God Save Us From Go Pro

 

 (imdb)

HARDCORE HENRY-2015-This dizzy violent sci-fi chase film is like a role playing video game. The whole story is the POV of some hybrid android thing called Henry trying to rescue his wife from an over-acting psycho in Moscow. 

It was shot with a Go-Pro using anything goes computer effects. Tim Roth plays Henry's father. The director, Ilya Naishuller threatens a sequel.

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Takeshi

 

 (imdb)

VIOLENT COP-1989-Azuma (Beat Takeshi; MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE) is the title character, a hot-headed cop with a mean violent streak who is always in trouble with his superiors. While battling drug dealers, he uses all the wrong methods to arrest criminals: violence, planting evidence, intimidation. He also has trouble with his drug addicted sister. 

This was former comedian Takeshi's directorial debut and it's not for everyone. His methodical direction suddenly explodes with brutality. He went on to improve his technique as director and editor with his next two films.

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Links To Japanese Hardcore Wrestling Warning Not For The Squeamish!

Warning: Some might find these images unsettling!

There are some links to my favorite sport of all time: Japanese Hardcore wrestling! It's not for everyone. Be warned: It's very bloody and brutal. Not for the squeamish!

Great Sasuke Career Music Video

https://youtu.be/yDwA_DvsX8Y?si=l_t-Soxl4h8mCrLY 

FMW Tribute:

https://youtu.be/c7L_8UnTbVE?si=EsCbRY8dfRZ8ioOo

Mitsuhiro Matsunaga Career Music Video (1989-2019):

https://youtu.be/ZethJLcUMoU?feature=shared

Mr. Gannosuke Career Music Video:

https://youtu.be/PqUa73syx8I?si=_o0YgD6-nQUfjfV3

Hayabusa Career Music Video (1991-2016)

https://youtu.be/go3k-7nDCtE?si=Ts5R3UbJSI1k5V7X

The Best of Abdullah Kobayashi:

https://youtu.be/LIR_DWjuqMU?feature=shared

Mr. Pogo Career Music Video (1981-2017):

https://youtu.be/rVqgGfh054w?feature=shared

Astushi Onita Career Music Video (1981-2017):

https://youtu.be/EoZfrNXG_Wo?feature=shared

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Indonesia

 

 (imdb)

THE RAID: REDEMPTION-2011-An elite group of law officers invade the criminal stronghold (kind of an apartment house for scum) of a powerful (and weird looking) drug lord Tama (Ray Sahetapy). All goes well for a short time until a kid is killed and the gang is alerted. For some stupid reason, the old Lieutenant didn't tell anyone they were coming so they are cut off from reinforcements. One guy Rama (Iko Uwals) meets his brother there, one of Tama's right hand men. It's just one big battle for survival with the drug lord monitoring the whole thing via closed circuit TVs. 

Very violent, brutal and graphic with some wild bloody fights. This Indonesia production was written and directed by the Welsh born Gareth Evans who made a sequel THE RAID 2 IN 2015.

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High School Punks

 

 (subscene.com)

CLASS OF 1984-1982-New teacher Andy Norris (Perry King) runs afoul of a moronic gang leader Stegman (Timothy Van Patten) in a high school from hell (Abe Lincoln High). His gang includes Stefan Arngrim (TV's LAND OF THE GIANTS) and Lisa Langois (also in DEADLY EYES the same year). They terrorize the school with shakedowns, drugs and gang fights and have no respect for anyone. Norris butts heads with them despite warnings from a pathetic principal (David Garner) and an alcoholic bio teacher Corrigan (Roddy McDowall). The gang puts on masks and squirts Norris with blood, then beats him up and burns his car. When Norris' appeals to Stegman's equally moronic mother fail, he uses reverse psychology and wrecks Stegman's car. Corrigan freaks out when they kill his rabbits, and he threatens them with a gun then gets drunk and tries to run everyone over before dying in a fiery car crash (stand out performance). 

An ineffectual police officer (Al Waxman) is no help either. While Norris tries to whip the school band into shape, a nerdy student (Michael J. Fox) who is due to testify against the gang is stabbed during a lunchroom melee. It cumulates with the gang raping and kidnapping Morris' wife (Merrie Lyn Ross). He goes for revenge and despite taking a few lumps destroys the gang and saves his wife. Stegman winds up hanged to death over the concert hall.

There's a lot of violent action in this typical '80's revenge action story by director Mark L. Lester. Screenplay by Tom Holland (Lester says much of it was based on several real-life incidents he read about).

