Manborg

Stop motion magic.

Manborg is a 2011 spoof/homage to cheesy action/horror/sci-fi from the late 80s/early 90s. So, it takes the most ridiculous aspects of films like Cyborg, Robocop, Hellraiser, Terminator II, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Hardware, Mortal Kombat, etc. and turns them into a brilliantly entertaining film that should satisfy fans of Full Metal Yakuza, Hobo with a Shot Gun, Tokyo Gore Police, Isle of the Damned and most of Troma's output. It's unbelievably good, a result of mixing conventional latex effects, stop motion, and comically bad laptop effects.

Manborg was originally a soldier in the last great war against Hell's armies, led not by Satan, but by the dreaded Count Draculon, a bio-mechanical demon created on a shoe-string budget. But of course, that soldier was killed in combat and made into a super-warrior, only to wake up in a futuristic time full of future cassettes and future locks and total world domination by Hell.

A blonde Peter Sellers plays a future Dr. Strangelove.

Manborg is quickly captured and locked up with several archetypal prisoners --Liberty, the Australian punker whose power seems to be to shoot two revolvers at once while dancing, Mina, the kick-ass knife ninja chick who has the power of going into anime attack mode, and #1 Man, the superstrong and disciplined martial-arts master. They are held captive by the evil Baron and his henchmen Dr. Scorpius and Shadow Mega, a hot cyborg woman, and forced to fight in an arena against Hell's minions and giant robot monsters.

Liberty, his sister Mina, and #1 Man. The good guys.

All of the usual action cliches follow: Manborg suffers from amnesia and can't explain himself, so he is not trusted by the other prisoners. But then he quickly masters his robo-human powers and becomes their hero. They break out of prison and go into hiding. Heads get blown off. Lots of scary skeletal and zombie-esque bad guys in Nazi-style uniforms. Liberty and #1 Man try to make a box of instant macaroni, blah, blah, blah. 

A jailer-bot and Shadow Mega. Bad guys.

The movie works great as a parody, but also contains a lot of really witty and bizarre additional humor, and some really great horror effects. Totally recommended if you like anything cool. It kept me entirely entertained the whole way through and I laughed out loud at least a dozen times. It's great. Made me happy.

RATING:

Cold Feet

If you are like me, in 1989 you weren't paying attention to comedy films that were ostensibly appealing to fans of country music and cowboy attire. But thankfully Netflix deemed to stream this film, and its cover art conveys exactly why you should watch it. Dayglo Country with Tom Waits, Keith Carradine and Sally Kirkland! But that's not all - Bill Pullman, Rip Torn and Jeff Bridges are in this too! It's a movie that's almost a good, clever comedy and almost a total abortion. So it will take some patience from fans of truly obscure cinema.

She paid good money for these things, so dammit, you are gonna see them. 

Okay, there's a plot to smuggle jewels from Mexico by sewing them into the belly of a horse. Once Carradine, Waits and Kirkland get to Montana--where Carradine's responsible, honest and gullible brother Bill Pullman lives--they are going to cut the stallion open and split the loot. But Carradine is not honest, and he steals the horse and splits. Waits is not exactly sane, so he comes after Carradine with Kirkland in tow. The two travel in a Winnebago and Waits spends most of his time pacifying Kirkland with food and protecting her from sex with radioactive miners. 

Yeah, that's Jeff Bridges as the bartender. He's in this for like two minutes, but he's a pretty memorable character. 

Tom Waits and Sally Kirkland wear so many great, late 80s outfits that you should probably watch this movie just to see them. Meanwhile, Carradine has reunited with Pullman, giving him a prize stallion (with secret jewels sewn inside his gut) and promising to straighten up and fly right. Of course, all the while, Carradine is making plans to sell the jewels and split. But Waits is just too clever and buys some really expensive boots from a local shop owner to pin down the whereabouts of Carradine. Then Waits makes a big mistake: he throws the expensive boots away, attracting the attention of Sheriff Rip Torn. 

