Raising the curtain on the latest B-Masters roundtable, I give you…
Class of 1984 (1982), in which both juvenile delinquents and the music they listen to have become a hell of a lot scarier since Vic Morrow’s day.
And on a totally unrelated note, we have…
The Black Hole (1979), in which Disney decides to grow a pair– to markedly mixed results…
Jaws 2 (1978), in which people who should certainly know better still refuse to listen to Martin Brody…
Jaws 3-D (1983), in which yet more sharks follow Brody’s kids to Florida for the summer…
and…
Jaws: The Revenge (1987), in which the studio finally just comes right out and admits to what we’ve all been suspecting since about two movies ago.
#1 by Blake Matthews on May 11, 2009 - 8:28 pm
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Hey, is “Class of 1999” really a sequel to “Class of 1984” as Leonard Maltin claimed it was?
Dang it guys…now I have to watch the Jaws sequels. I hope you’re happy. 🙂
#2 by El Santo on May 11, 2009 - 8:54 pm
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“Hey, is Class of 1999 really a sequel to Class of 1984 as Leonard Maltin claimed it was?”
Writer/director Mark Lester mentions it as such in passing on the commentary track to the Anchor Bay DVD of Class of 1984, so I guess I’m going to have to say yes even though I don’t remember Class of 1999 having much to do with its so-called predecessor.
#3 by DaveCausey on May 11, 2009 - 9:01 pm
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I enjoyed “The Black Hole” review. I too love that movie out of all proportion to the story’s merit. I even understood your naval architecture/Galactus reference! 🙂 USS Cygnus is the coolest movie starship of the 70s,and the design has never to my knowledge been copied.
When I was a kid,i had action figures of Dan Holland,2 Guard robots,and my pride and joy,Maximillian! 🙂
#4 by lyzard on May 12, 2009 - 2:27 am
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Writer’s block. And what’s worse, writer’s block followed by explosive logorrhoea. In other words, it ain’t short, and it ain’t pretty. (It also ain’t finished…muttermuttermutter…)
#5 by Andrew on May 12, 2009 - 2:08 pm
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DaveCausey –
I still have a Maxmillian and a Vincent action figure, mixed in with my old Star Wars figures. And it is so very sad how proud I am to be able to say that…
By the way, I also saw it at the Governor Ritchie Drive In, which means I may have been sitting in one of those other cars when the author watched it (Probably a really ugly brown Pinto Wagon… Ugh, the 70’s.) I saw a lot of really bad films at the Ritchie Drive-In and the other drive in along Mountain Road (the one behind the liquor store, whose name escapes me.) Strange to see reviews mentioning the movie theaters of my youth. (Next review has to mention the General Cinemas theater behind the Harundale Mall. Or watching Q at Jumper’s Mall. I think they had the poster up for months before the movie started, at least long enough that I can still draw it form memory.)
#6 by El Santo on May 12, 2009 - 2:23 pm
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“Next review has to mention the General Cinemas theater behind the Harundale Mall. Or watching Q at Jumper’s Mall. I think they had the poster up for months before the movie started, at least long enough that I can still draw it form memory.”
I saw Dune at the General Cinemas on opening night. Jumper’s Mall I didn’t go to much before it became the dollar theater (after which point I was there all the frigging time), but I know it was where I saw Police Academy 2, and it might have been where I first saw Predator as well. As for The Black Hole at the Governor Ritchie, I’d have been the kid with DeeDee Ramone’s hair sitting on his mother’s lap in the midnight blue Chevette.
#7 by Andrew on May 12, 2009 - 2:46 pm
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El Santo- It’s a shame you were a DC punk. I was an Annapolis punk who migrated to Baltimore. If you had spent more time northward might have seen you, as we appear to be about the same age. Spent my teen years drinking underage in the UB Cafe, and once I was legal at Mt. Royal. Actually, looking back, that may explain why my college career failed to take off quite as well as I had hoped.
#8 by KeithA on May 12, 2009 - 4:08 pm
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My favorite thing about Class of 1984 was the concept of a punk gang terrorizing the meatheads and black gangs. As punks generally come from the ranks of nerds, I enjoy seeing us bossing around the people who would, in the real world, have very little trouble kicking our asses. That might also be why so many punks enjoy the film, although I think any subculture with a sense of humor enjoys laughing at and enjoying mainstream stabs at portraying them.
The CHiPs punks were awesome. If only Panch had been there to sing “Celebration” to me. One of my all-time favorite tv episodes, right up there with the episode where Starsky and Hutch fight backwoods devil worshippers.
And why are you first? I wrote like four pages on the history of hare krishnas and the introduction of Krishna into the late 80s hardcore pnk scene, only to discover that the movie I was watching had no Hare Krishnas in it, despite being called “Hare Rama Hare Krishna.” Now I’m stuck finding a way to segue into writing about hippies, which is what the movie ends up being full of. Sure, it’s easy to connect the Krishnas and the hippies. I just didn’t want to write about hippies. So instead I’m just making lots of screencaps of Dev Anand in a silly straw hat and poncho.
#9 by Andrew on May 12, 2009 - 4:32 pm
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Actually, the funniest portrayal ever of punks had to be the incredibly hyperbolic one on Quincy sometime in the very, very early 80’s. I forget the exact quotes (though in the 80’s I could recite them by heart), but some friends had it on video cassette, and we used to watch it regularly, as it was a riot.
And after, I wrote that, I found this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpYd7bOn52M . Wow, that brings back memories.
#10 by El Santo on May 12, 2009 - 6:59 pm
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“El Santo- It’s a shame you were a DC punk. I was an Annapolis punk who migrated to Baltimore. If you had spent more time northward might have seen you, as we appear to be about the same age.”
I’m much more a Baltimore person than a DC person, actually. My punk rock-related activities have been spread all over the Baltimore-DC-Annapolis triangle, though, so I felt compelled to mention DC specifically, since it isn’t technically part of Maryland. If you ever went to see shows at Jules’s Loft in its Frederick Avenue incarnation– or at Baldwin Hall, the Severna Park YCMA, the Gambrills Athletic Club, the Crofton Fire Hall, the Powhattan Fire Hall, and a dozen other places scattered across Anne Arundel and Prince George’s Counties– in the early-to-mid-1990’s, then there’s every chance we have met. I played bass and sang for a hardcore/thrash band called Vrkolaka in those days, and since 1996, I’ve been the frontman for the Schismatics. If you’re still in the area, you should come out to Mom’s Pizza in Woodsboro this Saturday. We’re playing an all-ages show there, and I’m sure it will be either just like old times or an epic clusterfuck (which is to say, just like certain other old times…).
#11 by MatthewF on May 13, 2009 - 8:58 am
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For some reason the only cinematic portrayal of an American punk I can think of is the one that Mr Spock knocks out on the bus in Star Trek 4, tjats cinema verite right there. Punks in british films/tv started off as being arty and political outlaws (when made by the punks themselves) or as an aggressive threat to society (when made by everyone else) and very quickly ended up as comedy figures (early 80s, The Young Ones onwards).
As far as The Black Hole goes, it’s just an ok space adventure movie until the last ten minutes when it turns utterly mad. I mean, what is the ending about? Are they dead? Are those angels?
#12 by El Santo on May 13, 2009 - 9:49 am
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“I mean, what is the ending about? Are they dead? Are those angels?”
I think what’s happening is that the black hole is literally a conduit between realities, and that passing through it means– again, literally– passing through eternity. So, yes– that is an angel leading the Palomino survivors to safety via heaven’s antechamber; and yes– that is hell where the dying Reinhardt, the wrecked Maximilian, and the soulless automata that are all that remains of the Cygnus crew end up. The Palomino astronauts are able to reach whatever’s on the other side precisely because they are not dead, and therefore don’t belong in the afterworld; the Cygnus crew become trapped inside the black hole because they are dead, and therefore do belong.
#13 by Todd on May 13, 2009 - 2:41 pm
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As I recall, wasn’t the CHIPS punk rock episode all about contrasting the fluffy, non-threatening new wavers with the thuggish punk rockers? The Quincy ep was definitely better: more of a good, old fashioned hysterical screed. Back in the day, I made a cassette recording of the audio when the show was rerun which subsequently ended up getting trotted out for drunken giggles on numerous occasions.
#14 by El Santo on May 13, 2009 - 4:12 pm
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Honestly, the only thing I remember very clearly about the “CHiPS” punk episode at this point is that the bassist for Pain (the bogus band whose lead singer/guitar player was the Villain of the Week) had both his hands wrapped up in bandages, as if all his fingers were broken. Naturally, this did not seem to interfere with his musicianship, such as it was…
#15 by Andrew on May 13, 2009 - 5:16 pm
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El Santo – Actually, you post-date me a little bit. I was more mid to late 80’s. By the early 90’s I was making my ill-fated attempt at a respectable career. I did know some Baltimore band people in the mid 90’s (after giving up on respectability the first time around), but mostly at the very bottom of the band food chain. Got a bit out of touch since I did eventually find a (relatively) respectable job, and later did the wife/child/move to Annapolis thing, but we may know some of the same people.