Thanks for reading. Class dismissed....

Dread Having To Watch This

 

THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN-2014-Stupid sort of sequel to Charles B. Pierce's 1976 quasi-documentary. A killer terrorizes Texarkana in the same place the original murders were. Some yokels think the original killer is back. A girl who survived the initial attack and Lone Wolf Morales (Anthony Anderson), an arrogant Texas ranger lead the official investigation. Gary Cole plays a police officer killed while getting a blowjob. The original director's son Charles Pierce Jr. is portrayed as a real weirdo. The killer starts killing everyone including the girl's grandmother (Veronica Cartwright). 

This is just another sick excuse to show excess killing. It's the last movie for both Ed Lauter & Edward Herman. Director Alfonzo Gomez-Rejon directed episodes of the TV show “Glee” before this.

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Norris Is So Tough, He Makes Onions Cry!

 

 (wikipedia)

INVASION USA-1985-Soviet terrorist Rostov (Richard Lynch) wants revenge on retired CIA agent Matt Hunter (Chuck Norris; also one of the screenwriters). After failing to kill him at his home in the Everglades he plots the invasion of America. Hunter agrees to go after him. There's lots of violence and killing (families, teens at party, shoot out at a crowded mall) and ridiculous car chases. The invaders disguise themselves as police and soldiers to cause unrest. A woman reporter (Melissa Prophet) who's life Hunter saves several times isn't even grateful. Billy Drago has a small role as a coke dealer who's killed. 

Director Joseph Zito directed Norris in MISSING IN ACTION the same year and also made the horror movies THE PROWLER and FRIDAY THE 13TH:THE FINAL CHAPTER.

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Girls with Guns

 

 (youtube)

GUN GIRLS-1957-Girl gangs are the trouble this time. Nice girls from decent families committing armed robbery for kicks. Con artist Joe (Timothy Farrell;his role is identical to the one in GIRL GANG)) sells guns to two girls, Teddy (Jeanne Ferguson) and Dora (Jacqueline Park) deal in larceny and stolen goods. He romances semi-innocent Joy Jenkins (top billed Eve Brent) to set up a robbery in the warehouse where she works. The girls rob the place, conk a guard and leave behind some clues and only get 14 dollars for their trouble! Deciding to leave town they steal Joe's money then Joy drops a bombshell. She's pregnant with Joe's kid! Joe of course rejects her and she shoots him. Teddy and Dora wreck their getaway car. Dora has a long scene on her deathbed and the story ends with a police lineup of tough girls and the narrator asking if one of them could be yours. 

Harry Keaton (also on GIRL GANG) plays Joe's henchman Luke and Barbara Weeks (from Wood's THE VIOLENT YEARS) plays Teddy's mother. More low budget sleazy crime drama morality from director Robert C. Dertano (it was his last movie}. A year after making this movie lead actress Eve Brent was cast as Jane to Gordon Scott's Tarzan in TARZAN'S FIGHT FOR LIFE.

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Wilde In The Future

 

(IMDB)

NO BLADE OF GRASS-1970-When a mysterious virus nearly wipes out England's agriculture and pollutes the water, a man, John Custance (Nigel Davenport) and his wife Ann (Jean Wallace) and two kids along with their friend Roger (John Hamill) head for a farm in the country. Along the way they pick up the violent Pirrie (Anthony May) and his flirty wife Clara (Wendy Richard). It doesn't take long for the group to descend into killing and stealing. The wife and daughter are raped by 3 creeps and their cars and goods are taken by a town. Meanwhile the government has fled and the world is descending into cannibalism. Things don't turn out like they planned and there's a wild fight with a motorcycle gang. They make it to the farm but problems arise with David (Patrick Holt) John's brother. 

Basically this treats a future calamity in pretty depressing chilling dog eat dog terms (more so then say PANIC IN THE YEAR ZERO which at times GRASS imitates). Where as Ray Milland's character worked against a breakdown in society, John readily accepts it's kill or be killed and might makes right (especially in the climax). There are a few lapses but overall this is an ahead of its time feature directed and co-written by actor Cornel Wilde (he and a lead actress Wallace were married in real life) especially with the world situation today.

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Caged Heat

 

CAGED HEAT-1974-Jackie Wilson (Erica Gavin) is arrested in a drug bust and sent to a woman's prison where she meets Belle (Roberta Collins) and Pandora (Ella Reid). The place is run by a hung up wheelchair bound warden McQueen (Barbara Steele) and a pipe smoking doctor (Warren Miller). She puts Pandora in solitary because she had a picture of her boyfriend in her cell. They pick fruit, have fights in the showers and walk around topless. Jackie's cellmate is lifer Levelle (Cheryl Rainbeaux Smith). 

When one inmate Maggie (Juanita Brown) tries to rebel, Jackie is also blamed. They are sent for CPT where the sadistic pipe smoking doctor gives them shock treatments as punishment. Later Jackie and Maggie revolt, steal a truck and then a police car. They almost get arrested for prostitution when they meet up with Maggie's friend Crazy Alice (Lynda Gold). Meanwhile the ⁰doc rapes the comatose Belle (and cries about it). Maggie and Jackie go back for revenge and a bloody shootout caps the finale.

This was screenwriter (and future Oscar winner) Jonathan Demme's debut as a director and also features a soundtrack written and performed by John Cale. I've read Michael Bloomfield plays guitar buon it but I'm not so sure...

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Accept No Substitutes...

ALONE IN THE DARK-1982-Dr. Daniel Potter (Dwight Schultz) comes to work at a clinic for mental cases run by the eccentric pot smoking Dr. Leo Bain (Donald Pleasence). His star patients are Ronald Elster (Erland Van Lidth), a child molester, the paranoid Col. Hawkes (Jack Palance), ex-preacher Byron Sutcliff (Martin Landau), an arsonist and John Skaggs who strangles people when he gets a nose bleed. Hawkes believes Potter killed their former doctor and wants revenge (“There are no crazy people, doctor. We're all on vacation”). 

 At a club The Sic F*cks do “Chop Up Your Mother”. A blackout allows the nutty gang to escape. During a riot of stealing they get weapons. Skaggs leaves them but the rest go looking for Potter, whose sister meets a guy named Tom (Phillips Clark) at a “no nukes” rally and invites him to dinner at her brother's house. Tom helps fight off the loonies when they attack. Bain comes to help but Sutcliff cuts off his ear. (Bain is never seen again but I suppose he's killed) Despite helping the family (and killing Elster) Tom turns out to be “the bleeder” Skaggs but they kill him. 

When Hawkes closes in for the kill the electricity comes back on and a timely news report confirms the previous doctor is still alive. Hawkes evades the police, beats up a bouncer at a club and meets a weird woman while The Sic F*cks play. Hawkes pulls out his gun and points it at the woman. She just laughs. So does Hawkes. 

This was director Jack Sholder's first feature film and it's a great debut but after making NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2: FREDDY'S REVENGE and THE HIDDEN he seemed to drift into TV movies. Both Palance and Landau went on to win Academy Awards.

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Pulgasari

PULGASARI-1985-In feudal Korea, a cruel governor makes all his subjects give up their iron so he can make weapons. An old metal worker is imprisoned and beaten for not cooperating. His future son in law Inde and his group of bandits fight back but are also imprisoned. Before he dies the old man creates a small statue of a creature and prays to the gods. After his death, his daughter Ami takes the figure home. While sewing she pricks her finger and some blood drops on the creature which immediately comes to life! It likes to eat metal and grows bigger as it does. It saves Inde from getting his head chopped off. Later after Inde’s mom and little bro are killed, he and bandits attack the governor's fortress. They win so the king orders General Fuan to crush them. 

The farmers flee to the hills for their last big encounter but Ami brings Pulgasari to help. The farmers give all their iron to it and it starts growing to Godzilla size. But Fuah has Ami captured and forces Pulgasari into a cage that's set a fire (it seems like an elaborate set up that they put together in no time). Pulgasari seems to die but reappears as a red hot monster that sends the army fleeing in terror. Later the farmers decide to attack first. The general comes up with another plan. Lure the monster into a giant hole (which the army dug again in no time!) and have an old priestess exorcise the monster (because the blacksmith’s spirit is in it). The exorcism features some colorfully dressed women dancers. Pulgasari falls into the hole and is buried under a hail of rocks. Inde is captured and hanged. However you can't keep a good monster down and Pulgasari escapes its rock prison to lead the farmers in an attack on the capital city. Despite making new weapons, Pulgasari destroys the enemy stronghold and crushes the king. Literally! 

With that out of the way, it turns its hunger for iron toward the farmers. “Our savior has become our enemy”. Ami seems to sacrifice her life to destroy the giant but in the end the spirit of the mini Pulgasari enters her body, though she doesn't appear to be alive. Fun giant monster film from Korea.

