The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 (1986) ***
I wanted to like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 considerably more than I did, because of the way director Tobe Hooper (1943-2017) and screenwriter Kit Carson (1941-2014) mixed in satire and dark comedy with all the material that seems like a prerequisite for a sequel to only one of the most infamous movies ever made, 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Unfortunately, though, leading lady Caroline Williams’ harried disc jockey Stretch — yes, even women from Texas have names that play right alongside Slim and Tex — spends a good 75 percent of her screen time screaming. Williams screams more than Fay Wray in The Most Dangerous Game and King Kong and Mystery of the Wax Museum combined, more than Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween and The Fog and Prom Night and Terror Train and Halloween II combined, and more than all the heroines combined who have faced Jason and Freddy and Michael over the last couple decades. Williams probably wishes they paid her by the scream.

All that infernal screaming begins to bog Massacre 2 down in the middle stretches of a film that both starts and finishes rather strongly.

Massacre 2 also features a Dennis Hopper performance that rates a distant fourth behind River’s Edge, Blue Velvet, and Hoosiers in the unofficial Hopper-portrays-an-epic-burnout-not-totally-unlike-himself (though, to be fair to Hopper, his Blue Velvet character goes beyond, way beyond, the pale of the normal cinematic psychopath) in 1986 competition.

Since Hopper (1936-2010) portrays former Texas Ranger and Sally and Franklin Hardesty-Enright’s uncle Lt. Boude ‘Lefty’ Enright and Cannon Films released Massacre 2, wouldn’t it have been absolutely fantastic if Cannon action hero Chuck Norris played the ranger pursuing vigilante justice against the ripped, twisted, absolutely positively deranged (not to mention cannibalistic) Sawyer family.

Both Chainsaw movies start with narration and an opening crawl.

The original: The film which you are about to see is an account of the tragedy which befell a group of five youths, in particular Sally Hardesty and her invalid brother, Franklin. It is all the more tragic in that they were young. But, had they lived very, very long lives, they could not have expected nor would they have wished to see as much of the mad and macabre as they were to see that day. For them an idyllic summer afternoon drive became a nightmare. The events of that day were to lead to the discovery of one of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

The sequel: On the afternoon of August 18, 1973, five young people in a Volkswagen van ran out of gas on a farm road in South Texas. Four of them were never seen again. The next morning the one survivor, Sally Hardesty-Enright, was picked up on a roadside, blood-caked and screaming murder. Sally said she had broken out of a window in Hell. The girl babbled a mad tale: a cannibal family in an isolated farmhouse … chainsawed fingers and bones … her brother, her friends hacked up for barbecue … chairs made of human skeletons … Then she sank into catatonia. Texas lawmen mounted a month-long manhunt, but could not locate the macabre farmhouse. They could find no killers and no victims. No facts; no crime. Officially, on the records, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre never happened. But during the last 13 years, over and over again reports of bizarre, grisly chainsaw mass-murders have persisted all across the state of Texas. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre has not stopped. It haunts Texas. It seems to have no end.

Made on an estimated $80-140,000 production budget, the original deserves such descriptive phrases as grainy and gritty. Gory, no. Disturbing, yes definitely, terrifying, for sure, with a more than macabre sense of humor, especially during the best dinner table scene this side of Tod Browning’s Freaks. I about lose it every time the family wants the 124-year-old Grandpa Sawyer to end Sally’s life with one crushing blow of a hammer and this cannibalistic codger just can’t find the strength to do it, ultimately giving Sally the opportunity for escape.

More than a decade later, Hooper wanted Massacre 2 to be a dark comedy, accentuating those elements from the original. Meanwhile, naturally, Cannon desired a finished product more along the lines of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or at least its shocking reputation.

The finished product plays more like a compromise.

Both films are reflective of the times they were made. The original, released on the first day of October 1974, came out in the midst of Richard Nixon’s resignation speech, the Watergate scandal that brought Nixon down, the final year of the Vietnam War, the Oil Embargo 1973-74, and general discord in the land. The sequel, released on Aug. 22, 1986, gives us cannibals with ‘family values’ a few months before former Hollywood actor turned politician Ronald Reagan’s speech centered around the family unit and giddy excess in every single frame to produce a bigger but not better Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

The original has this insidious way of getting underneath our skin and dominating our thought patterns, and none of the slicker sequels, remakes or imitations even come remotely close to its power to provoke.

NOTE: The parody of The Breakfast Club earns the film’s poster four stars.

The Wild Geese (1978)

THE WILD GEESE (1978) *
We’ve seen The Wild Geese many times before and we’ve also seen it done a lot better many times before — the rounding up of the mercenary troops for their new mission, the basic training, the jail break, the great escape, the big double cross, the death scenes, etc.

If we pool our collective resources, undoubtedly we could brainstorm 50 or 100 titles easily and recall their overall plots and specific individual developments.

Worse, far worse, infinitely worse even, how do I describe the pace of The Wild Geese?

I thought about saying it moves at a snail’s pace, but then I quickly realized that it more accurately moves like a three-toed sloth dipped in molasses. This is one action movie that does not require slow motion because it’s already slow enough.

In fact, I am hard pressed to come up with an action movie that moves slower than The Wild Geese. I just can’t do it and I don’t want to ever find out if any do exist in this great big universe.

Anyway, we have the first 30 minutes to meet our stars Richard Burton, Richard Harris, and Roger Moore, then around the 45-minute mark it’s basic training and finally around one hour in we get into the main action. I almost said jump, but that’s way too much activity for The Wild Geese. To be fair, The Wild Geese picks up the pace in the last hour to such a degree that only two of the three sloth toes are molasses drenched. Guess what, though, it’s still dull as dishwater.

Yes, indeed, there’s not an exciting moment to be found in The Wild Geese.

