Most of Southern California being on fire reminds me Demolition Man, but, of course, with different results. The movie begins with the Hollywood Hills on fire, a dire prophecy that has come to pass, sadly — especially since Sylvester Stallone is now an “emissary” to Hollywood by Donald Trump. (Truthfully, I didn’t see that coming, palling around with other has-beens like Mel Gibson and Jon Voight. Yeccccch!)

With hits like Rocky, Rambo, and Rhinestone, Stallone was one of the biggest actors in the world. However, Demolition Man is Stallone’s absolute triumph: a somewhat smart, pretty inventive sci-fi-action film with enough explosives and unmatched machismo to create a spandex-clad gumbo — in other words, one of 1993’s most underrated and unappreciated films!

In an alternate 1996, L.A. is a total war zone. Beefy cop Sgt. John Spartan (the beefy Stallone) goes into the inner city to take down terrorist mastermind Simon Phoenix (the fully engaging Wesley Snipes) and is penalized for his trouble: He is cryogenically frozen. Wowza!

In a future 2032, L.A. is renamed San Angeles, a utopian megalopolis with no violence, hunger or, apparently, working toilets. That all changes when Phoenix and Spartan are revived and compete in the world’s biggest dick contest. Of course, the peaceful members of society get murdered, killed and executed, all at the same time.

In between exhibitions at the MoMA and the Guggenheim Museum, artist Marco Brambilla directed the film. His swerves on the well-paved road between precise critiques of pop culture and disparate art culture serve the purpose to entertain.

And, really, it’s not that dumb. I can’t stress this enough!

The movie also casts the charming Sandra Bullock and the grating Denis Leary, and they serve their comical purposes. But, once again, the penile swagger of Stallone and Snipes create a dream team of ethical counterpoints, trading stereotypical non-PC lines and acts of brutality in a two-hour time frame.

In other words, it was a smart movie from stupid people. Right?

Demolition Man, with its end credits song by Sting — always a banger — is a fully satisfying film and one of Stallone’s last major works. Two years later, all that goodwill was tossed in the trash can with Judge Dredd and, well, we all know how that turned out. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

When a new species of spider — your guess to its level of bloodthirstiness — is discovered in Chinese mountain caves, the news piques the interest of college student Qiumu (Zheng Zefei) who’s obsessed with exactly two things: spiders and boobs. He’s only seen one of those things, strictly judging from the Party City closeout web above Qiumu’s dorm room bed. 

Enlisting the help of a documentary filmmaker of the opposite sex (Zhangzhen), he quickly devises a mission: “Let’s go to find the spider.” (sic) They do go, and they do find. The latter is quite easy, on account of it being so large, the thing’s impervious to their swinging knapsacks. It’s also hairy, stabby-legged, big-bootied and, of course, computer-generated. 

As if an eight-legged freak of nature mutated by industrial toxic waste weren’t enough of an antagonist, the movie offers a human villain, too: Mr. Wang. Hey, someone needed to be the literal butt of the diarrhea jokes. Speaking of, as he’s grunting and grimacing on the toilet, the subtitles read, “Why is it so sticky?”

At minute 64, Bloodthirsty Crazy Spider calls it a day with a hard stop. No climax, no ending. Just a harsh rebuke that this is all your fault. You — yes, you — caused the massive creepy crawler by carelessly allowing your can of Juiced Monster Khaotic^® to sink to the ocean floor, asshole. 

The creature feature makes good use of abandoned factories and poor use of everything else, particularly whatever program the Youku production company booted up to animate the arachnid. The software’s free trial period appears to have expired since said spider hardly looks fully rendered. When it skitters, viewers titter. —Rod Lott

Hedges Capers sounds like two items on a country club Karen’s list of things to complain to the help about. In actuality, Hedges Capers is the obscure folksinger who somehow scored the lead role of the weirdo backwoods fantasy The Legend of Hillbilly John. There’s a reason you’ve never seen him onscreen before or since: He’s no actor. Yet out of many, many songs he sings here, the best is the one Capers doesn’t warble, with vocal duties outsourced to Hoyt Axton, whose throat kicks ass.  

In the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina, Hillbilly John is a balladeer. That’s just a nice way of saying “guy who never stops playing his guitar, even in public.” After Grandpappy (Denver Pyle, TV’s The Dukes of Hazzard) is smote by the devil, John vows vengeance with the only weapon he has: vicious halitosis bluegrass tunes strummed-de-dummed on guitar strings made of pure silver. 

Who knew 100% silver was Satan’s green Kryptonite? Heck, who knew Satan resided in the Appalachians? (Insert Hillbilly Elegy joke here.) 

Originally (mis)titled Who Fears the Devil, the flick draws from a pair of Manly Wade Wellman short stories — and sure feels like it. From meeting a witch (Susan Strasberg, The Delta Force) to fighting a giant prehistoric bird (animated via stop-motion) whose feathers sizzle like acid, our hero and his hound dog saunter from one self-contained adventure to the next. The script by Melvin Levy (The Cry Baby Killer) neglects connective tissue, except for the common denominator of “goddamn mountain superstition” (as Murder at 1600’s Harris Yulin puts it). 

Too bad so little of Legend is fun. Getting acquainted with the movie’s world — one of “salt pork” and “tarnation” — teases viewers into thinking they’re in for a barn-buster, only to drag. Best known as host of TV’s One Step Beyond anthology, John Newland manages to pull off a couple of interesting touches from his director’s chair. One is questionable: tinting a voodoo sequence entirely in yellow. The other is inarguably terrific: having the film violently leap off its sprockets as the devil kills Grandpappy. The whole of Legend cries for such ingenuity, primarily when elongated spells of the film prompt snores. 

The final shot isn’t quite Planet of the Apes, but it’s something of a surprise — and more Billy Jack than Hillbilly John. If you watch this movie, you’re in for a unique experience; just remember that uniqueness does not guarantee success. If you’re allergic to banjos and/or action verbs with dropped Gs, take your Benadryl beforehand, lest ye break out in hives. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.