watched several times. He also made Spellcaster, which has Adam Ant, DJ Richard Blade and Traci Lind from Fright Night Part 2. You better believe I’m hunting that movie down as you read this.

The writer behind this is Charlie Wiener, who wrote and directed a bogus ’80s SOV horror that’s actually a Canadian TV movie called Blue Murder, and a martial arts movie Dragon Hunt, in addition to writing Screwball Hotel, so let me assure you — his scumbag skills are in full effect here. And don’t confuse the Hotel one with Screwball Academy.

Recruits comes and goes from You Tube — here’s the latest age-restricted sign-in upload.

Penelope Spheeris made Wayne’s World, which is what so many know her for. Me, I remember when she made the three The Decline of Western Civilization movies. I would also like to forget that she made The Beverly Hillbillies and The Little Rascals.

She also made this movie about a vice squad that battles drug dealers and pornographers. In fact, three different teams of Hollywood Vice Squad officers work on three separate cases which include mob-run betting parlor, a bondage porn director and an old gangster who runs a teenage prostitution ring. Yes, there’s something here for the whole family.

Officers Chang (Evan C. Kim, Loo from The Kentucky Fried Movie) and Stevens (Joey Travolta) are two of the cops and their game is to act like Chang is a tourist. Things go too far when one of the girls ends up being a man with a knife, leading to a tense moment.

There’s also Officer Melton (Carris Fisher), who the boys — Jensen (Ronny Cox), Chavez and Miller — don’t trust to go after a BDSM director on her own.

Oh yeah — Pauline Stanton (Trish Van DeVere, the widow of George C. Scott) is looking for her daughter (Robin Wright), who has been kidnapped by James Walsh, owner of Pretty Girl Escorts. You know what I say: Never trust someone played by Frank Gorshin.

One of the other cops is played by Leon Isaac Kennedy, who was in all the Penitentiary movies as Martel “Too Sweet” Gordone. He should know something about vice, as he’s one of the first celebrities to have a sex tape leak, albeit one with his then-wife Jayne Kennedy.

Hard Boiled Haggerty is also in this, as he is in every movie that needed a bald henchman that Richard Moll had no interest in. He’s a former pro wrestler that shows up in more movies than you can imagine — everything from Paint Your Wagon to Earthquake, Deathsport and Rad.

Actually, I recognize so many people here. There’s Cec Verrell from Hell Comes to Frogtown. Beau Starr — yes, Sheriff Ben Meeker — is here. Julius Harris — Gravedigger from Darkman and Tee Hee Johnson from Live and Let Die is about the place. And Sandra Crisp, who was also known as Goddess Bunny, a drag queen star who survived a horrifying foster family and polio.

Kenneth Peters also wrote Vice Squad. No relation and no Wings Hauser.

This movie is, charitably, a mess. Fisher realized that and used it as the inspiration for the movie within her book Postcards from the Edge. But hey — you may like it. Check it out on Amazon Prime or Tubi.