Of course, that incredible pace might have something to do with the fact Burton, Harris, and Moore were in their late 40s (Harris) and early 50s (Burton, Moore) when they made The Wild Geese. Harris and especially Burton are not the least bit convincing in their action hero roles. Moore was nearly halfway through his run playing British secret agent James Bond, so he’s more credible than his counterparts and looks much less a fool than either Harris or Burton.

It is ironic that Burton, Harris, and Moore are playing middle-aged mercenaries and the film drops mercenary dialogue routinely during a 135-minute spread, because the three main actors fit the adjective definition of mercenary — primarily concerned with making money at the expense of ethics.

It seems like they paid Burton, Harris, and Moore by the word during The Wild Geese, because they yap and yammer constantly, their barrage of banter only interrupted by the generic requirements of the action movie. Granted, it takes a (long) while before the prerequisite explosions and gunfire.

By my reckoning, a long, long, long, long, long, long while and The Wild Geese lives up only to the geese portion because it is something foul alright. Wild, however, it is most certainly not.

Odds and Odds: The Vikings, Dolls, The Monster Squad, Scream Blacula Scream

ODDS AND ODDS: THE VIKINGS, DOLLS, THE MONSTER SQUAD, SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM
Richard Fleischer’s The Vikings calls to mind epic grand adventure pictures Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Sea Hawk, and The Sea Wolf, not to mention The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad from the same year (1958) and John Boorman’s Excalibur from 1981.

Kirk Douglas’ lust for life recalls Errol Flynn’s in Captain Blood, Robin Hood, and Sea Hawk and Janet Leigh’s incredible beauty compares with Olivia de Havilland’s in Captain Blood and Robin Hood, as well as Helen Mirren’s in Excalibur. Never mind that Leigh and Mirren play characters named Morgana; however, their beauty and first name are where their characters’ similarities begin and end.

In other words, The Vikings belongs to the fine cinematic tradition of swashbucklers, hair-raisers, cliff-hangers, nail-biters, period costume pieces, and historical fiction.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that it has an uncredited Orson Welles narrate. The Vikings, in Europe of the eighth and ninth century, were dedicated to a pagan god of war, Odin. Trapped by the confines of their barren ice-bound northlands, they exploited their skill as shipbuilders to spread a reign of terror, then unequaled in violence and brutality in all the records of history. Good stuff.

Highlights include Douglas’ Einar and Curtis’ Eric having key body parts removed, the former his eye by a falcon and the latter his hand in a bout of capital punishment. These moments undoubtedly make The Vikings one of the most gruesome films in 1958 this side of the British classic Fiend Without a Face. Oh, that’s a golden oldie.

Naturally, one can’t go too wrong with any picture where Ernest Borgnine plays a character named Ragnar and spouts screenwriter Calder Willingham’s dialogue like a bountiful fountain, for example What man ever had a finer son? Odin could have sired him, but I did … and Look how he glares at me. If he wasn’t fathered by the black ram in the full of the moon my name is not Ragnar.

Back in the day, my friend would call on quotes from Airplane and Austin Powers for our amusement, and it’s a crying shame that we had no idea about The Vikings, because I think lines such as You sound like a moose giving birth to a hedgehog and The sun will cross the sky a thousand times before he dies, and you’ll wish a thousand times that you were dead would have perfectly fit a night of carousing, especially for two byproducts of a school with Vikings for its mascot.

Rating: Four stars.

— I finally got around to watching Stuart Gordon’s Dolls for the first time.

Finally, because I love Gordon’s first two features Re-Animator and From Beyond.

I must say that I wasn’t disappointed by Dolls, though it’s a step down from From Beyond and a good two or three from Re-Animator.

Alas, Dolls belongs to a slightly different but no less venerable tradition than Re-Animator and From Beyond, both of which cross mad scientists and low-budget exploitation (nudity, gore, etc.). Think Frankenstein meets Dawn of the Dead.

Dolls, meanwhile, recalls such touchstones as The Old Dark House and The Devil-Doll, not to mention the 1979 Tourist Trap. See if this plot sounds familiar: On a dark and stormy night, six people — a dysfunctional family (husband and father, wife and stepmother, and daughter / stepdaughter) and a young man with two hitchhikers — find the nearest house (The Old Dark House) and they have to fight to make it out of the other end of the motion picture alive because their kindly old hosts are magical toy makers with killer dolls (The Devil-Doll, Tourist Trap).

Like both Re-Animator and From Beyond, Gordon and Dolls screenwriter Ed Naha jump off from their basic old-fashioned plot structure with inspired moments of madness.

Dolls also predates Child’s Play by more than a year and rather than just one killer doll, it has a horde … but Child’s Play, created by Don Mancini, spawned Child’s Play 2, Child’s Play 3, Bride of Chucky, Seed of Chucky, Curse of Chucky, Cult of Chucky, and Child’s Play (2019), plus short films Chucky’s Vacation Slides and Chucky Invades and the TV series Chucky.

So, apparently, not all killer doll films are created equal.

Rating: Three stars.

— The Monster Squad starts with an absolute genius idea: Take a group of kids, horror movie fans one and all, and have them do battle against Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, Wolf Man, Mummy, and Gill Man.

Yes, what an absolutely positively brilliant idea by screenwriters Shane Black and Fred Dekker, whose names ring a bell loud and clear for genre fans. Others will be familiar with their work regardless whether they know their names or not.

Black made his fame and fortune first for the script of the buddy cop picture Lethal Weapon and some of his other credits include Predator (he plays Hawkins), The Last Boy Scout, and The Long Kiss Goodnight.

Dekker’s other feature directorial credits are the fantastic Night of the Creeps and the not-so-fantastic RoboCop 3.

The Monster Squad gives us both protagonists and monsters that we like, and that goes a long way toward producing a memorable motion picture experience.

