Only now does it occur to me... CHASERS (1994)

Only now does it occur to me... that Dennis Hopper slides a nice little homage to his friend and collaborator David Lynch in his "THE LAST DETAIL-reimagined-as-a-90s-comedy" road movie, CHASERS. The homage in question is an extended shot of a logging truck, just like in TWIN PEAKS.

That's not all: this thing is packed with Lynch collaborators, including BLUE VELVET and DUNE's Dean Stockwell as a car dealership owner:

"Here's to your fuck, Frank!"

WILD AT HEART's Crispin Glover as a put-upon sailor who's been pushed around for too long:

"I'm making my lunch!"

and LOST HIGHWAY's Gary Busey as a marine who clearly is improvising all of his dialogue:



Hopper himself appears as a lingerie salesman with a fake-Karl Malden nose, for some reason:


"Heineken? Fuck that shit!"

Anyway, what we have here is an episodic, charmingly rambling, critically maligned road movie that is better than I expected it to be. Tom Berenger, doing kind of a whisky-ravaged Tom Waits/BEETLEJUICE voice is a hardboiled career member of Shore Patrol, transporting Navy prisoners across the country.

William McNamara (a likable man-génue who deserved a better career––you may have seen him in SURVIVING THE GAME, DREAM A LITTLE DREAM, EXTREME JUSTICE, or Argento's OPERA) plays a young sailor on his last day before discharge. 

 

He's enlisted to help Berenger out with a prisoner transport––though due to a clerical mix-up, the prisoner is unexpectedly a woman.

Played by Erica Eleniak (former BAYWATCH cast member, UNDER SIEGE cake-jumper, and co-star of BETRAYAL and BORDELLO OF BLOOD), she actually brings pathos and humor to a role that could have easily been a caricature. As the unlikely trio crosses the country and bonds with one another (again, THE LAST DETAIL is the point of origin/departure), we meet the whole host of character actors I have already detailed, as well as zany waitress Marilu Henner (TAXI, PERFECT):

and creepy-ass trucker Frederic Forrest (APOCALYPSE NOW, FALLING DOWN):

Born to play a creepy trucker

In the end, CHASERS was Dennis Hopper's final feature as a director, and it's a weird, pleasant relic of the "EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS" era, worth a look for character actor and Americana aficionados. I can probably sum it up best in guessing that Wim Wenders probably loves the shit out of this movie.

"The Fixed Umbrella" in Gargoyle Magazine

My latest short story, "The Fixed Umbrella," has been published in issue #73 of the legendary D.C. literary journal Gargoyle Magazine, whose past contributors include Ray Bradbury, Kathy Acker, and Nick Cave, among others. It is available for purchase, in print, here.

Only now does it occur to me... BEST OF THE BEST (1989)

Only now does it occur to me... that BEST OF THE BEST (not to be confused with the Milli Vanilli album) is practically a lost Cannon film––a South Korea vs. U.S.A. martial arts tournament movie packed with Golan-Globus alumni: Eric Roberts (RUNAWAY TRAIN), James Earl Jones (ALLAN QUATERMAIN AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD), John P. Ryan (AVENGING FORCE, DEATH WISH 4, DELTA FORCE 2), Eddie Bunker (RUNAWAY TRAIN, SHY PEOPLE), Louise Fletcher (INVADERS FROM MARS), Tom Everett (DEATH WISH 4, MESSENGER OF DEATH), and Kane Hodder (AVENGING FORCE). Damn!

There are at least a dozen good reasons to see BEST OF THE BEST, so, without further ado:

#1. Eric Roberts. A.K.A. a Steel Town Boy on a Saturday Night.

It's sort of the FLASHDANCE of Taekwondo tournament movies, with Eric Roberts playing a widowed father who spends his days welding at a car factory. Though he lives with a shoulder injury, his one passion is martial arts. Eddie Bunker (ex-con, novelist, and bit player who might be best known to audiences as "Mr. Blue" from RESERVOIR DOGS) is his co-worker who just wants to hang out and grab some beers.
 
Roberts has got a statement mullet and wears statement sweaters with deep V's.


As the film's heart, Roberts bleeds with his usual acting intensity, often reserved for conversations with his mother, who is played by––

#2. Louise Fletcher.

"Nurse Ratched" is quite the score for a tournament fighter movie. It'd be like if they got Meryl Streep to play Johnny Cage's mom in MORTAL KOMBAT. Fletcher gets to flex her acting chops in about three scenes, which is pretty good for something like this, I guess.

#3. Philip Rhee as "Tommy Lee." (Not to be confused with the drummer from Mötley Crüe.)

Perhaps best known for BEST OF THE BEST, BEST OF THE BEST II, BEST OF THE BEST III: NO TURNING BACK, and BEST OF THE BEST IV: WITHOUT WARNING, Rhee is a talented performer tasked with the movie's soul and most exhaustive backstory. It's a representational relief that the lead character in an '80s movie about a Korean/American martial arts tournament is Korean-American. He may only have fourth billing, but this is truly Rhee's movie (he was also a producer and co-writer).

#4. Chris Penn as a Martial Artist. It feels right to come off of the entry about an actual martial artist to arrive right here. The movie doesn't comment on Penn (right, in the blue pants)

being unable to jump rope, or basically unable to lift his legs

or do a proper push up.

I also want to be clear that I am definitely in favor of this choice. He also gets to shout the line, "Grab him like a toilet seat!" in the climactic fight. He's kind of the "Vernon Wells in COMMANDO" of this movie, whereupon an out-of-shape guy was slapped in a chain-mail sweater and pitted against Arnold Schwarzenegger. Bless.

#5. The montages. The above images come from a training montage set to an "Eye of the Tiger" rip-off called, fittingly, "Best of the Best," by Stubblefield & Hall. No "Hall & Oates" are they, but they acquit themselves with "whooooahhh/be the best that you can be/the best of the best" lyrical élan.

This is all crosscut with their South Korean opponents doing exercises that are a lot more strenuous. Even though one of the Koreans killed Tommy Lee's brother in a match, they're not exactly set up as Ivan Drago-ish villains. (Every member of the South Korean team can do a push-up.)

#6. I haven't even mentioned the people who run the American team. The first would be the head coach, James Earl Jones.

He has pretty much one rule: "DON'T EVER BE LATE!" (That should be printed on an inspirational poster and attributed to Darth Vader.) He cares a lot about his team members showing up to practice, and a melodramatic plot development where Eric Roberts wants to miss a practice because his son was hit by a car (!) leads to the following exchange:

"MY KID MIGHT LOSE HIS LEG!"


"WE ALL HAVE OUR PRIORITIES!"

Damn, James Earl Jones, you're as cold as ice!

#7. John P. Ryan. He shows up briefly as the owner (?) of the American Taekwondo team. It's kind of unclear what the bureaucracy is, but he gets to act as if he is very excited about a martial arts tournament.


#8. Finally, Sally Kirkland (JFK, ANNA) rounds out the team management as a specialist on the mental aspects of martial arts. She takes everybody back to karate school or whatever

and I thought there was going to be a big plot-line about "we're not gonna let some woman tell us how to kick dudes in the face" but she's pretty much treated with respect from the outset, so... nice job, movie!

#9. Kane Hodder. You know him best for playing Jason Voorhees from FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VII through JASON X, but prepare to get to know him all over again as "Redneck in Barfight" shouting "I want him, I want his balls!"

To which Chris Penn retorts, "Yeah I thought you were missing a pair, ASSHOLE!"

#10. Ahmad Rashad as himself.

He commentates over the tournament finale, lending it a "documentary" sports feel.

#11. Simon Rhee (Philip Rhee's brother) playing the South Korean badass who accidentally killed Philip Rhee's (fictitious) brother.

The eyepatch lends him a kind of "South Korean Snake Plissken" vibe, and he has the acting and martial arts chops to pull it off.

#12. The sincerity.

Without giving too much away, by the time THE BEST OF THE BEST is over you will regard it as a shockingly sincere 80s sports movie, one which that recognizes opponents as "not bad guys at whom you should scream 'U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A!,'" but multi-dimensional human beings who are also in pursuit of excellence and worthy of respect. That's all.