Justin Robinson's Blog, page 26

Watch This: Hannibal

Silence of the Lambs came out at a formative period of my childhood. No, this isn’t a long-winded digression that’s going to end with a confession about how I keep a starving woman in the abandoned well on my property. That would be silly. I keep ten starving women down there. (That’s how I make my money. Bulk.) Anyway, when the film came out, I had never seen anything quite like it. It was dark and moody, indulging in what has since become the cliche of the superhuman serial killer, and it featured a heroine utterly undefined by her relationship with men. I loved it, and it’s also partly to blame for my refusal to accept Jodie Foster was gay until I witnessed her palpable revulsion at having to touch Matthew McConaughey back when he was at the height of his sex powers. Like many new fans, I eagerly devoured the novels, both Silence of the Lambs and its predecessor Red Dragon, and I clamored for the extended adventures of Hannibal Lecter. At the time, a rumor circulated that Thomas Harris’s novel Black Sunday was actually about the investigation into Lecter’s murders and subsequent manhunt. It’s not. It’s about some schmuck in a blimp.

He doesn’t even eat the fucking thing.

Hannibalmania was nothing unique in 1991. Anthony Hopkins took what could have been a forgettable character and created an instant icon, winning a Best Actor Oscar with a meager 26 minutes of screentime. With Lecter’s popularity, Harris returned to him, first with the sequel Hannibal and then the origin story Hannibal Rising (to give the devil his due, Harris was compelled to write the second when producer Dino De Laurentiis said the movie was happening with or without his help), but in the process lost some of what made the character so fascinating. As is a danger with novelists and their most compelling characters, Harris fell in love with Lecter, walking back the cannibal doctor’s worst traits and instead turning him into something more akin to Dexter Morgan, where Lecter’s victims were chiefly people who deserved to die: Mason Verger the pedophile, the Nazi collaborators who killed and ate Lecter’s little sister, the sadistic and petty Dr. Chilton. He stopped being a monster, and became more of a cannibal Batman, which… actually sounds pretty cool now that I think about it.

But it’s not really Hannibal Lecter. At least, not the version that seduced me in that dark theater in February of 1991. Another Lecter had been brought to the screen five years earlier in Michael Mann’s hilariously overwrought Manhunter, indifferently portrayed by the normally magnetic Brian Cox, but due to the director’s usual contempt for his audience, the character elicited little more than eyerolling (from the protagonist of the movie, no less). The subsequent attempt at bringing Red Dragon to the screen did not fare much better, as the producers unaccountably decided to hire uberhack Brett Ratner to helm the beast. It’s a shame, because Red Dragon is actually the better novel of the two, though no studio has the stones to make a film whose protagonist is a serial killer who murders entire families.

When Hannibal debuted on NBC, I was skeptical. Very skeptical. After all, NBC is known chiefly as a collection of people dedicated to shooting themselves in the foot first and a network a distant second. I had soured on the sympathetic depictions of Lecter, and worried the continued downward spiral of Dexter would somehow infect a new serial killer show. Added to that, I had just watched Fox’s The Following, a show I had enjoyed in spite of its flaws, and I wasn’t certain how I would fit yet another show about serial murder into my schedule which — and I cannot emphasize this enough — does not include any actual serial murder.

It’s not that the desire’s not there, but where do you find the time?

I am no longer skeptical. I am a fan. A full-on drooling fanboy who can’t fucking wait for the next season. And I want to convince everyone I know to watch this thing and revel in its gothic majesty. It takes place before the events of Red Dragon, when Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) is a practicing psychiatrist in Baltimore. Though Hannibal is the title character, the lead is FBI advisor Will Graham (Hugh Dancy), the hero of Red Dragon.

The show succeeds where even Harris failed: making Graham into an interesting character. He is one of those ubiquitous investigators with the ability to put his mind into that of a killer’s. I am not certain if Harris invented this particular cliche, but in every other depiction, Graham is mired in it. The show has wisely determined that the ability to do this is a form of mental illness, and Dancy runs with this interpretation in his performance. Graham always appears to be about five seconds from shattering, as he phobically avoids eye contact and his voice grows thin and reedy. He is a man not with a gift, but a horrible curse, and he can use it to save lives. But there are only so many he can save before he’ll be lost utterly to madness.

On the other end of the scale is Lecter. Mikkelsen wisely avoids aping Hopkins’s iconic portrayal, keeping his voice neutral and low, his sometimes incomprehensible Danish accent swallowing the words. His face has a fascinating ugliness to it, only adding to Lecter’s alien mien. Mikkelsen has said he plays Lecter as the Devil himself, which explains a lot. He has a few human qualities, but these are always tempered with his monstrous urges: he seems to enjoy his friendship with Graham, though he is happy to toy with the man for his own amusement. As appropriate, Lecter is often in the background of episodes, though his presence pervades everything. Both his identities touch the plot, as Graham’s therapist and friend, and the uncatchable serial killer, the Chesapeake Ripper.

The rest of the cast is uniformly excellent, and creator Bryan Fuller thankfully cut back on Harris’s tendency to make everyone a white man. Laurence Fishburne gives us some gravitas as Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn’s character from Silence), striking the right balance of being concerned for Graham and wanting to use the remarkable gift to catch monsters. Fuller gender-swapped Graham’s colleague, turning Alan Bloom into Alana, and making her Lecter’s legitimate protege, and cast the tightly-coiled Caroline Dhavernas. The writers have given her the obligatory romantic subplot, though she’s never treated simply as a prize. Dr. Bloom is her own woman, her value not determined by any man. Former Kid in the Hall Scott Thompson plays one of Graham’s team and Gillian Anderson (fun fact: Dana Scully was partly based on Clarice Starling) is Lecter’s therapist.

All of these great actors would have nothing to do if the writing were bad. The writers like to tease us, sometimes making this look like a procedural, where each episode Graham catches some killer with Lecter’s help. In fact, the investigations take a backseat to the character interplay between Graham, Lecter, and their circle. The show becomes what Smallville teased us with in that first episode: the sprawling story of two unlikely friends destined to become bitter enemies.

Visually, the show is on an entirely different level. Every case has an operatic grandeur. Every killer does something unspeakably horrible and morbidly fascinating to his victims, and Graham has to experience the act of performing this. While in Mann’s version of the character, he pawns responsibility off on the killer (“Didn’t you!?! Didn’t you!?!”), Fuller’s Graham puts it on himself, narrating the murders in the first person, always with the line, “This is my design.” And then we see our increasingly unhinged hero do something awful. Graham’s hallucinations, from the acts themselves to the aftermath, including the sight of what I can only describe as an elk-shrike, look incredible. There’s very little dip in quality from the CGI on Hannibal to what you would see in a movie theater. And the visuals are far more innovative.

Hannibal is what I have been waiting for since I was that kid in the theater in February of 1991, watching Dr. Lecter describe what he did to census-takers. I didn’t even know I was still waiting for it; I had thought there never would be any way to recapture that dark wonder. I was wrong. And I am so very happy.

Filed under: Projected Pixels and Emulsion Tagged: Hannibal, Hannibal Lecter, NBC, Red Dragon, Silence of the Lambs, Thomas Harris, Will Graham

Girls, Guns and G-Strings: Picasso Trigger

Donna, with her preferred method of murder.

Picasso Trigger (1988)

Cast: Playgirl model, Chippendale’s dancer, and soap star Steve Bond (born Shlomo Goldberg) plays the third member of the Abilene clan, Travis. Like his brothers? Cousins? I don’t know and don’t really care. Anyway, like Cody and Rowdy, Travis Abilene enjoys stripping down to banana hammocks, softcore sex scenes, and not hitting the broad side of a barn with his comically overcompensating firearm. He exists chiefly so the guys watching the movie won’t feel uncomfortable with the real heroes, Donna and Taryn, saving the day.

Playmates Dona Speir, Hope Marie Carlton, and Cynthia Brimhall as well as greasy beefcake Harold Diamond reprise their roles as agents Donna, Taryn, Edy, and Jade from Hard Ticket to Hawaii. Allegedly Patty Duffek is reprising her role as Patticakes as well, but I don’t remember her so I’m calling her new.

Guich Koock, a man whose first and last names are words for your taint, plays LG Abilene, the clan patriarch.

Sidaris favorite Rodrigo Obregon, who last played down-on-his-luck drug lord Seth Romero, plays Miguel Ortiz, a similarly hapless villain.

