MEATBALLS 2 (1984), MEATBALLS 3 (1986)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: (1) *poor*, (2) *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

I've only seen all three MEATBALLS films once before, but I decided to revisit 2 and 3 simply because both, unlike the first film, boasted a little metaphenomenal content.

The writers followed the same "battling kids' camps" as the first film, but with two new camps that share the same lake and a more overt concentration on absurd farce. Richard Mulligan runs a more or less normal camp, while Hamilton Camp administers a bizarre "military youth" camp. The two have been contending for years in an annual boxing match, and Mulligan invites a tough street-kid named Flash to be the camp's champion. Flash is uninterested until he catches sight of a pretty young thing (Kim Richards), whom he hopes to impress. There's really not as much sex as one might expect of this sort of cheesy sequel. The other camp-girls, borrowing from 1981's PORKY'S, lay plans to expose the innocent girl to her first sight of a "pinky." Also, a couple of randy camp counselors keep trying to hook up, with the female counselor played by Misty "HEE HAW" Rowe. Other thesps include Paul Reubens in four separate "blink-and-miss-him" roles and John Larouquette as a swishy soldier.

The sole fantasy-element is an extremely lame ET swipe, where the kid-alien enters the camp's activities at his parents' behest and bonds with all the younger kids, who are only too happy to have their own ET mascot. The alien, dubbed "Meathead," does a few unimpressive telekinetic tricks and is played by Felix Silla.

By comparison MEATBALLS 3, though also an absurd farce, benefits from jettisoning the whole camp-competition schtick. It starts with porn-star Roxy Dujour (Sally Kellerman, getting a rare shot at a main character since her career took a downward turn). Roxy is apparently having real sex on one of her flicks, and it's so good she bites the big one. She ends up at St. Peter's Gate, where the official there says Heaven doesn't have a problem with sex workers. But still Ms. Dujour (named for the 1967 Bunuel film BELLE DUJOUR?) has to prove herself-- and for some reason, sex-friendly Heaven wants Roxy to help a nerd named Rudy get laid. If Roxy can't do so by a certain time, it's off to the hot place for her.

Rudy (Patrick Dempsey) is seen bidding farewell to his clingy mother as he departs for a new job at a lakeside camp. All the camp's customers are teenagers or older, and one other employee is a girl, Wendy (Isabelle Mejias), who's a nerd like Rudy but whose affection Rudy cannot perceive. Rudy is relentlessly teased by hot girls and guys, though oddly enough, he does NOT make one particular same-age enemy, which happens in most teen sex comedies. Instead, Rudy's enemy is an older guy, a boisterous, middle-aged biker named Mean Gene (George Buza), though this opposition isn't immediately evident. Mean Gene bullies Rudy a little and allows other customers to bully the low-level employee. But everyone at the camp steers clear of Mean Gene, He's noteworthy for keeping a woman-- presumably his wife-- confined in a upstairs room in Mean Gene's domicile, and for going ballistic on anyone who even looks at "The Love Goddess" (Shannon Tweed) longer than Gene thinks appropriate.

 It doesn't take Roxy long to convince Rudy that she's a real ghost, and that she's come into his life to help him score. Roxy's willing to let Rudy do her, but since she's insubstantial, that's not an option. So she gets Rudy to clean up his look and act less like a nerd, and at first she's doing her best to get the youth laid any way she can. But the longer she's in Rudy's orbit, the more Roxy starts to care about him, and to notice that the age-appropriate Wendy would be the best match. So she uses her power of telekinesis to cock-block the boy when he tries to get it on with another age-appropriate girl (but one with a loose attitude) and also with an older female. Rudy gets tired of her interference and tells her she's just like his mother, which pisses Roxy off. She gets summoned back to Heaven for a reminder of the fate that awaits her if Rudy doesn't get his cherry popped.

Independent of Rudy, a bunch of raucous teens learn that Mean Gene's going to be away for a time, so they make a huge party out of inviting a famous "stud" to seduce the Love Goddess. Rudy, fed up with Mean Gene's bullying, attempts to take the stud's place. This leads to a goofy fight when the biker comes back, though I'll give away one schtick: the Love Goddess is not Gene's wife but his married sister, and so he's simply an overprotective brother. The Goddess intervenes on behalf of Rudy by conking Gene with a baseball bat, though of course she doesn't have sex with Rudy either.

