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:

Moving Target

Moving Target has just about everything you could want in a movie: Chynna Phillips, Jason Bateman, Tom Skerritt, John Glover, Jack Wagner, Robert Downey Sr., a teenage band that sounds like seven session musicians improvising a song for a cheesy movie soundtrack with no singer. A hit man that dresses like a character in a Miami Vice/Saved by the Bell crossover and who decides to gun down a family from a suburban rooftop with an uzi.

This is the perfect example of Made-for-TV 80s. Nothing about it bears any resemblence to reality, and yet you know all these characters as soon as you see them. Cliches cultivated by pop culture, that never actually existed. But you know them and you love them. Admit it.

 

You get great dialog like: "Hey, open up, you little pencil head!" and "I wanna be here with these zoids only marginally more than I want to die of malaria." In other words, it's just like kids really talked in 1988.

On top of Tom Skerritt, all covered with talent.

Jason Bateman is a heroic teenage musician who, after finding a hot young Chynna Phillips to temporarily replace him in his "next big thing" teen band, gets sent to summer music camp while he family is swept up in mob related intrigue. Bateman runs away from camp, only to find his family has suddenly moved in his absence. Suddenly people are trying to capture and/or kill. But he sticks it to the man AND he plays fruity Baroque piano.

His best friend at music camp is a black nerd, of course, who says cool stuff like, "Man, you got trouble with a capital T, and that rhymes with P, and that stands for big problems"

All in all, this film isn't going to blow you away, but is full of goofy 80s music, goofy 80s hair, goofy 80s clothes. Watch it while drunk with a bunch of friends who really love the 80s.

RATING:

The Ninth Configuration

The Ninth Configuration takes place in a giant castle where the US Government is housing an experimental center for crazy war veterans and an astronaut who decided he didn't want to go to the moon so bad that he'd just go crazy instead. You still with me? OK. Stacy Keach shows up without a mustache. We are told he is both the new colonel in charge and an expert psychiatrist. (There's a big twist, so I have to be really careful what I say here.)

The films starts off as a sort of farce, with the inmates of the castle running amok and cracking wise by quoting from old movies. One loon is staging a production of Hamlet using only dogs. One guy with multiple personalities thinks he can rearrange his own molecules to walk through walls, and when this fails, he punishes the walls with a hammer. A guy does some black face song and dance number. The astronaut says a bunch of crazy but possibly really meaningful stuff to Keach. Keach sits by passively, listening and generally managing to sooth the savage lunatics that continually assail him.

That's when Keach becomes a Nazi. Not literally, he just puts on the uniform of an SS officer in order to allow the crazies to play The Great Escape. See, he has this crazy idea that letting people act crazy makes them less crazy. This somehow relates to Hamlet. But not really. Stuff gets really wild and seems to be working. Until the astronaut goes AWOL and winds up in a dive bar full of angry bikers.

This movie contains one of the most satisfying bar fights you will ever see. I can't give away too much of what goes down, but the lead biker has a scarf tied tightly around his neck, so you know this has to be good.

All in all, this movie has some brilliantly philosophical moments right alongside some ludicrous hijinks. If that doesn't sound good, then get your ears checked.

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: 

Class of 1984

Never start a job at a new school. That's the teacher's mistake in this film. Everything was fine before a new guy showed up and rocked the boat by demanding normal human behavior. Never try to teach music to punk rockers who aren't even in your class. 

An M. L. Lester film, Class of 1984 is considered a classic of punk rock cinema, and for good reason. It's right up there with the Quincy punk episode. But in tone, it's much more Vigilante than Repo Man, so don't expect wacky shenanigans.

For a movie about a gang of punk rockers, of course you want a punk rock icon like Iggy Pop Billy Idol Richard Hell Alice Cooper to do the theme song. 

There are two main good kids that the teacher considers his allies: Michael J. Fox and a girl who can't seem to get a decent haircut. And nothing is more hilarious to a classful of high school band dorks than Michael J. Fox making irreverent puns. But there are just too many 30-year-old high schoolers who listen to punk rock one time in the film for the new teacher to contend with.

Then the twist comes in: one of the punk rockers, in addition to being an asshole, is a gifted pianist. BIG SURPRISE. Like assholes and pianos don't go hand in hand. But that plot spur goes nowhere.

Then a kid takes some angel dust (AKA whack) and decides he loves America. Climbs a flag pole and winds up dead (but I won't spoil the how for you). The teacher knows that something has got to be done to stop these drug dealing punks once and for all.

 

Then it gets serious: Roddy McDowall makes a move on the teacher and they go for a drink. Big mistake.Someone is going to get hit in the face (the teacher). Someone's car is going to get blown up (the teacher's). A cop informs the teacher it is impossible to prosecute minors, unless you are holding their hand.

Then it's like a scene out of Fight Club. A kid is pretending he's Ed Norton beating himself up in a highschool wash room. There's blood everywhere, especially all over the teacher's hand. But do they suspend the kid? The teacher? NO! No one is suspended. Justice is impossible; it's the early 80s. The only justice is STREET JUSTICE.

Things get personal.

Things get out of hand. "That is [Roddy McDowall] in there. That's not a maniac killer."  But I have to admit, his car stunts are pretty good.

Table saw death. Burning alive death. Crushed by falling car death. Bunny rabbit death. Tchaikovsky. This movie really has got it all. If only the teacher could have taught music to punk rockers, maybe this would all have turned out different.

RATING: