Second Clue: May's Screening

Clue #2: This month's movie is a late 80s horror movie that rips off an early 80s horror movie.

Tape Freaks Presents: May's Mystery Movie! at the Trylon microcinema, Wednesday, May 4th @ 7:00pm, only $5!

Purchase advance ticket here.

Knock Off Movies: Warriors of the Apocalypse

This movie takes you on an insane journey, starting out as a pretty straight forward apocalypse movie and ending up, well just watch the clip below:  

But the real reasons you should watch: I mean, laser-eye battle! And there's a whole group of people that keep getting killed only to come right back to life! But I'll let the description from the back of our bootleg totally legit DVD sell you:

     The world, now 150 year into the future, is ravaged from atomic war, and all that remains are groups of savage nomads, fighting for survival. A fierce and ferocious fighter lead one such group to the secret of eternal live - the Voodoo Mountain, ruled by the telepathic and voluptuous Princess Sheila from her rocket launcher-equipped throne, and her shapely Amazonian maidens clad in fur bikinis. 

How can you go wrong?: The above description makes 100% more sense than this movie ever does. This movie absolutely refuses to make sense while finding all kinds of new ways to be exploity and problematic.

Knock Off Movies: Clones of Bruce Lee

There's a whole genre of Bruce Lee knock off movies (often referred to as "Brucesploitation"), but they're not knock offs of any movie in particular, they're movies featuring knock offs of the actor himself.

The plot unfolds something like this: Moments after his (drawn out, on screen) death, Bruce Lee is rushed to a facility where clones are made of him. His clones are then used by a villain as mercenaries to kill people... or something...

Tasteless scene alert: The first 8 or so mins of this movie follow a "fictional" Bruce Lee to an ER where bystanders gawk and emergency workers try to save him. Considering that this movie was intended to be viewed by fans of Bruce Lee, including a drawn-out theatrical version of his death seems like something you'd avoid rather than lead with.

Why we thought it would be good: I mean, Bolo Yeung and every known Bruce Lee look alike in one movie fighting each other, how could this movie disappoint?

How this movie disappointed us: It seems like someone took three false start Brucesploitation movies and edited the fight scenes together with some mad scientist stuff and called it a day. (And sadly, that makes this movie sound more exciting than it is.)

Knock Off Movies: Sudden Death

We watched this during our epic JCVD marathon and this one stands out, as Jean-Claude Van Damme is not the first actor you think of when you hear a movie revolves around hockey...

The plot unfolds something like this: It's basically Die Hard in a hockey arena.

But the real reasons you should watch: The cheese ball factor is very high as JCVD's character's kids are involved through the whole movie. Powers Boothe plays a spectacular villain. Apparently there's loads of hockey cameos. There's also a wonderful (and overly long) fight between JCVD and the Penguins' mascot, and in the final fight scene takes place in the arena's retractible dome!


Fun extra stuff we shouldn't know but do now: There is a novelization of this movie, and an audio book of said novel read by none other than Powers Boothe.

Knock Off Movies: Starcrash

This movie's trailer was a huge hit during our first Trailer Trash screening, and through total happenstance Trash Film Debauchery screened the movie later that month and it sold out. I'm willing to bet that no one in attendance was disappointed.

The plot unfolds something like this: Convoluted Star Wars.

But the real reason to watch: This movie is insane from top to bottom, and not without spectacle. The sets and costumes are epic (on a budget), most of the women wear laughable amounts of "clothes", John Barry wrote the score, there's some pretty brazen re-use of effects from within the movie, and the actors slice the ham pretty thick. Oh! And there's a baby Hasselhoff!

But seriously: This movie is so beyond description, give it a watch yourself! The full movie might be available on youtube... just sayin'...

First Clue: May's Screening

Clue #1: The theme for this month's movie is: Knock Off Movies.

Tape Freaks Presents: May's Mystery Movie! at the Trylon microcinema, Wednesday, May 4th @ 7:00pm, only $5!

Purchase advance ticket here.

Movies You Know Because of One Clip: Good 90s Movies

Ok, I realize that most of these are quotes, but the same logic applies!



Fight Club:

The scene: “The first rule of Fight Club...”



Why you should watch the rest: Fight Club is pleastnly deeper than dudes beating each other into hamburger. Not unlike The Network, it illustrates how easy it is to go from idilistic to exploited.


Titanic:

The scene: “Paint me like one of your french girls.”



Why you should watch the rest: This scene has been parodied so many times that I couldn't find a decent photo, clip, or gif from the original to use as an illustration. Maybe it's worth watching to give yourself some context, I mean, people tell me all the time they love this movie still...


Basic Instinct:

Legs.



Why you should watch the rest: Full disclosure, I've never seen this movie all the way through. Maybe it's worth watching, maybe not. But I have seen this scene referenced more times than I could possibly count. So maybe it would add some context to those parodies... but I'll likely never know...



Silence of the Lambs:

I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti./I'd fuck me. I'd fuck me hard. I'd fuck me so hard. (Or any scene with Buffalo Bill really...)

Why you should watch the rest: This whole movie is line after line of pop culture references. Though we haven't watch it in years, we feel pretty confident that this is a solid recommendation.

Third Clue: April's Screening

Clue #3: This clip we know this movie from, became popular on a TV show that only got great after a major shakeup in the 90s.

Tape Freaks Presents: April Mystery Movie! at the Trylon microcinema, Wednesday, April 6th @ 7:00pm, only $5!

Purchase advance ticket here.  

Movies You Know Because of One Clip: Good 70s Movies

Not just bad movies are known for one clip, here are some good movies that conjure a specific scene when people talk about them in mixed company.


Taxi Driver
The scene: “You talking to me?”

Why you should watch it: It's a classic film, if you really haven't seen it, you should watch it now.




Planet of the Apes:
The scene: “Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!”

Why you should watch it: Another classic, but on the other end of the good spectrum. This comes from an era where Heston was considered sexy and the makeup effects were considered cutting edge.




Soylent Green
The scene: “Soylent Green is people!”

Why you should watch it: This one is the most questionably good movie on the list, but it's another Heston classic.




The Shining
The scene: “Heeeeeere's Johny!”

Why you should watch it: One of the best Stephen King adaptations (according to everyone but him) and a classic horror movie. (Follow up watching this with the documentary room 237, if you dare...)




The Network
The scene: “I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!”

Why you should watch it: This is film from a past predicting it's own future. The film both makes you want to take up the “mad as hell” mantra, and immediately shows you how those collective feelings can be exploited.

Movies You Know Because of One Clip: Hard Ticket to Hawaii

The clip you've likely seen:

Why you should watch the rest of the film: Trash Film Debauchery played this film at the Uptown theater last February and we missed it (I had a good reason ok?!?!) so we bought it to watch it at home. Holy. Moly. This movie has it all, and we're not kidding. Take our word for it, put this on your to watch list.