Phoenix the Warrior (1988)

AKA: She Wolves of the Wasteland

Director: Robert Hayes

Writers: Robert Hayes, Dan Rotblatt

Composer: Dan Radlauer

Starring: Persis Khambatta, Kathleen Kinmont, Peggy McIntaggart, James Emery, Sheila Howard, Nina Jaffe, Courtney Caldwell, Skyler Corbett, Laurie de Nuccio

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Women Rule.

Plot: Big hair, big guns, big personalities, and a serious lack of wardrobe. She-Wolves of the Wasteland, a post-apocalyptic story that features women--lots and lots of women--who leave little to the imagination as they battle each other in various junkyards and gravel pits to determine the fate of the entire world.

My rating: 5/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

This is a pretty decent example of the direct to video flicks we used to rent in the 80s.  Get your friends together with some junk food and kill a Friday or Saturday night watching cheesy crap like this.  It's low budget and the acting is bad to mediocre, the villains over do it and you can clearly see where the influences come from.  There is some action but the slow spots drag the film down.  The one on one combat is clumsy and the picture would've benefited from having the film sped up a little during these scenes and having some good foley for the punches landing would've done wonders to give these scenes more impact and fun.  Still, you get this around the 15 minute mark:

Don't get too excited because that's it for nudity.  You think they would've scattered more in throughout the movie but nooooooo.  It's OK but movies like this suffer most from pacing.  While there is enough going on to somewhat maintain 85 minutes, some tightening of some scenes and possible excising of others could make this more fun and easier to watch.  When you're gorging yourself on chips and soda it's 2 am, it's easy to fall asleep on pictures like this one.

The Flame Barrier (1958)

Director: Paul Landres

Writers: Pat Fielder, George Worthing Yates

Composer: Gerald Fried

Starring: Arthur Franz, Kathleen Crowley, Robert Brown, Vicente Padula, Rodd Redwing, Kaz Oran, Grace Matthews, Pilar Del Rey, Larry Duran, Bernie Gozier, Roberto Contreras, Dan Gachman

More info: IMDb

Tagline: The First Satellite That Returned To Earth...And The Hell It Brought With It

Plot: Carol Dahlmann enlists the Hollister brothers to help locate her missing husband. The husband was tracking a fallen satellite through the jungle. While tracking him down, the trio discover an unusually strong acid killing animals and people.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

This 70 minute low budget 50s sci-fi picture isn't that bad.  The acting is fine and the production values are good (the jungle atmosphere is great, especially considering it's a set, but when there's actual outdoor filming you can tell they're in California).  The story moves along nicely and there's fairly neat idea when it comes to the 'alien' and the science-y-ness of it all.  All of the actors take it seriously as they should and the result is a decent sci-fi action thriller with a good, effective score.  The ending is a little abrupt but the movie isn't trying to be anything but entertaining and it succeeds. I didn't find a hidden gem but I liked it.  Director Landres had a very prolific career.  He was fast, too.  In '58 he had 6 feature films released and three TV episodes.  He wasn't a hack, that's for sure, and that explains the good pacing and professional quality of FLAME.  I may have to dig into this guy's catalog.  He did a lot of genre work.

The Last American Soldier (1988)

Original title: Commander

Director: Ignazio Dolce

Writers: Ignazio Dolce, Larry Jonathan

Composer: Simon Boswell

Starring: Craig Alan, David Light, Max Laurel, Larry Brand, Tanya Gomez, Mike Monty, James Clevenger, Ken Watanabe, Michael Welborn, Mel Davidson, Eric Hahn, Don Wilson

More info: IMDb


Plot: Commander and his small band of freedom fighters make life difficult for the VC after the Vietnam War is over. They free Vietnamese prisoners, and destroy enemy convoys every chance they can get. This severely upsets the evil Russian Vlasov, who is working with the VC in various nefarious enterprises.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Probably not.

Man, oh man.  If you like action and a metric shit ton of motherfuckers eatin' bullets like candy then this is the movie for you.  Craig Alan isn't a good actor when it comes to emoting and speaking but he's got the action chops of a pro.  He's all over the place killing dudes left and right.  Seriously, this movie has a lot of action.  Barely any minutes go by without something blowing up or someone snuffing it.  The filmmakers give enough story to allow our hero to decrease the Russian and Vietnamese population by a couple of notches.  And for a low budget movie, this looks much bigger and you know that a sizable portion of the money spent was on explosives.  Commander (Alan) makes enough shit blow up that he could've added another layer to Dante's version of Hell.  I get the impression that director/writer Dolce saw the second Rambo movie, said "Rambo?  Pussy!", and then set out to make his own.  It might not make anyone's top action movies list but this easily has more action in 105 minutes than any movie I can think of.  The full movie is on YouTube.  So put some tacos on the grill and celebrate Independence Day with a Rambo clone stickin' it good to the Ruskies!

UFO - Secrets of WWII German Flying Saucers (1991)

Director: Christopher McIlrath

Writer: Mario Pranther

Composer: Visions of a Nomad

Starring: ???

More info: IMDb

Tagline: ???

Plot: A documentary which delves into alternative theories of UFOs, specifically supposed development of similar crafts under the Third Reich.

My rating: 4/10

Will I watch it again?  Nope.

