DEAR AMERICA: LETTERS HOME FROM VIETNAM (1987)

The premise of this film is simple: letters written by Vietnam War soldiers to their families and loved ones back home read over real life footage taken during the Vietnam War. The narrative is told from the beginning of the war until the end and helped along with various news footage and on camera interviews with soldiers in the field. It's very emotional and sickening to think about all the people killed for I'm not even sure what.

It starts out really powerful (and features some great music), but it started losing me a little over halfway through. I don't know why, but it seemed like it was losing steam. Still it's a good film and definitely worth watching, but it could have used a little more structure and a narrator.

The most powerful and saddest letter was the one left at the Vietnam Memorial written by a mother to her son who died 15 years earlier. It's hard to listen to without tearing up.

THE YOUNG GRADUATES (1971)

[Update 03/02/2022: Need to revisit this film and rewrite the review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

I didn't expect from much this movie, but I ended up really digging it.

Today is Mindy's 18th birthday and her square boyfriend, instead of nailing the shit out of her, goes to the drag races. But that's not going to slow down the spunky Mindy. Ohhh no! Instead of being sad she goes over to her teacher's house and talks him into taking her out to the river to take some pictures. Once there they run into some skinny dippers, eat drug-laced birthday cake and gently screw. Each other, not the cake.

A few months go by and they continue their secret relationship until one day Mindy becomes scared she might be pregnant. She takes something called the rabbit test. Then for some reason Mindy just drives off in her bf's dune buggy. She takes a girlfriend along with her and they pick up a young gay hitchhiker named Pan. Eventually they run out of gas and instead of going to the nearest gas station they start thumbin' it! They get picked up by some hippies in a painted van, then a gang of bikers that beat the shit out of Pan, drug the girlfriend and try to gang rape Mindy. Mindy and the girlfriend escape and after spending the night in a barn they steal a motorcycle. The girlfriend is sick as hell and trippin' balls, but when she says she wants to go home the eternally happy Mindy tells her no and chirps "I've got wheels and I'm going to Big Sur!" Hahahaha!!! What the hell? So they go to the beach and immediately get caught up with a Charlie Manson-type hippie cult!!! This entire time the teacher and Mindy's boyfriend are driving up and down the California coast looking for Mindy.

This movie is truly weird, but it's so upbeat I couldn't help but just sit back and laugh. One time the girls eat at a diner and since they have no money they sneak out the backdoor, two hillbillies start chasing them and Mindy just says "Looks like we have company!" and laughs. Haha life is a gas! We just stole some food and we're being chased on our stolen motorcycle by rapist rednecks that are hanging out their windows screaming at us! Hahahaha! Woopeeee!!!

At the beginning of the movie I was kinda sad cause the chick who plays Mindy wasn't very cute, but she soon grew on me with her upbeat attitude and constant smile...but she never got totally naked! Boooo! There was only one topless scene in the entire movie and it was just some random unattractive chicks taking a shower at the high school.

When it was all said and done I ended up really enjoying THE YOUNG GRADUATES with its trippy clothes, bizarre slang and wacky script, but it definitely could've used a heavier dose of nudity. If you're into this sort of cinema then it's worth watching for sure. Not only is it entertaining, but it's like a time capsule to a place that I find endlessly fascinating: late 60's/early 70's America. What a truly bizarre world that must have been.

DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE! (1980)

[Update 06/07/2022: Need rewatch this film and redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

Nicholas Worth's performance made this film. He's sweaty, fat and crazier than a shithouse rat.  If the makers of the film had any sense they would have cut most of the police detectives scenes and replaced them with more moments of Worth running around with his shirt off screaming to his dad's ghost, working out, crying and stalking/attacking women.

I got a little ahead of myself. There's a serial killer going around the city attacking women and raping them as they die, then he poses them and takes pictures. The police are clueless, but when the Strangler kills a woman live on the radio while on the phone to a female psychologist they get the lead they're looking for: he's obsessed with this doctor and looks at her as his grand prize.

We, the audience, know the identity of the Strangler right from the beginning and, like I said, he's bat shit crazy and a lot of fun to watch. I was really rooting for this dude to kill more and more, but then around the 45 minutes mark the story is sidetracked by the police efforts.  It's as boring as watching blood dry on roadkill. Eventually they get back to the Strangler.

DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE! is a good example of the gritty late 1970's/early 1980's sleazy cinema that is probably impossible to make today. It's almost like a time capsule with all of is amazing street scenes and eye-popping fashions. Outside of Nicholas Worth's disturbing performance the movie is just OK, but worth a watch if you're into this kind of stuff.

STAR TIME (1992)

[Update 03/15/2023: Need rewatch this film and redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

Eighty-five minutes was too long for this movie. Thirty-five would have been better.

Henry Pinkle is a fucked up dude. He's obsessed with a TV show and when it's canceled it pushes this goofball over the edge and suddenly an imaginary friend pops up right as he's about to commit suicide. The imaginary dude (played by one of the inhuman teaching monsters from CLASS OF 1999 tells Henry that he can be a star and gives him an ax and a baby mask. Henry kills some people (nearly all of it is done off screen or told through news reports) and becomes famous, but before long his 15 minutes are up. And I wish this movie had ended at least 15 minutes earlier. At first I was enjoying the build up, but that was it. The murder scenes were lame and the majority of the movie was spent with Henry talking to his imaginary friend or Henry talking to his case worker. If this had been a short film I'd recommend it, but as it is it's just way too long with not enough action. At least fellow early 90's forgotten serial killer movie RAMPAGE had some amazing kill scenes before it shit the bed by become a lame court room drama for the last 45 minutes. Skip it.