A Weblog about stuffs

Avenging Force is another action flick from 80′s maestro Sam Firstenberg.

You know, the sort of movie that they cobbled together over at Cannon Films a lot in the 80′s.

Half-assed plot, some C grade actors, inept directing, and laughable action, but enough poorly staged action, gunfire, and explosions to keep you entertained for the duration.

That is as long as you’re a fan of bad 80′s action movies, otherwise well you’re kinda out of luck.

But we here at JITB like our action movies poorly made and from the Reagan era, so Avenging Force worked just fine. It stars everyone’s favorite male model turned American Ninja, Michael Dudikoff and the guy who played his best buddy in the first two American Ninja films Steve James.

Now anyone who has seen American Ninja, also a Sam Firstenberg classic, knows that the dynamic starring duo of this film is great at pretending to be tough. Dudikoff isn’t the greatest action star, usually tasked with fighting slowly, and waving guns at bad guys until they fall down, but we love him cause he’s such a nice guy. James on the other hand is pretty beefy, has a sweet mustache, and could probably beat you up in real life. He’s an unfortunately forgotten man from a bygone time, and he was pretty awesome. He brings a bit of class to the proceedings, having to support the dramatic moments of the film and all.

So the films starts off with two guys running through some swamp lands being chased by some bad dudes in wacky outfits. There’s ninja with a facemask bad guy, bondage gear bad guy with trident, bad guy with bandanna, and then guy with funny face mask who strangles people. It turns out they’re playing a swampy version of The Most Dangerous Game, you know, people hunting. They finally eventually manage to kill the dudes they’re chasing and we find out that these shall be the main villains of the film, which isn’t really promising, cause three of the four of them are pervy looking old white guys.

I mean come on, one of them is introduced, sitting up in a tree, wearing a stupid looking mask and smoking a pipe, like a fancy, old white guy pipe. It’s hardly threatening.

We’re introduced to Michael Dudikoff in the next scene, he’s wearing a cowboy hat, doin’ cowboy stuff, on a ranch, and takin’ care of his kid sister. So we come to know that he’s a pretty nice guy, despite having the sort of government agency past that would give him the skills necessary to kill a bunch of bad guys. He takes his sister, and his wacky uncle on a trip to New Orleans to visit Steve James.

I know what you’re thinking, people hunting and New Orleans, what is this Hard Target?

Steve James is a running for some sort of political office and is going to be in the Mardi Gras parade, his whole family is gonna be there, waving at people and generally looking wholesome.

UH OH, turns out that the group of bad guys are not only white, but they’re rich, evil and RACIST. They don’t like the idea of a black dude as awesome as Steve James being in office, so they send they’re crappy assassin, and a bunch of thugs to kill Steve James. Unfortunately for the bad guys, Michael Dudikoff spots them, but not before they can start their killing. They don’t manage to kill Mr. James, they just manage to shoot one of his sons. Which really kinda sucks. So Dudikoff kinda fails in that regard, even though he manages to fight off a number of other goons.

And with this sad turn of events Dudikoff and James have to uncover a conspiracy, stop some shitty white dudes, and get revenge. The thing is avenging force doesn’t really end nearly as happily as you’d expect, the amount of avenging in the film isn’t nearly sufficient given the amount of bad stuff that happens to the good guys throughout the course of the film. Avenging Force turns kinda mean spirited.

So they start to take action.

Which means they get a call from the bad guys, and decide that the best course is to drive their truck directly into an ambush. In doing so they use the logic of “We’re the main characters so we can’t possibly die this early in the movie.” So they have a car chase, shoot some guys and then drive across New Orleans in the course of about 2 minutes and finish with a chase/shootout in some sort of abandoned factory/shipyard.

At some point they find out that it’s the evil white guys who’re trying to kill them.

Unsuccessful in killing our heros the evil white guys decide that the best course of action is to murder the shit outta Steve James’ family some more, cause you know, they’re douche bags like that. Because there’s some sort of leak in the agency that Dudikoff used to be a part of the bad dudes find out the James’ family is staying at Dudikoffs’ cowboy house. They show up and manage to kill all of the inept guards, set the house on fire, capture both hero’s family members and fuck up everything .