Also, Carradine has a young daughter who has been at boarding school while he's been off doing his outlawry.  They all reunite at Pullman's farm, and then Waits and Kirkland show up, Waits wanting to kill Carradine, Kirkland wanting to marry him. Carradine agrees to marry, because he's a spineless weasel and he wants to stay alive. Waits agrees not to kill Carradine, and hijacks Pullman to lead him to the jewels. Torn disguises himself as a preacher to perform the wedding and arrest all three ne'er-do-wells based on absolutely no evidence. Aw, I guess it's a little complicated to relate here. So I'm just going to post more pictures of Tom Waits.

It's goofy and sometimes almost good. Watch if you love the idea of the cast members in a totally unrealistic cowboy comedy.

RATING:

Master of the Flying Guillotine

Okay, let me start by saying there are so many reasons to like this movie, both seriously as a good example of a Hong Kong Kung Fu film and as a campy, old action movie with some absurd moments. Additionally, for fans of post-punk and early industrial music, you get an amazing soundtrack. The background music sounds like it could be Clock DVA messing around in the studio before laying down their real tracks, and the main title theme could easily be a Chrome outtake from Half Machine Lip Moves. Oh, and this was released in early 1976, so it was ahead of its time punk-wise.

The guy pictured above is the Master of the Flying Guillotine, "the most gruesome weapon ever conceived!" He's so bad ass that he can punch the air! His fists make loud sounds on impact with even our gassy atmosphere! Don't fuck with this guy. He can jump straight up through a thatched roof!  He's got a weird hat on a chain that decapitates any person, statue or chicken he throws it at.  And did I mention he's blind?

This guy is the One-Armed Boxer. He's also a total badass, and can even walk on the goddamn ceiling, but he works for the Ming dynasty, so the Master of the Flying Guillotine wants to kill him. The Master is actually the antagonist in this film. And it raises the question: which handicap makes you a better Kung Fu master? It's an age old question, finally put to the test.

Despite his moustache, this Mongol Kung Fu master isn't a major character.

Some guy holds an open tournament for masters of Kung Fu from all over. This Mongol guy with a great moustache shows up, as well as a Thai boxer, an Okinawan kobojutsu user, and an India yoga master. The One-Armed Boxer brings his disciples to watch the event, but he doesn't want to attract the attention of the authorities, so they have to keep a low profile. It's not so easy to evade prying eyes when you only have one arm. I mean, how many one-armed guys can possibly show up to a Kung Fu tournament? At least three. The blind master kills the other two, because apparently he can hear the sound of having just one arm. He's going to kill every one-armed man he meets, just to be sure he gets the One-Armed Boxer. So, he starts fucking shit up at the tournament, and recruits a few of the foreign masters to help him track down the Boxer.

If you practice yoga and you can't do this, you are doing it wrong.

After this, there's just a lot of Kung Fu, just like the part of the film before this. You get decapitations, burnt feet, poetic justice, random pink-filter flash backs. All a lot of fun.

"He wasn't the One-Armed Boxer. He was a one-armed bum!"

RATING:

Johnny Suede

Johnny Suede is a movie you've probably never heard of. Considering it stars Brad Pitt, Catherine Keener, Nick Cave, Tina Louise and Samuel L. Jackson that is really hard to believe. But it's true: I watched the movie and they are all in it.

So first things first: What do Brad Pitt and Nick Cave have in common, other than how many letters are in their names?  In this movie HUGE POMPADOURS.

Pitt is the titular Johnny Suede, a young man who is hopelessly lost in the Golden Age of Rock n Roll. He idolizes Ricky Nelson, and everything in his apartment and wardrobe looks straight out of 1957, yet the movie is set in the early 90s, which is, coincidentally, also when it was made.  He wants to form a band that plays music that he "do[esn't] really have a name for" but sounds suspiciously like Ricky Nelson ballads because those are all he ever listens to. He owns two 45s: "Travelin' Man" and "Teenage Idol" by Ricky Nelson. They are both ballads. See? That's all he ever listens to.

