Getting into Heaven (1970)

Starring Swedish voluptuous vixen Uschi Digard, Getting into Heaven is your basic sex comedy with better-than-basic bosoms. By “comedy,” we don’t mean funny — just wacky. You know the kind: cartoon sound effects, sped-up voices, predictable pratfalls, acknowledgment of the camera, and dialogue exchanges like this:

“That can get you into trouble?”
“Are you trouble?”
“No, I’m Heaven!”
“I’ll say!”

As you may have guessed by now, Uschi plays the titular Heaven, a new-to-L.A. gal who hits (and gets) it off with a nerdy cop, who becomes her boyfriend. She and her roommate want to be movie stars, but they don’t really have any talent other than harboring large breasts, so they hold a producer hostage and bang him continually — we’re talking more than 100 times — until he gives in. Happy endings all around. Just maybe not with you. —Rod Lott

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Safari 3000 (1982)

In director Harry Hurwitz’s Safari 3000, David Carradine basically plays David Carradine, as a former Hollywood stuntman who enters the African International Race with Playboy photographer and vaguely mustachioed Stockard Channing as his navigator. Interesting, but that’s not the kind of bush of which Playboy is interested in running pictures.

Christopher Lee is the villainous mogul who also wants the crown, and the tricks he and his henchman pal are worthy of Bullwinkle cartoons — meaning that they’re entirely stupid for a live-action film. Which is much of the problem for this witless exercise: It’s unsure whether it’s an actioner, an adventure, a comedy or even a goddamn travelogue. Because it’s so start-to-finish insipid, I’m going with comedy. One thing’s for sure: It’s not worth your time.

The four-digit number in the title refers to the amount of kilometers of the race, but I suspect it was put there to fool moviegoers into thinking it a sequel to Carradine’s hit Death Race 2000. It also implies futurism, but about the only dose of that you get is Lee driving around in a Darth Vader helmet. —Rod Lott

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Death Game (1977)

Every time my wife leaves town, the house is dead silent. But in Death Game, as soon as George’s wife leaves town — on his 40th birthday, no less — two hotties knock on the door, looking for an address they can’t seem to find. George (Seymour Cassel, whose voice is obviously, horribly dubbed for some reason) lets them in, and they’re quite impressed by his digs: “Hey, that bathroom of yours is far-out!”

Seconds later, Jackson (Sondra Locke) and Donna (Colleen Camp) are stripped naked in his Jacuzzi bath, and approach him for a threesome. George protests, but they grab his crotch and, literally, the waka-waka disco music begins. ‘Tis a great night, but in the morning, a spent George is peeved they won’t get out of his house.

They have no intentions of going. In fact, they tie him up and “hold court,” pledging to kill him at the end of the weekend. Jackson goes all nom-nom-nom on his groceries like a brain-damaged pig (“You have the manners of an alley cat!” he screams), while Donna plays the piano horribly. Both fuck with his wife’s makeup so they look like they’re part of a troupe called Whore du Soleil, and cackle like the batshit-crazy loons they are. But, hey, Camp’s breasts.

This is Camp in her prime. She positively oozes sex, but the bland Locke oozes tapioca pudding. Death Game is all about punishing George for consuming two servings of underaged vagina, but the movie is ultimately pointless. However, with a bosom like Camp’s, who needs motive? The utter nonsense keeps you entertained, even when you want to throttle them. The final shot is a WTF howler. —Rod Lott

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Lovelines (1984)

You gotta admire a filmmaker with a record as perfect as Rod Amateau’s. Between 1970 and 1987, the former TV sitcom director made eight movies, all of which are awful. Beginning with Pussycat, Pussycat, I Love You (a What’s New Pussycat? “sequel” I personally wouldn’t know existed, if not for the IMDb) and ending with The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, his filmography serves as an impressive tribute to failure (I mean, I haven’t even mentioned 1978’s Son of Hitler).

So when I say that Lovelines is probably the best film he made, that probably shouldn’t be taken as an endorsement. Fact is, Lovelines sucks. Hard. But by managing not to make me never want to see another film ever again, it has to be consider Amateau’s greatest triumph. It’s another Romeo and Juliet take-off, with the Montagues and Capulets traded in for rival bands, The Firecats (all hot chicks) and The Racers (all dudes), from feuding high schools. Serving as their priest is promoter/manager/hustler/entrepreneur Michael “Police AcademyPolice Academy sound-effects guy” Winslow, who runs the vague communication service that gives the movie its nonsensical title.

Beyond Winslow, the rest of the characters comprise an amazingly forgettable lot that range from the bland to the obnoxious to the blandly obnoxious. The fact that there isn’t a human alive capable of giving a fuck about its two lovelorn protagonists (Days of Our Lives’ Mary Beth Evans and Skatetown USA’s Greg Bradford) definitely hurts the central romance, which takes up the bulk of the third act.

Fortunately, a work like Lovelines easily can be redeemed by a decent soundtrack. Unfortunately, the music the rival bands play is so joylessly rote, your ears are incapable of even registering it. When Joe Esposito contributes the least-instantly dated song to a soundtrack, you know you’re in trouble.

In summary: For Amateau completests, Lovelines will serve as a welcome respite after the misery of The Statue and Where Does It Hurt?, but for everyone else, it’ll make you want to kick William Shakespeare in the nuts. —Allan Mott

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