• Hot!


    RoboCop 2ROBOCOP 2 (1990)
    Showing Tuesday 4/2/2013 at The Hollywood Theatre

    Taking place shortly after the events of the original, ROBOCOP 2 opens with scenes of Detroit in chaos. OCP (the evil corporation that owns the police and made RoboCop) has eliminated the police force’s pensions, and the police have gone on strike. Crime is running rampant, and a potent, highly addictive new designer drug called “Nuke” has hit the streets. Before moving on to key plot points, it’s worth noting that “Nuke” is probably the most awesome fake movie drug name we’ve come across, except for “White Buffalo”, which was featured in an episode of “Walker, Texas Ranger” called “White Buffalo” (Season 9, Episode 3).

    OCP has a plan: their aim is to bankrupt the city of Detroit and take it over, and rename it “Delta City“. That’s not a very cool-sounding name. The city’s inhabitants would be under their control, enslaved by Nuke and kept in check by a force of new RoboCops with the brains of psychopaths, who in turn are controlled by their intense lust for Nuke. Right.

    Sounds like a feasible plan–if they can just get RoboCop out of the way! Peter Weller and Nancy Allen reprise their roles as cyborg cop and partner, and take on the mean streets in search of Cain, the drug lord peddling the Nuke to a hapless, poverty-riddled Detroit of the future. RoboCop eventually finds him making Nuke in his compound, and in one of the most harrowing robot vs. magnet fights ever captured on film, RoboCop is disassembled in a way that would make Number 5 weep… and then do Nuke with Stephanie.

    After his debacle with Cain, RoboCop is rebuilt but deemed obsolete–relegated to public relations. He’s replaced by a massive new monstrosity called “RoboCop 2” that houses the brain of Cain, who by now has died in a car wreck. However, Robo-Cain is still is addicted to Nuke, and goes on an insane shooting spree trying to get his fix. So, RoboCop gives it to him. Directed by Irvin Kershner (The Empire Strikes Back, Seaquest DSV).

  • Hot!


    Hollywood030513MAGIC COP (1990)
    Showing Tuesday 3/5/2013 at The Hollywood Theatre

    MAGIC COP stars cult movie hero Lam Ching Ying as Uncle Feng, a unibrowed super-priest-cop who fights evil using his supernatural detective skills. Now, that should tell you all you need to know about the movie, and that it’s essential viewing for any person alive in the 21st Century. But there’s more. A lot more. The first thing to remember is this is not David Copperfield magic, or even Job Bluth “illusions”. Uncle Feng wields bizarre powers that are as wildly entertaining as they are completely confusing.

    In MAGIC COP, the local police are baffled by a woman who wouldn’t die when they shot her (she only died after being hit by a dump truck and crushed against a parked car). They call in Uncle Feng to investigate, having heard rumors of his supernatural detective techniques. He’s totally next-level, but is teamed up with a rookie because of a beef with the chief (he’s something of a lone wolf). Turns out a mysterious witch is re-animating corpses and using them to smuggle drugs, and it’s up to Uncle Feng to discover her hideout and put an end to her desecration of all that is holy.

    This film is vaguely related to the late 80s Hong Kong “Mr. Vampire” franchise, in which Ying plays a unibrowed super-priest… who fights evil (aka hopping vampire zombies). MAGIC COP is the same basic story in a modern setting (minus the hopping), with Ying transposing this iconic character into a new, but similar character (even down to the crazy eyebrows). Ying actually got typecast in this kind of role, and there are probably other movies where he’s got a unibrow, is a priest, and fights evil.  Directed by Stephen Tung.


  • Hot!


    RambuRAMBU: THE INTRUDER (1986)

    Showing Tuesday 2/5/2013 at The Hollywood Theatre

    Indonesian Trash Cinema is back!  The cast of THE STABILIZER returns to the big screen in RAMBU: THE INTRUDER.  This movie knows what it is and delivers on every level!  Totally action packed–with bizarre dialogue, long scenes of food being wasted, and an army of tuk-tuks that come at Rambu’s command (tuk-tuks are auto rickshaws). Peter O’Brian, the New Zealand-born English teacher-turned-actor who looks like a Dorito version of Brian May, stars as Rambu, an unemployed police academy drop out.   Rambu mostly lays around and complains about his life while his girlfriend gives him greasy massages.  His main problem, aside from not being able to find work, is he somehow can’t help himself from materializing out of thin air just as gangsters start pushing people around.   He literally just appears out of nowhere, with no context.  He roughs them up and teaches them a lesson with his martial arts–and embarrasses them by bouncing mysterious boomerang balls off of their heads.

