Only now does it occur to me... BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS (1980)

Only now does it occur to me... that James Cameron first encountered the "TERMINATOR font" while working for Roger Corman.

What we have here is a John Sayles (!) scripted, low-ish budget sci-fi remake of Akira Kurosawa's THE SEVEN SAMURAI, starring a hodgepodge of affordable actors, from Richard Thomas (THE WALTONS) to Robert Vaughn (THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN) to John Saxon (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET) to Sybil Danning (REFORM SCHOOL GIRLS) to George Peppard (THE A-TEAM). It's more enjoyable than you might expect––slightly better than STARCRASH (1978) or KRULL (1983), but pretty much playing in the same "poor man's STAR WAR" sandbox. I rate it lower than FLASH GORDON (1980), if that says anything.

According to James Cameron (credited as co-art director), he was responsible for most of the film's special effects, which are quite impressive for the budget. For comparison, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK had a $30.5 million budget, BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS had a $2 million budget, and there are several spaceships which easily look good enough to be in STAR WARS. (The same cannot be said for the sets, costumes, and makeup effects.)

Anyway, it's notable that this early Cameron effort uses the same font that Cameron would make famous in THE TERMINATOR (I cannot find any interview where this is mentioned––since he had such an outsize role in the art direction, production design, and special effects, it's possible he helped pick out the font.)

It's also where Cameron met composer James Horner,

and the two would go on to collaborate many times before Horner's death––from ALIENS to TITANIC to two AVATAR films. In all, quite a formative experience for the 25-year-old Cameron.

Film Review: PET SEMATARY TWO (1992, Mary Lambert)

Stars: 2.5 of 5.

Running Time: 100  minutes.

Notable Cast or Crew:   Anthony Edwards (MIRACLE MILE, ER, ZODIAC), Edward Furlong (TERMINATOR 2, AMERICAN HISTORY X), Clancy Brown (HIGHLANDER, EXTREME PREJUDICE), Jared Rushton (BIG, OVERBOARD), Darlanne Fluegel (TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A., BULLETPROOF, RUNNING SCARED), Jason McGuire (LEAP OF FAITH, FORREST GUMP).  Written by Richard Outten (LITTLE NEMO: THE 80S MOVIE) and vaguely, but not really based on elements from PET SEMATARY, by Stephen King.

Tag-line: "Raise some hell."

Best one-liner:  "No brain, no pain... think about it."

PET SEMATARY TWO boldly asks the question, "Can a movie be worse than PET SEMATARY ONE?"  The answer is "Yes... well, kind of."

Aside from the presence of bullies and the general idea of a supernatural cemetery whereupon pets and and occasionally humans can be buried only to rise from the dead and become (at best) soulless versions of their former selves, or (at worst) evil killer zombies, this really has nothing to do with anything Stephen King ever wrote.  As such, it sort of feels like PET SEMATARY fan-fiction. Still, it is important to note that PET SEMATARY TWO is not abjectly terrible.  In fact, there are quite a few things to like here.  Seven, in fact:

#1.  Sullen Anthony Edwards.

Pre-ER Anthony Edwards plays a medical professional (a veterinarian) who has lost his wife and is trying to raise moody, early 90s Edward Furlong.

Pictured: moody, early 90s Edward Furlong.

Interestingly enough, Edwards' deceased wife is played by Darlanne Fluegel, an actress who got a tremendous amount of niche work as "practically the only woman" in movies that are otherwise jam-packed with male character actors, and this is no exception.  (Also see:  TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A., BULLETPROOF, LOCK UP, RUNNING SCARED.) Weird.

Anyway, Edwards is pretty great– so great, that you'll really regret that he didn't play "Louis Creed" in PET SEMATARY 1, since Dale Midkiff didn't really have the chops to pull it off.  Maybe the tremendous pathos of Anthony Edwards could have "saved" PET SEMATARY 1– I guess we'll never know.