And I don’t recall the CHiPs punks, but I do recall Scum of the Earth on WKRP. Which actually was one of the better parodies, when the band decided they weren’t punks because they dressed better and punks didn’t physically attack their audience.
#16 by Andrew on May 13, 2009 - 5:28 pm
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Oh, forgot to mention the Black Hole. I had forgotten almost all of it before reading your review. The only two things I recall were a robot being drilled (the specific eluded me), and a vague mental image of Maximillian lording over something looking like a Maxfield Parrish print based on a Hieronymus Bosch painting, with (in my distorted memory) a guy who looked like Roger Delgado standing beside him. (Did I mention my memory is not all that reliable?)
I just read your list, and don’t recall the Frederick Avenue Loft (though I lived out in Arbutus for a time.) I did the Eutaw and Mulberry version of the loft when I was a lot younger (my wife remember the Marble Bar, but I only made it there once before it closed.) And remember the newer loft somewhere mid-town, though I drank a lot then and can’t recall exactly where they hid it… Did the Hung Jury, the 9:30 and Fifth Column in DC (as well as WUST), saw the Cramps at the Warner, and in Baltimore saw shows at 8×10 and the place over the clock shop along Howard Street(forgot the catchy name), and Michael’s 5th Avenue and Club Midnight. Friends played the Ottobar and 14 Karat Cabaret, but I never made any of the shows there somehow. Oh, and knew the doorman at the Bank (the one also on Eutaw), so used to go there for free (and made friends with a bartender, so it made for a really cheap night out).
Wow, just realized how many lousy venues there are for bands in the DC/Baltimore area. And how many have vanished over the past 10-15 years.
#17 by El Santo on May 13, 2009 - 7:41 pm
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“I just read your list, and don’t recall the Frederick Avenue Loft (though I lived out in Arbutus for a time.) I did the Eutaw and Mulberry version of the loft when I was a lot younger (my wife remember the Marble Bar, but I only made it there once before it closed.) And remember the newer loft somewhere mid-town, though I drank a lot then and can’t recall exactly where they hid it… Did the Hung Jury, the 9:30 and Fifth Column in DC (as well as WUST), saw the Cramps at the Warner, and in Baltimore saw shows at 8×10 and the place over the clock shop along Howard Street(forgot the catchy name), and Michael’s 5th Avenue and Club Midnight. Friends played the Ottobar and 14 Karat Cabaret, but I never made any of the shows there somehow. Oh, and knew the doorman at the Bank (the one also on Eutaw), so used to go there for free (and made friends with a bartender, so it made for a really cheap night out).”
I’ve heard stories about the previous two Loft locations, but only in the past tense. The Marble Bar was before my time, but it was my parents’ main Baltimore hangout during the first half of the 80’s; the Slickee Boys seemed to play there a lot. The original F Street location of the 9:30 was where I saw my first “real” show, in the summer of 1990 (it was the Cro-Mags and Wargasm, the latter a criminally underrated speedmetal band who were label-mates of the Cro-Mags at the time), but I’ve never heard of the Hung Jury, and the Fifth Column was gone by the time I found out about it. I’ve played the 8×10 (opening up for the UK Subs in the fall of 2000) and the old Ottobar (any number of times), but the Schismatics have never had enough of a following to attract the latter club’s interest at its current Howard Street location (which is about fifteen times the size of the original Davis Street venue). I only made it to the Bank once (I believe the Glenmont Popes were the headliners that night), and while I know I’ve been to Club Midnight (my old band might even have played there once), I can’t remember one damned thing about it. As for the place above the clock shop on Howard Street, could that have been the Rev, maybe? I don’t remember where that place was, but it was definitely up on the second floor, above some other business. There was also a club in Baltimore called the Rage (the Bowie band 32 Mildreds used to play there all the time circa 1991), but they were reportedly strict about their 18-and-up admission policy, and the Rage was gone by the time I was old enough to get in. These days, the Sidebar is my primary live music venue, although I do occasionally find a reason to visit the Ottobar or the Talking Head. For a while, there was also a very strange place out East of Greektown, by the name of Haldaddy’s, but Hal picked a fight with the zoning board about five, six years ago and lost big-time.
#18 by The Rev. D.D. on May 13, 2009 - 9:26 pm
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RE: your review of J:tR: Did you mean the sharktopus from Devil Fish? I recall the critter in Up From the Depths being a giant prehistoric bullhead or somesuch.
