Wednesday, January 29, 2014

WILD ANGELS IS COOLER THAN RED DAWN


Sometime in high school, I rented Roger Corman's Wild Angels at the local video store. I thought this was one of the coolest movies I had ever seen (next to the 1980 Flash Gordon movie). I thought "I've got to tell everyone at school about this." Of course, as was common with my classmates at Lebanon High School, they were uninterested in what I thought was a cool movie. Everyone that weekend had seen a movie at the local theater called Red Dawn. When I asked what Red Dawn was about, I was told it was about "a high school football team defending their community from an invasion by the Russian army." I replied "That sounds stupid!" Naturally, this lead to me being punched or kicked or something.

Let me proceed to explain why Wild Angels is a cooler movie than Red Dawn. First off, you have one of the coolest opening sequences in any movie. A mother watches her little boy on his tricycle ride down hill at break neck speed. She runs to stop him before he rides into traffic. She stops him and then looks around to see the head Angel, Blues (Peter Fonda), on his chopper lighting a cigarette (maybe a joint). She has a look of disgust and fear on her face a the sight. Fonda then revs up his bike and takes off down the road to the Fuzztone drenched theme song, "Blue's Theme" by Dave Allen and the Arrows.

Blues goes to a construction sight to tell his friend, Loser (Bruce Dern), that they found his stolen bike in Mecca, California. A co-worker (Dick Miller) starts lecturing Blues on wearing an Iron Cross, so Blues and Loser threaten to pull out his teeth with a wrench. Loser's supervisor yells at him, so he throws the wrench at him, which gets Loser fired.

Yes, she does wear boots in this movie.

The Angels try to retrieve the bike and get into a fight with a group of Mexicans that they believe stole it. The Highway Patrol shows up and Loser tries to get away on a patrolman's cycle. He is shot in the back by a patrolman. Later, the Angels, with the help of Blues' Mike (Nancy Sinatra), break into the hospital and take Loser back to their clubhouse, where he dies.

During the funeral, Blues lashes out at the minister. The minster ask Blues what he and the Angels "want." Blues yells, "We wanna be free! We wanna be free to do what we wanna do. We wanna be free to ride. We wanna be free to ride our machines without being hassled by The Man! ... And we wanna get loaded. And we wanna have a good time. And that's what we are gonna do. We are gonna have a good time... We are gonna have a party." Parts of that speech were later sampled as part of Primal Scream's hit song "Loaded." There has never been any of the dialog from Red Dawn sampled in a song, unless it is crappy country song by Toby Keith, Daryl Worley or Zac Brown Band.

What sets Wild Angels apart from Fonda's other biker movie, Easy Rider, is that Wild Angels doesn't weigh us down with message and characterization. Instead Corman gives scenes of the bikers outrageous partying with beer, bongo playing, loud music, grabing women, fights and even "bull fighting" a biker. Easy Rider is cerebral, where Wild Angels is just mayhem on film. However, Easy Rider is a masterpiece and also has a better soundtrack.

Wild Angels spawned the whole biker genre. Red Dawn didn't inspire any high school football player hero movies. What kind of doofus would watch a high school football player hero movie? Maybe one that looks like this:

A doofus who liked the movie Red Dawn

I guess I should point out. I've never watched Red Dawn. I thought the plot sounded stupid in high school and I still think it sounds stupid. Why waste my time with that, when I can watch Wild Angels again on DVD. Besides, I've never heard of the director, so he must not have made anything else.

Of course, opinions like these are why I'm considered the super villain of the Ozarks!!! Mwu-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!







Saturday, January 25, 2014

DESDINOVA'S RETRO MUSIC PICK: PILOT - "JANUARY"


Technically, this song is about a girl, but this could describe many people in the USA feelings be about the first month of 2014's horrible weather.

WE HATE YOU POLAR VORTEX!!!

Thursday, January 16, 2014

DESDINOVA'S BIG MOVE

For those of you wondering about the lack of post on this blog, I will give you (grainy smart phone) photographic proof of my activities. I moved to a different apartment. Some of you may remember that on the old blog I sometimes gave my address as 666 Park Central Square in Springfield, Missouri. That was a joke aimed at a local talk radio host and part of a persona I created as a evil super-villain/mad scientist bent on taking over the country.

Truth is I had lived in a third floor apartment since 2002. Sadly, my health has declined to a point I cannot climb three flights of stairs like I once did. Part of that was due to a fall on ice on the sidewalk at my apartment complex four years ago. I fell again before Christmas. Maybe fearing a lawsuit, they decided I could move to a ground floor apartment. Now comes the job of unpacking everything. Here is what I have ahead of me.
Notice the Phantom of the Opera still I posted Halloween

A reprint of a poster for the Superman serial

Velvet Underground's Loaded has been my moving soundtrack


CDs, their shelves and some Christmas candy

While I'm at it, I want to give a shout out to My Movers Moving and Storage and the U.S. Post Office.

My Movers moved my huge collection of CD, DVDs, VHS tapes and books along with my furniture with out any trouble. The movers dismantled my futon to remove it from my old apartment and took the time to reassembled it in the new apartment. I won't go into details but they are very honest in their pricing.

Do not let certain people out there tell you that the United States Post Office is inefficient and useless. I filled out a change of address on December 31 and they had already starting forwarding my mail to my new apartment on January 2nd. Remember how UPS and Fed-Ex screwed up during Christmas?

  

'Partridge Family' star Dave Madden dead at 82

'Partridge Family' star Dave Madden dead at 82 -- report

Madden was also on the TV show Laugh-In for one season. If you saw the show in the heavily edited reruns in the 80s, you probably wondered why Madden would deliver a punchline and then throw confetti in the air. This never made much sense, until I saw the shows unedited on DVD. He gives an expalnation in the first episode he is in that he throws confetti in the air every time he "has a dirty thought."

Speaking of "dirty thoughts," check out Retrospace's movie review podcast, "The Horshack Redemption #8: Eat My Dust." Gilligan and his fellow movie reviewer, the Professor, discuss Dave Madden's appearance in the Roger Corman/Ron Howard car chase epic Eat My Dust.     

Russell Johnson, the Professor on 'Gilligan's Island,' dead at 89

Russell Johnson, the Professor on 'Gilligan's Island,' dead at 89

Johnson was in several sci-fi films of the 50s. Artist Alex Ross used Russell Johnson as the model for his version of Reed Richards (below) in The Marvels.

 

Saturday, January 4, 2014

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...