Blond Helicopter Pilot Night

Two years ago today some people gathered together to watch a movie called Winterbeast:



and the tradition continues with no end it sight. Okay, there may be an end in sight in the form of a child that asks, "Why did that man's head fly off like that?" But for now we can cherish the joy. You keep bringing it into my life (I'm always singing it).

You may have noticed that this means we celebrated the one year anniversary one week early last year. I don't know what happened. I guess we watched Bio Zombie/Street Trash at the appropriate time. Good, those movies were great!

So usually on a milestone BMN we watch a "name" movie like Dawn of the Dead or The Warriors but this time I thought it would be fun to watch two truly enjoyable, truly bad movies. How you enjoy Skyscraper may depend on how willing you are to laugh at a movie starring the tragic Anna Nicole Smith. Turns out I was pretty willing. She stars as a helicopter pilot caught up in a world not of her own making. That's what the trailer in my head says anyway. Some of the action set pieces are actually pretty impressive. Makes me hope the stunt coordinator went on to better things. Also because he looks like this:



Prepare yourself for sex scenes even more uncomfortable than in The Room.

Okay, the blond helicopter pilot in Samurai Cop doesn't really have much to do with the story. But I wasn't lying when I said it stars a man with the largest jaw you ever saw:



Because I never said that. He has a beard in this movie which minimizes it somewhat. But you should check out Z'Dar in Maniac Cop, Tango & Cash (character name: Face), Soultaker or Future War. As far as I can not find, his face is just like that. I figured it was a case of face gigantism or something.

Here's what happened last week:

Mausoleum Movie Night

At one point One Dark Night was called Mausoleum and it’s only speculation that the movie Mausoleum coming out in the same year fucked up their shit. Twenty-seven years later One Dark Night is the more well-known of the two so I guess it has the last laugh. If the contest was for my heart, however, Mausoleum wins handily. But if that was the way the world worked Lady Streetfighter would have won Best Picture in 1985 instead of Out of Africa. I just can't wait to get Out of Africa:



One Dark Night stars Elizabeth Daily. She was a voice on Rugrats and she’s Buttercup on The Powerpuff Girls! And of course:



It also stars Kevin Peter Hall. Don’t recognize the name? Why he was the guy inside the mutant bear (not like that) from Prophecy, Harry of Harry and the Hendersons and the Predator:



He’ll be the one that’s 7 feet, 4 inches. I remember him from the show Misfits of Science, which came on before Knight Rider and I liked much more:



Again with the world not conforming to my heart. Where’s the ironic remembrances and updated remake of Misfits of Science?

Lastly, Adam West is in it and if you haven’t seen him in Conan O’Brien and Robert Smigel’s pilot Lookwell! You should and here’s your chance:



Mausoleum stars one time Playboy bunny Bobbie Bresee, who Roger Ebert tweeted a picture of just last month (NSFW).

what's in this bag?





oh! its a baby!

Giant Monsters Movie Night

Or you might say big rubber monsters movie night. I can only really think of one other rubber monster movie we've seen, The Legend of Dinosaurs and Monster Birds. The rest of the monsters have been stop motion (Winterbeast) or moderately sized (Prophecy). This is a serious hole in our B-movie experience.

Godzilla aficionados will tell you Godzilla's Revenge is the worst Godzilla movie. But listening to that would give weight to people that rank Godzilla movies. Yes I'm aware I rank the bad movies we watch. The title in Japan is Gojira-Minira-Gabara: Oru kaijû daishingeki. Which is a very long title and that amuses me.

Unfortunately the Hong Kong title for The Mighty Peking Man didn't make it to America, Xing Xing Wang. This is the movie that caused Roger Ebert to change his rating of another Shaw Brothers movie, Super Inframan. So if you came to Inframan night, TMPM will make you realize how good that movie was on account of this movie being slightly worse. TMPM came out in 1977 to compete with the King Kong remake of that year starring Jeff Bridges. It turned out better!

Here's what happened last week:

Getting to Know My Neighbors

...through telephoto:

Terry O'Quinn Father Roles Movie Night

I had to move the Father's Day theme up one week because I need tips now. Terry O'Quinn (Locke on Lost) is going to show me the way in two movies where he plays the part of the patriarch.



Pin is out-of-print so we're trying a Bad Movie Night first, streaming it on Netflix. I guess O'Quinn got this movie after the makers saw him in another Canadian movie, The Stepfather, a year previous. So since I like complicated themes, let's say this is Terry-O'Quinn-late-80's-Canadian-movies-where-he-plays-the-father night. Anyway, Pin is weird and I think the less said about it the better. I will say it has a The Pit-like "Is this really happening?" kind of thing.

The Stepfather just had a remake, um, remade of it that Rotten Tomatoes gives an 11% freshness rating. That's Marmaduke levels. See the 88% original instead. Plus the original stars the husky-voiced Jill Schoelen. We saw her previously in Popcorn and Cutting Class.

Hmm, we've been watching movies that are too good lately. Expect them to get worse soon!

Here's what happened last week:

Don't Miss Lists

Hmm, seems I didn't have a chance to do this last month. I'll try to dig up that list later this month since I know you're dying to read it. Stop e-mailing me already.

Movies

The Road - I hear this movie is bleak. In fact all the reviews mention its bleakness just like all the reviews for Sex and the City 2 can't help but mention it declares war on humanity. It is about the apocalypse after all. I'm talking about both movies here.

Tetro - I never knew the singular of tetris until now.

Bad Lieutenant - I just watched the Herzog version and it was great. I'm going to watch the original again so I can hear Harvey Keitel say, "What are these fuckin' iguanas doing on my coffee table?" That's in both versions, right?

Black Dynamite - I already own this but it's incredible and I get to post a scene from it now:



The Car - A killer car movie I'm getting based on this review at Final Girl that says, "The Car is awesome, surely the finest film of its kind."

Fido - I already saw and liked it. I mention it because it adds to the library's small zombie movie collection. Now they just need to work on getting The Video Dead:



The Sci-Fi Boys - I've never heard of this. But it has Steven Spielberg, Ray Harryhausen, Forrest J Ackerman, John Landis, etc. talking about movies so... okay.

Postnatal Workout - Soon!

Frontline: The Card Game - I don't know, this is about credit cards or something. You mean spending money I don't have can get me into trouble [sarcastic gasp]. I just wanted to use this opportunity to point to this great Frontline I watched on YouTube, Death of a Porn Queen:



Man, is it the subject matter or was Frontline super sleazy in the 80s?

Masters of Horror: Deer Woman - Why do I keep getting these. They're always terrible. This one has some sort of deer woman though. And it's from John Landis, who made An American Werewolf in London 30 years ago. So that should work out well for me.

Music

Nonstoperotik by Frank Black - I gave up on Frank Black about 3 years ago but I hear he's gotten rockier and word is this album is adequate.

Dennis Hopper Movie Night

King Koopa is dead, long live King Koopa:



Monkey! So to celebrate the life of Dennis Hopper were going to watch some of his cult/b-movie contributions. But what to choose? The Trip? Mad Dog Morgan? Out of the Blue? My Science Project? Super Mario Bros.? Red Rock West? True Romance? Waterworld? Space Truckers? Holy geez, he's been in a lot of them. We could have Dennis Hopper month. Or we could just watch what's handy.

I have George A. Romero's Land of the Dead (2005). We probably would have watched it someday anyway. We've already watched Night of the Living Dead (okay, the remake), Dawn of the Dead (the original!), we should skip Day of the Dead because it's kind of boring, which leaves Land of the Dead, George Romero's latest (and it's looking last) zombie movie that occurs in the NotLD universe. The NotLDeadiverse. Dennis Hopper plays a George W. Bush type, especially if W was president of one building in Pittsburgh while the city was surrounded by a zombie wasteland. Hopper delivers my favorite line from an actor that's picking their nose. LotD also stars Dario Argento's daughter Asia. If you want to see an interesting tattoo do a google image search of Asia Argento. But not if you are at work.

I'd say the top three cult movie directors that we haven't seen at BMN yet are John Waters, David Cronenberg and David Lynch. We can cross off Lynch after Friday when we watch Blue Velvet. It marks the return of Kyle MacLachlan after only a one week absence (Showgirls). It's from the magical year of 1986. It has one of my favorite TV edits when Dennis Hopper says, "Freak you you freakin' freakers!" It was produced and financed by Dino De Laurentiis. Do I need to keep listing things?

Here's what happened last week: