Simon Bar "Cinema": Beach Babes from Beyond

George Lucas made Return of the Jedi and featured Princess Leia in a bikini.  Years later we get Beach Babes from Beyond.  Something else Lucas will have to answer for!

Yeah, we could have centered it, but we're here to show T&A, not mitigate your OCD.

Staring many relatives of more famous actors and lots of boobs -- those terms could be construed as the same thing -- Beach Babes from Beyond features enough crane shots to make Johnny LaRue's drop his cigarette, with special effects by Mattel, music by K Tel, and just plain fail.

Our story centers around three interstellar chicks who steal one of their parent's spaceships and crash land on earth.  It's the exact same plot as ET if the E stood for "easy" and the T stood for "thong."  Also, Elliot would need big boobs and the role of Gertie need to be played by a drugged out hottie.  OK, it is ET.

Nothing says "advanced alien civilization" like the inability to hang art straight.

Here we have our titular (been waiting to use that one) beach babes, dressed in the winning clothes from Project Runway season 4, show 7: Ridiculous Tin Foil Dresses Plus Whining.

I should explain that the first time we see any of them they are naked.  I have to give the director credit, he did something most of these moves failed to do and established at the beginning that these women do, in fact, have boobs.  It's the sure sign of a competent director.  He's following Chekhov's Gun; but here we don't have to wait for the 3rd act for the gun to go off.

Yes, that's an unfortunate analogy.

Chrome: It worked for the Silver Surfer!

Our babes crash land, and their interstellar ... [snicker] ... phone is on the fritz. During re-entry, the thousand light year land-line snapped behind them.

Also on the spaceship?  A bakelite clock radio and a manual butter churn.

Remember, any sufficiently advanced civilization will look like magic to us.  Dumb, dumb magic.

Gidget was a lot more fun than I remembered.

Do you like to party on the beach?  That's good, because the movie features 30 minutes of music ... split between two songs.  The worse offender is "Party on the Beach."  I'm guessing that's the title, it's not in the credits, but since 95% of the lyrics are "Party on the Beach", it's probably a safe bet.

This scene goes on forever.  Mercifully, the song stops in the middle only to start up again 20 seconds later.  Did the band get winded?  Do they think I'll forget how awful it was if we all take a break?  The song makes another return at the end, but luckily I had already lost both my eardrums to mass trauma from the other song, "I Got a Woodie."

There's some plot development here, but I don't care.  You shouldn't either.  The plot is this film is the glue that holds the naked chicks together.  Or at least I hope it is, otherwise I have to imagine the sticky stuff is something else entirely, and my mind is way too fragile after Underdog's last beating to do that.

Hey, Trash really cleaned up!

Here's our two villains, some dude living 80s large with the reflective shades and brylcreem, and B-movie queen Linnea Quigley.  The dude actually does nothing in this film.  I'm not kidding!  He has a soft core fantasy that's more soft than core unless you count me wanting to bury him at the core of the earth, and then disappears from the film.

They are trying to foreclose on Uncle Bob's beach house.  Did I say Uncle Bob was once engaged to Linnea Quigley's character?  Did I say he was sitting on a miracle suncream?  Did I say he was $30,000 in debt and the local bikini contest's first price is $30,000?  Did I say that another guy in the movie happens to be a rocket fuel expert?

Is this movie and convenient plotting were humans, they would be a 4th generation incestious brother and sister.

But who cares?  Boobs!

OK, I apologize.  That's probably going scar a couple minds.  Then again, I am evil.

Cad, bring me more Ernest heads!

It seems these models are doing the normal nude model poses, which are left from right:

• dead
• wondering where the shot came from
• shot in the back

These are our evil models.  They lose to our good space models.  Surprised?

He's extra moist!

Yes, that seems to be Jack LaLanne.  Also not in the credits.  I'm sensing a pattern, and that pattern seems to be "I want nothing whatsoever to do with this movie."  Alas, I'm not in that exclusive club.

