Uncle Jasper reviews: Bruce Lee’s Deadly Kung Fu (1976)

[Author’s note: This review is intended to kick off a two-week series showcasing the highs and lows of Bruceploitation, the wild and often tasteless deluge of films that came out after the unexpected death of Bruce Lee. These films featured Bruce lookalikes in films that ranged from half-assed remakes & inaccurate bio-pics to the just plain bizarre. When a screen legend dies at the top of his game the natural tendency is to rush in and fill that void. Enter the Dragon was about to hit theaters worldwide, Bruce Lee Mania was still in full swing, and nobody was willing to accept that the Little Dragon would no longer be around to make films. The Hong Kong movie industry, who was no stranger to milking proven box office success until it was withered and dry, hired dozens of Bruce lee imitators to star in films with amusingly deceptive sounding titles like New Game of Death and Exit the Dragon, Enter the Tiger.

The resulting films are often quickly dismissed by kung-fu film aficionados as cheap, crass, and shameless… and well, they are. But let’s accept that and give these films a second shot. It’s time to taste our blood, thumb our noses and take a closer look at the wacky world of Bruce Lee exploitation cinema.]

MacHeads (2009)

MacHeads (2009)

Starring a bunch of MacHeads

Directed by Kobi Shely

Expectations: Low. I like Macs but I’m not a fanboy.

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MacHeads tells the story of how the Mac community grew from an extremely dedicated bunch of computer nerds into millions of users that may or may not even own an Apple computer. The shift in Apple’s focus from the computer to the handheld device signaled the company’s rise in mainstream popularity, while also causing its hardcore fanbase to dwindle. Fanbase may be a strange word to use for a company but if you’ve ever talked with one of these folks you realize that hardcore Mac users really are huge fans of the company and what they stand for.

Monsturd (2003)

Monsturd (2003)

Starring Paul Weiner, Beth West, Dan Burr, Brad Dosland, Dan West, Rick Popko, Hannah Stangel

Directed by Rick Popko & Dan West

Expectations: My expectations were flushed before I even considered watching this.

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I’m not going to beat around the bush, this is one big piece of shit. Monsturd tells the touching story of a prison escapee who falls into the wrong vat of goo and emerges as a giant shit monster. I’m getting ahead of myself though. First, the movie sets itself up as a fairy tale with a little girl waking up from a bad dream. Her father comes to check up on her and when he proposes to tell her a calming story, she refuses and tells him a story of her own. The story of an evil doctor employed by DuTech who unleashes a shit-storm of bad vibes on the town of Butte County, CA by dumping a shitload of toxic waste into the sewer system. When the escaped convict gets trapped in the sewer and falls into the goo he is reduced to nothing more than a bloody skeleton. OR SO THEY THOUGHT!

Uncle Jasper reviews: Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006)

Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006)

Starring Jason Yachanin, Kate Graham, Allyson Sereboff, Robin Watkins, Joshua Olatunde, Rose Ghavami, Caleb Emerson, Lloyd Kaufman, Khalid Rivera

Directed By Lloyd Kaufman

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Believe me, I tried. I tried really hard to mentally prepare myself to brave another Troma film. I am in love with the gaudy trash that Lloyd Kaufman spews out there to his deranged audience. But god damn, every film manages to outdo the others before it in terms of bedrock tastelessness and unadulterated offensiveness. I thought I could hang with the big guns this time around, but within the first five minutes a drooling axe murderer is caught slapping his cock around while a zombie hand shoots out of the ground and straight up his ass… That just told me instantly that I was doomed.

When a fried chicken franchise restaurant is built on top of Tromaville’s Indian burial ground, the product begins coming to life. A gang of lesbian protesters demonstrate in front of the franchise, carrying signs with sayings like “Fuck Tibet, free the chickens!” When they are tricked into eating the tainted poultry, well, I bet you can figure out what happens next…

Coco Before Chanel (2009)

Coco Before Chanel [Coco avant Chanel] (2009)

Starring Audrey Tautou, Benoît Poelvoorde, Alessandro Nivola, Marie Gillain

Directed by Anne Fontaine

Expectations: Moderate.

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Going into this movie I expected a tale of how Coco Chanel became a fashion giant, how she built her empire. Instead, I was treated to a simple love story, that funnily enough, was pretty devoid of love. This is definitely not my general type of movie. I have nothing against a good romantic movie, it’s just not a genre I’d specifically pick over something I’m more interested in. I find so many romantic movies to be formulaic and boring, so I generally overlook them. Coco Before Chanel is without a doubt a slow, plodding film, but it has a purpose and it builds towards it well.

Uncle Jasper reviews: Blackenstein [The Black Frankenstein] (1973)

Blackenstein [The Black Frankenstein] (1973)

Starring John Hart, Ivory Stone, Joe De Sue, Roosevelt Jackson

Directed By William A. Levey

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After the runaway success of Blacula, it was only a matter of time before other studios would attempt to cash in on the blaxploitation/horror sub-genre. The most obvious attempt was 1973’s Blackenstein, a movie that takes everything Blacula did right and throws it completely out the window.

When Vietnam Vet, Eddie Turner (Joe De Sue) loses all of his limbs from a land mine, his fiancée Dr. Walker consults her old teacher, mad scientist Dr. Stein (John Hart) for help. Dr. Stein attempts to attach new limbs to Eddie, and all is going according to plan. But when his assistant, Malcomb professes his love for Dr. Walker and is rejected, he secretly switches the bottles of DNA solution out of spite. The unbalanced solution is injected into Eddie, mutating him into Blackenstein, a hideous (?) monster who escapes the laboratory every night, limping around Los Angeles like a 93 year-old woman, killing random strangers by ripping out their intestines.

Critters (1986)

Critters (1986)

Starring Scott Grimes, Dee Wallace-Stone, M. Emmet Walsh, Don Keith Opper, Billy Green Bush, Terrence Mann, Ethan Phillips, Billy Zane

Directed by Stephen Herek

Expectations: Fairly high. I’d wanted to see this since I was a little kid.

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I’ve seen parts of this over the years but had never seen it all the way through. I gave it a go, but this is definitely one that would be better with a bunch of friends. It’s a horror comedy and my sights were set a bit more towards gore-fest. The key flaw to my logic though is that I never bothered to notice that this was PG-13. That would have tempered my expectations quite a bit, instead of building them up over the last couple of decades.

Mini Review: Beer Wars (2009)

Beer Wars (2009)

Starring Anat Baron, Sam Calagione, Rhonda Kallman

Directed by Anat Baron

Expectations: Moderate. I like beer.

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Beer Wars seeks to informs its viewers on the fundamental differences between big business beer companies like Anheuser-Busch and small, independent breweries like Dogfish Head. It starts out on the right foot, entertaining and communicating the facts. About halfway through, it loses a lot of steam as the facts run out. At this point it becomes a mixture of random scenes that don’t go much of anywhere and don’t shed any light on the subject. Lots of hitting the “independent breweries are better” nail into the ground.

I’m already on board with buying local and off-brand brews, so this film also has a quality of “preaching to the choir” for me. All the scenes with Sam Calagione, founder of Dogfish Head Brewery, are great though, as he is a very honest, likeable fellow. Just the type of guy you’d want to have some grog with. He seems to have great fun running his business and apparently hasn’t lost sight of the dreams that compelled him to open a brewery in the first place. I don’t want to be too negative though, I liked the film. I just thought that it wasn’t as focused or concise as it should have been. The film is definitely better than that train wreck of a poster.

Uncle Jasper reviews: Scream Blacula Scream (1973)

Scream Blacula Scream (1973)

Starring William Marshall, Don Mitchell, Pam Grier, Michael Conrad, Richard Lawson, Lynne Moody, Janee Michelle

Directed By Bob Kelljan

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I have to admit I was pretty nervous about gearing down to review Scream Blacula Scream, 1973’s follow up to the surprise horror-blaxploitation hit, Blacula. I was almost certain I’d have to go through the motions and crank out the typical “Shoddy, uninspired sequel to surprisingly good b-movie” review.  Luckily that isn’t the case here. William Marshall turns in a performance that is every bit as classic as the original. And well, this time we have Pam Grier along for the ride… and she does voodoo! And Blacula kicks the shit out of pimps! But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves here.

The Neverending Story (1984)

The Neverending Story (1984)

Starring Noah Hathaway, Barret Oliver, Tami Stronach, Moses Gunn, Thomas Hill

Directed by Wolfgang Petersen

Expectations: High, this was one of my movies growing up.

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Some movies should stay in your childhood. Today I found out that The Neverending Story is firmly in that category. I still enjoyed it, it just didn’t have the same power that it used to. The main character, a book-loving boy who reads the Neverending Story, reminds me of myself at that age so it’s obvious why I connected to it and enjoyed it back then. Unfortunately, viewing the film as an adult, there just wasn’t enough to keep me interested.