“Mr. Johnson’s gallstone sculptures not only frightened away customers but so did his permanent look of surprise from passing them.“

In the early 80’s there started a trend of what I’ve termed the meat by-product movies. First there was Porky’s, Porky’s Revenge, Meatballs, then Hotdog and finally cam along Kentucky Fried Movie to deep fry it all together in it’s original recipe of seven herbs and spices. It was a cholesterol carousel of titles whose movie focus was crude humor, fart jokes, and adolescent guys trying to see boobies. Pretty much what I sum up as most of my high school experience… well and most of college.

So on my quest to find movies in the same genre I came across this little gem. At first when I saw this title I thought it said “The Last American Virginian” which I figured to be a History channel special about the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. To my surprise Woodrow Wilson turned out to be a Ralph Machio lookin’ bandanna wearin’ Italian kid in the 1980’s who catches a bad case of the crabs. The obsessive crotch grabbin’ made sense.

The Last American Virgin is the story of Gary (Lawrence Monoson) and his cohorts, Rick “gotta adjust my collar” and glandular-overactive David, affectionately named the “Big Apple” though I found him to be more of a pear shape myself then a round red apple. Gary’s blandness is only surpassed by his lack of personality while the rest of the guys are focused on trying to get laid or deliver some pink boxes of pizzas to housewives with bad Spanish accents. The first half of the movie is a series of lame joke setups for the pizza gigolos and opportunities to blare out some classic 80’s tunes. The plot writers must have been busy getting sleeping in that week.

Gary is in love with the curly haired girl from “Better of Dead”, Diane Franlin, except she’s in love with Gary’s best friend Rick. Diane’s character, Karin, doesn’t have a French accent this time and there’s no John Cussack asking her to fix his camaro, so this film is already more bearable. She shows little to no interest in Gary’s blandness most likely due to his alcoholism or inability to form coherent sentences . Gary wants to loose his virginity as soon as possible as if that would some how make him even more appealing to Karin, so he and his friends go find a hooker way past her expiration date that gives them all a bad case of crabs. Nothing says “will you be mine?” more than a VD. Then as if the director suddenly went on a sabbatical and a highschool drama teacher was flown in to take over, the movie takes a drastic bi-polar mood swing. From upbeat goofy teen comedy to soap drama in less than a second it’ll make your head spin. Karin suddenly gets pregnant from Rick at which point Rick breaks up with her not wanting anything to do with his new prego-girlfriend. Then Gary swoops in like a vampire from a rafter so that weepy eye Karin will have giant shoulder pad to cry on and he can put some of his bland moves on her. In order to help Karin he relocates her into his now dead grandmothers home and they play pretend family (uh….creepy!) He then sells his enormous wood grain stereo at a local pawn shop to help pay for her quickie drive-thru abortion, makes her breakfast, and buy her a pine tree a with a bag of oranges. Take note, 2 gifts not to bring to someone in the hospital. I really don’t want to give away the ending to this but WOW! A total downer and a big cold blast of reality for us viewers. But hey I admire a director with the steel cahonias to not sugar coat the consequences of teen sex and to not give us the stereotypical ending. No wonder this movie bombed in the box office. Their target demographic, horny guys, will laugh at the crude jokes, enjoy the boobies then after the ending go out and steer their car into a tree. Parents, you’ll want to lock your teens in the basement after you see this but I’d recommend giving it a view. Just be sure to wear protection.

Keep an eye out for….

-pink brady bunch station wagons
- sausage measuring assembly lines
- bike vandalism
- extreme devo
- sugar snorting diabetics
- nympho old Spanish housewives
- library rumbles
- illegal use of 80’s pop-up collars
- denim mania
- interpretive Spanish lessons
- emergency brake failure
- after glow upchucking

“When a VD comes along you must itch it…now itch it…itch it good.” - sung to the tune of Devo’s Whip it.

rated 6.5 out of 10 for the movie (I will give the last 20 minutes or so a 8.4)

Watch the trailer for “The Last American Virgin”

“If I ever wore a tux like that I’d kick my own ass…..yeah totally… fer shure!”

In Valley Girl, Nicholas Cage plays Randy, a rebel/punk rocker poser who falls in love with your typical spoiled rich shopping queen Julie Richman played like totally awesome by Deborah Foreman. Her gummy smile and feathered hair melts Randy’s heart so he goes on a crusade to win her over and get her out of the valley life. We know he’s from the wrong side of the tracks because he has streaked bed head hair and wears black like everyday’s a funeral. Apparently in the valley you’re required to wear bright pastels to mask your inner shame but Randy chooses to wear his shame proudly. He and his best friend Fred, a skunk haired weasely guy crash a party in the valley to find the girls of their dreams and mooch some party snacks. So they basically kidnap a couple girls for a cruise down the Hollywood strip apparently to show them the better side of Hollywood. That is if they don’t accidentally run over any hookers and crack dealers.

Julie is torn between her life of consumerism and fitting in with her friends while Randy’s quirky semi bi-polar outbreaks keep luring her away to the shadowy Hollywood underbelly. A world where Math geeks play guitar in bars and spontaneous bathroom sex is barely noticed by the patrons. Her former boyfriend Tommy McBrain-Muscle eventually wins her back through constant whining and sleeping with her best friends and then manipulating them into convincing her he’s the better choice. It’s like a whitehouse intern meet and greet. Randy should have just moved to Arizona, lived in a stainless steel camper and watched Nascar. He would have been happier and his hair would have been more manageable in the dry heat. But His stupidity knows no bounds and he continues to harass and stalk Julie through a series of temporary job placements cameos. The director must have thought Randy is just going the distance for love but I viewed as creepy stalker guy who can’t keep a job and sleeps on people’s front lawns. Jessie’s hippie dope smoking parents barely notice their daughter’s dating a mad man and send her to prom with her previous boyfriend dressed to the hilt in a pink tuxedo. They give her advice like “honey just go with your heart.” “Gee Thanks hippie Dad! I should find my inner rainbow too!” Will Randy win back Julie? Will The highschool grocery boy score with the disgruntled house wife? Will Randy’s skull catch on fire as he drives away on a hell-bound motorcycle fighting the forces of evil…oh wait that’s another film.

This movie does reminded me a bit of “Pretty in Pink” except it’s the guys that are wearing pink, there’s no Molly Ringwald, and any resemblance of acting was overshadowed by large flipped up polo shirt collars or big puffy hairdo’s. It’s really sad when you get out-acted by your own hair. I’d say save yourself some time and sit down and listen to some 80’s music while repeatingly smashing your hand with a hammer. You’ll get about the same experience.

Keep an eye out for…

- The JcPenny big-collar valley gang
- Gratutious use of headbands and ankle warmers
- Extreme hair feathering
- Nicholas Cage’s 5 Easy Steps to being a better Stalker
- Illegal use of the term “gag me with a spoon”
- Student driver’s parade of lame
- Peanut butter orderves
- Prom night food fight
- “Crush that fly” battle cry

It’s a little known fact that this movie was believed to be one of the signs of the apocalypse for a small group of Nicholas Cage cult followers in the mid 1980’s.

rated 5.1 out of 10 for the movie (winner of 2007 Lost Highway’s drive of shame award)

Check out the trailer for Valley Girl

“How many blondes does it take to screw in a light bulb?…just one… if they’re this freakishly tall!!”

I’ve taken quite a few autumn trips to the cider mill out in the country side. I enjoyed the hay rides and pumpkin patches, the delicious cinnamon donuts that put me into a hazed sugar comma. But I especially enjoyed the vicious squashing of thousands of helpless apples in the looming cider press. Oh so little do these apples know of their awaiting doom after being freed from the trees. But now I have a new appreciation for the ability of cider presses to not only entertain us tourists but to fight supernatural evil with extreme prejudice.

Leslie Vernon, local turtle wrangler, understands the vengeful power of cider in this great little mockumentary horror film. As a up and coming maniac killer in a world where Freddy, Jason, and Michael Myers actually exist, Leslie invites a college film crew led by a Diana Sawyers wanna-be to learn the ins and outs of the killing business. He wants everything about his soon to be legend filmed. A sort of Donald Trump of slashers without the hockey-head hair.

Leslie is like the smart mouth guy you knew in high-school who was very witty and smooth with the ladies but obviously a few fries short of a happy meal. He’s also very enthusiastic about his trade profession as he introduces us to his slasher mentor Eugene, your typical truck-driver physco who likes to be buried alive in the backyard for days at a time. Eugene, played by Scott Wilson, is like the nice bartender at your local pub but this one might have some bodies hidden in the storage freezer next to the kegs.

Leslie who apparently snapped from being given such a girly name at an early age plans to murder a group of stereotypical teeenagers in a nearby abandoned apple orchard/farmhouse complete with rustic furniture and stained ceilings (how’s does a stain like that get on the ceiling anyways?) His hopes are that one of the town’s giant amazonian virgins will fight him in the orchard to the death with a weak handle tree axe or a loose fitted sledge hammer. Potentially stopping his teenage carnage buffet is Dr. Halloran, impressively over acted by Robert “Please call me Freddy” Englund along with some additional victims of the laurel and hardey camera crew.

Leslie picked a tough profession where things don’t usually end well for the employees and would have been better suited to being a stunt double for Jim Carrey or Dana Cook. Oh well he can always post a resume on monster.com if this whole professional supernatural physcopath gig doesn’t work out. I wonder if they’re unionized?

Definitely a film to check out if your a big fan of the classic slashers from the 70’s and 80’s. You won’t be disappointed and you may even learn what to do next time if you’re trapped in an abandoned farmhouse with a couple of airheads, stoners, and football jocks. Just run…run and don’t look back.

Keep an eye out for…
- midget librarians
- 7ft tall virgin amazonian blondes
- psychopaths official car “Toyota Prius”
- narcoleptic stoners
- gratuitous references to Herman Melville characters
- farmhouse kung-fu
- avon face cream of evil
- 1 pole digger to the chest
- Dr. Krueger house calls

“Yea… Yea, plants and turtles… Plants and turtles… I only keep pets I can eat.”

rated 9.2 out of 10 for the movie

Check out the trailer for Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

“I just can’t make sense out of these pumpkin carving instructions!”

You know you’re watching some special when you have a giant demonic bunny and Patrick Swayze as a cheesy motivational speaker both in the same film. I was half expecting spouts of Roadhouse wisdoms like “pain don’t hurt” or “Never start anything inside the bar unless it’s absolutely necessary.” Oh poor Patrick how far you have fallen. But fortunately he’s only a minor character in the tangled time travel web of Donnie Darko.

Jake “I’m not the same guy that plays spiderman” Gylenhall stars the title role of Donnie, a troubled teen who likes to sleep at golf courses and on roadside corners. Is Donnie just a secret binge drinker who can’t get a cab? Hard to tell, but when he starts hallucinating giant bunny rabbits who tell him the world is ending you’ve got to wonder. Donnie gets more words of wisdom from this demonic Bugs Bunny telling him to do warm fuzzy things like setting Patrick Swayze’s house on fire and flooding the local highschool. The only thing I’d think a flood in a school would do was to cut into their snow days, but it’s all part of a master plan of the creepy bunny to set thing right in the universe. Donnie’s new girlfriend Gretchen (not her real German name) is about as messed up as he is so it’s not surprising she is inadvertently killed off by a Trans-Am towards the end of the film. (sorry major plot point….Death by Pontiac.)

A breach in the fabric of time and space occurs potentially causing the universe to implode much like Sanjaya Malakar winning American Idol would do. Donnie’s only course of action is to load up his dead girlfriend in the car and take her to look-out mountain for a better view of the end of the world. Makes sense? No? Well fortunately Drew Barrrymore and Noah Wyle who play teachers at the school try to explain things but it only further confuses the viewer.