But James and Dudikoff show up on the scene, just in time to try and rescue Jame’s remaining son who’s stuck in the burning house.

Remember when I said that the movie was gonna get unfriendly? Well James dies in the fire after getting shot with an arrow, Dudikoff manages to get his son to the roof of the house, but the bad guys shoot at them both, which makes them fall of the roof, which kills the kid, and the bad guys also blow away James’ wife.

So yeah the wholesome family of black people in the movie gets murdered by the evil white guys. It’s fucking harsh.

So the bad guys kidnapp Dudikoff’s little sister and tell him that in order to save her he’s got to play their most dangerous swamp game.

Does he get her back? Does he stop the evil white guys? Does he forcefully avenge things?

Yeah I guess so.

For the most part Avenging Force is alright if you’re a fan of mediocre action films from the 80′s and 90′s. It’s not much better or much worse than most of the crop from that era, and has a decent amount of silliness.

It’s got almost competent action, the bad guys chew scenery like they’re starving, and they wear wacky costumes. It’s not a classic, mostly because it lacks the general insanity of a film like American Ninja, it just isn’t quite as memorable, which I guess might explain why it’s not currently in print. I found the movie enjoyable, it just hasn’t really stuck with me all that much.

I guess the movie’s biggest problem is actually the fact that once Steve James dies, the movie goes from Avenging Force to Avenging Dudikoff, which just isn’t as good. Cause as much as I like the guy, he’s always better with people to play off.

Though interestingly enough in a few other countries this movie was released as a sequel to Amerian Ninja, called American Warrior II. I think it’sa little silly to pretend that they’re in the same series, cause there’s a lot less ninja stuff in this one, but the foreign poster is certainly a lot more freedomtastic than the domestic one. I think it’s pretty awesome really.

Hey you, movie fan, do you like westerns?

Do ya like monster movies?

Well then I have something that’s right up your alley.

It’s a little movie from a few years back, called The Burrowers.

It’s a classy little monster movie, set in the old west about some cowboy types who go searching for some people to rescue from a supposed Indian attack and wind up meeting some tiny, killer underground monsters.

The movie is paced and shot like a classical western, with lots of people riding on horses across various vistas and plains and looking off into the sunset. So the whole thing feels authentically westerny in a cinematic sort of way.

The whole thing is played straight and the monsters feel like a legitimate threat to the characters, partially cause they’re shot so as to leave their design to the imagination for most of the movie, and partially cause they’re pretty fucked up.

The burrowers themselves are these creatures that’re about the size of a dog that kinda look like tiny monster fetuses with the face of  what appears to be a half melted rancor, and hind legs like a mutant cricket. They’re rather gross looking, but the thing that makes them really terrifying is their methodology in eating you. They’re poisonous, and when you get attacked they put you into a state of conscious paralysis. You can’t move, but you’re still aware of everything that’s going on around you. They then bury you underground until you rot enough that you get juicy and they come back to feed on your organs. It’s pretty fucked up.

So not only do they kill you in an incredibly shitty way, cause this is the old west, they’re kinda hard to defend against. Some of the attack scenes are really well done in the way they treat the monsters. In one scene it’s night time and the only light the characters have is from a fire, we hear the grumblings and growling off in the darkness but have no idea where the monsters are. We only see bits of the creatures as they rise above the tall grass as they close in on the characters. The way the scene plays out is similar to a shark attack, with a horrible sense of helplessness, cause death could come from any side and there’s not much you can do to stop it.

So the monster stuff is pretty great, a nice combo of models, puppets and CGI. The less is more approach combined with some dark cinematography keep them from looking silly, and allows the movie to continue being tense without an overload of monsters.

In addition to having a great sense of western style, and good monsters, the first half of the movie also has Clancy Brown in it! One of my favorite character actors, he always helps to improve a film, though the guy gets offed in a gruesome manner around the halfway mark, it’s nice to have him in the movie none the less.

So The Burrowers comes highly recommended from me for anyone who likes monsters and cowboys. Cause it’s a high quality affair that deserves to be seen.

