Collision Course

Price: 75 centz
Year: 1989 (shot in 1986)
Length: 100 minutes
Director: Lewis Teague
Cast: Pat Morita, Jay Leno, Chris Sarandon, Tom Noonan, Randall "Tex" Cobb, Ernie Hudson, Soon-Teck Oh, Mike Starr

The precise moment that I knew I would love this movie forever came during the opening credits, before a single line was spoken or even a single character spotted on screen: a camera opens steadily on the fender of a speeding muscle car, a saxophone squeals relentlessly as an equally relentless synth line tries to catch up, and the text "Starring Chris Sarandon" appears in big, metallic letters as the camera pulls up and away from the fender to reveal the skyline of an urban wasteland we later learn is Detroit. I giggled ecstatically and started taking notes from which I will try to relate why this forgotten career footnote is perhaps the most important movie I have ever blogged about. And that's motherfucking important.

In any other movie, the sax-fender-Mr. Sarandon trio would be the sort of pinnacle that the rest of the movie hopelessly flounders behind while the viewer impatiently twiddles his or her thumbs while texting their weedman (or weedwoman) every 17 minutes asking if now is a good time or not, but no, Collision Course just takes that opening as a dare for greater glory that it keeps ramping up until the very last frame, which is the most poignant still image this side of both Truffaut and Verbinski.

This is a film that embodies all the tensions that made the 1980's so much fun: xenophobia against the wily Japanese and their intrepid electronics, disturbingly glib treatment of rationalized police corruption and brutality, the effects of white flight on formerly vibrant urban centers, and, of course, the immortal pairing of bushy mustaches and bazookas. To say that this is nothing but a merely a proto-Rush Hour is to do a great disservice to the subtle moments that really make Collision Course thrive, some of which I will recount in list form below.

1. Chris Sarandon's goons are played by Tom "Evil Drug Cult Leader Guy in Robocop 2" Noonan and Randall "Tex" Cobb of "some say I'm part hound dog" fame. Also, Sarandon wears a suit that looks like it's made of dollar bills at one point. Also, his mustache is a dead ringer for John Oates. Crucial.

2. The synth and sax score takes on decidedly Eastern flavors every time as Asian character is onscreen! It really helps keep everyone's race and ethnicity clear!

3. Pat Morita tries to escape from a hotel by placing a garment bag over his body and running, eventually being foiled by the dastardly tactics of a revolving door.

4. At one point, Jay Leno waves a gun in some guy's face and says "Hey Hey We're the Monkees" for reasons never clarified.

5. The main plot concerns a prototype for a supercar that will revolutionize the car industry for some reason that Detroit is trying to steal from the Japanese. The guy who owns the evil American car company trying to rip off the Japanese is named Darrett Jarrett. That's D-A-Double-R-E-Double-T J-A-Double-R-E-Double-T. He resembles the glistening whiteness of deposed former governor Gray Davis, right down to the bureaucratic incompetence and halting speech patterns. Remarkably prescient on the filmmaker's part, if I don't say so myself.

6. From Pat Morita's sensitive portrayal of a Japanese cop we learn the important lessons that Asians both respect their elders and are unfamiliar with the concept of door bells. I found this very helpful and hope to apply it to my own travels in the land of the wise bearded sage. Thanks for the heads up COLLISION COURSE!

7. At some point, someone yells "KARATE THIS!", which I personally think would have been a better title for the movie, but so it goes . . .

8. Pat Morita gets down on a dancefloor.

9. Also, apparently Asian cars are cheap and shoddily put together whereas American cars are sturdy and resilient. I'll make a note of it next time I'm buying. Thanks!

10. 8 mile is a real place where crime happens and stuff. Now I respect that Eminem even more than I did when he made that song about fucking and/or killing his mom.

And that's just ten of 'em!

I could relate so many more, but then I'd just be ruining all the fun for you. Apparently, Jay Leno disowns this movie, but he's a shit head these days anyway.

But really all you need to know is that at one point, Pat Morita reenacts Chuck Norris' immortal windshield kick-thru from GOOD GUYS WEAR BLACK and it is breathtaking. He over comes the prejudices placed before him to steal back that Japanese super car prototype and save Japanese industry and for that, I am eternally grateful!

