“I’m about to open a fortune cookie of Whoop Ass.“

When you think Kung-fu masters you think names like Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Jet li, sometimes Chuck Norris if a drinking game is involved…uh maybe Daniel Larusso but only the one in Karate Kid II…oh and that chef at the Japanese Steak house. The way he spins those knifes and cut shrimp in the air you just know on the weekends he’s fighting evil. But now there enters a new 80’s Kung-fu hero, Leroy Green, a student of the martial arts seeking his own hi-pro glow, the apparent sign of achieving perfect kung-fu or being radioactive, whichever comes first. He also has an unhealthy obsession with Bruce Lee and smells a bit like pizza. Leroy’s family owns a Daddy Green’s pizzeria shop in Harlem while he teaches a pacifist karate class for kids, a sort of Shy-Goy-Dies branch of the Martial Arts. Where’s Mr. Miyagi when you need him? That old man could teach you karate and get a house painted, car waxed, and catch flies with chop sticks all in the same day.

Leroy thwarts an attempted kidnapping of a local celebrity, Laura, who hosts a dance show/space-camp party show called “7th Heaven” minus Jessica Biel of course. The only perquisite to get on the show is sufficient leg warmer coverage or a minimum frizzy hair size…actual dancers need not apply. Laura is played by Vanity, a spaced-out Janet Jackson wanna-be from the early 80’s who sang like she was doped up on Goofballs and was also Prince’s main squeeze. She’s being pursued by a balding local arcade owner, Eddie Arkadian, who wants to get his middle aged high-pitched girlfriend auditioned on Laura’s show. You know it’s the 80’s if an arcade owner is still a rich business tycoon. Today you’d be lucky to find them begging for Xbox Live points or peddling old crane games on a street corner.

Leroy is constantly being harassed by who is arguably the tallest black man with bed hair in harlem “Sho’nuff” dressed as a fashion blind samurai/goalie who desperately wants to fight Leroy for the title of baddest mofo in Harlem. But Leroy would rather spout Chinese proverbs and whine how he hasn’t found the true master while he watches old kung-fu movies.

Laura is yet again kidnapped by Eddie’s gang of misfit thugs. This girl just can’t stop getting kidnapped (possibly mistaken for nasty Ms. Jackson?) but this time a bunch of paid assassins and trained fighters are waiting for Bruce Leroy to rescue her including a particular jolly old elf with a mohawk. I didn’t realize Santa liked to rumble. Really not much plot to really get into here. There’s a big fight between Leroy and Sho’nuff that has strong hints of the light sabre dual between Luke and Darth. There’s some escapees from the Jackson Five along with some rappin’ Chinese gangsters dudes and a senile old Kung-fu trainer who wants to retire to Florida. Add 2 parts break dancing, 1 annoying MTV video and several old Bruce Lee film clips and you’ve got yourself good campy kung-fu that won’t leave you gasy. I say give it a whirl in the DVD player if only for some of these great one-liners…

“You just get that sucker to the designated place at the designated time, and I will gladly designate his ass… for dismemberment!”

“Kiss my Converse”

“Now, when I say, “Who’s da mastah?” you say, “Sho’nuff!”

“Just direct-a your feets-a to Daddy Green’s Pizza!”

Keep an eye out for…

- gratuitous use of an MTV video
- boombox crushing
- popstar cheesy mustaches
- extreme latticework
- middle aged Madonna wanna-be’s
- pet piranhas
- hi-beam headlights
- extreme shoulder padding
- true Master glow - now with more cleaning power
- arrow catching
- bullet flossing
- Santas with mohawks
- Chinese Bubbonics
- dysfunctional fortune cookies
- belt buckle medallions

Here’s what I’d like on my tombstone “Here lies the baddest mofo low down around this town. Sho’nuff!”

rated 8.9 out of 10 for the movie

Check out the trailer for the The Last Dragon

“Psychotic hockey player or grizzly bear robot? You be the judge.”