The Wolf Man gets his due for a change. The fat kid Horace kicks the Wolf Man in the groin and unleashes the film’s trademark line Wolfman’s got nards! In 2018, Andre Gower, one of the stars of The Monster Squad, directed a documentary named Wolfman’s Got Nards, which looks at the impact one little cult horror film made on fans, cast and crew, and the movie industry.

Anyway, in a movie filled with nifty little moments, I love it when the Wolf Man regenerates after he’s blown up real good.

On the site Drinking Cinema, I found a game for The Monster Squad so drink whenever: 1. Dynamite EXPLODES! 2. A monster dies! 3. You hear a sweet insult. 4. You learn a new monster fact. 5. The cops are having a really hard time figuring out that, um, hello, the perps are various Jack Pierce creations. 6. You see amazing dog acting. 7. You witness a patented Monster Slow-Walk. 8. There’s a monster scare!

I give The Monster Squad a slight deduction for the obligatory music video montage right around the midway point of the picture.

Rating: Three-and-a-half stars.

— Vampirism and voodoo go together rather well and their combination helps Scream Blacula Scream become one of those rare sequels I prefer over the original.

I thought William Marshall’s performance as the title character was the redeeming factor in Blacula and he’s every bit as good in Scream Blacula Scream. Marshall just has a commanding screen presence and he brings both a gravitas to a character and legitimacy to a movie that otherwise might be laughable with the wrong person in the main role. He’s equally effective in every guise of this character — the debonair Mamuwalde who has a definite charm with the ladies befitting an African prince (which he indeed was before the racist Dracula cursed him and imprisoned in a coffin until Blacula awakened in 1972 Los Angeles), the menacing Blacula with his fangs bared, and the more reflective Mamuwalde who hates the dreaded vampire curse.

A highly respectable box office return — not voodoo, no matter what the plot synopsis might read — brought Mamuwalde / Blacula / Marshall back.

In the first movie, Mamuwalde / Blacula comes to believe the lovely Tina’s the reincarnation of his long dead wife Luva. Well, it definitely helps that Vonetta McGee plays both Tina and Luva. By golly, doesn’t this plot thread just get you every single time?

In the sequel, Mamuwalde / Blacula believes in the voodoo powers of Lisa Fortier. She can provide a cure and exorcise the curse once and forever.

Scream Blacula Scream came out two weeks after Coffy and had it been made later in 1973 after Pam Grier busted out as a star playing Coffy, her Lisa Fortier character in Scream Blacula Scream would have undoubtedly been different. Grier plays a more traditional leading lady and screaming and shrinking damsel in distress in Scream Blacula Scream, and she’s definitely no shrinking violet in either Coffy or Foxy Brown. So if Scream Blacula Scream had been produced more in the aftermath of both Coffy and Cleopatra Jones, which came out a month after both Coffy and Scream Blacula Scream, surely American-International — one of the best exploitation film outlets — would have wanted Grier to play one badass mama jama vampire killer rather than her more stereotypical role.

Fair warning: Scream Blacula Scream ends on an extremely jarring note. I remember thinking, in the immortal song title of Peggy Lee, is that all there is? Despite the fact of that ending, you might be surprised to find that I am granting Scream Blacula Scream three-and-a-half stars. Yes, it is just that good.

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1956) ***
I would have liked to been a fly on the wall (but not Mike Pence’s head) for several conversations throughout motion picture history.

For example, when Chevy Chase was offered Oh Heavenly Dog. We all remember that one, right, where Chase plays a private detective who’s murdered real early in the picture and then, almost just like Warren Beatty in Heaven Can Wait, he’s reincarnated as, wait for it, Benji. We see Benji solve the murder and hear Chase on the soundtrack. Yes, it’s a real movie.

Another example would be how Alfred Hitchcock reacted when he was told his Man Who Knew Too Much star Doris Day would sing Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be) not once but twice during the movie — the first time about 12 minutes in and the second with about 12 minutes left.

Isn’t it obvious, though, that Hitchcock wasn’t into Que Sera, Sera, even before Day sings that line about 500 times.

I search it up (as the kids today say) and find this juicy bit of IMDb trivia: Throughout the filming, Doris Day became increasingly concerned that Alfred Hitchcock paid more attention to camera set-ups, lighting, and technical matters than he did to her performance. Convinced that he was displeased with her work, she finally confronted him. His reply was, ‘My dear Miss Day, if you weren’t giving me what I wanted, then I would have to direct you!’

Apparently, Day (1922-2019) herself was initially turned off by the notion of singing what became her signature song, even in death. She thought it was a forgettable children’s song.

I call this 1956 version The Woman Who Sang Too Much.

The Man Who Knew Too Much ’56 (a remake of Hitchcock’s own 1934 film) predominantly works because of the performance of James Stewart and a couple spectacular set pieces.

Despite this being the least of the four features Stewart made with Hitchcock, way behind Vertigo, Rope, and Rear Window (in that order), we follow the events from beginning to end mostly because of the inherent pull of Stewart … and we also know that even during a lesser Hitchcock film, that sly old master, that dirty old dog, would still come up with something to wow us.

Here, it’s the murder of the mysterious Frenchman in Morocco and the attempted assassination of the prime minister at Royal Albert Hall. Personally, I still prefer Jimi Hendrix’s two nights at the Royal Albert in February 1969. Que sera, sera, right?

Bernard Herrmann, the man responsible for the scores to seven Hitchcock films as well as Citizen Kane and Taxi Driver, makes a cameo as the conductor.

Hitchcock apparently made his trademark cameo around 25 minutes in, but I missed it. Que sera, sera, right?

Especially now that I’m blaring Hendrix’s Hear My Train A Comin’.

Invasion U.S.A. (1985)

INVASION U.S.A. (1985) *
Joseph Zito made a logical progression from directing mad slasher films The Prowler and The Final Chapter (Jason Voorhees’ third screen entry) to Chuck Norris action spectaculars Missing in Action and Invasion U.S.A for the Cannon Films Group, one of the ultimate purveyors of schlock all through the ’80s.

