Au Pair Girls (1972)

This is, by far, the fanciest art movie I've ever seen. The international cast includes British India born Gabrielle Drake, German actress Astrid Frank as well as Lars Von Trier vet Me Me Lay, plus it's directed by British Hammer films auteur Val Guest. I didn't know a thing about this movie when it started, but I could tell it was British before anyone opened their mouths. I don't know, I guess it just comes with seeing too many Benny Hill episodes. This movie takes the Altman approach of interweaving multiple storylines and characters. Four girls from Germany, Japan, Denmark, Sweden all arrive in swinging 1972 London to become Au Pairs (which, I'm told, are supposed to be babysitters or something). They all do their best to ruin the reputations of their homelands by walking around naked in front of old people and strangers.

The German girl, it turns out, is a virgin and the British girl she's staying with finds this out and takes her shopping for slut threads and introduces her to a man known as the "Jack the Ripper of the teeny bopper set." She is told to "leave her boots on" when British rockstar Ricky Strange gives her hymen the heave-ho. By the by, Ricky Strange stuffs his pants and the camera lingers on his jumbled up crotch.

Me Me Lay is supposed to take care of a concert pianist who is the same age as she is. You have to wonder at the motivations of his parents. Turns out she has a very hairy beaver.

The girl from Denmark winds up with a girl who makes Austin Powers look as conservative as an episode of Mad Men. He has trouble keeping his job even though his dad is his boss. His main problem is his overactive imagination- he pictures every woman he encounters buck naked. The car breaks down and they pork in a haystack.

The Swedish girl is absolutely insane. She takes her clothes off and dances around in front of an elderly couple. She winds up at an oil shiek's sex pad after gambling away a cab driver's tip money.

There are no babies or children in this film.

What I'm Thankful for...

Here's a list of things (from the classic film, Screwballs) that we should all be thankful for...

1. Food Gagz!

2. Nerds!

3. Physical Fitness!

4. Being Yourself!

5. Adult Situations!

SPRING BREAK (1983)

Directed by Sean Cunningham of Friday the 13th fame, this flick takes it's minimalist title seriously. There's no bag packing, kiss the parents, waving down the driveway folderol; the opening shot is of the main characters (they're nerds, by the by) in the back of a cab at Ft. Lauderdale scoping the babes. Spring Break has no story, I'm not even sure that it has characters. The fellows check into a sleazy motel and meet up with a couple of seasoned party animals who becomes their roommates. These guys drink 40s like they're Eazy-E and enter into the big bellyflop contest, so you know they're cool. When a biker calls one of the nerds "shit for brains," the party animals are right there to back up they're new little buddy. Here's a screen shot from just before the biker gets all pissed off:

Aaaannyways, there's a couple of "night on the town" montages, a wet t-shirt contest, an angry step-dad who's a politician, one of the nerds gets laid, they save the day with a bunch of spray nozzle whipped cream cans, plus there's a sleazy all-girl band. The band, incidentally, is called Hot Date and they sing a song called "Do It To You," the lead singer wears a spandex body suit that the same color as her skin along with knee high boots (IMDB wouldn't tell me what pornos she'd been in, bah!). Harry Manfridini provides the score and wrote most of Hot Date's songs, even "Do It To You." Yes, the same orchestra that created the infamous "CH CH CH, HA HA HA" from Friday the 13th series found themselves sawing away in an LA studio in order to provide incidental music for a scene where a guy pees on an alligator. The soundtrack is rounded out by a surprising selection of party rocking tunes by the likes of Cheap Trick, .38 Special, and NRBQ. A must-see.

HUNK!

If you had a chance to make a Faustian trade with the Devil (who looks like a semi-retired Vaudevillian comedian dressed like Attila the Hun) what would you want in return? Some sort of Earthly satisfaction with no true emotional payoff, right? A buff physique? A (somewhat) cool car? A thorough mastery of karate? A hang-low that hangs a little lower? Well, that's exactly what computer programmer Bradley Brinkman signs up for. With the help of she-devil Deborah Shelton (JRs mistress from Dallas), Bradley becomes Hunk Golden. Eating right and exercising would've never allowed super-geek Bradley to achieve the stature of Hunk. He really HAD to resort to a Satanic pact in order to get laid.

This is a clip of Hunk getting it on with one of the girlfriend of a guy that looked down his nose at him while he was Bradley. You'll also notice the fat friend, Chachka:

Here's a clip of Deborah Shelton as Mandy Winger being confronted by JR's wife, stick with it until the end. This makes me want to watch Dallas, an impulse I've never had in my life:

 

Soooo.... Should you watch Hunk? Fuck it. What've you got to lose, right? It's got nerds and jocks and washed up TV celebs. WARNING: This movie is rated PG! That means NO NUDITY!

VALET GIRLS (1987)

Here we have Valet Girls, a true party movie from the director of Screwballs. If I'm following this correctly, it's about these girls who work as valets and wind up invited to a big Hollywood coke party. When they get to the party, all dressed up for a night out, they meet the valet guys. Now you may think they'll hit it right off, but the valet guys are true losers who get fired from the party. Besides that, the girls are there to meet the big LA record producer. He's kinda difficult to reach, though, because he's so busy snorting powders and banging psycho girls that dress like Cleopatra or Madonna. After the guys get fired, they proceed to cause trouble at the party-at one point they're dressed up like one of those horses that are two people bent over.

The lead girls in this movie are totally empowered and don't need the help of the sleazy male patriarchy, they even get the wealthy, old wife of the rich party host to loosen up. This clip shows one of the titular characters performing what she hopes will be her big break-out hit- "The Reach!" I hope you like it, they play it twice in the movie.

This movie really has lots to offer in the way of outrageous 80s costumes. There's all kinds of post-disco lapels, day-glo bikinis and new-wave S&M gear mixed together at the same grotto. Keep an eye out for Ron Jeremy (don't worry, he's fully clothed) and Tony Cox (from Bad Santa).

Police Academy toys.

I just found this little ad floating around in an old VHS today. I had no idea these existed, and I was the EXACT TARGET MARKET. Great job Kenner, you lost out on the only sales you could've had for this line of toys.

Here's the entire ad:

Let's look a little closer, shall we?

Some regular characters (House, Motormouth Jones) and a made up villain. Marching on...

Looks like we got another made up (and racist) villain, Tackleberry, Mahoney and - HOLD THE FUCKING PHONE!

It's Stakeout Sweetchuck!! 

Also in the set is Zed, possibly the only toys modeled (poorly) on Bobcat Goldthwait. Isn't it enough that his boxers have little hearts? Did they have to make his shorts polka dotted, too?

Here's something my brothers and I could've used:

And all the rest of the shit:

Spike of Bensonhurst

This is a movie about yankees- it has the mob, boxers, Puerto Ricans, and it's made by Andy Warhol's buddy, Paul Morrisey- all of these things add up to a proto-Jersey Shore cultural portrait. Boxing movies have been around forever, but after the success of Rocky, this kind of movie was more likely to get funded, despite the clear disdain for the Italian boxing culture. This movie helped to form the "faggidaboutit" Italian stereotypes later reinforced by Spike Lee and the Nintendo company:

(this guy's in the movie)

Spike is an Italian boxer that wants to make it up the ladder by getting in good with the local mob boss (Ernest Borgnine), also wanting to slip Borgnine's daughter the Italian sausage. He thinks the boxing world needs another great white hope, but nobody wants to buy in on the dream. Spike keeps getting into mild trouble that threatens to get him booted out of the Bensonhurst neighborhood altogether. He moves into the PuertoRican neighborhood and starts beating on the drug dealers and homos. Borgnine, in one of his 2,000,000 roles, seems to hardly be able to deliver his lines without cracking up.

This movie is loaded with sleazy dialogue that just wouldn't fit in On the Waterfront: "I don't take no orders from no crummy old dyke, or her slut girlfriend," followed immediately with the classic line: "How fuckin dare you talk to your fuckin mother like that." Borgnine blurts this cherry morsel of dialogue: "They were just having a little gang fight with a bunch of Puerto Ricans, what's so screwy about that?" Possibly the best monologue is from a wild eyed junkie who complains to the cops that Spike has been taking their dope, even though they were just "shootin' up, real peaceful like." After the cop asks if she wants to press charges she goes into this: "Man, I ain't got all day to waste with this chickenshit court crap, I gots to make MONEY to get some more DRUGS! You know- this system SUCKS, I mean REALLY SUCKS!" You'll lose interest in this odd movie well before this line shows up , unfortunately. 

In an odd turn, the soundtrack was performed by Coati Mundi, member of Kid Creole and the Coconuts. And let's not forget the most important advice from a legendary actor: