Only now does it occur to me... KAMIKAZE 1989 (1982)

Only now does it occur to me... that I would ever see German auteur Rainer Werner Fassbinder (BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN) running around in a leopard-print suit (well, lurching around, rather) and solving crimes as a hardboiled detective in somebody else's (Wolf Gremm's) queer cyberpunk thriller.

It bears mentioning that Fassbinder died at 37 of a drug overdose, little more than a month before this film was released (and at Wolf Gremm's apartment). One can tell watching this film that he is near death; he stumbles around in a daze, punctuated by episodes of rage and childlike impotence; generally, he's as corpulent and unhealthy-looking as Orson Welles in TOUCH OF EVIL.

It's been years since he could pull off the mesh-shirt/kimono combo

I have a lot of personally complicated feelings about Fassbinder and his death––in the sanitized, arthouse-fan-service version, he's a mad genius/enfant terrible who worked himself to death by making three to four feature films a year and who picked up a drug habit because it allowed him to make even more films. In this narrative, he's the living embodiment of the Lao Tzu quote about "the flame that burns twice as bright" burning half as long. In the version supported by those who knew him personally, he was more like something between a schoolyard bully, an angry toddler, and a cult leader, abusing the actors in his troupe and the people close to him with sadistic abandon. For me, this does not diminish the quality of his incredible films, but forces me to reckon with his personality whenever I engage with those films. It also makes me wonder if, here, at the end, his character invades the personal space of everyone around him because he is directed to, or if he is just being a dick.

Does he throw tantrums––like smashing the buttons on apartment buzzers––because it is a character trait of "Polizeileutnant Jansen," or a character trait of Fassbinder himself?


Seriously, like 10% of this movie is him furiously smashing buttons:

There's a rogue's gallery of Fassbinder regulars throughout, including Günther Kaufmann (WHITY, IN A YEAR WITH THIRTEEN MOONS) and Brigitte Mira (ALI: FEAR EATS THE SOUL, MOTHER KÜSTERS GOES TO HEAVEN):

and the whole thing functions mostly as an insane New-Wave fashion show (which is something I would never complain about):


Just another day at the office



Yep, that's Franco Nero 



Yep, that's a Superman phone



Yep, that's a modified football jersey on a futuristic housewife wearing New Wave swimwear


Yep, that guy is just carrying around a broken toilet

On the whole, it's as if BLADE RUNNER were a queer German art film channeling THE APPLE:

I'm pretty sure the nurse behind this man is wearing a giant BIM mark

except with a dreamy electronic score by Tangerine Dream's own Edgar Froese instead of sci-fi disco, but that's neither here nor there. Perhaps appropriately, the film ends with Fassbinder humping an image of Neil Armstrong and touching himself while listening to the audio of Nixon debriefing Armstrong after the moon landing.

This is literally how the movie ends, and it's Fassbinder's (unknowing?) ultimate farewell to the world of film.

Somehow, it seems appropriate: masturbatory, strange, histrionic, and sad.

Film Review: CYBER BANDITS (1995, Erik Fleming)

Stars: 2.5 of 5.

Running Time: 86 minutes.

Notable Cast or Crew: Martin Kemp (WAXWORK II, THE KRAYS, of "Spandau Ballet" fame), Alexandra Paul (CHRISTINE, BAYWATCH), Adam Ant (of "Adam and the Ants," NOMADS, JUBILEE), Grace Jones (A VIEW TO A KILL, CONAN THE DESTROYER), Henry Gibson (NASHVILLE, THE 'BURBS, THE BLUES BROTHERS), James Hong (BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, BLADE RUNNER), Nils Allen Stewart (BLOODSPORT 2, FIREPOWER), Robert Hays (AIRPLANE!, CAT'S EYE, TV's STARMAN). Written by James Dale Robinson (THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN) and James Goldman (William Goldman's brother, the playwright who wrote THE LION IN WINTER, FOLLIES, and THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS––here he is credited as "Winston Beard").

Tag-line: "Welcome to cyberspace. Where danger is a virtual reality."