Their schlock includes Ninja III: The Domination and Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, both from 1984 and directed by Sam Firstenberg.

Anyway, I digress, which is something that I will invariably do whenever discussing Invasion U.S.A. Yes, I admit upfront this review will be filled with digressions.

The plot: Multinationals with guns (sometimes with subtitles, sometimes without) invade the United States, actually Florida but Invasion Florida doesn’t quite ring the same liberty bell, and one-man army Chuck Norris stops them with bloody ballyhoo. Named Matt Hunter in a fit of poetic fancy, perhaps by one of the writers of this garbage, Norris could have killed ’em all with denim.

Basically, Invasion U.S.A is Red Dawn dumbed down even more and it substitutes teeny bopper Commie scum killers Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, C. Thomas Howell, Jennifer Grey, and Lea Thompson for Norris, who laughably tells us that he works alone. No joke, we know this after ’bout 50 Norris films where his character informs us that he kills scumbags all on his lonesome. I mean, wasn’t one of Norris’ better movies even called Lone Wolf McQuade for crying out loud?

The best Norris pictures have strong supporting characters and casts, who make up for the sometimes personality deficient Norris. Alas, Invasion U.S.A gives us one of the worst characters in not only a Norris movie but all movies in general — an apparent photojournalist named McGuire (Melissa Prophet) who probably should have been named Molly Magsnarl instead. She’s not the least bit grateful for Hunter saving her, and I would have let her meet her ultimate demise after the first time she snarls at me Cowboy. She blows out the tires on Invasion U.S.A every time she’s on screen.

Seeing her camera made me laugh, though, because I thought about how it was John Rambo’s assignment to only take photos of the POWs — not to rescue them — in Rambo: First Blood Part 2.

Speaking of First Blood Part 2, released a few months before Invasion U.S.A, it and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Commando (released just after Invasion U.S.A) both blow away Invasion U.S.A in the great 1985 One-Man Army Movie Sweepstakes.

I also found a worse movie than Star Trek V: The Final Frontier that includes characters singing Row, Row, Row Your Boat.

Petey Wheatstraw (1977)

PETEY WHEATSTRAW (1977) ***
Rudy Ray Moore (1927-2008) created his own comedic universe on film, featuring outrageous characters with sped up chases and kung fu, stand up and musical interludes, and sexual exhibitions articulating his vision — basically party records brought to low-budget live-action cartoon.

Imagine a foul-mouthed, sexually-explicit Sanford and Son crossed with Benny Hill and Kung Fu and populated with pimps, madams, prostitutes, crooked cops, gangsters, and other larger-than-life figures designed to amuse or titillate.

I definitely had a strong negative reaction to Disco Godfather and then worked my way back through Dolemite, The Human Tornado, and finally Petey Wheatstraw, arguably the ultimate expression of the essence of Rudy Ray Moore and his iconic characters. Full title: Petey Wheatstraw, the Devil’s Son-in-Law.

Anyway, I now know that I should have started with Dolemite and then proceeded chronologically through Moore’s filmography. Maybe I’ll go revisit Disco Godfather and like it more because Moore as either Dolemite or Petey Wheatstraw grew on me to such a degree that I became more than willing to forgive him for Disco Godfather and his overindulgence in Put your weight on it. Maybe his rhyming abilities wore me down, or maybe I just find the idea of a middle-aged stand up comedian well-versed in kung fu greatly appealing.

Petey Wheatstraw is absolutely positively ridiculous and we’d not expect anything less or want anything else from Mr. Moore and gang. Moore plays our title character, a popular stand up comic nothing like the real Moore, and rival comics Leroy (Leroy Daniels) and Skillet (Ernest Mayhand) plot and scheme to get the more popular Wheatstraw to change the date of his show. Leroy and Skillet, not the most adept smooth talkers in the world and who are under extreme pressure for their enormous debt, finally resort to deploying their henchmen in street violence. They gun down a kid in cold blood and then an entire neighborhood — inc. Petey Wheatstraw — at the kid’s funeral. In the afterlife, Petey naturally makes a deal with the Devil (G. Tito Shaw) — he can return to life if he marries the Devil’s daughter, the world’s ugliest woman, of course, and provides Lucifer a grandson. Petey also takes control of the Devil’s cane that provides Mr. Wheatstraw incredible powers. Wheatstraw was taught the martial arts relatively early in his life — Petey Wheatstraw knows kung fu and Petey Wheatstraw knows crazy.

Petey Wheatstraw doesn’t fool around one bit — like Moore and his characters themselves — and it makes a leap straight for the joyously absurd with Petey Wheatstraw’s pre-credits narration and a flashback to Wheatstraw being born in the form of a 6-year-old child. The film goes on its merry little way from that point forward and I thought I had found myself in the midst of the most sublimely ridiculous sight I’ve ever seen when Wheatstraw and his associates have to fight off the Devil’s minions. Then, they did it again and I felt like I had died and gone to Heaven.

The Human Tornado (1976)

