The debut film from director Richard Stanley who later went on to make "Dust Devil" and almost made "The Island Of Doctor Moreau" (until he got booted from the project for reasons that I will never understand). "Hardware" is a great, great flick about a post apocalyptic world where technology runs rampant and the government creates killer robots for population control. Stacey Travis stars as Jill, a metalwork artist who lives alone in the city. Her boyfriend, Moe, troops around in the desert wasteland and collects pieces of junk for money. One of the things he finds is a Mark 13 robot which he buys off a really cool looking nomad because he thinks it would be a nice present for Jill. Little does he know that the Mark 13 is one of the robots that is programmed to kill people without prejudice. It doesn't take long for Jill to be trapped alone in her apartment with a droid that has only one thing on it's mind: Kill everyone now! "Hardware" is a fantastic movie with incredible cinematography, set design, pacing, direction, and just plain coolness. It also has great acting from all involved and some genuine scares as well as a feeling of hopelessness that is always good once in a while. With Dylan McDermott as Moe, William Hootkins as a pervert named Lincoln, Iggy Pop as a DJ, and Lemmy from Motorhead as a water cab driver. Oh, the aforementioned cool nomad who sells Moe the Mark 13 is played by the lead singer of a great goth band called Fields Of The Nephilim.
Joe D'Amato strikes again in this sleazy little film that is near legendary for it's extremely realistic faking of snuff footage. Laura Gemser (a D'Amato staple) stars again as Emanuelle. Emanuelle is a photographer who gets involved in a weird world of sexual pleasures and is exposed to orgies, bestiality, and people who get off on snuff movies. She decides to delve deeper into the world of snuff as it would be such a good story to lay on the world. This movie is extremely graphic with hardcore sex and some very gory "snuff" footage. It also has an interesting scene with a woman and a horse that I really hope was fake. Something to offend everyone.
It would simply be impossible for this movie to suck as you have a pairing of two of the greatest actors in film today: Al Pacino and Johnny Depp. Depp plays an undercover FBI agent named Joe Pistone who is out to infiltrate the mob. He assumes the identity of Donnie Brasco and meets up with a gangster named Lefty who teaches him how to be a wiseguy. All the time, Donnie is wearing a wire and recording everything that goes on within the mob. Soon, he is hanging around with the local mob boss, Sonny, and is participating in all of the big jobs that the mob is involved in. His real life is falling apart as he is neglecting his wife and kids and is becoming more and more like the gangsters he is trying to bust. This was a great movie that I wanted to see in the theatre but unfortunately, someone got killed watching it up here in Vancouver as an actual "hit" happened in the theatre. During one of the many scenes with gunfire, some guy walked into the theatre and shot some guy who was sitting in the front row in the head. It kind of made me want to wait for video. Everything about this movie was well done with Pacino and Depp conveying the friendship between Donnie and Lefty to the viewer with total believability. Michael Madsen is wonderful as the local boss and Anne Heche carries the role of the frustrated wife to the hilt. I only wish this movie could have been longer and I really hope it gets some recognition come Oscar time.
The life of Howard Stern makes for one of the funniest movies I have seen in quite a while. The fact that most of the events in the movie really happened make it all the funnier. The story is basically Howard's rise to be the "King Of All Media" and includes all of the people who got him there. All of Howard's friends play themselves including Robin Quivers, Gary Dell'Abate, and Jackie Martling. Fred Norris is a standout as the quiet friend of Howard who is with him from one of his first DJ jobs until present day. Fred is hilarious with his quiet exterior and dry personality that is always there to help Howard in times of need. Howard's wife, Allison, is played by Mary McCormick who really helps in showing the relationship and tolerance of being married to Howard Stern. Paul Giamatti is also great as NBC boss Kenny "Pig Vomit" whose goal in life is to tame Howard Stern. Luckily for us, he does not succeed but it is fun watching him try. As for Howard himself, he is fantastic and pulls this movie off bearing no criticism from my poison keyboard. He makes his aging believable and shows his humble beginnings and the fact that he is a human being who has feelings and is not always as confident as he appears to be. The many cameos in this movie include Ozzy Osbourne, AC/DC, and Mia Farrow. There are also small parts played by Theresa Lynn, Amber Smith, and Wendy Whoppers. For a great way to spend a night, rent this movie... now! Viva Stern!!