#2.  The awkwardly exclaimed line, "Thanks for screwing up our Halloween, dumb shit!"

which is laughably uttered by a small town bully– thus making it officially the most "Stephen King-ian" thing in the movie.


#3.  Clancy Brown.  Longtime readers of this site know of my ongoing appreciation of his work, which ranges from evil sons of bitches (HIGHLANDER) to badass good guys (STARSHIP TROOPERS, EXTREME PREJUDICE, THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI).

 Here, he gets to play the Kurgan (from HIGHLANDER) again, essentially– he starts off as an abusive dad/uptight town sheriff, and after being killed and resurrected, turns into a spectacularly psychotic, scenery (and lima beans) chewing maniac.

There's a great scene where his overweight son apologizes for not being the "stud" Clancy is.



And there's an even better scene when an undead Clancy smashes unidentifiable dinner goop and lima beans into his mouth and laughs maniacally for at least twenty seconds.


No, PET SEMATARY TWO is not a good movie, but the beauty of Clancy Brown's deranged performance occasionally fools you into thinking it is.

#4.  These creepy twin girls who reveal, for a fleeting moment, what it would look like if THE SHINING were directed by, say, the makers of FULL HOUSE.



#5.  DEATH BY SPUDS!

How would you like your potato, sir?  Baked?  Roasted?  Mashed?  Stuffed?  Scalloped?  HOW 'BOUT RAINING DOWN ON YOU IN A MURDEROUS, SKULL-SQUASHIN' DELUGE?!


Honestly, in the annals of film history, I don't think there's ever been a "death by potatoes" scene quite like this one.  Nice job, PET SEMATARY TWO!

#6.  The magnificence of the following scene, whereupon an undead Clancy Brown attempts to murder Anthony Edwards with crazy-eye and an electric drill, loopily hypothesizing, "No brain, no pain...  think about it!"






#7.  While The Ramones unfortunately don't give us "I Don't Wanna Be Buried in a Pet Sematary (Again)," they do indeed again provide the rockin' beats of the closing credits with the song, "Poison Heart."

In closing, PET SEMATARY TWO ain't great– and you didn't need me to tell ya that, I'm sure.  Still, a couple of spit-take worthy moments and some killer potatoes push this up to... two and a half stars.

–Sean Gill

Film Review: EYES OF LAURA MARS (1978, Irvin Kershner)

Stars: 3.5 of 5.

Running Time: 104 minutes.

Notable Cast or Crew:  Faye Dunaway (NETWORK, BONNIE & CLYDE), Tommy Lee Jones (ROLLING THUNDER, THE PARK IS MINE!), Raul Julia (THE ADDAMS FAMILY, STREET FIGHTER THE MOVIE), Rene Auberjonois (MCCABE AND MRS. MILLER, THE LITTLE MERMAID), Brad Dourif (CHILD'S PLAY, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST), Darlanne Fluegel (BULLETPROOF, TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A.).  Written by John Carpenter and David Zelag Goodman (STRAW DOGS, LOGAN'S RUN), based on a story by John Carpenter.  Produced by Jon Peters (AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, BATMAN, BATMAN RETURNS).  Cinematography by Victor J. Kemper (DOG DAY AFTERNOON, PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE).  Edited by Michael Kahn (RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, JURASSIC PARK, TRUCK TURNER).  Featuring a soundtrack with selections by Barbara Streisand, Odyssey, KC & the Sunshine Band, Heatwave, and the Michael Zager Band.

Tag-line:  "You can't always believe what you see..."

Best one-liner:  "I'M COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTROL!"

