They just don’t make ’em like they used to. No, really, they just don’t make ’em like they used to — probably because they wouldn’t be allowed.

Case in point: Metta Meta Gakido Koza, alternately translated as The Rascal’s Messy Messy Road or Go as Messy as Messy Can Be. Whichever title comes affixed, the Japanese comedy is based on a popular manga by the prolific Yasuji Tanioka. It’s about Gakio Oryama, a pubescent boy taunted for his small penis and obsessed with sucking women’s breasts — against their will, if that’s what it takes. He’s a perverted Dennis the Menace who’s traded overalls for short pants.

Metta Meta is less a story than a collection of scenes in Gakio’s crazy, mixed-up, tits-a-poppin’ life. His mother (Rika Fujie, Outlaw: Black Dagger), gorgeous but sexually deprived, makes do with an inflatable doll with detachable johnson. His dad (Shinsuke Minami, Zatoichi and the One-Armed Swordsman) is henpecked to infidelity and ineffectuality. His bonneted baby sister (Attack Ichiro) has quite the mouth on her (example: “You stupid bitch.”). His grandmother (Toyoko Takechi, Dragon Princess) seems pretty cool, though, having a Charles Bronson poster on her bedroom wall.

Despondent over his tiny unit, Gakio tries — and fails — to commit suicide by drowning, by hanging and by being run over by a train. At school, Gakio asks his teacher (Bullet Train’s Keiko Aikawa), rhetorically, “Have you completely lost your fear, cow?” before instigating a classroom furniture fight.

At the neighborhood bar, Gakio drinks his dad under the table. Impressed, a barfly tells the boy he’s free to do whatever he wants to her, so right then and there, he scoops a boob out of her dress and goes to town on it, accidentally deflating it. No longer impressed, the barfly and her posse beat Gakio to a pulp. Dad joins the fun by running him over with a steamroller, prompting Gakio to scream, “You are a dumb pork head!” When Dad and the barflies try to bury him a barrel of cement, Gakio slices off the ladies’ dresses: “Being a little devil is great!”

The drinking continues at home, where Gakio orders Mom to bring him beer after beer. He even gets the smart kid across the street to imbibe, turning the classmate into a full-blown alcoholic. Back at school, after a lesson on pollination, Gakio and his fellow students pin the teacher to the ground and presumably gang-rape her. Outside the school, he sexually assaults the crossing guard, then asks her out. The boys in his class pick up street hookers and take them to the public showers.

Paying a visit to Dad’s salaryman office, Gakio lifts the skirts of every woman in sight. Before long, the boss (Toshiaki Minami, 1970’s The Assassin) has his lady employees in a topless lineup; Gakio goes home with the boss’ busty secretary (singer Tomomi Sawa) after trying to unbutton her blouse on-site. In Metta Meta‘s climax, Gakio faces and fights the yakuza. Then he goes home and tells his mother, “Mom, I really love your tits!” To prove it, he yanks one out and latches on; in response, her eyes cross to suggest she’s kinda into it — at least until he deflates it, too, and pulls it back with his teeth like a piece of taffy. On the roof, the man in the bug suit cheers.

Oh, did I forget to mention that earlier? Sorry. There’s a man in a bug suit on the roof, played by Jō Shishido (Seijun Suzuki’s Branded to Kill). As far as I can tell, he serves as the film’s ersatz rooster, announcing when it’s morning and afternoon and the like. That he is the least weird element of Metta Meta Gakido Koza should tell you something, except it tells you everything. This is, after all, a nonstop buffet of sexual assault, slapstick violence, cartoon physics, exaggerated popeyed faces, sped-up motion and — in the film’s lone sign of restraint — only one baby hurled down a bowling lane.

Director Mio Ezaki (1970’s Dangerous Games) shows no blood when characters take an ax to the head, instead saving all that red stuff to gush out Gakio’s nose when he’s sexually excited — an anime trope started by Tanioka. More often, Gakio’s erections are suggested by his front teeth growing into giant piano keys — a sight gag uncomfortably bringing to mind the buck-toothed Asian stereotype. Whether that was intended is a mystery to me, but an accurate translation of bringing the crude images (in more ways than one) of the source material to colorful life. Even with all its questionable material, the movie somehow pulls off an all-in-fun innocence I’m willing to buy, likely because it’s five decades old. A marked difference exists between “I can’t believe what I’m seeing and I’m offended!” and “I can’t believe what I’m seeing!” Because I’ve never seen anything quite like it, Metta Meta Gakido Koza belongs to the latter. —Rod Lott

Get it at dvdrparty.

The blaxploitation boom of the 1970s was called many things by many people, but “sweet,” “romantic” and “heartwarming” were not the descriptors typically used. That’s one of the reasons that the socially conscious romantic comedy Claudine is held in such high regard by film enthusiasts.

I vaguely remember catching it at 3 in the morning as a preteen, forever intrigued by the titular single mother (Diahann Carroll) who starts dating the local garbageman (James Earl Jones) and encounters plenty of problems along the way, such as rats in the apartment, asshole social workers and, of course, a small-scale riot that ends with the entire family being carted away while happily waving from the back of the paddy wagon.

Still, I have to admit, my young brain probably didn’t understand the movie and I’m sure I was misremembering most of it.

Turns out I wasn’t. The groundbreaking Claudine, directed by former blacklisted filmmaker John Berry, is an anomaly in the blaxploitation cycle, with Carroll portraying a realistic mother of six kids, forever tired and not willing to put up with too much bullshit, from her teen daughter’s pregnancy, which she attempts to beat out of her, to her older son’s vasectomy, railing against him for destroying his “manhood.”

