I began a whole lot of reviews during that year or so when I never posted anything, but they all seemed to fall apart on me about a page in at best. One of the things I want to do this year is to finish as many of those as are worth salvaging. Not everything in this current update falls into that category, but I’m sufficiently satisfied with the ones that do to feel confident that the project is worth pursuing further:
The Blood of Heroes (1989), in which not even the end of the world can save us from organized sports…
Frankenhooker (1990), which makes me oddly nostalgic for urban blight…
Hello, Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987), in which all your darkest suspicions about would-be prom queens are confirmed…
Homoti (1987), in which rank opportunism and nonexistent intellectual property laws are for once insufficient to explain a painfully cheap Turkish copy of a Hollywood blockbuster…
and…
The Sword of the Barbarians (1982), in which it turns out there’s a limit to even the Italian appetite for throwing good money after bad.
#1 by Nathan Shumate on June 18, 2021 - 6:26 pm
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I had occasion to re-read my own review of THE BLOOD OF HEROES just a few weeks ago.
You incredibly talented sonofabitch, I want to break your fingers. [runs off crying]
#2 by Blake Matthews on June 21, 2021 - 10:12 am
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Re: Prom Night 2 — I recall the boys at Stomp Tokyo giving this one lava lamp. Meanwhile, our old friend Leonard Maltin gave it two (out of four stars), which his capsule review implied had a lot to do with the lead’s full frontal nudity. Similar situations have occurred with Andy Sidaris films and “The Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-o-Rama”: seasoned B-fans spit on them while Leonard Maltin gives them decent/fair reviews because he appreciated the nudity. And then there’s Humanoids from the Deep, which, according to Maltin, is better than Taxi Driver, Amadeus, Forest Gump, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The man just seems to love an unpretentious pair of boobs.
#3 by El Santo on June 21, 2021 - 7:49 pm
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“Meanwhile, our old friend Leonard Maltin gave it two (out of four stars), which his capsule review implied had a lot to do with the lead’s full frontal nudity.”
Heh. The old perv… Mind you, it was indeed a truly excellent nude scene by 1987 standards.
#4 by Blake Matthews on June 22, 2021 - 4:28 pm
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Re: Prom Night 2 (part 2) — I wonder how we’re supposed to read the brief bit of incest that shows up right before the prom. Was it just to shock the audiences? Was it to suggest that Mary Lou’s power had grown to the point that she could seduce nearly *anyone* that wouldn’t buy it in normal circumstances? Was it a commentary on the frustration that some men may feel when their misguided, hyper-religious wives treat sex merely as a necessary evil to have children?
#5 by Blake Matthews on June 28, 2021 - 8:16 am
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“The stranger’s name is Li Wo Twan, and he hails from a land far off to the east, in what he calls the birthplace of the sun.”
The Chinese characters for Japan (pronounced “Riben” in Mandarin and “Yatbun” in Cantonese) translate as “Birthplace of the Sun.” Assuming the Kanji for “Nihon/Nippon” are the same, than they’d probably have the same meaning.
#6 by El Santo on June 28, 2021 - 12:09 pm
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The Japanese embrace of “Land of the Rising Sun” is interesting to me, because the name makes sense only from a vantage point outside of Japan. Like, of course they’d say that in China, because looking out over the Sea of Japan, that is indeed about where the sun appears to be emerging from. But from any perspective in Japan itself, the sunrise is happening yet further to the east, so adopting the name ends up looking like a curious little act of self-othering.
#7 by supersonic on August 7, 2021 - 4:25 pm
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Well from a Japan-centric worldview, you see land to the west but none to the east, so it still makes sense to think of one’s homeland as the privileged spot that gets sunlight first.
I saw Frankenhooker in a rep theater when it came out, and it’s a delight of a sort that probably could not be made in this century.
#8 by maggiesmith on January 31, 2022 - 10:02 pm
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I’m wondering if El Santo saw a different cut of The Blood of Heroes than I did. Mine didn’t have a ‘superficially happy ending”. It didn’t really have an ending at all; it just … stopped. I have heard of an ending where Sallow and his team are offered a League contract but choose to go back to the Dogtowns, where people are less hypocritical. Incidentally, Rutger Hauer said that the Juggers are called that because they celebrate a win, or soothe a loss, with big jugs of liquor.
#9 by maggiesmith on March 2, 2023 - 10:13 am
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The title was originally Salute The Juggers, but everyone thought the last word was either “jugglers” or “jugulars”, so they changed it.