Enjoyed the new reviews. I actually caught The Black Hole not too long ago on the Disney Channel, which shocked the hell out of me considering how hard it once was to find. I too loved it as a kid, and too found it to not hold up as well years later. Still had some great moments, though I honestly did not remember the ending featuring the scene in hell. Maybe I blocked it out of my mind, because damned if it isn’t a pretty creepy little scene. I didn’t remember Maximilian killing anyone either, which again surprised me because despite its lack of implicitness it’s a very nasty death to think about.
I did, however, remember Maximilian scaring the crap out of me. To their credit, I still squirmed a bit during a few of his scenes. Truly a triumph, he was.
#19 by Andrew on May 13, 2009 - 11:10 pm
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El Santo-
No, The Rev (where my father hung out when it was “The American Revolution” in the 70’s and he was working at U of Baltimore), was on Maryland Avenue. The clock place was right on the corner of Howard, a big building with a watch repair place downstairs (I think it was called “Hour House”, now that I try to recall…). A few people rented the loft and had shows there and let bands play (mostly the Almighty Senators, Lungfish, MonkeySpank, that sort of thing… locals who played all over in little dives)
There used to be a warehouse down near the two stadiums (back when there was only one stadium) that hosted the Paradox and Fever rave parties, and they had bands there sometimes as well. Knew one of the promoters from the Club Charles, but can’t remember a lot of details (true of most of my Club Charles memories… except the time I accidentally insulted John Waters — well, thanks to a friend who kind of set me up to insult him.) And the Club Orpheus had music sometimes I think, near Fell’s Point, another raver hangout in the really early 90’s. (Before “ravers” became part of the plotline of every television show and started calling themselves something else.)
I think the last two shows I saw both included Mary Prankster, one in Towson, don’t recall the place, it looked like an old movie theater, and once at Fletcher’s in Fell’s Point, in the upstairs part. I know Fletcher’s is still there, as I took my son to Fell’s point last summer, though obviously (him being 4) I didn’t take in any shows then, just noticed it was still open.
My earliest shows were in Annapolis, at the Unitarian Church, saw one of Fugazzi’s first shows ever there, or maybe one of Embrace’s last, I don’t recall which. And there was, oddly enough, another church hall that let punks use their space. Knew a lot of the old timers, Spastic Rats, the Hated, Strictly Prohibited, Geek Patrol, and then a few of the later ones like Moss Icon, Images, Roadside Pets (I think they all had about 3-4 people in common, actually…), but that was back from about 84 (when I went on a class trip to Greece and Italy, got drunk, shaved my head, and suddenly stopped being a “geek” through the magic of a haircut) until 87 or so, when I moved to Baltimore, so it is now ancient history, I suppose.
I think the strangest punk “where are they now” thing I have found (other than Johnny Rotten doing ads for butter — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mSE-Iy_tFY) is Helios Creed’s myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/therealhelioscreed), where he talks about his model trains. Somehow, back in the 80’s, listening to Chrome, I just did not imagine the singer would be a massive model train enthusiast.
Wow, this has drifted way off topic. Time to cut it short. Or as short as possible after all that blather.
#20 by El Santo on May 14, 2009 - 7:43 am
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“RE: your review of J:tR: Did you mean the sharktopus from Devil Fish?”
Yes. I realized that just as I was climbing into bed last night.
#21 by PCachu on June 2, 2009 - 11:26 am
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Remind me to tell you about the time Leslie Nielsen wrestled a grizzly bear one of these days…
In an odd act of serendipity, it seems that Albert, proprietor of the Agony Booth, has just compiled a list of the Top Nine Celebrity Bear Fights. Guess who came in at Number Five:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfcAgTuv7UY
#22 by lyzard on June 2, 2009 - 4:04 pm
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FIFTH!? What’s Albert been sniffing? Not to get carried away or anything, but that is one of the greatest scenes in the history of motion pictures.
#23 by The Rev. D.D. on June 3, 2009 - 10:57 am
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Arnie’s fight is a joke; the Hulk bear is such a pussy that he’s held off by BILL BIXBY for most of the clip (although that fake bear being tossed through the sky made my heart sing); and although using telepathy to stop a bear’s pretty crazy, Chuck gets his ass handed to him until he mindmelds with the bear. None of them match the simple elegance of a shirtless, screaming Leslie Nielsen grappling with a bear in the rain. That’s just sheer poetry right there.
The only one that comes close is Sonny Chiba’s, which is pretty damn awesome in its own right (I like when he does the Kim Kaphwan tap-dance on its head). Then you add in that it’s Sonny f’in’ Chiba, and the fact that there’s actually a movie with the title of Karate Bearfighter (which, not to get carried away or anything, is one of the greatest movie titles in the history of motion pictures) and it’s a BEARy strong contender!
…..I am so sorry.