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Howard's Kane

SOLOMON KANE-2009-Robert Howard's Puritan witch hunter is a violent, greedy idiot who believes his soul is damned and has symbols on his body to protect him from evil. Kane (James Purefoy) renounces his ways and lives in a monastery but the monks throw him out. Acting a like a cross between Hugh Jackman and Wilhem DeFoe he wanders the countryside in the 1600's. Flashbacks reveal his father (Max von Sydow) disowned him when he refused to join the clergy. After being beaten up he's taken in by a guy (Pete Postlethwaite) and his family. An evil sorcerer named Malachi (Jason Flemyng) kidnaps the daughter and kills the rest of the family. Kane scourers everywhere looking for her while Mal crucifies people who oppose him. Later he finds his father in a dungeon. He leads a group of villagers to their deaths then fights his own brother. After that he fights a demon that looks like the one in the video game Quake 2! He rescues the daughter and becomes a hero. 

Dark dirty shit from director MJ Bassett (Cable's ASH VS. EVIL DEAD).

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Truckers

WHITE LINE FEVER-1975-Carrol Jo Hummer (Jan Michael Vincent  who died in February 2019) comes back from the army and gets married to his sweetheart Jerri (Kay Lenz). He buys his own rig and becomes a trucker. That's when the trouble starts! He finds his dead father's old friend Duane (Slim Pickens) is corrupt and has a bunch of thugs (including Martin Kove) working for him. The real villains are three rich guys Buck (LQ Jones), Cutler (Don Porter) and their lawyer (RG Armstrong). Carroll tries to organize a union, gets blacklisted, beat up and almost tried for murder but Jerri's tear jerking testimony gets him off. Buck tries to kill him with a forklift. After Cutler seems to make a deal with the truckers, Hummer's house is burned down and Jerri who was pregnant loses her baby and becomes comatose. Dick Miller (who died in January 2019)  has a small role as Birdie Corman. This depressing little tale was directed by Jonathan Kaplan three years before the similarly plotted big budget FIST starring Sylvester Stallone. Kaplan later directed THE ACCUSED (1988) and recently was the executive producer of a documentary about Dick Miller (THAT DICK MILLER GUY).

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Lost But Found

PRIVATE PROPERTY-1960-Two hoodlums, Duke (Corey Allen) and Boots (Warren Oates) use intimation and switchblade to get their way. Duke also rides Boots for still being a virgin. They take a shine to a Ann Carlisle (Kate Manx, the director's wife) who they spot at a gas station and force an old guy (Jerome Cowan) to follow her to her house. Fortunately for them the house next door is unoccupied and they squat there and spy on her and her husband Roger (Robert Wark). Duke's sick plan is to seduce Ann and then turn her over to Boots but it doesn't quite work out that way when Boots winds up doing the dead man's float in the swimming​ pool and Duke is shot to death by Ann. 

Though rather mild and irritating by today's standards, PRIVATE PPROPERTY caused a lot of controversy in its initial release and was condemned by The League Of Decency. It played very few venues and disappeared. So much so that it was thought to be a "lost" film until a print was discovered and restored around 2016. 

PRIVATE PROPERTY was the first movie directed (and written) by Leslie Stevens, a busy TV screenwriter at the time. He went back to TV after the failure of this feature before returning to the big screen in 1966 with INCUBUS, the supernatural Bergmanesque parable with dialogue in Esperanto and starring William Shatner. His last work is on the series THE OUTER LIMITS. Sadly, leading lady Manx committed suicide four years after this was made. Star Corey Allen had been in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE and other films and later became a successful TV director.

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There's A Riot Going On

RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11-1956-In this Allied Artist documentary style prison uprising film, prisoners Dunn (Neville Brand) and Crazy Mike (Leo Gordon) lead a prison revolt for better conditions. A former colonel (Robert Osterloh) helps them with their list of grievances while the warden (Emile Meyer) lock horns with a callous senator (Frank Faylen). When Dunn is injured the sadistic Mike takes over and the cons begin fighting among themselves. Eventually Dunn wins his case with the approval of the governor (Thomas B Henry) but it's overturned and Dunn faces 30 more years in stir. “Still there are small steps forward” says the narrator. 

Alvy Moore, Whit Bissell, Paul Frees, Dabbs Greer and William Phipps are some of the other prisoners. 