With a soundtrack by both Curtis Mayfield and Gladys Knight & the Pips, Claudine was a minor hit when originally released, yet somehow has been relegated to virtual obscurity in the ensuing years. A gritty but loving entry in the cinematic Black boom of the ’70s, it deserves to be rediscovered or, you know, just plain discovered. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

In the year 2020, America has become the first chapter of a particularly bad dystopian sci-fi novel. That’s probably why the excessively optimistic Bill & Ted Face the Music might be the most needed movie of the year, giving a bit of cinematic hope in our hour of needful reality.

Like any self-respecting member of Generation X, 1989’s Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (and, to a lesser extent, 1991’s Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey) was a defining moment for me and most of my friends, waiting desperately for the fictitious day that the music of Wyld Stallyns changes the world as we know it forever.

Of course, it never happened.

Now middle-aged and married with daughters, Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) are still trying to write the song that will evolve humanity toward a peaceful existence, with no luck. Ironically, time has seemingly ran out and the fabric of reality is about to collapse in on itself unless the mythical track is finally completed in about 70 minutes. This gives the guys the bright idea to time-travel to the future and steal the song from themselves.

While that’s going on, daughters Billie (Brigette Lundy-Paine) and Thea (Samara Weaving) use a spare time machine to go backward and create the greatest band ever, collecting musical icons such as Louis Armstrong, Jimi Hendrix, Mozart and so on. It’s not a spoiler if I say they definitely have the more solid plan.

With the return of Death (William Sadler), a holographic Rufus (George Carlin) and the never-was catchphrase “Station!,” as much as a goofy trip down memory lane as it wants to be (and is), it becomes something more in our current climate, with Reeves and Winter portraying two genuinely good guys compelled to do the right thing, even if it means giving the role of planetary saviors to their daughters.

It’s hard to not sound apocalyptic when recommending Bill & Ted Face the Music, but it is the movie we truly need right now — and maybe that’s the true peace-bringing message of the Wyld Stallyns and their excellent adventures. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

Shot on video, the monster-mash monstrosity known as Franky and His Pals feels like the management team of your local Spirit Halloween store got drunk after closing and improvised a movie. In reality, it’s made by Gerald Cormier, producer of such X-rated fare as Hey! There’s Naked Bodies on My TV!

Thanks to an avalanche, the bolt-templed Franky, the vampire Drak, the wolfman Wolfie, the mummy Mummy and the hunchback Humper live captive in a cave, until Franky (Eric Weathersbee) eats so many chili beans that he farts the boulders away to clear a passage. This allows the group to escape and go looking for the rumored gold in town. Emerging from the mummy’s tummy to crack wise is a talking rat. Also, Wolfie (Wilson Smith) is gay, assumedly so Cormier and his pals could make light of a feminine man named Clover (Shawn West), who wears a tutu and walks around asking in a whiny pout, “Have you seen my Wolfie?”

They attend a costume party — conveniently enough, so no one knows their true nature — at a nearby hotel, where they dance, grope women, hop in the sack, judge a bikini contest and participate in one-joke setups that even Rowan and Martin would reject. One running gag has the monsters individually terrified whenever the obese Tammy appears … yet they overwhelmingly vote her the victor in the aforementioned contest — so much for consistency! The night ends when Franky stumbles upon a pot of chili beans in the kitchen, can’t help himself and farts the place into an explosion, which unearths the gold.

Oh, you’ll also be treated to a rap song that recounts the events of the prior 10 minutes, a pair of Stepin Fetchit stereotypes as gravediggers, an aerobics sequence, gratuitous Pepsi-Cola placement, and a scientist with a time machine that doesn’t come into play until the very end, when the monsters are zapped away to … well, who knows? The scientist (Cormier himself) breaks the fourth wall to inform viewers the sequel will reveal the quintet’s destination. Luckily, that follow-up never came, because one Franky is twice the amount anyone needs. It’s so corny, you’ll spot chunks of it in tomorrow’s stool. —Rod Lott

I hadn’t seen John Hughes’ Sixteen Candles in about 16 years. With changes to the culture happening so fast these days, I’d recently been wondering how this teen film has held up, especially with many accusations of Asian-based racism, possible date rape and so on.

The answer is “not great.”

I’m pretty sure we’re all familiar with the setup by now: Samantha’s (Molly Ringwald) family forgets her “fucking birthday” on the account of her sister’s upcoming nuptials, which sets into motion a series of event that includes giving her panties to a geek (Anthony Michael Hall) at a high school dance while, eventually, ending up with the quintessential hunk (Michael Schoeffling) of her dreams.

While the film is still riotously hilarious, some of these laughs come with pangs of guilt. One of the most troubling is foreign exchange student Long Duk Dong (Gedde Watanabe); while Dong has many of the film’s most memorable lines, his stereotyped character seems more like a one-note joke from one of Hughes’ equally troublesome National Lampoon pieces.

And while Samantha is a realistically relatable character at a time when some of the worst-written ones were often female, her dream guy — even more than ever — comes off more like the Patrick Bateman of date rapists. At one point, he brags how he could “violate” his drunk girlfriend “10 different ways” if he wanted to, and then gives the passed-out prom queen to the geek Farmer Ted, ostensibly to drive home.

Like her when she awakens, we’re not sure if anything happened between her and Ted, but she ultimately forgives him with a chance at a wholly unrealistic relationship. When I was a geeky youth myself, I thought it was the perfect situation; now I’m not so sure. He may be forgiven in and by the film, but it’s kind of hard for the audience, at least by today’s standards, to do the same.

I guess we can play it off with the trite “it was the ’80s” cliché, a different time with strangely lax mores when compared to today. Watched through that retrofitted eye, Sixteen Candles does stand up as one of the most memorable comedies of the time, but ultimately one you couldn’t get away with today and, honestly, why would you want to? —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.