Lilli Marleen

Price: free (it came with a $160,000 education, however)
Year: 1981
Run time: 120 minutes
Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Cast: Hannah Schygulla, Giancarlo Giannini, Christine Kaufmann, Udo Kier

Although there aren't really any rules that we've made about it, on this blog I generally try to stay away from RWF and other cannonized, and arguably overrated, directors of European art cinema. Its not that I don't enjoy these movies. Many of them are worth every bit of the hype, and many of them... not so much. If it isn't obvious, I write about movies like Gold Diggers, and Out of the Wilderness because they are seldom given a critical treatment of any sort beyond the time surrounding their release, while movies by the Rainer Werners, and the Werners, and the Jean Lucs of this world are continuously written about, and will likely continue to be written about long after I am gone (if the world still exists!). However, to mix it up a little bit, I've decided to give in to Fassbinder's Lilli Marleen, a film I really loved, that I was lucky enough to find in a box of movies that were being given away for free in my department's building.
While I'm no Fassbinder fanatic, there are moments when his aesthetic really appeals to me. When he's restaging Sirk films as a venue to talk about otherness and old age, I don't really feel it. I'm more a fan of highly aestheticized, glossy fever dreams, many of which Hannah Schygulla stars in. This preference stems more from my doubts in RWF's ability to tell a convincing story about people of color or old women than from my preference for "sexy" looking films. Not that I don't like "sexy" looking films... In any event, Lilli Marleen is full of glamour, and it uses this in a most productive way.

Like one of my favorite films (Bob Fosse's Cabaret), Lilli Marleen tells the story of a female singer during the third reich. Like Sally Bowles, Willie starts as a torch singer in a night club, who is nice to look at, but not exceptionally talented. An immigration issue keeps her away from her lover Robert (Giannini), whom she lived with in Switzerland, so she gets work at a cabaret in Munich. By the sheer force of luck, she is able to wrap her voice around the "Lilli Marleen" song for which this film is named. The song, which is a narrative about love and war, enchants everyone who hears it. When she does a recorded version, it becomes a national sensation. Soon Willie and her star struck pianist are invited to stay at Hitler's mansion. Before she knows it, Willie has become a poster girl for the third reich.
Meanwhile, Willie and Robert (who is a jew) pine away fro eachother in seperate countries. Robert eventually marries a beautiful Jewish woman, but his love for Willie plagues that marriage, as he can never really let it go. Although in the time they are estranged Willie is too sought after to have much time for pining, they scenes when they (briefly) reunite show that she too is not past that love. It is her devotion to Robert, in fact, that leads her fall from grace in the eyes of the SS.

One of my favorite aspects of this film is that it gives the characters humanity, despite their support of the Nazis. It does this without condoning the Nazis (and in fact, as a whole condemns them). When looking back at that time, it is important to remember how normalized it must have been in German society to support the ruling party. Like in any state, more informed citizens probably dissented, while the lesser informed probably supported the ruling party, or were indifferent. Those supporters perhaps were swept up in the ideology so much, to an extent that it was the climate, rather than their own evilness that allowed them to support the nazis. Willie falls into this category. She irresponsibly puts on an identity, without much thought or care to its implications.




Like the rest of her countrymen, Willie is eventually maligned for her actions, or inactions. Her rise and downfall, is chaotic, glamorous, and altogether problematic. We enjoy the glamorous ride along with her, but can't help but criticize the place she carved out for herself.

On a purely aesthetic level, the film is visionary. Everything feels very set-like, in a way that compliments the way the story is told. The colors are evocative, and the images look like they could have been pulled from a Nazi Vogue. When the film portrays the violence on the battlefield, it provides a nauseating but enticing viewing experience that supports and contradicts the overall gloss of the film.

The movie stays away from many of the traps that such a film could fall into. For one thing, while it is implied that Willie interacts with Hitler on a fairly regular basis, he is not portrayed by an actor here. That would have been rather distracting and hokey. Also, the concentration camps are referred to, but not shown. Some might view this as irresponsible, but since the film is portraying members of German society who lacked real knowledge about the full atrocities of the SS, it frames the story well.

Overall, Lilli Marlene is a gorgeous, and thoughtful film. It exemplifies the mix of ideology and aesthetic grandiosity that make Fassbinder an important film maker.

Macon County Line

Price: 75 cents
Year: 1974
Length: 89 minutes
Director: Richard Compton
Cast: Alan Vint, Jesse Vint, Cheryl Waters, Max Baer, Geoffrey Lewis, Leif Garrett, Doodles Weaver, Joan Blackman

Macon County Line is the type of weird, shaggy, ramblingly ingratiating film that the 1970's found incredibly easy to shit out. Pitched somewhere between accidental art film and subtle exploitation picture, MCL deals with so many shades of gray in regards to its characters that it might as well be a Walker Evans photograph (because his pictures are old and in black and white and I couldn't think of a better metaphor on the fly, dig?).