In familiar, darkened alleyway:

"How about a New York City disco horror-thriller set in the world of high fashion, from the director of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and written by John Carpenter?"
–"Where do I sign up?!"
"Not so fast, buddy.  It's not quite as good as it sounds."
–"Aw, nuts."
"Well, don't despair, either– it strikes a middle ground."
–"So is it like a proto- HALLOWEEN?"
"Not really.  Carpy and 'Kersh (and co-writer David Zelag Goodman) have definitely taken a page from the giallo playbook on this one.  It's got some psychic phenomena, POV weirdness, and a lot of dreamy, Fulci/early Argento-esque setpieces.  It's got a bit of a sleaze factor to it that's very Eurotrash in flavor– or maybe that's just the 1970s."

–"Didn't you say "disco" earlier?"
"Hell yes, I did– this movie has caught a fever: disco fever.  It's the good old days, the popped collar and flared pants days, the studio 54 days, the gold lamé and mountains of cocaine days, the days when a pop song would have a radio edit that was three minutes, and then a full version that lasts for three hours, packed with harpsichord and oboe solos and all sorts of extraneous material."
–"You're exaggerating."
"Well, maybe, but the definite highlights of this film are the morbid high-fashion montage scenes, set to endless versions of classy disco classics like 'Let's All Chant (Your Body, My Body, Everybody Work Your Body)' by the Michael Zager Band and '(Shake Shake Shake) Shake Your Booty' by KC & the Sunshine Band–


which is to say hilariously insane 70s decadence intercut with supernatural danger and car wrecks and models wearing fanny packs and smacking each other with fur coats."

–"Whuttttt?!"
"Well, let me back up a little bit. Let me give you the background. Our hero is Faye Dunaway, who plays 'Laura Mars,' and she's definitely on the cusp of the mind-blowing melodramatic overselling of the MOMMIE DEAREST era.

She's a high-fashion photographer who's known for her macabre and controversial portraiture

but she's been having visions of her friends being murdered– murders that actually end up happening! Then she's confronted by the police with the fact that her photographs eerily mirror actual crime scenes that have been kept from the public."

–"Sounds kinda like a typical giallo.  So whodunit?"
"Like I'm going to tell you, bub.  But let's look at the rogue's gallery of supporting players.  We got a super-young Raul Julia as her drunken ex-husband and a born screw-up,

we got a delightfully intense Tommy Lee Jones as the detective helping to protect her (and a part-time shag-carpet love interest),

we got Rene Auberjonois (who I always just call Rene Aubergy-bergy-wah) as her delightfully fey manager, rocking well-coiffed 70s hair,

we even got Darlanne Flugel as a model-friend of Laura's,

an actress who later carved out a niche as "the female" throughout a ton of great testosterone-soaked 80s action flicks like BULLETPROOF and RUNNING SCARED and LOCKUP and TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A."
–"That's cool.  I likes me some Darlanne Flug–"
"I'm not finished yet.  Last, and definitely not least, we got Brad Dourif."

–"Hot damn!"
"Yeah, he plays Laura's chauffeur, and as you can see, he has a hard time keeping his eyes on the road.

At one point, he says 'You tryin' to take me to fuckin' Bellevue or what?' and it's kind of amazing because there's definitely a touch of Billy Bibbit from ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST to his performance here."
–"Looks like he's givin' it his all."
"Dourif never gives anything less.  Then, we even got Babs Streisand– sort of.  She sings the title theme without ever appearing in the film, which was a first for her.  It's because she was initially going to play Laura Mars.  She dropped out when it got too 'kinky,' which is to say, 'not kinky at all.'"
–"Well, what's the verdict?  Now I'm just confused."
"On the whole, it's not quite a lost Carpy gem, but kind of a classier precursor to Lucio Fulci's New York Trilogy (ZOMBIE, NEW YORK RIPPER, MANHATTAN BABY).  And hey– that's alright with me.  It's also allegedly the basis by which Lucas hired 'Kersh to do THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, so you might even call it the impetus for the best STAR WARS movie.  Three and a half stars."

–Sean Gill

Film Review: RUNNING SCARED (1986, Peter Hyams)

Stars: 3.7 of 5.

Running Time: 107 minutes.

Tag-line: "Two of Chicago's Finest?"

Notable Cast or Crew: Gregory Hines (THE COTTON CLUB, WOLFEN), Billy Crystal (CITY SLICKERS II: THE LEGEND OF CURLY'S GOLD), Jimmy Smits (THE BELIEVERS, PEE-WEE'S PLAYHOUSE, DEXTER), Steven Bauer (RAISING CAIN, SCARFACE), Darlanne Fluegel (TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A., BULLETPROOF), Joe Pantoliano (THE MATRIX, RISKY BUSINESS), Dan Hedaya (BLOOD SIMPLE, COMMANDO, MULHOLLAND DR.), Jon Gries (TERRORVISION, JOYSTICKS, Roger Linus on TV's LOST).

Best one-liner: "Excuse me, we're from Noisebusters. Do you know where the Menudo concert is?"

There's a rich history of buddy cop movies. Now while these movies, from time to time, tend to get a little zany, they generally remain well-entrenched in the crime genre. But allow me to make a distinction- there's also a rich history of ZANY buddy cop movies. While the initial emergence may have been earlier, I'll say that the subgenre really came into its own in 1974, which saw the releases of FREEBIE AND THE BEAN and Hyams' own BUSTING. And, boy, were they zany. But they were gritty, too. And it's to this tradition that RUNNING SCARED belongs. This is the sort of movie where Gregory Hines has occasion to howl "We lost the suspect, our car, our keys, our PANTS!" and in a nutshell, that's all you need to know. Are there gonna be two whacky buddies with little respect for authority?

Is there gonna be a harebrained scheme to win back a lost love? Is there gonna be a supervisor who thinks they should stick to procedure and stop acting like a couple of loose cannons? Is there gonna be a no-nonsense villain who's less than entertained by their crime-bustin' antics and decides to raise the stakes till shit gets real?

Don't ask questions you already know the answers to. All the answers you need are in "We lost the suspect, our car, our keys, our PANTS!"

Gregory Hines and Billy Crystal are our two Chicago nutballs. They're the kinds of cops who wear sports jerseys all the time and are always ducking into ladies' restrooms to avoid well-deserved subpoenas. They've got a gadget-makin' man named Ace (played by Larry Hankin) who's basically the Q to their collective, kooky James Bond. Their boss, Dan Hedaya, has got a bug up his ass and an extremely low tolerance for guys who think they're real cowboys.

Crystal and Hines do a lot of cracking wise, sock a lot of crooks in the face, and nurture their bad attitudes like hobos tending to a garbage can flame.

The plot is this: after their latest maverick-style hijinks screw up a long-running undercover operation (run by Steven Bauer and Jon Gries), supervisor Hedaya says "You're on vacation... effective NOW!!!" Luckily for Hines and Crystal, one of those subpoenas that couldn't be avoided turned out to be a notice that Crystal had come into some money, which leads to a soothing holiday in the Florida Keys. As they say, "If there's anything worse than dyin' young, it's dyin' young with money in the bank." Without warning, Michael McDonald's "Sweet Freedom" accompanies a montage of sailing, relaxation, and our well-oiled heroes feeding each other beers.

Yep, down in Florida, they find a fixer-upper, some roller skates, and a sense of purpose.

I don't know how clear it is from this screencap, but, yes, that is a high-five.

But the windy city's not done with them yet. They have two loose ends to tie up- A. Crystal must win back his ex, Darlanne Fluegel (who's literally blanketed in a sea of flannel) and B. They have to settle the score with Jimmy Smits, who seeks to be "the first Spanish godfather of Chicago."

Along the way, there's a chase on the EL track (trying to outdo THE FRENCH CONNECTION?),

a tattoo parlor torture session, Billy Crystal gets to pretend to be an old man watching Jeopardy, and in one well-choreographed scene, our heroes' car is snared and lowered into a garbage truck.