I'm not buying what this guy's selling at all.  Showing a bunch of blurry photos doesn't prove anything.  They could easily have been doctored with some kind of Nazi Photoshop.  That's just one part of what's wrong with this.  Everything shown and said is meant to be taken at the film makers' word so you'll either believe it or be skeptical about it.  The narrator talks in detail about the Nazis making anti gravity engines and all kinds of otherworldly crafts (and succeeding, too) as well as the secret Nazi UFO bases in the Antarctic.  I'm skeptical of the whole thing and I'm willing to bet that most of this is just a load of horseshit that's been passed around and talked about so much that people started to believe it.  It doesn't help that the quality of this film is in the ballpark of VHS and it's a dull film even if they do a nice job of compiling a massive amount of pictures of documents and UFOs.  Plus the music is mixed loudly, making it difficult to sometimes understand what the narrator is saying.  It really requires to you pay attention.  The music is at times too busy to be used under talking anyway.  I must admit that I did find some of the tracks quite good and I wouldn't mind hearing them just as music and away from this film.  I couldn't find out much about this film.  Only part of it is the above YouTube video.

Count Five and Die (1957)

Director: Victor Vicas

Writers: David Pursall, Jack Seddon, Barry Wynne

Composer: John Wooldridge

Starring: Jeffrey Hunter, Annemarie Duringer, Nigel Patrick, David Kossoff, Rolf Lefebvre, Larry Burns, Anthony Ostrer, Claude Kingston

More info: IMDb

Tagline: A true story of undercover agents

Plot: American and British counter-espionage combine to convince the Germans the cross-channel invasion will be in the Netherlands instead of France.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

Supposedly based on a true story, this British war spy thriller isn't as thrilling as it maybe could've been.  The story is OK but it's not much compelling and it makes me wonder if the real events were more interesting than what's on screen.  All of the actors do a fine job but so much of the picture feels by the numbers.  The ending was very good, though, and those final ten minutes are the best in the film but by then I was waiting for the picture to end.  It was shot in 2:35 Cinemascope but the print I have was fullscreen and a dirty one at that.  I might have a better impression of it sitting in a theater watching the original aspect ratio but you work with what you have available to you.  You can watch the entire film above courtesy of YouTube.

Gun the Man Down (1956)

Director: Andrew V. McLaglen

Writers: Sam Freedle, Burt Kennedy

Composer: Henry Vars

Starring: James Arness, Emile Meyer, Robert J. Wilke, Harry Carey Jr., Don Megowan, Michael Emmet, Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez, Angie Dickinson

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Here Come the Gunslingers! Lightning on the draw...Deadly in their aim...Goaded on to

Plot: Two bank robbers abandon their wounded partner to the posse and run with the loot but their partner, after serving time in prison, seeks revenge.

My rating:  6/10

Will I watch it again?  No

Here's an OK Western that delivers good performances and a professional look.  There's nothing special about it as a film as it's well made but with a story that feels by the numbers.  But then it's what's not on screen that makes this a curiosity.  Angie Dickenson made her film debut with this and another film that came out a month earlier.  It's McLaglen's first movie, too, and he went on to direct a lot of great action films over the next 3 decades.  Then there's the tidbit that it was because of this film (produced by John Wayne's brother) that John Wayne recommended Arness for GUNSMOKE which Arness starred for the next 20 years!  There's some more neat trivia on the IMDb page.  Back to the film, the only scene that stood out was where Billy takes the $5k offer to kill Rem (Arness) and immediately walks outside the saloon to search the town for him.  There's barely any dialogue for a couple of minutes and only music but Billy is steely-eyed and all business and it's a great little sequence.  It's a relatively short film at few minutes under 80 so if you're looking for a Western to relax and kill some time with, this won't do you any harm.

Wonder Woman (2017)

Director: Patty Jenkins

Writers: Allan Heinberg, Zack Snyder, Jason Fuchs

Composer: Rupert Gregson-Williams

Starring: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Connie Nielsen, Robin Wright, Danny Huston, David Thewlis, Said Taghmaoui, Ewen Bremner, Eugene Brave Rock, Lucy Davis, Elena Anaya, Lilly Aspell

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Power. Grace. Wisdom. Wonder.

Plot: Before she was Wonder Woman, she was Diana, princess of the Amazons, trained warrior. When a pilot crashes and tells of conflict in the outside world, she leaves home to fight a war, discovering her full powers and true destiny.

My rating: 7.5/10

Will I watch it again?  Yes.

Great cast.  Really.  Everyone does a fine job.  I liked all of them.  Gadot carries the character well, Pine brings the funny and the fun, Thewlis is a blast, Wright kicks ass (I love that woman), Taghmaoui needs to star in a Sammy Davis Jr. biopic fast (he's got Davis's height and facial features like no one else I've ever seen) plus he's hilarious and a delight to watch, and I'm embarrassed that I didn't realize until now that Lucy Davis was in the UK THE OFFICE.  The action is good.  Say, how about that scene when WW leaves the trench and gets shit done?  Nice!!!  I actually got caught up in the emotional side which really surprised me...not too much, though.  The only things that bugged me were Ludendorff (Huston) having that super gas that made him stronger, Dr. Maru (Anaya) with a facial deformity (this stupid trope is over done but she at least has a legitimate reason for having it that is more acceptable than most movies these days) and that fucking horrible line when WW says to Ares at the end something like "It's about what you believe. And I believe in love. Only love will truly save the world." and then she promptly dispenses of him.  That was so fucking horrible. It's really just awful.  It's groan-inducing...at least it was for me.  Other than all of that, I really dug it.  It sucks that yet again a super hero movie fails to give much time to the villains but they give enough so that you know they're bad and why.  I would've liked more but they're just a means to an end for WW to come into her own.  I get it.  I wish it didn't have to be that way but I understand.  I doubt Warner Bros. will do as good again based on their track record but hopefully they'll learn a little something from making this picture.  Probably not.