    Eventually these seeming “intrusions” come to the attention of the exotically named crime boss John White, played by Craig Gavin.  B-Movie Bingo diehards might remember him as Greg Rainmaker from THE STABILIZER, the man who killed The Stabilizer’s fiance with a spiked shoe.  One thing about Craig Gavin–he knows how to be a “white suit wearing, cocaine guzzling, sexual deviant boss” kind of character.  Angered that his henchmen are being outwitted by this “intruder”, as he refers to him repeatedly, he sets out to destroy Rambu.  Meanwhile, Rambu’s exploits have not gone unnoticed by John White’s rival crime boss, who tricks Rambu into working for him to take out White.  A few days later, at what looks like a city council meeting after-party, Rambu sees the rival crime lords shaking hands like old friends, realizes he’s been had, and smashes all the food laid out by the caterers… with a huge crowbar.  That sets up the rest of the movie, with many scenes of Rambu intruding upon everyone around him.

    For a movie that has a title so similar to RAMBO, it’s worthing noting that it bears little, if any, resemblance to the movies in the RAMBO franchise. There’s an awesome scene in which a babe ties a red bandana around Rambu’s head, and a scene where he’s running around with a massive gun while he’s shirtless wearing black sweats, but that’s about it.  It’s more like an “unemployed lone wolf cop who does what he wants and doesn’t care” kind of movie.  Directed by Jopi Burnama.


  • Hot!


    Revenge of the NinjaREVENGE OF THE NINJA (1983)
    Showing Tuesday 1/8/2013 at The Hollywood Theatre

    “Only a ninja can stop a ninja.”  –Cho Osaki

    This is perhaps the greatest film of the early 1980s ninja movie phenomenon, starring Japanese marital arts virtuoso Sho Kosugi (ENTER THE NINJA, THE MASTER).  He stars as Cho Osaki, a ninja who returns home from an afternoon stroll to find his family massacred, and bad guy ninjas hiding in the bushes.  With his mother and infant son he flees to Los Angeles, vowing to forsake the ninja life forever.  With the help of his American friend and business partner Braden (and his assistant Kathy, who is in love with Cho), he opens an art gallery, specializing in fancy Japanese dolls.  What he doesn’t know is Braden is actually an evil ninja who wears a silver demon mask… who’s also smuggling heroin into the country inside of the dolls!

    Six years later we see Cho running a successful gallery and living in peace with his mother and young son, Kane.  When Braden’s drug deal with the mafia falls through, he goes on a dark ninja quest to take out the mafia boss and secure his heroin.  Braden sneaks into Cho’s gallery to steal back his merchandise and has a duel with Cho’s mother, who turns out to be a crazy ninja warrior mom.  She is vanquished.  Kane witnesses this, and soon Braden has hypnotized Kathy into kidnapping Kane… and the culmination of all of this leads to a rooftop battle and Cho’s revenge, aka THE REVENGE OF THE NINJA!

    Things to look for: plenty of gratuitous fight scenes and throwing stars, a Jacuzzi torture scene, Evil Ninja vs. Ninja Warrior Mom, a full-on Native American mob henchman, and an awesome scene where Cho is relentlessly dragged by a van.  Directed by Sam Firstenberg (AMERICAN NINJA, AMERICAN NINJA 2).



  • Hot!


    XXX (2002)
    Showing Tuesday 12/4/2012 at The Hollywood Theatre

    In XXX, Vin Diesel takes us on a one-way trip to the “Xander Zone“, a place as likely to be found on a Corvette falling from a bridge as it is hidden in a secret Czech mountain base.  Diesel plays Xander Cage, an all around extreme sports guy and virtuoso cyber-criminal.  After an NSA agent, played by Samuel L Jackson, catches up with him, he’s given an ultimatum: join us or go to prison.  Yes, he’s that good: if Uncle Sam can’t have ’em, no one can.  Now a reluctant secret agent (an “even-his-shit-is-ripped”, tatted-up version of Bond), he is sent to Prague to stop an evil Cold War-obsessed madman from destroying the world.  While executing well-known world-saving techniques like water skiing on a rocket and snowboarding away from an avalanche he caused, he meets the love of his life, Dario Argento’s daughter, Asia.  XXX uses sports to save the world, and wins her heart in what we all know will wind up the elusive “Tropical Ending”.

    There’s so many awesome scenes in this movie.  Some favorites: 1) Vin Diesel jumping a dirt bike over a barn of exploding cocaine. 2) Xander, while perched high on a mountainside, spies bad guys on snowmobiles and causes an avalanche to take them out, as he rides the wave down on his snowboard (already mentioned, but worth re-telling).  3) All the scenes with Vin Diesel.  Directed by Rob Cohen.


    We have some great prizes this month: a hunky Vin Diesel poster, a bunch of glossy promo 8×10’s, and the Grand Prize: a replica Seinfeld script.