In the early golden years of cable there used to be some great channels and not just re-runs of CSI and Monk. Remember the constant running of John Hughes films on TNT? There was also the Sci-fi Channel with it’s 50/50 split of horror and sci-fi where you got some great slasher movie marathons late at night and of course those great Saturday nights with Joe Bob Brigg’s Monstervision (Joe Bob you are missed.) Sure they were watered down and broken up with commercials for hair care products but you still had the great commentary by my favorite Texas b-movie connaisseur and a good way to spend a Saturday night. Of course I wouldn’t know this because I had such a busy social schedule with all the ladies and late night rave club dancing. What I do remember on those less “socially active nights” is the Friday the 13th marathons. A TV blood bonanza though less blood on cable thanks to big brother watching over my fine sensibilities. You’d think since I’m watching a horror movie they’d figure that I’d actually like to see where that pick axe lands. For all I could tell Jason suddenly appeared, the teenager screams a giant *bleep* and then trips and lands on the axe with his head. Don’t get me wrong, even for all the broadcast editing they were still very entertaining. Jason was like Jaws, a huge unstoppable killing machine with no dialog. You couldn’t reason with him, appeal to his nurturing side, and you couldn’t negotiate a payment schedule. He was going to find you and impale on the nearest sharp object he could grab so you just better run to gain a few more minutes of breathing. And you could pretty much forget it if you were a bitchy teenage girl who smoked pot and enjoyed premarital sex. That just means you’re first in line for the wood axe to the noggin. That’s a lesson they should really add to the sex-ed curriculum. “Chapter 5: If you have premarital sex Jason will hunt you down and impale you on meat hook. Class dismissed.”

By my count Jason racked up something like 250 kills in his movie career. No wonder frats and sororities are begging for more pledges, Jason cleaned house. Yet parents keep sending their kids to Crystal Lake. Perhaps when I have teenagers of my own I might better understand their motivation a bit better.

In Jason X (Friday the 13th part 10) the ticked off goalie returns but this time he’s been couped up in a underground research facility near his stomping grounds while the military figures out how to harvest his regenerative power (I think it’s called box-office draw). While attempting to be transferred to a new facility he of course escapes, kills a bunch of people, and then is cleverly trapped in a cryogenic freezer. That’s a tough way to chill out and develop a major case of freezer burn and is especially bad for a hockey player that doesn’t like ice or any water. Flash forward 4 centuries and a research crew discovers the now abandoned facility while exploring a now un-inhabitable planet Earth. They stumble upon Jason in an oversized Whirlpool appliance and by his side is a frozen government agent/super bimbo who had tried to escape from Jason the night of the big freeze but ended up impaled just as they both became frozen fish sticks. Back on the ship she gets thawed out and patched up just in time to warn the crew not to thaw out Jason…who of course was already defrosted and just smashed a researchers face into a thousands pieces. I think some people just wake up grumpy.

Fortunately the ship has it’s own built in crew of goofy armored marines for such occasions and they’re all sent into the cargo hold to track him down like Osama Bin-Vorhees. Semper-die is Jason’s motto and he kills them all off in his typical creative physco killer ways. Round 2, the ship’s onboard robo-babe gets an weapons upgrade and has a high-tech shoot out with Jason shooting of his arm and leg and eventually puts him down via a head shot. But you just can’t keep a good killer down and Jason also gets an upgrade thanks to accidental nanotechnology turning him into super-Cyborg Killer. Round #3 goes to the goalie. Which annoying teenager will survive? Will Jason’s new Vista Operating System crash? Why do we still use bullets 4 centuries into the future? Many of these questions are answered and more.

I found this probably the funniest Friday the 13th and highly entertaining due to it’s sheer out of this world storyline and barrage of one-liners. I have hopes we’ll see a “Jason goes Scuba diving” or “Jason gets a job in a Insurance company” in the theaters soon. He’d be a great auditor.

Keep an eye out for…

- Extreme Jason freezer burn
- Nipple clamping
- Jason pillow fights
- Extreme impalements
- Strained space teens
- Face smashing
- Neck snapping
- Back breaking
- iJason Nano’s
- Shredded space cowboys

The Red Wings should draft Jason…no opponent would get near him in the goalie net.

rated 8.5 out of 10 for the movie

Check out the trailer for Jason X

“I said I wanted my steak medium rare…not undead.”

Have you ever been to a barbaric little restaurant called Fuddruckers? Sure the name sounds obscene and makes old ladies blush but not nearly as bad as the bakery inside called “Mother Fuddruckers.” I kid you not, that really is name of their bakery! Fuddruckers is noted for it’s delicious and enormous hamburgers. It also has the unique charm of having an actual butcher shop window right as you walk in. Nothing better than seeing those cows getting strung up, diced and sliced before your very own eyes or seeing the looks of horror on little kids faces. Sort of like picking out the lobster at your local seafood restaurant. Except they don’t parade the sad-eyed cow in front of you before they take them in back and to get Fuddrucked. Maybe it’s just my mad cow disease speaking but the burger’s do taste delicious even if I do get a tinge of guilt seeing their surprised friends hanging there in the window. I do have a tender spot in my heart for a tender ribeye.