Best one-liner: "Strap him down, boys!" (said by Grace Jones)

In a familiar, darkened alleyway:

"What are we watching tonight?"
–"Tonight, we're going to catch a glimpse the future."
"Oh yeah?"
–"Well, take a peek, kiddo––if you can handle it. It's called CYBER BANDITS:"

Cool Cyber Dudes




Life-Size Cyber Strippers


Pocket-Size Cyber Strippers


Read-only Optical Memory

 "The future kinda looks like 1995."
–"The hell it does!"
"Is that a CD-ROM?"
–"Maybe. But what if in the future they have experimental hard drives that hold millions of terabytes of data and they happen to look like CD-ROMs?"
"Oookay. If it's gonna be watered-down cyberpunk, can we just watch BRAINSCAN instead?"
–"No. Trust me, you're gonna like CYBER BANDITS. For starters, its cast is comprised almost entirely of famous musicians and John Carpenter actors."
"Hmm. Go on."
–"Almost everyone in this film has razor-sharp cheekbones and ice-blue eyes, and it's all accompanied by aggressive house music and fusion jazz noodling. Look at this, it's just three, nearly identical, cheek-bony men staring at each other's cheekbones. It's like being held captive in a hall-of-mirrors at a German discotheque."

"Okay. Is that, um, Adam Ant?"
–"Maybe."
"Does this movie have a plot?"
"Of course it does. So there's an evil millionaire, played by Robert Hays (who played STARMAN on TV, albeit not directed by John Carpenter), who is financing a device capable of erasing your mind and trapping you in your own catatonic body in a mental hell of your own making. Essentially, it's a jumbo-sized and more malicious version of the neuralyzer from MEN IN BLACK.

He's got Joe Dante and Robert Altman-standby Henry Gibson as his top scientist on the project, too."

"So it's more of a 'Henry Gibson picture' than a 'William Gibson picture,' eh?"
–"Oh, stop. Though, I must give a special shout-out to Gibson, who simpers and leers his way through the picture with sinister refinement, like he's a 1990s Claude Rains."

Hand over the CD-ROMs if you know what's good for you

 "I do appreciate a solid Henry Gibson performance."
–"Me too, brother. Anyway, our hero is Martin Kemp (the bassist from Spandau Ballet), who's, um, a sailor on the evil millionaire's yacht."

"I feel like this character should be played by Jean-Claude Van Damme. Or at least Jean-Faux Van Bernhardt."
–"Oh, hush. So, after a torrid affair with the millionaire's girlfriend (Alexandra Paul, from John Carpenter's CHRISTINE),

Pictured: a torrid affair from the future, and not, in fact, a torrid affair from 1995.

and against the advice of his buddy, rocker Adam Ant,

You'll note that those are the Frank Lloyd Wright tiles from BLADE RUNNER in the background!

the sailor and the girlfriend decide to steal the plans to the millionaire's neural-cyber-weapon-thing and have them laser-tattooed on Kemp's back with a bunch of little 1's and 0's. (The original title of this picture was A SAILOR'S TATTOO.)

Incidentally, this is the first (but far from the last) time Martin Kemp will be strapped down to various surfaces throughout this movie.

Also, it's worth mentioning that the man doing the tattooing is James Hong (from John Carpenter's BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA)

Note his excellent fake mustache.

who, pre-tattoo, offers them a masked, flamboyant Chinese opera performance.

He was clearly having so much fun with it, that they bring him back for a post-credits scene where he performs even more Chinese opera. Take that, Marvel movies!"
"I must say, as far as MacGuffins go, a coded tattoo is not the worst idea."
–"Of course it isn't!  Didn't I tell you who wrote this thing?"
"No."
–"Two men. One is the guy who adapted THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN..."
"Ugh."
–"...and the other is the playwright who wrote THE LION IN WINTER."
"Er, what?"
–"Who incidentally is William Goldman's brother, James. However, he chose to be credited as 'Winston Beard.' Also, don't be so hard on THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN."
"I'll be as hard on it as I want. Think about it: Sean Connery had such a bad experience working on it that he retired from acting. Therefore, if not for GENTLEMEN, we may have had Connery in INDIANA JONES AND THE CRYSTAL SKULL which fundamentally would have altered its fabric, which means it might not have had Tarzan vine-swinging and CG aliens. The pity is that we'll never know."
–"Okay, that's enough out of you. I'm about to get to the best part: the millionaire has a foil––a woman who leads a rag-tag band of cyber-resistance fighters and plans to bring him down for good: ladies and gentlemen, may I present... Grace muthahfuckin' Jones."

"That's a lot of crazy-eye."
–"It's one of her specialties, as you well know. You can also see her in Christopher Lee's Cher wig from THE WICKER MAN,

shouting things like "Strap him down, boys," feeding her pet mouse to her pet snake (with an extra side of crazy-eye),

setting up a nice cyber-office on the beach (uh... what?)

and wearing really outré outfits that I guess are supposed to be camouflage,

but read more as "Cousin It at Milan fashion week."

SURPRISE––Grace Jones!

"I'm intrigued."
–"It's a lot better than it should be. I mean, Grace Jones alone––despite less than 20 minutes of screen-time––is essentially worth the price of admission. It's like a low-rent BLADE RUNNER/NEUROMANCER with big ideas, game actors, silly costumes, and an A-list soundtrack featuring songs like 'Sploosh' by Ozric Tentacles."
"Wow. I kinda miss the '90s."
–"I think you mean, 'the future'... don't you?"

Only now does it occur to me.... DANGEROUSLY CLOSE (1986)

Only now does it occur to me... that Cannon Films––the studio of DEATH WISH 3 and INVASION U.S.A.––was capable of turning out a socially progressive message picture! While BREAKIN' 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO may sort of tackle corrupt real estate developers and BLOODSPORT might address shady Kumite ethics, DANGEROUSLY CLOSE––helmed by Albert Pyun, director of CYBORG, VICIOUS LIPS, and KICKBOXER 2: THE ROAD BACK ––takes a bleak and (mostly) sober look at yuppie vigilantism and institutionalized hate, updated for the '80s.

It's an oddly effective mashup of THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME, FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, WALL STREET, and THE STEPFORD WIVES with a sort of STREETS OF FIRE/music video aesthetic (the smoke machines are working overtime).

It depicts a gang of preppy neo-fascists (called "The Sentinels") who are hell-bent on ridding their Academy of "undesirables,"

whether that means subculturally speaking, or otherwise.

In other words, the lone punk in a sea of preppies should be worried.

It prefigures HEATHERS (with none of the humor) as a cynical high school movie willing to "go there," particularly in depicting its suspicion of authority figures, the horror of school shootings,

 toxic jock culture,

and the American System's segregationalist tendencies.

The best part is that this is all dressed up in a video box that gives top billing to "Featuring Robert Palmer's Grammy Award-Winning Song 'Addicted to Love'!"

[Indeed, the soundtrack is pretty good––featuring music by Depeche Mode, Black Uhuru, Fine Young Cannibals, The Smithereens, and T.S.O.L., among others.] 

I wouldn't call it a masterpiece, but it's more sensible than you'd expect from Pyun, and almost plays like a grim riposte to the optimistic sex comedies, Savage Steve Holland romps, and John Hughes flicks that dominated the '80s teen landscape.

Only now does it occur to me... NOMADS

Only now does it occur to me... that 1980s bizarro arthouse fantasy-horror flick NOMADS (from director John McTiernan, whose work includes DIE HARD, PREDATOR, and LAST ACTION HERO) has––in addition to Pierce Brosnan doing a wonderfully ridiculous French accent–– some incredibly inspired and eclectic casting.

The eponymous band of nomads, who appear as post-apocalyptic 1980s biker punks straight out of CYBORG or ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, happen to include rocker Adam Ant:

singer Josie Cotton (of "Johnny, Are You Queer?"):

sinister character actor Frank Doubleday (who I've referred to as "John Carpenter's Klaus Kinski" after his appearances in ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 and ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK):

Alvin Ailey dancer and Cannon Films henchman Héctor Mercado (of DELTA FORCE 2 and DEATH WISH 4):
 
 and cult legend Mary Woronov (EATING RAOUL, ROCK N' ROLL HIGH SCHOOL).

I would've liked to have seen Paul Bartel also dressed as an 80s punk biker.

Hell, we even have David Lynch's favorite granny Frances Bay as a terrifying nun.

On the whole, NOMADS is an atmospheric fantasy thriller that, I guess, does for anthropology what JURASSIC PARK did for paleontology?

In closing, I never thought I would see Mary Woronov dancing creepily to Ted Nugent guitar riffs as Pierce Brosnan tries to photograph her, in the name of science.

There is at least a Ph.D's worth of behavioral science in this tableau.

2015 HALLOWEEN COUNTDOWN

1.  SCANNERS (1981, David Cronenberg)

2.  MICHAEL IRONSIDE: MENTAL SABOTEUR (2014, Karen Stetler)

3. ...