Harrison Ford Watches “Indiana Jones” Trilogy For The First Time

VHS Cover of the Day: Charks Cave aka Cave of the Sharks (1978)

This almost seems like a joke...

VHS Cover of the Day: Kiss of the Cobra aka Mark of the Scorpion (1986)

¡Eres un espia! From Masters of the Universe Home Video.

VHS Cover of the Day: Laserblast (1978)

VHS Cover of the Day: Lion Man aka Aslan Adam (1975)

Born in blood....raised by LIONS.

Watch the whole film, if you dare via this video...

The Barbarians (part 3): The Beastmaster Trilogy

The Beastmaster (1982)

There is not much I can say about the original Beastmaster movie that will do its awesomeness justice. What I can say is "URRRAHHH!" which for the uninformed, is the call of the hawk.

Anyone who had cable in the '80s had a chance to bask in the glory of Marc Singer's beastmastering and Tanya Peters' red-haired boobs. The story goes that Dar was kidnapped as a fetus from his mom and dad, King Zed, by evil dude Maax (may-ax) and his hot-bodied underweared witches. Before one witch can kill baby Dar (who was transferred to an ox belly and then birthed) unnamed Farmer guy kills her and saves Dar. He then raises Dar and hilarity ensues. Ok not really, but they do realize Dar can communicate with the beasts and then years later their village is destroyed by Maax's mens, the Juds. Dar survives though, through the help of a beast ally, and sets out to take vengeance on Maax (played by Rip Torn, by the way).




Along the way he meets hottie Tanya Roberts and bad dude John Amos, both end up helping him in his quest against Maax and his hordes. He also meets hawk worshipping monster people and insane death guards. As one might expect, Singer and his band of heroes win, and Dar learns of his heritage. He however decides not to be king and remain master of the beasts. He relinquishes control to his now revealed younger brother, Tal.





Director Don Coscarelli's movie rules in a cornball adolescent macho way. It definitely has it's flaws, but they don't detract from the fun. Plus Tanya Roberts shows boob. The sequels, however, are like someone shit on your favorite pizza right as the delivery dude delivered it. You were so excited to have a still hot bite of your favorite pizza, but yeah, there's shit on it now.


That same year Tanya Roberts did a Beastmaster inspired pictorial in Playboy!



Trivia: In Japan, The Beastmaster was known as the The Miraclemaster!

via wrongsideoftheart

The Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time (1991)

Almost 10 years later, thanks to the original's popularity on cable, producers thought, "Hey! Let's squirt out a new Beastmaster for cable!" But this was a time before SyFy and the massive run of made for cable fare, so Through the Portal of Time's theatrical release became a formality really, the step before the step they wanted. Ok the movie:

First off, HOW IS PODO ALIVE? He was totally sacrificed for the greater good in first movie. It might have been kodo who died, I cant tell the difference, and if they are Podo and Kodo's kids from the first movie, why are they named Podo and Kodo?? But this is the point you realize this movie is going to be an unwelcome addition. Actually, before that when you see Marc Singer's awful wig, that's when you probably should have known. So anyways, Dar is again fighting a bad dude, this time his name is Arklon, played by Wings Hauser.

Dar escapes his opening encounter and meets a weird swamp monster who after trying to kill him, sees the brand on his hand (oh yeah, the witch branded him as a baby before trying to kill him) but he has two startling revelations: This swamp monster is related to Dar AND Dar has an evil twin brother! I know what your thinking, Arklon, right? Yeah everyone was. And you don't have to wait until the final act for me to confirm your thoughts.

So back to Arklon, whose witch friend, Lyranna, says she discovered a parallel world through a rock formation called LA and has observed them for some time to learn they have a NEUTRON BOMB! So many questions already, like how did she discover this portal, how does it work, why does Lyranna wear so much makeup when makeup doesn't exist in this parallel world? If I were Lyranna, I would say eff off to Arklon, who just slaps her around, and just go live in LA, who cares about getting his approval when you can go to a Milli Vanilli concert, am I right??

So we're then seeing life in 1991 LA, where a police chase gets underway with cutie pie Kari Whurer, who is an idiot here by the way, or at least she's written that way. She unwittingly discovers the dimensional portal when she neglects to hit her brakes and drives though a brick wall, and then the cops follow her! This whole scene is retarded, but we do get another brief but memorable Robert Z'Dar sighting! "YOU shall remain silent!!"




Biggedy boom, Dar meets up with Jackie (Wuhrer) and seems totally fine with her 1991 weirdness. Biggedy boopedy Boom everyone goes back through the portal so we can have dumb fish out of water humor with Dar, Arklon and Lyranna, man, I really get tired of that "WHAT'S A TV?!" and people-cheerily-exclaiming-new-swears-they-learned humor. Singer is overall pretty boring in this flick too, so Uncle Phil steps in to handle some biz and make shit fun again.




Not only does this movie reject some basic logic of the first, no one's decision making abilities are up to snuff here. As a kidnapping victim, Whurer helps Arklon and Lyranna discover new fashions. Of course.

I couldn't help but think of the 1987 Masters of the Universe movie while watching this; it's basically the same thing. This movie spirals into greater levels of absurdity, almost parody, like those dumb Epic Movie or Date Movie turds. this could easily have been Barbarian Movie. The most ridiculous part? Arklon manages to go to a zoo, when his twin brother is the damned BEASTMASTER! Good one dude.
Admittedly, I do kind of enjoy this movie on a different level than the first. It tries way less, which is what made the original so endearing. It was sincere in it's efforts, while here, everyone just wanted to hit paydirt on cable again. I might also enjoy this a bit because it's co-written by Jim Wynorski, whose brain is full of baby farts. There's apparently a "Making of the Beastmaster 2" on the original home video release of this, which I would love to see. Has anyone seen it?

The Beastmaster 3: The Eye of Braxus (1996)

Hold onto your loin cloths! They're at it again! Dar returns, and so does Tal, his brother from the first played by Casper van Dien! And a new, Seth, played by Tony Todd aka Candyman. He also has a new, different Ruh, his tiger who changed in the first two and is a lion in this adventure. The professor from TMNT 2 (David Warner) in it as evil sorcerer, Lord Agon, looking for the eye of Braxus, a mystical amulet thing that will give him the power of an ancient god.






The whole middle is pretty boring, if not more earnest than part 2, but Dar meets various new buddies and baddies, but I couldn't get into this middle section; it's just too by-the-book yet underproduced to make it fun. I think this was intended to be a TV pilot, at least that how it's supporting cast appears to be scripted, which by the way, the script sucks. There's so much bad dialogue, "You're not going to trust her are you? She knocked you down!"

So finally Lord Agon gets the eye, releases Braxus, and the fun begins! He ends up getting possessed by Braxus and turning into a lizard man! Jesus! I think the costume was recycled from that show Dinosaurs. You be the judge:




Braxus eventually falls for the old throw "the amulet over your head and then get stabbed in the back trick," and Dar throws him in a fire pit. Yay!

This was followed by a Canadian produced TV series for SyFy (then Sci-Fi) that developed kind of a cult following as I understand it. I mean, I don't understand it, it looked awful. I would really love a kick ass Beastmaster video game instead of movie mediocre film and TV, though. You play as Dar and have to chop shit up and throw people in fire pits, banging hot chicks along the way. And get Marc Singer to voice it, I hold no grudges after the last two movies, so I think he should end his run as Dar in a sweet game. Now make it happen.



As a final treat if you've managed to read this far, you'll find both out of print scores for the first two films below. The first is by Lee Holdridge and second by Robert Folk. I can't recall where the first is from, but the second from cinemageddon's fine vaults, so thank you to the original sources of these!

The Beastmaster Score

The Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time

Jake Speed (1986)

I missed Jake Speed when it first was released as a hopeful summer blockbuster, but it appears many people hold this film dear. Speed follows the Indiana Jones/Romancing the Stone adventurer vibe with the twist that Jake Speed is a fictional character based on a real life schlub.

The real life Speed is tapped by a woman to help her missing sister and through some twists, unbelievable turns and crude jokes, he finds her and takes down the baddies. That's it really. I may not have been watching hard enough; I did find it difficult to keep my attention on this and would start doing laundry or other cleaning. That's how bad it was! It drove me to domestic cleanliness!

Maybe it wouldn't be so terrible for me now if I had the exposure at 10 years old. The only good things I found were John Hurt, Karen Kopins was pretty cute, and a handful of cheesy one liners, which I always enjoy. It was like writer/star Wayne Crawford wanted to show the world that he was cooler than Harrison Ford, but he didn't know his fly was down the entire time. Who the hell is Wayne Crawford anyways?! I still don't know.

For those that have fond memories of ole Speedy, you'll likely enjoy this treat, the sweet Mark Snow keyboard drenched score! I did enjoy that quite a bit.

Jake Speed (1986) Soundtrack

You can rent it on Netflix if you want, or if you're a maniac, you can buy it on Amazon.

