1. Paul McCartney, “Spies Like Us”
2. Paul Simon, “You Can Call Me Al”
3. Ray Parker Jr., “Ghostbusters”
—Rod Lott
All posts by Rod Lott
Max Maven’s Mindgames (1984)
As of November 2022, the magician Max Maven is no longer of this earth. Anyone watching TV in the 1980s will likely remember him; he was the guy who wasn’t David Copperfield, Doug Henning or Harry Anderson. With ink-black slicked hair, a single earring and pencil-thin mustache and goatee, he’s the one who looked like a satanist, albeit a satanist who could produce a rabbit from a hat.
Pioneering at the time, Max Maven’s Mindgames was an hourlong special made exclusively for home video. Marketed as “the video that reads your mind,” it’s plant-the-camera directed by Bruce Seth Green, the guy behind such VHS rental gold as Nudes in Limbo and Massage … the Touch of Love.
Maven “communicates” with viewers through a series of magic tricks. Most are considerably lame, like the opening stunner of “making” your two index fingers touch one another. Oooooh! On a set reminiscent of Match Game PM (if Gene Rayburn had tolerated strobe lights and dry ice), Maven uses his brain powers to force you choose a preselected flag (the true neat bit) before moving on to the requisite card tricks. In between, he acts like a moron in some horrid “comedy” bits; as the writer, Maven only has himself to blame.
Many tricks have themed backdrops — the jungle, a surgical ward, a Vegas casino — but no matter the locale, they reek of cheap thrills. The guy had talent, but the limitations of videotape don’t exactly make for mesmerizing feats of mentalism. With support from a talking computer, a rotund ratings rep and a pair of sequined sweeties, Mindgames includes a musical number to “Yankee Doodle,” a clip from Battlestar Galactica and a man in a duck suit. —Rod Lott
Electra (1996)
Between Pamela Anderson’s Barb Wire, Joan Severance’s Black Scorpion and Nicole Eggert’s The Demolitionist, 1995-6 proved to be a banner year for B movies starring surgically enhanced TV vets befit in tight black leather costumes. Also in this club of sexed-up superheroines within that calendar range? Electra! As in Shannon Tweed’s with-a-C, not Jennifer Garner’s with-a-K Elektra.
Tweed (Hot Dog … the Movie) is Lorna, a quiet woman who favors farm life and floral prints. She’s stepmom to Billy (Joe Tabb, 2002’s Feedback), a muscular, blank-faced, long-haired, Jersey-accented, bare-chested bo-hunk whom she lusts after. And what soccer mom wouldn’t? The boy’s got freakin’ super powers! In addition to allowing him to jump real far, run real fast and flip real vans, Billy’s powers are youth- and health-restorative.
Naturally, that appeals to the evil Dr. Roach (Sten Eirik, Darkman II: The Return of Durant). Being confined to a wheelchair outfitted with two expandable TV antennas, he longs for the young man’s goods. Trouble is — and here comes the genius part of the Damian Lee/Lou Aguilar screenplay — they can be transmitted only through Billy’s semen and, well, Roach doesn’t play for that team.
So when the leatherbound wiles of a pair of backflippin’ bitches fail to extract the mighty virgin’s super juice, Roach kidnaps Lorna, teases her with a vibrator and makes her up to be some ultra-hot harpie who can bare vampiric fangs, levitate during catfights and shoot bolts of electricity from her palms. Needless to say, she’s up ’n’ grindin’ on her jeans-model stepson in no time, tricking him into making a small deposit.
Speaking of unloading, director Julian Grant (The Cropsey Incident) does that with a slew of bloopers during the sequel-threatening end credits. Most of the foul-ups, bleeps and blunders entail one cast member or one another saying “fuck” or variations thereof. In addition, Tweed claims she’s about to barf, and I can’t say I blame her. —Rod Lott
Fenomenal and the Treasure of Tutankamen (1968)
In ’60s cinema, Italian superhero movies were 2 lire a dozen. However, only one is from the guy who would give cinema a naked Amazonian girl impaled anus-to-mouth on a spiked pole. Working under the Americanized moniker Roger Rockefeller, future Cannibal Holocaust chaos agent Ruggero Deodato wrote and directed Fenomenal and the Treasure of Tutankamen early in his career.
