The B-Masters Cabal

Well, it’s a bumper edition of Et Al. this time….but for all that, there was never any doubt in my mind who was going to be this issue’s Pin-Up Of The Month. He even beat out an undead Humphrey Bogart!

Asia-Pol
Asia-Pol in many ways fits in with the spate of James Bond knock-offs that Shaw turned out between 1966 and 1968, but also exhibits some significant differences that can most likely be chalked up to its Nikkatsu pedigree. For one, while the action of those aforementioned films was largely limited to what could be shot on the sound stages and back lots of Shaw’s Movie Town facility, Asia-Pol is distinguished by a great deal of location shooting set on the streets of Japan, Hong Kong and Macao. This is a style of shooting that the Japanese crew, accustomed to the gritty, street-bound look of Nikkatsu’s violent yakuza thrillers, would have been considerably more at ease with than would the Shaw’s technicians. Likewise, Asia-Pol‘s script gives us an espionage yarn that’s considerably more down-to-Earth than the campy nonsense that Shaw would typically serve up, entirely free of hooded super villains and sci-fi inspired underwater lairs.

Even the most beautiful love song must end.

Presenting, for your weekend delectation, a redesign far too long in the making: The complete restructuring of Cold Fusion Video Reviews! Now with WordPress under the hood, the new site is more responsive, easier to maintain, easier to edit, and just plain cooler with the hip kids!

But don’t just take my word for it:
http://www.coldfusionvideo.com

Plus! As part of the redesign kickoff, you can participate in the Great Typo Hunt, and win cool custom prizes! Full details here:
http://www.coldfusionvideo.com/the-great-typo-hunt/

Then get ready for a tale of action, tragic love, and most of all, tragic music, and be prepared to rock the night away with Knight Rider: The Ballad of Stevie and Michael, Part 2. 

Did you know that Michael Knight once got married, lost his wife, and tracked down her killer all in one VERY SPECIAL episode of Knight Rider?  I did.  I saw that show back in the ’80s and never forgot its glory.  I knew I was destined to review it one day.

Did you know that the woman Michael married had in previous seasons twice appeared on the show before?  I didn’t.  Hoist on my own petard again.

With the conjunction of Valentine’s Day and Sunday’s premiere of the new Knight Rider movie on NBC, the stars aligned.  Thus today do I post a review of the first chapter of the great tragic romantic saga, one that puts the Bard to shame.  I like to call this tale THE BALLAD OF STEVIE AND MICHAEL.

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!

I could say that this week’s new review, 3 Dev Adam (1973) was chosen not only as part of the Cabal’s “Ottoman Empire Strikes Back” roundtable, but specifically to coincide with the unveiling of the “new” Captain America in the Marvel Universe. But no, it’s just a happy happenstance, the kind upon which my life is built.

Well, I can hardly let Lyz be the only B-Master to chime in on the “Ottoman Empire Strikes Back” round table!

KILINK STRIP AND KILL
We soon learn that Kilink has to attend a conference in New York, and I was instantly chilled by the thought of Kilink checking his Blackberry obsessively while sitting in a board room where Killing was explaining the robust, enterprise-wide solution that would shift the paradigm of the entire “grown men dressed up as skeletons” corporation. That said, I also started thinking about how much cooler my own conferences and meetings would be if I or someone started showing up to them wearing a black body stocking with bones painted on it.

Jabootu contributor Chris Magyar jumps on a cinematic bomb and has the (head and stomach) aches to prove it.  From the way he tells it, Lindsey Lohan’s already infamous I Know Who Killed Me certainly knows how to leave a viewer, not to mention every other damn thing, blue.  We can only await with fervor the inevitable sequels, I Still Know Who Killed Me and I’ll Always Know Who Killed Me.

Three weeks or so ago, I braved the frozen, wind-blasted hellscape that is Chicago in the depths of winter in order to watch 24 uninterupted hours of crummy movies.  This is what we call “dedication”– that or “complete idiocy.”  Either way, this is what I saw that I hadn’t gotten around to reviewing yet:

Barbarella (1968), in which we note that director Roger Vadim was married to star Jane Fonda at the time, and find ourselves once again wondering if maybe it’s not too late yet to work on becoming both a Serious Artist and French…

Black Samson (1974), in which the mafia is no match for a bartender with a lion and a stick…

Tentacles (1977), in which a bunch of washed-up old actors with formidable reputations somehow never quite get around to interacting with a giant octopus…

The Undying Monster (1942), in which the Baskerville Curse is real, and the Hound is a werewolf…

and…

Zardoz (1974), in which John Boorman can afford far better drugs than the rest of us.