Documentary

Boiled Angels: The Trial of Mike Diana (2018)

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I was smack dab in the middle of the so-called zine revolution, writing and publishing my work on an irregular basis. As a contributor to the scene, I was clinically obsessed with the trade publication of the amateur industry, Factsheet 5. It was there where I first learned about Mike Diana, the publisher of Boiled Angel, a badly drawn comic featuring some of the most socially deviant acts of satanic sex.

At the time, I thought he was an attention-seeking sociopath who, like many zinesters, was looking for that big break into the mainstream. And, after viewing this documentary, it looks as though, for the most part, I was right and he definitely got it.

Helmed by Basket Case auteur Frank Henenlotter, Boiled Angels: The Trial of Mike Diana tells the tale of a man and his zine, a grotty little manifesto that got him in trouble with Florida law, mostly for his cartoons of rotten cannibalism, hardcore sex and other acts of salacious storytelling.

While I would have (should have?) purchased it at the time and just forgotten about it, instead the trashiest state in the union decided to punish him for the immoral zine, causing him to become a hero in the eyes of those who independently published even lesser material. And I’ll admit it: I was one of them. While Diana is very much a troubled soul who should have been left by the wayside the way most zine publishers were, I guess the movement needed a hero and he was, whether he wanted to be, it.

Judging on what he was publishing, I guess it was somewhat worth it, although I don’t think he was mentally prepared for it. If I’m being honest, neither were any of the zinesters at the time, with most of us finally knowing the true story of Diana and Boiled Angel thanks to this documentary; as they say, knowing is half the battle. So while I can’t say Diana is a personal hero, to those of us doing zines, he was definitely on the far right — or is it left? — of the heroic scale. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

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For Wonder Woman 1984, the sequel to the 2017 phenomenon, director and co-writer Patty Jenkins really leans in to the date of the title. After a flashback prologue showing a feisty young Diana Prince (a returning Lilly Aspell) competing as a kid in her island home’s version of American Ninja Warrior, Jenkins splashes the screen with a colorful, bubbly, all-American look at our nation’s capital in ways it never really was in the Reagan era, which is to say looking not dissimilar to Back to the Future Part II’s living-cartoon idea of 2015.

All the rainbow neon and big hair aside, this Washington, D.C.-set intro works well and with a winking vibe, no doubt influenced by Richard Donner’s vision of Metropolis in Superman as a veritable domino line of pratfalls. The Mack Sennett-style chaos snakes indoors to a mall jewelry store robbery foiled by the arrival of — yep, you guessed it — Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot). One of the swiped pieces is a mysterious chunk of, well, no one knows, so the FBI enlists the Smithsonian to help ID it. That’s where the plainclothes Diana works, as does the socially awkward Barbara Minerva (Bridesmaids’ Kristen Wiig).

The artifact of unknown origin is revealed to be a wishing rock, in that when someone holds it and speaks their desire aloud, a wisp of wind blows their bangs askew and the wish is immediately granted. Such a powerful object attracts the greedy hands of failing oilman Max Lord (an über-hammy Pedro Pascal, Kingsman: The Golden Circle), who seduces Barbara to gain access; she herself uses it to undergo one for those overnight movie makeovers from meek nerd to foxy mama.

Diana unknowingly leverages its powers, too, allowing Jenkins and her fellow scripters Geoff Johns (Aquaman) and Dave Callaham (2014’s Godzilla) to bring back love interest Steve Trevor (Chris Pine, Hell or High Water). Having perished in the first film’s end, Steve is resurrected in perhaps the laziest way possible: via the silly science of comic-book plotting. However, the arrival of Trevor, a World War I pilot, into a baffling, parachute-panted future livens WW84 tremendously, thanks to Pine’s unwavering commitment to not minding looking goofy. His comic performance is the MVP of the sequel, bar none.

What takes the air out of WW84 is the common archenemy of superhero cinema: third-act bloat. Given its 2.5-hour running time, one could make the case for fourth-act bloat as well. By then, Max Lord’s quest for world domination has been run into the ground with nowhere else to go but run further into the ground, to the point of subterranean. Barbara’s own transformation from human hottie to a CGI cheetah woman is needless, especially as the character resembles an The Island of Dr. Moreau abomination filtered through the costume department of Cats.

Still, a lot remains to like about Wonder Woman 1984. Even when saddled with hokey dialogue in the de rigueur showdown, Gadot believably embodies goodwill and decency. She shines as a straight-and-serious heroine, too, never better than in Jenkins’ big action set piece in the middle — and in the Middle East — which recalls one that put Indiana Jones through the peak-Spielberg paces of Raiders of the Lost Ark. The movie benefits from more humor and less world-building than its predecessor, before giving in to the subgenre’s worst tendencies of epically reaching to out-epic the most recent fantasy epic, to less-than-epic effect. —Rod Lott

Horror

Rest in Pieces (1987)

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After her nutty Aunt Catherine takes a fatal swig of strychnine, Helen (Lorin Jean Vail, 1986’s The Patriot) learns she’s the sole survivor of the family — and, therefore, sole beneficiary of an estate worth $8 million.

With husband Bob (Scott Thompson Baker, 1987’s Open House), Helen moves to Spain to occupy her aunt’s property in the hoity-toity neighborhood Eight Mannors [sic]. The only thing about the home stranger than the kitchen’s trapdoor is the collection of oddballs among the house staff and neighbors, from a hot maid and a blind man (The Panther Squad’s Jack Taylor) to a priest and a guy whose wardrobe is Nazi garb.

