42ND STREET FOREVER VOL. 5: ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE CINEMA: Remember the Alamo!

42ND STREET FOREVER VOL. 5: ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE CINEMA
Synapse Films
Review by Louis Fowler

Sure, I may be a little late in getting to the most recent installment of Synapse's stellar 42ND STREET FOREVER line—sorry, I had things to do—but don't think that it hasn't been there, in the back of my mind all this time. Because it has. I've kept it on my desk, looking at it at least once day and gently telling myself “Someday...someday...”, with one lone tear streaming down my cheek.

And when I finally did get a chance to sit down and actually watch it? Like a woman you've been corresponding with online in hopes of starting a long-term, mutually beneficial, sexually-positive relationship, it was well worth the wait! Teaming up with my fellow Texans down at Austin's Alamo Drafthouse, volume five is the best yet, packed with two-minute slices of genre heaven, an overabundance of cinematic riches ranging from martial arts and kids' movies to sexploitation and counterculture satires. Here's some of the highlights:

● Kids' movies in Asia will always be better than ours because, well, they just don't give a rip about stupid things like the welfare or safety of their child actors. Good for them, I say! I truly wish that more film industries—I'm looking at you, America!—would take all that wasted money spent on on-set teachers and harnesses and the like and put it to bigger, badder, more dangerous stunts and explosions, all involving kids. It's a change that might actually make movies like DUNSTON CHECKS IN the bad-ass romps you knew they always could be! The makers of LUCKY SEVEN agree with me, featuring seven adorable tweens, all decked out like the various superstars of Hong Kong cinema past, getting their asses routinely handed to them via kicks in the most important of developing areas such as the kidneys, the heart and the skull. Starring Little Chilli, Little Fatty, Bumpkin, Little Elf and everyone's favorite, Rocky!

● Yes, there was once a time where a full-on, completely authoritative documentary like BIRDS DO IT, BEES DO IT, would not only be green-lit by a major studio, but also released to a theater near you. Because who doesn't want to see a movie with wall-to-wall animal intercourse? The trailer encourages us to see it with your kids, but, sorry, David L. Wolper: in my house sex will be taught as something that is dirty and shameful and should only be learned about through dangerous third-party information found only in the streets. The way I learned it.

● Directed by stunt-master Hal Needham and co-starring a then-foxy Persis Khambatta, 1982's MEGAFORCE had everything going for it: motorcycles, missiles and Henry Silva. But, then, Barry Bostwick, apparently fresh off the set of Olivia Newton-John's “Physical” music video, had to go and show up on time and, sorry, but it's pretty hard to have an undying patriotic belief in a top-secret underground government organization that allows it's well-trained agents to ride around on bulky super-charged motorcycles while dressed in power-blue jumpsuits and proudly displaying feathered hair. Even the Navy wouldn't allow that shit.

● Speaking of sexual shame, here's LET'S DO IT!, advertised as the “one sex comedy that let's you be the juggs”, whatever that means. All-American protagonist Freddy is obsessed with breasts—female breasts, if you must know. That's pretty normal, I guess. What's not normal, however, is that his stacked-n-steady girlfriend wants to go all the way with him, constantly begging to be entered vaginally and he keeps pushing her away, saying in firm and calm voice, “No!”. Is he trying to hold on to his virginity? Waiting for marriage? Have too much respect for the poor girl? Nope! Turns out he just wants to get in some extra practice with a few local slatterns so that, when the big day finally does come, he'll be able to give her the best three minutes of her life. In the 80s, this was actually considered quite respectful! Directed by Bert I. Gordon, because who knew tits better than the director of EMPIRE OF THE ANTS?

● Ever notice how movies with talking penises never really capture the public's imagination? Yet, every few years, someone always gets the bright idea to make another one and, every few years, another comes crashing and burning head-first into obscurity. Maybe they're aiming a little too high and to the left, what with half the country owning vaginas and whatnot. I say go back to the source material and remake the original talking junk flick, CHATTERBOX. You know, for the ladies. Co-starring, as you'd hope it would, Rip Taylor and Prof. Irwin Corey, 'BOX finds Candice Rialson's lower-lips doing most of the talking, launching a singing career and becoming a national sensation in the process. Not available on DVD yet, mostly because of socialism.

● Italy finally(?) has their own super-spy and, true to form, they must've spent a good five, maybe ten, minutes coming up with him. Tont, JAMES TONT, is his name and being derivatively greasy is his game! Tont cruises around in his fine Italian sports-car, fighting off an Odd-Job-like henchman and a bevy of gun-toting buxom broads, all to the tune of “Gold Singer”, who is the man, the man with the “golden voice”. This might be a spy-spoof, but, knowing the Italians, it's probably completely for real. I'm actually surprised a small rodent wasn't butchered on-screen.

● In NORMAN, IS THAT YOU?, Redd Foxx tries to deal with having a gay son in an interracial relationship, which, from the looks of this trailer, is actually not as bad as the time that Puerto Rican dude with the goat moved in across the street from the junkyard. And who hasn't wanted to see Fred Sanford meet Waylon Flowers and Madam? It's been a recurring dream I've had since childhood and am actually surprised it never happened before this. Also, Tamara Dobson shows up as a hooker, and then so does my erection.

● And, finally, the award for the lamest kid's movie of all time goes to THE MAGIC CHRISTMAS TREE. Looking like a clandestine 50s porn loop shot by Abraham Zapruder in his backyard, TREE has a lonely kid befriending a magical, talking Christmas tree. He just stands there and talks to a tree that makes Charlie Brown's look pumped and primed for Rockefeller Center. The last known footage of Santa Claus also makes it's way into the proceedings, as does a perfectly seasonal “happy witch”, a festive “greedy giant” and, perhaps the most Christmasy thing I can think of, a “runaway lawnmower”. Happy birthday, Jesus! (Followed by the little-known sequel THE MAGIC EASTER BUCKET, which is basically the same kid talking to a rusty pail for 70-minutes. Special appearance by Cosmo, the Easter Turtle!)

42ND STREET FOREVER VOL. 3 review!
42ND STREET FOREVER VOL. 4 review!
GRINDHOUSE UNIVERSE review!