It opens with our ostensible heroes , Chris and Wayne Dixon (played by real life siblings Alan and Jesse Vint respectively) doing a bunch of rascally shit like stealing money from hookers, ditching out on paying for meals, and destroying some police cars in the process. Eventually they pick up a female hitchhiker (Cheryl "100% Pure Love" Waters) and then they kind of amble about trying to get their car fixed or whatever.

The Substitute 4: Failure Is Not An Option

Price: 75 cents
Year: 2001
Length: Treat Williams
Director: Robert Radler
Cast: Treat Williams, Patrick Kilpatrick, Angie Everhart, Bill Nunn

It's always a Treat with Treat Williams! - me

A man can learn a lot about himself when slogging through the dollar bins for used blog fodder. For instance, I learned that I will purchase any film featuring "Always a" Treat Williams and any film that is a direct to video sequel to a not particularly well loved or remembered Tom Berenger vehicle. So now I own both The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All and The Substitute 4: Failure is Not an Option (Sniper sequels oddly MIA for now). For brevity and clarity, I will focus on the latter as I watched it sober this weekend compared to wasted 6 months ago por tres. Although I get giddier when stumbling across a Treat Williams vhs than Huell Howser does when finding a 19 year old can of kidney beans in a hermit's magic trash house, I can't really explain what it is about the guy that I fond so damn irresistible. It's probably some combination of my eternal love for THE PHANTOM, the time I stayed in a hotel room in Vegas with a picture of Treat and Cathy Moriarty on the wall, and the to the gut simplicity of his moniker. I can't help but be delighted by a man named Treat.

So it was with the great anticipation of a Christmas morn spent next to a fire at Coolio's egg-strewn house being lectured about right and wrong that I approached this film. I was giggly, caffeinated, and alert; open to all the Treats that awaited me, and, as always, Treat did not disappoint.

The Substitute sequels always find a way to shoehorn a professional mercenary into needing to pose as a teacher in order to murder some of his students for being up to (A) general drug dealing, gang banging, Jeff Gillooly-esque kneecappery, being in something awesomely called "The Kings of Destruction" (B) car-jacking, gang-banging, being in something unimaginatively called "The Brotherhood" (C) being on a football team, taking some frothing Benoit fantasia inducing steroids, ripping the tops of desks apart from the chair (D) being in the military, being Nazis, blowing up power plants, beheading old rich guys. Fortunately, D is the plot for The Substitute 4: Failure Is Not An Option and it makes for the least action filled, most nonsensical, strangely name actor filled (by Substitute standards) Substitute yet.

Before getting all Trick or Treaty on you, it bears mentioning that Patrick Kilpatrick is truly remarkable as a American military academy commandant at the realistically titled American Military Academy of the South, who has a poorly kept secret Nazi society called the Werewolves, who cleverly disguise themselves by wearing SS logos on their hats and armbands and denying the Holocaust to anyone within earshot. He constantly accuses Treat Williams of fostering "Multiculturalism" at his beloved academy and bragging about how a race war is totally gonna happen this time if he just blows up that billion dollar power plant that was funded entirely by money from black people apparently! (not making this up, I think!)

Treat is a lover and a fighter and he hates intolerance more than anything so he's on edge from the start about these Werewolf kids who keep trying to kill him and deny the Holocaust and what not. Good for Treat that former Stallone fiance and fading ginger sexpot Angie Everhart is also around to provide some nudity that otherwise the film would have been sorely lacking. She also takes a bullet for him at the end and it is very poignant. Also, good for Treat that Bill "Radio Raheem" Nunn is around to act all crazy like and give him guns when he needs them and kill some racists, too, because as a black man, his righteous anger against the skinheads is more crowd cheeringly deserved. But really, at the end of the day, this is a movie that belongs to the Treat and he does not disappoint.

Treat spins and kicks and flips bad guys over his back like cabbage. He spits and kisses and dances his way into our hearts during the torrid and truncated Campus Dance scene. But most of all, the way he bravely follows the Werewolves on their mission to blow up the power plant, then stands around doing nothing, waiting till after the power plant explodes to start kicking everyone's butt after they get back to campus, really seals the deal. Ultimately, The Substitute series is about the titular character teaching his students important life lessons with his feet and fists and IF he had stopped them and killed them off campus, his point would not have been so pointed. Only at a school can the most righteous teaching of death be solidly administered. Only at a school can the flimsy gimmick of a mercenary stopping crime tie back into the title of the series. Life lessons can be taught at school, but no one is better at offering death lessons than my man Treat Williams as Karl Thomasson in The Substitute 2 : School's Out, The Substitute 3 : Winner Takes All, and The Substitute 4: Failure Is Not An Option. Thank you, Treat Williams, for teaching us about death and teaching . . . again.

Also:

The Man Can Sing! (and not just that Hair shit)



He simply cannot be any Treatier!

Can't Hardly Wait!

Price: $1
Year:1998
Run Time: 100 min
Director:Harry Elfont, Deborah Kaplan
Cast: J Lo Hewitt, Ethan Embry, Charlie Korsmo, Lauren Ambrose, Seth Green, Peter Facinelli, Freddy Rodriguez, Jamie Pressly, Melissa Joan Hart


The late nineties were a great era for pop compilations. Sure you may not have had Jock Jams, Now (that's what I call music), or any of the MTV buzz bin disks, but if you were a young teen at that time, you were exposed to such compilations whether you liked it or not.

The truth is, you probably liked it, at least on some level. All of those compilations I just named had at least one song on them that would appeal to any given kid. Even if you were a defensive disavower of all things pop at that point, I'd suspect a slight smile still comes across your face when you hear "I Like to Move it Move It".

Can't Hardly Wait is essentially a visual representation of a pop comp. It skates over the surface of nineties teen existence in a way that is ridiculously affable. It touches on much, but explores very little. As a result, the scenarios and characters we see are all vaguely relatable, but cartoonish enough to distance from our own personal experience. We enjoy the spectacle of the teenage experience, but are never subjected to the cringe inducing honesty of say, Freaks and Geeks.

What sets Can't Hardly Wait! apart from aforementioned short lived, but exceptional series, is that you don't have to have been a freak or geek to relate to it. There's a cursory overview of all high school experiences in there somewhere. To link it back to the beggining of this post, Can't Hardly Wait! is a compilation of John Hughes Greatest hits, with a few Cameron Crowe tracks thrown in to appeal to niche consumers.

Besides J Lo Hewitts unseen boobs (which apparently sum up the whole of her sex appeal), there is no tension beneath the surface here, but that's ok. This movie offers kick-ass moments like this:

Heller in Pink Tights

Price: $3.98 on DVD (DVD cherry officially popped re this blog)
Year: 1960
Run Time: 100 min
Director: George Cukor
Cast: Sophia Loren, ANthony Quinn. Ramon Novarro, Steve Forrest

Sophia in Technicolor would perhaps be a more appropriate title for this film, as those two elements really steal the show here. This is viewed as being a lesser work by master director Cukor. While I'm not about to start a campaign for a mass critical re-evaluation of the movie, I will say that every shot is so beautiful that you could fucking eat it. Art direction wise, think Wes Anderson+ Moulin Rouge + Suspiria+ FIstful of Dollars- most of MR's overblown acting (most, not all)- the irritating bourgeois male malaise of WA (but not minus WA's problematic portrayal of non-whites). Narrative content wise, there is nothing too spectacular. Its a basic story of a femme fatale actress named Angela Rossini (loren) who seduces her way through the old west. Her romance with the dependably affable Healy (Quinn) is threatened by the advances of Mabry, a devestatingly handsome gunslinger (Forrest). This love triangle plays out as the theater company, with Mabry in tow, races away from the debt they left in Cheyenne, trying to escape a murderous Indian tribe along the way (ah, Hollywood).

In this tale that relies strongly on to-be-looked-at-ness, Sophia Loren is the perfect star.


Her presence is truly iconic, and no matter whom you prefer to go to bed with, you will not be able to take your eyes off of her in this film. In an early scene at the theater in Cheyenne (a set which bursts with color) Loren peers through a window with wooden curtains that have a nude women painted on them. This short frame is a one-two punch of feminine spectacle. Her and Mabry eye each others' lower halves in this carnivalesque atmosphere, creating the sexual tension that will push much of the narrative forward. A unique and evocative interior space has been created here. When the narrative moves to the dessert, the open landscapes and mountains and canyons are treated with just as much visual care. The colors and the shapes of the landscape pop out and assault the eye with their beauty. The most heightened moment of this is when the Indians capture the theater company's coach, and set it on fire. The mountains of brightly colored costumes consumed by flames, paired with the blue sky and the gray smoke makes for a compelling spectacle.

