Beautiful Ladies Of Genre: Pamela Anderson Is Barb Wire (1997)

When people think of Pamela Anderson, a few things spring to mind. Baywatch is probably tops of that list, but her appearances in Playboy or her intimate video with former rocker husband Tommy Lee are probably pretty close behind. I was never really a fan of any of these things. Baywatch took itself too seriously for me to find it funny, and while I admire her for being a groundbreaker in the legitimizing of celebrity sex videos, the less naked Tommy Lee I have in my life the better. When I did start to become a fan is when she appeared on the syndicated TV show VIP as the private eye Vallery Irons. While it was no She Spies (but what is?), VIP was once a staple of my late night weekend viewing. If I hadn't become a fan of that show, it is doubtful that I would have delved back into this film that she made at the height of her orange bathing suited fame. Based on a nine issue Dark Horse Comics miniseries, Barb Wire, a tough, beautiful, blond bounty hunter, seemed a perfect fit for the buxom, fair haired actress, and with some action experience and a new harder edge persona, thanks to her marriage to the aforementioned Mötley Crüe drummer, all that remained was the execution. Couched in a classic story we will all still remember as time goes by, join me for all the bullets, breasts, and bubble baths that make up Barb Wire.

Hey, Girl. Hauer You Doin'?: Surviving the Game (1994)

Survival, it's for the fittest they say, and no where has this been more frequently illustrated then in the myriad of retellings of 'The Most Dangerous Game'. There have been countless film versions of the classic 1924 tale such as Woman Hunt, Bloodlust!, and Hard Target just to name a few among hundreds if not thousands. Today, I'm taking a look at Rutger getting his hunt on in Ernest R. Dickerson's Surviving the Game. Unlike the past two features in Hey, Girl. Hauer You Doin'?, New World Disorder and Ladyhawke, this one finds Rutger in the role of the bad guy as he pairs up with Charles F. Dutton to hunt Ice-T. Not only is Hauer on the opposite side of the law, dare I say, he doesn't appear quite as dashing as normal. With  his straggly whiskers and shoulder length hair, he looks a bit like Colonel Sanders' L.A cousin who favors ill fitting suits in the office, but on the weekend, breaks out the camo hunting gear for a little homeless hunting.

Assassination Games (2011): The Bugg and JCVD Dodge a Bullet

I had so much more planned for Action April. I really did, but instead my body decided to take action against me. So this week you're gonna get this review and one more, 2, count them, 2 Hauer You Doin'? action treats to anround out the week. I know it sounds like lofty goals, but I’m just the Bugg for the job. So what's been happening to me, well, the title of today's film is Assassination Games, and over the last week my body tried to assassinate me.... At least it felt like it. It seems the ever lovin' blue eyed Bugg had gone and got himself a pair of matching kidney stones. Those wee buggers, a.k.a 4mm of the worst pair you'd ever want in your life, brought me to my knees, and while I watched a good many movies through the pain killer induced haze, I didn't think my thoughts on them would be particularly cogent. Or less cogent than normal I should say. At any rate, I'm all healed up, and nothing gets me back into the action like a little JCVD.

Blood Games (1990):A Real American Pastime,Vengence

Since it's National Blood Donation Month and I'm picking movies with a sanguine connection, I couldn't resist checking out Blood Games, a rape-revenge flick that has balls... baseballs I mean. The Australians always have a way at cutting to the core of things, and they might not have ever hit it on the head more accurately than with their re-titling of Blood Games as Baseball Bimbos in Hillbilly Hell. That evocative title lets you now everything you need to know about the film. There will be hicks, tits, shotguns, sub-Roadhouse level redneck wisdom, and the great American pastime. In short, Blood Games is an exploitation goldmine, and there's nuggets in there big enough to make a Kanye West necklace with. This is definitely an under-seen, under-appreciated gem, and I'm proud to make it the next selection in Blood Donation Month. So sit back and relax while I tell you about a time when men struck out and women struck back... with bats and guns and buses.

Babe and the Ballgirls are a traveling exposition baseball team. Along with their coach, Midnight (Ross Hagan), they travel from town to town playing local teams while the coach makes large wagers on the team to pay off their mounting debts. In one small town, they run into a bit of trouble. The losing team of hicks doesn't take too kindly to being beaten by a group of gals, and town boss Mino Collins (Ken Carpenter) doesn't want to pay up on a thousand dollar bet. Midnight and Mino rumble in a barroom bathroom, and Mino pays off the debt. However, it has taken too long for the coach to get back to his team. Midnight's daughter Babe (Laura Albert) and one of the other girls go to look for him. Instead they find Roy Collins (Gregory Scott Cummins), Mino's son, and his best friend Holt (Don Dowe) who try and rape the girls. When Midnight shows up, he gets stabbed helping the girls and Roy gets shot in the leg. Trying to escape town, the team boards their bus head out quickly, but Roy and Holt  shoot the bus off the road resulting in Roy getting crushed to death. Mino takes no small offence at the death of his boy, and soon the town forms a posse to go after the girls and kill them one by one.