THE HUMAN TORNADO (1976) **1/2
I have mixed feelings about this sequel to Dolemite
Sometimes it sucks and sometimes it is outta sight
Rudy Ray Moore returns as our title character and he’s fine
He’s truly one of a kind and his bluntness will blow yo’ mind
He’s grown on me since he made a terrible first impression
Both Dolemite and The Human Tornado a better expression
He’s not what earns The Human Tornado a mixed review
I promise that I like Dolemite and Rudy Ray, I really do!
It’s that rat soup eating motherfucker redneck racist sheriff piece of shit
He drags the movie into the mud and his every scene’s just like a cesspit
Character’s named Sheriff Beatty, played by J.D. Baron in his film debut
Somebody should have kung fu kicked him to death, but they never do
His all-out redneck assault often brings The Human Tornado to a halt
Not sure if that’s writer Jerry Jones or director Cliff Roquemore’s fault
Enough about that, how ’bout “Glorya De Lani” as Hurricane Annie
Her glorious breasts distract from Rudy Ray Moore’s big fat fanny
She contributes her fair share to some of the best nudity in screen history
I’d trade her nude for every redneck sheriff scene and it’s sure no mystery
Glorious Gloria Delaney and her breasts returned as Peaches in Penitentiary
What else can be said but yes, God bless the breasts of the Twentieth Century
Dolemite seeks out the sleazy crime boss’ sex pot wife and their sex wrecks the set
Nympho gives Dolemite the info he wants so many times none of us will ever forget
Dolemite takes out anonymous henchmen in a flurry of speeded up kung fu kicks
The Human Tornado truly has everything, a gay blade and a guy with karate sticks
We can’t neglect Ernie Hudson early in his career or Lady Reed and Lord Java in the cast
Funky music, funky hair, miles of nudity, loads of vulgarity, mostly a blast from the past

We Had Ourselves a Real Good Time: Blacula, Dolemite, TNT Jackson, The Devil and Max Devlin

WE HAD OURSELVES A REAL GOOD TIME: BLACULA, DOLEMITE, TNT JACKSON, THE DEVIL AND MAX DEVLIN
Max Schreck, Bela Lugosi, Carlos Villarias, Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine, Christopher Lee, Klaus Kinski, George Hamilton, Frank Langella, Gary Oldman, and Leslie Nielsen.

That’s a lot of bared fangs, deadly stares, and spectacular deaths over the decades.

Fair warning: Best get outta here with that Tom Cruise, Gerard Butler, Robert Pattinson bull.

Blacula star William Marshall deserves his rightful place among the best screen vampires. For example, he’s definitely better than, oh, let’s say, Carradine, who played Dracula in House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, and Billy the Kid vs. Dracula and often looked like somebody had squeezed some fresh lemon juice in his eyes. A few months after Marshall debuted as Black Dracula, Lee appeared in his sixth Dracula film — cleverly titled Dracula A.D. 1972 — and Lee’s spiraling lack of enthusiasm for the role that made him famous bites you right smack dab in the neck.

With his booming voice, commanding screen presence, and legitimate acting chops, Marshall (1924-2003) owns Blacula and makes it infinitely better than some cruddy hunk of cinematic junk like Blackenstein. He brings an unexpected dignity to what might otherwise have been a throwaway film.

Rating: Three stars.

— I enjoyed Dolemite a whole lot more than Disco Godfather, my first Rudy Ray Moore experience, and not only because I’m now calling the former picture Boom Mic Motherfucker.

Disco Godfather lost me by about the millionth or maybe it was by the billionth time Moore (1927-2008) exclaimed Put your weight on it, a slogan that needless to say would not be adopted or adapted by 1980 U.S. Presidential candidates Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and John B. Anderson. Despite the fact that it tried cultivating a social conscience, Disco Godfather needed some weight put on it, because it was the cinematic equivalent of an anorexic crackhead.

Moore has been called The Godfather of Rap and both Dolemite and the character himself almost instantly serve notice why. Jailbird Dolemite’s first lines are Oh, shit. What the hell does that rat-soup-eatin’ motherfucker want with me? One could play a reasonable drinking game with how many times Dolemite utters motherfucker in the movie, because it’s not every time Cheech & Chong say Man in Up in Smoke (reportedly 285 times) or everybody says Carol Anne in Poltergeist III (121). You won’t get wasted, best shit you ever tasted, from Dolemite. You’ll probably feel pretty good and the alcohol will help laughter.

The plot: Dolemite gets released from prison and fights the criminals and corrupt police officers who sent our favorite cinematic pimp up the river in the first place. Really, though, Dolemite is about the profanity, fight scenes, female (we’ll forget about the male) nudity, and complete utter ridiculousness, all of it done over-the-top. Never mind that it’s a time capsule into Bicentennial-Era America filed right alongside Dog Day Afternoon.

To be honest, though, I was distracted from the plot and everything else by the unpaid co-star Boom Mic Visible, who’s absolutely the funniest motherfucker in Dolemite. According to IMDb, The boom mic is visible in many shots of original Xenon VHS to DVD transfer from the 1980s. The film was originally transferred without the proper ratio ‘gate’ of 1:85.1, revealing more of the top and bottom of the frame than the film makers originally intended. The 2016 Vinegar Syndrome Bluray release was re-transferred from an archive print of the film, at the proper ratio, so the boom mics are hidden in many shots. The Bluray release also includes a ‘boom mic’ version of the new transfer, intentionally revealing the boom mics for comic effect.

Now we know.

The actor John Kerry (not that John Kerry) played Detective Mitchell in Dolemite and it’s a missed opportunity that nobody ever asked 2008 U.S. Presidential Candidate John Kerry about his experiences making Dolemite, what Rudy Ray Moore was really like, etc. That’s a real shame.

Rating: Three stars.

— TNT Jackson is definitely not a good movie, but I am still feeling a certain lingering affection for it that other (better) movies wish they could make me feel for them.

What else could be said about some of the worst martial arts sequences ever committed to celluloid, from the very first fists and feet of fury scene all the way to the grand finale. Would you believe punches and kicks that do not connect but still inflict damage? Would you believe the heroine could punch right through the villain? Well, prepare yourself for TNT Jackson.

TNT Jackson falls short of the standard established by similar pictures Coffy and Cleopatra Jones, because, let’s face it, TNT Jackson star Jeannie Bell falls below Pam Grier and Tamara Dobson, respectively. Sure, former playmate and bunny Bell looks absolutely stunning with her great hair, great face, and great body, but she can’t act her way out of a paper bag and we don’t really believe that she could fight her way out of one if she wasn’t the star of the movie. Miss Jackson and her inevitable white chick nemesis (Pat Anderson) wage what’s possibly the worst cat fight ever in the history of the movies. It’s a doozy, and that describes the vast majority of the 72-minute TNT Jackson. Yes, that’s right, 72 minutes, a genuine throwback.

The late, great character actor Dick Miller (1928-2019) earned a screenwriting credit on TNT Jackson, but apparently producer Roger Corman had it rewritten by Ken Metcalfe, who plays the sleazy sub-villain Sid in TNT. Miller does not appear in TNT Jackson.

It’s amazing TNT Jackson romantic lead and main villain Stan Shaw did not get The Sensational, Smooth, Suave, Sophisticated, Stunning Stan Shaw for his screen credit, but maybe just maybe that’s because he overplays his smooth, suave, sophisticated ways so much that we’re tired of his jive real quick. Heck, even Shaw’s afro overplays it throughout TNT Jackson. I’ve not seen this much overacting by hair since, oh, let’s see, Chu Chu and the Philly Flash or maybe I’m mixing up Carol Burnett’s decorative head cover (wait, that’s just part of her costume) with her maracas.

Basically, I can’t hate too much on TNT Jackson like I do Chu Chu (more like Poo Poo and the Poopy Gas), since director Cirio H. Santiago remade TNT a few years later as Firecracker and substituted (white) Jillian Kesner for Bell in the title role. Both movies have similar plot elements, namely infamous topless fights, and Metcalfe in a similar role, but Firecracker does it better.

After watching TNT Jackson, I could not help but gravitate toward AC/DC’s song and the chorus ‘Cause I’m T.N.T., I’m dynamite / T.N.T., and I’ll win the fight / T.N.T., I’m a power load / T.N.T., watch me explode. Bonus points for TNT Jackson, ones that keep it from a two-star rating.

The best version of TNT Jackson is the two-minute promotional trailer put together by Joe Dante and Allan Arkush for New World Pictures circa 1974 or 1975. The voice-over narration takes it to greatness: TNT Jackson, Black Bombshell with a Short Fuse! This Hit Lady’s Charm Will Break Both Your Arms! She’s a One-Mama Massacre Squad! TNT’s Mad and That’s Real Bad! With That Dynamite Bod She’s a Jet Black Hit Squad! A Super Soul Sister and a Bad News Brother Under Cover and Out to Blast a Killer Army That’s Poisoning the People with Deadly China White! You Best Pay the Fine or She’ll Shatter Your Spine! Black Chinatown, Where Flesh is Cheap and Life is Cheaper! TNT Jackson, She’ll Put You in Traction!

Rating: Two-and-a-half stars. Trailer: Four stars.

— Before The Devil and Max Devlin, it had no doubt been a long time since Walt Disney Studios depicted Hell in one of their films.

For example, Hell’s Bells from 1929 and Pluto’s Judgement Day from 1935 leap first to mind, two animated shorts that might blow people’s minds who normally associate animation with cute-and-cuddly innocuous fare at this late point in history.

To be fair to the older films, which are both far superior to the main film currently under consideration, feature length The Devil and Max Devlin doesn’t spend a lot of time in Hell.

Well, actually, according to some former President, right, aren’t California and Hell the same?

I wonder, given the subject matter and the presence of Bill Cosby in one of the starring roles, if The Devil and Max Devlin will go or has already gone the way of the controversial, divisive Song of the South — suppressed for seeming eternity by the folks at Disney. I found them both in the dark, dank recesses of the Internet and I hope that I won’t go to jail or Hell for either cultural sin.

Anyway, I like the locations (especially Hell) and I like the high concepts behind The Devil and Max Devlin like a slumlord trying to save his soul by giving the bad guys three unsullied souls and it turned out to be perfect casting to have Cosby in the role of the Devil’s helper, but the movie gets so bogged down in plot details that it evolves into a real slog and we just want more than anything else in the world at the moment for the movie to finally be over. At least, if nothing else, that’s how The Devil and Max Devlin made me feel watching it.

Rating: Two-and-a-half stars.

Auto Pilot Cinema: The Airport Movies

AUTO PILOT CINEMA: THE AIRPORT MOVIES
When thinking of the worst series in movie history, I am tempted to start with Saw and Fast and the Furious then move back through time with The Omen and Amityville Horror and finally go way way way back to the Dead End Kids, er, Bowery Boys.

In piecing through all this cinematic carnage, I should not leave behind the four Airport movies that were churned out by Universal Pictures from 1970 to 1979. Maybe I should leave them behind.

Airport, based on Arthur Hailey’s 1968 novel of the same name, made a killing at the box office upon its late May release in 1970 and it even received 10, yes, believe it or not, 10 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, and 70-year-old Helen Hayes won Best Supporting Actress.

The three subsequent films — helpfully labeled 1975, ’77, and ’79 — got worse and worse, naturally, and the last film in the series, The Concorde … Airport ’79, is so bad (and so aggressively stupid) in fact that it could kill off any series. That’s despite the fact that it reportedly made $65 million, a much better take than, for example, Irwin Allen productions The Swarm ($7.7 million), Beyond the Poseidon Adventure ($2.1 million), and When Time Ran Out ($3.8 million). Regardless, Universal stopped making Airport movies after The Concorde and I’m almost dumbfounded why there’s not been a remake or a reboot loaded with today’s stars.

Hey, wait, did somebody mention stars? Yes, stars, that’s what these Airport movies were about — speculating which ones would emerge at the end of the picture relatively intact and which ones would die spectacularly. Grand Hotel in the sky, not exactly, since none of the careers in the Airport movies were at their peak like the ones in Grand Hotel, but the idea of stuffing the screen with stars in every scene applies just the same.

Airport: Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jean Seberg, Jacqueline Bisset, George Kennedy, Hayes, Van Heflin, Maureen Stapleton, Barry Nelson, Dana Wynter, Lloyd Nolan.