In the end, Roxy does return to Earth to help Rudy hook up with the still-willing Wendy. Apparently, even though Rudy does not get laid by movie's end, apparently Heaven lets Roxy off the hook, since she does get into the Pearly Gates and everyone's happy. Though it's a dopey teen comedy, I did feel the main characters played Kellerman and Dempsey had good chemistry and made the movie more fun than it would've been without those actors. 

                              

SPACE MONSTER WANGMAGWI (1967)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

I term the dominant function of WANGMAGWI "sociological" simply because the main plot involves aliens sending a giant monster down to 1960s Earth to kill all the humans and leave Earth free for colonization. While such a plot was a perfectly serviceable excuse for a giant-monster rampage, the writers seem confused about how to properly go about defenestrating the populace of a planet.

At the outset of the film, the unnamed aliens seem utterly confident that the Earth-people can do nothing to save themselves from the solitary, skyscraper-high creature-- presumably named "Wangmagwi," though I never heard the name used. The creature proceeds to rampage through Seoul, though its model-streets have been largely been cleared of people. So it's not clear how the aliens expect Wangwagwi to extinguish humanity. Keep stomping through cities and crushing people until, decades later, all the humans are dead?

Jets assault Wangmagwi's scaly hide with no effect, so the monster does have a Godzilla-like level of invulnerability. Yet when we hear Korean military men discussing the situation, they're reluctant to employ a nuclear bomb against the monster due to collateral damage. But if the monster succeeded in killing all the people in Seoul, then the Koreans could bomb him, right? Not until the climax does the subtitling for the aliens *seem* to indicate that Wangmagwi actually CANNOT survive a nuclear attack. Indeed, when the giant finally wanders out into the Korean countryside, the military makes one last jet-attack while planning a nuclear strike. At that point, the aliens just throw in the towel and remotely cause Wangmagwi to self-destruct. What? Was this the aliens' first defenestration? If not, clearly they suck at it. 

There's just enough combative action to keep the film in that domain, though the Koreans weren't able to make Wangmagwi's rampage as effective as even the lesser Japanese efforts. The humans are pretty forgettable-- a couple of clowns who bounce routines off one another while fleeing the chaos, and a young couple whose wedding is interrupted by the big critter. In fact, Wangmagwi channels his inner Kong by kidnapping the bride-- though technically the aliens are controlling the monster remotely, so her kidnapping makes even less sense than if the giant did it of his own will. The only human who has a good arc is an urchin who somehow clambers onto the giant's body, manages to work his way into the creature's ear and wound he inner ear with a knife. He also detaches the device with which the ETs control the monster, though this doesn't have much effect on the outcome. A heroic pilot rescues the boy and the bride before Wangmagwi destructs.

This kaiju flick was lost for a long time. In terms of film history, I'm glad a copy was found, but it's pretty small beer.

        

MONSTER SEAGFFOOD WARS (2020)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*

Japan turns out so many hyperactive comedies than it's almost a surprise when one of them-- namely, MONSTER SEAFOOD WARS-- takes the opposite approach. Here the premise is loony but all of the performers treat the proceedings in a restrained, deadpan manner.

Amateur scientist Takuma, who works for his parents' seafood restaurant, invents a chemical that can enlarge small animals into giants. I think he does so with the idea of being able to create big creatures to supply the restaurant, but he's not responsible for unleashing his "food of the gods" upon urban Japan. A rival, Hikomi, steals the chemical and dumps it in the sea, where it creates three gigantic kaiju: a squid (Irkalla), a crab (Kanilla), and an octopus (Tokalla). There are a few scenes where the big beasts display ancillary powers, and of course there's no explanation for these.

The main joke is that when Japan's defense forces can't stop the goony giants, the government creates a special department SMAT, Seafood Monster Attack Team. (Nice of them to use English for their acronym even though the film is subtitled.) For some reason Hikomi is part of this team despite his having created the crisis, and so is Nana, Takuma's childhood sweetheart. Takuma joins the team too, and they strive to find ways to thwart the monsters, with weapons like vinegar-blasters and a giant chef robot who, at the climax, turns the creatures into sashimi.

