PM ENTERTAINMENT's 'T!TS ON FIRE' 1996 TWO-FER! 001.- RIOT (DVD). Streaming on ROKU CHANNEL, FAWESOME.
Remember the opening minute of 1993's "Demolition Man," when the future Los Angeles of 1996 had the Hollywood sign on fire and the entire city was a warzone? "Riot" is the urban disaster movie taking place at the beginning of Stallone's future flick. L.A. is burning from yet another racial unrest-fueled civilian riot on Christmas Eve. Amidst the burning buildings and brutal assaults, the daughter of the British ambassador (Paige Rowland) is carjacked and kidnapped by black thugs who demand $2 million in ransom. So the FBI man in charge (Charles Napier) sends for Major Shane Alcott (Gary Daniels) and his helicopter pilot pal Major Williams (Sugar Ray Leonard) to fly Alcott into the heart of the riot area, drop him and the money, then pick Alcott and the ambassador's daughter (who just happens to be Shane's ex) after the ransom's paid. Everything goes wrong (naturally), and the couple must survive a night of constant life-threatening assaults on their lives.
Directed by the 'M' in 'PM Entertainment' (Joseph Mehri), "Riot" has some of the most insane and explosion/fire-filled stunt work ever seen in a DTV flick. While it isn't the best-written screnplay (characters are introduced and then dropped without resolution, we switch villains at the halfway mark, there are action gags that border on "Naked Gun"-style silliness, etc.) and some of the small budget constraints show (that toy helicopter on fire! 😯🙄), Gary Daniels is a beast as a British military guy that kicks/punches all the asses while dodging exploding cars and RPG missiles. And even though he's only in the flick briefly, we do get to see boxing great Sugar Ray Leonard beat the crap out of a MAGA-like softball team of racist dads at a bar open during the riots. 😨 It helps that the racial subtext surrounds the action/story, but most of the thugs Daniels fights are like themed gangs from "The Warriors": hockey gang, motorcycle gang, IRA gang (led by a beret-wearing Patrick Kilpatrick), etc. Other than some boring downtime between the action set-pieces, "Riot" is so good it goes next to "Die Hard" in my personal Christmas action short list. 5 STUNT BIKE DRIVERS SET ON FIRE CHASING GARY DANIELS (out of five).
002.- SKYSCRAPER (DVD). Streaming on TUBI, FAWESOME.
No, not the Dwayne Johnson blockbuster action vehicle. The one where Anna Nicole Smith pilots an L.A. charter helicopter, has three nude scenes (one where she's r@ped by a thug! 😰) showing off her ginormous b@@bs and is forced by circumstances to become a John McClain badass, complete with jumping-off-top-of-building-with-strapped-around-her-waist-falling-thingie stunt and some shootouts. Everyone in the cast is such a bad actor you almost wonder if it's done on purpose to make ANS's horrendous acting ('I want a baby!') look normal by comparison. The terrorist leader (Charles Huber's Fairfax) is such an unlikable a-hole (non-stop Shakespeare quotes), you're glad when ANS judo kicks him off the building. One glorious exception to the bad acting is Daron McBee (Malibu on the 1980's "American Gladiators" TV show), who loves to show off his mane in slow-mo as he shamelessly mugs while being a bloodthirsty terrorist. Some great stunts/explosions (an opening limousine assault in an alley, RPG missiles fired at firefighters, etc.), but the bad comes close to outweighing the good. It's a shit show, but it's my kind of PM Entertainment shit show. 3 PANTS' HOLES IN DETECTIVE WINK'S CROTCH AREA (out of five).
Hitting the PM Entertainment options already, I see. That is one category I still have not decided on yet. I was leaning toward Cyber Tracker, but Riot sounds like a good time.
Director Harold Becker gave Alec Baldwin one of his best acting roles in 1993's "Malice" ('You ask me if I have a God complex. Let me tell you something: I am God.'). So naturally, when Becker got to direct Bruce Willis in "Mercury Rising," he brought Alec on board as the leader of a shadowy government organization trying to keep secret codes that hide government undercover agents' identities (or something to that effect) from coming to light... even if it means murdering the autistic little kid (Miko Hughes' Simon) that cracked the code by reading it in a puzzle book. Convoluted story notwithstanding, before 2016's "The Accountant," this was considered one of the best portrayals of autism in a Hollywood movie. Miko Hughes is so good that his outbursts and temper tantrums actually make already tense scenes even more harrowing to watch. Though the action is infrequent (a bridge shootout here, an ambulance chase there, etc.) and some of the special effects wanting (green screen on a train, a helicopter on a rooftop... YIKES!), Bruce Willis sells the determination his FBI character has to not let the mistakes from his past (an opening scene where innocent young people died while he was undercover) repeat with Simon. Even mediocre stories come across so much stronger when Willis' characters are engaged, something we took for granted back in the 90's. 3.25 CHI McBRIDE CARS REPORTED STOLEN (out of five).
BONUS: 30 DAYS OF PINK PANTHER & FRIENDS, DAY 1! 005.- THE PINK PANTHER (1963, KINO LORBER 4K UHD). Also streaming on PRIME, TUBI, PLUTO, ROKU TV, YOUTUBE.
My turn to pull a Mac McEntire. 😉🤨
The most successful comedy movie series of all time (11 theatrical features, hundreds of animated shorts, an enduring IP, and a Henry Mancini-composed theme song that rivals the Monty Norman-composed 007 theme in pop culture mindshare) started life as a humble European-bound, jet set, comedic heist flick. David Niven plays Sir Charles Lyton, notorious high society womanizer that moonlights as a jewel thief ('The Phantom') inching his way toward stealing 'The Pink Panther' diamond from can't-hold-her-liquor 'Princess' (Claudia Cardinale, whose 'Meglio Stasera' music/dance number is a showstopper) while both stay at the same Italian sky resort. And Lyton would have gotten away with it with the help of his secret helper/lover Simone (Capucine) had it not been for (a) Charles' nephew George (Robert Wagner) showing up unannounced to meddle in his uncle's thievery/womanizing business, and (b) Simone's husband Jacques Clouseau (Peter Sellers) bumbling his way as a clueless French inspector trying to nab The Phantom.
ANIMATED INTRO OPENING: 4 'ELAB SDRAWED' ANAGRAMS (out of five). The Panther has claws that would be removed for future intros/cartoons, but the smoking pose is so striking it made it into all the 60's and 70's animated shorts' opening curtains. David H. DePatie and Friz Freleng's animated opening credits kick-started a popular theatrical/TV cartoon franchise, it's that good. The title song's an all-time banger from the first note to the last for a reason: Henry Mancini rules. 😎
MOVIE RATING: 3.35 TIGER RUGS WITH DRUNK PRINCESSES ON TOP (out of five).
And the chase is afooot. Try to keep up, you dirty mother effers! 🤗
A fun start to Junesploitation! It is obvious that the budget for this was not large, but a professional like Lester, with classics like Class of 1984 and Commando on his resume, knew how to make the dollars stretch. In order to deal with lawless areas where gangs are running rampant, a new program is instituted in Seattle to test teaching robots in high schools with the skills to fight unruly students. Unfortunately for the students, the teachers start to go too far in punishing them. It is up to the gangs to challenge these formidable foes. The action gets charmingly stupid at certain moments, and the quick pacing seldom lets up. With a cast that includes Pam Grier, Malcolm McDowell, and Stacy Keach, I knew this would be film worth checking out. Overall, Class of 1999 is a slick, action-packed production that I would have loved to rent or see on cable back in the early 1990s.
You can also file Class of 1999 under Teenagers! and Exploitation Auteurs! this month.
I love that, by the end (when Patrick Kilpatrick sheds his human skin), the movie's climax goes full-on "Terminator" with the hydraulics and robot splatter/gore. Ironically the school building that explodes at the end is now... an active school with good standing in its Seattle community. 😳🤔
Joe Huff (Brian Bosworth), a tough cop who plays by his own rules but gets results (exemplified by the opening scene where he foils a supermarket robbery and trashes the whole place while doing it), is tasked with infiltrating a biker gang led by Chains Cooper (Lance Henriksen) and suspected of drug trafficking and several murders. Adopting the name John Stone, Huff proceeds to play by his own rules and get results.
Set in an alternate dimension where any vehicle will immediately explode on contact (or more accurately half a second before contact), this movie delights with car chases, motorcycle chases, shootouts, fistfights, toxic masculinity, weird mullets, and more explosions than you can shake a stick at, culminating in a ridiculous finale where Stone sends a motorcycle out of a window and into a helicopter, which promptly explodes just before the bike touches it.
Henriksen give a great performance as the menacing, subtly unhinged gang leader, and Sam McMurray is fun as Stone's neurotic handler. Meanwhile Brian Bosworth looks like he's gonna hurt himself trying to convey emotion.
I don’t know if I started this well or horribly with the 166 minute International Gorillay. All I know is I’m already off my original plan with questionable results. Cut 90 minutes out of this and you have a banger, but you kind of have a banger anyway. The Islamic world is under threat from a devious plot to build casinos and discos masterminded by real life author of The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie. Rushdie is played by some guy named Afzaal Ahmad who is better at looking evil than he is at looking like Salman Rushdie, not that anyone who values their life would want to look like Salman Rushdie. This becomes a man on a mission film of sorts to take out the evil Rushdie before he corrupts Pakistan forever. 2 hours and change later, a dozen flying Qurans surround Rushdie and shoot him with laser beams. Where’s the Vinegar Syndrome 4K? I’d buy it day 1 and probably never watch it.
I don’t know if I started this well or horribly with the 166 minute International Gorillay. All I know is I’m already off my original plan with questionable results. Cut 90 minutes out of this and you have a banger, but you kind of have a banger anyway. The Islamic world is under threat from a devious plot to build casinos and discos masterminded by real life author of The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie. Rushdie is played by some guy named Afzaal Ahmad who is better at looking evil than he is at looking like Salman Rushdie, not that anyone who values their life would want to look like Salman Rushdie. This becomes a man on a mission film of sorts to take out the evil Rushdie before he corrupts Pakistan forever. 2 hours and change later, a dozen flying Qurans surround Rushdie and shoot him with laser beams. Where’s the Vinegar Syndrome 4K? I’d buy it day 1 and probably never watch it.
IT HAS BEGUN!
ReplyDeletePM ENTERTAINMENT's 'T!TS ON FIRE' 1996 TWO-FER!
001.- RIOT (DVD). Streaming on ROKU CHANNEL, FAWESOME.
Remember the opening minute of 1993's "Demolition Man," when the future Los Angeles of 1996 had the Hollywood sign on fire and the entire city was a warzone? "Riot" is the urban disaster movie taking place at the beginning of Stallone's future flick. L.A. is burning from yet another racial unrest-fueled civilian riot on Christmas Eve. Amidst the burning buildings and brutal assaults, the daughter of the British ambassador (Paige Rowland) is carjacked and kidnapped by black thugs who demand $2 million in ransom. So the FBI man in charge (Charles Napier) sends for Major Shane Alcott (Gary Daniels) and his helicopter pilot pal Major Williams (Sugar Ray Leonard) to fly Alcott into the heart of the riot area, drop him and the money, then pick Alcott and the ambassador's daughter (who just happens to be Shane's ex) after the ransom's paid. Everything goes wrong (naturally), and the couple must survive a night of constant life-threatening assaults on their lives.
Directed by the 'M' in 'PM Entertainment' (Joseph Mehri), "Riot" has some of the most insane and explosion/fire-filled stunt work ever seen in a DTV flick. While it isn't the best-written screnplay (characters are introduced and then dropped without resolution, we switch villains at the halfway mark, there are action gags that border on "Naked Gun"-style silliness, etc.) and some of the small budget constraints show (that toy helicopter on fire! 😯🙄), Gary Daniels is a beast as a British military guy that kicks/punches all the asses while dodging exploding cars and RPG missiles. And even though he's only in the flick briefly, we do get to see boxing great Sugar Ray Leonard beat the crap out of a MAGA-like softball team of racist dads at a bar open during the riots. 😨 It helps that the racial subtext surrounds the action/story, but most of the thugs Daniels fights are like themed gangs from "The Warriors": hockey gang, motorcycle gang, IRA gang (led by a beret-wearing Patrick Kilpatrick), etc. Other than some boring downtime between the action set-pieces, "Riot" is so good it goes next to "Die Hard" in my personal Christmas action short list. 5 STUNT BIKE DRIVERS SET ON FIRE CHASING GARY DANIELS (out of five).
002.- SKYSCRAPER (DVD). Streaming on TUBI, FAWESOME.
ReplyDeleteNo, not the Dwayne Johnson blockbuster action vehicle. The one where Anna Nicole Smith pilots an L.A. charter helicopter, has three nude scenes (one where she's r@ped by a thug! 😰) showing off her ginormous b@@bs and is forced by circumstances to become a John McClain badass, complete with jumping-off-top-of-building-with-strapped-around-her-waist-falling-thingie stunt and some shootouts. Everyone in the cast is such a bad actor you almost wonder if it's done on purpose to make ANS's horrendous acting ('I want a baby!') look normal by comparison. The terrorist leader (Charles Huber's Fairfax) is such an unlikable a-hole (non-stop Shakespeare quotes), you're glad when ANS judo kicks him off the building. One glorious exception to the bad acting is Daron McBee (Malibu on the 1980's "American Gladiators" TV show), who loves to show off his mane in slow-mo as he shamelessly mugs while being a bloodthirsty terrorist. Some great stunts/explosions (an opening limousine assault in an alley, RPG missiles fired at firefighters, etc.), but the bad comes close to outweighing the good. It's a shit show, but it's my kind of PM Entertainment shit show. 3 PANTS' HOLES IN DETECTIVE WINK'S CROTCH AREA (out of five).
Hitting the PM Entertainment options already, I see. That is one category I still have not decided on yet. I was leaning toward Cyber Tracker, but Riot sounds like a good time.
Delete'I MISS BRUCE WILLIS GIVING A S***' DOUBLE FEATURE!
ReplyDelete003.- STRIKING DISTANCE (1993, ROKU CHANNEL). Also streaming on NETFLIX.
I had vague memories of TV ads promoting this as an action movie set on boats in the rivers around Pittsburgh. To my surprise, this turned out to be more of a police/serial killer procedural drama, one that starts with a hell of a car chase that shows off the locations and director Rowdy Herrington's "Road House" action bona fides. Bruce Willis plays Tom Hardy, an honest-to-a-fault cop (who ratted on his dirty cop bestie), convinced a serial killer is not only at large, but that he's also a police officer who knows his department's MO. Demoted to river patrol, Hardy and new partner Sarah Jessica Parker (cue the 'women in the police force' early 90's clichés) must work together when bodies being dumped in the river appear to be women from Hardy's past. A great supporting cast (Dennis Farina, Brion James, John Mahoney, Andre Braugher, Robert Pastorelli, Tom Atkins, etc.) sells the narrative that Hardy is an outcast even among his family of cops. A third act reveal threatens to derail the entire narrative, but the boat/river stunts are so good (and Willis seems so invested in his role) I'll let it slide. 3.5 TOM SIZEMORES STRUGGLING TO LOOK SOBER (out of five).
