Another Year Over and A New One Just Begun
Mood:  celebratory
Happy New Year, everybody! I hope you all had a good time--and a safe one--on New Year's Eve. I ended up staying in this year, unfortunately. I don't know whether I caught some kind of bug or I just haven't been sleeping enough lately, but I felt positively yucky today. I had no energy, didn't feel like eating or doing anything but dozing. I'm feeling a little bit better now, so maybe it was just some 24-hour thing. Thanks to those of you who called with New Year's greetings today; if I didn't answer the phone, rest assured I was half-out-of-it on the couch or in bed wishing I had enough energy to grab the phone. I'm sorry I missed the Deacon party, as it was a really good time last year--darts, beer pong, taquitos, the Goodreaus' wedding cake, Spineless Panno, Kellner driving through the front yard, Sean passing out not just once, but twice.

So I watched 588 movies this year. I don't know any other way to announce something like that, except to just do it. I'm not proud of it, and it surprises even me, considering I saw 436 in 2003, and I had more of "a life" in 2004. Granted, I live alone, giving me more opportunities to watch films. And my social life is often filled with showing and watching movies; for instance, our regular Crappy Movie Nights. So, heck, if it sounds as though I'm a bit embarrassed that I saw 588 movies in 365 days, I suppose I am. But at least it gives me a good excuse to fill some inches in this blog.

The 588 includes films I saw more than once, as well as theatrical releases, cable viewings, VHS and DVDs, and movies I saw aired on TV. It begins with the documentary HELL'S HIGHWAY on January 1, and goes through MARTIAL OUTLAW earlier today.

Four of them are from 1939, the earliest year on the list (ZORRO'S FIGHTING LEGION, CODE OF THE SECRET SERVICE, SMASHING THE MONEY RING and MR. MOTO'S LAST WARNING).
Nine from the 1940s.
17 from the '50s.
43 from the '60s.
142 from the '70s.
135 from the '80s.
113 from the '90s.
103 from the '00s. 48 of those were 2004 releases.

Most in one month:
July: 63
Least in one month:
October: 34

A few rules I set for myself:
Serials count as one movie
TV shows don't count at all
Watching a film with the audio commentary track does not count
Multiple viewings each count as one

Films I saw more than once include (but are not limited to):
ANGEL OF DESTRUCTION
ANGELFIST
BAMBOO HOUSE OF DOLLS
BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS
BLOOD DEBTS
THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS
BRIDGE OF DRAGONS
CANNONBALL!
CAPRICORN ONE
CHOPPING MALL
DEAD HEAT
THE DRAGON LIVES AGAIN (3 times)
DRIVE: THE DIRECTOR'S CUT (3 times)
ELIMINATORS
EUROTRIP (4 times)
EVIL DEAD II
FAHRENHEIT 9/11
H.O.T.S.
THE INTRUDER
KILL SQUAD (3 times)
NAPOLEON DYNAMITE
NINJA DESTROYER
PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE
RAGE (1995)
ROBOT JOX
ROLLER BOOGIE
THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME
SHARK ZONE
SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT
SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE
THE STABILIZER
THE SUPER INFRA-MAN
SWITCHBLADE SISTERS
TIME SERVED

Same title, but different movies:
WALKING TALL
THE PUNISHER
THE INTRUDER
STARSKY AND HUTCH
RIOT

Similar titles, but different movies:
THE SWEEPER/SWEEPERS
THE WRONG GUY/THE WRONG GUYS
SEARCH AND DESTROY/SEARCH AND RESCUE
ONE MAN ARMY/THE ONE MAN JURY
CODE NAME: WILD GEESE/CODE NAME: ZEBRA
NINJA AVENGERS/NINJA DESTROYER/NINJA THUNDERBOLT
VIRTUAL ASSASSIN/VIRTUAL SEDUCTION

Film I saw the most times:
EUROTRIP: 4

The most films in any one 24-hour period:
15, when I attended Northwestern University's annual B-Fest January 30-31

Numbers in the title, but not a sequel:
EQUALIZER 2000
THE DEVIL'S 8
AIRPORT 1975
AIRPORT '77
CAPRICORN ONE
THE CONCORDE: AIRPORT '79
DEVILS THREE
50 FIRST DATES
ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13
AMERICA 3000
FIVE MINUTES TO LIVE
1,000 CONVICTS AND A WOMAN
FAHRENHEIT 9/11
CRADLE 2 THE GRAVE
MURDER ON FLIGHT 502
SIXPACK ANNIE
NEW CRIME CITY: LOS ANGELES 2020 A.D.
TWO-MINUTE WARNING
A FORCE OF ONE
THREE THE HARD WAY
LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS
OCEAN'S ELEVEN
ONE DAY IN SEPTEMBER
THE ONE-ARMED EXECUTIONER

Films with topless women in kung-fu fights:
ANGEL OF DESTRUCTION
ANGELFIST
TNT JACKSON

I also watched all eleven FRIDAY THE 13TH movies this year, all but two of them for the first time. Other sequels I saw include:
BARBERSHOP 2: BACK IN BUSINESS
BEST OF THE BEST 3: NO TURNING BACK
BLACKBELT 2: FATAL FORCE
BLOODFIST II
BLOODSPORT II
CAGED HEAT II: STRIPPED OF FREEDOM
CYBORG COP II
DEAD ON: RELENTLESS II
DEATH WISH 3
EVIL DEAD II
THE HITCHER II: I'VE BEEN WAITING
MARTIAL LAW II: UNDERCOVER
MISSING IN ACTION 2: THE BEGINNING
PART 2 WALKING TALL
QUATERMASS 2
RAMBO III
RING OF FIRE II: BLOOD AND STEEL
SNIPER 2
SNIPER 3
SPECIES III
SPIDER-MAN 2
STARSHIP TROOPERS 2: HERO OF THE FEDERATION
THE SUBSTITUTE 2: SCHOOL'S OUT
SWEENEY 2
TIMECOP 2: THE BERLIN DECISION
TURBULENCE 3: HEAVY METAL
WILD THINGS 2

Movies with William Shatner:
DODGEBALL: A TRUE UNDERDOG STORY
SHOWTIME
LAND OF THE FREE
VISITING HOURS
BIG BAD MAMA
THE INTRUDER

Before I forget, I have none other than Superman pointing the way towards a new year. This neat cover for ACTION COMICS #81 carries a February 1945 date and was drawn by Wayne Boring & Stan Kaye. Who better than the Man of Steel to start out a new year?

It's Gonna Turn Out Baaaaaaaaad!
Mood:  spacey
Now Playing: LONE WOLF MCQUADE
Whew! What an epic night of crappy movies. Cheeseburger and Shark Hunter wanted their own special Crappy Movie Night, so I loaded up on excellent Crappy Movies that everyone else had already seen at least once, but they hadn't. We had a pretty good crowd tonight, fueled by tasty He'Brew beer, Miller High Life, Coca-Cola, sausage, cheese, chocolate chip cookies and Ritz crackers.

The opener was SWITCHBLADE SISTERS, an amazing 1975 exploitation film that manages to hit just about every genre possible: girl gangs, women in prison, blaxploitation, political satire, camp, womens' lib. It's a favorite of Quentin Tarantino's, who arranged a theatrical re-release of it in the '90s, and was directed by Jack Hill. Unlike many who toiled in exploitation movies, Hill is a quiet, thoughtful, intelligent, erudite man who found himself unable to escape typecasting and decided to make the best exploitation movies he could. THE BIG DOLL HOUSE and THE BIG BIRD CAGE are women-in-prison movies made in the Philippines for Roger Corman's New World Pictures, but are marked with an uncommon amount of wit and managed to work in the prerequisite amounts of nudity and violence without becoming sleazy. COFFY and FOXY BROWN were released by American International Pictures (Corman's biggest rival), and starred Pam Grier as sexy, sassy, smart black heroines. Other Hill films include PIT STOP and SPIDER BABY, and all are worth watching. SWITCHBLADE SISTERS is basically a fantasy, a JD version of OTHELLO, but with catfights, automatic weapons and truly memorable dialogue.

THE STABILIZER was next, a rare Indonesian action film featuring outrageous wall-to-wall violence, filled to the gills with shootouts, kung fu battles, exploding cars, squibs and several dangerous stunts (looking even more so because I doubt safety was much of a factor to the stuntmen involved) and crazy Ed-Woodian dialogue spoken by some of the world's blandest dubbing actors. Not that anyone could make lines like "You talented bastard", "I psyched you out" and "Anybody I kill personally I always consider to be my friend" sound like normal human conversation, but they're made even funnier by the obvious dubbing. It's one of my favorite films.

TERMINAL ISLAND is most notable for a pre-MAGNUM Tom Selleck's performance as a mercy-killing, drug-addicted physician sentenced to Terminal Island, an island prison off the coast of Southern California stocked with male and female inmates who fight a civil war over the women, who are the sexiest murderesses I've ever seen. One of a small number of drive-in flicks to be directed by a woman, Stephanie Rothman, TERMINAL ISLAND is well-paced and -performed by a good cast of former (Don Marshall--LAND OF THE GIANTS, Marta Kristen--LOST IN SPACE, Randy Boone--CIMARRON STRIP) and future (Selleck and Roger E. Mosley--MAGNUM, P.I., Phyllis Davis--VEGA$) TV stars.

At midnight, Cheeseburger and Shark Hunter split, but the rest of us stayed up for LONE WOLF MCQUADE, my favorite Chuck Norris film and, next to CODE OF SILENCE, his best film. This homage to Italian westerns pits Texas Ranger McQuade (Norris) against a vicious gunrunner played by David Carradine. It features three very good scenes between the two stars, and culminates in an excellent martial-arts battle between them. Francisco DeMasi, a veteran of many Italian action movies, scored it, and you'll recognize many cast members like L.Q. Jones, Barbara Carrera, R.G. Armstrong, Leon Isaac Kennedy, Dana Kimmell, William Sanderson, Robert Beltran and Sharon Farrell.

Panno and I were talking about a young lady of our acquaintance this afternoon, and he asked me if I would give up Chuck Norris movies forever in exchange for dating her. It was a tough call, but I finally decided that I would, but only because it's unlikely that Chuck will ever make another really good film. Then he asked me if I would give up Shatner...that's going a little too far, man!

9 for $12
Now Playing: MIAMI HORROR
God love the Italians. Man, did they used to make some crazy-ass exploitation movies or what? Tonight I watched MIAMI HORROR, which opens with the title in the same font as MIAMI VICE and a crappy synth theme ripped off from Harold Faltermeyer's Axel Foley music. MIAMI HORROR is nothing like those films though; it isn't really like anything, least of all anything good. It's an Italian-made horror film directed by Alberto DeMartino, but shot in Miami with a New Zealand-born star, David Warbeck. It features some boring action scenes, full-frontal nudity by a not-terribly-attractive leading lady, and incompetent special effects featuring an alien fetus with psychic powers. I don't think I'll be watching this one again.

Despite my 2-for-2 slump this week with cheap used VHS tapes, I picked up nine more videos for $12 tonight at Schnuck's, of all places. All are direct-to-video action or horror pictures:
MARINES (from Nu Image, the New World of the '90s & '00s)
IN HELL (Jean-Claude Van Damme)
ANTIBODY (Lance Henriksen/Robin Givens)
BLACK POINT (David Caruso)
DARK DESCENT (Dean Cain)
LOST VOYAGE (Judd Nelson/Lance Henriksen)
THE CIRCUIT (Olivier Gruner)
ANGELS DON'T SLEEP HERE (Robert Patrick/Roy Scheider)
CONTAMINATED MAN (William Hurt)

Hey, don't be too snobbish about DTV releases. Some of them are surprisingly good, and it's a shame no one knows about them. And hardly anybody reviews them, much less the mainstream press, although I'm not sure why only theatrical releases deserve to be written about. After all, why should a piece of crap like VAN HELSING, the worst film of 2004, get more press coverage than a little film like ANTIBODY, which is no masterpiece, but it's a helluva lot more entertaining than VAN HELSING is.

ANTIBODY was shot in Bulgaria by a production company called UFO that specializes in stuff like this. It's basically a remake of FANTASTIC VOYAGE, and it casts Lance Henriksen as the hero, a romantic leading man part in which he gets to crack jokes, be cool and make out with Robin Givens. The visual effects aren't half bad for a DTV SF film, even though they aren't as good as the film's story requires, and the script is paint-by-numbers at best. Heck, those three elements in ANTIBODY--leading man, visual effects and script--are better than VAN HELSING's!

One tape I didn't pick up is PHASE IV, and that's because I already have the DVD. PHASE IV stars DTV stalwarts Dean Cain and Brian Bosworth, and is an entertaining, fast-moving mystery. I'll tell you more about it some other time, but if you see it on the shelf at the video store, go ahead and rent it.

Jerry Orbach R.I.P.
Mood:  sad
Wow. This is shocking. Actor Jerry Orbach, the avuncular star of LAW & ORDER who portrayed sardonic detective Lennie Briscoe from 1992 to 2004, passed away last night from prostate cancer. He was 69.

It's a shock for a couple of reasons. One, Orbach is such a likable Everyman that, despite his all-around talent as an actor, singer and personality, he seemed like One of Us, just a Regular Guy. Two, even though he announced earlier this year that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, he also said he was undergoing treatment and that it would not affect his new job as an actor on the upcoming new L&O series TRIAL BY JURY. What we didn't know is that his illness was much more serious than he let on, that in fact he was first diagnosed a decade ago. Obviously Orbach was a brilliant stage actor (THE FANTASTICKS, CHICAGO) who made a mark of sorts in films (DIRTY DANCING, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST), but his long run on LAW & ORDER made him one of television's most beloved stars. He also "played" Briscoe in several L&O video games. I'm very sorry to hear this news.

I haven't heard yet whether he had shot any scenes for TRIAL BY JURY or whether they would be used if so. I certainly hope L&O guru Dick Wolf gives Briscoe a proper sendoff, possibly having the character die off-screen much as JUDGING AMY did with Richard Crenna and 8 SIMPLE RULES did with John Ritter in recent years. The fictional L&O characters need to mourn Briscoe, just as we will.

(Author's Note: I just read that Orbach did film some TRIAL BY JURY episodes and that Wolf plans to air them as is, giving us a chance to say goodbye to Lennie, as well as Jerry.)

In other TV cop news, I walked into a nice surprise at Best Buy the other night while picking up a new Cyberhome 300 DVD player. Fox was discounting several of its Season One TV box sets at 50% or more, including BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, 24, LOST IN SPACE and THE X-FILES. I grabbed NYPD BLUE--the Caruso Year--for less than $20, an excellent deal for 22 of the series' most outstanding episodes. I don't know how long this sale will last, but check it out soon if you can. MILLENNIUM was unfortunately not on the list, or else I would have bought that one too.

In crappy movie news, I watched Crown International's KILLPOINT last night, which stars Chinese "actor" Leo Fong as a cop. It beats me why anyone made this movie with Fong; he's no actor, he's sure as hell isn't Jet Li in the looks department, and his martial arts skills would maybe give Rudy Ray Moore a run for his money. Richard Roundtree (SHAFT) is in it, but has nothing to do; regardless, he's the only one in the film giving a good performance. Cameron Mitchell just acts crazy (not unusual for him), and Stack Pierce looks menacing, but is thinly written. KILLPOINT is pretty bad, which doesn't make me eagerly anticipate LOW BLOW, another Fong/Mitchell action picture.

It's Showtime!
Mood:  lazy
Now Playing: SHOWTIME
I don't know what cosmic forces caused this to happen, but I somehow coincidentally received two Robert DeNiro comedies from Netflix back-to-back. On the heels of MEET THE PARENTS comes SHOWTIME, in which DeNiro and Eddie Murphy play L.A. cops who star in their own reality TV series. It isn't very good, partially because the stars don't have much of a rapport. DeNiro was funnier in PARENTS because he had more of a character to play. Murphy gets to be Eddie, although this is the PG-13 Eddie. I hope I get to see the R-rated Eddie again, 'cause few people on Earth have ever been funnier. The real problem with SHOWTIME is that it doesn't even believe its own premise. The first scene is DeNiro telling a bunch of kindergarten kids that policework is not what it looks like on TV. He doesn't get into car chases or big action setpieces. Then ten minutes later, he's shooting it out with drug dealers in a back room someplace with helicopters overhead and bad guys with huge guns and armor-piercing bullets. After that, the film has the gall to present a scene in which DeNiro is chewed out by his superior, who is black, as always (they really should have hired Frank McRae from 48 HRS. to play this role; that might have given this part a tongue-in-cheek nod to the audience that would make it work). You can't base your film on the premise that real cops are not based on TV cliches and then make the guy who's chewing the maverick cop out a big black man. The film even knows this is a cliche, since there's a scene where the Murphy character is auditioning for a bad cop movie and the superior officer is being played in the audition by...a large black man.

The best scene finds the two cops being schooled on how to be a TV cop by none other than T.J. Hooker himself, William Shatner. Shatner is very funny demonstrating the finer techniques of kicking in doors while still showing the camera your best profile, jumping on to car hoods, and tasting drugs ("Hooker knows it's cocaine."). It's Chapter 10 if you have the DVD. Just watch that part and skip the rest.

I have a new DVD player today. My RCA, which I purchased in 1999, may have bitten the bullet. Last week it started having problems with the audio signal. Every time I would try to access the menu or an extra or even rewind or fast-forward a section, the receiver would lose the signal from the RCA, and the only way to get the sound back was to shut the receiver off and turn it back on several times. I tried to search some online forums to see if anyone else had the same problem, but couldn't find anything. Perhaps it's a sign that I should get that DVD recorder I'm interested in. I can't afford it right now though, so I ran out and got a Cyberhome 300, which sold at Best Buy for $40 with a mail-in rebate that brings the price down to $25. I don't expect this unit to last long, but it should work well enough for $25. It has a region-free hack, so I can now play foreign DVDs if I want. It also has progressive scan, zoom and a faster rewind and fast-forward than my RCA. No optical digital output, unfortunately, so I'm using coaxial now. Hopefully I'll get a decent quarterly bonus next month and be able to use it as a significant chunk of my DVD recorder purchase. If anyone can recommend a good unit, please let me know. A friend has a Sony RDR-GX300 DVD recorder which is nice.

Wrong Place at the Right Time
Mood:  incredulous
Cheeseburger called me out for not mentioning the model that I did not meet this weekend. The excuse "it's too painful" doesn't work on her, so here's the dilly-yo. It's true...my brother's next-door neighbors have a hot 20-year-old neighbor who occasionally stops by to play with my brother's poodle. She does some modeling on the side. She dropped by Xmas Eve while I was downstairs playing XBox and everyone neglected to tell me she was there, so I never even saw her. I heard her upstairs and asked my brother, "Who's up there?" "I don't know," he replied. Thanks for not honing those voice-recognition skills, dude. Otherwise, I'm sure my life would have changed for the better beginning at that exact moment. As Napoleon Dynamite says, "Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills. You know, like numchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills..." Worst. Christmas. Ever.

My presents are pretty nice. Nothing expensive or glitzy, but certainly useful and thoughtful. Some stoneware, kitchen utensils, dish towels, recipe box (my sister-in-law likes to give me tasty crockpot recipes), a James T. Kirk notepad and pen, a James T. Kirk "Trouble With Tribbles" MiniMate (sweet), salt and peppercorn shakers... And a winning lottery ticket--$2! Flippin' sweet.

Which reminds me that my brother gave my dad a fake lottery ticket. He scratched off the numbers to discover that he was a $25,000 winner. Boy, was he excited, laughing and dancing and telling all of us about the Cadillac he was going to drive back to Illinois. When he started wondering where he was going to collect, he checked out the retailer information on the back. Take a look at what he discovered at this link. Thankfully, my dad had a good sense of humor about it. My brother's face was red from laughing so hard.

Cheeseburger and Shark Hunter are apparently up for a viewing of THE STABILIZER and SWITCHBLADE SISTERS this week. I think pretty much everyone has seen SWITCHBLADE SISTERS...well, THE STABILIZER too, for that matter, but I don't think one can watch THE STABILIZER too many times. THE STABILIZER is probably the best Crappy Movie ever made--idiotic, incompetent, action-packed, illogical, inept, filled with fashion faux pas, terrible dialogue, animal cruelty, bad music, and reckless, dangerous stuntwork. Obviously a must-see. Tolemite will back me up on that.

Are You A Pothead, Focker?
Mood:  lazy
Now Playing: MEET THE PARENTS
Got home from St. Louis tonight, checked email (I had a lot) and Mobius, unpacked, had some five-day-old goulash, watched MEET THE PARENTS from Netflix in anticipation of possibly seeing the new sequel, MEET THE FOCKERS. It's a fairly decent comedy, unusually low-key for a modern Hollywood comedy, which usually has a joke every four seconds and closes with a huge action setpiece like a silly car chase or something. The story doesn't really hold together, but its main flaw is what usually happens in Ben Stiller movies, and that is that his character is completely unsympathetic. The movie wants you to root for him, but he's such an idiot that he deserves all the abuse he gets. DeNiro is extremely funny in it though and it's a pretty good time. The supporting cast is good too...and what was Phyllis George doing in it? Odd seeing her pop up...and looking damn good for 50.

OK, Christmas...well, what can I say? Not very eventful. I ate, read, slept, watched TV and played XBox. That's it. Spent a lot of time watching my brother play Halo 2 online. What's really cool about it is that you can engage in this elaborate combat scenarios online in real time with and against as many as 15 others who could be next door or on Mars, as long as they have Internet access. I played a little bit too, but spent most of my XBox time with Links 2004. Halo 2 is not really my style--I don't really get into games where you just run around shooting things--but playing online can be addicting. It sets you up in random situations like Capture the Flag, which can be fun. If you own this game, but you never play it online, you probably wasted your money, because you aren't getting its true value, for sure.

I was lucky enough to catch the end of Letterman the other night and Darlene Love's annual performance of "Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)", which she originally sang 40 years ago on Phil Spector's classic Christmas album. She has performed it on the Letterman show ever since his NBC days, and it's always a big thrill; it's such a fantastic song, and even in her 60s, Darlene (whom you may recognize as Danny Glover's wife in the LETHAL WEAPON movies) has a fantastic voice.

I also picked up five crappy movies yesterday. My brother and I stopped into a Family Video, where I bought five of their used VHS tapes for $2.95 each. Quite a steal for MIAMI HORROR (sounds like a totally hilarious Italian SF/action pic), MARTIAL OUTLAW, two Leo Fong "classics" (KILLPOINT and LOW BLOW), and a pretty fun action movie with Lance Henriksen and Stephen Collins called CHOKE CANYON. Truthfully, it makes me a little sad to see obscure 20-year-old videos going to waste. I always have this nagging feeling that, one day, this tape of MIAMI HORROR will be the only one left on the planet. It isn't likely to ever show up on DVD, so when these tapes are gone, they're gone. Big bucks are going into preserving major films like SPARTACUS and LAWRENCE OF ARABIA; at the very least, I can put one copy of MIAMI HORROR away somewhere for the next generation of crappy-movie fans.

