Anyone looking for a sleazy exploitation movie will be sadly disappointed, since KIDNAPPED CO-ED, despite its vivid title, is pretty hard to sit through.  So much of the movie consists of Eddie and Sandra driving.  Or sitting.  Or just staring.  Occasionally talking.  Even at 76 minutes, it's desperately padded and also hampered by Rivers' somnambulant performance (it doesn't help that her character is so insufferably stupid, it's hard to care whether she escapes her captor or not).  As for Canon, who was billed as "Jack" Canon when he appeared in Friedel's AXE, his twitchy Method mannerisms are annoying, rather than affecting, and one scene in which he stares down a redneck with a shotgun, consisting of a minute or so of Canon doing one double-take after another, is maddeningly frustrating to watch.  Friedel is not a director without talent, though.  He shows an instinct for knowing where to place the camera and composing a lovely shot, and in terms of cinematography and production values, KIDNAPPED CO-ED looks great on what was surely a small budget.  But, man, is it boring.

Look for future L.A. LAW star Larry Drake.  In an odd gaffe, the opening credits proclaim, "John Canon as...KIDNAPPED CO-ED".  One of the movie's several titles was THE KIDNAP LOVER, and probably Friedel was too cheap to fix Canon's title card when the title changed.  Also known as DATE WITH A KIDNAPPER, THE KIDNAPPER and the inexplicable HOUSE OF TERROR.  Harry Novak's Boxoffice International released it in 1978, but it may have been filmed a year or so earlier.

THE KIDNAPPING OF THE PRESIDENT (1980)--Directed by George Mendeluk.  Stars William Shatner, Hal Holbrook, Van Johnson, Ava Gardner.  An occasionally absorbing suspenser lensed in Toronto by director George Mendeluk, who remains busy toiling in American TV shows like NORTH SHORE. If only we could convince Hollywood to stop remaking excellent films like KING KONG and ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 and take a crack at adequate ones with great ideas.

Hal Holbrook stars as Adam Scott, the President of the United States who is kidnapped during a public rally in Toronto and handcuffed inside an armored car containing a bomb. The South American terrorists responsible demand $100 million in diamonds for the President's release, and it's up to Secret Service agent Jerry O'Connor (William Shatner) to rescue his boss. Shatner shot this just before STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE came out, the film that, in a way, rejuvenated his career, putting him back on the big screen in a succession of TREK films and helping him land his long-running role as ABC's T.J. HOOKER.

The inclusion of quite a bit of gore and some mild profanity (I think this is the only time I've heard Shatner say "fuck") seems somewhat misplaced in this TV-style thriller, which was obviously made on a low budget. Wait 'til you get a gander at the cheap set that represents the Oval Office; a janitor's basement office has better furniture. Holbrook is excellent, providing his Chief Executive with a naturalistic gumption, and meshes well with Shatner's square-jawed approach. Golden Agers Van Johnson and Ava Gardner play the Vice-President and his wife, and you can bet the cast's salaries took up at least half the budget. KIDNAPPING is a good film, not a great one, and someone should pony up the bread to buy the rights from Crown International or whomever has them these days and mount a remake of the intriguing premise.  Also with Miguel Fernandes, Cindy Girling, Maury Chaykin, Michael Reynolds and Elizabeth Shepherd as the First Lady.  Shepherd was originally cast as Emma Peel on THE AVENGERS, but was quickly replaced by Diana Rigg.  Music by Paul Zaza. 

KIKUJIRO (1999)--Directed by Takeshi Kitano. Stars Takeshi Kitano (as Beat Takeshi), Yusuke Sekiguchi. KIKUJIRO, a slight comedy that was shown at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival, never really grabbed me. It tries hard to be likable--it really does. Director Takeshi Kitano, who also plays the lead in KIKUJIRO, is in some ways Japan's version of Martin Scorsese: an acclaimed filmmaker closely identified with stories about the underworld--the yakuza, as it's called in Japan. I haven't seen any of Kitano's previous pictures, but this would appear to be his attempt at showcasing a newer, gentler side of his personality. KIKUJIRO's a gentle film all right, but not a very engaging one.

Episodic in nature, Kitano's screenplay focuses on Masao (Yusuke Sekiguchi), a young boy who lives with his grandmother. Masao isn't a very happy child--his father is long gone, his mother has moved away and his grandmother is too busy working to support the two of them to spend much time with him. When not dodging the local bullies, Masao spends most of his time moping silently with his head down. Determined to find his mother, Masao decides to run away from home, but is intercepted by a friend of his grandmothers (Kayoko Kishimoto), who volunteers her vagabond husband to accompany him on his journey.

Masao's mature companion, known only as Mister, is portrayed by Kitano (billed as Beat Takeshi), and might have been a more interesting character in a better movie. While never specifically stated as such, it's certainly implied that Mister may have been a yakuza earlier in life, and he certainly fits that mold: brash, abrasive, loudmouthed, wrongheaded. He reminded me of Joe Pesci's pesky runt in the LETHAL WEAPON series, but without Pesci's childlike likability. First, Mister promises to take Masao to the beach, but, instead, they wind up at the racetrack, where Mister, who's using Masao's traveling money to gamble with, berates the boy verbally for being unable to predict the winners. Now destitute, the odd couple hitchhike cross-country for what seems like ages, although this section represents some of the movie's best moments. Mister masquerades as a blind man in a desperate attempt to score a lift, and, when that plan painfully fails, tries a more direct method of getting a car to stop; these antics result in a couple of very funny sightgags.

Kitano's failure to establish a consistent tone is a major problem. Some of its humor is quite whimsical, such as late in the picture when Masao and Mister team up with a pair of bumbling bikers to play childrens' parlor games. At other times, it's slapsticky and broad, but most of the time, the movie just isn't funny at all. One early scene, in which Masao is abducted and stripped by a pedophile, is so disturbing (this is a comedy, for crying out loud) and so grossly out-of-place that I assume Kitano had some kind of point to make. Whatever it was, I missed it.

Most importantly, I just didn't care about the characters. It sounds like a cliche, but if you're making a buddy movie, you've got to make sure the two buddies who appear in nearly every scene are interesting or charming enough to make the audience want to follow their adventures. Mister is such an obnoxious jerk that, instead of earning laughter in the scenes in which he is humiliated or beaten up, he engenders a reaction of "he got just what he deserved". As for Masao, he's a cute kid alright, but also a morose one, and since he doesn't say much or even raise his chin off his chest too often, it's difficult to get to know him too well.

As a director, Kitano does engineer a few interesting shots and, while I mostly found them self-indulgent, some slow-motion fantasy dance sequences do serve to break up the monotonous pace on occasion. I also found it difficult to read the English subtitles, which are printed in white often against a light-colored background. I must mention the gorgeous piano-driven score by Joe Hisaishi, which uses the sound of a bicycle bell to illustrate Masao's innocence and the earnestness of his youthful journey. In fact, my advice would be to buy the soundtrack CD, but skip the main feature.

KILINK IN ISTANBUL (1967)--Directed by Yilmaz Atadeniz.  Stars Irfan Atasoy, Yildirim Gencer.  Here’s a great example of how insane Turkish superhero movies can be.  A woman injects what appears to be a mummy in a coffin with a hypodermic, and it awakens and strips off its bandages to reveal a man completely concealed in a skull mask and skeleton tights.  He’s a megalomaniac named Kilink (Gencer) who murders a professor while attempting to steal a secret formula that will allow him to conquer the world.  He doesn’t find it, though, and begins a succession of kidnap attempts and terrorist threats on the professor’s daughter, son Orhan (Atasoy), and Orhan’s fiancé.  While visiting his father’s grave, Orhan is visited by an elderly wizard named Shazam who materializes out of thin air and imbues him with superpowers.  All Orhan has to do is speak the wizard’s name, and lightning transforms him into a masked, caped superhero named, er, Superhero.  Sounds familiar?  Fawcett hadn’t published Captain Marvel comics in twenty years, so I suppose the Turkish lawyers thought it was okay to steal their concept.  Director Atadeniz also liberally swipes John Barry’s James Bond scores, as Superhero vanquishes Kilink’s murderous scheme at regular intervals.  KILINK’s craziness extends to its ending, which just stops in mid-story, leading, I assume, to a sequel, and what is probably the only surviving black-and-white print, which is riddled with splices, scratches and tears.  Kilink may have been inspired by Diabolik, a masked supervillain then popular in Italian comic books and the movie DANGER: DIABOLIK directed by Mario Bava.

KILINK VS. THE FLYING MAN (1967)--Directed by Yilmaz Atadeniz.  Stars Irfan Atasoy, Yildirim Gencer.  Only forty minutes or so exist of this wild Turkish superhero sequel, and much of it is a recap of KILINK IN ISTANBUL.  Kilink is a pretty cool yet mad supervillain who wants to rule the world using a death ray created by a professor in the first movie.  His arch foe Superhero (who flies) stops him.  These films are very much like old American serials with their colorful garb (though the movies are in black-and-white, or at least only b&w prints remain) and frequent action scenes.  It’s hard to properly review half a movie, but what’s here is pretty fun.

KILL AND KILL AGAIN (1981)--Directed by Ivan Hall. Stars James Ryan, Annaline Kriel, Michael Mayer, John Ramsbottom. A sequel to KILL OR BE KILLED (which I haven't seen). An American karate champion (Ryan), in Sun City for a tournament, is recruited by the U.S. Government to rescue a prominent scientist from the clutches of Marduk (Mayer, stuck with one of the worst fake beards I've ever seen), a madman bent on world domination. The scientist, Dr. Horatio Kane (Ramsbottom), was developing a method to extract fuel from potatoes (!), but accidentally stumbled upon a mind-control drug instead! Marduk is already using the drug to create an army of kung-fu kicking zombies, ready to follow his commands in his bid to conquer the world. Ryan recruits some of his buddies--big, black, bald Gorilla; Zen master The Fly, who can levitate; taciturn Gypsy Billy; and comic relief Hotdog--and, along with Kane's beautiful blond daughter Kandy (yes, her name is Kandy Kane), marches into Marduk's stronghold, stopping frequently along the way to kick the crap out of someone. This is a fast-moving kung-fu flick that doesn't take itself too seriously, and although the performers aren't the best actors around, they're decent enough, and the many karate battles are well choreographed. It certainly isn't dull. This must have been an inspiration for TV's THE A-TEAM, since the characters, their relationships and the plot are so similar to those represented on that Stephen J. Cannell series. Also with Ken Gampu, Bill Flynn, Sam Schmidt, Norman Robinson and Marloe Scott Wilson. Producer Igo Kantor is credited with music supervision, and it certainly appears as though the score consists of library cues. Filmed in South Africa by the director of KILL OR BE KILLED.

KILL BILL, VOL. 1 (2003)--Directed by Quentin Tarantino.  Stars Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox, Daryl Hannah, Michael Madsen.  Considering that nearly every frame of "the 4th film by Quentin Tarantino" is based on, inspired by or downright swiped from another film, KILL BILL, VOL. 1 is among the freshest and most original cinematic experiences I've ever seen.  It's impossible to imagine any other contemporary filmmaker creating such a unique universe.  The "VOL. 1" in the title refers to Miramax's decision to split Tarantino's affectionate nod to Hong Kong martial-arts movies into two halves, rather than editing it down to a two-hour running time.  The decision seems a sound one, since VOL. 1 is so relentlessly violent and intense, a three (or more) hour version of KILL BILL would be too much for one sitting.

KILL BILL follows a vengeful young woman's obsessive quest to, well, kill Bill.  The woman, identified only as "The Bride" and played acidly by Thurman, was once a member of a hit squad known as DiVAS--the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad.  For reasons to be explained in VOL. 2, which was released six months later, the Bride and her party are ambushed at her wedding rehearsal, wiped out by DiVAS members O-Ren Ishii (Liu), Elle Driver (Hannah), Vernita Green (Fox) and Budd (Madsen), all under the direction of the enigmatic, smooth-talking Bill (Carradine in a role written for Warren Beatty).  Four years later, the Bride, the only survivor, awakens from a coma and embarks on an international quest to kill those responsible.  VOL. 1 details only her fights to the death with Vernita, now a mother and housewife in Pasadena, and O-Ren, a Mob boss in Tokyo.

While it has always been obvious that Tarantino's art is fueled by his love of movies, KILL BILL marks the first time that I could truly say I know what it's like to live inside his head.  And what a strange yet magical place it is.  Aided by Robert Richardson's striking cinematography and a thick musical soundscape credited to Wu Tang Clan's The RZA, but which mainly consists of scores taken from movies as disparate as TWISTED NERVE, DEATH RIDES A HORSE, MASTER OF THE FLYING GUILLOTINE, THE GRAND DUEL, WHITE LIGHTNING, THE GREEN HORNET and even Quincy Jones' IRONSIDE theme (which had previously been lifted for FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH, Tarantino's likely influence), Tarantino has created a world where blaxploitation, Japanese anime, Asian chopsocky and grindhouse revenge flicks all reside next to one another.  While the story may be a simple one, it's drenched in such a thick syrup of atmosphere, emotion and bloody action that it can hardly be called thin.  Thurman handles a deceptively difficult role quite well, while Carradine, whose face is never seen on camera (expect him to have even more of a presence in VOL. 2), keeps Bill at the forefront of our imagination using only his voice and a few gestures.

VOL. 1 also ends with an intriguing cliffhanger, just one of several reasons that VOL. 2 is one of 2004's most anticipated films.  Also with "The Incredible" Sonny Chiba, who gives a wonderful performance as a retired sword maker; Chiaki Kuriyama (BATTLE ROYALE), who practically steals the film as Go Go Yubari, a teenage schoolgirl who wields a deadly mace; Gordon Liu as the Kato-masked Johnny Mo; Julie Dreyfus and Michael Parks as presumably the same character he portrayed in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN.  Based on a character created by Q & U (Quentin and Uma).  KILL BILL is dedicated to Tarantino influences such as Charles Bronson, William Witney and Kinji Fukasaku.

KILL BILL, VOL. 2 (2004)--Directed by Quentin Tarantino.  Stars Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Daryl Hannah, Michael Madsen, Gordon Liu.  The continuation of (not the sequel to) the Bride's (Thurman) "roaring rampage of revenge" contains less action and more dialogue and characterization than KILL BILL, VOL. 1.  It's much closer to what we generally think of as a "Quentin Tarantino movie", and is more akin to the conversational quality of JACKIE BROWN than to anything else QT has made.  It's even better than the audacious first movie, thanks to more striking cinematography by the great Robert Richardson and an extraordinary cast, especially Carradine, who possibly never has received a big-screen role this juicy.

Following her bloody dispatches of O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu) and Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox) in the first movie, the Bride (whose name we discover, as the punch line to a joke that really isn't worth the time Tarantino puts into it, is Beatrix Kiddo) continues to track and kill the members of her former assassination squad who murdered her entire wedding party and put her into a four-year coma.  Next on her list are Budd (Madsen), an alcoholic strip-club bouncer living in a trailer in the desert, and Elle Driver (Hannah), a one-eyed blonde.  Of course, her ultimate goal is--what else?--killing Bill (Carradine), her former lover and mentor and the father of her child.

Whereas the first film was an affectionate nod to Hong Kong martial-arts movies of the 1970's (among many other genres), this one is more reminiscent of Italian westerns, not just the basic revenge plot--a staple of spaghetti westerns--but also Tarantino's use of original Ennio Morricone and Luis Bacalov scores.  That said, one of the most memorable sequences involves the Bride's training at the hand of legendary white-bearded Pei Mei (Liu), which apes the visual style of an Asian kung fu flick.  KILL BILL, VOL. 2 also accentuates Tarantino's love of comic books, including a Carradine monologue about Superman that's partially lifted from Jules Pfieffer's THE GREAT COMIC BOOK HEROES and gags about truth serum and a deadly 5-Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique that could have come straight out of Marvel's great MASTER OF KUNG FU series of the '70s. 

Bottom line, if you don't believe the relationship between Carradine and Uma, and you don't enjoy their performances, then you're not going to like this film. Both actors are fantastic. Carradine, like Robert Forster and Pam Grier in JACKIE BROWN, pops out of DTV obscurity to deliver a cat-like performance of charm, cunning and underlying evil. I don't think Oscar nominations for both stars would be undeserved.  The last section of the film is a showcase for Carradine, who spins such a thick web of deceit and charisma that we come to feel that the Bride, who has shown no mercy to her previous conquests, may not be able to break free of it.  And since both actors have such marvelous faces, Tarantino uses lots of extreme close-ups to accentuate the emotional charge between them.

In fact, my favorite part of KB2 was watching a group of very talented actors go to work.  Look for Michael Parks, who played a Texas sheriff in VOL. 1, as a Mexican whore trader who may be even more evil than Bill.  Larry Bishop, who appeared in several low-budget action films in the late 1960's like THE DEVIL'S 8 and THE SAVAGE SEVEN, pops up in a strip club scene, along with the ubiquitous Sid Haig as the bartender.  Madsen, who has worked with Carradine before, is Madsen, but he's an enormously entertaining actor when he cares, as he obviously did here.  It's doubtful Hannah has ever been better.  Bo Svenson (PART 2 WALKING TALL) plays a preacher in a manner that's warm and humorous, two words you don't usually associate with this big Swede who formerly busted heads as Buford Pusser.

Also with Jeannie Epper, Caitlin Keats, Perla Haney-Jardine, Chris Nelson and Samuel L. Jackson.  In addition to Morricone and Bacalov, the soundtrack includes cuts from Isaac Hayes ("Three Tough Guys"), Malcolm McLaren ("She's Not There") and Johnny Cash, as well as original pieces by The RZA and Robert Rodriguez (SPY KIDS).  Filmed in California, Nevada and Mexico.  Based on a character created by Q & U (Quentin and Uma).  VOL. 2 ends with picture credits that feature many actors from VOL. 1, including Sonny Chiba, Julie Dreyfus and Parks and Liu as different characters.

KILL OR BE KILLED (1980)--Directed by Ivan Hall.  Stars James Ryan, Charlotte Michelle, Norman Coombes, Raymond Ho-Tong, Daniel DuPlessis.  "The Greatest Hollywood Martial-Arts Movie Ever Made!"  Well, not exactly (and not exactly a Hollywood movie, as it was made by South Africans), but it is fun.  I really love its outrageously pulpy plot:  karate master Steve Hunt (Ryan) is recruited by a former Nazi general, Baron von Rudloff (Coombes), to participate in an upcoming tournament against a team led by an equally wealthy Japanese benefactor, Miyagi (Ho-Tong).  Von Rudloff and Miyagi had competed in a similar tournament forty years earlier, but when von Rudloff's squad was beaten (he claims Miyagi cheated him), the general was stripped of his rank and honor and banished to South Africa.  Hunt and his cute karate-kicking girlfriend Olga (Michelle) escape from von Rudloff's desert compound (represented by a very fake-looking miniature white castle), but Hunt is forced to return as a member of Miyagi's team of twenty when von Rudloff's goons kidnap Olga, promising to let her go only if Steve throws the match.

Hall's pace drags a little through the middle as von Rudloff's midget sidekick Chico (DuPlessis) travels around the world recruiting team members in various "humorous" asides, but if you like karate, KILL OR BE KILLED provides it in spades.  All the participants are actual members of the Japan Karate Association (the South African branch), and well-known karate master Stan Schmidt choreographed the fight scenes.  Instead of a lot of gymnastics and Jackie Chan-type acrobatics, the fighting appears to be straight no-frills karate, which may appeal to the martial-arts purists.  Ryan is actually a decent actor, and his long black hair and faintly Asian features provide an unusual and memorable look.  Everyone else either hams it up or keeps his mouth shut and fights; whatever the actor's style, it's done pretty well all around.  A fun movie, but not quite as good as the next year's sequel, KILL AND KILL AGAIN, which reunited Hall and Ryan, who played what seemed to be the same character, but was now a mercenary named Steve Chase.  Film Ventures International released KILL OR BE KILLED with a PG rating, although it has also been seen as KARATE KILLER and KARATE OLYMPIAD.

KILL SQUAD (1981)--Directed by Patrick G. Donahue.  Stars Cameron Mitchell, Jean Glaude, Jeff Risk.  "12 Hands...12 Feet...24 Reasons to Die!"  As the nonsensical tagline demonstrates, movies don't get a whole lot funnier than this one, even the comedies.  Stuntman Donahue wrote, produced and directed this ridiculous chopsocky, filmed entirely in and around San Jose, California.

After Joseph (Risk) is crippled and his wife raped and murdered in their home by a band of burglars led by Dutch (Mitchell), his business partner Larry (Glaude) assembles their old squad from Vietnam to avenge the attack.  The squad's investigative skills aren't exactly impressive; Donahue's screenplay is strangely structured to provide a kung fu battle about every five minutes or so.  The plot consists of various squad members dropping into a suspect's place of business, getting into a massive kung fu fight with all of the employees (in Donahue's universe, everybody is a martial arts expert), standing by as a hooded sniper knocks somebody off, and then returning to Joe's rose garden for new strategy.  This is what more or less happens for 90 minutes until there are no more characters left to kill.

KILL SQUAD is irresistible in its lunacy.  For instance, the hooded killer is revealed to have painted teeth across his upper lip; for what reason, I have no idea.  Two squad members investigate a used car dealer in the front seat of one of the lot's rides...which is revealed to have a stunt roll bar conveniently welded there!  Hmmm...I wonder if a car chase is in the foreseeable future.  Characters who deserve to die live, while those who deserve to live die.  One character even survives a push off a three-story building.  And Jeff Risk is dubbed by GILLIGAN'S ISLAND actor Russell Johnson, making lines like, "You're a good buddy, Larry" and "If only I had my mobility..." that much funnier.  The action literally is non-stop, and Mitchell's three scenes provide a bit of professionalism to Donahue's shoddy production.  Also with Jerry Johnson, Bill Cambra, Marc Sabin, Gary Fung, Alan Marcus, Mike Donahue, Sean Donahue and Ladd Ruckner (also the executive producer).  Music by Joseph Conlan.

KILL SWITCH (2008)—Directed by Jeff F. King.  Stars Steven Seagal, Chris Thomas King, Holly Dignard, Mark Collie, Karyn Michelle Baltzer, Michael Filipowich, Isaac Hayes.  For the first time, Steven Seagal takes sole writing credit, but don’t let that fool you into believing he held any personal feelings for this film.  If he ever had any passion for filmmaking, it is long gone now.  Not only did he apparently fail to show up on the set to shoot his action scenes, but another actor dubs a lot of his dialogue using a hilariously unconvincing Southern accent almost as terrible as Seagal’s. 

For example, in an interminable barroom brawl in which Seagal should have knocked out two chuckleheads in about four seconds, director Jeff F. King combines jittery, confusing shots of the star’s unconvincing stunt double and his opponents to random close-ups of Seagal taken from an earlier scene.  Since the editors didn’t have enough footage to choose from, they use the same shot of Seagal several times, even though the actor is just standing around in it and not fighting at all.

As much blame as Seagal shoulders, his collaborators are equally poor.  King has about as much business directing movies as I do piloting the space shuttle, and he and his editors couldn’t cobble together a wedding video competently, much less a complex action movie.  In an effort to build suspense (or something), King cuts together the same shot of a villain being tossed out a window six straight times, believing, I suppose, that if one guy smashing glass is cool, doing it five more times will be totally freaking sweet.  Ten seconds after Seagal graphically busts a guy’s teeth out while “curbing” him for information, the dude pops up with—you guessed it—a full set of pearly whites.

As a boy, Jacob King (Seagal) watched a man slash his twin brother’s throat during their birthday party.  He thinks about this a lot, but it has no bearing on the story at all.  Forty years later, he’s a Memphis homicide cop who says “Lawd have mercy” a lot.  He and his black partner (who survives to the end!) are tracking two serial killers:  one who uses astrology to plan his kills and another random redneck whom King captured once, but got out on a technicality, said technicality being King knocked the crap out of him and sent him smashing through KILL SWITCH’s infamous window.

King is so obsessed with catching the killers that he hilariously ignores the sexy young policewoman (Baltzer) who tries to seduce him while parading around his apartment half-nekkid.  He actually pays more attention to the poor, green female FBI agent (Dignard) following him and his partner around, though in today’s parlance, his hazing would be described as sexual harassment.

After about ninety minutes of watching boring fights and deciphering Seagal’s mumbling, the movie pulls one of the world’s biggest bullshit endings out of its rear end.  I won’t spoil it for you, but if you make it that far, I guarantee you it will have you laughing.  If I had been in a theater, I would have accused the projectionist of accidentally switching reels.

Despite Seagal’s clumsy attempts at local color and the hiring of Stax/Volt legend Isaac Hayes in a one-day bit as a comic-relief coroner, KILL SWITCH never went anywhere near Memphis, lensing entirely in Vancouver.  I think Seagal just had a wild hair to do a Southern accent.

KILL THE GOLDEN GOOSE (1979)—Directed by Elliott Hong. Stars Ed Parker, Bong Soo Han, Brad Von Beltz. Ed Parker was a Hawaiian martial artist known for teaching karate to celebrities like Elvis Presley. He occasionally showed up in films as a stuntman or heavy (he was a brutal guard in Earl Owensby’s BUCKSTONE COUNTY PRISON), but I believe this R-rated action flick may have been his only headlining role. Playing opposite Parker is the Korean Han, a hapkido Grand Master who trained Tom “Billy Jack” Laughlin and spoofed ENTER THE DRAGON in THE KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE. Not that any of the acting is good, but Han is horrid. He makes Leo Fong look lively. Co-writer Von Beltz is actually top-billed as a detective who dresses like a surfer. Plot concerns hitman Parker in L.A. to kill three government witnesses, while Von Beltz and his boss Han try to solve the case. The two masters face off at the climax, which is the obvious highlight. Also the only highlight, as this is a dismal effort. Also with Branscombe Richmond and Carol Connors, who sings her own composition. From the director of THEY CALL ME BRUCE.

KILLDOZER (1974)--Directed by Jerry London.  Stars Clint Walker, Carl Betz, Neville Brand, James Wainwright, Robert Urich, James A. Watson Jr.  "Too heavy to hang, too big for the gas chamber."  This made-for-TV movie has received much notoriety in recent years from viewers who remember seeing it on television or who haven't seen it, but love to chortle at its ten-cent title.  It's difficult enough to take seriously a film about a killer bulldozer, but when it's flat-out called "KILLDOZER", well...

Six familiar television actors play construction workers digging up a six-mile-square island 200 miles off the coast of Africa, transforming a World War II refueling site into a base camp for an oil company.  The deadline is short and morale is low, partially due to the strict work ethic of reformed alcoholic boss Kelly (Walker), whose charges resent his taciturn manner.  With five days to go, the work schedule hits a major snag when young Mac (Urich) is felled by a sudden and mysterious ailment that seems to have been triggered when his DC-9 bulldozer ran into a strange metallic rock.  Mac dies that night, but not before muttering something about "warning" and "blue light" privately to Kelly.  The rest of the men--snide Dennis (Betz), mechanic Chub (Brand), happy-go-lucky Dutch (Wainwright) and young Al (Watson)--take Mac's death hard and are repelled at Kelly's seemingly cold orders to get back to work.  What Kelly is afraid to admit and the others eventually learn is that the 'dozer has been possessed by an alien presence with a real mad-on for the crew.  Impervious to fire, explosives or even an empty gas tank, the 'dozer chases the cast around the island for the rest of the movie, leading to an electrifying finale.

Of course, the concept is as hokey as the campy title implies, but no-nonsense direction by London (who's still active in TV) and the professional cast's wise insistence upon playing straight makes KILLDOZER a lot more watchable than you might think.  None of the actors has much more to do than look suspicious and act frantic, but the old pros pull off the silly proceedings with admirable aplomb, particularly Betz as a snarky jackass.  Gil Melle's score adds some menace, while the teleplay by noted SF author Theodore Sturgeon and Ed MacKillop, based upon Sturgeon's lauded novella (producer Herb Solow lands a confusing "adaptation" credit), conjures up some creative methods for a bulldozer to murder people.  Wainwright was just coming off his shortlived JIGSAW series, whereas Walker (CHEYENNE), Betz (THE DONNA REED SHOW) and Brand (LAREDO) were already well-known television leads.  Urich's first series, BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE, had been cancelled a couple of months earlier.

Believe it or not, I own a Marvel comic book adaptation of KILLDOZER, printed in WORLDS UNKNOWN #6 and carrying a cover date of March/April 1974 (the film aired on ABC in February).  Ostensibly based on Sturgeon's story, "Killdozer", as scripted by Gerry Conway (currently a writer on LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT), drawn by Dick Ayers and Ernie Chan, and edited by Roy Thomas, is a faithful adaptation given a bit more oomph by the movement in the art.  "As seen on TV!" blares the cover blurb.  After conquering print, film and comic books, I can only assume a KILLDOZER video game is on the horizon.

KILLER APE (1953)--Directed by Spencer G. Bennet.  Stars Johnny Weissmuller, Carol Thurston, Nestor Paiva, Max Palmer.  It’s difficult to imagine any of the JUNGLE JIMs being worse than this one.  It’s the pits.  All of them were filmed quickly and cheaply, but Bennet must have been directing with one hand on a stopwatch.  The stock footage is horribly mismatched, the action scenes are unconvincing, and Carroll Young’s screenplay takes the easy way out whenever possible.  For instance, the jungle is threatened by a mythical “man-ape”, an eight-foot mutant spawned from generations of crossbreeding between apes and the native babies they kidnap and raise.  This man-ape (played by pro wrestler Palmer) is impervious to knives and bullets, but Jim’s chimp Tamba stops it by dropping a loose vine on its head.  The pulpy story had promise:  Jungle Jim (Weissmuller) steps in when evil scientists conduct mind-control experiments on jungle wildlife.  In their quest to create a serum that will allow unfriendly nations to brainwash and destroy its enemies, the men led by Andrews (Paiva) test their fatal potion on animals procured innocently for them by a native tribe led by the brother of Shari (Thurston).  Weissmuller’s performance is limp even by his standards, and the oddly chosen stock footage includes old film of men bashing crocodiles over the head with sticks.  The pits.  Also with Michael Fox, Burt Wenland and Ray Corrigan.

THE KILLER ELITE (1975)--Directed by Sam Peckinpah.  Stars James Caan, Robert Duvall, Mako.  Government agent Mike Locken (Caan) is severely wounded and crippled in an assassination attempt by his partner and best friend George Hansen (Duvall), who has taken the cash and gone to the other side.  After months of rehabilitation, Mike returns to active duty and is assigned to protect Chung (Mako), a Chinese politician marked for assassination by a group of ninja led by Hansen.  Male bonding and double-crosses abound in this hired-gun project for Peckinpah, by this time an unemployable rogue allegedly working under the close supervision of United Artists head Mike Medavoy.  The story is overly complicated and the pace overly long, but Peckinpah stages some nice action sequences around interesting San Francisco locations, and Caan's wry performance is very good.  Bo Hopkins and Burt Young (ROCKY) co-star as Caan's new partners, with Arthur Hill and Gig Young properly stoic as his bosses.  Music by Jerry Fielding.

KILLER FORCE (1975)--Directed by Val Guest.  Stars Telly Savalas, Peter Fonda, Maud Adams, Hugh O'Brian, O.J. Simpson, Christopher Lee.  This old-fashioned action melodrama is a bit lacking in the logic and characterization departments, but serves as a decent shoot-'em-up for nondiscriminating adventure fans.  Its overly convoluted plot finds Mike Bradley (Fonda), maverick security guard for a South African diamond exchange, being recruited by his boss to pretend to turn renegade and swipe a diamond, hoping Mike will then be contacted by an outside gang rumored to be planning a hit on the exchange.  Mike does so, making him the adversary of the exchange's brutal head of security Webb (Savalas).  Joining up with Lewis' (O'Brian) gang, which also includes amiable Alexander (Simpson) and dignified assassin Chilton (Lee), Bradley invades the exchange, which can only be reached via an on-foot desert trek lined with alarms and boobytraps.

Shooting in the vast South African desert gives KILLER FORCE a great sense of isolation, while its game cast does its best to add three dimensions to the cartoons they're asked to play.  Unfortunately, none of the characters are sympathetic, especially the "heroes" played by Savalas and Fonda, both of whom turn out to be not exactly guys to root for.  Veteran helmer Guest delivers plenty of bang-bang action and dangerous-looking jeep stunts, which are what this movie is all about anyhow.  And there's something about Georges Garvarentz' pounding disco score that makes me wonder whether I should be taking this movie so seriously.  Co-writer Gerald Sanford worked mainly in American television on series like NIGHT GALLERY.

KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE (1988)--Directed by Stephen Chiodo. Stars Grant Cramer, John Allen Nelson, Suzanne Snyder, John Vernon, Royal Dano. Clever parody of fifties' science fiction. The title creatures attack a small midwestern town. The "killer klowns" (yes, they wear makeup, big shoes, the whole bit...) use goofy prop/weapons to secure humans in cotton candy-like cocoons. Some teenagers discover the invasion, but, of course, are not believed by local law enforcement (represented by sheriff Vernon). Title song performed by the Dickies. The Chiodo Brothers, who also wrote and did the effects for this fun sleeper, brought the '70s classic LAND OF THE LOST back to Saturday morning TV in the 1990s.

KILLER'S DELIGHT (1978)--See THE SPORT KILLER.

KILLERS FROM SPACE (1954)--Directed by W. Lee Wilder. Stars Peter Graves, Steve Pendleton, James Seay. Scientist Graves goes down in a plane crash, and is reported dead. However, he mysteriously reappears alive and well, but with a huge scar on his chest and no memory of how it got there. It turns out Graves has been resurrected and brainwashed by aliens intent on conquering the Earth. The bald aliens have Ping-Pong balls for eyes and wear purple hooded sweat suits. Acting, dialogue and special effects are all terrible. The director's brother is Oscar winner Billy Wilder.

A KILLING AFFAIR (1977)--Directed by Richard C. Sarafian.  Stars Elizabeth Montgomery, O.J. Simpson, Dean Stockwell, Rosalind Cash.  After becoming involved in his fourth fatal shooting in 12 years on the force, Los Angeles beat cop Simpson is given a gold shield and transferred to Homicide, where he's partnered with crack detective Montgomery.  In between shootouts and interrogations, as the duo chases killer Stockwell and his girlfriend all over L.A., they have an affair, which infuriates not only O.J.'s wife (Cash), but also the race-sensitive department.  While the races of the two leads are touched upon in E. Arthur Kean's teleplay, their 14-year age difference is not, and the truth is that Montgomery and Simpson have no chemistry, neither as partners nor as lovers.  AFFAIR looks and plays like an extra-long episode of POLICE STORY (also by executive producer David Gerber), and features a couple of tightly wound action scenes.  Dolph Sweet is very good as their beleaguered boss, and is ably assisted by John P. Ryan, Charles Robinson, Allan Rich, Fred Stuthman and Todd Bridges.  Music by Richard Shores.

THE KILLING KIND (1973)—Directed by Curtis Harrington.  Stars John Savage, Ann Sothern, Cindy Williams, Ruth Roman.  Barely seen in its original release, due to troubled distributor Media Cinema Group, THE KILLING KIND is not exactly the sleazy thriller the investors might have been hoping for.  Harrington’s thoughtful film is a character study of Terry Lambert (Savage), a sexually frustrated young man who returns home after serving two years in prison for participating in a gang rape under the Santa Monica pier.  He moves into the boarding house owned by his mother Thelma (Sothern), who rents primarily to elderly women with the exception of aspiring model Lori (Williams), a tease who arouses Terry’s, um, sensibilities.  What the movie lacks in saleable exploitation, it makes up in icky atmosphere, as the relationship between Terry and his mother, who has always been vague about the identity and whereabouts of his father, as well as the many “uncles” Terry had as a child, is a decidedly bent one.  I found THE KILLING KIND’s pacing a bit languid for my taste, and Savage’s complex performance occasionally goes too far over the edge, but fans of low-key thrillers may find something here to bite into.  Luana Anders, Sue Bernard (FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL!) and Peter Brocco also star.

KILLJOY (1981)--Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey.  Stars Robert Culp, Kim Basinger, John Rubinstein, Stephen Macht, Nancy Marchand.  Sam Rolfe penned this absorbing made-for-TV mystery that won an Edgar for its teleplay and was nominated for an Emmy for Bruce Broughton’s sensitive score.  Pretty Basinger is the key in a love triangle including two physicians:  hothead Macht and mama’s boy Rubinstein.  When Basinger and Macht announce their engagement, Rubinstein convinces her that her new fiancé hasn’t forsaken his playboy past by creating an imaginary girlfriend for him named Joy Morgan.  Basinger buys the ruse, but all three find themselves in trouble when cop Culp pops up investigating her disappearance and possible murder.  How can the police be looking into a missing person who doesn’t exist?  Rolfe’s clever script provides one neat twist after another, although the small cast necessitates that the killer’s identity won’t be too hard to guess.  Culp is captivating as usual the same year he began his regular run on THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO.  Also with Ann Wedgeworth, Ann Dusenberry, Kelly Jean Peters and Arthur Roberts.  On home video as WHO MURDERED JOY MORGAN (sic).

KILLPOINT (1984)--Directed by Frank Harris.  Stars Leo Fong, Cameron Mitchell, Richard Roundtree, Stack Pierce.  Chinese actor Fong is Long, a cop chasing some gunrunners led by vicious Joe Marx (Mitchell), a nutcase who dotes on his poodle, wears flowers in his hair, and babbles incessantly to himself.  Roundtree shows up periodically as Fong's partner; he's got nothing to do, and yet still delivers the film's only good performance.  Mitchell is his usually crazy self, and Pierce as Marx's henchman looks menacing, but is thinly written.  Harris pours on the inept action sequences, some of which were choreographed by Fong.  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.  Crown International actually got this into theaters.  KILLPOINT is pretty bad, which doesn't make me eagerly anticipate LOW BLOW, another Fong/Mitchell action picture.  Also with Hope Holiday, Branscombe Richmond and Bill "Superfoot" Wallace.

KILLSHOT (2009)—Directed by John Madden. Stars Diane Lane, Mickey Rourke, Thomas Jane, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rosario Dawson. The Weinstein Company sat on this thriller for three years before finally sliding it out to video stores in early 2009. I don’t know why Harvey Weinstein thought he couldn’t sell a movie by SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE director John Madden, PULP FICTION producer Lawrence Bender, and story author Elmore Leonard, particularly at the height of star Mickey Rourke’s THE WRESTLER comeback. But I don’t know why Harvey does a lot of things.

KILLSHOT has a very good role for Rourke (looking like George C. Scott in FIRESTARTER) as an Indian hitman named Blackbird, who teams up with an impetuous young punk (Gordon-Levitt) who reminds him of his dead kid brother. His latest target is an estranged married couple, Wayne (Jane) and Carmen (Lane) Colson, who witnessed one of his crimes. One plot point is so mindbogglingly stupid that I can’t believe it could possibly have come from Leonard’s novel, but it manages to extend the chase from Michigan all the way to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where the Colsons are hiding in Witness Protection.

It’s not a great film—for one, it criminally misuses the vivacious Dawson as Gordon-Levitt’s Elvis-loving live-in—and far from top-drawer Leonard, but it’s an effective timewaster with a fine Rourke performance and a high stack of corpses. During the reshoot and re-edit process, Johnny Knoxville as a cop ended up cut out of the movie. Also with Hal Holbrook as a shirtless mobster. Dedicated to the late directors Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack.

KING BOXER (1973)--Directed by Chang Ho Cheng.  Stars Lieh Lo.  Under its American title of FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH, KING BOXER became one of Hong Kong's most popular martial-arts exports.  Warner Brothers released it not long after ENTER THE DRAGON's enormous success.  The story is a pretty simple one:  two rival kung-fu schools, one good and one evil, are to compete in an upcoming martial-arts tournament, which causes the pupils of the bad school to ambush the good pupils in an attempt to keep them out of the competition.  Impatient student Chao Chi-hao (Lieh Lo) gains an advantage after he masters the unstoppable Iron Fist technique, which is punctuated by his hand turning red and Quincy Jones' driving IRONSIDE theme on the soundtrack.  The Shaw Brothers appear to have punched some extra money into Chang's budget, allowing for a lot of thrilling stunts and kung fu action, above-average photography and a decent pace.

KING DINOSAUR (1955)--Directed by Bert I. Gordon. Stars Bill Bryant, Wanda Curtis, Douglas Henderson. Two men and two women rocket to the planet Nova, where they battle giant rear-projected lizards, armadillos, gila monsters and other stock footage from ONE MILLION B.C. There are no dinosaurs. The astronauts explode an atomic bomb. Narrated by Marvin Miller. Written by Tom Gries, who actually went on to a very successful writing/directing career in television and motion pictures, including THE RAT PATROL and 100 RIFLES. Director Gordon's first film. He never got better at it, as viewers of ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE and others will attest.

KING FRAT (1979)--Directed by Ken Wiederhorn. Stars John DiSanti, Charles Pitt, Dan Chandler. A low-budget filmed-in-Florida ANIMAL HOUSE ripoff. Your admiration for this one will depend upon how many jokes about beer, farts, vomiting and all-around tastelessness you can take. Episodic in nature, Wiederhorn's film (with a script by Mark Jackson) is about a fraternity at Yellowsprings College (yes, there's a urination joke there) populated with misfits, drunks, reprobates and party animals that is constantly battling with a fellow frat manned by uptight preppies, tormenting the dean and spying on sorority girls in various stages of undress. There's a corpse-napping, a costume party featuring a girl dressed as Lady Godiva, an inflatable doll, some offensive Native American stereotyping, a farting contest for money, a guy in a gorilla suit and lots of beer-drinking. As silly as it all is (and as crude as the technical credits are), I have to admit I kind of enjoyed KING FRAT; it's completely unoriginal and predictable, the students are at least a decade too old, the acting is mostly broad and sometimes amateurish, but there's a certain cheekiness in the proceedings that's easy to admire in the overly PC 1990s. KING FRAT is a movie that could never be made today--at least not with Hollywood financing and distribution--and whether or not the movie's any good, that's too bad. Also with Dan Fitzgerald, Mike Grabow, Roy Sekoff and Suzina Volpina. Music by Red Neinkirchen(!)

KING KONG (1933)--Directed by Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack.  Stars Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot.  Nothing less than one of cinema’s greatest adventures.  The story should be well familiar to you:  a ship carrying brash filmmaker Carl Denham (Armstrong) and ingénue Ann Darrow (Wray) anchors near mysterious Skull Island, where no white man has ever set foot.  There they discover natives who worship the mighty Kong and offer a kidnapped Ann for sacrifice.  Kong is, of course, a 20-foot-tall gorilla who takes a screaming Ann back to his home, stopping to fight several dinosaurs and other giant monsters along the way.  First mate Jack Driscoll (Cabot) rescues Ann, and Denham uses gas to subdue Kong and take him back to New York City to display as “The Eighth Wonder of the World”.  Startling special effects by Willis O’Brien include stop-motion animation, mattes, glass paintings, miniatures and other pioneering techniques, some of which are still used to some extent.  Max Steiner’s driving score punctuates the action, and few film climaxes are as memorable as Kong’s tumble off the Empire State Building.  RKO made a ton of money off KING KONG, and it was re-released several times to further acclaim.  Universal remade it in 1976 and again in 2005.

KING KONG (1976)--Directed by John Guillermin.  Stars Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin, Jessica Lange.  No one could ever have predicted the trajectory of Lange's career based on her vapid performance here, her first film.  As dippy movie starlet Dwan, Lange is saddled with probably the worst dialogue (penned by Lorenzo Semple, Jr.) of her career and comes off looking like a breathy semi-finalist in a Marilyn Monroe lookalike contest.  No, she can't take all the blame for her poor performance or the movie's reputation, but it's probably no coincidence that she didn't appear in another film until 1979.

Ruthlessly ripped by critics of the day, KING KONG was regarded as a monumental flop, despite a reported box-office intake nearly four times its budget.  Semple's story is pretty close to that of the 1933 original:  an oil expedition financed by the Petrox Corporation and led by venal Fred Wilson (Grodin) travels by ship to Skull Island, where Wilson believes petroleum is to be found.  Also aboard is stowaway Jack Prescott (Bridges), a hippie primatologist, and Dwan, a shipwreck survivor found floating in a rubber raft who is eventually kidnapped by the island's native populace and sacrificed to their god, a giant ape named Kong.  How large Kong actually is is difficult to say, since the scale often changes from scene to scene and even shot to shot.  Despite the millions of dollars spent by producer Dino de Laurentiis and special effects technician Carlo Rambaldi on a life-size animatronic Kong, Rick Baker plays the beast in 98% of the movie in a monkey suit.  Kong is, of course, eventually captured by Wilson and returned to New York, where the big ape escapes and flees to the top of the then-new World Trade Center.

Obviously, Guillermin's remake is nowhere near the majestic quality of RKO's original KONG, but it isn't as bad as you've heard either.  Grodin seems to be the only actor in the film who knows how silly the film is, and brings a much-needed comic spin to his snarling villain.  Bridges and Lange sadly overplay the earnestness of their roles, which doesn't, thankfully, get in the way of the adventure elements, such as they are.  The concept is such a good one that not even de Laurentiis can screw it up, and if your taste in movies about giant property-destroying apes is not too discriminating, you might find enough to enjoy here.  John Barry's score is very good, and small roles by Rene Auberjonois, John Randolph, Dennis Fimple, Ed Lauter, Julius Harris, Jack O'Halloran and John Agar are pleasureable.  KING KONG is also responsible for one of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' most embarrassing gaffes, awarding Rambaldi's crew a Special Achievement Academy Award for visual effects that consist of little more than Baker's ape suit jumping around miniature sets.

KING KONG (2005)--Directed by Peter Jackson.  Stars Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody.  KONG fan Jackson’s dream came true:  someone gave him $207 million to shoot his own 187-minute remake of his favorite film.  I don’t believe any movie about a giant killer monkey needs to be three hours, and there’s a really good two-hour adventure buried beneath all the fat.  The storyline is the same as the previous two KONGs:  maverick filmmaker Carl Denham (Black) recruits Jack Driscoll (Brody)--a screenwriter in this version--and blond ingénue Ann Darrow (Watts) to accompany him aboard a ship bound for the mysterious Skull Island, where the crew encounters a lost civilization that worships a 40-foot ape called Kong.

Jackson obviously doesn’t believe that Less Is More.  For instance, where Kong fights a pterodactyl in the 1933 movie, Jackson has him fight an enormous swarm of killer bats.  A subplot involving a young stowaway and his friendship with the dignified black first mate goes nowhere, and a plethora of niggling plotholes and inconsistencies keep one from being fully absorbed into Jackson’s period setting.  On the plus side, Watts sparkles as Ann.  I’m fully convinced that, if a giant ape were to fall in love with a human female, she would be Naomi Watts.  The visual effects are mostly excellent. I'm not a CGI enthusiast, but the matte renderings of 1933 New York City are wonderful, and I have nothing but praise for the exciting biplane climax.

What Jackson needed was a strong producer capable of reining in the director’s self-indulgence.  KONG’s pacing problems are a result of “too-much-itis”.  Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack, who directed the classic 1933 KING KONG, filmed a spider pit scene, but removed it, because it added nothing to the story and slowed down the narrative.  As it does in Jackson’s version, but the enthusiastic director left it in anyway, because, well, because he could, I suppose.  Whenever the story gets a full head of steam going, Jackson throws in some extraneous slow-motion or cuts to a subplot we could care less about.  The parts of KING KONG that work really work well, but the film’s length and relentlessness work against it.  Also with Thomas Kretchmann, Colin Hanks, Evan Parke, Andy Serkis, Jamie Bell and Kyle Chandler.  Original composer Howard Shore appears as a conductor; ironically, Jackson fired Shore and replaced him with James Newton Howard, whose drab music can scarcely be heard beneath the caterwauling and sound effects.

KING KONG ESCAPES (1967)--Directed by Ishiro Honda.  Stars Rhodes Reason, Linda Miller, Eisei Amamoto, Mie Hama, Akira Takarada.  Inspired by a Saturday-morning cartoon, this Toho monster mash plays much like a spy movie.  Square-jawed sub commander Carl Nelson (Rhodes Reason), an American nurse (Linda Miller) and a Japanese cohort (Akira Takarada) take a cool flying sub to Mondo Island, where they discover Kong. Meanwhile, evil villain Dr. Who (Eisei Amamoto) is in cahoots with the sexy Madame X (Mie Hama again), an agent from an unnamed Communist power, who wants the radioactive Element X.  Who builds a 60-foot King Kong robot to mine Element X (“the strongest thing there is in the world today”), which will ensure Madame’s country nuclear domination.  The damn thing doesn’t work though, so Dr. Who kidnaps the real Kong and hypnotizes him into doing Who’s bidding.  Before you know it, Kong and the newly refurbished robot Kong are fighting atop the Tokyo Tower.

Toho and director Honda joined forces with Rankin/Bass, producers of animated TV specials like FROSTY THE SNOWMAN, which resulted in ubiquitous American voice artist Paul Frees dubbing nearly every male actor in the film.  That’s okay, it just adds to the fun, which includes Kong fighting a dinosaur and a giant sea snake and Nelson’s bunch being kidnapped to Who’s Arctic lair, where the megalomaniac commands an army of jumpsuit-wearing henchmen.  Akira Ifukube’s majestic score adds much-needed gravitas to the rubber-monster cage matches.  If the busy Mie Hama looks familiar, it’s because she played one of Sean Connery’s Japanese lovers, Kissy Suzuki, in the James Bond adventure You Only Live Twice the same year.

KING KONG VS. GODZILLA (1962)--Directed by Ishiro Honda.  Stars Michael Keith, Mie Hama, Harry Holcombe, Tadao Takashima, Kenji Sahara, Yu Fujiki.  KKVG is perhaps most notable for marking the big ape’s second appearance on the big screen and first in nearly thirty years.  In retrospect, it seems amazing that America’s foremost movie monster never returned in a sequel (admittedly, the final scene of the 1933 KING KONG would have made it difficult, but, in Hollywood, a dollar sign always seems to trump dramatics).  Instead, RKO lent Kong out to Toho and special effects craftsman Eiji Tsuburaya, who eschewed Willis O’Brien’s painstaking stop-motion techniques for stuntmen in rubber suits stomping miniature cities and countrysides.

Some dopes in a nuclear submarine accidentally crash it into an iceberg, releasing Godzilla from his frozen prison.  The Big G beats feet for Tokyo, where he resumes his normal practice of stomping the city into matchsticks.  Meanwhile, a pharmaceutical company looking for a way to improve its television show’s ratings sends two dudes to Pharaoh Island, where it is rumored the natives offer non-addictive hallucinogenic berries to the mythical beast they worship.  The natives capture the drug-company flunkies, who win them over by offering a radio that plays crummy J-Pop and giving cigarettes to the children.  Sure enough, Kong is there too.  After defeating a giant octopus in battle, he chugs some berry juice and passes out long enough for the expedition team to strap him to a raft and pull him back to Japan.  Unsurprisingly, this turns out to be a bad idea, resulting in Kong’s explosive escape, his destruction of much of Tokyo, and an epic battle royal with Godzilla at Mt. Fuji.

Besides the lovely Mie Hama, who wallows in a large mockup of a monkey’s paw in the role of Kong’s love interest, the human actors don’t make much of an impact under Ishiro Honda’s direction, not that we really need them to when giant monsters are kicking the crap out of each other.  KKVG was made before Toho’s kaiju movies got really silly (we’re getting to that), so there is a bit of political subtext concerning the possible use of nuclear weapons against the monsters--an interesting point in a Japanese production made less than twenty years after Hiroshima.

THE KING OF COMEDY (1983)--Directed by Martin Scorsese. Stars Robert DeNiro, Sandra Bernhard, Jerry Lewis, Shelley Hack, Diahnne Abbott. Uncomfortable but engrossing character study of Rupert Pupkin (DeNiro), a stand-up comic wannabe who dreams of appearing on Jerry Langford's (Lewis) late-night talk show. He has even built a replica of Langford's set in his basement, where Pupkin sits and chats with a cardboard cutout of his idol. After doing everything possible to get a guest shot to no avail, Pupkin and his friend (Bernhard) resort to kidnapping Langford. It's one of DeNiro's best performances; his Rupert is obnoxious, pushy, sick, and despicable, yet we still sympathize with him in his pursuit of his dreams. Lewis is excellent as the Johnny Carson-like TV star; his performance surprised a lot of critics. Written by former TIME film critic Paul Zimmerman. Tony Randall, Dr. Joyce Brothers and Victor Borge have cameos.

THE KING OF KONG: A FISTFUL OF QUARTERS (2007)—Directed by Seth Gordon.  Stars Billy Mitchell, Steve Wiebe.  Although videogames have matured a thousand-fold since the early days of charmingly simple arcade coin-ops like Pac-Man, Q-Bert and Donkey Kong, many of the men who grew up playing those games have not.  That’s one thing you’ll take away from THE KING OF KONG: A FISTFUL OF QUARTERS, an entertaining, even suspenseful documentary about the battle for the Donkey Kong world record.

I was amused to learn that Hollywood has commissioned a screenplay to turn this documentary into a narrative film, since much of what occurs is either unbelievable or clichéd in the style of a 1980s teen movie.  It even presents a too-convenient rivalry (how much of it was created though editing, who knows?) between a soft-spoken dweeb of a hero and a Machiavellian villain of great charisma.

Billy Mitchell, oozing arrogance through every hair in his long dark mane, is regarded as the world’s top player of classic arcade games—a legend that began when he achieved the highest Donkey Kong score during a LIFE magazine shoot in 1982.  Since then, he’s become a restaurateur, a hot-sauce magnate and a hero to a generation of nerds who appear to literally worship the ground on which he walks.

Suddenly, here comes Steve Wiebe, a regular family man with a run of bad luck that includes getting laid off the day he and his wife signed the papers on their new house.  With a lot of time on his hands, he begins playing the Donkey Kong machine stashed in his garage, and discovers that he’s good at it.  Really good.  Good enough to shatter Mitchell’s record, a feat he captures on videotape and ships off to Twin Galaxies, the self-proclaimed Elias Sports Bureau of classic arcade gaming.

In the interest of suspense (the film really does play like a light thriller at times), I won’t say much more, except that the sycophants that surround Twin Galaxies are so heartbroken to discover their idol’s main claim to fame, which Mitchell appears to have been living off of for 25 years, is in tatters that they appear to work overtime to have Wiebe’s record discounted.  Some outside characters, such as super-geek Brian Kuh, who sneaks around with a cell phone updating Billy on Steve’s game-playing (you expect him to call Mitchell “boss”), are alternately fascinating and somewhat pathetic in their devotion to videogames and to Billy Mitchell’s legend.  You’ll be amazed at the high-school-clique mentality these guys still live by; one of them calls Billy at home when Wiebe “uninvitingly” comes into Mitchell’s restaurant for lunch.

Unlike me, director Gordon never condescends to his subjects and for good reason.  Even though they’re playing videogames regarded by most of us as quaint in the days of the Wii and online gaming, Mitchell and Wiebe and the rest of them are no less than the best in the entire world at what they do.  And that deserves some respect.

THE KING OF THE KICKBOXERS (1991)—Directed by Lucas Lowe.  Stars Loren Avedon, Billy Blanks, Keith Cooke, Sherrie Rose.  Martial arts master Avedon is a terrible actor, leading to some unintentionally funny scenes, but he handles himself in the ring just fine.  Better yet, director Lowe manages to stage some truly thrilling fights that show off the action abilities of Avedon, Cooke and Blanks very well indeed.  The plot is the same as every other kickboxing movie you’ve seen:  ten years after evil Khan (Blanks) murdered his kickboxing champion brother, Jake Donahue (Avedon), now a cop, is assigned to assist Interpol in stopping a snuff film ring in Bangkok.  When Jake learns Khan is involved, he takes the first flight to Thailand and ends up training with Prang (Cooke), the only fighter ever to almost beat Khan.  Richard Jaeckel (then on BAYWATCH) and Don Stroud pick up quick paychecks as Jake’s cop boss and Interpol contact, respectively, but the fighting actors are the stars of this production.  The final bout between Blanks and Avedon appears influenced by MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME.  It would have been nice if Lowe could have gotten better actors, because Avedon’s clumsy posturing makes him a downright unlikable hero and Blanks looks and acts like a Saturday morning cartoon.  The movie was also released as NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER 4, an association with a nothing franchise that probably did this solid action movie no favors.

KING OF THE KICKBOXERS II (1991)--See AMERICAN SHAOLIN: KING OF THE KICKBOXERS II.

KING OF THE ROCKETMEN (1949)--Directed by Fred Brannon. Stars Tris Coffin, Mae Clarke. The evil Dr. Vulcan threatens to destroy New York City with his decimator ray unless the mayor pays him a billion dollars. When the mayor refuses to comply, Vulcan attacks the city with an earthquake and a tidal wave. Coffin puts on a diving helmet and a rocket-propelled suit, and saves the city. Republic Studios took the concept one step further with the Commando Cody serials. Like in most of Republic's best chapterplays, Dave Sharpe, Eddie Parker and Tom Steele performed the stunts. Disney updated the premise with 1990's THE ROCKETEER. Clarke played the woman who got a close look at Jimmy Cagney's grapefruit in 1933's PUBLIC ENEMY.

KING OF THE ZOMBIES (1941)—Directed by Jean Yarbrough.  Stars Dick Purcell, Henry Victor, Joan Woodbury, John Archer, Mantan Moreland.  The only Monogram picture to ever receive an Academy Award nomination, that for Edward Kay’s original score.  There’s gotta be some kind of weird story behind that.  Three men—pilot Purcell, agent Archer and Purcell’s black manservant Moreland—crashland their plane on Victor’s private island.  He appears kindly and invites the men to stay in his mansion until help can arrive, but it doesn’t take long for Moreland to become suspicious after he sees zombies shambling around the house.  Mantan is the best thing about this movie, and although his character and performance have earned cries of protest from those who see racism, it should be said that he is funnier than the other actors and his character is the first to catch on to his host’s sinister plans.  Despite its lofty pedigree as an Oscar nominee (ahem), KING OF THE ZOMBIES is not a good picture, though Moreland and Yarbrough’s sometimes clever direction make it a watchable one.  Barely.

KING SOLOMON'S MINES (1985)--Directed by J. Lee Thompson. Stars Richard Chamberlain, Sharon Stone, John Rhys-Davies, Herbert Lom. Soldier of fortune Chamberlain is hired by cute Stone to find her missing father, who has been kidnapped by Nazis searching for a fortune in hidden diamonds. Thompson keeps the pace moving right along, but is hampered by a low budget, stilted acting and too much similarity to the RAIDERS movies. Chamberlain just doesn't cut it as a macho action star. Filmed by Cannon in South Africa back-to-back with its sequel ALLAN QUATERMAIN AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD. Who would have predicted after this that Stone would become a box-office superstar? Music by Jerry Goldsmith.

KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS (1977)--Directed by John "Bud" Cardos. Stars William Shatner, Tiffany Bolling, Woody Strode, John McLiam. Not as bad as it sounds. Chemical pesticides cause thousands of tarantulas to go mad and attack the residents of a tiny Arizona town. Veterinarian Shatner and blond bimbo scientist Bolling try to stop them. They don't. Cardos does manage a few moments of suspense with a basically silly premise, and there's a twist ending. Also with Sammy Davis Jr.'s wife Altovise and Shatner's wife Marcy Lafferty. Some of the incidental music was used on TV's THE FUGITIVE.

KINGPIN (1996)--Directed by Peter & Bobby Farrelly. Stars Woody Harrelson, Bill Murray, Vanessa Angel, Randy Quaid. Surprisingly funny gross-out film that is still difficult to recommend. I say that because much of the humor is disgustingly crude, and is definitely not to everyone's taste. I laughed more than I thought I would after watching the film's trailers, but beware. Woody is Roy Munson, a former state champion bowler whose pro career was cut short after his bowling hand was chopped off. His life is on the skids--he's a terrible salesman of bowling alley supplies, he drives a beat-up convertible and he's forced to have sex with his repulsive landlady when he can't pay the rent--until he discovers a goofy Amish lad (Quaid) with an impressive scoring average. Teaming up, the two travel across the country to compete in a Reno bowling tournament where the winner receives $1,000,000. Along the way, they meet up with a gangster's girlfriend, the spectacularly sexy Claudia (played by spectacularly sexy WEIRD SCIENCE star Angel), and get to Reno in time to bowl against Munson's old '70s rival Ernie McCracken (Murray), who was also responsible for the loss of Munson's hand. KINGPIN contains more vomit, sex, drug and bodily function jokes than you can shake a cow's udder at (not surprisingly considering the Farrellys' previous film was DUMB AND DUMBER), but if you can survive much of the junior-high level humor, you may find this a pleasant surprise. Also with Chris Elliott, sportscaster Chris Schenkel and Boston Red Sox pitcher Roger Clemens!

KINGS AND DESPERATE MEN (1983)--Directed by Alexis Kanner. Stars Patrick McGoohan, Alexis Kanner, Andrea Marcovicci, Margaret Trudeau. Awful thriller about a Canadian radio talk-show host (McGoohan) and his wife (Trudeau) who are taken hostage by a band of terrorists, led by a history professor played by director Kanner. McGoohan does what he can, but the confusing script makes little sense, and Kanner's direction is disjointed and uneven. Kanner, who played one of the many Number Twos on McGoohan's THE PRISONER series, also served as the film's writer, producer, editor and cinematographer!

KINJITE: FORBIDDEN SUBJECTS (1989)--Directed by J. Lee Thompson.  Stars Charles Bronson, Juan Fernandez, Amy Hathaway, James Pax.  Bronson's swan song for Cannon was this sleazy crime drama set in Los Angeles.  He plays Crowe (Bronson), a tough Vice detective whose day-to-day interaction with pimps, prostitutes, child molesters and teenage runaways threatens to bleed over into his comfortable home life with wife Kathy (Lipton) and 15-year-old daughter Rita (Hathaway).  His current case involves a 14-year-old Japanese girl who was kidnapped by a sleazy rapist pimp named Duke (Fernandez).  What Crowe doesn't know--and that the movie fails to capitalize on--is that the girl's father (Pax) is the same man who felt up Rita one night on a bus.  

Eager to wallow in the seamy underbelly of rape, revenge and underage sex, KINJITE isn't as much fun as the rest of Bronson's Cannon canon and might make you crave a shower.  Thompson's steady directorial hand (this was the last of his 49 films, nine with Bronson) ensures a professional look and capable action sequences, although it's clear Bronson, at age 68, has slowed a step or two.  KINJITE also shows signs of post-production hassles; Pax's character starts off as an equal of Crowe's in concentration and screen time, yet his plot goes bye-bye about the time his daughter is snatched, and even though Rita later recognizes him as her assailant, she keeps mum, and the story fails to follow through.

As if the subject matter isn't grimy enough, KINJITE also feature a scene in which Bronson sodomizes a john with a sex toy and another in which he tosses a suspect into a cell to be raped.  Other Bronson films featured a surprising amount of sleaze--10 TO MIDNIGHT and THE EVIL THAT MEN DO come to mind--but this may be the most graphic of all.  Peggy Lipton, whose film appearances following THE MOD SQUAD's cancellation were scarce, looks gorgeous as Bronson's wife, while second-billed Perry Lopez (CHINATOWN), Sy Richardson, Bill McKinney, Kumiko Hayakawa, Marion Yodama Yue and Alex Hyde-White appear in support.  16-year-old Nicole Eggert's (BAYWATCH) appearance in sexy underwear may raise an eyebrow, and look closely for NYPD BLUE's Bill Brochtrup as a hairdresser and Danny Trejo (SPY KIDS) as, what else, a convict.  Greg DeBelles composed the blah synth score.  Scripter Harold Nebenzal's previous credit was 1975's THE WILBY CONSPIRACY.

After an acclaimed supporting role in the Sean Penn-directed THE INDIAN RUNNER, Bronson made his final (to date) feature-film appearance in DEATH WISH V: THE FACE OF DEATH.  He continued to play cops in TV-movies, including DONATO & DAUGHTER (based on a good novel) opposite Dana Delany and three FAMILY OF COPS movies, until 1999.  Since then, Bronson seems to have retired to a Pennsylvania farm with his third wife amid rumors of ill health and Alzheimer's disease.

A KISS BEFORE DYING (1991)--Directed by James Dearden. Stars Matt Dillon, Sean Young. Remake of Gerd Oswald's 1956 thriller starring Robert Wagner and Joanne Woodward suffers from lackluster acting by the leads. Dillon is the cad who tosses nice girlfriend Young through a skylight, then begins stalking her twin sister! Also with Max von Sydow and Diane Ladd.

KISS KISS BANG BANG (2005)--Directed by Shane Black.  Stars Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan.  KISS KISS BANG BANG is the brainchild of Shane Black, one of cinema’s most controversial figures of the 1990’s.  After penning LETHAL WEAPON, Black became Hollywood’s most highly-paid screenwriter, eventually pulling in an unprecedented $4 million for THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT.  KISS KISS BANG BANG is the result of a script Black had shopped around the studios for several years with no takers.  He was told there was too much talking in it, that he couldn’t make an action movie with a gay lead character.  Finally, with LETHAL WEAPON producer Joel Silver agreeing to oversee production, Warner Brothers allowed Black to direct his screenplay, but with a mere $15 million budget and a 35-day shooting schedule.

It’s loosely based on BODIES ARE WHERE YOU FIND THEM, Brett Halliday’s 1941 novel about red-haired Miami detective Mike Shayne, who wakes up one morning to find a dead girl in his bed.  It’s safe to say that little of Halliday’s plot remains intact in Black’s screenplay, but the grand tradition of the hard-boiled detective who finds himself treading water in an ever-expanding and increasingly confusing murder plot gets a helluva workout.  Black even uses titles of Raymond Chandler novels to dot his movie’s chapters.

Our narrator is Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.), a New York petty thief running from the cops who accidentally stumbles into a cattle call for actors to star in producer Dabney Shaw’s (Larry Miller) new action movie and ends up in Los Angeles with a spacious hotel suite, a screen test and an invitation to a swanky party.  There he meets Perry Van Shrike (Val Kilmer), more generally known as Gay Perry--uh, ’cause he’s gay and all--a private eye assigned to escort Harry on his latest case so the fledgling actor can bone up on his upcoming role as a detective.

The teaming of Downey and Kilmer plays like a post-modern perversion of Black’s LETHAL WEAPON formula, an acerbic attack on the partners-who-hate-each-other-but-grow-into-mutual-respect routine we’re all sick of.  Not only are Harry and Perry madly mismatched, but they also talk a mile a minute, usually about nothing much.  Insults, pop culture references, Perry’s sex life, subversive swipes at the movie they both know they’re in--no subject is off-limits for these two motormouths.  Both performers are terrific, and it says a lot about Michelle Monaghan (MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III), who joins the party as Harmony, a struggling actress from Harry’s Indiana hometown who falls conveniently (perhaps…too conveniently…) into the storyline, that she is able to keep up with them. 

Writer/director Black is more interested in his oddball characters than in his plot, which, like THE BIG LEBOWSKI, we’re obviously not to take very seriously.  The night after the party, Perry and Harry are tailing whom they believe to be the mistress of the husband of Perry’s client, when a car with the corpse of a murdered young woman sails over their head and into a lake (that‘s right…a lady in the lake).  Thus begins Black’s wildly complex detective sendup.  Seedy L.A. types like wealthy former actor Harlan Dexter (Corbin Bernsen!) and the mysterious Pink Hair Girl (Shannyn Sossamon) glide between Harry’s and Perry’s bon mots, and sharp pangs of comic violence (usually with Harry as a victim) threaten to remind one of PULP FICTION. 

Black is no Quentin Tarantino, and that’s to KISS KISS BANG BANG’s credit.  Even though the movie is ultimately less than substantial, that appears to be part of the central joke; countless references to a fictional literary detective named Jonny Gossamer is the proof.  In fact, everything is presented as a gag, including Downey’s narration, in which Harry makes it perfectly clear that he’s a character in a movie.  What’s clear to us is that it’s a damn good movie.  Also with Dash Mihok, Rockmond Dunbar (PRISON BREAK), Angela Lindvall and Evan Parke.  Music by John Ottman.

KISS KISS…KILL KILL (1966)—Directed by Gianfranco Parolini.  Stars Tony Kendall, Brad Harris, Maria Perschy, Jacques Bezard.  Kendall and Harris were something of a team along the lines of Redford and Newman, I suppose.  They starred together in several European adventure movies, including at least seven based upon a series of German spy novels featuring a character called Kommissar X.  I don’t remember anyone in KISS KISS…KILL KILL being referred to as “Commissioner X,” but Kendall stars as Joe Walker, an American private eye who teams up to solve cases with his friend and rival, Joe Rowland, a policeman on special assignment.  Walker is hired by a gorgeous woman to find her missing brother, while Rowland looks into a series of murders in which the victims are rich white guys who get blown up.  Both paths lead to Oberon (Bezard), a megalomaniac with a private island full of gold bars, henchmen in red turtlenecks and a harem of sexy hypnotized women.  The zonked-out chicks are practically the only ones not falling over themselves to make out with Walker, who quite frankly is kind of an obnoxious creep.  As a requisite ‘60s Bond ripoff, KISS KISS has plenty of fights, machine guns, babes with bare midriffs and an exploding underground headquarters.  It’s quite entertaining if you can accept the sometimes brutal English dubbing (of the Italian/West German production) and the pan-and-scan presentation on Retromedia’s DVD.

KISS ME DEADLY (1955)--Directed by Robert Aldrich. Stars Ralph Meeker, Maxine Cooper, Albert Dekker, Wesley Addy, Gaby Rodgers. Aldrich's cult film noir stars Meeker as Mickey Spillane's famous private eye Mike Hammer. Very violent thriller puts Hammer and faithful secretary Velda (Cooper) in the middle of a plot involving a murdered hitchhiker, an FBI cover-up, and a suitcase containing a nuclear bomb. Was a major influence on the French New Wave with its bizarre camera tricks and quick editing. Aldrich keeps the film moving at a jackhammer pace, and Meeker gives an interesting performance, turning Spillane's action hero into a brutal anti-hero. Also with great supporting actors Cloris Leachman, Jack Elam, Percy Helton and Strother Martin.

KISS ME GOODBYE (1982)--Directed by Robert Mulligan. Stars Sally Field, James Caan, Jeff Bridges, Paul Dooley. Lighthearted romantic farce about a widow (Field) set to marry a straight-laced lawyer (Bridges) who is wooed by the ghost of her charming choreographer husband (Caan). Caan and Bridges highlight this breezy fluff. Charlie Peters (PATERNITY) scripted this remake of a Brazilian comedy.

KISS MEETS THE PHANTOM OF THE PARK (1978)--Directed by Gordon Hessler.  Stars KISS (Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley, Paul Stanley, Peter Criss), Anthony Zerbe.  It’s hard to believe that something this crazy actually aired in prime time on network television.  Considering how popular the rock band KISS was at the time, the ratings were probably quite high.  Hanna-Barbera produced this live-action campfest about a mad scientist named Abner Devereaux (Zerbe) who is fired from his job creating thrill rides and robots for the Magic Mountain amusement park.  To gain revenge, he kidnaps KISS, who are playing some concerts at the park, and replaces them with evil KISS robot doubles that are programmed to incite the teenage crowd to riot and destroy the place.  Using their superpowers (!), which gain their strength through some magic amulets that are kept near the band at all times, KISS escapes from Devereaux’s cage and destroys their doppelgangers with a few well-placed laser blasts and karate chops.  Earlier in the film, KISS is ambushed by an army of white robot werewolves that instigate a wild kung fu battle.  It all plays like a SCOOBY-DOO episode, and all of the dialogue is post-synched (Criss’ voice was dubbed by Michael Bell when the drummer refused to show up for looping).  It’s a very silly movie that will probably leave you slack-jawed, maybe more so when you learn that it actually played in theaters overseas as ATTACK OF THE PHANTOMS (there are no phantoms at all in this movie).  Deborah Ryan and Terry Lester (ARK II) plays the romantic leads.  Also with Carmine Caridi, John Dennis Johnston, Lisa Jane Persky, Brion James and The Real Don Steele.  From the director of SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN.

KISS OF DEATH (1995)--Directed by Barbet Schroeder. Stars David Caruso, Nicolas Cage, Samuel L. Jackson, Helen Hunt, Michael Rapaport. Schroeder's remake of the 1947 film noir classic (Richard Widmark's screen debut) suffers from a disjointed screenplay by acclaimed novelist Richard Price. Caruso, in his first film after his controversial departure from TV's NYPD BLUE, plays small-time car thief Jimmy Kilmartin, a basically decent guy who, after serving time in prison, just wants to live a normal life with his wife (Hunt) and baby daughter. He is talked into one more heist by his sleazy cousin (Rapaport), and ends up back in Sing Sing. There he is convinced by detective Jackson to go undercover in order to inform on a small-time New York mobster (Cage). Caruso shows he has big screen presence in his first film lead, and Cage is convincing, but Price's script just doesn't hang together. It seems as though it takes forever for Caruso and Cage to get together. From the director of REVERSAL OF FORTUNE. Price also scripted 1986's THE COLOR OF MONEY.

KISS OF THE DRAGON (2001)--Directed by Chris Nahon. Stars Jet Li, Bridget Fonda, Tcheky Karyo, Burt Kwouk. Asian superstar Jet Li's third American feature is a violent, incomprehensible dud. Beijing cop Liu Jian (Li), on loan to brutal French detective Richard (Karyo), is framed in Paris for the murder of a Chinese gangster. The framer is Richard, whose policeman goons appear to be the only cops in the entire city. I'm not sure why Richard killed the mobster or why he had to frame Jian for it, but after a conspicuous shootout in a fancy hotel, Jian (mockingly called "Johnny" by Richard) finds himself on the run. Holing up in a shrimp shop owned by his uncle Tai (Kwouk, Inspector Clouseau's sidekick in the PINK PANTHER series), Jian, through an eye-rolling coincidence, meets a North Dakotan (!) prostitute named Jessica (Fonda), who was a witness to the murder of which Jian is accused. Together, they attempt to rescue Jessica's young daughter, who has been kidnapped by Richard, and clear Jian's name.

One thing is for sure--Nahon and writer/producer Luc Besson (LA FEMME NIKITA) haven't skimped on the violence. Blood pours from facial orifices, bodies are cut in half, bones crack loudly. Too bad the many fight scenes are so poorly directed. It's a common complaint about today's action movies, but first-time director Nahon stupidly cuts too quickly and swirls his camera so distractingly that we have trouble following the action. Jet Li is a special effect himself--just bolt the camera to the floor and let him go. Nahon also manages to waste his Parisian locations by filming everything in back alleys or indoor sets.

KISS's other main fault is its clunky screenplay by Besson and Robert Mark Kamen (THE KARATE KID) that never makes any sense. Not only are Richard's men the only police officers we see, but also they don't even seem to want to hide their corruption. They have no compunctions about mowing down innocent bystanders in their effort to nail Jian, and don't even bother to hide their faces. It's hard to tell if Fonda is even trying, since her character is so poorly conceived. Karyo (THE PATRIOT) glowers and rants in a standard heavy performance. Li is cool and charismatic, but hasn't shown yet he has the personality of Bruce Lee or even Jackie Chan. With a better script and more flattering direction though, Li could certainly make waves in this country like he has back home.

KISS THE GIRLS (1997)--Directed by Gary Fleder. Stars Morgan Freeman, Ashley Judd, Cary Elwes. Based upon James Patterson's best-selling novel, this serial-killer thriller features one of the dumbest climaxes in recent memory. It's a whodunit concerning a psycho calling himself Casanova, who kidnaps beautiful young girls and holds them hostage in a secret dungeon, where he forces them to play music while naked. Judd is a kickboxing medical intern who manages to escape Casanova's lair, and teams up with police psychologist Freeman to catch the killer. The two leads are very good (too good for this material), and Fleder does manage to build suspense here and there, but the screenplay has too many holes, and the revelation of Casanova's identity is too silly. There's never any motivation given for his actions, nor any clues to his identity; it's as though the filmmakers tossed all the characters' names into a hat, with the character drawn made into the killer. Features Jeremy Piven, Alex McArthur and Gregg Henry.

KISS THE GIRLS AND MAKE THEM DIE (1966)--Directed by Henry Levin.  Stars Mike Connors, Raf Vallone, Dorothy Provine, Terry-Thomas.  This silly Italian co-production plays more like a ripoff of Dean Martin’s Matt Helm than James Bond.  Connors, just before starting his successful seven-season run as TV’s wisecracking private eye Joe Mannix, plays wisecracking CIA agent Kelly, who teams up with sexy British spy Provine to stop megalomaniac Vallone’s evil plot of world domination.  Vallone plans to zap the Earth with a satellite ray that’ll make the male species sterile and ensure repopulation with his own private harem of hotties.  Some of the process work and special effects are dodgy, and Levin’s campy approach doesn’t allow the audience to take any of the jeopardy seriously.  Terry-Thomas backs up Connors as a veddy proper British chauffeur with a gadget-filled Rolls Royce.  Filmed on location in Rio de Janeiro.  Levin went on to direct one of the Matt Helm movies, THE AMBUSHERS.

KITTEN WITH A WHIP (1964)--Directed by Douglas Heyes. Stars Ann-Margret, John Forsythe, Peter Brown. A now well-known camp classic, thanks to its skewing by Mike and the 'bots on MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000. Ann-Margret is powerfully erotic as tough-talking bad girl Judy, who knifes her way out of juvie hall, and ends up breaking into the home of repressed local politician Forsythe. She seduces him, and then blackmails him into driving her and her juvenile-delinquent pals (including Brown) to Tijuana. Features tons of ripe dialogue, Ann-Margret in tight pants, and Richard Anderson. Heyes wrote and directed some of the best episodes of MAVERICK and TWILIGHT ZONE, and created ALIAS SMITH AND JONES.

THE KLANSMAN (1974)--Directed by Terence Young.  Stars Lee Marvin, Richard Burton, O.J. Simpson, Lola Falana, Cameron Mitchell, Linda Evans.  Samuel Fuller was the original writer and director of this notoriously tasteless racial melodrama, but was dumped by the studio in favor of ex-Bond director Young (DR. NO).  As with Paramount’s later MANDINGO, THE KLANSMAN was based on a novel and features big Hollywood stars humiliating themselves in an overwrought, uncomfortable stew of crude sex, violence and epithets.  The biggest offender is Burton, who appears to be drunk and pasty in most of his scenes, playing Breck Stancill, a rich liberal landowner who allows blacks to squat on his Alabama mountain rent-free.  His friend and occasional rival, Sheriff “Big Track” Bascomb (Marvin), advises Breck not to encourage an upcoming town-square demonstration encouraging blacks to vote.  Atoka County is a boiling hotbed of racial tension:  the Ku Klux Klan, including Bascomb’s deputy “Butt Cut” Cates (Mitchell), castrates a black man accused of raping a white woman (Evans); Bascomb covers up Cates’ rape of black virgin Loretta (Falana); and a vengeful Simpson sneaks around town shooting the white men responsible for his friend’s murder.  You might need a shower when it’s all over; Marvin smearing the blood of Falana’s busted hymen across Mitchell’s face is one of THE KLANSMAN’s grimier moments, whereas the stolid Burton’s uncoordinated karate fight with Mitchell is perhaps the most hilarious.  An amazing film.  Also with Luciana Paluzzi, David Huddleston, Jeanne Bell, Vic Perrin, Hoke Howell and David Ladd.  The Staples Singers perform the opening song. 

KNELL, THE BLOODY AVENGER (1976)--Directed by Alfonso Brescia aka Al Bradley. Stars Jack Palance, George Eastman, Jenny Tamburi, Ugo Bologna. I had a blast watching this incompetently edited Italian crime drama, which made me laugh out loud during its opening scene: credits playing over second-unit shots of New York City as a raucous wacka-wacka ripoff of Isaac Hayes's "Theme from SHAFT" loudly blares. Alessandro Alessandroni's theme apes the Oscar-winning hit so audaciously that it's a wonder he's avoided plagiarism charges.

The plot is pretty basic as '70s revenge dramas go: tough-talking Dan Caputo (Eastman)--nicknamed Knell--returns to New York City to avenge the murder of his police officer father, who's suspected by the department of being on the take. Upon arrival--and after slaughtering a hockey-masked squad of assassins hoping to ambush him at the airport--Knell reacquaints himself with old flame Susan (Tamburi) and local crime boss Duke (Palance), whom Knell idolized as a boy. The story gets a bit difficult to comprehend, but I don't know if it's the fault of Brescia or the distributor. The video print I watched has some glaring continuity errors, including a lengthy sequence of scenes that appear to be edited into the print in the wrong order, so that we're seeing characters and locations that aren't introduced until later in the film. One daytime car chase cuts away to this footage for twenty minutes or so (which actually concludes with a nighttime car chase and explosion), then jumps back into the daytime chase without missing a beat. It doesn't appear to be structured as a flashback; it must be either an accident or one of the world's worst editing decisions.

This odd displacement actually adds to KNELL's loopy charm, I think. Brescia has an eccentric slant to his action scenes--Knell wipes out a pair of gunsels with a bomb-carrying Mickey Mouse doll; one chase is intercut with scenes of a sexy blonde's striptease act; Brescia directs his actors to flail their arms wildly and do cartwheels through the air when they die; Knell shoots it out with gangsters using a goofy pistol that fires explosive bullets--that keeps the pace brisk. I had trouble distinguishing among characters whose faces and dubbed voices were similar, and Tamburi's role is furiously lacking in depth, although the actress does perform an incongruous and completely gratuitous nude scene. Palance's role is very small, and indeed seems to be from a different movie, especially in the final freeze-frame and in his last-reel participation in the climax.

KNOCK OFF (1998)--Directed by Tsui Hark. Stars Jean-Claude Van Damme, Rob Schneider, Lela Rochon, Paul Sorvino. A bit above average as far as Van Damme vehicles go, this is perhaps the most "Hong Kong" film released by a mainstream American studio to date. J-C and Schneider run a designer jean company in Hong Kong that is being investigated by Rochon after a shipment of illegal cheap fakes (or knock-offs) is discovered. It turns out Schneider (lame comic relief) is an undercover CIA agent seeking to stop these knock-offs, and no one else in the cast seems to be who he or she seems either. For once, Van Damme seems at ease in an Everyman role (albeit one who happens to be a martial-arts expert), and his personal charm shines through. Director Tsui (working from a Steven E. DeSouza screenplay) throws in enough sweeping camera shots, zooms and special effects to make your head swim, and the climactic set piece is a real treat for action fans. Not to mention Lela looks absolutely gorgeous.

KNOCKED UP (2007)—Directed by Judd Apatow.  Stars Seth Rogen, Katherine Heigl, Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann.  Apatow followed up his smash hit THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN with another overlong comedy that made nearly as much money.  Its unlikely premise finds gorgeous TV personality Alison (Heigl) tumbling into bed with fat, dope-smoking slacker Ben (Rogen) for a drunken one-nighter and accidentally becoming pregnant.  She decides to keep the baby and try to make a relationship with Ben work, even though they appear to have nothing in common.  At 129 minutes, KNOCKED UP was too light to sustain laughs in theaters, and the DVD is even longer.  Much of it is extremely funny, however, particularly the banter between Rogen and his sex-obsessed roommates, played by Jason Segel and Martin Starr (who co-starred with Rogen on Apatow’s FREAKS AND GEEKS), Jay Baruchel (with Rogen on Apatow’s UNDECLARED) and Jonah Hill.  Much raunchy talk and several barely related subplots may turn some audiences away.  I think the movie would play much better at 100 minutes, but it was a hit, so what do I know?  Rudd scores big laughs in a supporting role, as he did in VIRGIN and ANCHORMAN, which Apatow produced.  Also with Harold Ramis, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Alan Tudyk, Joanna Kerns, Craig Robinson, B.J. Novak, Loudon Wainwright III, Charlyne Yi and celebrity cameos Jessica Alba, Owen Wilson, Ryan Seacrest, Andy Dick, James Franco and Steve Carell.

KOMODO (1999)--Directed by Michael Lantieri.  Stars Jill Hennessy, Billy Burke, Kevin Zegers.  An Oscar-winning visual effects artist (JURASSIC PARK, HULK) directs a low-budget monster movie with surprisingly good FX, considering its budget.  On a small island off the coast of North Carolina (although the DVD box claims Florida, and the local sheriff's car has Georgia plates), the parents of a young boy, Patrick (Zegers), are killed by a giant komodo dragon.  I doubt this is a spoiler, since the title of the damn movie is KOMODO, after all.  Patrick, living with an aunt on the mainland several months later, is in shock, a condition his psychiatrist, Victoria (Hennessy from CROSSING JORDAN), believes can be treated by returning him to the scene of his trauma.  Sounds like Victoria might have received her diploma from a con man Mike Wallace exposed on 60 MINUTES years ago.  Victoria and Patrick, along with Patrick's komodo-fodder aunt, go back to the island, which is now abandoned, with the exception of oil-company security guards whose job is to keep the authorities from discovering the giant komodo dragons, which were mutated by pollution.

KOMODO is pretty standard monster fare, highlighted by a slight ecological message that dates back at least as far as PIRANHA and its capable cast, led by the attractive TV star Hennessy.  What sets the film apart are its visual effects, which are surprisingly effective, considering Lantieri's tight budget.  Working with only a million bucks or so, the director had to pick and choose his FX shots carefully, and using a combination of animatronics, CGI and an old-fashioned man-in-a-suit, the monsters are quite realistic and worth giving KOMOBO a shot.  John Debney, who normally scores major films, provided the music.

KONGA (1961)—Directed by John Lemont.  Stars Michael Gough, Margo Johns, Clare Gordon.  Awful special effects, drab direction and a meandering screenplay sink this British-made monster flick that only shows signs of life in its final reel.  Nutty professor Gough returns from Africa with a pet chimp he names Konga.  He uses his experimental formula to make it grow to ape-size and trains it to kill his enemies.  Eventually, while Gough is attempting date rape on the stacked co-ed (Gordon) he’s infatuated with, his jealous assistant (Johns) makes Konga bigger than a house and sends it after the mad doctor.  So many scenes in this Herman Cohen production go nowhere, particularly a pointless class field trip to a remote cabin, that Gough’s typically hammy performance can’t enliven it.  Nobody gonna cry when Konga die.

KUNG FU: THE MOVIE (1986)--Directed by Richard Lang. Stars David Carradine, Brandon Lee. Made-for-TV return of half-Chinese karate-kicking wanderer Kwai Chang Caine, played in the 1972-75 ABC-TV series by David Carradine. See in the 1880s, Caine becomes involved with railroad barons and an Asian assassin played by Lee. Also with Martin Landau, Luke Askew, Benson Fong, Mako, Keye Luke as Master Po and Carradine's daughter Calista. Lee later appeared in a KUNG FU pilot that was never telecast, then Carradine starred with Chris Potter in an updated syndicated version called KUNG FU: THE LEGEND CONTINUES in which Caine's great-grandson (played by Carradine) and his estranged son teamed up to fight crime in modern-day America!