Mauro Parenti (Justine de Sade) stars as Guy Norton, bearded count by day, Parisian superhero by, well, day. Norton exhibits primo sartorial choices that go out the window when costumed as his crimefighting alter ego. As Fenomenal (Italian for “phenomenal,” if you haven’t guessed), he’s dressed all in black, save for his hands and belt buckle; capping the outfit are sensible shoes on his fleet feet and pantyhose over his head. Super powers are nil, but he can legibly write his name inside a briefcase to trick a thieving bandit.
Fresh from foiling a heroin ring at sea, Fenomenal is tasked with hunting for an ancient relic, the whereabouts of which are hidden in hieroglyphics on the mask of ol’ King Tut, currently on exhibition. Villainous Gregory Falco (Gordon Mitchell, White Fire) wants his hands on it. A woman named Mike (Enter the Devil’s Lucretia Love, Parenti’s soon-to-be spouse) wants her hands on Norton; she introduces herself as being the daughter of “the canned meat king.”
Because Bruno Nicolai’s score is seasoned with jaunty “ba-da-bah-bah-bah” ziggalybops, none of Treasure of Tutankamen is to be taken seriously — good to know since logic is negligible. People get double-crossed; take the pic’s word for it when you’re told. A Eurospy staple, fun is had with all kinds of transportation — cars, speedboats, yachts, helicopters, wheelchairs — but the best scene is something right out of the Matt Helm pictures: Fenomenal fights a fez-wearing goon in a ladies’ sauna. As towel-torsoed women run and scream, Feno dodges thrown chairs and punches.
Phenomenal? Hardly. But it’s passable, as long as you know it’s no second coming of Danger: Diabolik. —Rod Lott
Bermuda Island (2023)
Prolific production company Mahal Empire gets Lost when an airliner bound for Puerto Rico is struck by lightning and goes down down down, in Bermuda Island. Washed up on the shore of what looks like paradise, the survivors face no food, no potable water, no aloe vera, no Wi-Fi and a band of green-hued, limb-ripping creatures on the loose and out for blood.
Looking not unlike homemade Predator costumes, these beasts treat the survivors’ tummies like your grandma does dirt when it’s time to plant petunias. Meanwhile, in hopes of saving alive, the humans split into two factions. One is led by a regular Robinson Crusoe (a fully OTT John Wells, The Penny Dreadful Picture Show) who claims to have been trapped in the Triangle for 100 years. The other, fronted by a surly ’n’ burly FBI agent (Wesley Cannon, who also produced) who just copies the other guy. And Mahal Empire regular Sarah French (Death Count) finds a reason to disrobe.
Although Bermuda Island is goofily constructed and unleashed on the cheap, first-feature director Adam Werth makes the trip a hoot. He even comes close to earning that proverbial extra half by not pretending the movie is anything other than a brainless B-level outing. With no shortage of goop and a squishy soundtrack to boot, it strongly resembles a modern-day addition to Hemisphere Pictures’ beloved Blood Island trilogy. Whether in daylight or the dead of night, scenes always offer clear views of carnage.
While not every actor is as comfortable on camera as French, Wells or the cameoing Tom Sizemore, who perishes before the plane crashes, several Mahal Empire players are legitimately funny in their roles. Sheri Davis makes for a commendable ever-complaining Karen type; Greg Tally is a near-riot as a pretentious Goth named Midnight; and then there’s Alexander Hauck, somehow able to tell a monster that just ripped his heart out, “I hope you get food poisoning.” —Rod Lott