The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood (1980)

At the risk of offending many, I’m going to chance controversy by just flat-out saying that The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood is the best film in the entire Happy Hooker canon. Sleazier than The Happy Hooker, funnier than Goes to Washington and considerably better made than My Pleasure Is My Business (a Canadian movie that counts as an unofficial entry in the series if only because it stars Xaviera Hollander, the real “Happy Hooker,” as a contented courtesan), Hollywood is a bawdy, fun time that you should only be mildly ashamed for enjoying.

In Hollywood, Hollander is played by Hammer horror regular Martine Beswick, who was never a noted comedienne, but doesn’t have to be, since she’s the straight woman in this farce and is only required to frequently appear without her clothes on, which she does very well.

Drawn to Los Angeles to sell her life story to Phil Silvers’ troubled Warkoff Brothers Studios, she decides instead to go the independent route when she discovers that lover/Silvers’ lackey Adam West is an even bigger whore than she is. Naturally, in order to finance the film, the merry madam turns to her crew of pneumatic working girls, who bring in big profits and bigger comedic complications.

The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood satisfies because it’s a well-made film that isn’t embarrassed to be exactly what it is: a 90-minute excuse to display some truly astonishing naked bodies. That you also get to see Batman in drag is simply icing on the cake. —Allan Mott

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Drive (1997)

If released today, Drive could pass for Rush Hour 4. Coming a couple of years before the Jackie Chan/Chris Tucker smash, Drive is Rush Hour’s prototype, but with far better martial arts and someone who knows how to direct them.

A baby-faced Mark Dacascos stars as a karate expert who comes from Hong Kong to the United States. He’s been implanted with super-soldier technology that he wants to keep out of Communist China’s hands, and he’s headed for Los Angeles to sell the goods for a cool $5 million. As happens with such things, he’s followed by a gaggle of goons with an arsenal of automatic weapons. To escape from them and the police early in the film, he takes a hostage in a bar, a down-on-his-luck Kadeem Hardison (from TV’s A Different World), who serves as his reluctant partner and comic foil.

Together, they go on the run toward L.A., encountering trouble all along the way, as well as some unsolicited help from a horny motel employee (Brittany Murphy), then with her layers of baby fat and doing her caffeinated/ADD/retard thing.

Drive is so much fun that not even Hardison or Murphy — neither a reliable presence — can kill it. Directed by Steve Wang (The Guyver, Kung-Fu Rascals), this is one of those rare occasions where all the creative elements (some known for not having much creativity) simply click.

Dacascos is completely impressive, demonstrating some damned fast kung-fu moves. On the basis of this, I’m surprised his profile isn’t higher. Although strictly an American film, this has some of the most exciting and innovative martial-arts sequences you’ll see, from an assault in a tiny motel room to the climactic showdown in a space-themed bar. It’s fast, funny and full of both great little moments and big action payoffs. —Rod Lott

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Land of the Dead (2005)

Having given birth to the modern zombie genre with Night of the Living Dead, George A. Romero further explored the terrain in several sequels, including the fourth entry, Land of the Dead. So different are the films that he can never be accused of making the same movie twice; but this time, the result just isn’t all that good.

Working with a huge-for-him budget and some name actors, Land had every opportunity to be the “zombie masterpiece” as the ads touted. From the very first shot — a sly visual gag of a pointing diner sign reading “EATS” — you think Romero may very well pull it off. But then the camera slowly pans over to some kind of zombie oompha band. If we’re going to fault George Lucas for the Wookie’s Tarzan yell in Revenge of the Sith, we’ve gotta take Romero to task for this, too.

A thin story emerges: In one major metropolitan area, survivors live in a well-fortressed downtown area surrounded by rivers, barbed wire, electric fences and armed guards to keep the undead out. The rich among them live in a palatial skyscraper filled with fine dining, shopping and housing, all owned by the wealthy Dennis Hopper. He’s hired armies to roam the streets for the sole purpose of killing zombies.

Meanwhile, Gas Station Attendant Zombie has somehow learned to become smarter and corrals a whole mess of zombies to follow him to the gated community for some late-night snacks. Zombies attacking a skyscraper. That should be an awesome movie (and it was, almost, in Demons 2). But rather than deliver that, Romero would rather get preachy and political. Screw messages! Me want zombies! —Rod Lott

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Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)

You know how people (maybe even you) go apeshit over the Harry Potter movies? I don’t get it. That’s not to say it’s wrong — just not for me. When it comes to children’s-oriented fantasy, the vastly underrated Lemony Snicket movie is more my taste, and no one could be more surprised about that than me, because this adaptation looked like typical Jim Carrey crap.

Instead, it’s anything but. An admirably restrained Carrey plays the balding, fiendish Count Olaf, a would-be actor who lives in a spooky castle and becomes the legal guardian of three young children (a jailbait Emily Browning among them) distantly related to him, recently orphaned by a house fire. Olaf is no Super Nanny, but he’s eager to get his hands on their immense inheritance. But the kids escape, bouncing from one obscure relative to the next, with Olaf on their tail and sporting different disguises.

The chase isn’t as interesting as the film’s Tim Burton-esque bleakness and pervading sense of dark humor, both welcome elements to what could have been sheer kiddie junk (as the rather sly opening parodies, with a crudely animated “The Littlest Elf” cartoon). And I’d wager that the closing credits may be the most amazing cinema has ever seen.

Too bad this tanked, because I would’ve loved to see the sequels. That’s rather, er, unfortunate. *rimshot* —Rod Lott

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The House That Dripped Blood (1971)

Well, you can’t hit one over the fence every time at bat. The House That Dripped Blood is the third of Amicus Productions’ portmanteau horror anthologies, and it’s at best a shaky single achieved as the result of a fielder’s error.

The script is by Robert Bloch and based on four of his short stories: “Method for Murder,” “Waxworks,” “Sweets to the Sweet” and “The Cloak.” The last two are classic Bloch, but here, the scripts are weakened, especially in “The Cloak,” by producer Max Rosenberg’s insistence on putting humor onscreen and keeping the horror off.

The cast makes the film sort of worth watching. Denholm Elliott stars in the first story, about a writer of horror stories who begins to think that his creations are coming to life. Peter Cushing and Joss Ackland are in segment two, about a creepy wax museum and the nutjob who operates it. Christopher Lee tops a tale of a man trying to live with an adolescent witch, and Jon Pertwee and Ingrid Pitt finish off with a comic vampire yarn.

The film contains no thrills or chills — not even a weak shiver — and is for Cushing/Lee fans only. Note that Vincent Price was originally offered, but turned down the role of the snotty, egotistical horror movie star eventually played by Pertwee. Price got his chance to burlesque hammy actors two years later in Theatre of Blood, and that one’s a must-see. —Doug Bentin

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