The performances are a cut above the norm, and astoundingly so when compared to the state of the whacky cop genre today. Joe Pantoliano gets a nice supporting role as a cheap crook with a shock of red hair and a lot of smartass comebacks,

and Jon Gries begins to transition from his early typecasting phase (as a crazed, leather-and-stud-encrusted metal fan, like in JOYSTICKS and TERRORVISION) to his later typecasting phase (as a middle-aged asshole, like in NAPOLEON DYNAMITE).

Just the kind of asshole who'd put his feet up on your desk.

Al Leong, aka 'the quintessential 80's henchman,' even makes an uncredited appearance as, you guessed it- a henchman. (Also seen in DIE HARD, LETHAL WEAPON, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, ACTION JACKSON, MY SCIENCE PROJECT, and THE A-TEAM.)

Jimmy Smits, however, nearly steals the whole damn show. I've said it before, and I'll say it again- Jimmy Smits is one of the most criminally underrated actors working today. And don't arch your eyebrows like that- sure he was in THE TOMMYKNOCKERS and sure he was in the STAR WARS prequels, but he was having a blast. He showed up on DEXTER Season 3 and was so damn good, they nearly renamed the show 'MIGUEL.' He uses physicality and a complete connectedness to the material in order to perfectly manipulate the art of acting for the screen- he makes it intimate, and he gets in your face- similar in technique to my favorite scary Dutchman, Rutger Hauer. When he's the villain, you'll be ducking under your couch. He even gets to applaud our heroes with a seething, evil golf clap.

JIMMY SMITS WILL GIVE YOU INSINCERE POSITIVE FEEDBACK

In all, it's predictable, clichéd, and kiiinda stupid, but the old-Hollywood style workmanship, likably talented actors, and absurd Michael McDonald montage push this thing to nearly four stars.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: BULLETPROOF (1988, Steve Carver)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 93 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Gary Busey, Henry Silva, L.Q. Jones, R.G. Armstrong, Darlanne Fluegel, William Smith (ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN), Juan Fernandez (Miguel in CROCODILE DUNDEE II, FEAR CITY, CAT CHASER). Director is Steve Carver, who did BIG BAD MAMA, LONE WOLF MCQUADE, and JOCKS.
Tag-lines: "Improbable odds. Unstoppable force."
Best one-liner(s): See review.

"I think we blew him off." "You don't blow off a guy like McBain!" BULLETPROOF is a half-hour of third-rate LETHAL WEAPON, a half-hour of rip-off OCTAGON, and a half-hour of faux RAMBO III held together by the super-glue, the incredible human cement that is Gary Busey. Busey, as Frank "Bulletproof" McBain, strolls into this film with his tight jeans, white sneakers, and ginormous, shining teeth and sets it ablaze with four simple words: "Your worst nightmare, butt-horn!"

Even besides Busey, this film's got it all: young Danny Trejo as the rocket-launching, ice-cream trucking intro villain Sharkey; ridiculous banter with a Danny Glover-esque sidekick and a running gag involving calling for back-up; TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A.'s Darlanne Fluegel telling an evidently Arabian Henry Silva to "go fuck your camel!;" a top-secret tank code-named 'Thunderblast;' nuns getting machine-gunned; and Peckinpah-fave L.Q. Jones acting like he huffed too much glue. But back to Busey.

Did I mention that there's a scene where he lays on his bed with his saxophone, deep in thought... remembering back to when he was playing some reverb-heavy 80's sax... ON THE BEACH?! Did I mention McBain has been shot 39 times and carefully preserves all the bullets in an old Mason jar? That he greets and addresses inanimate objects like jukeboxes and motorcycles? Did I mention that he slides a glass ashtray into some dude's nuts? Did I mention that 'BIRD SEASON IS OVER...BUTT-HORN?'

This movie is perpetually perched in the rafters, ready to call you butt-horn, and for that it earns five stars. "McBain!" "YEIAH!"

-Sean Gill