In the zombie cop-buddy movie “Dead Heat” there’s at least one raging undead bovine who gets it’s revenge. Treat Williams plays Roger “I ain’t dead yet” Mortis…a mundane straight laced cop with some straight laced ties and straight laced hair, the man could double as a leveler. He and his partner Doug played by the always greasy Joe Piscopo cruise around in a old convertible waiting for a crime to occur but only on sunny days. A routine bank robbery takes place around the corner and they’re called in to deliver some much needed Piscopo one-liners and a steady shower of machine gun bullets. It looks like most of the LA police force has shown up for this event driving Krispy Kreme’s stock even lower. The robbers who look like rejects from a local S&M triathlons don’t go down without a fight..in fact they simply don’t drop. Bullets keep riveting their bodies and they keep on firing back that is until Roger has the idea to run them over with a hunk of 80’s Detroit metal. Treat Williams is judge, juror, and executioner. It would have been even better if he said something like “Trick or Treat suckas!”

Later an autopsy reveals that the robbers had been to the morgue before. Morgues don’t often get returning customers..they should get a discount punch card for that or something. Rodger and Doug trace the criminals back to a research facility where they infiltrate a high security door via a credit card lock pick and discover a giant waffle maker that also happens to bring the dead back to life, the ultimate breakfast machine. While attempting to escape they also encounter a giant two faced hell’s angel zombie with a generally mean disposition and super human strength. Mutant two face bikers always make the best security guards since they can see both directions down a hallway. Rodger gets trapped in an industrial strength vacuum sealer which is normally used to euphanise puppies (or old people.)

Rodger gasps his last breath while Doug helplessly bangs on the glass yelling “Nooooooo!!!”…sure he can sneak into a high security facility but can’t open this door? Doug’s brain cells finally begin to fire and he gets the brilliant idea of putting Roger on the waffle-maker to bring him back from the dead. Roger through a series of electro-therapy shock treatments becomes the undead. He seems to be pretty happy, feeling good, and has a great outlook on life…until he learns he will decompose into a pile of goo in less than 48hrs. Way to bring a guy down. So the crime fighting duo decide to try to find out the leaders of this crime ring of the undead and end up at a Chinese butcher shop where it’s all you can eat or all you can run away from screaming. It’s an army of duck heads, flapping fish and sides of beef reanimated as an undead buffet. Where’s the food safety inspectors when you need them? Zombie’s with machine guns also show up for an impromptu zombie pool party later on at a beach house with plenty of snacks and impaling…and since when did zombie’s learn to operate firearms? Oh did I mention everyone in this movie either dies or is already dead? You just don’t see that enough if buddy cop movies. Anyways you know things aren’t going to end well for Roger as he’s decomposing all over the place but is saving up just enough strength to kill Vincent price and the dad from “A Christmas Story.”

This was a fun little 80’s horror/comedy…more emphasis on the comedy side with Pepsico’s constant running one-liners. Somebody please stop pulling his string and put him back in his box. Definitely worth a rental but I’d suggest only eating a light salad though when viewing. And you won’t eat at Chinese buffet for a week.

Keep an eye out for…

- biker mutant zombie freaks
- vacuum sealed Treats
- zombie pool parties
- the Vince Price is Right show
- old rich people club meetings
- liver attack
- zombie duck attack
- zombie beef attack
- giant waffle makers
- extreme Piscopo
- Chinese chandelier Laser Light shows
- melting blondies
- bobbing for gold fish
- zombie NRA members

If I had only 48 hours to live I’d certainly wouldn’t spend it with Joe Pepsico.

rated 7.6 out of 10 for the movie

Check out the trailer for Dead Heat

“Yeah I smoked…. but I didn’t inhale.“

My daughter has recently been asking for a pet hamster. Some people find hamster cute and cuddly. I think they’re furry rodents of evil with beady soul piercing eyes always watching… waiting for their moment to overthrow us. Sure they run endlessly on that wheel like they’re exercising but that’s merely a distraction from their more devious plans of global domination. Just like rats, mice, and ferrets, they were spawned from satan’s little biological test lab (now a research division at Microsoft) and they must be stopped before they take over the planet and convert our Chucky Cheeses into human habitrails. When I saw the movie “Critters” I knew the true origins of these vermin masquerading as pets. Let this movie be a warning to us all. The Critters already live among us.