The movie's best joke is that while the defense forces battle the kaiju, small parts of the sea-monsters' bodies get sliced off, and somehow these get marketed so as to become great dining delicacies. So the movie is not just "The Monsters That Ate Tokyo," but "The Monsters Tokyo Ate." Though Takuma and his romance with Nana is mild fun, the monsters are the stars as they provide the narrative vector.   

WAR OF THE GOD MONSTERS (1985)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Though a fair number of American giant-monster movies are subcombative-- not least the one that started the deluge in the 1950s-- Asian kaiju flicks tend to be combative, following the GODZILLA model in one way or another. But such is not the case with this ultra-obscure Korean monster-flick-- though the reason for this development is less aesthetic than budgtary.

In short, none of the giant monsters in WAR were created for the film but were derived from clips taken from tokasatsu TV shows, mostly from one ULTRAMAN serial or another. Of course none of the various Ultramen appear, so all the clips just show five monsters-- none of whom appear together-- appearing to menace cityscapes or refineries and getting shot at by jet fighters. This ephemeral activity doesn't move the movie into the combative realm, and at movie's end the monsters just go away, since the main characters of WAR have no budget with which to get rid of the invading beasties.

Yet I enjoyed WAR for the three central characters-- Doctor Kim, a widower whose scientific reputation was ruined for predicting monsters would be spawned by climate change, his little daughter Sohee, and Kang, a young female reporter who infiltrates Kim's house for a news story by pretending to be a housekeeper. The climate change idea is silly and not supported by even horror-movie logic, but the human story-- that of father and daughter mourning the loss of Kim's late wife-- kept me interested because of the skill of the three actors involved.

Though I've not seen all the films directed by Jeong-yong Kim, the sensitivity and light humor he contributes to the setup could not be more different from my impression of him as a maker of chopwacky kung-fu films, like BRUCE LEE'S WAYS OF KUNG FU. I still can't rate the mythicity highly, but the human drama is at least passable.               

 

THE CHALLENGE OF THE LADY NINJA (1983)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Though CHALLENGE is one of the many "marvelous ninja" films, the creators don't just throw random powers out in all the scenes. Usually the titular lady ninja Wu (Elsa Yeung) fights with her enemies with hand-to-hand arts or with swords, while only occasionally resorting to abilities like illusion-casting. To be sure, there's a scene toward the end in which a rival ninja burrows through the ground like a mole. But for most ninja-flicks, that's restrained.

It's WWII, and the Japanese occupy large parts of China. Despite this state of affairs, Chinese national Wu has managed to live in Japan for 17 years, learning all the arts of the ninja from her master and a fairly small number of adherents. After Wu survives a rigorous baptism of fire, she wins her "ninja badge" and is subsequently informed that her father in China has been murdered. Worse, the murderer appears to have been Lee Tung, fiancee to Wu, who's become an agent for the Japanese and is rounding up Chinese dissidents. Wu doesn't spend much time emoting about losing her dad; in no time she's back in China, planning to execute her traitorous ex-fiancee.

She's not able to get past the guards of Lee Tung's compound, though, so she tells some friends that she's going to enlist a quartet of women-- all total strangers, by the way-- to help her pull off her assassination, arter she gives them a few days of ninja training. This is the weakest section of the film, but fortunately, the script doesn't expect the viewers to pay much attention to the four sidekicks, aside from an ex-prostitute who furnishes some sexual humor. Better, they're really just extra hands and don't detract from Elsa Yeung, the only martially skilled performer, getting most of the action. 

The sidekicks are merely necessary when Wu decides that the only way to get a shot at Lee is to knock off his highly-skilled bodyguards individually. These scenes are the film's highlights, particularly for a scene in which one guardian fights by flinging spider-webs (!) while another, a female wrestler (Yin Su-li, seen above at left), engages Wu in a fight within a watery basement. Wu is nothing if not prepared: she comes wearing a bathing-suit decorated by hand-imprints. What this is supposed to mean back in WWII China is anyone's guess.   

Once the bodyguards are eliminated, there's nothing much left but a big face-off between Wu and Lee-- though in contrast to most chopsockies, there is a twist ending that works pretty well. It's a low-budget ninja-flick with minor sexploitation elements, and for what it is, it's decent diversion.     

A SMOKY MOUNTAIN CHRISTMAS (1986), UNLIKELY ANGEL (1996)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* 
MYTHICITY: (1) *fair*, (2) *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

When Dolly Parton made these two made-for-TV fantasy movies, one ten years after the other, she certainly didn't need the money thanks to her consistent musical success over the years. But as I thought about it, Dolly's appearances on TV were probably more important to mainstreaming both her persona and her musical work than the big screen. Only three of her theatrical films scored big with audiences, and I'd argue that even with the best writers and directors available in Hollywood, her folksy nature wasn't the sort of thing Hollywood was good at channeling. TV, though, may also have offered Dolly and her people more control over her role in the projects. And aside from all the business considerations, Dolly *seems* to me like the sort of performer who genuinely enjoyed doing her thing, and TV has the advantage of being able to disseminate lots of material, very quickly.

The story of A SMOKY MOUNTAIN CHRISTMAS is credited to Dolly (one of two TV-films whose scripts have her name on them) and to a journeyman writer of TV scripts, William Bleich, while the director was Henry "Fonzie" Winkler. While Dolly's public persona was that of a country girl who never deserted her roots, SMOKY begins with Dolly's character Lorna, also a country singer, being estranged from her roots-- for about five minutes. Lorna gets fed up with Hollywood and decides to take off for a cabin in the Smokies, just to get away from it all, She leaves so precipitately that her manager thinks she's been kidnapped-- which never becomes important to the story-- but a paparazzi named Harry knows the truth, and he tails Lorna, thinking to find some great story.

Well, there's a great story in SMOKY, but it's named "Snow White," which is what Dolly and Bleich were re-arranging for their Xmas effort. Shortly after Dolly gets stopped on the road by randy cop Jensen (Bo Hopkins), she goes on her way, and then Jensen is "pulled over" by a comely lady on a horse, one Jezebel (Anita Morris). Not only does their conversation establish that Jezebel is a bonafide Smoky Mountain witch, she also tips the writers' hands by asking Jensen "who's prettier?"

And in case that parallel doesn't sink in for some viewers, Dolly and her colleague throw the next folklore-motif right in the audience's face-- for who does Lorna meet at the cabin, but seven little people? Okay, they're seven orphans who escaped the orphanage, and most of them don't parallel the famous Disney versions. Except one kid, who alone doesn't welcome the lovely visitor to the cabin, who might as well be called "Grumpy." But he's overruled by the other children, who are happy to adopt Lorna as their makeshift momma, one complete with songbird talents. Lorna's motives in accepting the gig are more dubious. She wanted to get back to her roots so that she could create new songs, not an ersatz family. But her maternal instincts come to the fore, and eventually she finds herself defending "her" kids from the evils of child services. (Given Dolly's biography-- that she and ten other kids were raised in a one-room Tennessee cabin-- nostalgia for her early years was probably more important to her than any strong arc for Lorna's character.) 

She even finds a "prince" in the form of a mysterious recluse named "Mountain Dan," played by none other than Lee Majors. Dolly and Majors don't have any romantic chemistry, but the script is pretty much sticking the "Snow White and her Prince" on the backburner in favor of more kid-stuff.

Witch Jezebel offers more narrative interest, and director Winkler does his best visuals with the sorceress showing off her mountain-magic. Her motives too don't bear much examination either, Since Jensen doesn't keep pursuing Lorna, Jezebel's enmity is explained by her misperception that Lorna is a "White Witch." This eventually leads to Jezebel trying to put Lorna into a deep sleep with a magic pie (a little "Sleeping Beauty" dropped in), and though Lorna is saved from eternal rest, it isn't through her romance with her Prince. Anyway, the main thing is that Dolly smiles a lot and sings some forgettable songs, so there was a little fun to see the country girl face, and defeat, rural magic.

But there's not even a modicum of fun to be had with the ten-years-later UNLIKELY ANGEL. Oddly, it starts out with another version of Dolly, known this time as "Ruby," who initially sounds like she sleeps around quite a bit-- though the language is purposefully vague, in case any kids might be watching. Ruby dies in a car crash and finds herself at the Pearly Gates. She meets Saint Peter (Roddy MacDowall), who tells her she's not admissible to Heaven, unlike most of her family, because she was selfish and only did what she wanted in life. But she can redeem herself if she returns to Earth and brings together a widower and his estranged kids. However, she's not allowed to have any romantic relationships herself, because, after all, she's dead.