Playmate Quotient: Other than Speir, Carlton, Brimhall, and Duffek, Miss November 1984 Roberta Vasquez plays Pantera, who manages to be the least metal thing in the film. Patticakes gets a partner in the form of creatively-named Kym, played by Miss May 1982 Kym Malin. And lastly Miss January 1971 Liv Lindeland (Cyd Charisse’s daughter), shows up as Inga, because old playmates never die, they just smell that way.

IMDB Plot Keywords: Helicopter, scantily clad female, no panties, erotica, lace panties

IMDB User Lists Appearing On: 80’s Action Movies: Best and Worst, Movies reviewed on Junk Food Dinner, Worst Movies Of All Time, Girls, Guns and G-Strings: The Andy Sidaris Collection (12 Film Set), my DVD’s

Synopsis: Unlike Hard Ticket to Hawaii’s relatively clear throughline, Picasso Trigger is oftentimes nightmarishly complex. I suspect Sidaris liked to keep masturbators on their toes.

We open in Paris. We know because there’s the Eiffel Tower. Some guy delivers mail to the man we later find out is Salazar, known by his titular codename, “Picasso Trigger.” (It’s a kind of fish. No, seriously.) Salazar is some kind of bad guy, and he has a massive L-shaped scar on his chest. The mail is a VCR tape from bad guy Miguel Ortiz, who swears vengeance against the Feds responsible for his brother’s death, and thanks Salazar for helping out. He will strike in Texas, Vegas, and Hawaii.

Like I said, it’s a fish.

Salazar leaves, only to be followed by a pair of weirdos in a motorcycle and sidecar. One of them is either the butler or a priest, and he carries around what looks like a Nazi iron cross. Salazar donates a painting of the Picasso Trigger (still a fish) and on his way out the butler-priest-Nazi assassinates him.

LG Abilene calls Travis, presently lounging around in a lime green banana hammock to tell him the Picasso Trigger is dead. Meanwhile, in Vegas, Kym and Patticakes do a western-themed stage show that’s just depressing. Instead of setting them up as the government agents we later learn them to be, Sidaris spends his time with two cops who are shortly assassinated by the minions of Schiavo, a fine purveyor of snuff cinema. Lastly, Ortiz is sleazing around Edy’s place, where his minions murder a pair of government agents.

We finally get to Donna and Taryn, who decide to swim to shore from their boat for some reason. Good thing too, because the two thugs who offed the agents at Edy’s show up and blow up the boat. I was convinced this was the explanation for why Taryn was in Witness Protection in the last film (she was testifying against Ortiz’s brother), but nope. I was wrong.

The last assassination is an attempt on LG Abilene, but the incompetents only get a ranch hand.

The heroes slooooooowly get together. Pantera, an agent who went undercover in Salazar’s organization is introduced. Travis sleeps with her because he’s an Abilene and their dicks are essentially skank-seeking missiles. Not that you can blame the guy. Pantera answers the door in complicated lingerie, then puts on some jeans with more rips than actual fabric. I think her labia fell out at one point. Pantera and Travis went to college together, which is a useless bit of backstory that doesn’t do anything.

Travis decides to assemble the group in Vegas. This includes Donna, Taryn, Jade, Edy, Patticakes, Kym, Pantera, and some black guy who doesn’t get a name, but his huge mass of constantly-twitching muscles look like they’re on the verge of attaining sentience.

For no real reason, there’s a huge title card (and we’re halfway into the movie now). THURSDAY. Maybe they want me to know these people are missing NBC’s hallowed Thursday night line up? The gang at Cheers will be so disappointed. Anyway, the briefing states that Ortiz assassinated Salazar to take over. The good guys have to kill Salazar’s old minions because that’s how this shit works. It’s the fucking Chicago Way!

Edy and Jade get to kill Toshi Lum, the link to the far east. Kym, Patticakes, and Meathead get Patterson and his henchmen Glen and Schiavo. These guys have a white slavery operation and there are the aforementioned snuff films. Donna and Taryn get Ortiz, which causes a snotty little exchange between Donna and Pantera. Donna then marks her territory by banging Travis. Considering she was sleeping with Rowdy in the last movie and Rowdy was either a brother or cousin, this is a little gross.

FRIDAY. Okay, so we’re doing this now.

Kym and Patticakes sucker Schiavo into scouting them for snuff talent. On the plane, Travis puts something together from the pictures of Salazar, noting that the man’s watch is on the other wrist. Donna and Taryn stop by the Professor’s place, where they obtain some Wile E. Coyote shit: an exploding boomerang and exploding RC car. Travis gets a crutch because he sucks.

Sadly, they never thought to call it a BOOMerang.

SATURDAY. Nothing much happens on Saturday.

SUNDAY. Jade and Edy, posing as phone company employees, go after Toshi. This fails because Jade is totally unconvincing at being anything other than a giant, sweaty slab of beef. He resorts to karate, which is fine, until he rips the eyes out of one of the thugs. Holy shit. What’s with the ‘80s and sudden, terrifying, karate-themed tonal shifts? Then he karates the shit out of Toshi.

Kym and Patticakes do their show for all three targets, then pull guns and get in a shootout. Patticakes gets winged in the head, and all three bad guys are killed.

Donna and Taryn first hunt Ortiz’s thugs, killing one with the boomerang. Donna will attack the house from the water while Taryn goes in by land, and it’s totally the same house from the end of Hard Ticket to Hawaii, which suggests Salazar got it on the cheap from another drug smuggler’s estate sale. Anyway, Taryn just starts blowing shit up, but she only gets shot for her trouble. She’s forced to just use a gun on the two thugs in the house. And her supposedly “bulletproof vest” is just a regular vest, like something you’d wear while fishing.

Ortiz bursts out of the house right as Donna comes out of the water. She kills him with a dynamite speargun and shut up that is too a thing, Brad, I’m calling it.

Travis sneaks up on a house with his leg in a cast and using the crutch from the Professor. He meets up with Pantera, who totally does a villain smile. Salazar, still alive, is in there. He sums up his entire plan — basically get his enemies to kill his other enemies for him — while Travis just blatantly assembles the crutch and stuff in the bandage to a working gun. Seriously, he doesn’t even try to hide it. Doesn’t that defeat the entire purpose of a crutch-gun? And he has a working gun right there in his waistband. This gives Salazar all the time in the world to extend some bulletproof glass and escape, because, oh yeah, the crutch is a one-shot weapon. Unlike — and I can’t emphasize this enough — the fucking pistol whose barrel is lovingly nestled next to Travis’s dick.

Pantera comes in and Travis shoots at her with the gun. So we know it fucking works. Goddamn it. Anyway, he apologizes and they hug, but she pulls a knife to stab him. Fortunately Donna is there and totally spearguns Pantera. They go after Salazar, who (now helmeted) is riding a hovercraft because of course he is. Donna blows his ass up too. Seriously, do not fuck with Donna when she’s packing a speargun. Turns out the Salazar from the beginning was a decoy, and surprise surprise, so is the guy in the helmet. Salazar is back in the house, looking sad about Pantera. But Travis programs a rocket to seek out Salazar’s pacemaker (remember the L-shaped scar from the beginning) and the heroes win.

True to the films’ most enduring trope, there’s a gathering at the end where the last threads of the plot are explained. Taryn takes possession of the real Picasso Trigger painting (Salazar donated a fake, which is now believed to be real), because that’s what Taryn does.

Yakmala? No. It lacks the inspired insanity of its predecessor, and the plot never really comes together. It ends up being too dull to be truly fun.

Filed under: Projected Pixels and Emulsion Tagged: Andy Sidaris, boomerang, dona speir, Girls, guns and g-strings, helicopter, hope marie carlton, picasso trigger, playmates, speargun

Tae Kwon! Tae Kwon! Tae Kwon Do!

Co-starring 1987.

Cinephiles speak in hushed tones of lost films, those movies that due to shortsightedness, film decay, fires, or simple misfortune, no longer exist. Shitty cinephiles, a brotherhood I proudly count myself amongst, have our own lost films. These are anti-classics whose creators or distributors experienced a sudden, terrifying moment of clarity and realized they had produced something that no one must see, something that would cause an innocent mind to gaze into a soul-shattering abyss and know — not think, but know for certain — that there is no ultimate meaning to the sick parade we call life. Legendarily bad films like The Day the Clown Cried will languish in a vault unloved by the only audience who could ever appreciate it. This week’s film, Miami Connection was very nearly one of those movies, thankfully rescued by people like me, and we are all the richer for it.