 Screenwriter Richard Collins also wrote THE CULT OF THE COBRA and was blacklisted for a while. Later he worked mostly in TV. Director Don Siegel made this 2 years before his classic THE INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS.

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O Canada, This Werewolf Movie Sucks

WOLVES-2014-A guy Cayden (Lucas Till) finds out he's a werewolf, kills some people and runs away. Later he's taken under the wing of a farmer named John (Stephen McHattie). Then Cayden winds up in a community of werewolves run by Connor (Jason Momoa), the last of the pure breed wolves. It turns out Connor is Cayden's father but later in the crazy out of control finale it's revealed John is responsible for all the mayhem. This Canadian production seems more like a pilot for a TV series (ripped off from WEREWOLF and THE HOWLING). It was written and director by actor/screenwriter David Hayter (X-MEN, X-MEN 2, THE SCORPION KING). 

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Japan's Not Our Enemy Anymore...

THE WOLVERINE-2013-After saving the life of a Japanese officer from the A-bomb in WW 2,

Logan aka Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is living alone in a forest. When he gets into trouble at a local bar he meets Yukio (Rila Fukushima) who says she wants to take Logan to Japan so an old dying industrialist Yoshida (Haruhiko Yama-nouchi), the officer Logan saved can say goodbye to him. Once there Yoshida offers to transfer Wolverine's “immortality" to his body and let Logan live a normal life span. After Yoshida dies there's a big shoot up at his funeral and Yukio's granddaughter is kidnapped by  The Yakuza. Logan is shot several times but recovers and saves the daughter. They go on the run which of course leads up to the inevitable sex she has to have with the “far superior gaijin”. Later a bunch of ninjas capture the granddaughter and a stupid white woman kills her father (Hiroyuki Sanada). After Logan operates on himself,  a super metallic robot shows up but do you really think it would pose much of a threat to the powerful white westerner? 

Their fight though kind of reminded me of THE AZTEC MUMMY VS. THE ROBOT! Of course Yoshida, though thought dead is actually behind the whole thing. I didn't expect the after credits appearances of Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart. 

Director James Mangold (GIRL,INTERRUPTED) later made LOGAN also featuring the Wolverine character.

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Thirsty Work

THIRST-2009-A priest in Korea volunteers for an experiment on a cure for an incurable virus. He seems to die but actually out of 500 patients he's the only who survives and he becomes a kind of Savior and people seek him out to heal their sick.. Unfortunately there is a bad side effect. He's turned into a vampire and has to drink blood or die of the disease. Later he visits a family and has sex with the adopted daughter (who's treated more like a slave). In a GANJA & HESS move he infects her and they go out "drinking" together. 

THIRST features a lot of violence, blood and blood drinking but also has lots of talk, drawn out scenes and arty direction. With finger and toe sucking and mah-joggh playing. Some might laud it's over 2 running time but I found it hard going.

The Story of a Fool

JOHNNY COOL-1963-This interesting dark gangster story begins in Sicily in 1945 with a little kid named Giordano blowing up a Nazi to save his mom who's killed anyway. He joins up with some rebels and grows up to be Dom Giordano (Henry Silva) who has to go on the run from the army during a wedding. He's saved by a deported American mobster Johnny Calini (Mark Lawrence) who trains him “to be American” then sends him to NYC where he becomes the new Johnny Calini and beats up a guy in a bar and spurns the come-ons of Elizabeth Montgomery who's raped by two corrupt cops after having dinner with Johnny. He kills both of them then runs afoul of crime boss Vince (Telly Savalas). Like a one man army Johnny goes for revenge killing various mobsters (he blows up one guy in his pool). His one man vendetta almost succeeds but Liz turns him over to the mob and they kill him. “So ends the story of a fool”. 

Several well known actors appear in pivotal one scene roles: Sammy Davis Jr. (who also sings the theme) is a dice shooter called Educated, Jim Backus (sounding like Mr. Magoo) is a corrupt land developer who's killed, Joey Bishop is an annoying car salesman, John McGiver is a Las Vegas crime boss and Mort Sahl is his bodyguard. Wanda Hendrix, Elisha Cook, Douglas Dumbrille, Joseph Calliea, Robert Armstrong and Brad Dexter also appear. Director William Asher worked on other theatrical films (including some “Beach” movies for AIP) and lots of TV shows (including over a hundred episodes of “Bewitched”, starring his future wife Montgomery, who he married shorty after this production).  

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