The Barbarians (part 2): Barbarian Queen 1 & 2

Let me get two things out of the way immediately. First, Barbarian Queen sucks. Second, Barbarian Queen II sucks. I hope I haven't offended any prepubescent genre lovers out there, but there is little to find of worth in this pairing. They are however, completely hilarious. One of the only redeeming parts is the endearing performances by the late Lana Clarkson, yes the Lana Clarkson that Phil Spector murdered. She stars in both, though she plays different characters in each, and neither are related in any way unless you count Clarkson, swords, boobs and Clarkson's sword wielding boobs. It may be the downer of knowing her fate that make's these hard to watch because she's so young and anxious looking here. It's unfortunate her career never took off, though her acting isn't the best truthfully, she really is the best thing about the movies.

screen from mcbeardo.com

The second best thing about them are the quotables, for just one example, "My stomach...it feels like there's bears in it." Typing it now doesn't do it justice, context is key I guess. Ok, plots in 20 seconds: First Clarkson's sister is kidnapped by horny Roman dudes, she fights back! Second time around Clarkson's emperor dad dies and evil dudes wanna take his magic sceptre, she fights back!



I think, if you were to hold my feet over a vat of boiling pig fat (or you were flickchart) and make me choose a favorite of the two, I'd have to go with part 2, if only for the more hilarious plot involving the magic sceptre and prissy young princess who, via magic and wishing, ages to be a woman and is then killed by her father. Oh, spoiler alert.

Here's a funny clip

All this being said, as I usually do, I recommend these as a double feature at least one viewing. Get some friends, some booze, and a sense of humor, and you'll be a-okay. And the posters are amazing, everyone remember Boris Vallejo? He lives in Allentown! Who knew?

Buy Both Barbarian Queen 1 & 2 as a double feature

Fuzzbucket (1986)

My dad is one of those awesome dads who taped a handful of quality videos for my brother and I to watch as youngsters. And I mean complete quality, movies like Star Wars, Clash of the Titans, Flash Gordon, Godzilla 1985, Winds of Change...I could go on for the better part of a day about the great cinema my brother and I indulged in by way of dad's tapes. But today I will go on about one specific tape that seems all but forgotten by the rest of the world...Fuzzbucket! Check out the Disney Sunday Movie intro below:



My dad taped this after I bugged him when seeing an ad while he was already taping the Ewok Adventure for me, so he dropped it on the same tape right afterward. I couldn't ask for a better double feature as a 7-year old. Fuzzbucket finds Michael talking to his imaginary friend through the first half, asking him all sorts of questions and generally looking like a maniac as he yells to the empty seat next to him. Fuzzbucket reveals he was out past midnight so his guts are invisible. Weird Gremlins-like, curfew-supporting, logic-suspending reason, but as a kid, I bought it. But then the awesome stuff happens when Michael makes a magic potion to make Fuzzbucket visible.

This movie rules. No questions. No doubts. It's difficult to find more info on this, but what little was found suggests this was originally intended to be a TV pilot, probably to pull some of Alf's audience, I'd imagine.




Fuzzbucket stars Chris Herbert, John Vernon, John Regalbuto, Teen Witch, Fran Ryan and Phil Fondacaro, who's starred in Troll (including the new one), The Garbage Pail Kids and as an ewok in Return of the Jedi. It comes full circle. I'm sure the ewoks will get their own post on here someday...

Alas, there is no official release of any kind for Fuzzbucket to my knowledge.

UPDATE: 9.2011  -- Disney has since released this as part of the Generations collection, grab a copy now! YEAAAHHHH

Orca (1977)

I think many people are familiar with this De Laurentiis flop, so I’ll be brief and say simply, this movie traumatized my wife. Like many, she caught it as youngster during the early days of TBS going national. Their Saturdays were filled with total movie awesomeness, Orca being in pretty heavy rotation. But this repetition is not what traumatized her, but the miscarriage, oh dear god, the killer whale miscarriage.

Let me back up and run through the story as briefly as permits...We have Richard Harris, a salty ole sea dog who is out to catch himself an orca after seeing a dazzling presentation on their intellect and cunning. So in his pursuit, rather than catching his first killer whale, he kills it. While its mate watches. And she has a terrible, wretching, slow-mo miscarriage. Whales wailing, Harris sprays the whale fetus into the ocean, and with it any future plans he has, because as we learn, killer whales are some of the most vengeful creatures anywhere! Mr. Orca swears revenge in his whale screams and vows to make Harris’s life hell in hilarious and terrible ways. Harris gives in after a series of absurd attacks ending when the whale kills Bo Derek in her first film role. Harris finally succumbs to the bullying and hollers out to sea “I’ll fight you, you revengeful sunvabitch!!!!!!” The whale then leads him out to the parking lot, er I mean Arctic and then kicks Harris’ ass, and then commits whale suicide.



Trauma pics below, consider this your warning! Harris even throws up in his mouth a little bit.






