"Dinosaur Valley Girls"

Dinosaur Valley Girls (1996) is categorized as Action/Adventure/Comedy/Sci-Fi, and is a low budget exploitation film directed by Donald F. Glut (rhymes with toot). Equally unknown for his acting, he also wrote this one. I viewed the Uncut Directors version. I assumed there would at least be plenty of nudity. You should never assume anything. Perhaps the most amazing thing about this film is that Glut is actually proud of it, and has a second side to the DVD for Special Features, and a full length directors commentary, with such useful comments as "Look how the cell phone changed from tan to black between the two scenes. The rental company was out of tan phones the second day."

Let me have a go at the plot. An out-of-shape Kung Fu movie hero has a girlfriend who is trying to use him to land a big part. He is absorbed with a dream he has about a prehistoric valley with dinosaurs and a cave girl who loves him for his body -- not his connections. While visiting a museum to learn more about dinosaurs and possible figure out what is causing his dreams, he makes a wish on a medallion and ends up in dinosaur valley. There, the dinosaurs are mean, the men fight and fart, and the women live elsewhere. He saves the life of the women who has been in his dreams, and she paves the way for him to get along with the women. There might be some other nuance ... oh, yea. They have sex, but mostly off-camera. The prehistoric women do show their boobs from time to time.

The dinosaurs are a combination of stop-motion animation of hand painted plastic models, one actual animated model, and some real lizards. There are two reasons for the real lizards. First, one of them was the personal pet of the director. Second, they serve to show how bad the stop motion animation really is. Shot in the scenic wilds of San Fernando Valley, a cave in Griffith Park and on a soundstage, scenes of the same terrain look totally different depending on what is superimposed on the foreground (actor, dinosaur model, anamitron or real lizard).

Important things I learned from this film:

• Prehistoric women all wore black Spandex thongs under their fake animal skin loincloths.
• Breast enhancement was available long before we ever suspected.
• The militant anti-smokers date back 1,000,000 years.
• Women will put up with anything - even flatulence and poor hygiene -- if their man learns to kiss them.
• Writting and delivering dialogue is much easier if everyone is using a made-up language of two syllable words.

  Far more complex than the single syllable English spoken by our hero.

• Prehistoric bras go on and off far more easily than modern ones (even a dinosaur took one off).
• Not every film that is "so bad" is "good."

For those of you that can't wait to buy this one, there is some good news. There is more nudity than I used.

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Arkeni (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) Denise Ames (1, 2, 3) Griffin Drew (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) Michelle Stanger (1, 2, 3)

Georgina Cates, "Big City Blues" Xaviera Hollander, "My Pleasure is My Business" Xaviera Hollander just naked somewhere else. Maybe a bowling alley or something. Lara Flynn Boyle, "Cafe Society" Charlotte Lewis in "Storyville"

The cliche of cliches. Gang of amoral outlaws, people with nothing in common, but loosely confederated out of greed, go on a murder and weirdness spree on a road trip through the Southwest, hoping to make a zillion dollars and high-tail it across the border to riches and ease in Mexico.

It's sort of like a more relaxed and comedic version of Natural Born Killers. The movie is distinguished by the fact that it may be the only movie ever made where every character has an IQ under 80. No exceptions. The main characters, the people they meet along the way, the antagonists, their victims - everyone. Although nobody else on earth reviewed this picture, the Austin Chronicle wrote an especially good and thorough review of it. They didn't like it very much, but they didn't completely detest it either. I guess they reviewed it because there were some Austinites involved in the film. Anyway here is their review.

For our own purposes, we may note that there was plenty of vigorous sex, almost all of it completely irrelevant to the plot. I mean they introduced three unnecessary characters just so our heroes could sleep with them, then dropped the characters just as abruptly. On the other hand, the lead actress, Rose McGowan, did only a very brief, dark and tasteful topless scene which was in fact necessary to the story in both tone and action.

Rose McGowan (1, 2, 3) Tamara Clatterbuck Paula Sorge Suzanne Mari

"My Sex Life"

If you asked the typical American to describe the typical French film, he would come up with something like this movie. No action, minimal development. A group of neurotic intellectuals chain-smoking cigarettes and discussing women and Spinoza. Some of the main characters are even philosophy professors.

Now, don't get me wrong, I like Spinoza as much as the next guy. Come to think of it, the next guy doesn't really know who Spinoza is, and the other guys in line don't know anything either. And the occasional guy who does recognize Spinoza's name either doesn't know anything about his contribution to modern thought, or doesn't like the tedious little fart. There's only one guy who actually likes Spinoza, so it isn't hard to keep tabs on the Spinoza fan club, and I can give you his name and address in the Hague, if you like. So I guess I was right before - I like him as much as the next guy. I had to memorize some quick facts about him in a survey course. The usual stuff - major works, catch phrases, height, weight, on-base percentage. When the final exam was over, I promptly cleared Spinoza out of that valuable space in my brain, in order to have more room to store the Carling Philosophy.

A little known fact. Walt Disney's "Spin and Marty" was based on a joint biography of Spinoza and Martin Buber, in which the author used these two great philosophical giants, both Jewish men who were experts in Christian theology, to reconcile the seeming paradoxes in Judeo-Christian thought. Disney simplified it a bit, into a story of a rich kid and a regular kid who went to the same summer camp, but it still carried the profound essence and spiritual duality of the original.

By the way, for you non-French readers who don't know her, Marianne Denicourt is a beautiful woman. Unfortunately, this DVD is of a very weak quality which doesn't show off the women or the photography, and I don't recommend it at all, except for that one guy who likes Spinoza, and you know who you are, four-eyes.

Marianne Denicourt (1, 2, 3) Emmanualle Devos

"Blackjack" (1998)

You thought John Woo was a big-time action director now, since Face/off? So what is he doing directing a zero budget movie starring Dolph Lundgren and made for the USA network, just released on DVD?

It's an atrociously bad movie, but it does have one particularly brilliant and creative action scene. Let me describe it. Lundgren is in a room on an upper story of a house, bad guys throw in a grenade. Lundgren jumps out the window just as the grenade goes off. Bad guys enter the room to see what has happened, hoping to find a fried Lundgren. But Lundgren's jump landed him on a poolside trampoline, and he has bounced back up to their level, where he is seen outside the window with two handguns blazing. Sayonara, bad guys. There are a couple of other beautifully choreographed action scenes as well, but the movie itself is duller than dishwater.

And no nudity at all!

I saw this movie when I was about to graduate high school, and I really related to it. Although it is dated in many aspects, the overall message of confused youth standing at the crossroads of life still rings true. Parents want you to do one thing, friends want another, and there you are, not really knowing what you want. Green, naive, and for the first time able to choose your own path. But which path? Just go rent it!

The story is not particularly original. Agnieszka plays Sara, the daughter of a local Polish Mafia boss. The hero of the film is an ex-commando, who because of unfortunate circumstances, is now an alcoholic. One day when he is having a drink he intervenes in a potential murder and saves Sara's father. It's amazing how quickly he sobers up and regains his skills. The father, in gratitude, employs him to act as a personal bodyguard to his daughter.

Naturally she objects and plays up but, after he saves her life, she starts to see him as a lover. The rest of the movie is about how they meet and continue to deceive the father. It ends when she becomes pregnant, there's a few more killings and they ride off into the sunset.

The second film, Midnite Spares, is a little better and is about low level gang warfare between car repair businesses. As you can seen in collage 6, she plays a stripper.