If you were sitting with me right now, Blood Games would be all I want to talk about. From the quotable lines (Mino drops bon mots like "There is no such thing as pain." and "You're fucking with the devil now boy.) to the gratuitous shower scene, slow motion action sequences, and the mere existence of George "Buck" Flower in this flick, I could ramble on about this one like Tarantino on speed. So I apologize if the synopsis ran a little long. I'd also talk at length about director Tanya Rosenberg, I have no idea who she is. She only directed one film. She's not listed or talked about anywhere. It's like she appeared, dropped this exploitation gem on us, and disappeared like some kind of cult film fairy. It amazes me that this rape-revenge flick (there is a full blown rape later in the film) came about in the early 90s, well past the heyday of such fare. It's almost unfair to call this a 90s film. The French cut panties, big hair, and neon colors the girls wear places this movie squarely in the pre-grunge era when the 80s were still stubbornly leaving their mark in a new decade.

One of the big things that Blood Games has over other wrathful women film is that there's not one woman in peril, there's nine of them (and the coach, but he's only in danger long enough to get killed). Laura Albert, as team leader Babe, is the film's center, and she holds the surviving girls together as they escape into the dense woods surrounding the town. Albert is one of the only girls who appeared in movies both before and after Blood Games though now it seems she finds most of her work doing stunts on Batman Begins, Pineapple Express, and this year's Oscar nominated film The Artist. The other standout among the gals is Donna, Shelley Abblett in her one film role. Abblett delivers one of the film's most memorable lines, "I have been pushed around by men my whole life, and I'm sick of it.", a war-cry for vengeance seeking gals everywhere. While few of the girls ever did any acting or went on to do anymore, I found each of their performances enjoyable.

Veteran actor/director Ross Hagen does a fine job as Midnight, the team's coach, but sadly his role is minimal at best. Gregory Scott Cummins (Stone Cold, Phantom of the Mall) also has a small part as Roy, the sore loser, but he impresses with rampant dickery and a certain Kevin Sorbo-esque look. He also has one of the best arm wrestling scenes this side of Hands of Steel though instead of snakes it's done over candles. More impressive is Ken Carpenter as the town bossman Mino. Carpenter, who would later appear in Hellraiser: Hell on Earth as the Camera cinobite, gives a great tough guy perfromance, and his fight with Ross Hagan in the bathroom with his pants around his ankles is surely one for the books. Don Dowe, a character actor still working today, also turns in a fine performance as Holt, the dumbest of the hunters and Roy's best friend. Something about him made me think about Bill Fagerbakke as Dauber on Coach, Except, you know, more rapey. That beings us to the film's final delight George "Buck" Flower who appeared here under the name Ernest Wall, a screen name he only used once. I hope each and every one of you knows who Flower is and can imagine how good he'd be as a hillbilly named Vern. He also has one of my favorite exchanges in the film. Holt says, "Vern, you can't beat your own meat." to which Vern replies, "I can beat it better than you can." Comedy gold.

I've seen some speculation that Blood Games was intended to be a parody of female vengeance flicks, but I saw no trace of anything that could point to that. While there are certainly some funny moments, intentional and unintentional, Blood Games doesn't seem like it was supposed to be played for laughs. Like a mash-up of I Spit on Your Grave, Deliverance, and a sports film (some say A League of Their Own, but apart from girls playing ball I fail to see a correlation), Blood Games is indeed one of the best exploitation movies of the last twenty five years. Right now it's playing on Netflix Instant Watch, and I can't recommend this enough. If you like your exploitation violent, sexy, and down and dirty with a giant dollop of 80s on the top, then you really can't afford to miss this one. This film starts with a baseball game, and it is a crackerjack. When it comes to cult fare like this, I really don't care if I ever come back. I got to root, root, root for the gals to win, and the ones that die, it is a shame, but this flick gets One-Two-Three (and a half) Buggs to count for the old Blood Game. 

Bugg Rating 

Halloween Top 13: The Devil Made Me Do It #13- Drive Angry (2011)

There's a lot of chatter about Drive starring Ryan Gosling as a cooler than cool getaway driver, but this is the start of The Halloween Top 13 and I'm not about to let it get cool in The Lair one bit.That's because for 13 days I'm going to be turning up the heat on all the demons, devils, possessions, and Armageddon-esque action right up until Halloween. Welcome everyone to The Halloween Top 13: The Devil Made Me Do It. While Drive might be the the most talked about car film this year, if Satan's on your tail, good looks and a satin jacket are not going to be enough. You're going to need to get mad, you're going to have to be mean, you're going to have to get angry. You're going to have to hire Nicolas Cage, give him crazy blonde hair, and send him on a mission. Something like escaping from Hell in a car to track down a cult of Satanists looking to bring about Hell on Earth by killing your granddaughter. It just so happens that someone did just that, and coming in at #13 on the countdown, is 2011's Drive Angry.

It all begins when John Milton (Cage) escapes from hell in a car... stop me if you've heard this one. There is more. He makes an unlikely alliance with Piper (Amber Heard), an alluring blonde waitress with a tricked out ride,  gets perused by the Accountant (William Fichtner), Satan's retrieval service, and gets ever closer to Jonah King (Billy Burke), the leader of the cult. Along the way, Milton kills a an incredible number of badguys in a style I could only compare to 2007's Shoot 'Em Up. (Like that film Drive Angry seems aware of its format without being too coy and cloying about it.) Along the way, Milton gets help from his friend Webster (David Morse), goes toe to toe with the police captain (Tom Atkins), and shoots about fifteen guys while smoking a cigar, drinking jack, and having sex. And I do mean at the same time. Life out of Hell is no bed of roses, and this Milton is not about to let Paradise get lost. (Ok, his granddaughter's name wasn't Paradise, but wouldn't that have been great.)

So I bet there's a few confused looks out there. Well let me clear a few things up. I exclude any title I've reviewed before on The LBL from being chosen for the countdown. That means there's some big titles that I have to leave off, and some I've avoided that I finally get to talk about. I also get to have some fun, and folks, I'm here to tell you that Drive Angry  is a lot of fun. It's the perfect kind of flick to throw on when you have some friends over to carve a pumpkin or before you go out to a haunted house. It's exciting, it's got a fair amount of splatter (though the "Filmed in 3D " look detracts from this a great deal.), and it's got Nic Cage running from the Devil in an assortment of classic cars. Now I don't know a manifold from a marigold, but I know awesome cars when I see them. Drive Angry takes a couple of pages from the 70's grindhouse, the car flick, the revenge film, the Satanic Cult, and a generous helping of nudity, balls them all up, and lights them on fire.

Now a few words on Nic Cage. There's going over the top. That's, say, Adam West or Shatner. Then there's going Nic Cage. Which means going over the top and then you just keep going until someone calls cut. I'm so glad they didn't. Cage doesn't as much chew the scenery as devour everything around him. It took all of Amber Heard's sexual charms to even make her blandly named character Piper memorable. Actually that's not fair, the All the Boys Love Mandy Lane actress proves to be a strong, capable foil for Cage without any romantic overtones necessary. Still this is Cage's movie, that is until William Fichtner shows up. The character actor, who was seen recently on Entourage, has never been better. As The Accountant, Satan's agent on Earth, Fichtner gives off a quiet menace that he proves to be able to backup. (Don't try and sneak up on The Devil's tight bro with a bat.) While Cage is the whirling dervish in this film, Fichtner is the calm in the center of the storm. The Accountant also serves to remind us that demons are not always bad, as long as it all ends up their way.

Director Patrick Lussier impressed me a few years back with a reasonable remake of My Bloody Valentine though once again the 3-D filming detracts from the enjoyment of the home viewer. His next project is picking up the reins of the Halloween franchise, and here's to hoping he can leave Michael Myers in 2 dimensions. Drive Angry sets itself apart by neither taking itself too seriously or trying to become a cult movie by force. In doing so, Lussier has created a film that deserves any cult that it gets. That is unless that cult is looking to steal a baby to bring about Hell on Earth. Because then they'll have to answer to Nic Cage with the pedal to the metal, and no one wants that. Except me, in the sequel.

That brings us to the end of #13. Join us back here tomorrow for #12 on the countdown, and remember if you want to be a part of The Halloween Top 13: The Devil Made Me Do It, then send me your list of favorites to thelightningbug (@) charter.net. Before I go, let me direct your attention back to the top of the page to the awesome banner. That was custom made for me by my friend V. Daniel Leslie, and I can't thank him enough for a job well done!