004.- MERCURY RISING (1998, AMAZON PRIME)
ReplyDeleteDirector Harold Becker gave Alec Baldwin one of his best acting roles in 1993's "Malice" ('You ask me if I have a God complex. Let me tell you something: I am God.'). So naturally, when Becker got to direct Bruce Willis in "Mercury Rising," he brought Alec on board as the leader of a shadowy government organization trying to keep secret codes that hide government undercover agents' identities (or something to that effect) from coming to light... even if it means murdering the autistic little kid (Miko Hughes' Simon) that cracked the code by reading it in a puzzle book. Convoluted story notwithstanding, before 2016's "The Accountant," this was considered one of the best portrayals of autism in a Hollywood movie. Miko Hughes is so good that his outbursts and temper tantrums actually make already tense scenes even more harrowing to watch. Though the action is infrequent (a bridge shootout here, an ambulance chase there, etc.) and some of the special effects wanting (green screen on a train, a helicopter on a rooftop... YIKES!), Bruce Willis sells the determination his FBI character has to not let the mistakes from his past (an opening scene where innocent young people died while he was undercover) repeat with Simon. Even mediocre stories come across so much stronger when Willis' characters are engaged, something we took for granted back in the 90's. 3.25 CHI McBRIDE CARS REPORTED STOLEN (out of five).
BONUS: 30 DAYS OF PINK PANTHER & FRIENDS, DAY 1!
ReplyDelete005.- THE PINK PANTHER (1963, KINO LORBER 4K UHD). Also streaming on PRIME, TUBI, PLUTO, ROKU TV, YOUTUBE.
My turn to pull a Mac McEntire. 😉🤨
The most successful comedy movie series of all time (11 theatrical features, hundreds of animated shorts, an enduring IP, and a Henry Mancini-composed theme song that rivals the Monty Norman-composed 007 theme in pop culture mindshare) started life as a humble European-bound, jet set, comedic heist flick. David Niven plays Sir Charles Lyton, notorious high society womanizer that moonlights as a jewel thief ('The Phantom') inching his way toward stealing 'The Pink Panther' diamond from can't-hold-her-liquor 'Princess' (Claudia Cardinale, whose 'Meglio Stasera' music/dance number is a showstopper) while both stay at the same Italian sky resort. And Lyton would have gotten away with it with the help of his secret helper/lover Simone (Capucine) had it not been for (a) Charles' nephew George (Robert Wagner) showing up unannounced to meddle in his uncle's thievery/womanizing business, and (b) Simone's husband Jacques Clouseau (Peter Sellers) bumbling his way as a clueless French inspector trying to nab The Phantom.
It's no secret that second-billed Peter Sellers steals this movie and most of the "Pink Panther" series, but here that's mostly a byproduct of everyone else in the cast playing a type/stock character (the aging Lothario, the rich ingénue, etc.). Only Capucine comes close to having her own identity, but she'd still be a massive Bechdel Test failure. Sellers and co-writer/director Blake Edwards infuse Clouseau with so much personality and wacky antics it overshadows everything/everyone else, even though by the slapstick standards of latter installments this first "Pink Panther" is not that funny and has pacing/length problems. Every scene without Clouseau in it (Lyton pretend rescuing the Princess' dog, Wagner putting the moves on Capucine, etc.) seems interminable. The bedroom/bathroom farce scenes are still a riot, though, and despite not having his sidekicks in place yet (Colin Gordon's Tucker is the closest) Clouseau's self-assured attitude and confidence are already firmly established. The ending feels like a cop-out, and most of these cast members wouldn't appear on a "PP" movie again until after Peter Sellers' passing... but that's fodder for a future review. 🤓
ANIMATED INTRO OPENING: 4 'ELAB SDRAWED' ANAGRAMS (out of five). The Panther has claws that would be removed for future intros/cartoons, but the smoking pose is so striking it made it into all the 60's and 70's animated shorts' opening curtains. David H. DePatie and Friz Freleng's animated opening credits kick-started a popular theatrical/TV cartoon franchise, it's that good. The title song's an all-time banger from the first note to the last for a reason: Henry Mancini rules. 😎
MOVIE RATING: 3.35 TIGER RUGS WITH DRUNK PRINCESSES ON TOP (out of five).
And the chase is afooot. Try to keep up, you dirty mother effers! 🤗
CLASS OF 1999 (1990, Mark L. Lester)
ReplyDeleteA fun start to Junesploitation! It is obvious that the budget for this was not large, but a professional like Lester, with classics like Class of 1984 and Commando on his resume, knew how to make the dollars stretch. In order to deal with lawless areas where gangs are running rampant, a new program is instituted in Seattle to test teaching robots in high schools with the skills to fight unruly students. Unfortunately for the students, the teachers start to go too far in punishing them. It is up to the gangs to challenge these formidable foes. The action gets charmingly stupid at certain moments, and the quick pacing seldom lets up. With a cast that includes Pam Grier, Malcolm McDowell, and Stacy Keach, I knew this would be film worth checking out. Overall, Class of 1999 is a slick, action-packed production that I would have loved to rent or see on cable back in the early 1990s.
You can also file Class of 1999 under Teenagers! and Exploitation Auteurs! this month.
I love that, by the end (when Patrick Kilpatrick sheds his human skin), the movie's climax goes full-on "Terminator" with the hydraulics and robot splatter/gore. Ironically the school building that explodes at the end is now... an active school with good standing in its Seattle community. 😳🤔
DeleteI wondered if the film would to go "Terminator" at that point. When it actually did, I could not suppress a laugh.
DeleteThe best month of the year is here!
ReplyDeleteStone Cold (1991, dir. Craig R. Baxley)
Joe Huff (Brian Bosworth), a tough cop who plays by his own rules but gets results (exemplified by the opening scene where he foils a supermarket robbery and trashes the whole place while doing it), is tasked with infiltrating a biker gang led by Chains Cooper (Lance Henriksen) and suspected of drug trafficking and several murders. Adopting the name John Stone, Huff proceeds to play by his own rules and get results.
Set in an alternate dimension where any vehicle will immediately explode on contact (or more accurately half a second before contact), this movie delights with car chases, motorcycle chases, shootouts, fistfights, toxic masculinity, weird mullets, and more explosions than you can shake a stick at, culminating in a ridiculous finale where Stone sends a motorcycle out of a window and into a helicopter, which promptly explodes just before the bike touches it.
Henriksen give a great performance as the menacing, subtly unhinged gang leader, and Sam McMurray is fun as Stone's neurotic handler. Meanwhile Brian Bosworth looks like he's gonna hurt himself trying to convey emotion.
I don’t know if I started this well or horribly with the 166 minute International Gorillay. All I know is I’m already off my original plan with questionable results. Cut 90 minutes out of this and you have a banger, but you kind of have a banger anyway. The Islamic world is under threat from a devious plot to build casinos and discos masterminded by real life author of The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie. Rushdie is played by some guy named Afzaal Ahmad who is better at looking evil than he is at looking like Salman Rushdie, not that anyone who values their life would want to look like Salman Rushdie. This becomes a man on a mission film of sorts to take out the evil Rushdie before he corrupts Pakistan forever. 2 hours and change later, a dozen flying Qurans surround Rushdie and shoot him with laser beams. Where’s the Vinegar Syndrome 4K? I’d buy it day 1 and probably never watch it.
ReplyDeleteI don’t know if I started this well or horribly with the 166 minute International Gorillay. All I know is I’m already off my original plan with questionable results. Cut 90 minutes out of this and you have a banger, but you kind of have a banger anyway. The Islamic world is under threat from a devious plot to build casinos and discos masterminded by real life author of The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie. Rushdie is played by some guy named Afzaal Ahmad who is better at looking evil than he is at looking like Salman Rushdie, not that anyone who values their life would want to look like Salman Rushdie. This becomes a man on a mission film of sorts to take out the evil Rushdie before he corrupts Pakistan forever. 2 hours and change later, a dozen flying Qurans surround Rushdie and shoot him with laser beams. Where’s the Vinegar Syndrome 4K? I’d buy it day 1 and probably never watch it.
ReplyDelete