The late, great Andy Sidaris had a
dream, and that dream was to push the T and A barrier into the
stratosphere. Sidaris originally worked as a television producer and
director for the ABC television network where he oversaw their sports
coverage. Calling himself “the best television director that ever
lived”, he was a pioneer of sports broadcasting and helped to
develop techniques such as slow motion replay and split screen
angles. It's not these revolutionary ideas he's best known for
however, as he also involved what is called “the honey shot”,
something you've seen a million times if you've ever watched
televised sports.
Quite simply he'd zoom in one
attractive cheerleaders on the sidelines or beautiful women in the
stands, and was completely unapologetic about it despite his style
earning much criticism from his peers. His justification was that
not only hardcore sports fans watched games, and he wanted to reward
the people who weren't obsessed with every single detail of a huddle.
Lascivious? Yes, but it's virtually unheard of to hear that kind of
honesty in sports.
After nearly three decades on
television, Sidaris decided the medium wasn't meeting his creative
needs so he decided to branch out into the world of film. He
famously described it as “after three million kickoffs, every game
is not the end of the world”, which should be transcribed on
plaques in every arena across the world. Having already worked on
television dramas such as Kojak and Gemini Man, Sidaris
tried his hand at action movies. What followed is the legendary
“Bullets, Bombs, and Boobs (or Babes, when in polite company)”
series of films, twelve action movies that make up the Andy Sidaris
Collection.
We're going to spend the next month
taking a look at all twelve, with their bevy of Playboy Playmates and
Penthouse Pets “acting”, their endless car chases and explosions,
and their deeply nuanced plots. First up is 1985's Malibu
Express, written, produced, and directed by Sidaris himself in
his film debut.
The film opens with one of the stranger
credit sequences I've ever seen, a woman sits down at a 1980s
computer and... types them out? Huh? Does that mean this entire
movie is just a computer game she's designing, making it an early
forerunner of Inception? It doesn't help this is all scored
to hillbilly music, which doesn't exactly SCREAM an action movie set
in Malibu to me. When this finally ends, we are introduced to our
heroes: Cody Abielene and his mustache. He pulls up to a building in
his SWEET AS HELL red DeLorean, which is the only thing capable of
upstaging that magnificent mustache he's rocking.
He strolls into a shooting range for
some target practice, missing his target all six times. Well, that's
not the best heroic introduction I've ever seen. After missing he
blows his gun off like he's accomplished something and leaves. He
goes to see his friend, June Khnockers (ha!), who works as a race car
driver and just happens to be a gorgeous blonde. She is played by
Playboy's Miss July for 1982, Lynda Wiesmeirer. They talk briefly
about her driving, she gets topless, and then Cody teleports back
into his car thanks to some jilted editing. Alright, that
accomplished a lot!
Cody drives on, talking into a tape
recorder that lets us know he works as a private detective as well as
the fact he loves the ladies. He heads to the marina where he lives
on a houseboat, the Malibu Express. After taking a shower, he emerges to
get a gun held to his head. But it turns out to be a squirt gun
wielded by two bikini clad ladies, May and Faye. They introduce
themselves as his new neighbours, wondering if they can use his
shower since theirs isn't working yet. May is Barbara Edwards, the
1984 Playmate of the Year while Faye is Kimberly McArthur, Miss
January 1982.
The film doesn't show if he agrees or
not, because dammit it's been ten minutes and there's got to be a
plot! No one's going to watch a movie that is just a bunch of women
getting naked, honestly! We cut to a blonde bombshell in a tight red
dress meeting with a man in a suit, as they're apparently federal
agents discussing the Russians getting sold advanced computer
technology illegally... or something. The dialogue goes by way too
fast to make any sense, the long and short of it is the man wants to
hire Cody to infiltrate the world of high tech espionage to find out
who is giving the Russians a leg up. Oh, and just kidding about not
getting to see May and Faye showering because that's the entirety of
the next scene! It's particularly fun to watch May keep looking
directly into the camera, as she probably thought this was a Playboy
photo shoot and not an actual movie.
After making sure they're nice and
clean, they come out to Cody and ask him to investigate their
privates. HA! He declines though, because he just got a page from
his friend to meet with the Contessa Luciana about a job. Luciana is
revealed to be the blonde in the red dress, having traded that in for
what can loosely be described as a dress although I think it's just a
silk bathrobe she forgot to tie shut. Luciana is played by the
legendary Sybil Danning, star of B-movie classics such as Howling
II: Stirba Werewolf Bitch (best movie title EVER!), Lou
Ferrigno's Hercules, and even hosted her own video series of
wonderfully campy movies called Sybil Danning's Adventure Video.
She also posed for Playboy in 1983 because I'm pretty sure that was
a prerequisite for appearing in this film.
Cody brings Luciana a gift, which is
another red dress that seems to be missing the chestal area. Maybe
she put it on backwards? He takes her to a fancy restaurant to talk
business, except that segues into them having sex. As they lie in
bed she finally remembers she has a job for him, but the movie skips
ahead to the next day because who wants to be bored by a plot?
Things take a turn for the strange when he gets challenged to a drag
race by his longtime redneck rivals and promptly gets blown away by
an inferior car. He takes the car to his mechanic and exchanges it
for a black Ford, then heads to get around to doing that pesky job
thing he's getting paid to do: watch Luciana's friend Lillian
Chamberlain for a few days to make sure she's okay as there's hi-jinx
going on at her place. Gee, what are the odds Lillian turns out to
be a model with huge breasts? WHOA, SHE ISN'T! Now THAT is a plot
twist!
Lillian is a slightly older woman,
currently confined to a wheelchair due to a broken leg. She tells
Cody she wants him around because there's something strange going on
at her estate, and wants him to find out what it is. What... does
ANY of this have to do with Russians and computer technology?
Lillian lives in her house with her nephew Stuart, his wife Anita,
her niece Liza, her butler Shane, and her maid Marian. Heh... Maid
Marian, cute. We get our first introduction to this colourful cast
of characters by seeing Shane is sleeping with Anita behind her
husband's back. Cody joins the Chamberlains for dinner, during which
Anita and Liza both flirt with them. Wonder where THAT'S going?
After dinner Cody leaves to meet with
his friend Beverly, who is a cop. Beverly is played by Lori Sutton,
who never posed for Playboy but played a Playmate in Fast Times at
Ridgemont High, so close enough. They go to the gym so she can
work out and he can ogle the women, but they're all wearing clothes
so the movie decides to return to the Chamberlain estate so we can
watch a topless Anita write around on the floor. That's kind of
weird. Anita is played by Shelley Taylor Morgan, who is most famous
for being in soap operas and having a tiny part in on of my all time
favourite films, Scarface. She continues to crawl around for
no good reason, so the film decides to see what Liza's up to. Oh
hey, she's having sex with Shane in the shower. Or possibly getting
raped, it's kind of hard to tell. Liza's actress is Lorraine
Michaels, yet another Playmate who proudly represented the magazine
as Miss April 1981. Unbeknownst to Liza, Shane is secretly
photographing their encounter with a time delay camera.
We see this is something of a habit of
Shane's, as the next day he films Anita having sex with him. Cody
takes Liza driving so he can get to know her, learning she has a
friend named Johnathan Harper who sells computers worldwide. Oh hey,
that IS actually a thing in this movie and I didn't dream it! The
end up going to see Johnathan, who just HAPPENS to have three
bodyguards that we saw earlier at the gym glaring at Cody. Liza says
she's going to stay with Jonathan, Cody leaving after things start
getting tense. The bodyguards follow him in their car, getting him
to pull over so they can “chat”. We get another totally logical
scene where Cody takes his shirt off, prompting two of the men to do
the same. We gonna fight or are we gonna have a sex scene?
Ah, a fight. Cody gets beat down and
his car shot up for good measure, and all I can think is thank God it
wasn't the DeLorean getting bullet holes put in it! Cody walks
through the desert, finding a used car lot ran by... GASP! An
attractive woman! He asks for the fastest thing she has, which she
responds is herself and takes her shirt off. I don't- I don't think
that's how you're supposed to haggle. After getting what he calls
“raped”, Cody ends up getting a junker and driving back to the
Chamberlain estate, where he spies on Shane talking business on the
phone with Anita in the room.
Shane is talking to some thug getting a
massage from a topless woman played by two time Adult Video News Best
Actress Shanna McCullough, telling Shane he wants his $30,000 soon
and threatens Anita's life. Probably not the best tactic to use on
Shane, who tries to blackmail her for the money by showing him the
sex tape he made of her and saying he'll show Stuart. This is turn
isn't the best tactic to use on Anita, who says she hopes the
gangsters get a hold of him and leaves. Shane then chauffeurs Stuart
to a club where he... performs as a drag queen? Alright, everyone
needs their hobbies I guess. They talk for a bit, Shane then trying
to blackmail him with photos of THEM sleeping together. GODDAMN, is
there anyone in this movie Shane ISN'T fucking? If it turns out he
had an affair with the DeLorean, I am OUT OF HERE. Also, why in the
hell aren't the Chamberlains starring in their own reality show,
Chasing The Chamberlains?
Stuart also shoots down Shane, leaving
the limo to enter the club. Cody, who is still following Shane, gets
a kick out of this. Sadly we don't get to see what kind of act Stuart
puts on, as the scene changes to the next night to a dinner party
Lillian is holding at her house. We get our first good look at maid
Marian, who is more platinum blonde hair than woman and doesn't seem
to believe in pants. She's played by Robyn Hilton, immortalized as
the redhead secretary in Mel Brooks' groundbreaking comedy Blazing
Saddles. She mentions something about working for Jonathan, who
is at the party trying to get Lillian to invest in his computer
business. Also attending the party is the man Shane owes money too,
who jumps our Lothario out in a guest house. He declares if he
doesn't get his money by the end of the night, Shane's face is going
to have an unfortunate appointment with his knife.
The party ends, Shane going back to his
quarters where he turns on his TV. A talk show with REGIS AND JOY
PHILBIN is on, whom are the last two people in the world I expected
to turn up in this movie. He gets stabbed and shot by a mysterious
figure that looks very feminine in nature, my suspicions that it's
Anita growing when she takes the blackmail video and pictures out of
Shane's cabinet. He manages to snap a picture of her before he dies,
his assailant awkwardly running away. The next morning Cody and
Luciana find his body, and seem about as concerned as if they'd found
a dead ant on the sidewalk. Case in point, they start making out
while standing over his body! Wow, and they say the current
generation is desensitized to violence!
Cody enters Shane's cabin to find Anita
searching for the the blackmail evidence, so there goes my theory
that it was her. I'll give this movie credit for not being
COMPLETELY predictable. He sends her away to gather everyone in the
house for a meeting, looking through Shane's stuff and finding the
camera. He takes the film out of it to be developed, noticing Marian
the Pantsless spying on him. He shrugs this off, walking poolside to
where the Chamberlains have assembled. He excuses himself to... call
a phone sex line? Time and a place dude, time and a place! He
speaks with a woman named Sally, asking if she has any news for him.
She instead talks about how much she wants to fuck him, pulling her
breasts out of his shirt because it's been awhile since we've seen
some nipples. He cuts her off and tells her to call the police
because... uhh, maybe our genius hero can't remember the number for
911?
Beverly and a Lieutenant Arledge show
up not long after, Arledge looking like he stumbled out of a 1950s
cop movie. Arledge meets with the Chamberlains, showing Lillian an
envelope he got this morning full of the sex pictures of Anita.
Lillian is as outraged as her poor acting will allow. Cody and
Beverly head to the beach house where Shane lived in search of more
clues, Marian calling Jonathan to report this. Instead of looking
for evidence of Shane's killer though, they decide to have sex.
Yeah, that's what I would have done as well. Shane was
booooooooring! Two of Jonathan's thugs arrive at the house, armed
with shotguns. One hears the shower running and enters the bathroom,
only to find Cody pointing a gun at him.
Cody cracks some classic one liners and
then pulls the trigger, MISSING BY A MILE. Bwahahah! Beverly is
much more competent and shoots the thug dead, yelling at Cody for his
idiocy. He tries to save face by reminding her there's another goon
outside, heading after him. Cody misses AGAIN, Beverly stepping in
to make the save one more time. This movie is now TOTALLY AWESOME.
They suspect Lillian might be behind the hit, as she's the only
person who could have known they were headed to Shane's. Yeah,
because THAT makes sense. Cody only saw Marian tailing him, no
reason to be suspicious about that AT ALL. Private detectives are
famous for their non-curious nature, after all.
He heads home for some reason, along
the way getting challenged to another race by the redneck family and
losing thanks to his junker car. These sequences better have a HUGE
payoff, but for some reason I'm kind of doubting that. He goes home,
now aware he's been followed by Jonathan's three bodyguards from
earlier. He enters his boat to find May and Faye waiting for him,
but there's no time for a threesome, we have another battle to get
to! Cody shoots off the ear of one of the men, even though he was
aiming for his chest. The thugs flee, I guess to get their injured
friend medical attention even though they could have totally taken
Cody out.
Falling asleep, Cody gets woken up by a
phone call from Beverly at the Chamberlain estate, telling him
Arledge has arrested Stuart for Shane's murder after finding their
compromising photos. Cody finally tells her about the roll of film
he stole, arranging to meet with her later to get it developed.
First though, he has to have sex with May and Faye because
PRIORITIES! The film shockingly doesn't show this, cutting instead
to him driving to the speedway June works at with Beverly riding
passenger. They're going to have the film developed by Rodney, a
beautiful woman who works there as a photographer. Things start
getting complicated as the thugs start following them, tipped off by
Marian who was eavesdropping on Beverly's phone call.
Rodney develops the film, handing them
a picture of Shane's murderer but OF COURSE we don't get to see who
it is. The thugs ambush them and shoot Beverly in the shoulder, Cody
trying to return fire but misses thanks to his aiming skills... or
lack thereof. A VERY LAME shootout follows, Cody eventually jumping
into June's car and taking off with her along for the ride. The
thugs jack a helicopter to take off in pursuit, forcing a pilot to
fly for them. June, who must have popped some ecstasy before this
scene, gets off on Cody driving her car, takes her shirt off, and
tries to have sex with him. PRIORITIES!
They race along, passing a Winnebago on
the highway being driven by one Mr. Andy Sidaris. Creator cameo,
check and check! The thugs order the pilot to drop them off on the
road ahead of Cody so they can cut him off, which proves to be a bad
idea when the earless one gets RUN THE FUCK OVER. June's car chooses
this moment to run out of gas, forcing her and Cody to run on foot
from the two remaining thugs but soon end up cornered with a thug
advancing on either side of them. Cody admits to June that he only
has one bullet left and has never hit a moving target in his life.
This gives June the proverbial light bulb, who bares her breasts to
one of the thugs to freeze him DEAD IN HIS TRACKS. Hahah, I think we
all saw that coming. The power of boobs can overcome all!
This naturally allows Cody to shoot him
in the side, taking his shotgun to get ready for the last remaining
thug. Miraculously Cody manages to shoot him in the knee, allowing
the two to escape back to the highway. June uses her Magic Boobs to
stop the Winnebago so they can hitch a ride back into town, Sidaris
MORE THAN HAPPY to oblige. Arriving at a gas station, Cody calls
Beverly to update her on his plan before taking off for Jonathan's.
Jonathan is holding a party which happens to feature a lot of topless
women, Liza among the guests in attendance. Cody shows up and clears
the place by firing his gun, confronting Liza over why SHE killed
Shane as the woman in photo looks a lot like her.
The police arrive right after this and
arrest the two conspirators, so movie over right? Not quite, as Cody
narrates he's made one mistake. He arranges for the entire cast to
meet him on his houseboat, driving there... only to run into the
redneck racers again. Ohhhhh boy. Cody wins this time, closing that
HIGHLY RIVETING SUBPLOT And now back to our movie, where everyone is
gathered on his boat ala classic detective “whodunnit” style. He
shocks them by bringing out Liza, going into a lengthy flashback
about how it was really LUCIANA that killed Shane. It's needlessly
complicated and nonsensical, but basically she... actually, I have NO
FUCKING IDEA.
Jonathan and Shane were selling computers to the
Russians, Shane going too far when he started threatening the
Chamberlains so she killed him and framed Liza, only just enough so
Cody would figure out she was innocent. I watched the entire film
twice and I'm still not sure I full understand it, seeing as how
Luciana was a FREAKING CIA AGENT. But whatever, Lillian toasts Cody
for his help and he has a flashback montage of all the naked women in
the movie because it's always a good idea to end your film on its
strongest suit.
Cue the credits.
You could pretty much call this
B-Movie: The Movie, as it featured damn near every trope of
the genre. You had your macho hero that slept with anything in
sight, you had your customary gunfights and chase scenes with sweet
cars, tons of naked women, all topped off with hilariously bad acting
and a story that made NO sense. And yet there's something so sincere
and genuine about it, especially when compared to today's garbage
like the Expendables or the Fast and the Furious 22.
The leads are all earnest and likeable, not trying to channel the
cool disaffected heroes of the aforementioned action films. There
are some issues with the editing and pacing, but when you consider
this is the directorial debut of a 54 year old man who dealt almost
exclusively in sports broadcasting, I'm going to cut it some slack.
The script is where the real issues
arise, and yes I know complaining about that is like bitching about
the story continuity in a porno. But seriously, WHY was this so
complicated? Why not just make this a murder mystery about who
killed Shane instead of shoehorning in the bizarre subplot with the
Russians and the computers we never saw? It even makes less sense
when you wonder why the CIA would recruit an idiot like Cody,
especially since it WASN'T Luciana's idea to involve him? Overall
though, a highly entertaining movie with the kind of fun that is
nearly extinct in this day and age. If you want to see 1980s B-movie
action done right, I'd give it a high recommendation.
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