Bugg Rating 

Expendables Week #4: 20 Thoughts on Rambo: First Blood Part 2

Hey folks. With The Expendables finally making its debut tonight and since I had some time to sit around this afternoon, I wanted to watch a film from The Expendables’ head honcho Sylvester Stallone. At first, I seriously considered watching Oscar (anyone who doesn’t like that film hasn’t appreciated Tim Curry’s performance as the title character’s speech coach.), but instead I thought that action was more apt and turned instead to Rambo: First Blood Part 2. This jingoistic little gem is a supreme slice of what the ’80’s action film was. I may have watched First Blood more times over the years, but First Blood Part 2 was the first one I saw growing up. Since this is a film that I think a lot of people have seen, I thought I would kind of do a similar format to last week’s Jackie Brown.  

1. The opening pre-title sequence. I mean seriously, they put Rambo in a labor camp breaking up rocks. That is hardcore. Plus, Richard Crenna  is back as Trautman and on the receiving end of the infamous line “Do we get to win this time?” all in the first  couple minutes. 

2. It’s sometimes stunning to see how many great genre actors are in this film. Practically the second scene features Martin Kove, Crenna, Stallone, and Charles Napier. 

3. Rambo can’t even manage to jump out of the plane before something goes wrong. He may be a badass, but things always seem to go way worse for him before they get better (if they do at all). 

4. Director George P. Cosmatos would go on to direct another classic film with an all star genre cast, 1993’s Tombstone as well as one of my favorite Sly films Cobra. 

5. Co Bau: “Is that why they picked you because you like to fight?”

     Rambo: “Nah, cause I’m expendable.”

6. So the army sends Rambo to take pictures of a supposed POW camp. Pictures. Did any of them actually think he was going to take pictures?

7. Rambo: First Blood Part 2 was such a success that it spawned a children’s cartoon in 1986. 

 8. The total body count was 67, but Rambo only accounts for 57 of them himself. What a slacker. 

9. Every time I see this film, and it doesn't matter how many times, I can't help getting pissed when the extraction team leaves Rambo and the POW he finds high and dry. 

10. Let the torture begin! First off, let's soak you in leeches, but then for the real torture Steven Burkoff is going to show up and do a Russian accent. 

11. "You may scream, there is no shame"- Lt Podovsky

12. An electric box springs. That brings magic fingers to a whole different place. 

13. You gotta love the lightning crash that happens just as Rambo tells Murdock (Charles Napier) the jerk that trapped them in Vietnam, "I'm coming to get you."

14. The whole escape sequence is great, and this is the moment when legendary composer Jerry Goldsmith's score really shines. 

15. If you think you might love John Rambo, don't tell him. You will just get shot in the next scene. However you will inspire his choice in headbands for the rest of his life. 

16. However if you are any way connected to the killing of Rambo's new (but shortly lived) main squeeze, be aware he is going to kill every last one of you. 

17. First Blood Part 2 was the first film to debut on 2000 screens, In comparison, The Expendables makes it's debut on 3200 screens today. 

18. Guns are passe. There really need to be more heroes armed with bows and arrows. 

19. Luckily, unlike Rambo III, politics mostly take a back seat to action in First Blood 2. Sure there are some pointed moments in the film, but for the most part it stays less political than similar fare like the Missing in Action films. James Cameron who wrote the script has been quoted as taking credit for the action notes and blaming all the politics on Stallone. 

20. It's not the classic that First Blood is, but it doesn't have the problems of the next film. The series wouldn't hit another high point until Stallone released the singularly titled Rambo in 2008. 

Well that's it for today. I'll be back sometime tomorrow with a review of The Expendables. I hope lots of you go and and see it tonight and come back and let me know what you thought!

Expendables Week #2- Blackjack (1998): Dolph Does Heroic Bloodshed

As the week begins to slip by, we’re growing ever closer to The Expendables, and I just can’t wait. To hold me over I’m looking at films from some of the stars all week. Yesterday, I started with Eric Roberts in the action classic Best of the Best, and today I get a chance to talk about one of my favorite all time action stars, Dolph Lundgren. I was all of eight years old when I first saw Dolph in action as the Iron Curtain baddie Ivan Drago in Rocky IV. Of all the Rocky movies, I think I saw it the most while growing up. From the jingoistic plot (empathized by James Brown’s tune “Livin’ In America”) to seeing Balboa take out his vengeance on the Russian for the death of Apollo Creed, I was consistently enthralled. Not only because of the monosyllabic pugilist played by fellow Expendables star Sly Stallone, but also because of Dolph’s icy, tractor lifting Russian. The next year Dolph stormed my childhood for real when he starred in the Masters of the Universe Movie, and though I appreciate it now, it left me scratching my nine year old head wondering who this He-Man was supposed to be.

