Film Review: BLACK MOON RISING (1986, Harley Cokliss)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 100 minutes.
Tag-line: "From the mind of John Carpenter comes the towering adventure that thunders across Los Angeles and explodes 30 stories above it!"
Notable Cast or Crew: Tommy Lee Jones, Linda Hamilton, William Sanderson (DEADWOOD, BLADE RUNNER), Don Keith Opper (CRITTERS), Keenan Wynn (ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST), Robert Vaughn (THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN), Bubba Smith (STROKER ACE, POLICE ACADEMY), Richard Jaeckel (DAY OF THE ANIMALS, THE DIRTY DOZEN, and his character's name here is "Earl Windom"– sound familiar, TWIN PEAKS fans?), Nick Cassavetes (FACE/OFF). Music by Lalo Schifrin, written and produced by John Carpenter.
Special note: Despite the video cover saying 'Cannon Films' this was actually a New World Picture, distributed in England on video by Cannon, so it's not actually a Cannon Film.


BLACK MOON RISING is a high-tech thrill ride.




And by that I mean it has lots of lasers, red and black binders, wood paneling, key cards, tinted windows, exclusive parking decks, terminals showing green text on black, and did I mention 'super cars.' The 80's was probably the decade where regular people had the biggest interest in 'super cars.'

And I use the term pretty broadly to reference pretty much everything from KNIGHT RIDER to BACK TO THE FUTURE to BUCKAROO BANZAI to THE WRAITH. I gotta say BLACK MOON RISING's super car, the "Black Moon," kinda comes across as phoning it in. It looks pretty schweet, but I'm not even exactly sure what made it "super." I guess it ran on alternative fuels or something.

Anyway, this film comes courtesy of writer/producer John Carpenter, and frequently has the feel of perhaps a TV pilot based on the Snake Plissken robbery/arrest deleted scene from ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK. But, lucky for us, even Carpenter's outtakes and off days are still better than average, so we get a pretty solid flick. We got Lalo Schifrin trying his best to emulate a Carpenter soundtrack (as John was too busy with BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA); Linda Hamilton in some gigantic, crazy wigs;

a perpetually grizzled Tommy Lee Jones as our asshole hero;


the line "I'm gettin' too old for this;" Bubba Smith (POLICE ACADEMY, STROKER ACE) rocking out a mind-blowing 'stache and exuding badassery;

an obligatory spaghetti western style beating of our hero; and awesome bit parts by William Sanderson (BLADE RUNNER), Don Keith Opper (CRITTERS series), douchebag corporate villain Robert Vaughn (THE DELTA FORCE)
and bushy-'stached Keenan Wynn (POINT BLANK).

So it all adds up to yet another enjoyable film from post-Corman New World Pictures (who in the 80's brought us HOUSE, THE STUFF, HEATHERS, HELL COMES TO FROGTOWN, DEAD HEAT, and scads of others). So, in the name of all things high-tech, I must C:\BLACK MOON RISING> assign '4 Stars'... or something like that.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: STROKER ACE (1983, Hal Needham)

Stars: 1 of 5.
Running Time: 96 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Director Hal Needham (HOOPER, RAD, CANNONBALL RUN), Burt Reynolds, Loni Anderson, Jim Nabors (Gomer Pyle), Ned Beatty,
Tag-lines: "BURT'S BACK... With car crashin' & party crashin' as the hassled hunk who drives his car upside down & his women round the bend!"
Best one-liner: "What's a scrotum?"

Alright folks, I was disappointed. 'Well, what did you expect?,' some might say. Well, let's take a look at the poster, shall we? Probably the most blatant depiction of 'goosing' ever depicted in promotional material. Burt: giggling away and goin' to town. Loni: shocked and appalled, but with the underlying knowledge that this is par for the course in a relationship with Burt.

It says so little and yet so much. It sparks the imagination. Can you imagine a GONE WITH THE WIND poster where Clark Cable is behind Vivien Leigh, goosing away? Perhaps I digress. But, regardless, NOWHERE in this movie––a film called 'STROKER Ace'––is there any goosing. The audience isn't asking for much––just a little- SCHWINK––followed by Burt chewing his gum and giggling. Is that so wrong? So deviant? No more deviant, I would argue, than this ill-advised mélange of celebrity hucksterism that Burt chose to do instead of TERMS OF ENDEARMENT.

There's a lot wrong here. First, there's Jim Nabors where Dom DeLuise ought to be. There's overuse of 'wuh WUHHHH' horn sections and underuse of Bubba Smith. There's terrible stock footage, "What's a scrotum?" is a one-liner, and some near-necrophilia is played for laffs with the line "This would be so much more fun if you were here!" Burt pulls off zany pranks like submerging a man in cement and flinging a rival through a plate glass window. It's frequently unclear if Loni Anderson realizes that she's in a film, or if she just thought it was 'one of those weird days where Burt calls me by another name and there's a camera crew around.' There's the consummate '40 person bar fight' and Burt gets to punch out the D-bag at the end and smile. (See also: HOOPER.)

Note the 'Okay' sign.

All of this is followed by the worst blooper reel in Burt's career (though it does reveal that when Dom is not around to smack in the face, Burt smacks HIMSELF in the face).

One star. And that's kinda generous.

Lesson: Ya don’t substitute a good goose with bad chicken?