in Deep space, The “Krites” have escape a prison asteroid and somehow fled their heavily fortified prison cell, hijacked a ship , and plotted a course to the nearest planet. All this with their useless tiny twig arms. When their escape is discovered, glowing silly putty alien bounty hunters are dispatched to go after them by the prison’s warden, a squishy looking alien who looks like he needs a few more reps on the Nordic Track. The bounty hunters watch MTV and late night cable while cruising at a brisk 55mph across the galaxy giving them time to decide who they want to model their faces after. Fake 80’s rock singers always win that contest. What alien wouldn’t want their hair to feather and layer like that? The Krites look for the nearest late night snack planet to escape the bounty hunters which just happens to be Earth (always open 24/7 and plenty of value menu items) and decide to set their ship down near a small farm in Kansas. What is it about rednecks that attract Aliens anyways, it’s like tornadoes to a trailer park. The farm belongs to an super-white family named the Browns who are living the typical farming life. Bailing hay, raising chickens, eating their body weight in corn on the cob, or blowing stuff up with illegal explosives. Young Brad Brown (Scott Grimes) is our red-headed hero who while one night being punished for a crime he didn’t commit witnesses the landing of the Krites ship behind their farm in the forest. Drawn to crashed spaceships like every other country yahoo in every sci-fi movie ever made, he and his dad have to go “check it out” but end up getting scared off by mutilated dead cattle.

When the critters are revealed they look like deranged muppets with slick back hair-do’s and bad dental work. These critters are quick though and can cover some good distance as they role around like turbo charged tumble weeds chomping on every nearby cow they encounter. Eventually they find the Brown’s farmhouse who might as well hang a sign on their door that says Open Buffet. Even Billy Zane and his clip-on pony tail can’t stop these little eating machines. Unfortunately the Critters don’t find Billy Zane very filling and don’t even finish him off…. probably since he’s mostly full of crap. Did I mention I can’t stand that guy? Ever since his low point of playing “The Phantom” in that crappy movie of the same title he continued to strive for even lower depths of acting and super ego-itis. Fortunately Billy’s screen time is short when the critters make a snack pack out of his stomach and then proceed to go after Brad’s older sister. He rescues her by feeding one the critters one of his many homemade explosive. Is this kid on the government terrorist watch list? Well he should be.

The family narrowly escaping takes refuge in their living room (the safest of all rooms in an emergency) and fortify their last stand with mattresses and wicker furniture. An obvious advantage against intelligent razor teethed flesh eating aliens who can shoot poisonous needles.

Meanwhile in what almost feels like an entirely different film by now, the two bounty hunters aliens have commandeered a patrol car and are off partying around town. They stop in at the church…blow some stuff up, stop in at a bowling alley, blow some more stuff up. I think Brad and these guys will have a lot in common. One of the bounty hunters keeps annoyingly shape-shifting his face into everyone he runs into like a bad case of multiple personalities. I think some actors just wanted some more screen time.

The family continues to battle the critters with a shot gun and some broom handles (be sure to give the sibling you like least the old broom handle) so things are looking grim and young Brad decides to make a break for it to find help…or did he just ditch his family? He luckily crosses paths with the alien bounty hunters driving down the road so they all hightail it back to the house and proceed to open a can of whoop-ass on the surprised mutant muppets with some hi-tech alien boom sticks. In the process take out most of the house but Orkin would be proud.

This is one of the definitive sci-fi horror movies from the 80’s and if you haven’t seen it for a while give it another go around. If only too see Billy Zane get what’s coming to him. *shakes fist in air* “Zaaaannneeee….Zaaaaaneee!!!” doing my best impression of captain Kirk from Star Trek 2: Wrath of Kahn.

Keep an eye out for…

- critter toilet plungers
- critter-fu
- Billy Zanified pony tails
- extreme explod-o-bowl
- corn on the cobbing
- mr. potato heads aliens
- mutant projectile porcupines
- pyrotechnic church sermons
- instant extreme home makeovers
- critter vision
- ferrah faucet alien hair

Look for Critter action figures. Now with projectile poisonous darts and amazing kung-fu grip. Pull their string and they’ll say a new curse word. Billy Zane with removable stomach not included.

rated 8.6 out of 10 for the movie

Check out the trailer for Critters