Time and time again Dolph popped up in films I wanted to see like The Punisher, Universal Soldier, I Come in Peace, and even Johnny Mnemonic. Each time I enjoyed seeing him, and in recent years he’s starred in a number of enjoyable direct to video flicks like Command Performance, Diamond Dogs, and Icarus. While none of them are top flight films, Dolph always seems to captivate me. As he’s gotten older there’s so much more character in his face, and his look takes me back to a time when action stars were not matinee idols (Channing Tatum, I’m looking at you.) So when I recently stumbled across Blackjack, a film starring Dolph and directed by the legendary action master John Woo, I knew I couldn’t pass it up. Woo had a contract with a Canadian television company to develop two series, the first being “Once a Thief” which serviced in limited syndication for 22 episodes. The second was Blackjack which never got beyond the pilot stages. At the time Woo was between two big American projects, Broken Arrow (1997) and Mission: Impossible (2000) and Dolph was well mired in the direct to rental market. A series combining the talents of John Woo and the charisma of Dolph Lundgren should have been a home run, but unfortunately the end result doesn’t quite deliver.

Dolph stars as Jack Devlin, a former Federal Marshall now turned freelance security expert. To kick things off Jack must save the daughter of a close friend and client, but while guarding the little girl, Jack is blinded by the glare of a flash grenade leaving him with a fear of the color white. When the girl’s father is killed, Jack takes her back to his apartment where he lives with his friend/butler Thomas (venerable character actor Saul Rubinek in an eye patch). He tries to play Mr. Mom, but when his old friend Tim (Fred Williamson) is killed while trying to protect supermodel Cinder James (Kam Heskin), Jack gets back in the protecting business. He finds himself pitted against the model’s crazed, sharp shooting ex-husband, but he must overcome his fear of ivory tones if he’s going to save her life.

That’s right. Dolph has a fear of white. I didn’t even mention the fact that he has a penchant for card tricks and carries a deck of cards with sharpened razor edges. While all of these little character notes might seem silly, they actually all add to the film. Woo exploits the razor cards effectively in a couple of scenes, and Jack’s fear of white makes his throw down with the bad guy at the milk factory a tad difficult. Sure it adds up to action with a side of silly, but Woo had often likes to work humor into his films. Plus when you think about syndicated action shows around that time like Renegade, V.I.P, or She Spies, it fits a similar tone. There are plenty of Woo touches along the way too. Though the action sequences are a little toned down from what you might expect from Woo’s films, there’s still plenty jumping with two guns, walking away from explosions, and black helmeted motorcycle riders to keep most Hong Kong fans happy.

Dolph, as usual, puts on a solid performance using his craggy face to great effect. The fact that he wears sunglasses constantly though a good portion of the film (to avoid white of course) only adds to his air of cool. I’m afraid I don’t have as much good to say about his supporting cast, and this is really where the whole film goes off the rails. First off, Phillip MacKenzie, who plays the psycho ex-husband, does one of the worst, most over the top, most poorly delivered Southern accents ever. It doesn’t help matters that he’s a little weenie looking dude, and if he didn’t have milk around, he wasn’t much of a match for Dolph. Kam Heskin, who would go on to be one of the stars of NBC’s short lived soap “Sunset Beach”, doesn’t fare much better as the drug addled supermodel. Her line delivery missed the mark most of the time, and though she was cute, she didn’t really seem like the world’s most popular model. The rest of the cast fails to distinguish themselves at all, and only the appearances by Saul Rubinek and Fred Williamson add some spice to the proceedings.

While the acting had issues, the real problem lies in the story written by former Miami Vice screenwriter Peter Lance. I know that the film was intended for TV, and the left to right screen wipes inserted where commercials should be never ceased to remind me. However, the story never felt like it would flow or be cohesive even in an episodic format. There were numerous gigantic plot holes (if the ex-husband was working alone where did all the motorcycle riders trying to kill Dolph come from), and portions of the film lag terribly. It runs for nearly two hours (probably its intended running time with commercials), and that is at least a half hour too long. It’s clear that this is not nearly the best either Woo or Lundgren were capable of, but there’s enough of both men’s styles housed in this film to make it work it worth a watch for fans of either man.

Bugg Rating