Th writers might have found some balance between Ruby's original selfishness and her intention to be a Good Samaritan to the widower and kids. But the script doesn't follow through on the imputation of selfishness. As soon as Ruby becomes housekeeper to the widower-- for whom she eventually has feelings, of course-- she turns into a super-cheery version of Mary Poppins. There's no clear villain this time, only the ticking clock of Heaven's whims-- and all the kid-stuff that was moderately diverting in SMOKY is just boring here. Again, Dolly smiles and Dolly sings, so for those things alone, ANGEL isn't a total loss. 

Meager as these TV-films are, they're probably Dolly's best offerings in metaphenomenal entertainment, when compared with her ill-advised guest appearance on an episode of Seth MacFarlane's wretched STAR TREK imitation THE ORVILLE. Despite her "larger-than-life" nature, Dolly was probably better suited for sassy but down-to-earth comedies and doleful melodramas. But given how many other gifts she had, it's too much to expect her to be good at *everything.*

                

DOUBLE AGENT 73 (1974)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

I'll start by picking on the title of this infamous dog. Yes, everyone knows that that the "73" denotes the size of the knockers sported by star Chesty Morgan, and I suppose the "double" is thrown in to remind the intended audience that there were a whole *TWO* 73-inch breasts on display throughout much of this micro-budgeted production.

But the exploitative title provides more amusement than most of the script for AGENT, co-written by director Doris Wishman. A "double agent" is expressly a agent of one government who infiltrates another such agency, pretending to be loyal to the second group while actually funneling intel back to the agent's original employer. But that's not the case with Morgan's character Jane Tennay (IMDB claims it's Jean Genet, which I think must be someone's inside joke, but probably not Doris Wishman's). Jane is just an "agent." Her employers want to find out who's smuggling in drugs with aid from the Communists, so they give Jane a list of suspects. The entire plot involves Jane going from place to place and becoming acquainted with the suspects in order to suss out their criminal endeavors. In practice, though, Jane always fails to fool her targets, and there's some violence, with Jane managing to kill her opponents. Frankly, it would have made more sense if Jane's agency had just directed her to kill off all these crooked types, since she ends up playing the role of assassin anyway.

But if she was just an assassin, she wouldn't have need the gimmick that obliges Jane to expose her mammoth mammaries every 15 minutes. The agency somehow sticks a mini-camera into her boobs, and every time she kills or at least incapacitates a foe, she takes his picture with her tit-cam. Again, the info doesn't really seem to do the agency much good when they get it at picture's end, and certainly doesn't justify the bosses installing a self-destruct device in the camera, one that will destroy the evidence and keep Jane from falling into enemy hands. To be sure, Jane returns to her bosses before this happens, but she does not seem to resent the strategy in any way.

Wishman's gimmicks, by the way, were the only thing that interested me in reviewing this dull flick. Her tit-cam doesn't qualify as a diabolical device, but her cut-rate arsenal-- including am exploding lipstick and a spiked earring she can fling to kill an opponent, as with a shuriken-- certainly make the grade. She even has what appears to be an "acetylene ring," for when she's tied up in her last encounter with the main villain, she uses *something* to burn off her ropes. These weapons are the only things that mark Jane as a combative type, for there's no indication that Jane can fight. To be sure, no one else in the movie can fight either-- and that's probably because the exigencies of fight choreography would have strained the film's budget. (Jane does stun a guy by hitting him with a tit, though.) 

But there's no similar excuse for the banal dialogue, or for Wishman's over-reliance on extreme close-ups to cover for the fact that so little is happening. The sex scenes are brief and mediocre, as if Wishman was convinced that the near-constant display of the Size 73's was her film's only selling-point. She showed the same attitude in her only other film with Morgan, the earlier DEADLY WEAPONS, which I'll probably never review because it was even duller than AGENT, not to mention purely naturalistic. Of course, no one in the movie can act worth a damn, but since Morgan is the star, her deficiencies take center stage. Further, her sagging boobs aren't likely to inspire lust in any but the most breast-fixated. 

It's a shame that there were never that many female superspies in cinema, but Chesty Morgan adds nothing to their ranks. AGENT isn't amusing enough to be "so bad it's good," but I suppose it's interesting to wonder why Wishman undertook such a project. I still haven't fully evaluated her repertoire, but AGENT will probably add little luster to any such analysis.