Robert Vincent O’Neill’s “Angel” is a fun mixture of a campy exploitation and a stern crime thriller that also conjures up some classic neo-noir overtones. The 1984 drama thriller about an under age prostitute trying to outwit a serial killer garners some clumsy plot elements but stands as a strong film overall. You’d figure it’d be distracting to be sucked in to a thriller starring a protagonist who hangs around an aged cowboy and a transvestite, but “Angel” gets the job done. Donna Wilkes gives a strong performance as young Molly Stewart, a high schooler by day who is also a prostitute by night.
Zapped Again! (1990)
The follow up to “Zapped!” obviously wants to be thought of as a legacy follow up to the original Scott Baio movie but has none of the budget to pull off the fantasy we saw in the original. There almost seems to be no budget for our main character Kevin to pull off the infamous mind tricks, so a lot of his powers involve moving things very slowly with his minds, and often making people slap themselves. Even in the climax where we know we’ll see a reproduction of the original film’s climax, people instead rip their own clothes off rather than have the clothes ripped off by the main character. Pretty much a sequel in name only, “Zapped Again!” stars Todd Eric Andrews as Kevin.
Top Five Favorite Moments in 1990’s “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”
In 1990, just two days after TMNT 1990 premiered in theaters, my dad took my brother and me to see it in theaters in Manhattan one afternoon. It was just the three of us in what felt like a humongous theater, draped in the dark as the Turtles my brother and I worshipped finally jumped on to the screen after saving April O’Neil from being killed by the Foot Clan.
While I don’t particularly love the current cinematic incarnations of the TMNT, I hope there are kids out there getting the same awe inducing experience with “TMNT: Out of the Shadows” as I did when I was seven. “TMNT ‘90” still holds up very well today, with some excellent action set pieces, great humor, and so many quotable moments. Here are only five of my favorite moments in a movie filled with some banner scenes.
Fender Bender (2016)
I’ll admit I went in to Mark Pavia’s “Fender Bender” expecting almost nothing and was shocked at how effective it was in the end. It’s a solid stalk and chase slasher film mixing “Death Proof” and “The Hitcher” and director Pavia delivers a strong genre entry suitable for a lazy Friday night and some beers. “Fender Bender” centers on young Hilary, a girl living in New Mexico with her parents who just got her license. After a terrible break up with her cheating boyfriend, she accidentally runs in to another driver causing a minor fender bender. The stranger in question is a very forward and charming man who is very generous and friendly to Hilary after exchanging information.
Bad, Bad, Gang! (1972) (DVD)
Back then hippies must have seemed like dirty go nowhere weirdos prone to smoking pot and having a lot of wild sex; because, well, they kind of were. But they were also prone to being the predators and sometimes prey for much of the seventies and early eighties horror and exploitation cinema. “Bad, Bad, Gang!” is a pretty solid porn film right out of the summer of love where bikers and goofy hippies clash to engage in a free for all of sex and rape.
Evil Bong High-5 (2016)
Do you see what happens when you let interns make a movie with petty cash on the weekends? You come up with “Evil Bong High-5.” It’s a stoner movie that’s so bad even stoners will eventually shut it off because it’s destroying their high. At only seventy minutes long, this is a movie that literally stops dead in its tracks in order to advertise the company’s brand of painfully unfunny ethnic stereotype dolls. One of the many sequels apparently breaking even enough for another installment, Eebee the Evil Bong is back and she’s just as mean as ever. Now that she’s trapped a small group of people in The Bong World, alongside the Gingerdead Man, they have to figure out a way home.
Cellblock Sisters: Banished Behind Bars (1995)
Henri Charr’s “Cellblock Sisters: Banished Behind Bars” (aka “Banished Behind Bars”) is one of the most nineties straight to video movies ever released. It’s a rip off of “Bad Boys” that pits nothing but gorgeous blond women against one another in a women’s prison and forces them to fight it out for control and petty grudges. Henri Charr’s crime thriller is surprisingly convoluted, but one that also gets a free pass for being one of the last of its kind before the early aughts indie resurgence of women in prison films.