HAMBURGER' HALF-COOKED Miami Herald, The (FL) March 20, 1986 Author: BILL COSFORD Herald Movie Critic Estimated printed pages: 1
In Hamburger, a man who keeps getting expelled from college for sexual dalliances -- "Sluts cost you your future," his mother yells -- is driven to enroll in the one school that will have him, a fast-food management-training center called Busterburger University. Well, you can just imagine: He gets the ketchup and the mustard and the special sauce all mixed up, and he falls for the daughter of the company founder, who happens to be the girlfriend of the Busterburger U. drill sergeant (played by Dick Butkus, who seems far too intelligent for his surroundings).
Hamburger, like Police Academy and a dozen others before it, is essentially a basic-training sitcom with some softcore on the side. And like the films it imitates, Hamburger is an example of a perfectly good comic premise -- there's weirdness in modern food technology, bet your syntho-chicken nuggets there is -- botched by a script aimed at just that segment of the audience that is theoretically banned from attending R-rated films.
HAMBURGER (R) *
CAST: Leigh McCloskey, Dick Butkus, Randi Brooks, Jack Blessing, Sandy Hackett, Charles Tyner.
CREDITS: Director: Mike Marvin. Producers: Edward S. Feldman, Charles R. Meeker. Screenwriter: Donald Ross. Cinematographer: Karen Grossman. Music: Peter Bernstein.
An FM Entertainment release. Vulgar language, nudity, sexual situations.
WARRIORS' LOSES BATTLE OF BRONX Miami Herald, The (FL) September 5, 1983 Author: BILL COSFORD Herald Movie Critic Estimated printed pages: 2
New York under siege by rampant thugs is a premise that continues to engage filmmakers, and has at least since Walter Hill's fantasy-of-violence, The Warriors, in 1979. Provocative as the urban jungle may be, the idea nonetheless has appealed to filmmakers of successively smaller skill, and the movies -- Escape From New York, The Exterminator -- have grown worse as the mini-genre expands. The latest in line is 1990: The Bronx Warriors, a poorly dubbed Italian production and an obvious synthesis of what has gone before. Youth gangs in a variety of colorful costumes do battle in the South Bronx, vicious killer-cops use flame and buckshot to rout them, blood flows.
It is 1990, of course, and the opening titles fill us in on the decay of civilization: "The Bronx was officially designated a high-risk district." (Always a bit behind the times, these guys -- that "designation" seems to have been acknowledged in the 1970s, and in fact the South Bronx is now in the process of being recovered.)
Anyway, Ann -- who wears a Chemise Lacoste sweater and is later billed as "the wealthiest and most affluent girl in the world" runs away from Manhattan and holes up with Trash, Ice and the rest of the Riders -- they may be thugs, but they're apparently more sensitive than the button-down men back at the Manhattan Corp., of which Ann is the heiress ("controls 60 per cent of the world's arms production.").
Ann's presence triggers slaughter -- rival gangs bubble with sexual tension, and the Hammer (the late Vic Morrow) and the Hot Dog (Christopher Connelly) are working for the Corp., trying to rescue her at all cost. Ann notes the bodies of two shotgunned Riders, and feels remorse: "They'd still be alive if I hadn't come here." Trash adjusts his leather vest and counsels, "Stop blaming yourself."
It's all pretty much like that until the final bloodbath. Morrow, Connelly and Fred Williamson walk sourly through their roles, aware that these are not resume-builders. In the background, the sounds of a film editor trying feverishly to make some sense out of the thing may faintly be heard. The subgenre has nowhere to go but up.
Movie Review
1990: The Bronx Warriors (R) *
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CAST
Vic Morrow, Christopher Connelly, Fred Williamson, Mark Gregory, Stefania Girolami
CREDITS
Director: Enzo G. Castellari
Producer: Fabrizio De Angelis
Screenwriters: Dardano Sacchetti, Elisa Livia Briganti, Enzo G. Castellari
Cinematographer: Sergio Salvati
Music: Walter Rizzati
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A United Film Distribution Co. release
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Running time: 85 minutes
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Vulgar language, violence and gore
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At DADE: America, Movies at the Falls; BROWARD: Movies of Pompano, Movies at Plantation, Cinema 4, Coral Springs Mall; PALM BEACH: Jupiter, Mall Cinema, Movies at Town Center.
Picture stolen from www.enzogcastellari.com. Visit today
'FORBIDDEN WORLD' 'ALIEN' IN DISGUISE' Miami Herald, The (FL) June 1, 1982 Author: BILL COSFORD Herald Movie Critic Estimated printed pages: 2
Forbidden World, one of those genre knock-offs from the Roger Corman organization, looks a lot like Alien. That's bad -- after all, a lot of us have already seen Alien -- and it's good -- for a low-budget feature to look anything like at $10- million movie is at least a moral victory for the filmmakers, and for the unwary patron.
The sad part about Forbidden World is that the part that's missing is one of the cheapest, at least in contemporary moviemaking. For another $10,000 or so Corman could have had a real-life, not-so-derivative script. And then, given that he seems to have borrowed an expensive set somewhere (on Corman's budgets, the Forbidden space station is either borrowed, or testament to a genius production designer), this might have been one of the summer's sleepers.
As it is, Forbidden World concerns a strange and ruthless parasitic life form that takes over an experimental station in deep space. It's ugly, this thing, and it grows and mutates through progressively more ugly forms, each of which seems dedicated only to making a sloppy meal of the nearest human. That's pretty much Alien. And though Forbidden World adds a few gratuitious sex scenes (so perfunctory that they could play at the Pussycat matinees), the movie is a copy, plain and simple.
As this is a Corman movie (directed by someone named Allan Holzman, but a Corman film nonetheless), there are some over- the-edge moments, and a few tributes to horror films past. Corman steps outside the mainstream when he needs to shock, so the alien in Forbidden World leaves a trail of scooped-out brain cavities and still-breathing gore wherever he goes. In one nice twist on the old horror staple of man 'communicating' with a misunderstood alien, comely geneticist June Chadwick (that's her stage name, yes.) taps a computer-screen greeting to the alien, who by this time is not only sentient but the size of a Mercedes with teeth. 'Can we coexist?' she asks, to which the new life form gives a 'Stand by' before impaling her with a tentacle. Boy, does she scream.
The effects are well-made and gruesome; the set is 'used-car tech,' a la Alien -- a space station that looks real and lived- in. Even the music is OK. But good gore only works in movies when the story is good, and this story is stolen, almost scene for scene.
Movie Review Forbidden World (R) ** (LEADER:)1..... CAST: Jesse Vint, Dawn Dunlap, June Chadwick, Linden Chiles, Fox Harris, Raymond Oliver CREDITS: Director: Allan Holzman Producer: Roger Corman Screenwriter: Tim Curnen Cinematographer: Tim Shurstedt Music: Susan Justin (LEADER:)1..... A New World release (LEADER:)1..... Nudity, implicit sex, violence and gore (LEADER:)1..... At the Trianon, Miami Gardens, Ambassador, Tropicaire Drive-In, Movie City, Mall, Movies at Plantation, Hiway Drive-In, Lakeshore Drive-In. (LEADER:)1..... **** Excellent*** 1/2 Very Good*** Good ** 1/2 Average** Fair* PoorZero: Worthless
ESCAPE 2000' MAKES 1984 SEEM PLAYFUL Miami Herald, The (FL) October 12, 1983 Author: BILL COSFORD Herald Movie Critic
On its very eve, 1984 continues to fascinate filmmakers with visions of the city as jungle and government as hyper-fascist. Sadly, the filmmakers thus fascinated have not included many of our more prominent artists, and the resultant films have been uniformly bad. Escape 2000 is the latest -- note that the fateful year keeps getting pushed up, the real 1984 not seeming likely to fit the bill at all -- and possibly the worst.
It is 2000 (or maybe 1995 -- movie and press-kit information are at variance on the issue). Nonconformists, known officially as Deviates, are packed off to Re-Ed camps for a long stretch of behavior modification. The Deviates are the good guys, of course -- one woman's offense seems to have been the fact that she ran a shop that sold cheap crystal -- and the government folks are very, very bad.
How bad? The head of the camp plays chess with foot-high pieces, and stages an inmate-hunt to amuse visiting dignitaries. One of the VIPs is a fat rapist; another is a homicidal equestrienne. Day-to-day harassment of the inmates is conducted by a huge bald man and his associate, who limps and carries a bullwhip that he is only occasionally able to snap. A loudspeaker sets the tone: "All Deviates assemble immediately in Center Compound." On their arrival, male and female prisoners are ordered to take showers together, and one woman is forced to clean fish.
Escape 2000 is about how the new arrivals manage to stage a revolt and spill a prodigious amount of blood; limbs are severed on several occasions, and at one point a vicious mutant bites off a man's small toe.
These proceedings are badly staged, badly performed, badly filmed and badly dubbed. Those with long memories and sharp eyes will detect the presence of Olivia Hussey, once luminous in Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet (1968), now appearing pinched, weathered and largely without talent as one of the Deviates. The film is otherwise of no interest.
Movie Review
Escape 2000 (R) No stars
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CAST
Steve Railsback, Olivia Hussey, Noel Ferrier, Carmen Duncan, Lynda Stoner, Michael Craig
CREDITS
Director: Brian Trenchard-Smith
Producers: Anthony I. Giannane, William Fayman
Screenwriters: Jon George, Neill Hicks
Cinematographer: John McClean
Music: Brian May
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A New World Pictures release
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Running time: 80 minutes
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Vulgar language, nudity, brief implicit sex, violence and gore.
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In DADE: Apollo, Omni, Trianon, Roxy, Marina, Movies at the Falls, America, Tropicaire Drive-In; BROWARD: Movies at Pompano, Sheridan, Coral Springs Movie Center, Lakes, Movies at Plantation, Lakeshore Drive-In, Thunderbird Drive-In; PALM BEACH: Boca Mall, Cross-County, Delray Drive-In
'CLASS OF 1984': REVENGE ISN'T SO SWEET Miami Herald, The (FL) November 16, 1982 Author: BILL COSFORD Herald Movie Critic
Here's a scene from the dark near-future as drawn by a new film called Class of 1984. When teacher comes to visit the home of Petey, a teenage trouble student, mother sends him packing and turns to console her son: "Don't worry, honey, he won't bother you again. Now go back in and watch TV." Yes, it's ghastly, and what's become of parents these days, anyway? While they're tuning the TV and voting Republican, the kids down at the high school are pushing drugs, misspelling their graffiti and commiting ritual sacrifice in the biology lab.
And who's in the middle? Teachers. Teachers like Mr. Norris the music instructor at Abraham Lincoln High (irony.). He gets these words of advice from Abe Lincoln's principal the day he arrives: "You're not in Nebraska anymore, Mr. Norris...teaching is something you do in spite of everything else." And this: "Surveillance is the name of the game around here, Mr. Norris."
And so it is. Mr. Norris loses his good students (the ones with the well-trimmed hair) to Petey's gang; they drop like flies, to drugs and the knife and terror in general. Mr. Norris loses his friend, the biology teacher, who immolates himself after Petey slaughters his rabbits. And Mr. Norris even loses his wife, who is raped by the delinquents and then, for no apparent reason (these kids.) dragged off to the school to be concealed in one of the home rooms. Surveillance may indeed be the name of the game here, but they're not very good at it.
If the movies have taught us nothing else over the years since Death Wish, they have taught us what will happen in situations such as these. The victim will rise up and strike back. Even a teacher, a kind man such as Mr. Norris, will have had enough and will resort to any means -- power tools, if necessary -- to get revenge on his tormentors.
Mr. Norris (played by Perry King) is no different. He does get his revenge, which -- despite some mid-film twaddle about the leniency of the juvenile justice system and the lethargy of parents and administration -- is what Class of 1984 is all about. Mr. Norris even gets to use a power tool (a wood-shop circular saw, handymen) on one of Petey's gang.
The director, Mark Lester, is able to generate a crude energy throughout the film, particularly in the early establishing scenes in which we get to feel afraid along the Abe Lincoln corridors. But his film is so clearly about getting even rather than about troubled youth or any other societal problem that it seems, like Death Wish II and a hundred others, a waste of that energy.
Class of 1984 does offer two notable elements, however. One is the scene in which Roddy McDowall, before succumbing to a killer dose of teacher burnout, holds his students at gunpoint for a final class -- an idea that despite its troublesome legal implications has a certain appeal.
The other is the reaction of young people in the audience, who might be expected to identify with the students on screen. They cheer loudly not when Petey cuts class, but when Mr. Norris grinds up the gang down in the shop. As the movies are busily and profitably proving, the righteous spilling of blood cuts across many lines.
Movie Review
Class of 1984 (R) *
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CAST
Perry King, Roddy McDowall, Merrie Lynn Ross, Timothy Vam Patten, Stefan Arngrim, Michael Fox
CREDITS
Director: Mark Lester
Producer: Arthur Kent
Screenwriters: Mark Lester, John Saxton, Tom Holland
Cinematographer: Albert Dunk
Music: Lalo Schifrin
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A United Film Distribution release
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Vulgar language, nudity, implicit sex, violence, gore
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At Omni, Trianon, Apollo, Roxy, Marina, Movies at the Falls, 27th Avenue Drive-In, Movies of Pompano, Southland (Fort Lauderdale), Sheridan, Holiday Springs, Lakes, Movies of Plantation, Lakeshore Drive-In, Thunderbird Drive-In.
'SORORITY ROW': COEDS NEVER LEARN Miami Herald, The (FL) February 23, 1983 Author: BILL COSFORD Herald Movie Critic
Every June 19, the creepy old housemother of Pi Theta closes the sorority house down, kicks out the students and disappears into the attic for a festival of strange behavior. You'd think the sisters would know when to leave ill enough alone, but slasher-movie kids, they never learn. So it is, in The House on Sorority Row, that someone sets in to coed bashing. The killer is the type of psychopath who speeds for the basement boiler room, to lie in ambush. The coeds are the type of people who find, on their last day in school and on earth, a pretext to visit the boiler room.
As is usual for this durable genre, victim and villain are well matched. Though House on Sorority Row does not have a single screeching-cat red herring, and though power tools are not employed, it does have a classic of low camp, a scene in which a girl who has just been nearly brained by a falling corpse repairs immediately and alone to her bedroom, where she changes into a baby-doll nightie and stands with her back to an open window.
It also has a scene in which the heroine, the only virtuous gal in Theta house, confronts a classmate who has staggered in with a bludgeon wound to the head. "Jeannie," says the heroine, "did somebody do this to you?"
Those SAT scores are going down, all right, and the film- school folks aren't helping the curve.
'FRIDAY THE 13TH III': 3-D GORE COMING AT YOU Miami Herald, The (FL) August 16, 1982 Author: BILL COSFORD Herald Movie Critic
Friday the 13th Part III--In 3-D --perhaps the most eloquent statement of theme and content for a motion picture since I Spit on Your Grave. No excuses this time, folks: Don't write us, shocked and outraged, about how you went to the movies expecting some innocent fun and found...and found...this. The title is a demographic smart bomb, and if you're in the 7-17 target audience, Friday will find you. Otherwise, you ought to know better. Beyond that, what to say? Through the miracle of refined 3-D -- not the cheesy stuff that scrambled vision across the nation during Comin' at Ya and Parasite, but a sumptuous pseudo-depth not seen here since Andy Warhol's Frankenstein several years ago -- you can now have the bloodbath in your lap.
And, to borrow from the sporting vernacular, in your face. In your face: popping popcorn, a bobbing yo-yo. A laundry-line pole, a baseball bat. A pitchfork, a knitting needle, a red-hot poker. Plus, two eyeballs, one dangling from an outstretched hand, another projected from a squeezed-in face. Someone offers a joint to your face as well, which, though not much of a 3-D effect, is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser.
The only truly entertaining moment in Friday III comes in the first half-hour, after a woman in curlers is impaled on a knitting needle.
This early gore accomplished, the film jumps to a daylight scene, the Next Morning, and shows us a van-load of perky teens heading out for the notorious Crystal Lake, where so many other teens have died. There is little subtlety here, and no attempt to establish a credible circumstance for the slaughter to come -- the kids just pack up and head for the charnel house, throats vulnerable and soft bellies begging for the blade.
Implicit in the artlessness of this scene is the filmmakers' sense of the formulaic nature of their work, which requires no higher art than bartering with the butcher for spare parts; when the teen van moves out, like a fisheries truck loaded with trout for the spring re-stocking, it's a nod to the genre and a wink for the grown-ups in the crowd. The rest is in your face.
Movie Review
Friday the 13th Part III -- In 3-D (R) *
CAST
Dana Kimmell, Paul Kratka, Tracie Savage, Jeffrey Rogers, Catherine Parks, Larry Zerner, David Katims, Rachel Howard, Richard Brooker
CREDITS
Director: Steve Miner
Producer: Frank Mancuso Jr.
Screenwriters: Martin Kitrosser, Carol Watson
Cinematographer: Gerald Feil
3-D Supervisor: Martin Jay Sadoff
Music: Henry Manfredini
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A Paramount Pictures release
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Vulgar language, brief nudity, brief implicit sex, considerable violence and gore
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At the 167th Street, Coral Ridge, Atlas, Lakes, Coral Springs Movie Center, Hi-Way Drive-In, Thunderbird Drive-In