John Waters' most famous movie is thoroughly enjoyable through repeated viewings (or maybe it's just me). "Pink Flamingos" is the story of Divine "The Filthiest Person Alive" and her family consisting of redneck pervert son Crackers (Danny Mills), Jean Harlowesque voyeur stepdaughter (?) Miss Cotton (Mary Vivian Pearce), and semi-retarded, egg-lovin' mother Miss Edie (Edith Massey). There is another family in nearby Baltimore who is jealous of Divine and her title and they decide that they are the filthiest people alive. This husband and wife team of black-market baby salespeople consists of Connie and Raymond Marble (Mink Stole and David Lochary) and their lovable assistant Channing (Channing Wilroy). All of the Waters' Dreamlanders are here in this movie along with some of the most offensive moments ever put on film in America. I refuse to disclose any scenes for those who haven't seen this movie but I suggest you pick it up if you are at all curious. It just got re-released and should be fairly easy to get your hands on. For those of you who have seen it, go see it again and relive all of those moments that pop up in your memory every so often.
Claudia Jennings ("Truck Stop Women", "Unholy Rollers") stars in this Louisiana bayou movie about a Cajun babe who scours the swamp for gators and snakes to poach. She is caught in the act one day by a few redneck cops who decide they would rather rape her than arrest her. She eludes their advances with a boat chase through the swamps and one of the rednecks ends up getting killed by the other one by accident. The killer redneck decides to pin the murder on poor Claudia and with the help of the dead redneck's revenge happy tobacco chewing family, a search party is organized to go in the deepest areas of the swamp and kill Claudia. They find Claudia's shack, rape and kill her sister, and Claudia sees fit to rid the earth of these dirty bastards once and for all. This flick was very scary as I came upon the grim realization that people like this really exist in this day and age. This movie should be rated "E" for exploitation as it has all of the main ingredients for a great drive-in classic. A sequel was made about 10 years ago by the same director team of Ferd and Beverly Sebastian.
This Hong Kong movie is pretty disgusting when you really think about what is going on. A psycho (Anthony Wong) goes to South Africa and becomes infected with the Ebola virus. He doesn't get sick though as he is the one of out 100,000 people whom the virus doesn't kill. He does spread it though, oh yes, he spreads it far and wide. You see, he kills his employer and his wife at the restaurant where he works and infects them with the virus before they die. He then grinds them up into hamburgers and serves them in the restaurant therefore infecting everyone who eats there. And they infect two friends, and they infect two friends, and so on, and so on... I didn't really like Anthony Wong after seeing him in the Ringo Lam classic "Full Contact" but he was great in this movie as the completely immoral serial mass murderer. This is not for everyone as it has extremely graphic violence and the sleaze factor is way up there. Wong was also in the similar "The Untold Story" (aka. "Human Pork Buns").
Elite Entertainment is re-releasing a special edition of this movie and with good reason. It is an extremely well acted and well written tale of people who kill their fellow humans and when they are brought down, their final words are "God told me to". A cop (Tony Lo Bianco) is determined to find out why the killings are happening and who God is but as he gets deeper into the investigation, he begins to find answers to questions that he doesn't want answered. Here I am, being vague again. I just don't want to ruin anything for you. Check this one out though. You can't really go wrong with this, Larry Cohen ("The Stuff", "Black Caesar") directed it.
Man, I have seen a lot of good movies in the last couple of weeks. Charlton Heston leads an all star cast in this flick about, (you guessed it), an earthquake that decimates Los Angeles. The first hour of this movie builds up the earthquake concentrating on character development and building suspense before all the action starts. The earthquake takes about 10 minutes and then you have another hour of the aftermath and daring rescues. Typical Irwin Allen disaster movie formula (which is always enjoyable and rarely boring). Some other members of the cast include George Kennedy as a cop, Ava Gardner as Heston's annoying wife, Genevieve Bujold as Heston's beautiful lover, Lorne Greene as Heston's boss, and Marjoe Gortner as a crazy military creep. Victoria Principal also appears as a girl named Rosa who has the coolest hair in this movie with a huge afro. Richard Roundtree ("Shaft") plays a motorcycle stuntman who steals the show when he is on screen just because he is oozing with that Roundtree attitude.
I was hoping that this was going to be an American movie trying to be a Hong Kong movie. That's what my friend Rees made me think when he described the trailer as Chinese gangsters with shades firing off two handguns in slow motion. It didn't quite turn out that way but there were some cool Asian guys nevertheless. Michael Rooker ("Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer") stars as Bob Malone, an ex cop who has a problem with anger. He is put in a bad situation when he is kidnapped (along with his daughter) by this guy named Koji. They must elude the mob and the police and stick together after they realize that they are both in big trouble if they don't. This is basically a low budget buddy movie that was actually quite fun to watch. Cameos by Tim Thomerson ("Trancers") and Bobcat Goldthwait (don't worry, he doesn't last long). Danielle Harris from the later "Halloween" movies plays the daughter.
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