Tagline: Survival the ultimate test…

More Accurate Tagline: Tae Kwon! Tae Kwon! Tae Kwon Do!

Guilty Party: I am a firm believer in the distaff cousin of the Auteur Theory, which I would like to introduce as the Insane Foreign Businessman Auteur Theory. This is when a man whose exposure to the arts consists mainly of a Netflix account, incomprehensible foreign dubs of Hollywood releases, and fever dreams brought on by infected landmine wounds gets it in his head that he can make a movie, and he produces something so bonkers and heartfelt it instantly becomes a cult classic. The Room, other than being the greatest terrible movie ever made, is the prime exemplar of this theory, and Birdemic is its close second. Miami Connection, written, directed, and starring taekwondo teacher and motivational speaker Y.K. Kim takes its place next to these other IFBA films, and boy howdy it does not disappoint.

Synopsis: The film opens in the ‘80s. Holy shit, you guys, the ‘80s. Like the Platonic Ideal of the ‘80s that never existed anywhere other than the neon-streaked wet dreams of Michael Mann, Simon Le Bon, and Destro. The screen helpfully says we’re “Somewhere In Miami,” and a drug deal goes down between two very ‘80s groups of thugs. One side sort of looks like they’re on the way to a breakdancing contest, while the other looks like a bunch of tubby pedophiles with NRA memberships. Ninjas (the leading cause of death in 1987) swiftly crash the party and show these Miami Vice bad guys the foolishness of bringing guns to a sword fight. I remember being a little kid and thinking ninjas had superpowers and could totally take out guys armed with machine guns. So what I’m saying is that Y.K. Kim had the same understanding of ninjas at 40 that I had at 7.

Later at the dojo, lead ninja Yashito briefly harangues his followers for not getting the money from the drug deal before being like, “Aw… I’m just fucking with you! I got the money!” Then Yashito goes and hangs out with his biker gang because of course he does.

Now we’re in Orlando, and Yashito and his henchman Jeff (tell me that doesn’t sound like the title of a BBC sitcom), head into a club where they are instantly dismayed at the house band. And who could blame them? Consisting of five men and one woman, they play the kind of soft rock that makes Kenny Loggins sound like Motorhead. This is Dragon Sound, who turn out to be our sartorially-challenged heroes. Jeff is especially upset because the woman is his sister Jane who appears to have taken up with the bass player (John), who looks like a giant version of Leo Fitzpatrick from Kids.

Later, the members of Dragon Sound ruthlessly matriculate at the University of Central Florida. This is despite the fact that Y.K. Kim’s Mark is clearly a quarter century older than everyone else, but what would a IFBA film be without flagrant disregard to its auteur’s age? Anyway, Jane explains that her parents are both dead and her brother is the only reason she’s able to go to college. And she doesn’t like him. Jeff’s ears must have been burning because he shows up to the school and immediately starts shit with Dragon Sound. Fortunately for everyone, a smash cut prevents any bloodshed.

The club owner where Dragon Sound plays gets a visit from another weird rednecky bearded guy. This guy fronts the old house band and he’s really upset Dragon Sound has taken over. They have a clearly improvised shouting match that hilariously turns into a slow-moving kung fu fight between two badly out-of-shape white guys. The club owner wins and the band leader vows vengeance.

Yashito and Jeff meet up at Ninja HQ and decide they should really get rid of Dragon Sound because they are all that’s keeping Yashito from controlling that area. How? Does Dragon Sound rock that hard? Are their shin kicks and non-threatening multicultural composition some kind of ninja kryptonite? Who knows?

Bafflingly, it’s neither Yashito nor Jeff who corner Dragon Sound after a gig. It’s the spurned other band. And… this fucking band is ginormous. It’s like some weird I Spit on Your Grave version of the Polyphonic Spree. These fuckers, while armed for some kind of Bartertown food riot, straight up surround Dragon Sound, and Dragon Sound just kind of watches them for a full minute before the nerve impulses slowly reach the second brains in their spines and inform them that, yep, a hundred rednecks armed with improvised weaponry and howling for blood has literally never ended well. Unfortunately for the Polygamous Spree, once Dragon Sound has identified danger, they literally will not stop kicking it in the face until it stops moving.

In the next scene, Dragon Sound is at home, and I have to pause to describe this place. The guys have the gayest living situation outside of actually living with a gay man, making homemade hummus, having sex with him, and planning a future together in which you both adopt war orphans. Dragon Sound a) lives together b) walks around without shirts on as much as possible c) keyboardist Jim never actually bothers to button his jeans and d) in one scene they hand-feed each other. So… yeah.

Hey! I might already be a winner!

The leader of the Polygamous Spree reaches out to Jeff to take out Dragon Sound. Why? He’s already been told to do this by Yashito… you know what? Never mind. This movie is like a Zen Koan for people with head injuries. Jeff gives Dragon Sound a note to meet at the railroad tracks. Mark, John, and drummer Jack (who just spent the previous scene talking about how scared he was) show up and fight a bunch of guys, one whom is Kid Rock. This fares exactly as well as any of Rock’s endeavors, and Dragon Sound kicks a little ass and leaves. Jeff steps things up by kidnapping guitar player Tom (who looks exactly like John Oates) and keeps him at an abandoned construction site. Dragon Sound never finds out where Tom is, yet shows up and just goes nuts on Jeff’s guys. They beat these guys into unconsciousness or death with metal pipes. Mark squares off with Jeff who goes full Gollum and falls off a high spot and dies.

Hey, remember when there were ninja in this movie? Apparently the movie only just did. We’re back with Yashito, and he vows to kill Dragon Sound for taking out his brother Jeff. And, I’m guessing different mothers? I don’t know. While Mark, John, and Jim are out to see Jim’s dad (more on that later), biker ninjas (because that’s totally a thing and not just something Y.K. Kim scrawled on the inside of his Trapper Keeper) surround them. And then shit gets real.

It’s like Y.K. Kim got some kind of PTSD flashback in the middle of the movie and just went with it. Because what was once a lighthearted action flick about a taekwondo rock band suddenly turns into an ultraviolent kill crazy sword fight with fountains of blood and Fangoria-ready prosthetics. Mark kills Yashito, and the heroes cart wounded Jim off to the hospital. It’s a happy ending as Jack ominously declares, “No one will mess with our band again.”

Life-Changing Subtext: The only thing stopping international drug cartels from total world domination are crappy soft-rock bands.

Defining Quote: Jim, sobbing: “My mother was Korean!” I’ll give the context later, but out of context it’s just wonderfully racist. And really, the context doesn’t make the delivery make any more sense.

A screencap of that very scene. I… I can’t add anything.

Standout Performance: Y.K. Kim can barely speak English, leading to the uncomfortable situation of a man being unable to read the very lines he wrote.

What’s Wrong: Oh no, what’s right? The answer to both questions is simply, “everything.” This movie does nothing right, and yet is charming and entertaining in its sincerity.

Flash of Competence: In the middle of the film, there’s a scene in which Mark, Jack, and John train on the quad. It’s mostly an excuse to practice the kind of slow-motion karate your friend does when he’s freshly back from his first lesson and wants to show everyone how he could totally kick Jet Li’s ass. Anyway, one of the moves has John trying to stab Mark in the back with a fake knife, and Mark displays his awesome disarming skills. You know, assuming the guy trying to stab you has cerebral palsy. Luckily, in the very end, Yashito tries the same move and Mark takes him out. The film successfully employs Chekhov’s Prison Shanking.

Best Scenes: I’ve referred to the musical stylings of Dragon Sound, but nothing I say can truly capture how fucking amazing scenes of the band performing their original songs are. Much like the martial arts, it’s pretty clear there are varying degrees of musical skill amongst the cast. Tom is fairly convincing as the guitar player (fitting, since he’s totally John Oates), but Y.K. Kim has clearly never even heard of a guitar before. His strumming bears a closer resemblance to a sexual assault than any kind of musicianship. And the songs? Oh, the songs! “Against the Ninja,” with its delusional grandiose lyrics and catchy refrain (Tae Kwon! Tae Kwon! Tae Kwon Do!) will change your life.

A useless subplot involves Jim’s search for his father who abandoned him and his (Korean) mother. This search seems to consist of sending letters to various places and then tearfully opening them in front of his pals. When he comes clean (and delivers the film’s Defining Quote), he’s really playing to the cheap seats and this is far beyond the actor’s meager skills. He hits all the wrong beats, making it sound like his character is consumed with shame over having a Korean mother, and a brief orgasm at the memories of his father. The best part is when the other men act betrayed. “Wait, you’re not an orphan?” one demands, which leads to the vain hope that they’re going to kick him out of Orphan Club.

Transcendent Moment: After the Grand Guignol of the finale, in which two of our heroes ruthlessly butchered ninja like they thought there was candy inside of them, the film fades to black and the following appears onscreen:

“ONLY THROUGH THE ELIMINATION OF VIOLENCE CAN WE ACHIEVE WORLD PEACE”

Did someone say violence?

At once a product of its time and insanity itself, Miami Connection is one of the truly great terrible films.

Filed under: Puffery Tagged: Auteur Theory, biker ninja, bikers, Insane Foreign Businessman Auteur Theory, Miami Connection, ninja, taekwondo, Yakmala!

Rules of Writing: Get to the Fucking Monkey

Has a song ever changed your life? I’m betting yes. Probably whatever was playing during your all-important first kiss, or maybe it was an album that got you through the death of a loved one, or what you had blaring in your iPod that time you took your pants off at the rodeo. I had a song like that.

That was “King Kong,” by Tripod. Other than being a work of sheer, staggering brilliance, it hit upon something very important to the crafting of a good story and quickly became a cornerstone of my writing philosophy. That would be identifying the good part of the narrative and getting to that as soon as possible. The song confines itself to film, though the problem is just as bad if not worse in literature. After all, a movie has an upper length of three-and-a-half hours (although, with the way blockbusters are going, we’re approaching the inevitable five hour Thundercats death march), while a novel can lurch on for thousands upon thousands of pages. Literally the only limiting factor — wrist strength — has been removed with the advent of ebooks. So if a movie fails the test, you’re looking at thirty minutes before Batman puts on his cowl. Less than ideal, sure, but not the kind of thing that leads to rage-quitting. But if a book takes its sweet time, you might actually injure yourself.

I encountered this phenomenon the last time I decided to get with the zeitgeist and read Stieg Larsson’s lurid locked-room mystery The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Though it came highly and universally recommended, even the book’s fans (which, briefly, seemed like everyone), cautioned that it doesn’t get started until a hundred pages in. I was baffled. What could possibly take so long to set up a little noir thriller like that? The central mystery is a classic one, and certainly gives a perfect framework for the kind of Viking Gothic (that’s a thing, right?) mood Larsson was shooting for. But instead of creating a character who would be perfect for unraveling the mystery, he gave us a guy who needs a hundred pages of excruciating exposition just to get him into a place where he can go on the adventure. This is because of Dragon Tattoo’s chief flaw (among many — I am not a fan), which is that while Larsson’s protagonist is a total Mary Sue, a flawed hero would have been both more compelling and appropriate. Instead, the first hundred pages (and the last, but I’m not talking about overlong denouements today) are devoted to an utterly extraneous plot about whether our hero gets to keep his magazine, something that the collapsing magazine industry will settle for him in a few weeks anyway.

The Diamond Age, Neal Stephenson’s thought exercise masquerading as a novel about how nanotechnology will reshape the human race, is a rich, detailed, and complete example of worldbuilding. It is also a frustrating slog that punctuates intense boredom with cheap shock tactics, like Howard Stern if he ever got a PhD in nanoscience. (I’ve heard Cryptonomicon is an even more egregious offender, though I have not read it, and now have no intention to.) This is partly due to the book’s stubborn refusal to get to the fucking monkey, but even worse, when the monkey finally does show up, it’s not really recognizable as such. Mostly because the endless pages of the book, which mostly concerns itself with — no shit — a little girl reading a book, have physically strangled the pleasure centers of the brain. The book has lulled the reader into a state in which we’ve forgotten that a monkey was even a possibility, like a man in solitary so long he forgets what the sun looks like. It’s a trap science fiction can fall into, in which the author forgets to include a good story within his fascinating world.

Stephenson also provides one of the best examples of the rule followed to the overall benefit of the novel. Snow Crash has one of the most electrifying beginnings I can remember, showing the world through the filter of an action sequence, while introducing our two main characters in the midst of a bizarre vehicular duel. The book not only gets to the fucking monkey, it gets there repeatedly, loudly, and on fire.

It happens so often with more famous writers for a very simple reason: they no longer have to pitch their work. An unknown writer like me (that makes it sound like I write in a mask, which is entirely accurate), has to do what are called queries. These are letters of introduction for the book in question, including things like a synopsis of the manuscript and a little resume of the writer. They are directed toward agents (if you enjoy wasting your time) or publishers (if you enjoy being published). Often, but not always, the recipient will, in the guidelines on his or her website, request a sample of the manuscript. This can range from five pages to three chapters. If nothing happens in this short window, you’re fucked. Queries hammered the vital importance of getting to the motherfucking monkey like nothing else could. It’s why The Dollmaker opens with the ceremony bringing the Firstborn to life and why Undead On Arrival tells the reader up front that Glen Novak is a dead man.

While writing, try to keep your readers in mind. They have things to do. Lives of their own. And presumably, eat enough roughage that they’re not taking the kinds of three-hour poops that would support a meandering story. Show some respect and get to the fucking monkey.

For other rules of writing, try to learn from Glorfindel and never ever press the Big Red Button.

Filed under: I'm Just Sayin, Level Up, Moment of Excellence, Puffery Tagged: get to the fucking monkey, King Kong, Neal Stephenson, Rules of Writing, Snow Crash, Stieg Larsson, The Diamond Age, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Tripod

A Very Special Roundup

As both of my readers are no doubt aware, I take the week of Comic-Con off. Why? I’m at Comic-Con! Seriously, I thought we’d covered this. Instead of just not posting anything, I’ve decided to post a roundup of the loose series I have been doing on Very Special Television, in which I go through things like ABC Afterschool Specials and Blossom finding meaning that probably isn’t even there.

The Intro, in which we learn what I’m doing here.

“The 18th Emergency,” in which we learn about bullies and being named Peaches.

“The Summer of the Swans,” in which we learn not to be a surly bitch all the time.

“The Skating Rink,” in which we learn how to get seduced by creepy older men.

“Dear Lovey Hart, I Am Desperate,” in which we learn not to give advice.

“Francesca, Baby,” in which we begin the Alcoholic Mom Trilogy.

“Beat the Turtle Drum,” in which we learn to stay the fuck out of treehouses.

“The Pinballs,” in which we learn that life sucks.

“Trouble River,” in which we learn that sometimes it’s best to let grandma die.

“It’s a Mile from Here to Glory,” in which we learn you can’t run from your problems, unless your problems involve running.

“Thank You, Jackie Robinson,” in which we learn that baseball rules, racism drools.

“My Other Mother,” in which we learn that alcoholic child abusers should be forgiven.

“Gaucho,” in which we learn it’s not worth becoming a drug dealer just to get your mom deported.

“A Special Gift,” in which we learn that being a ballet dancer is a lifestyle choice.

“The Gold Test,” in which we learn that those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach.

“What Are Friends For,” in which we learn the power of voodoo.

“Schoolboy Father,” in which we learn the dangers of sex with Rob Lowe.

“A Matter of Time,” in which we learn that we all have cancer.

“First Step,” in which we continue the Alcoholic Mom Trilogy.

“Tough Girl,” in which we learn the magic of friendship with Chest Rockwell.

“The Night Swimmers,” in which we learn that one must swim before one can night-swim.

“Two Loves for Jenny,” in which learn that some titles make no goddamn sense.

“Did You Hear What Happened to Andrea?” in which we learn that hitchhiking is a bad idea.

“The Dog Days of Arthur Cane,” in which we learn to never mock a god.

“Ace Hits the Big Time,” in which we learn that joining a gang is fun!

“Face at the Edge of the World,” in which we learn that suicide sucks.

“Picking Up the Pieces,” in which we conclude the Alcoholic Mom Trilogy.

The Conclusion, in which I discuss what I learned.

“Pilot,” Blossom vs. Divorce

“Blossom’s Blossom,” Blossom vs. her uterus

“Sex, Lies and Teenagers,” Blossom vs. her dad

“The Geek,” Blossom vs. the kid from Dream On.

“Such a Night,” Blossom vs. her budget

“Second Base,” Blossom vs. her sexuality

“The Joint,” Blossom vs. Mary Jane

“To Tell the Truth,” Blossom vs. the truth

“Intervention,” Blossom vs. the demon rum

“Blossom: A Rockumentary,” Blossom vs. a fever

And there you have it, somewhere in the neighborhood of 40,000 words on pop culture ephemera. Enjoy while I spend a week in San Diego!

Filed under: Projected Pixels and Emulsion Tagged: Afterschool Specials, Blossom, Comic-Con, very special episodes, what I learned

The Best Movies Never Made: The Velocirapture

Director

Paul Schrader

Writer

Justin Robinson and Clinton Wolf

Starring

Kirk Cameron, Rebecca Gayheart, Sir Ben Kingsley, Nick Offerman, and Lorenzo Lamas as “Jesus Christ”

Tagline

This summer, sin isn’t just original. It’s primordial.

Synopsis

War hero Captain Brock Brockman (Kirk Cameron) has just returned from overseas, where he single-handedly pacified Afghanistan. His wife, Mrs. Brockman (Rebecca Gayheart) is mad at him because he said he was going to pick up milk but instead left for five years and killed all the terrorists. In an effort to placate is unreasonable wife and get to know his son, he invites the neighbors over for dinner. The neighbors are extremely religious and seem to have the perfect familial relationship. In the middle of dinner, the neighbors vanish, only to be replaced by hungry Velociraptors!

Using every ounce of his training, Brockman kills the Velociraptors and saves his family. His wife is angry because she feels that murdering one’s guests, even if they have turned into ravenous dinosaurs, is unconscionably rude. Turning on the news, they find that this is happening all over the Christian world: good Christians have been replaced by Velociraptors! There are lots of scenes of Velociraptors in street clothes terrorizing people. It’s like World War Z except awesome.

Organizing a ragtag group of survivors, Brockman makes it to the nearby military base after some harrowing and heartwarming action. He is greeted by General Maximum Deltoid (Sir Ben Kingsley) who has gathered a bunch of scientists and priests and such for a new civilization away from the raptors. One of the priests reveals the horrifying truth: they are in the middle of the great Rapture foretold by the Bible, only it is something far worse. It is the VELOCIRAPTURE!

This accounts for why the dinosaurs are so well behaved. Other than the murder.

The survivors, now surrounded on all sides by the dinosaurs, have to do something. Fortunately, they have one secret up their sleeves: Project Mustache Fury. In this ultra-secret location, they have cloned the only man who could possibly hunt this many dinosaurs: former president Teddy Roosevelt (Nick Offerman). As General Deltoid unfreezes the army of Teddy Roosevelts, he explains that in order to keep them from breeding, all the Teddy Roosevelts have been made genetically female. Each one of them is hooked to an IV drip of pure grain alcohol, pureed elk meat, and gunpowder (this is the only sustenance bad ass enough for Teddy Roosevelt’s body) and released to battle the Velociraptors.

Captain Brockman remembers something from the slide show his neighbors showed (right before they ascended bodily into heaven and were replaced by dinosaurs): images of the Creation Museum the family went to on vacation. There was a dinosaur there with a saddle. He realizes the problem right as there is gunfire at the gates.

The Teddy Roosevelts are now riding the Velociraptors. With no hope, Brockman prays to Jesus (Lorenzo Lamas).

And Jesus appears. With machine guns in each hand. What follows is an action scene so fucking amazing that if I were to describe it to you, you would instantly become pregnant and nine months later would give birth to a headbutt.

The heroes go up to heaven with Jesus, and the planet returns to the dinosaurs. In a twist ending, it is revealed that this is the real reason dinosaurs went extinct.

Trivia

Kirk Cameron initially refused to star alongside Rebecca Gayheart, stating that her name was a “lifestyle choice” and an “abomination.”

Mrs. Brockton’s first name is never revealed. She is only ever referred to by her last name or as “Honey,” “Mom,” and “Hey, You.”

In the flashback sequence, all the terrorists are digital performances by the same actor in a motion capture suit. The persistent rumor is that Andy Serkis was involved, but he has threatened to sue anyone who implies a connection with this project.

When the first Velociraptors are revealed, one can be seen bobbing in the exact pattern of the famous Konami Code.

Lorenzo Lamas successfully lobbied for the role of Jesus Christ when he showed up at Paul Schrader’s office in a Catwoman costume.

Nick Offerman had no idea there was a movie being filmed. He’s like that all the time.

The broadway song and dance number the raptors performed was originally supposed to be set to a John Williams version of “New York, New York,” but the filmmakers could not afford the rights and had to settle for the theme song to Mr. Belvedere.

Paul Schrader originally wanted to make the movie with Lindsay Lohan and former UFC/porn star War Machine, but the insurance companies refused to clear either actor.

Cameo: Animated newsman Kent Brockman as Brock’s brother.

M. Night Shyamalan did uncredited work on the script.

Goofs

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): The Rapture is not mentioned in The Bible.

Factual errors: the dinosaurs in the film are not Velociraptors, but the larger, related species Utahraptor (see Jurassic Park for more details)

Factual errors: Raptors had feathers

Revealing mistakes: When the raptor drives the taxi, a crewmember can briefly be seen crouched in the back seat

Errors in geography: Santa Monica is not Downtown

Anachronisms: Jesus Christ never had an NRA membership

Boom mic visible: During the Outrageous Cretaceous scene

Anachronisms: There was no way Jesus was that jacked.

Factual errors: Teddy Roosevelt’s mustache did not consist of other, smaller mustaches that were equally deadly.

Revealing mistakes: When Teddy Roosevelt punches the first raptor in the trampoline factory, his fist leaves a dent in the rubber mask.

Memorable Quotes

Dr. Omar: How are the dinosaurs breeding? They’re abstinent!

Brock Brockman: Life… uh… uh… Life finds a way.

Jesus Christ: And the LORD was pissed.

Captain Brockman: Clever girl.

Mrs. Brockman: Thanks, honey!

General Deltoid: It’s exactly as the Bible foretold it. People ascending bodily into heaven only to be replaced by killer dinosaurs. Why didn’t the Pentagon heed my warnings?

Teddy Roosevelt (repeated line): Bully!

Jesus Christ: I don’t have any loaves or fishes, but I can multiply these bullets!

Mrs. Brockman: It’s Dinogeddon. (Brockman slaps her) Ow!

Selected Reviews

“Finally, a movie about dinosaurs that’s accurate!” — Ray Comfort

“Watch me eat this banana.” — Kirk Cameron

“Why didn’t my agent tell me about this one?” — Debbie Gibson

Check out a couple more of the Best Movies Never Made, with Caveman Cop and Brometheus.

Filed under: Moment of Excellence, Projected Pixels and Emulsion, Puffery Tagged: Jurassic Park, Left Behind, Sharknado, the Best Movies Never Made, The Velocirapture, velociraptors

Liner Notes: Everyman

It’s probably possible to have a conversation with me where you don’t find out I’m a humungous gaming nerd, though scientists have yet to discover the exact combination of words necessary to have this hypothetical discussion. The point being that when I say that gaming has inspired me on occasion, it should not be too surprising. The surprising part is probably how dark it can get. I tend to play a lot of thief/rogue types, mostly because the point of a lot games is to go places you’re not supposed to and the guy with the sneaky skills and the lockpicks is the best suited to do so. I was playing one of these characters in a modern urban fantasy game, and thought, “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if I stole this fairy chick’s ring and got her powers?”

It’s a fairly innocent thought as the sliding morality of gaming goes. In a medium where it’s not uncommon to slaughter entire tribes of orcs (they were just farmers, man!), some light larceny barely registers. Another gamer might have stopped there, but my mind had become inspired, which, to a horror writer, looks like a swirling black maelstrom of infinite torment. I pretty much instantly moved off of powers and onto identity, just because in most things I wrote the average person can’t throw around winter winds, but nearly everyone has a sense of self. I reasoned that certain items become very important to that sense of self, linked to us through the process of ownership (it’s no coincidence that traditional sympathetic magic can move through possessions just like former body fragments like hair and fingernails). The act of theft then becomes symbolically important, and along with the item, the identity attached would go along with it. This was the birth of Ian Covey, the titular Everyman.

I envisioned him as being somewhat similar to Stephen Monaghan, the brilliant and damaged protagonist of The Dollmaker. While Stephen harnesses his genius and is harnessed by his broken sexuality to create a new race of beings, Covey’s madness takes a far more destructive shape. He’s denied an identity by a neglectful mother, and becomes a parasite, stealing what he can never have on his own. He would be dangerous because of his weakness, not in spite of it, a paradox I’ve always found fascinating. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t have a book. All I had was this little creep stealing people’s lives, which would get repetitive pretty quickly. He had nothing to do, no one to struggle against, and I didn’t have a plot.

I was housesitting in Echo Park several months later when the second piece of the puzzle fell into place. I was feeling out of sorts and isolated, and when this happens, I sink into a state where I don’t feel quite real. Like if I were to see someone I know, that person wouldn’t know me. Instead of trying to escape the feeling with a book or movie as I usually do, I dwelled on it. Before long, I had made the connection with the previous idea of the thief of faces. I thought of myself as a victim of the doppelganger, and because the night in question was one of those Los Angeles summer nights where everything is at once close and very far away, the musing went down a decidedly surreal path. Before long I had a conception of the Gestalt Entity. I knew it was going to be a challenge, simply because I was writing about this mutating monster who was not aware he was mutating, and thus would not consciously think about the primary thing going on in his chapters. He has a bunch of people in his head, but has no idea this is the case: he believes every thought in his mind belongs to him, even if it conflicts. It’s not until someone points it out that he notices. After that revelation, the decision was made. I would write the book.

But I still didn’t have a book to write. Who are we cheering for? We have two monsters locked in this bizarre struggle for identity, and not really anything grounding the story in good, old-fashioned human emotion. Sophie came from that line of thought, but she did not come to life until I was able to connect her thematically with the larger novel. Ian Covey has no identity of his own, so he takes identities from others. The Gestalt Entity has tons of identities, but his own, whatever it was, is gone. Sophie is someone who has lost an individual identity, and if the book is her journey to getting it back. Now I had something.

The bungalow court in the book was a way to visualize the theme: separate units within a fenced in whole. Each one is something like a Gestalt Entity in itself, and is an essential element (as my architect friend assured me) of Los Angeles terroir. While the neighborhood exists (Atwater, just south of Glendale), the actual court does not. The jellyfish pool is based on a weird little piece of Los Angeles history, a pool that was the site of cheesecake photography back in the ‘40s or ‘50s. I like to use real, or realistic, locations to ground the action. When you’re dealing with a character who gives himself powers and the giant monster that results, it’s important that everything else pass the smell test, because once the reality is gone, so is the fear.

This is probably the point where I say “spoiler alert,” since I wanted to talk about some of the odder flourishes in the novel, specifically, the objects and the ghost Covey. I knew I wanted the objects gain a false life, though the internal debate was whether they would sort of “transform” into little insects still recognizable as the objects, or if I would choose the route I took in the novel. I went with the latter because it disturbed me a little more, and when in doubt, always go with that. I don’t want to say exactly what ghost Covey is intended to be, although I will say I chose his medium of appearance because it felt more believable for whatever reason. “There’s a ghost here? BULLSHIT. Oh, he’s in a TV? That’s okay then.” That is more or less what my brain did, and silly or not, that was the decision making process.

With Everyman, I was trying to create a horror story about identity. Whether I succeed or not is up the individual reader, but I am reasonably proud of the result. Even if it’s because I think the Gestalt Entity is cool.

Filed under: Level Up, Moment of Excellence, Puffery Tagged: Books of the Dead, Books of the Dead Press, doppelganger, Everyman, gestalt entity, horror, identity, Liner notes

Liner Notes: Coldheart

It’s entirely possible you’ve never read a book’s dedication. They just sort of sit there in the front, one of those pages you flip through quickly to get to the sweetest words in the English language: “Chapter One.” So it’s not only forgivable but expected that you ignored the little note at the beginning of Coldheart. Long story short, I dedicated the book to myself, though not me now, but the me of twenty-three years ago. The skinnier version who looked maybe a bit too much like Harry Potter. See, that’s when I had the initial idea to write what eventually became Coldheart, and idea that boiled down very simply to “Godfather but with magic and superheroes.” It was one of several early attempts to write something book-length as I realized something very important: it’s impossible to see boobs in a book. And since my life at this time was entirely devoted to the viewing of boobs, I set the book aside.

Only to pick it up around nine years later, during my senior year of college. I was wrestling with a massive case of senioritis, and forced to face the sad fact that my two degrees that I had just gone into massive debt to acquire were absolutely pointless for anything other than either teaching or sinking into even further debt for an advanced degree and then teaching. The first option did appeal on a vague level, simply because I’m arrogant enough to love the sound of my own voice, but I was left with some uncomfortable realities. In an effort to avoid them for a little longer, I picked up the long-defunct idea and started writing it, throwing out a large part and adapting the rest. I never intended it as more than a mental exercise, but as reality encroached, I was forced to redouble my efforts. I was like a combination of a shark and an ostrich: I had to keep swimming to keep my head under the sand. Or something. Anyway, the project evolved a little bit, but it was still terrible.

I revived it again around 2004, this time as a comic book series. I had started my long flirtation with the indie comics scene, editing books for a variety of smaller companies. I liked writing comics because I didn’t have to decide exactly how everything looked and I could coast on the pure mechanics of plot and dialogue. This was before I came to understand that comics require artists, and artists like to be paid. It’s understandable, considering how much work they (in theory) put in. It’s not uncommon to get an artist interested in doing things on spec, and then have them come to a sudden realization about 10 pages in (and 10 weeks — a page a week is a good rate for them) that this is way more work than they wanted to do. And they drop the project. If you’re really lucky, you might get an email requesting money you don’t have and never agreed to. But usually they just vanish.

Because of these myriad frustrations, all of which will still lead me into invective-filled rants about artists at the slightest provocation, I started working in other media. Prose was the most attractive because of a combination of factors (I only had to depend on myself, and when I finished a project, I had something I could sell as opposed to merely the description of something, as with a comic script or screenplay). I’ve gotten better at what I do — something I used to doubt until I read the beginning of a novel I wrote in 2008 — and decided that I should resurrect this old project as prose. I wanted to do something you could only do in prose, so that the medium and the finished project would be perfectly suited to one another. I decided on a novella with accompanying short stories for this reason. There would be no way to do the shorts in movies since, outside of anthology pictures, this isn’t how movies work — and then where would the novella go? It was closer to episodic television, but without the constraints of casting and budget, I could have a sprawling cast in any location I could imagine.

I started with what I had. “Coldheart” existed in comic script form, one I had ruthlessly edited down to what was at that point the best thing I had written. I treated the script as a detailed outline, and the increased space allowed me to get into things I was forced to gloss over initially. It was, at this point, a familiar kind of story to me, one of my weird noirs that has served me well for Nerve Zero, Mr Blank, Undead On Arrival, and my upcoming City of Devils. This familiarity allowed me to concentrate on world and character, trusting the mechanics of the story to experience.

When I planned the series, I was going to release “Coldheart” as the first long story in a League of Magi webcomic. When it came time to collect the story into a trade, I had to figure out a way to get people to buy something they already had for free. The solution was a single issue story that expanded on the world. I wrote “Stillwater” for this purpose. I adapted it in much the same way as I did with “Coldheart.”

For the book, I had more room to explore. I also wanted people to get their money’s worth. I went back to the copious notes that had accumulated in the project’s multi-decade lifespan. I liked the idea of each Magus using her power to amuse themselves, an idea that grew out of the Menagerie, the zoo the Twins keep of the various beasties they gate in. The story was more or less in place, though didn’t come to life until I figured out the twist and the cameo in the end. I had a very clear idea of Ash Wednesday in my head, and I wanted to show that off, and so we got “Dante Ascending” (which also has the side benefit of establishing his lair for future stories). “Dead Drop” evolved the most of all the stories, though the core concept of a doomed spy stayed throughout. “Wait” came from an errant thought and rapidly got incorporated into the whole, and now I think it’s the most important in the collection to understand what I’m trying to do with the series at large: everyone as a story, even the mooks with the guns whose only job is to die.

This was always intended as an open-ended series. Right now, I plan to stick to the format established in Coldheart, of a novella with a number of supporting stories. This might change in the future as the project and world evolves. It’s already over twenty years old, so it’s probably due for a midlife crisis or something.

Filed under: Level Up, Moment of Excellence, Puffery Tagged: Coldheart, godfather, Liner notes, long development, mystery, noir, novella, short stories, urban fantasy

Now Fear This: Series 7: The Contenders

They used the same tagline in Survivor France.

