Bachelor Party: Tom Hanks' Finest Performance

Long before Tom Hanks went searching for Angels and Demons, the Academy Award winning actor went searching for Tits and Ass. Yes, folks, back in the '80s a bushy-haired, bush loving skinny dude starred in the best sex comedy ever made, Bachelor Party. Read this review featured on the YouTube trailer page:

Bachelor Party is a 1984 comedy film starring Tom Hanks, Tawny Kitaen, Adrian Zmed, Robert Prescott, and Deborah Harmon, directed by Neal Israel. The original music score was composed by Robert Folk.

In the film, party-animal Rick Gassko (Hanks) deciding to settle down and marry his girlfriend Debbie Thompson (Kitaen) and his friends throw him one final debauchery-laden bash. Debbie suspects Rick of future cheating on her at the bash and, with the help of his friends' spouses, hatches a plan to catch him in the act.

A notorious scene in the film involves a quaalude-popping, cocaine-snorting donkey who dies of a drug overdose. * "Shocking, shameless, sinful, wicked. And the party hasn't even started." * "A man's tradition every woman should know about." * "Gentlemen... start your boners."

YOU'RE SOLD! Watch the trailer, then Netflix that shit or snag a torrent online and have a few beers while you are wisked away into a world of classic comedic debauchery!

Rooftops (1989)

Without any sort of lingering doubt, it’s easy to recognize the impact of Robert Wise’s career in Hollywood. The guy practically invented/reinvigorated genres in the golden days of cinema, with films like The Sound of Music , Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The Andromeda Strain, West Side Story, The Day the Earth Stood Still and even lesser known classics like I Want to Live!, The Set Up and Odds Against Tomorrow. Wise even edited Citizen Kane!

So what the hell happened here? In 1989, after a 10 year hiatus from directing, Wise emerged with Rooftops, his final film. And comparatively, his worst. It’s no Uwe Boll piece, but based on his credits, this is waaaaay out of place.

Here's what goes down: homeless New York kids live on rooftops and engage in “combat,” a fighting/dance/thing. T, the main dude, is the best in combat, and his buddy Squeak crosses some drug dealers. Squeak gets killed, T and his buds struggle to regain their neighborhood. The plot pretty formulaic. In all reality, the movie is almost insulting with what homeless kids actually go through. But cinematically, it's great, cheesy ‘80s and it gets better with multiple viewings! Jason Gedrick from Iron Eagle, Troy Beyer and DAYYYUUUMMMM GINA! aka Tisha Campbell all star in this epic skyline melodrama. It’s totally ridiculous, totally awesome and even endearing in how naive it is.



So far this is unavailable on DVD, and it’s probably better that way. I firmly believe that the only reason it’s watchable is because it remains on VHS. It has potential to become a bargain bin DVD hit, I’m sure, but that would spoil it.

Brainscan (1994)

"Wanna play? I dare you."

Words Can't even begin to describe how much I enjoy early 90's computer game/hacking/anything floppy disc related movies. They not only reek of dead technology but they almost feel like weird period pieces.

This movie however is fantastic, even with its comically dated computer graphics.

Technology was in its infancy and Edward Furlong was still basking in the fame from a little movie you might remember called Terminator 2 which oddly dealt with a similar subject of machines taking on human characteristics.

Michael (Edward Furlong) has played and seen it all... He is on the cutting edge of gaming/gore and just wants to push the limits between reality and virtual reality... I bet you have a pretty good idea how this will pan out...

Oh... you Don't?

Really?

Cuz I saw the plot coming from a mile away.

O.K. so you are really going to tell me you don't see where this is going?

You mean you didn't think the game Brainscan was going to make the viewer question whether or not Michael was behind the awesomely shot POV murder scenes...

Strange... I thought you weren't an idiot, weren't an idiot.

Buy It!

Rent It!

Watch it (for FREE)

Below the Belt: The Proof is in the Pudding

Back in March we posted about Below the Belt, The ‘80s peek into the world of women’s professional wrestling. We also mentioned the fact that about 50% (if not more) of the film is made of music montages. Thanks to YouTube user n20081101 for putting these up!

Notable DVD Releases This Week: May 18, 2009

In addition to the stuff listed below, a bunch of Steven Seagal reissues are out this week, so pick em up!

Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus (2009)
This movie has def been getting a lot of press this week, how could it not? Debbie Gibson! and a Shark! that fights an Octopus! Lorenzo Lamas!!







Detective Bureau 2-3: Go To Hell Bastards! (1963)
Japanese director Seijun Suzuki solidified his growing cult following with this offbeat adaptation of Haruhiko Ooyabu's crime novel.







Fanboys (2007)
A fanatical group of Star Wars devotees travel across the country on a mission to steal a print of Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace from Skywalker Ranch.






Nightmare Castle (1965)
Barbara Steele in the classic gothic thriller.









Eden Log (2008)
In the pit of a darkened cave, a man awakens next to a corpse and finds himself pursued by a mysterious creature.







Outlander (2008)
Beowulf meets Predator with Jesus.










My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009)
A psychopathic miner terrorizes the town of Harmony in this retelling of one of the most underrated slasher films of the early '80s.






Dr. Dolittle: Million Dollar Mutts (2009)
Judge Reinhold is at it again!









Muscle Madness
Comes with:
GOLIATH AND THE SINS OF BABYLON
GIANT OF MARATHON
HERCULES AGAINST THE MOON MEN
COLOSSUS AND THE AMAZON QUEEN
WAR OF THE TROJANS

CLASSIC QUOTES: The Running Man Montage

The Great Epic Ape Attack: Addendum 02

This ranks up there as one of my favorite awful giant ape movies, right next to King Kong Lives and Yeti. Don't get me wrong, by all accounts A*P*E is completely terrible. There was little thought that went into Paul Leder's Kong rip off, from the spectacular lack of dialogue which results in minutes-long scenes of people screaming to the super size discrepancies in the monster ape. But let me run you through the amazing parts:

1) Though there's little dialogue, what's spoken is pretty hilarious:

"To hell with the press I'm gonna smoke this cigarette!"

"He was just too big for our small world..."

2) The ape is a total dick, from destroying balsa wood homes to giving a destroyed helicopter the finger:



3) The terrible sound design. Entire sequences lack sound effects and the score repeats itself over and over and over...

4) Joanna Kerns!!! Before becoming hot mom Maggie Seaver, Kerns gave Jessica Lange a run for her money as 1976's simian love interest. This was her first movie, believe it or not.

5) Dino DeLaurentis filed a lawsuit against the filmmakers when pre-production had originally titled this New King Kong, resulting in two things. The first being the in-film director being named Dino. The second being a huge snipe across the posters that read 'NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH KING KONG'

6) The ape escapes from a boat and fights a giant shark in the first 10 minutes!! See A*P*E!!!




I think this qualifies as irony, so in light of the ape's changing size, and the fact that Mrs. Seaver stars, I'm going to post the Growing Pains theme...get it, growing pains???

BJ Thomas / Dusty Springfield - As Long As We Got Each Other (Growing Pains theme)

Previously:
The Great Epic Ape Attack Addendum 01
The Great Epic Ape Attack of ‘09

Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus Trailer!

I wish this would get an IMAX release...But look for it on DVD May 26! Debbie Gibson! Lorenzo Lamas! Shark! Octopus! Awesome!

The Pit (1981)

WOW. I mean, really, just wow. The Pit has so many incredible ingredients for a delicious horror pot pie: creepy kid, talking toys, ancient monsters... Jamie, our creepy autistic kid, has no friends, and we learn this fact in the first 30 seconds as he gets punched in the face for no apparent reason other than his creepiness. Then we learn on one of his solo retreats into the woods, there’s a giant pit in the ground where his only “friends” live, and by “friends” I mean ancient, meat-eating creatures no one has seen before. He gives them obvious name, tra-la-logs. I take back what I just said about friends, his other friend is his talking teddy bear. You might think the bear’s consciousness exists only in his mind, but once, and only once, we see it move as it gives Sandy, his babysitter, the stink eye for doing the laundry.


Many of the events in The Pit really could have been in Jamie’s mind, you’d think, until in a moment of weakness, Jamie gives the tra-la-logs a means of escape, a rope! From this point on, we lose Jamie for a while and the tra-la-logs start to terrorize townspeople like any good monsters do. I wouldn’t ask too many questions at this point, like how did these creatures survive eons in a hole before Jamie started pushing appetizing peoples in, or how this gigantic hole in the ground remained hidden in plain view for the same length of time, or why no one went looking for the missing people, or any number of other reasonable questions. Anyways, the film does have a satisfying end, but at that point, you’re just kind of glad it’s over. Check out one of Jamie’s victims below:



And for all his creepiness, all the terrible creepy things he says and does, Jamie is not the creepiest thing about this movie. It’s the little things, for example how Sandy agrees to bathe him in an awkwardly lengthy scene. She just scrubs his back over and over and over and...Even creepier is the fact that director Lew Lehman’s wife, Mrs. Lehman, forbid him to film any of the movie’s nude scenes except for one...the quick skinny dipping scene toward end starring his daughter! Come on Lew!


Good news for everyone, Jamie, Sammy Snyders, is no longer creepy, he’s a dancer!

Buy It / Rent It

The Gate (1987)

... pray it's not too late! "

This tagline is a pre-cursor to the current state of film.

As previously mentioned in other posts I did a lot of illegal HBO cable box watching at a young age and for some reason HBO wanted to scare the shit out of little kids. Namely me..
"The Gate" was one of those films that I was legitimately frightened from. The Stop motion animation and character design of the demons really made it seem so realistic when I was 5. And maybe it's the nostalgia but I really feel like it stands the test of time.

Starring Stephen Dorff (Blade) This is a story of a kid and his metal head friend who open the gates of hell after a tree falls in the backyard... badassary ensues...

I mean it literally has everything one could want in a film:

• Metal!
• Demons!
• House Party
• METAL!!
• Explosives
• Awesome Special Effects
• Parents Away for the Weekend
• Hell!

The only thing it's missing is a naked aerobics class.

See this movie!

Rent It!

Buy It!

Tiptoes (2003)

How the hell did this movie got straight to DVD and not straight to Oscar victory? As the trailer puts it, Matthew McConaughey and Kate Beckinsale give "command performances," and it features Gary Oldman "in the role of a lifetime"—a midget!

Here's the basic plot: Kate Beckinsale and Matthew McConaughey are a couple. They're in love and she's pregnant. Everything's great until McConaughey drops a bomb—everyone in his family is a midget. Now Kate Beckinsale is scared shitless that her kid's gonna be born a midget. Gary Oldman plays McConaughey's brother and teaches Beckinsale that there's more to dwarves than funny voices and tiny shoes—there's a heart, too.

Notable DVD Releases This Week: May 12, 2009

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2008)
The Underworld series gets the prequel treatment with this third outing that fleshes out the story of the ancient war between the vampiric Death Dealers and their wolfman counterparts, the Lycans.






s.Darko: A Donnie Darko Tale (2009)
Samantha Darko (Daveigh Chase), during which she experiences many of the same visions that plagued her now-dead brother.







The Man with the Screaming Brain/Alien Apocalypse (2009)
Two times the Bruce!








High Hopes (2005)










Grudge 3 (2009)
The ghosts of the Grudge come back in this third film. Yay.









Galaxy Quest (1999)
Awesome underrated sci-fi spoof about the cast of a Star Trek-like show get mistaken for heroes and are whisked into space to save some helpless aliens. Like The Three Amigos! in space.






Star Trek: Motion Picture Trilogy
Weren't there six with the original cast? Or is this just the three good ones?








Virtuosity (2005)
Value priced DVD of early Russell Crowe is a psycho computer program come to life, and Denzel Washington has to stop him. Great mid-'90s sci-fi cheese.







Train Master (2008)
Train Master follows a young group of children aboard a runaway train, and their parents' efforts to stop the locomotive before it runs straight into a nuclear cooling tower implosion.






The Dana Carvey Show (1996)

Blood Games (1990)

Blood Games, aka Baseball Bimbos in Hillbilly Hell suffers from an identity crisis of pretty major proportions. On the one hand, it has everything guys want in a movie: boobs, sports, action and boobs. On the other hand, it also shows men to be downright rude crude dudes. What’s a sophisticated millennium man to think? Well let me tell you...“AWESOME!”

The movie’s story is simple enough: an out of town female baseball team wins a pick up game with some local rednecks, who are none too pleased. The game itself is kind of hilarious with slo-mo and ass pinching and whatnot, but after the post-game shower, it quickly gets violent. The loser dudes decide the only way to save face and regain their manliness is to try and rape the women, one thing leads to another and yadda yadda yadda, we have a full blown backwoods cat and mouse and crossbows action extraordinaire on our hands. Think I Spit On Your Grave with a dash of Deliverance and a pinch on the ass of A League of Their Own.



The odd thing is, Blood Games is suspiciously the only feature directed by Tanya Rosenberg, and while it plays up female empowerment and male grotesqueness, it’s simultaneously gratuitous in its catering to a male audience. I’d like to think Rosenberg was trying to tell a moral tale, being ridiculously meta in her production, or more likely “she” was really just a dude director using a pseudonym. And who could blame “him,” this movie is by no means a disney production with its frequent showing of rape and violence against women, though the ladies ultimately kick ass in the end.

I hope it’s presence on Impact VOD means Blood Games will be getting a DVD release soon, but in case your cable provider doesn’t offer it, you can find it on youtube here. This also got me thinking, what other sports/thriller movies are out there? The Fan comes to mind, but let us know your favorites.

6 Reasons To Love Teen Witch!

Teen Witch is a masterpiece of cinema, pure and simple. Now you may be asking, "Well, if this film is so great how come he doesn't list 10 reasons or 20 reasons?" Ok, hot shot, I'll tell you why. YES. I could go on and on about how great the choreography is or how influential the fashion has been, but I don't want to give you a heart attack due to extreme excitement. In a sense, I am saving your life with this list. Don't mention it. Here we go...

6. Zelda Rubinstein plays Madame Serena. You may know her as the cute, raspy voiced psychic from Poltergeist...or as the little freaky lady in your nightmares.

5. The film was originally pitched as a "female Teen Wolf". Can you imagine? "It didn't pass me by Dad, it landed on my tits!"

4. The film has been magically transformed into a comedy musical, Teen Witch Live!, currently running at LA's famous Groundlings Theater. Yes, seriously. Let's go!

3. Dan Gauthier (Brad) takes his shirt off. I'm shvitzing!

2. Louise's teacher Mr. Weaver, real name Shelley Berman, also plays Larry David's loveable, pot smoking dad on Curb Your Enthusiasm. I doubt he wouldve landed that role had he not acted his heart out in this film.

1. The rap battle between Polly and Rhet is the single greatest 2 minutes in movie history:



TOP THAT!
(OR go rent THAT on Netflix.)

Notable DVD Releases This Week: May 5, 2009

Giant Spider Invasion: Director's Cut (1975)
Bill Rebane's backyard wonder is a hilariously hokey throwback to the giant-monster flicks of the 50s, while taking its only pseudo-scientific conceit from the mid-70s trend of popular "black hole" theories, combining these two elements to create pure bad-movie heaven





The 8th Plague (2009)
A desperate woman in search of her missing sister stumbles upon a terrifying secret in director Franklin Guerrero, Jr.'s atmospheric tale of impending doom.







Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict - Season 1 (2009)









Baja Beach Bums (2006)
A south of the border jaunt turns into a Mexican fiasco when a group of California twenty-somethings arrive in Baja for their annual New Year's Eve surfing trip and become pawns in an explosive showdown between the local mayor and the corrupt police force.





Mum & Dad (2009)
Stranded at work and with no hope of getting home, airport cleaning woman Lena accepts an invitation to spend the night with her perky colleague Birdie, only to find that her unusually close-knit family has some sinister secrets.





The Beast Collection, 4 Discs DVD










Gigantor: The Collection, Vol. 1 (1964)