Have You Ever Heard A Gorilla Sing?
Mood:  quizzical
Now Playing: BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA
Well, now I've seen everything. Thanks to Horizon's White Elephant party, I was finally able to see one of cult cinema's most notorious pictures, BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA. No kidding--that's the title. I acquired it on a $1 (!) DVD from an outfit called Digiview, although I would bet that it's a bootleg of Alpha Video's DVD. Digiview might be a subsidiary of sorts, since the cover art seems to be the same, and you'd have to have balls to rip off someone's cover art as well as their DVD. That said, the audio and video presentation of Digiview's GORILLA is very good, especially for a film made in nine days for 50 grand back in 1952.

I might have to rewatch this on Toler's next visit. Not only does the plot involve mad scientist Bela changing a man into a gorilla (played by an actor in a suit), the film also features a pretty good trained chimp that walks on its hind legs, turns a key in its lock, opens doors, climbs into bed...it's actually impressive. If you're into monkeys, that is, which Tolemite definitely is.

GORILLA's reputation mainly rests on two features:
* its ridiculous title
* its unusual stars: Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo

Duke and Sammy were relatively noted at the time for being Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis impersonators. Duke didn't really look a lot like Dean, but he was a good-looking Italian guy who could sing a bit. Sammy's resemblance to Jerry, however, is uncanny. He isn't very funny, but he looks and sounds like Jerry, and is able to present a reasonable facsimile of Jerry's spastic screen persona. He and Duke could have used some better writers, though, because the gags in GORILLA are pretty weak.

In a nutshell, Duke and Jerry play Duke and Jerry, a pair of nightclub entertainers who accidentally fall out of an airplane (!) while luckily wearing parachutes (!!) and happen to drop onto a South Seas island populated by a native chief with a Brooklyn accent (!!!) and his smokin' hot daughter Nona (played by a yummy actress billed as Charlita). Also on the island is Dr. Zabor (Lugosi), who is in love with Nona, who also works as his assistant in the lab (the film establishes Nona as having an American college education, yet she has no idea what a clothing label is!!!...ah, I give up with the exclamation points). The story is as asinine as its setup; suffice to say that "hilarity" ensues, Duke does his signature tune, "'Deed I Do", Sammy screams and runs around, Bela gets to be Bela, and it's all pretty harmless, especially at 74 minutes.

Believe it or not, BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA is not Duke Mitchell's most interesting film. More than 20 years later, he wrote, produced, composed, directed and starred in a mobster flick titled THE EXECUTIONER. In this violent GODFATHER-inspired Mob movie that was filmed as LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON, Mitchell, billed as Dominico Miceli, plays Mimi Miceli, the son of a notorious mobster who was exiled to Italy years earlier. Leaving his young son in the Don's care, Mimi heads to Hollywood to look up his childhood pal Jolly. With Jolly serving as his muscle, Mimi decides to get back in the Mob's good graces by kidnapping the local Mafioso, Chicky, holding him for $250,000 ransom, and sending his thumb back as proof ("Yeah, that's his thumb. I seen it on him a million times."). For some reason, the Organization doesn't seem as pissed off about that as you would think, as Chicky gladly agrees to let bygones be bygones, accepting Mimi into his inner circle. From there, Mimi attempts to increase his territory, branching into prostitution and gambling, threatening a black pimp he calls "Super Spook", and killing a helluva lot of people.

THE EXECUTIONER is as confusing and crazy as it is sincere. Mitchell is not a particularly skilled writer or director, but his performance is pretty good. He's in every scene, many of them eaten up by loopy monologues in which he tells the story of his father being bashed on the head every day by competing street-corner fish merchants (!) or how the Cosa Nostra has grown obsolete by hippies who "screw for free". In between Mitchell's nutty rants ("You're either in or you're in the way!") are plenty of nudity, sleaze, and gory killings, including a crucifixion above the Hollywood Bowl, a guy hanging from a meathook in his eye, and lots of squibbed gunshots.

Technically, THE EXECUTIONER is quite crude, suffering from a fragmented storyline and indifferent acting from the supporting cast (to no surprise, several actors are identified in the closing crawl as first-time performers). It takes place over a series of years, which is difficult to pick up on at first, due to the fact that the costumes, vehicles and hairstyles are clearly 1970's, and Mitchell, with his slight build and helmet-hard Neil Diamond hairdo, barely resembles a tough guy. However, one has to admire his devotion to getting his story, said to be partially autobiographical, on screen, and while his dialogue and filmmaking technique may be laughable, the sincerity with which he presents them is not.

After BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA, Mitchell more or less fell out of show business until making THE EXECUTIONER in 1974, although it may not have been released theatrically until after his death. It was originally distributed by Matt Cimber (director of drive-in dreck like THE BLACK SIX) and retitled MASSACRE MAFIA STYLE. Joseph Juliano's Spartan Films later labeled it THE EXECUTIONER, the title under which it appeared on videotape by Video Gems. It's relatively difficult to see today, an alternately fascinating and hilarious peek behind the personality of Duke Mitchell. Maybe I should have Duke Mitchell Night at Crappy Movie Night sometime.

I'm heading out of town for the weekend, so I don't know if I'll do any posting 'til at least Sunday. My dad and I are driving to St. Louis to spend Christmas with my brother and his wife. Should be a pretty decent time, even though the temperature has been dangling around 10 degrees all week. At least my brother's house will be warmer than my apartment, which has a few drafty spots.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays (for my Jewish readers...all one of them!), friends! Hope it's a safe and fruitful weekend for you. I also want to shout out to my boy Z, who posted a howdy in the Comments section a few days ago. How the hell did you even find me, dude?

Chicken's Lunch Thoughts
Last year, I kept track of every film that I watched, including the venue (theater, TV, VHS or DVD) and date. I was appalled to announce that I sat through 436 films in 2003. I'm even more appalled and embarrassed to admit that 2004's total will far exceed that of last year. And I thought I had more of a "life". Maybe not. I'll write more about the 2004 list in January, and I'm sure there'll be some startling stats to pass along.

I added Chicken's blog to my list of links over there on the right. Chicken's Lunch Thoughts is, um, a list of things Chicken thinks about at lunch every day. These started as daily emails and have now progressed to Web status. So make sure you add Chicken to your Daily Bookmarks along with Tolemite and Cheeseburger. And, uh, me, I hope.

BTW, his name isn't really Chicken Del Gosso, although I wish it was. His last name is DeRosa, but for some reason, when his landlord penned a nasty complaint letter about his roommate (whose last name was Hehn), it was about those rascally boys "Del Gosso and Helms". Sounds like a shortlived '70s cop show--"Burnin' rubber and breakin' rules! Poundin' the streets and mountin' the ladies! Del Gosso and Helms! This fall on ABC!"

Stay Home and Eat All the Freakin' Chips, Kip.
Mood:  happy
Now Playing: NAPPY D
NAPOLEON DYNAMITE arrived from Netflix today. Unfortunately, the disc seems to suffer from a pressing error that causes my DVD player to not read its audio track right away. While bouncing around the extras, I was having trouble getting any audio to play, and only by turning my receiver off and back on a couple of times was the audio able to "register". Perhaps it's just a compatibility issue with my player; I'll test it with my computer's DVD player later.

Anyway, I checked out a few of the extras, including PELUCA, the original 9-minute short film that inspired NAPOLEON. It's interesting, but so much of it was directly recycled into the feature that it works as a novelty at best. Some of the NAPOLEON deleted scenes have some real laughs, including Napoleon's pathetic attempt to buy a Lotto ticket and a funny dialogue exchange during a kickball game. I'm really looking forward to listening to the commentary track with director Jared Hess, star Jon Heder and producer Jeremy Coon.

Pedro: "Do you think people will vote for me?"
Napoleon: "Heck yes! I'd vote for you."
Pedro: "Like what are my skills?"
Napoleon: "Well, you have a sweet bike. And you're really good at hooking up with chicks. Plus you're like the only guy at school who has a mustache."