As the requisite strange occurrences begin — e.g., a piano playing on its own, carbon monoxide poisoning, suffocation by shower curtain — Helen and her many fashionable ’80s sweaters believe these hangers-on may be after her inheritance and, by extension, her life. The group murder of a violinist hired for a private performance lets viewers know early that despite Bob’s you’re-just-paranoid protestations, Helen’s suspicions couldn’t be more spot-on.

But the movie sure could be. Never as fun as it inches toward, Rest in Pieces is only as clever as its punny title, which is to say the film from José Ramón Larraz (hiding behind the Joseph Braunstein pseudonym he used for Black Candles and Edge of the Axe) is an undistinguished shocker. His horror films of this era play like comfort food to former lurkers of video-store aisles, yet not every Larraz sticks to the ribs.

Sure enough, this one passes right through, with the big takeaway being its casting coup of honest-to-God Academy Award winner Dorothy Malone as Aunt Catherine — her final role if not for the résumé-saver Basic Instinct. Heroine Vail, however, is in no danger of getting near an Oscar, for several reasons — stopping acting in 1988 being the least of them. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Comedy

The Heavenly Kid (1985)

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I saw more flicks on cable in the ’80s than anywhere else, especially on HBO. One of those movies happened to be The Heavenly Kid, a twice-a-day film, typically catching it both in the late morning and early evening. I was that way with a lot of movies, mind you, but this one was, for the most part, different.

Sure, it had the sex and drugs and all that, but it also had an early-’60s juvenile delinquent named Bobby (Lewis Smith) who, after a dragstrip race gone bad, comes back to earth to help a kid named Lenny (Jason Gedrick) become a world-class chick-scorer; he’s doing this all in the name of getting to “Uptown,” by the way.

But while Lenny is becoming the teen king — or, at least, the teen prince — of cool, Bobby learns that not only is Lenny his son, but Bobby has to grow up and, figuratively, become a man so his son will live to fight another day. When I was a kid myself, I thought that that was a neat little riff, but all grown up now, I can kind of see what director and writer Cary Medoway was trying to say.

I mean, sure, it was in a teen sex comedy, but there’s a lesson about maturity somewhere in there, I promise.

At the time of release, right after he appeared in the anachronistic sci-fi flick Buckaroo Banzai, Smith was poised to be a big name, only to star in the TV-movie version of David Bowie’s The Man Who Fell to Earth before fading into semi-obscurity. It’s kind of a shame, really, because he could’ve been a big star. At least I think so.

Instead, Gedrick, Jane Kaczmarek, Richard Mulligan and future starlet Nancy Valen — whom you may remember in infomercials for the Thigh Roller, Thin ’n Sexy Body Wrap and Kevin Trudeau’s Debt Cures “They” Don’t Want You to Know About — seemed to have any career. But, in the ’80s, this heavenly kid thought Smith was as cool as cool got, with this movie being an absolute revelation. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

Reading Material

Roger Corman’s New World Pictures (1970-1983): An Oral History

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Stephen B. Armstrong’s two volumes of Roger Corman’s New World Pictures (1970-1983): An Oral History are likely not what you think them to be, thanks to the “oral history” label. Today, we associate that term with a chronological narrative weaved together from quotes from varying sources, as one finds in untold numbers of internet articles and pop-culture books (e.g., I Want My MTV or Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live).

What you get from Volume One and Volume Two, however, isn’t a story, but a collection of Q&A interviews (published by BearManor Media) separated by the interviewee and not presented in any order — other than starting with Roger, of course.

With that carp out of the way, know this: There are some great stories for the reader to discover within these interviews (and it’s kind of amazing how many made their way to Corman via Martin Scorsese). Jonathan Kaplan recalls getting one day’s notice to direct his first film, Night Call Nurses. Lewis Teague talks about his assignment to figure out how to get some sex and action scenes cut into Monte Hellman’s Cockfighter. John Sayles reveals eye-rolling details from the Piranha script he rewrote, such as the killer fish seeking menstruating swimmers.

No one is more self-congratulatory than actor Martin Kove, while no one is more entertaining than actress Grace Zabriskie. It’s less about her #MeToo remembrance of Galaxy of Terror co-star Ray Walston and more about her blunt frustration and annoyance with the interviewer’s inquiries (“Dear God in heaven, I just can’t get interested in that question”), not to mention bafflement over why anyone wants to talk about Galaxy of Terror.

Others submitting to the hot seat include Sid Haig, Dick Miller (but just barely), Joe Dante, Allan Arkush, Mary Woronov, Robert Englund, Jack Hill and many more, several of whom are behind-the-camera personnel with names you won’t recognize. That’s not a bad thing, other than not always being properly introduced to the reader; in fact, I’d argue the single most informative conversation is with Corman attorney Barbara Doyle, who details her process for acquiring acclaimed foreign films for U.S. distribution, which gave Corman serious credibility to offset his miserly reputation.

On that note, a throughline emerges, with many acknowledging the low-as-possible budgets while also praising the flip side to that: real-world training and creative freedom. Not for nothing was the man awarded an honorary Oscar in 2009 … although it sure wasn’t for Galaxy of Terror. Armstrong makes sure to celebrate both, as one should! —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon or BearManor Media.

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