Pitt, Jackson and Keener all went on to become pretty famous.
Johnny Suede went on to be totally forgotten.

This is the kind of movie where I can't say too much, because there really isn't much to say. It's something you have to experience. If the idea of Brad Pitt with an immense pompadour walking around a rundown apartment in tighty-whities with his hand down the front doesn't sell you on it, then this probably isn't the movie for you.

This happens more than once in this film.

The plot isn't going to convince you that this movie is cool. The plot is hard to convey. For instance, he and his best friend (who happens to be black, of course) decide it would be great to rob a barber shop, because they probably have like $300 bucks in the register. They don't have a gun, though. So they forget about that idea for a while and go live their lives. Then later, the friend shows Johnny that he got a revolver somehow. But, THEY DON'T HAVE ANY BULLETS!  So they forget about that idea for a while and go live their lives. Then, JOHNNY FINDS A BULLET in a dude's closet while he's painting the guy's house. THEY PUT IT IN THE REVOLVER! Then they never ever again mention robbing the barber shop or anyone else. In fact, no one uses this gun for any ill purpose ever in this movie.

But I swear, the sum is greater than the parts with this one. Something about Pitt's awkward portrayal of this delusional rock n roller is just too loveable not to love.Catherine Keener is also good, as the respectively down-to-earth girlfriend who tries to tame Johnny Suede down. (Spoiler: She kind of does tame him down, but he also punches her. Admittedly, though, she did throw shoes at him a couple of times.)

This happens more than once in this film.

RATING:

Dead End Drive-In

You know a movie is good when it starts out with several screens of text describing massacres and other man-made disasters that have led up to the collapsing society in which the film is taking place.

Dead End Drive-In is basically a cross between a demolition derby, a car show in the Home Depot parking lot, and a Halloween party where all the people are dressed as punks yet have never actually seen a punk in real life, but only in pictures drawn by a three year old. 

The economy of this new world revolves around fatal car accidents, which there seem to be plenty of in Australia where the film is set.The tow truck drivers pay off the cops in order to salvage wrecks, and then gangs of wild "car boys" show up to strip the wreckage to make super Mad Max-esque improvements to their own vehicles, many of these punks brandishing spiked clubs and wearing corpse paint.

Nunchucks were also observed.

There is also a main character and his girlfriend.

When the main character is not hanging out with his musclebound tow truck-driving brother, or being berated by his ethnic mother for not being musclebound enough, the main character likes to take his disturbingly cute girlfriend to a dangerous movie drive-in. In this way, we establish that young lovers in that mad, mad world are relatively the same as the ones in this mad, mad world.

Of course the worst thing that can happen to you, when your disturbingly cute girlfriend is riding you at the drive-in, is for a couple blokes to sneak up and steal the wheels off one side of your brother's car, which you are borrowing, and he'll KILL YOU if anything happens to it.  Even worse, turns out it was the cops who took your wheels.

(Whatever movie the drive-in is playing is totally awesome and I wish they would show more of it. A guy gets impaled by some kind of booby trap and a bunch of shit blows up.)

The drive-in has its own weird community living there, because apparently the government has made it illegal to leave the premises if you can't drive your own car out. At first it is kind of rad. There's graffiti and break dancing and post-punk music and popcorn. But the main character is too cool to just accept his fate. He smirks and rolls his eyes and won't give up on the idea of ever leaving this drive-in. It's been a whole day. He's just being unrealistic. And his girlfriend let's him know it. 

A girl with glowing tits gets out of a police van. A guy with a stutter insults the main character. Main character has to beat a dude's ass. Shit starts looking bleak.

Fights, explosions and car stunts follow. It's pretty damn rad.

RATING: