Category: Action films

Really Awful Movies: Ep 70 – The Concorde…Airport 79

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On this episode of the podcast, we break the sound and patience barrier with the infamously corny 70s disaster movie, The Concorde or Airport ’79 or Airport ’80 (whatever, it goes by various names).

The Airport series originated the 70s disaster movie phenomenon. This piece of junk very nearly grounded it as soon as it began. The airport series once showcased the likes of A-listers Dean Martin, Burt Lancaster and Jacqueline Bisset, but by the time the sequel The Concorde Airport 79 took to the skies, those roles went to B-movie legend Sybil Danning (Chained Heat) and Good Times ham and originator of the catchphrase Dy-no-mite!, Jimmie Walker. And let’s not forget Charo!

In The Concorde, a corrupt aerospace executive (Robert Wagner) learns that a reporter has found out about his arms dealing side-gig. Instead of muscling her, offering a bribe or killing her, he decides to blow up a concorde jet she happens to be travelling on. You gotta admire his ambition!

The captain is played by Antonioni standout and French legend Alain Delon, who needs subtitles in this one as his English is so mangled (and his subtitles would need subtitles, just to be sure). It’s his job, along with bombastic flyboy/flyman Patroni (George Kennedy, Cool Hand Luke and 200 other films) to protect passengers from missile attacks.

There are terrible effects, a who’s who of past-their-salad-days nobodies, running airplane bathroom gags that have to be seen to be believed and an itinerant jazz musician who noodles from his seat. You can clearly see how it inspired Airplane!

Variety called it an “unintentional comedy” and the film, after numerous critical skewerings, barely made back its production costs . Roger Ebert went off on the film in I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie.

Really Awful Movies: Ep 69 – American Ninja

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Forget the Big Lebowski. Our Dude is Dudikoff.

The deadliest art of the Orient is now in the hands of an American! Lucky us.

This is a piece of Cannon Camembert, in which as an alternative to sentencing, a judge decrees that juvenile delinquent Joe Armstrong (Michael Dudikoff) must join the Armed Forces. It’s a plot that’s almost Seinfeldian (“cause he’s MY butler!”).

Anyway, he’s stationed in the Philippines where he demonstrates his heroism saving the colonel’s daughter from attacking ninjas. Along the way, his mettle is tested by the chiseled force that is B-legend Steve James as the sarge. Also, there’s a subplot involving arms sales to a nefarious group that hires deadly ninjas as a self defense force.

The juiciest part is that he’s an amnesiac, not remembering his difficult childhood or background, but luckily, muscle memory isn’t effected: he recalls all his martial arts training.

For a movie entitled American Ninja, the American isn’t much of a fighter, nor does he don the typical black pajamas that a ninja is known for (OK . . . he does, but ever so briefly.)

The film rocks. It has everything going for it that made Cannon great. The Dude abides!

Find more reviews www.reallyawfulmovies.com.

Really Awful Movies: Ep 67 – The Big Doll House

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Entering women’s prison territory in this week’s episode.

The Big Doll House is a 1971 American women in prison (WiP) film, produced by the one and only Roger Corman and starring the incomparable Pam Grier.

Filmed in the Philippines (one of our favorite locales) and directed by the talented Jack Hill (Coffy/Foxy Brown), Big Doll House also features the amazing Sid Haig (The Devil’s Rejects).

The plot is about as skimpy as the inmates’ attire: an inmate, Collier, is found guilty of murdering her husband and introduced to the joint. Therein is a cadre of some of the more beautiful jailbirds you’ll ever see – forget the gritty realism of Orange is the New Black. Collier’s cellies include a political dissident and an addict in the throes of heroin withdrawal. And this motley crew, which includes the domineering Pam Grier (as Grear) plots their escape with help from two dim-witted males inexplicably granted prison-wide access to deliver fruit.

Because this is a WiP, there’s a sadistic prison guard and inmates are hosed down, some would say unnecessarily (we won’t). Corman and Hill basically wrote the rules of the WiP genre with this one. Great stuff!