Another thing about this movie -- and bikini movies in general -- is a very progressive attitude in the script.  There's anti-corporate bits, there's environmental bits, there's peace and love bits, and frankly, the scientist in me is all for that, but the man in me just wants to build Poly Purebred robots to crush Underdog.  It's really front and center in this film.  Frankly, this is probably the best way to sell it to America, sandwiched in between acres of flesh.

Joe going over the list of health violations on the set.

Uncle Bob is played by Joe Estevez, and as these things go, his problems can only be solved by hot ladies and bumbling dudes.  Honestly, how did California ever have a fiscal crisis?  It's full of these kinds of people!

Bad stuff goes down, Linnea's character does some kidnapping, she tries to steal the suits for her models to wear, it's revealed she still loves Uncle Bob, and this movie is so tidy you could eat off the floor of the set and probably not catch an STD.  Probably.  Maybe.  I wouldn't recommend it.

It's always better to get kidnapped in a classy place.

Who's the judge of this bathing suit pageant?

Burt.  Ward.  Burt @#!$!@# Ward.  With Chicks.

Suck it, Adam West!

Burt Ward!  Robin!  Who, gee golly, conveniently, always wanted a lesson with Uncle Bob, who's conveniently a surfing legend.  This movie makes me want to throw up in my mouth conveniently.

Burt judges (this is how I imagine Heaven, with Burt Ward judging us for our sins and Adam West as God), our space babes win, our evil models have their suits sabotaged and you see their boobs for the 28th time and each and every plot thread ties up in the most predictable way possible with the maximum amount of skin.

All in all, a pretty package, and Joe and Linnea find a kind of squishy happiness that, and I hate myself for this, actually has a bit of an emotional center.  That is, if you ignore that Linnea was kidnapping people and plotting to throw Joe out of his house!

Of course, you can forget that ... conveniently!

Joe explains the strange last names in his family.

Oh, and we hear "Party on the Beach" again.  That is, after the second reprise of "I've Got a Woodie," and right before I finished my suicide note in my own blood.

This review is dedicated to my pal, Paul R.

Simon Bar "Cinema": Hollywood Hot Tubs

Simon Bar Sinister here again, with another review from the turgid depths of the early 80s, a time of hot women and men with enough body hair to count as biological sweaters.

The movie starts out so dark it's nearly black and to the pounding beat of what sounds like the theme music to the TurboGraf game Bonk's Adventure.  Sadly, this only lasts for 4:30 minutes, and attempting to blind myself with bleach failed, so I had to continue watching.  Here we are introduced to our hero, a no-good teen with a heart of gold.  This isn't the first cliche plot element, and won't be the last.  The script follows the "plot collision chaos" theory, where multiple boring plots collide in a boring finale, with boring results.  Plus boobs.

And butts!

I should also point out the characters of the preppie love rival, the good girl, the crusty uncle, the biker gang, absolutely none of which are cliche for a T&A 80s film!  None, I tell you!

At 1:44, this is probably the longest sex comedy I've watched sat through survived.  Most people know when to get in, make some bad jokes, show boobs, and get out before they've either wore out their welcome or the guy in the back of the theater finishes.

Yes, I went there.  I'm bitter and resentful!  And why shouldn't I be?  This film takes nearly 22 minutes to get to the first boobs!

This is a basic failure of any T&A film, and the director then compounds that error by putting this front and center in the scene:

The remake of the Wolfman, starring Burt Reynolds, wasn't that good.

Presenting: the unholy child of Tom Selleck, Sasquatch, and a year and a half of dryer lint cleanings, in all his man rug glory.  It's no wonder there's so much hot tub repair in this town; there can't be a drain in Hollywood this man hasn't clogged!

The movie finally goes all in on the nudity, but before that we have to sit through an excruciating "Engrish" comedy bit.   Me love joke way too long, Joe, but paycheck's a paycheck!  This is the first instance where our hero gets jumped by multiple naked women.

Have I done something wrong?  Is there a deity I've offended?  Did I not eat enough fiber?  It was that time I got too much change back at the store and didn't say anything, wasn't it?  I've apologized!  Make my life like this!  It happens multiple times in this film, I'm only asking for once!  I refuse to accept that this is not reality!

The happy one, or the angry one?  Either choice is fraught with peril!

Remember what I said about plot collision?  The blonde on the right -- the worlds most indecisive domanatrix (is there a way to be a worse domanatrix?) -- re-appears at the end.  I'm guessing they paid by the boob instead of by the hour.

All sorts of hilarious -- and I mean hilariously predictable -- stuff happens.  Don't miss one minute of the riveting plumbing discussions!  No plumbers will be seated during the last 15 minutes!  When I go to see boobs, I'm never disappointed with detailed instructions on fixing a leaky faucet!

Come to think of it, this could make HGTV worth watching.

This movie includes what seems to an obvious product placement by Namco for the game Xevious.  Honestly, do some research, getting to the first mothership is relatively easy, it's not championship level, as the movie would have us believe.  I almost turned the movie off at this point, so nerd enraged was I.  Then I remembered: wait, there's more naked chicks, and my loyal fan base of 2 people and 28 spam link bots wouldn't appreciate me giving up this easily.

Later on comes one of those great "keep the camera's rolling, we spent all the budget on penicillin" moments.  Our hero has gotten himself in a situation, is spotted by the woman he really wants, and she storms out.  In a huff, he climbs out of the hot tub (full of naked soccer players) and heaves the ball in anger ... and then it rockets right back off the wall at the unsuspecting cast!

It's all fun and games until somebody loses a nipple.

The woman that the ball just misses doesn't even have time to react, and the other guy looks like he's wondering if the film's insurance policy is up-to-date.

I should mention the character Crystal here, before I go full on creep at the end.  I don't know who's idea this was (and I'm staying away from the awful valley girl speak), but she spends almost every scene jumping up and down.  You can imagine the effect, or scroll to the end of the article for the best damn animated gif ever created in the history of everything, ever, sort of, kind of, maybe that's sale-ing it a bit too much.

Imagine this line in valley speak: "All that work, and those big strong hands over all those pipes, thats like so primitive."  She's a sexy, jiggly, Mr. Jinks.

The people making the movie seemed to think so as the sequel is dedicated to her character.

Lots of plots coming careening together at the end party, including a Karloff-looking, Lugosi-speaking, Lon Cheney Jr-drinking actor in a monster costume ... and a chimp ... who appears nowhere else in the movie.  Let me remind you, with 87 or so threads that slam together at the end of this movie like two seals being thrown together in a particle accelerator (and with as much gore), they randomly added a chimp.

Oh Link Lancelot, Secret Chimp, how far you've fallen!

And finally, it arrives:

Chaos!  And Balloons!  Balloon Chaos!

Yes, there's a guy in a monster costume and a macrachi band involved.  Also involved are our hero's parents, a motorcycle gang, the prohibition officier in the conclusion to the wonderfully forward thinking gay panic sketch, the domanatrix from earlier, some horny old couple and ... wait ... let me check my notes ... the parents, got that, the boss on too much valium, the cheap repair people ... wait ... oh yeah, the Burt Reynolds look alike and a bunch of Asians with cameras who are flashers.

Yes, yes, nothing rounds out chaos like cheap generalizations!

Now for something serious ...

Because of my blistering low self-esteem, I have a lot of fun at other's expense here, but before we let this one fade into the ether that is the internet comedy zone, I want to mention one of the stars, Jewel Shepard, who plays Crystal.  She spent the entire film bouncing up and down, and it can only be described with a animated gif that is sure to become an internet mainstay for avatars of sad dudes:

This took a long time to create but it was worth it!

You might need to open in another window to get it to animate.

In 2011, she was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, which she battled to be cancer free.  A member of the cast of the incredible film Return of the Living Dead, she's survived, cancer free, and still beautiful after all these years.  Give her site a visit: http://jewelshepard.biz

Criswell's Triumphant Return to the Stage

Criswell has never really been away, because how can you be away, when I am always in your future?

Criswell: In the future, men will no longer smoke what you consider "pipes", instead they will smoke from an elaborate system of PVC piping, connected directly to a "smoking machine."  Heating costs will go through the roof!

Many decades from now, women will woo men by a series of clicking and buzzing sounds.  Men will still use expensive drinks, but these drinks themselves will be buzzing and clicking!

In times ahead, cars will no longer be used, instead, people will get around on flying boats, and the sky will be called "the great ocean full of much small craft advisories."

Further into the mists of time, the Black Ghoul will no longer bug me for that paycheck for Orgy of the Dead, and instead shut her bouffanted pie-hole!

Black Ghoul: Hey!

Criswell: I also predict, now that it has been mentioned, somebody will be forced to review Orgy of the Dead!

Simon Bar Sinister: Hey!  Damn it to hell!  That thing doesn't even have a plot ...

OK, none of them have a plot, point taken.

Simon Bar "Cinema": Bikini Hoe-Down

Uh oh -- looks like them Duke boys got themselves into a heap of a mess of boobs!  How will they get out of this one?  Y'all come back now, ya'hear!

Bikini Hoe-Down

Recipe for boredom:

• Take one Dukes of Hazzard rip-off
• Add T&A that isn't attached to Catherine Bach
• Hire composer that thinks synthesized flutes and ye-haws counts as hillbilly music
• Actually name your dirty sheriff Roscoe and your two bumbling hillbillies "Joe Bob" and "Bob Bob"
• Mix in broad ethnic or cultural stereotypes

Set oven to "why did I watch this?" and in one hour and 30 minutes you'll have a heaping, steaming pile of garbage to choke down!

Bikini Hoe-Down sets the tone quickly with the first soft-core scene at less than 2 minutes into the movie.  This stands as the new record, right next to this movie's other record: the fastest I regretted hitting "play" which comes in at 3 seconds.

The action really starts when we get to cliche-ville:

I've seen a couple of photoshops in my days and this definitely looks 'shopped!

Oddly enough, most of the action takes place in "Ghostly Gulch", which is supposed to be haunted by a ghost but it turns out to be just this guy:

What is it with these bikini movies and racists depictions of Native Americans?  The Great Bikini Off Road Adventure did it, and anything worth doing once is worth overdoing to the point where the Go-Go Gophers want to end it all by throwing themselves down Klondike Kat's gullet.

I want to point out that this characters name is Crazy Joe and his entire arc in the film is drinking fire water, going crazy, and stealing white people's stuff.

... and they think he's a ghost ... and he's really just a dude named Otis ... and he magically fixes all the plot threads in the last 30 seconds of the movie.  Where's the Pet Cemetery type vengeance when you need it?

Did anybody sleep on any of these decisions?  I mean, outside of how they got cast?

The heroines of our film are the "three season" bikini girls and a feisty hillbilly chick, who even though she's never been party to any plumbing advances since 1890, managed to find the best breast enhancement surgeon in the Ozarks.

I've listed their names the best I can remember them.  I just saw this thing 5 minutes ago and either this movie or the pummeling Under Dog gave me this afternoon has really damaged my short term memory!

Other characters not shown: who cares?

This might seem like damning with faint praise -- and believe me, my #1 choice was damning with a rain of hell fire -- but this movie has a pretty complex plot.  Sure, it boils down the same as always: evil corporate guy tries to take family farm/business, saved by bikinis ... but there's a lot of additional plot threads.  Not additional good or necessary plot threads, but certainly more.

This isn't even counting the bizarre sub-plots, like the hippie who secretly loves the hillbilly and is painting a picture of her.  It's the longest running and most predictable joke -- yes, the picture will turn out horrible!  We know!  Stop fake painting it!  Go back to the old guy drinking moonshine, or the bumpkins that deliver it in milk jugs with "100% shine" written on it, or the Sheriff and his teddy bear, or the same two cars chasing each other down the same road.  I'll even take the chicken stealing!

Did I say a lot went on?  I haven't even scratched the surface and I'll avoiding doing that as breaking the skin of this movie might give me a staph infection.

The name of the villain is Snively, but in this movie everybody says Snidely, as in Snidely Whiplash.  With a name like Snively, what other career opportunities do you have open to you?  Evil deed-grabbing-nuclear-waste-dumping banker is all you've got.

Out of all these movies, this one actually had a bit I liked.  It was an extended sequence of our cast being knocked down by goats and some pretty testy sheep.  Do I have a new predilection forming?  If so, some producer is getting the bill for my therapy session!

Simon Bar "Cinema": Not of this Earth

Yet but another 80s T&A movie.  It's a dirty job, and somebody will get stuck in the muck and the mire doing it.

Not of this Earth

Featuring Traci Lords, America's hottest underage document forger, Not of this Earth is a remake of a 1957 Roger Corman film.  That should be a giant red flag the size of the Bismark.  The director had a bet with Corman that he could film it in 12 days -- and came in half a day under.  That should be enough red flags to fill the flag corps of a marching band.  Watching the movie itself is the final flag, planted right in your head, and embossed with 90 wasted minutes and endless days of regret.

That might be a little exaggerated -- the movie's only 80 minutes long.

One thing Corman couldn't do in the 50s that was required in the 80s was the T of the T&A.  And I'm not talking toes, tonsils, or tender vittles.  Lords -- and hopefully her documents were in order this time -- is either dressed as a nurse, in a bathing suit, in lingerie, or post-shower naked with mysterious disappearing and reappearing heels.  Must be hell on the shower tile.

The films opening titles are that most low budget of hallmarks -- interspaced scenes from other films.  There's some Alien rip-off, some Star Wars rip-off, and a rip off of everything Sid and Marty Krofft ever did, plus extra eyeballs on stalks and puke.

When Chuck Cirino saw where his credit was displayed he

threatened to take his synthesizer and go home.

The plot involves space vampires who want blood but seem to instead constantly run into boobs.  Wars on their planet have left their blood in the state of decay, and their glorious leader Greg Allman demands blood and the banning of all peach-laiden delivery vehicles [too easy, too mean, and probably too obscure].  Eventually a hottie female space vampire joins our crew.  Guess her breast size.  Did you say large?  Do you understand this is a blog and you can't really answer questions by screaming at the screen?

This film tries to convince us that Roger Lodge is a sexy leading man.  I was more willing to swallow the space vampire plot.

Eventually the vampire invade a clinic, and the female gets blood infected with rabies, something every doctor has a refrigerator stocked with, evidently to study the oatmeal-faced side effects.  She beats up some stereotyped punks.  It's nice to see them stereotyping a culture instead of a race ... progress!

Still rocking the shades!

The ending features lots of violence against mailboxes, garbage cans, traffic cones, and my very soul.

One part features three prostitutes lured into a basement to be fed upon.  Two take off their tops, but the third one only removes falsies.  Is this comedy?  I'm not sure, but it makes me want to close up all the vents, turn on the gas, and stick my head in an oven.  That's comedy, right?  Listen "Third Hooker" (no kidding, it's in the credits), this is a later period Roger Corman film, honestly, you were hired for a reason, and comedy wasn't it.

One interesting part, the prostitute screen left (ask your local hooker for a screen left, it'll cost you $50 but its well worth it) is Ava Cadell.  Who later went on to get a doctorate in psychology, wrote many books, seems very knowledgable, and made a career out of being a sex therapist.

Everything the authorities told you was wrong!

Next time somebody tells you women who strip in movies are drug addicts with daddy issues, here's your counter-example.

Dissension in the Ranks

I just got an email.

What?  No, I refuse!  No, no no!

This blog wants me to review a 1977 Eurotrash movie called SS Girls.  No!  I'd rather have Underdog punch me so hard I have to wiggle my toes to pee -- and that is something that has actually happened!  It was painful beyond all reasoning and takes at least 6 surgeries to correct -- and I'd rather have that happen again then view even a single frame of what is sure to be a wretched exploitation movie!

No, no no no no no no!  Or Nein for the Nazis in the film, and for the Italians that made it, "Preferisco annegare in un piatto di spaghetti cotti!"  Google translate: making people look both smarter and more buffoonish every day!

Who shall I get to do this?  Who shall be my patsy?

Uh, like, no man.  No way.  Like, nobody clicks on my posts but I don't even hate meesies enough to make them watch this thing!

Actually, I think I was in that one, it was 77 and let's say I don't remember much of that year ... but ... I do have a friend that's eager to please!

A welcome hello to you, my nefarious cartoon-dog adversary!  Big Brain Wonder Woman would enjoy joining your amusement reviewing collective!  Big Brain Wonder Woman has a unusually extreme desire to be appreciated and embraced by others and am willing to view the worst experiences cinema has to offer if it will get me invited to parties as something besides an object of ridicule!

Still worse then getting punched by Underdog!  Now, stupid and witless site administrator, what is my substitute movie to review?

Wait.

Elvira's Haunted Hills?

Noooooooooooooo!

Simon Bar "Cinema": The Great Bikini Off-Road Adventure

This again?  More 80s/90s T&A movies?  At this point, I'm pretty sure that stands for tedious and annoying!

The Great Bikini Off-Road Adventure

You know you are in for a treat when the movie's title also makes a good summary. As the title promises, this movie does contain:

• bikinis
• off-road adventures

And that sums up everything good I have to say about it.

All bikini films follow the same basic plot, and nearly the same crew and catering, which probably explains the '87 LA chlamydia outbreak.  Evil land owner/corporation tries to buy out/shut down business. Business saved by women wearing bikinis which attracts big business. The "lead" woman is always super-smart and freshly out of college -- she was able to add on the cost of her implants to her college loan.

I'd be fine with this basic premise; find an audience and cater to it -- it worked for Duran Duran. What happened here, though, is in some odd pique of madness ("creativity", in Hollywood speak, "fiasco" in my speak), the film maker decides to shoot for "respectability." It can no longer be about bikinis ... it must be about something bigger. No, not the things in bikinis!  Big ideas!  Big thoughts!  All in small budgets!  This is how you go from Deer Hunter to Heaven's Gate.

Let's add Native Americans! Sure, they haven't suffered enough! Bikini-clad women save their ancient ancestral lands! They won't be fooled by the small-pox infested blankets; they don't need them, it would only cover up the bikinis!

"Thanks for your lands," we say, "sorry about the slaughter -- hey, here's a bikini film!"

It makes those trinkets traded for NY look like a great deal.

While we're at it, let's work in a bit from the "crying Indian" litter commercial. Are you saying it isn't cliche (speak: racist) enough?  Let's give them mystical medicine-man powers, which thankfully they forgot to use when whitey invaded!

Just so you understand how bad this is, here's a actual scene from the film:

Shocking!

Kidding, here's the real scene:

Luckily, the actor forgot his bikini that day.

The glue that holds together these films -- sorry, bad choice of word -- the sticky substance that holds together these films is the comedy relief, in this case, our villains. When put to the task of finishing off the land owners, these villains are nothing but wacky dynamite accidents waiting to happen. How did these imbeciles manage to get the bikini-ed land owners in such dire straits in the first place? Luck? Sued the owners for one of their careless accidents? Worked into script rewrites?

I'm no lady's man, but I've been around quite a few pools and beaches and never once did a woman with a bikini top suddenly snap off, yet it happens with alarming frequency in this movie. Since I consider movies a reflection of real life, I guess I have to chalk this up to my continuing streak of bad luck or my still undeveloped mental powers.  Believe me, I've tried staring and concentrating really, really hard, and only come away with a migraine and a slap across the face.

Which, strangely, is the same result from watching this movie.

I was forced to slap myself, though.

In the interest of science, though, I will attempt to explain the physics:

Offensive Asian Stereotype not required.

Simon Bar "Cinema": The Bikini Carwash Company

You know the drill ... another 80s 90s T&A movie.  Yes, we're branching out.

The Bikini Carwash Company

Who put plot in my dancing nude chick film?

This film is so good the sound track requires two LA hair metal bands.  This is necessary as 70% of the film is naked women dancing to music.  The other 30% of the movie is vile sewage.  It's as if somebody broke the main sewer line in hell.

Displaying 3 pairs of naked breasts within the first 2 and a half minutes, this production throws the entire bikini-related movie industry upside down.  Instead of padding the meager plot with boobs, this film pads boobs with the meager plot!  It even goes so far as to pad the boobs with butts!

The movie features our Iowa corn-breed hero Jack McGowen, or "Mr Fantasy Fullfilment", as he stumbled his way into babes and success.  Helping out are two muscle bound sub-Spicoli rejects (whose bodies spontaneously eject cartoon sound effects), and a bevy of boob and butt delivery machines.  Also, at 36 minutes in, female bad-ass-but-hot lawyer Bobby Kanova arrives -- signaling the start of 3 minutes of riveting legal banter, just what T&A audiences love!

I set my watch waiting for her to suddenly become naked.  I was rewarded 26 minutes later.

Just kidding, I don't wear a watch.  Better to not know how much time I spend watching this as the suicide prevention hot line has started blocking my number.

Also featuring the comedy stylings of male car wash employees Ronnie Van Zant's other brother and Joe Flaherty's SCTV stand-in.

Rounding out the good guy cast are three strippers whose rest home clients don't like a dirty van.  I didn't make that up.  That's not a joke.  It's also not a joke in the movie, no matter how hard it tries to be.

One of the first lines you hear any of the women say in the film is "get away from me and my t***s".  I suspect this was not only in the script but something said an awful lot around the craft services table.

Lining up on the evil side is the crusading anti-fun DA, A.B. Quinn.  How did Ted Knight let this plum rule get away? Also there's an assistant DA, a Judge, and a cop named "Shag".

Bikini movie plot, go!

Two hot chicks in a T&A movie with a hose that sucks things in, gee, what could possible happen?

I should, at this point, mention the running side plot.  There's a flasher on the loose.  His identity is a secret.  Guess who he is?  Just guess.  I'll be here, driving a rusty corkscrew into my head to forget this movie while you think.  What's that?  You guessed the DA?  Amazing!  How did you know?

In between so many dancing scenes, this cliche of a plot unfolds.  Bikini girls help save car wash.  Anti-smut law and order descends.  They are either shammed as crazy perverts themselves, get wrangled in with sex, or discover that they've been repressed and open up.  Separating all this is hundreds of swish pans; the movie ends with an explanation of what a swish pan is.  It comes off as a joke, but I suspect early test audiences (two sleepy cats, a clothes pin, and a used coffee cup) questioned what that weird thing was between scenes so they added the "joke" at the end.

There are a couple bizarre things with this movie.  It seems to end 20 minutes before it does; there's endless montages, a weird surfing scene, more dancing filler, another coda, it just goes on and on.  I wasn't sure that I didn't die watching this and was suddenly discovering my eternal fate for a life of crime and murder.

Second, it starts with a very early 90s graphic intro of a bus driving through a tunnel and over a landscape with two hills.  Yes, you guessed it, please receive one cookie, split it in half, and then jam one piece into each of your eyes to protect yourself from ever watching this movie.

The third thing is the appearances of the flasher -- usually accompanied by a first person view -- but the flasher seems to be some sort of robot as he has terminator/robocop-like graphics in his field of sight.  Was this a jettisoned subplot?  There's a throw away line at the end to explain it, but that comes in the padding!  Even the explanations are padded!

I don't have to cover anything up with this picture because the crappy graphics do it for me.  Hey, boobs are expensive!  There wasn't enough money left over, all they could afford was a TRS-80.

He's done in by the strippers -- but -- they never get completely nude (they wear pasties.)  So, in this movie, regular beach going bikini girls get nude at the drop of a hat (it seemed to be raining hats during the production), but actual strippers are too modest.

Now I know why the robot/flasher had a overload!

Representative joke:
"He [the flasher] hates girls, I think he's gay."
"That's nice, I think everybody should be happy, including flashers!"

What follows will either give you a deeper understanding of the depths of my OC, or just how sad my life has become.  The editing on the many naked dancing scenes was poor, with tops and bottoms appearing and disappearing.  It was really distracting, and I began to exclusively focus on that.  I'm beginning to think 80s/90s T&A movie producers didn't care a lot for the final product.

"Did the boobs get in?"
"Yes"
"That's a wrap!"

Simon Bar "Cinema": Elvira, Mistress of the Dark

This blog demands that I do a real review, for somebody named Karswell.  Feh!  Whatever!

Elvira, Mistress of the Dark

Former, and probably future, Larry Flynt nude model Cassandra Peterson (Elvira, better know as "Vampira blown up with a bicycle pump") stars in this 1 1/2 hour Benny Hill skit ... just without the funny old bald guy or the typewriter missing the "H". I wanted to like this movie, but I was frightened by something large -- no, huge -- Elvira's eyelashes -- the biggest I've seen this side of a muppet.

This movie's message is as bold as Elvira's neckline; it presents us with a new theme for the modern age: Gone are the black and white hats signifying good or bad, it's breast size and makeup application for good, lack therefor of for old, crotchety, witch-burning town folks.

This movie features a cast of B-TV actors that I haven't since re-runs of Petticoat Junction and who I wish I could have tied to the tracks of the Cannonball Express.  These actors play a group of uptight citizens of a modest New England town. Their biggest problems -- their daughters want to wear makeup. Enter Elvira, playing a top-heavy Kevin Bacon ala Footloose, breaks the town out of it's stupor and, at the same time, conquers an evil warlock and reveals her love-interest nemesis to be wearing falsies. Gasp!

Who says modern women can't have it all?

Inheriting both a delapadated haunted house and ancestral witchy powers, Elvira earns the disdain of the local warlock who turns the town-folk against her in his bid to capture the magic book now in Elvira's possession. Luckily, the rest of the movie is spent on close ups of Elvira's breasts -- and, in a farm-fresh plot twist -- her butt.

I'm more than boobs!  Actually, not to go all analytical nerd on you, but (ha!) I suspect this is a stunt butt, as it's right before a back flip.  I've watched too many of these movies.

Into this creeps our screenwriters (including Cassandra) who decided to go for groans more than outright comedy. For instance, Elvira gets hit in the head by a falling sign. Her love interests asks her "How's your head" to which she replies "Nobody's complained yet."

ARGHHH.

This movie is full of laytex. Before you get excited and rush to iTunes let me tell you that this is the kind of laytex covering puppet monsters.

I never liked the more risqué episodes of the muppets.

The ending features some silly gore (dismemberment) and even sillier one-liners. Elvira manages to stay both in her bouffant and dress as she's beaten silly by the warlock -- and slowly tears her skirt down to the bare essentials throughout the fight. I do have to hand it to Elvira -- it has to be hard to concentrate on showing off your gams when a warlock shooting flames from his mouth is chasing you -- but darn it, she's just that kind of lady!  It's that fine dedication to the craft that makes this movie great!

Note that this film makes the most dangerous of mistakes -- it shows scenes from a much better film -- and then compounds the mistake by making fun of said better film. Yes, I understand that most people do not get Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, but for the dark lord's sake, Cassandra can be funny, you think she'd get it.

Here's a handy guide:

The follow-up is called Elvira's Haunted Hills.  Haven't seen it.  Waiting for Elvira's Demonic Domes, or Elvira's Monstrous Mountains, or Elvira's We Get It Already.

Simon Bar "Cinema" 3

Does reviewing movies on this silly blog count as work release?

Alright you ninnies!  Sadly, I am never asked to review "The Great Bikini Off Road Adventure" or "The Bikini Car Wash" or "The Bikini Atoll!"  These are films I might actually watch!  Instead, I can only watch modern trash -- like in this installment -- something called "The Gray."  Something which I have absolutely no intention of watching!

Now, I know this color.  It's a good color ... the color of steel.  Something I've made many a death cannon out of, and the color of the smear that will be left of Underdog after I hit him with the beam!

Gray is also the color of cement, the cement I shall encase Underdog's dripping gray corpse in when I throw him into the dark, gray depths of the ocean!

That, or more likely, the color of the outer ring of the black eye Underdog will hand me.  Being a scientist, I predict the probability of that being within 99.9%.

Gray is now, also, the color of my mood.