Compelling spectacle certainly overtakes compelling storyline here. However, Ms. Loren plays an interesting character here. Although her most prominent quality is her beauty, she sets most of the narrative of the movie into action. She is a much more central force than any of the men in the film. I'm not sure if I'd say this is a feminist film, but what it certainly does do is wear the notion of female spectacle on its sleeve. Angela Rossini, and the other young girl in the company, make money after each performance by parading around the saloon in pretty dresses, selling stylized photographs of themselves. They are able to get the undivided attention of the saloon patrons. WHile the other woman (Della, played by Margaret O'Brien) is a pretty flat character, Angela is what I'd call a powerful spectacle.

Actually, that's what I'd call the whole film.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

Price: 75 cents
Year: 1989
Length: 107 minutes
Director: Will.i.am. Shatner
Cast: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, Waltner Koenig, David Warner, Lawrence Luckinbill





Star Trek or Star Wars?

A Personal History:
1983-1999: Star Wars
1999-2004: Apathetic
2005-Present: Star Trek.

The nu-trilogy and the rise of G4 and Spike's constant rotation of TNG reruns pretty much sums up that whole equation as I imagine/hope it has for at least a few other undiscerning nards out there.

So . . .

Maybe it has something to do with me being a nu-jack Star Trek acolyte and a lover of trash and camp and overblown ego trips, but everything you've heard about this movie is wrong. Old-school Star Trek nerds are mirthless bonerheads for denying this movie's majesty for so long. It's probably the quintessential Star Trek dollar video. Although copies of ST: The Motion Picture and Star Trek: Generations are much more plentiful, this one embodies all the glorious misguidedness that marks a truly noteworthy and remarkable dollar vid. For a TV show whose whole reputation and success is indelibly linked to camp, it is downright unfathomable how the campiest Star Trek film ever "shat" out is also the most hated.

First of all, it was directed by William Shatner from a story he himself wrote with the help of only two (!) other credited screenwriters, so it has vision going for it in spades. His turn in the director seat is also invariably a result of the ego-wounding success that Leonard Nimoy had at the helm of both the muted Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and the worldwide smash eco-comedy Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (still the highest-grossing Star Trek movie). One can easily imagine Shatner refusing to make another Star Trek movie unless they let him try his hand at directing the next one himself after all if a plebe like Nimoy could bang a couple out of the park how about letting ol' Shatface swing, hell he even directed 8 wholed episodes of TJ Hooker beforelike. I want to hug those poor subsequently unemployed studioheads for giving me my turkey early this year.

So it opens with some obvious Star Wars knock offs of the sand people and the mos eisley cantina with this brah that turns of to totally be spock's half brah neverbefore mentioned and never mentioned again. Also Capt. Kirk is apparently into free climbing cause he is doing some of that in Yosemite at the beginning and Spock has sweet rocket shoes that saves his life and they all sit around the campfire singing row row row your boat and eating beans and dranking whiskey and making obvious fart jokes. These scenes are great.

Then Spock's brother gets up to some bullshit and eventually it turns out to be a search for God in the middle of the universe who turns out just to be some random dude with a couple deep purple rekkids and a psychedelic face projector. In between, Sulu and Chekov get erotically lost in the (metaphoric?) forest of their own desires and only through sexual exploration and brainwashing are they able to escape. As a result, they spend most of the movie working against the core groop of Shat, Nim, and BoneThugs. Scotty hits his head on something at one point and does a three stooges quality pratfall. There is also an obviously tacked on plot involving some billy zanily misguided Klingons who stop what they are doing when firmly told to stop by an old guy.

So yeah, it's mishmashy, but it's never boring, except when it is boring, but even when it's boring, it's boring in an interesting way so it stops being actually boring so quickly that you are never actually bored in the first place and, in fact, the boredom was kind of a thankful respite from the non-stop excitement anyway, so you (the audience) are always winning with William Shatner's Star Trek Five: The Final Frontier! Don't you wanna win? Sure, you do! So watch this movie already if you haven't yet and if you already have then you should watch it again and again until you like it as much as I do and if you've seen it already and liked it, then I guess you're cool with me, but you should probably check with the Shatman just to be sure. He may make you buy a TekWar book or something, but it'll be worth it cause that's still better than having to watch Boston Legal or some shit like that. Fuck Boston. That place and everything associated with it sucks (except (maybe) Mr. Boston and (definitely) the band Boston).