“OPERATOR! GET ME THE PRESIDENT OF THE WORLD!”

So begins the A Lesson In Crime EP from Tokyo Police Club. After these words I figured I’d probably like the EP. I burnt it to a mix CD for my 2009 Bonaroo trip and ended up enjoying it a decent amount. It was a fun seven song disc that showed a good knack for catchy songs.

I had managed to miss seeing the band live at two music festivals the Voodoo Music Experience 2008 and Harvest of Hope 2009, but finally managed to see them at Bonnaroo 2010. They ended up being one of the acts I enjoyed the most that year.

They released a new album last year called Champ. I listened to it in the car and thought “Hey that was pretty good.”

But since that first listen, it has ended up being an album that I’ve been revisiting quite a bit. It’s catchy, and fun, and sometimes even guys like me who like our music loud and ear destroying need a change of pace.

The thing about this album is that most of the songs on it could be singles. So many of them are just strongly written pop songs that it’s hard for them to not get stuck in your head. So even though there’s a few songs that aren’t as immediately catchy they’re still good songs, there’s not one on the album that I’d label as a stinker. It’s just a great pop album, plain and simple.

The album opens with a song called Favourite Food that acts as a good into to the record. It starts off with about a minute of two of slower singing as the music slowly builds around the lyrics to give you that first bit of synth and guitar driven sound. It’s interesting cause it’s one of the longest songs on the album, and it’s all about building up to Tokyo Police Club’s sound.

The second, third, fourth, and fifth songs are the the best section of the album. Four great songs, one right after another, with great hooks, and they all sound different enough to not get remotely repetitive.

Favourite Colour, the second track is what really sets the tone of the album, its pretty bright sounding. It’s got the feeling of being in the good beginning part of a relationship. The tone that these songs are gonna be about better things than most bands sad breakups just makes everything start on the right foot.

The second track Breakneck Speed, is more mellow sounding, with a decent amount of lower bass-y noise and some echo-ish sound. But it’s a really strong track, probably the best single from the record, it uses the lyrics and the musical hooks together so that both parts will get stuck in your head. So while it might be slightly more of a downer song, it’s about getting past whatever bad stuff has happened, and recovering, so there’s no angst to it, which is great.

Wait Up (Boots of Danger) the third song is another great pop song, with a chorus composed of guitar fuzz and echo-y vocals of “who whooo hooo hoo hoo ho”. While Bambi uses an abundance of synth to produce this great fragmented beat, that makes it one of the strongest songs on the record. It’s pretty awesome, the synth comes in and out of the song at times in this cool chopped up beat that powers the song, and makes it stand out against most of the rest of the songs. It’s something that people could dance too. I imagine it’ll get a crazy club mix at some point.

A thing that I really appreciate about the songwriting of Tokyo Police Club is that they have a good grasp upon brevity. None of the songs on this record overstays its welcome, they don’t needlessly repeat their choruses over and over into a long winded fade out. No, not a single song on the record breaks the four minute mark; only three of em pass three and a half minutes. They know that short n concise is the best way to go with catchy pop, and it’s appreciated. It helps the record feel fun and immediate, and to not get old. It’s not that I don’t feel like some of the songs could go on longer, they just decide not too.

Which brings me to what’s my favorite song on the album, the second to last song, Not Sick. It’s this two minute and fifty eight second bite of jangly, happy, pop, it’s just great. It kinda feels like if you took some awesome 80′s synth line and inserted it into some modern indie pop punk, and then made it awesome. It’s just this great, airy, poppy song.

Some reviewers have given this album some flack, saying that it’s not got enough heft to it, not enough musical weight. I disagree, wholeheartedly.

Lets say that one great catchy song is a cookie. Sometimes listening to a record is like getting a cookie and being told that you’ve gotta eat a bunch of shitty vegetables too.

Champ on the other hand is like getting a whole box of Oreos. One is great, so you have another one, then you want another, and before you know it you’ve eaten the whole box.

And who the fuck doesn’t like Oreo’s?

Oh, and just to further this analogy a little bit more:

Champ is a box of Double Stuf Oreos.