As it turns out, I’m part of the problem.

Well, not at first. There was a long time there where I turned my nose up at the very notion of reality TV. I was above it, see. I only watched scripted stuff; reality was a cultural millstone dragging our society into the barbarous muck. I was also a snob, which you could have probably figured out when I used the phrases “cultural millstone” and “barbarous muck.” This was the case until a friend of mine abruptly vanished for a couple months. No one knew where he was. He just stopped showing up to group gatherings. Just as suddenly he reappeared and we all found out where he’d been: filming the fourteenth season of Survivor.

Out of a grudging sense of obligation bolstered by the fact that we occasionally pass as brothers, I watched the show. And I was hooked. I don’t know what it is about taking starving and sleep-deprived people and forcing them to participate in athletic events and Machiavellian scheming that’s so goddamn entertaining to me. Since that season (which most Survivor fans will tell you was one of the all-time worst due to an ill-advised haves/have nots dynamic), I have been a guiltily loyal fan of the reality TV juggernaut. It irrevocably knocked me off my obnoxious post as self-appointed Judge Judy and Executioner of what makes television worth watching. So, when someone complains that reality TV is a cultural millstone dragging society into the barbarous muck, well, I’m one of the dicks pulling that thing down.

All because of this guy.

Mocking reality TV, even when Survivor was just a rough outline on some of Jackie Treehorn’s stationery, was nothing new. People were doing it long before the generally-accepted birth of the genre with MTV’s The Real World. Stephen King’s The Running Man was published in 1982, and though it’s a far cry from Governor Schwarzenegger’s blockbuster, it was a clear warning against the kind of normalized voyeurism and the accompanying decline in empathy reality television has created in the culture. Today’s movie, Series 7: The Contenders, was written and shopped long before Survivor, though the points it makes feel entirely modern.

Series 7: The Contenders exists in the universe of the film as an airing of a marathon of the seventh season (“series” is British for season, which is a little confusing since the film takes place in Connecticut, but whatever) of the popular reality TV program The Contenders. This show takes six people chosen randomly by lottery and forces them into a to-the-death game of cat and mouse. Because the film exists as a fictional piece of media, it is light on the exposition, never going into detail on why a television show like this would exist or would have the sort of power to arm citizens for the purpose of televised premeditated murder. The show has an undeniably powerful place in the culture, shown when a contender even passes through security unmolested when she shows off her microphone rig and says, “It’s okay, I’m a contender.”

The dialogue makes references to the idea that the contenders entered the lottery of their own free will. Why would anyone do this? This becomes an even bigger question when the show introduces the contenders, who include heavily-pregnant killing machine Dawn (the fantastic Brooke Smith, who you remember rubbing the lotion on its skin from Silence of the Lambs), father-of-three Tony, and teenaged Lindsay (a larval Merritt Wever). Again, no one ever comes out and says what the rules are, rather couching everything in the reasons they signed on. Based on the sketchy information, it seems like entering the lottery offers some financial rewards, which entice laid-off Tony and soon-to-be single mom Dawn. Additionally, Dawn is the reigning champion, having already survived two series, and if she lives through one more, she gets to go free. As a bit of a “celebration,” this season of the show takes place in her hometown which she left fifteen years ago after getting an abortion.

You monster! That child could masturbate!

There is some recap of Dawn’s previous appearances, shot over interviewers with the present crop of contenders. Religious nurse Connie is judgmental, while Tony is dismissive and insulting. The film admirably shows Dawn murdering people in particularly brutal ways, not allowing her the dodge so often used in stories like these (most notably in The Hunger Games) in which the heroine never has to do anything bad. No, Dawn has plainly become a monster through her two tours on The Contenders. And she’s our protagonist.

Writer/director Daniel Minahan, known for directing episodes of every HBO show you like, wisely juxtaposes Dawn’s deadliness with her pregnancy. Not only is Dawn pregnant, she’s about five minutes from delivery. This is sometimes used for laughs, but mostly it’s about taking an obvious avatar of comforting femininity and turning her into a remorseless murder machine. In fact, it is Dawn’s status as a mother that draws the most disgust. Her abortion makes her an outcast at home, and it’s only her celebrity (as a murderer) that prompts her niece to a declaration of love. The interviews are shot through with both text and subtext, stating that Connie and Tony wouldn’t dislike Dawn quite so much if she wasn’t subverting the role culture has demanded she take.

The film is preoccupied with the roles of women, feminizing or marginalizing the male contenders. Tony is emasculated by his layoff (and the later revelation that none of the three kids are his, meaning his wife has been cheating on him for at least the baby), Franklin is an old man who barely gets any screentime (although what he has counts among the most effective in the film), and cancer patient Jeff has been literally castrated in the course of his treatment. The women are far more important at driving the narrative. Other than champion Dawn, there’s Lindsay, an overachieving teenager. Her reason for signing seems like it might be rebellion or else a misguided bid for parental approval from her overbearing father. Lest we give him too much power, Lindsay promptly stabs him in the arm to show who’s boss (we don’t need Carol Clover to interpret that one). Connie, a creepily religious nurse who implies that she’s killed a patient here and there, goes from being horrified by the deeds of others into a cold-blooded assassin. Even damaged Dawn displays more humanity than Connie, when she attempts to warn Lindsay of immanent bludgeoning death.

The thrust of the plot concerns itself with the shared past of Dawn and Jeff. It’s pretty easy to guess in the broad strokes, but far more interesting are the implications that no one ever expresses on camera. The idea that for Dawn’s final tour on The Contenders, the lottery just happened to select her ex-gay ex? I don’t buy it. The game is rigged, and plays in the same queasy territory as the loved ones episodes of Survivor, in which starving and exhausted people just crumble at the sight of the same people who annoy them in their day-to-day existences.

The strongest recommendation from this film hit my twitter after I posted that I would be reviewing it. I got a tweet from Anthony, my Survivor pal. “One of my faves,” he said about Series 7, “and kinda close to what it feels like.”

For more about survival techniques, check out this episode of the podcast.

Filed under: Projected Pixels and Emulsion Tagged: bloodsports, Now Fear This, reality television, reality TV, Series 7, Series 7: The Contenders, Survivor, The Hunger Games, the Katniss Dodge

Girls, Guns, and G-Strings: Hard Ticket to Hawaii

Subtlety, thy name is Sidaris.

Hard Ticket to Hawaii (1987)

Cast: Soap opera star and consonant enthusiast Ronn Moss gets top billing as Rowdy Abilene, the cousin of Malibu Express’s Cody Abilene (and has apparently inherited the titular yacht now that Cody is a movie star). This establishes continuity in the Sidarisverse, something I’m hoping continues. Though he’s ostensibly the star, he’s more of a sidekick to the pair of nearly identical blondes who are the film’s true heroes.

Miss March 1984 Dona Speir and Miss July 1985 Hope Marie Carlton are these heroically identical and identically heroic blondes, Donna and Taryn. They’re chiefly identifiable by the size of their clothing-averse breasts: Speir is a tad bustier. They’re DEA agents (although Taryn is a civilian or something and might be in witness protection, making me think Sidaris doesn’t really understand law enforcement) whose cover includes flying a cargo plane, giving tours, and posing in next to nothing. They’re fond of discussing their secret identities out in the open.

Harold Diamond, apparently famous for being Rambo’s stick-fighting opponent in Rambo III, is Jade. Despite having a stripper’s name, Jade is a slab of beefcake who looks like he got hit in the face with the entire ‘80s all at once. He sports a greasy ponymullet, has no idea about the invention of the button, and is a master of White Guy Karate.

Sidaris favorite Rodrigo Obregon is Seth Romero, the ill-fated villain. More on him later.

Miss October 1985 Cynthia Brimhall is Edy, who is some kind of DEA informant who runs a resort. She’s mostly there because two playmates don’t have enough breasts for Andy Sidaris. Her efforts are being foiled by…

Michael Andrews as Michael/Michele. In his second appearance, Sidaris’s favorite cross-dresser plays one of Romero’s henchmen. Andrews comes by his female impersonation honestly: he was the winner of the 1977 Miss Gay America pageant.

Playmate Quotient: Other than Speir, Carlton, and Brimhall, Miss May 1984 Patty Duffek pops up as “Pattycakes,” a character who will later appear in two other Sidaris films.

IMDB Plot Keywords: Diamonds, Erotica, Helicopter, Jacuzzi, No Panties

IMDB User Lists Appearing On: All U.S. Released Movies: 1970-2014, Movies reviewed on Junk Food Dinner, 80’s Action Movies: Best and Worst, Bad Movie Night, Worst Movies Of All Time

Synopsis: The DEA sends agent Donna and possible civilian Taryn to Hawaii to bring down accident-prone drug kingpin Seth Romero. Meanwhile, Romero proves his evil bona fides when a couple of his henchmen — Shades, Balding Skateboard Registered Sex Offender, and Sweats-When-He-Eats — murder a couple of Molokai cops. Only one of those names is actually the guy’s stated character name, but the others are entirely accurate.

Meanwhile, at a warehouse where Donna and Taryn have their cover, two snakes have been imported into Hawaii. One of them is fine and headed for some kind of animal preserve, and the other one is “infected with the deadly toxins of a thousand cancer-infested rats” which is totally not a thing, but there you go. Anyway, Donna and Taryn fuck up and take the bad snake along with a honeymooning couple to some beautiful Hawaiian beach. While there, they happen upon a remote controlled helicopter crime boss Mr. Chang (totally played by a white British guy making me think Sidaris doesn’t understand Chinese people either) was using to transport a package to the island.

Balding Skateboard Registered Sex Offender and Sweats-When-He-Eats intercept Taryn and Donna at the helicopter. Fortunately (and despite their secret identities), both women were carrying ninja weapons. Taryn hurls some nunchucks at Sex Offender, and Donna catches Sweats with a throwing star to the nipple. The girls get away with Mr. Chang’s package. Ew. No, wait.

Donna and Taryn decide to head to the jacuzzi to have a topless discussion about what they found, because their boobs need precious air in order to think. The package contains a little bag of diamonds, which will be the movie’s MacGuffin. Donna and Taryn call in Rowdy and Jade for help. Proving that was an awesome idea, a couple of Romero’s thugs rough the girls up a little and the evil snake gets away in the fracas. Romero, who was hilariously waiting outside with the car, sees the snake and freaks out, leading to a full blown retreat. Donna shoots Romero in the face (not fatally) as he flees.

Jade and Rowdy arrive on the island to be immediately attacked by Balding Skateboard Registered Sex Offender. This scene instantly raises the film several notches on the Holy Living Fuck meter. Okay, so Jade and Rowdy are cruising along in their jeep, looking like a couple bros searching for anonymous sodomy and PEDs. BSRSO is doing a handstand on his skateboard, like all skeevy forty-year-olds do. He gets to Sweats-When-He-Eats, who has a blow-up sex doll in the car for some reason. They zoom up the road past the good guys, so BSRSO can skate downhill at the good guys again. For his attack, he grabs a gun and the blow-up doll because all of a sudden this guy is Lars and the Real Girl. BSRSO skates back, shoots Jade non-fatally, and gets totally creamed by the jeep. He flies up in the air, and Rowdy pulls a four-barreled rocket launcher and blows BSRSO up. Then he rockets the sex doll, because fuck that thing. This is exactly as incredible as it sounds.

Not making any of this up.

Meanwhile, the snake kills the honeymooning couple Donna and Taryn dropped off in the beginning. This has nothing to do with anything.

Michele drops the drag act and kidnaps Edy with help from the two thugs who menaced Donna and Taryn earlier. Our heroes are watching Romero’s compound and witness Edy’s arrival. Donna and Taryn gather up Jade and Rowdy and plan an attack. Rowdy and Donna take a break for some sex, and unlike the other sex scenes in the film, this one doesn’t fade out after some topless kissing, although it’s pretty obvious Donna would rather kiss pretty much anything else. Who could blame her, when from the way Rowdy lines up his pelvis to her navel, it’s clear he got sex lessons from Tommy Wiseau.

Anyway, the plan is to kill Shades, who is the sole guard outside the compound. Despite the fact that he openly carries an Uzi, some girl plays frisbee with him every day. Rowdy, in an upsetting banana hammock, paddles a surfboard in and plays frisbee with Shades. What’s this? A bladed frisbee? Fuck yes. Rowdy owns Shades with the weapon every kid in the ‘80s fantasized about having.

Rowdy clutches his preferred murder weapon.

Donna flies in on a gliding plane and drops grenades on the compound while Rowdy, Jade, and Taryn zoom in on a jeep and shoot the place up. It’s like the end of Beverly Hills Cop with a thousand percent more boobs and rockets. Taryn kills Michael, Donna blows up a helicopter full of bad guys, and Romero escapes (something no one realizes until later in the car where they’re like, “Hey, where was Seth?”)

Donna’s at home, ready to unwind, but here comes Seth! What follows is the saddest fight in the history of film. At first, it looks like Romero has a chance, but it quickly becomes apparent he broke into the wrong fucking house. Donna shoots him with a spear gun, stabs him with his own knife, kicks him when he’s down, and feeds him to the evil snake which lives in her toilet now. Donna contemplates how she’s going to murder the snake when Rowdy bursts through the wall on his motorcycle and shoots a rocket in the goddamn house, something I was never allowed to do as a kid. The snake blows up.

Toilet snake.

The movie clears up its last loose end when Rowdy and Donna go murder Mr. Chang, who, let me remind you, is extremely white. In the end, Taryn claims she owns the diamonds now because squatter’s rights or something. Over the credits, we see a brief recap of the many breasts in the film.

Yakmala? Other than the snake, which is a truly bizarre touch, the film is far too competent for inclusion. I was struck by the weird amount of internal logic present. For example, in one comic scene where two football players are giving vulgar answers to softball interview questions, it’s revealed later that they’re both drunk. Once again, Sidaris made the movie he was trying to make. And then added a monster snake because sometimes the muse must be obeyed even if she’s off her meds.

Lauri’s Thoughts: I don’t think I can say that the director has grown as a human being, but the women in this movie at least kicked some ass. While it was unclear what their jobs at “The Agency” actually were, they at least got to fly their own plane, drive their own car, and Donna got to blow up a helicopter with a bazooka and kick the shit out of Prominent Forehead Man who was trying to kill her. It was still a terrible movie full of awkward topless groping sessions (which the director apparently thinks are sex scenes), but at least I actually cheered for Donna and Taryn. And any scene with the bazooka was gold. However, I do want to strangle the person who wrote the horrible theme song that WILL NOT GET OUT OF MY HEAD.

To sum up, on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best, here’s how I rate it:

Girls = 4 (no sympathy numbers, they earned this one by kicking some ass)

Guns = 10 (a bazooka is used to blow up a skateboarder, his blow up doll, a helicopter, and a contaminated snake – unnecessary and wonderful)

G-Strings = 2 (there were 3 g-strings this time if you count the sumo wrestlers!)

Maki’s Thoughts: When I initially mentioned these DVDs, a twitter pal of mine (@BigMaki – go follow him now!) chimed in with some Sidaris love. He’ll be contributing some thoughts to the reviews. Who is he? I’m glad you asked:

Maki is one of the hosts of Bad Movie Fiends, a weekly podcast dedicated to finding and reviewing the good “bad” movies, of which multiple Andy Sidaris movies have been featured. Check them out at BMFcast.com.

Hard Ticket To Hawaii was my introduction to Andy Sidaris, and I have to admit it probably spoiled me for everything else the man would put out. If you’re making a checklist of things that you’d want in his movies, Hard Ticket is the only one that would have every single box checked. There’s the boobs, the guns, the explosions, the remote control vehicles, the terrible one-liners… Then you suddenly put a razorblade frisbee, a rocket launcher blowing up a skateboarder holding an inflatable doll for no reason and you’ve officially thrown in the proverbial kitchen sink as well. And oh yeah, that sink has A CANCER SNAKE IN IT THAT ALSO GETS BLOWN UP WITH A ROCKET LAUNCHER. Because why not, right?

I imagine the scriptwriting process involved this exchange fairly often:

“What’s the awesomest way to kill off this henchman?”

“I dunno, let me ask my 12-year-old son again.”

And then they put in whatever he said! I love this movie. 12-year-old me would have turned out a different man, had he seen this movie when he was 12. If you watch only one Sidaris movie in your life, this is the one.

Filed under: Projected Pixels and Emulsion Tagged: and G-Strings, Andy Sidaris, cancer snake, Girls, guns, Hard Ticket to Hawaii, playboy playmates, rocket launcher