If you didn’t see this on TBS, you have to see it now because it’s so ridiculous and entertaining to watch unfold. Director Michael Anderson directed other cult classics like the 1956 version of Orwell’s 1984, and the Kris Kristofferson gem Millennium. The one actual quality part of this movie is the score is by workaholic Italian master, Ennio Morricone. There is, however, a pretty ridiculous end credit song by Carol Connors and Morricone that recounts dramatically the relationship between Harris and the whale, that begins during the whale suicide ending. Check it out below, it wasn’t easy to find, but make sure to also grab the whole score, which really is awesome.

Orca Soundtrack

Carol Connors & Ennio Morricone - My Love, We Are One

Buy Orca/ Rent It

Airborne: Jack Black Before He Was Jack Black

Jack Black wasn't always that silly, pudgy guy you know from such flicks as School of Rock and High Fidelity. Nope, in the 1993 film Airborne, he was something much worse--a hockey-loving-jean-jacket-wearing douchebag named Augie. He and his street hockey lovin' buddies deemed it necessary to pick on the film's fish-out-of-water, Mitchell Goosen played by Shane McDermott, a hippie new kid who lives for surfing and rollerblading--to the point of gayness. Essentially it's one big dork-fest with lots of poetic non-sense, macho posturing, Seth Green wonkiness and rollerblades. In other words, it's good entertainment. Watch some clips:








Watch the full film in 10 adrenaline-filled, cheese-tastic parts.

New Flash Gordon movie

There isn’t a film theme that gets me excited the way Queen’s epic Flash Gordon theme does, that’s for sure. The film that follows is everything you can want in a camp-classic with it’s evil ruler of a far off planet, hawk-men, rebellions, football, you know, the stuff that dreams are made of. And with all the remakes of late, I’m not entirely surprised about a Flash Gordon remake, but I did die a little in my heart when I saw this item from Breck Eisner on /Film:

The thing about Flash is, you’ve got to throw away the 80s version of it. I want it to be intense, agressive, gritty and real. For me it’s about reinventing Flash - we’re still staying true to the adventure origins of it, and the adventurous spirit in that movie, absolutely. It’s this man brought to another planet and uniting the disperate groups on Mongo, but there is a gritty, intense, dynamic, active quality to the movie. Very modern. It’s not camp.

I do love a good action flick also, so I’m not boycotting the idea, but throw away the DeLaurentis ‘80s version?? Come on! The planet is named MONGO for christ’s sake. How can you not love this?!



Perhaps though this means a new Flesh Gordon will be in the works. I guess that’s for the best.

And here's the theme from Queen:

The Barbarians (part 1)

Before Asylum films, the world had Italy and Turkey, whose film industries in the ‘70s and ‘80s in large part consisted of popular hollywood copycat films. We’ve previously mentioned the ‘80s “Barbarian” craze that Conan started, but today’s features from Italy really...uh...shine...

Yor (1983)

I know what youre thinking “I love Conan the Barbarian and Star Wars and Wayne’s World, and can’t pick which one is my favorite!” Now you dont have to! Let me explain. The movie opens with Yor doing some kind of aerobic runs through the highlands. Barbarian, check. In the end, yes, Yor realizes he’s a hunter, from the future, and him and the barbarians he lives with become expert laser marksmen against the foes from the future. Lasers, check.

Just prior to the credits (and the epic outro music), the knowing voiceover reveals that Yor now has a chance to change the past, “Yor returns to the primitive tribes on the mainland, he is determined to use his superior knowledge to prevent them from making the same mistakes as his forefathers, will he succeed?“ I always appreciate a sequel set-up, but, uh, we've got to be talking at least 300,000 years of history and, unless I missed something, he’s not “Yor, the Immortal Hunter from the Future.”

Yor, Hunter from the Future kind of gives away huge plot details just in its title and poster but it’s still really fun to watch, espceially because Yor looks like a muscley Garth. Check.





Check out the whole thing on YouTube

Or buy it on VHS

And, as one extra added bonus of sweet magic, here’s a piece from the now out of print epic soundtrack!

Guido and Maurizio De Angelis - Yor’s World (from Yor, Hunter from the Future)

Conquest (1983)

Goddam Lucio Fulcio knows how to make a movie! Also released in 1983 Conquest has the most banging opening 10 minutes evar: exposed brains, lots of boobs, talking werewolves, a lady being ripped in half, cannibalism and serpentine-eroticism. Fulci is the Italian grandaddy of gory-epic-awesome who also made other great films such as Zombie 2 and the New York Ripper. This film is totally weird, set in an unknown ancient land, has a sexy Destro villain with trippy monsters and lasers and lots and lots of fog. See for yourself below.



Buy Conquest

Or rent it from Netflix

Stay tuned for more absurd barbarianism in future posts.