Lots of heavy time travel mumbo-jumbo-jet engine falling Donnie crushing excitement. If John Hughes was hooked on crack and was lying in the gutter somewhere in the 80’s he would have thought of this convoluted plot line. A fantastic movie to stretch out your brain muscles to along with some great vintage 80’s music make it one of the top cult films of the decade. I’d recommend watching this movie at least two or three times. It makes even more sense when you’re sober so put the beer down and give it a try.

Keep an eye out for…

- Hulk-a-mania
- pyromania
- gratuitous use of the term “Sparkle Motion”
- Trans-Am mayhem
- obsessive mailbox checking
- tramp-o-leans
- indulgent pumpkin carving
- poor jetliner quality control
- demonic giant bunnies

“Cellar door” is not the most beautiful combination of words in the english language…I like the words “free buffet”

rated 9.4 out of 10 for the movie
learn more about this movie at imbd.com

Check out the trailer for Donnie Darko

“The new AT&T…same high prices, same crappy service”

Happy Valentine’s Day!

It’s my obligatory chick-flick romantic movie review for Valentine’s Day. Don’t get used to it. I’m not going to be sitting down and sharing “my feelings” and then end up crying on the Dr Phil Show. I was determined to find one of the weirdest romances out there, watch it, have it expose part of my soul…rip it out and stuff it with potpourri and huggy squeezy things. This movie only accomplished the ripping of my soul part.

Gael Garcia Bernal plays Stephane, a timid man whose comes to France to get a creative job as an illustrator but ends up just pasting letters on paper. He can speak English and French but is from Mexico and yet wants to live in France to draw calendars of catastrophic events. Now that’s a person with issues. His annoying co-workers only further drive him to want to be a permanent part of his weird dreamworld and to escape his dull job and reclusive social life. Falling in love with his quirk neighbor Stephanie gives him a couple more issues to deal with in that giant subconscious of his. Well at least I think that was the plot. I’m not really sure..it’s a little hazy….There was a giant typewriter with spider hands…that was pretty cool. I also recall a car made of cardboard that was kinda like a Yugo crashing into a wall, the films only action sequence. Everything else was a fog of weird imagery and bad french dialog and dull sub-titles. The movie bored me to sleep. In fact I think my dream was more interesting than this film. I was being chased by zombies while I was driving a Lamborghini but the car could only go 10 mph and I was dressed in a clown costume? What does that mean?

This movie ticked me off as I’m a huge fan of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” It was done by the same director and was a great sci-fi romance movie, but this movie was just plain weird and dull. Avoid it and you’ll be happier and a little less French.

Keep your eyes open for…

- giant hand kung-fu
- band members dressed as your favorite rodent
- flying French speaking Mexican Americans
- typewriter spiders
- one second time machines (fix those very recent mistakes of your life)
- spinning turtle donuts signs
- cardboard car driving safety lessons

I’m really sleepy now…oh and I don’t dislike the French. It’s those darn Norwegians that keep me awake at night. They hide under my bed.

rated 4.8 out of 10 for the movie
learn more about this movie at imbd.com

Check out the trailer for The Science of Sleep if ye dare

“Is that one of them there new hybrid electric cars?”

After so many b-movies of horror and action and mega-cheese I wanted to review a movie a bit different and special in it’s own right. This movie is a big time tear jerker and amazingly it’s directed by David Lynch. Yes the same twisted David Lynch that brought us Mulholland Drive, Twin peaks, Blue Velvet and Dune. But thankfully there is no ranting Sting in this movie or giant sandworms. Though a sandworm would have helped with the slow pacing of the film. What we get instead is a quiet heart warming tale about an old man, Alvin Straight, who can no longer drive a car but finds out his brother is deathly ill. He decided against the advice of daughter drives his tractor across multiple states to see him meeting interesting characters along the way. A great movie of determination and love with hints of David Lynch’s deeper subtext of portraying the human story. Check it out. It will make you a better person for seeing it.

rated 9.3 out of 10
learn more about this movie at imbd.com