Airport 1975: Charlton Heston, Karen Black, Kennedy, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Susan Clark, Helen Reddy, Linda Blair, Dana Andrews, Roy Thinnes, Sid Caesar, Myrna Loy, Gloria Swanson.

Airport ’77: Jack Lemmon, Lee Grant, Branda Vaccaro, Joseph Cotten, Olivia de Havilland, Darren McGavin, Christopher Lee, Robert Foxworth, Kathleen Quinlan, James Stewart.

Airport ’79: Alain Delon, Susan Blakely, Robert Wagner, Sylvia Kristel, Kennedy, Eddie Albert, Bibi Andersson, Charo, John Davidson, Andrea Marcovicci, Martha Raye, Cicely Tyson, Jimmie Walker, David Warner, Mercedes McCambridge.

More like Hollywood Squares in the Sky? Yeah, believe so, especially since Davidson hosted a Hollywood Squares revival in the late ’80s.

Beside Airport in the titles, Kennedy (1925-2016) proved to be the connective tissue between all four pictures, meaning he’s the inverse of the Brody boys (Jaws) and the Griswold children (Vacation). Kennedy played Joe Patroni — first as mechanic, then as vice president of operations (1975), a consultant (’77), and finally an experienced pilot (’79). Regardless of position or rank, the character got worse and worse over the course of the films, not that he or the films started out all that hot. I found even his cigar was guilty of overacting in the original film and Patroni was so odiously obnoxious in the fourth film, especially after he utters the line that articulates the sexism of the entire series, They don’t call it the cockpit for nothing, honey. George Kennedy as sex symbol? Sure, I’ll believe anything, nearly anything except for, oh, the entire plot of The Concorde.

I’ll talk more about The Concorde and the original because they’re fresher in my memory. To be honest, though, I probably won’t even feel like discussing the original because …

Movies rarely come any dumber than The Concorde: Let’s see, this is going to be fun, not really, anyway TV reporter Susan Blakely comes across some highly incriminating evidence against defense contractor (and covert arms dealer) Robert Wagner. Wagner decides that he’s going to attempt to blow up real good the plane she’s on en route from Washington to Paris. Okay, okay, his plot to blow up the Concorde real good fails and they have dinner together in Paris during the middle section of the movie, because, you know, they have a history together and they still love each other. She still has this incriminating evidence, naturally, she’s going to eventually go public with it, of course, and what does he do? Kill her? He lets her walk away safe and unharmed, so he’ll have to go after the plane again. That’s right, she gets back on the Concorde for the final leg of the flight from Paris to Moscow. Guilt stricken, Wagner commits suicide very late in the picture and I believe it’s not because his secret’s been discovered and will be exposed regardless of whether he’s alive or not, but more that he’s one of the worst villains in cinematic history.

The Concorde is so laughable in so many ways, as if that whole plot discussed in the last paragraph wasn’t enough. The Concorde stops over in Paris for a night, and every single passenger gets back on the plane the next morning. They all seem way too calm and collected after the events of the first half of the movie. I would love to have just heard one character say ‘Hell no, I’m not getting back on that damn plane!’ They all deserved to die, but we know that’s not happening.

At one critical point during the first attack on the Concorde, the Übermensch George Kennedy proves that he’s truly The Übermensch by sticking his hand out the window of the Concorde and throwing a flare. Unbelievable, utterly unbelievable even in this preposterous movie. If only the first Airport had been the in-flight movie on The Concorde, especially that scene where Patroni discusses the effects of a bomb on a 707 and concludes, When I was a mechanic in the Air Force, I was being transferred on a MATS plane. At 20,000 feet, one of the windows shattered. The guy sitting next to it was about 170 pounds. He went through that little space like a hunk of hamburger going down a disposal, and right after him coats, pillows, blankets, cups, saucers. That was just a MATS plane, not the fastest plane in the universe.

I’m done, I can’t take it anymore, and I’m bailing out on the Airport movies.

Airport (1970) **; Airport 1975 (1974) **1/2; Airport ’77 (1977) *; The Concorde: Airport ’79 (1979) 1/2*

Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)

GODZILLA VS. KONG (2021) ****
Adam Wingard’s Godzilla vs. Kong got it (mostly) right, especially compared with its immediate predecessor Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and that’s because the film wisely spends more time with protagonist Kong and antagonist Godzilla than its banal human characters and their petty dramas and squabbles and simply functional dialogue.

Also, unlike both Godzilla 2014 and King of the Monsters, we get monster fights shot in broad daylight or neon light. All the monsters and their incredible mayhem are clearly visible, and it makes a huge difference from the disappointing King of the Monsters. Thus, it seems that Wingard and Warner Brothers must have caught wind of the complaints about King of the Monsters, that we didn’t see Godzilla and King Ghidorah and Mothra enough and instead we had to squirm our way through too many family drama scenes involving father Kyle Chandler, mother Vera Farmiga, and daughter Millie Bobby Brown just to get to the monsters. Chandler and Brown return for Godzilla vs. Kong, Farmiga does not for an obvious reason from the end of King of the Monsters, and they’re sidelined for Godzilla and Kong, the nominal stars of the movie, just like they should. We have plenty of new human characters in Godzilla vs. Kong, as well, and they’re not all that important, not as important as Mechagodzilla anyway. Monsters rule Godzilla vs. Kong.

In other words, Godzilla vs. Kong gave me a damn good time at the movies.

I’ve read and heard complaints that Godzilla vs. Kong features too many ridiculous and just plain inexplicable plot elements and developments. What? No way! That’s what I wanted more from Godzilla ’14 and King of the Monsters, to just be silly and ridiculous occasionally and display a lighter touch, esp. King of the Monsters.

The best Godzilla movies work for different reasons: The original 1954 classic has a darker, somber tone unlike any other Godzilla and introduces one of the great movie monsters; Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971) and Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991) are off-the-wall and so far off-the-wall they could be in another house; Godzilla ’14 gave us a serious Godzilla movie with legitimate actors and it took many of us by surprise, especially with memories of the previous American Godzilla picture.

I’ve watched most all of the 36 Godzilla films — 32 from Japan’s Toho Studios, four from America — and I currently recommend 28 of them, except for Godzilla vs. Gigan (a close miss), All Monsters Attack and Son of Godzilla, and the 1998 Godzilla, the absolute bottom-of-the-barrel cinematic dregs from Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin that should have been fed to the Smog Monster.

We’ve had many fewer Kong movies over the years, but I’ve loved most of them. The 1933 original remains one of my touchstone movie experiences and it’s something that I am compelled to put on every once in a while just to be dazzled and amazed all over again. I’ll enthusiastically or vehemently defend the 1976 and 2005 remakes, the 1933 sequel could have been so much greater had it not been rushed into release during the same calendar year as the original film, I’ve not seen King Kong Lives from 1986, and I enjoyed Kong: Skull Island more than King of the Monsters, though go figure I gave them both the same three-star rating. Okay, okay, Skull Island edges closer to three-and-a-half and King of the Monsters two-and-a-half, but who needs all that nuance. Apparently, there’s 12 films overall in the King Kong franchise, including the Toho productions King Kong vs. Godzilla and King Kong Escapes. I love King Kong Escapes for most of the reasons I love Godzilla vs. Hedorah and Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, and they’re all gloriously ridiculous and preposterous. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

What better space than here and better time than now to put in a word for Marv Newland’s 1969 classic animated short Bambi Meets Godzilla and King Kong knockoff films King Kung Fu and the Shaw Brothers’ The Mighty Peking Man, the former the only monster movie filmed in Wichita, Kansas, and the latter comes to us from dudes known for The One-Armed Swordsman and Five Fingers of Death though they also brought us The Super Inframan and Hammer co-production The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires. We’re still giving the middle finger to A*P*E and I would be remiss to not mention The Most Dangerous Game from 1932 that was filmed on some of the same sets as King Kong and includes King Kong stars Fay Wray and Robert Armstrong in a dangerous adventure saga on an island and Mighty Joe Young from 1949 with the same creative team as King Kong — Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack — as well as Armstrong, splendid work from The Lost World and King Kong special effects pioneer Willis O’Brien (assisted by Ray Harryhausen), and a surprisingly touching and involving friendship at the heart of the picture.

The original King Kong vs. Godzilla needed upgraded because, let’s face it, its success or failure hinges on whether or not viewers embrace or reject the cheesy special effects, the preposterous plot, the horrific dubbing (at least in the American version). On first viewing, I rejected King Kong vs. Godzilla yet I’ve warmed to it just a little bit more every time on subsequent viewings. I watched it as the start of a mini-marathon the night before seeing Godzilla vs. Kong in theaters and it remained good, solid fun. Still, though, it’s not some masterpiece that should never be remade and remodeled, like, for example, Psycho (oops, Gus Van Sant didn’t get that memo) and 2001.

I appreciate the nods that Godzilla vs. Kong makes to King Kong vs. Godzilla and King Kong Escapes (I hope a future installment makes room for Mechani-Kong), as well as other elements seen before during Pacific Rim and Tron. Guess what? I have enjoyed Pacific Rim and Tron, films which their critics have dismissed for being cheesy, as well and Godzilla vs. Kong joins their ranks.

— BONUS: I read three reviews of Godzilla vs. Kong before seeing the movie. Two of them reminded me that Emmerich and Devlin inserted characters based on Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel in their Godzilla, but they didn’t have the guts or the nuts to have Mayor Ebert and Gene stomped out by their bad CGI monster.

You don’t even have to read the full review by Armond White to feel like saying Lighten up, Francis. On Apr. 2, White proclaimed Godzilla vs. Kong to be the Shiny Dud of the Week, because it (in White’s words) cheapens the moviegoing habit thru mindless spectacle and shameless formula. Several hours later, White shared his review again and hyped it, If you have a mind, Godzilla vs. Kong is not the movie for you. Ah, it’s mindless entertainment, I see, but, hey wait, my prefrontal and limbic regions of the neocortex, particularly the orbitofrontal region of the prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and the insular cortex, especially object to White’s review.

Web-based film critic James Berardinelli finished his review, I wonder how my eight-year-old self would have reacted to Godzilla vs. Kong. There was a time when I gobbled up anything with monsters, irrespective of the quality of special effects. I didn’t care about the level of destruction and took it as a necessity that the movie would sometimes become bogged down by focusing on underdeveloped humans and their silly concerns. I suspect I might have loved this film in all its overproduced glory. But what works for an eight-year-old doesn’t always work for someone who has evolved to expect more.

Personally, the 42-year-old me is ecstatic the 38-year-old director Wingard and the screenwriting team of 41-year-old Eric Pearson and presumably-40ish-year-old Max Borenstein decided to focus more on Kong and Godzilla and less on inane humans. They could have gone even further. I’d love a Jurassic Park movie, for example, to feature only dinosaurs and prehistoric life — no banal or venal human beings to muddle and bungle it all up — and this ideal dinosaur movie would be made in the style of Luis Bunuel’s The Phantom of Liberty and Richard Linklater’s Slacker.

I find myself closer to Matt Zoller Seitz’s rave on RogerEbert.com, which had me at Godzilla vs. Kong is a crowd-pleasing, smash-’em-up monster flick and a straight-up action picture par excellence. It is a fairy tale and a science-fiction exploration film, a Western, a pro wrestling extravaganza, a conspiracy thriller, a Frankenstein movie, a heartwarming drama about animals and their human pals, and, in spots, a voluptuously wacky spectacle that plays as if the creation sequence in The Tree of Life had been subcontracted to the makers of Yellow Submarine.

Yeah, Godzilla vs. Kong got it about 90 percent right.