INTREPIDOS PUNKS (1980)

True story: INTREPIDOS PUNKS was so lame that I immediately had to watch COMMANDO afterwards to get myself back in a good mood.

I had hopes that INTREPIDOS PUNKS was going to be badass, but sadly, it turned out to be the snoozerific story of biker gang who's members all dress the same and like to pump their fists in the air a lot.  When they're not committing suicide, raping females or lighting people on fire, they enjoy robbing banks and getting into shoot-outs with police.  That might sound exciting, but it's not.  Not even close..and even worse: the same shitrock theme song is played over and over and over.

As far as movie punks go, these dorks were about a punk as the post-apocalyptic bandits in THE ROAD WARRIOR, but nowhere near as cool or dangerous.  Instead, they're just some psychopaths with crazy hair and studded leather clothing.  Terrible music, uneven pace, badly shot topless scenes, complete lack of style by whoever directed this thing, crap editing, poor camera placement, worthless story.

INTREPIDOS PUNKS might work as an novelty to watch with some like-minded friends, but that's about it.  Skip it.

If you need me, I'll be in my room watching STONE COLD.

MY DEGENERATION (1990)

"Here I am petting a pig head and I'm actually enjoying it. This is really weird."

Thirteen minutes into MY DEGENERATION, the main character falls asleep while watching TV...I was jealous.  All kidding aside, I'm not sure why MY DEGENERATION gets such a bad rap.  (Although, proudly boasting "see why ROGER EBERT walked out after 7 minutes" on your DVD cover probably doesn't help.)  The film is pretty much what you would expect for a 61-minute movie made for $5,000 by teenagers in 1989.  The story (as unoriginal as it is) is about a rock band who sell out and then burn out.  Along the way, the lead singer falls in love with a talking pig head that she keeps in her refrigerator.

In the (surprisingly enjoyable) audio commentary, director/producer/writer Jon Moritsugu states that he originally planned for MY DEGENERATION to be a 30-minute short film, but then a friend bet him that he couldn't make it into a feature length film.  So, instead of adding story (and therefore increasing the budget), Jon simply stretched it to 61-minutes by added in a bunch of needless filler.  For example: replaying a long scene of the girls "playing" their instruments (I say "playing" because none of them knew how to play) that was shown earlier, but this time just inverting it to look like a film negative (kinda like the album cover to Nirvana's "Bleach", which was released in 1989).

Overall, MY DEGENERATION would have been much better as a short film, but it's still an interesting look at extremely low-budget filmmaking in the late 1980's.  My biggest complaint is the band members not knowing how to play their instruments.  That was distracting.

FIREWALKER (1986)

Tired as fuck Indiana Jones/buddy cop/ROMANCING THE STONE wannabe starring the zero-laughs-per-minute comedy stylings of Lou Gossett Jr. and Chuck Norris.  I enjoy Chuck Norris and Lou Gossett Jr. individually...kinda, but they make a lame duo here.  Zero onscreen chemistry.

After a snoozer of an opening scene where an evil general ties them up in the desert (...and then drives away, naturally), Lou and Chuck are approached by a mysterious woman in a bar.  She shows them a treasure map, then a dude with a crossbow attacks them and runs away.  Eventually, they travel south of the border in search for the lost gold.  Bad jokes and boring adventures ensue. 

FIREWALKER isn't a terrible movie, just really blah.  Like an extended length episode of some long forgotten 1980's adventure TV series.  Cheap sets (the caves especially looked like shit), bad jokes, slow pace, zero adventure, zero tension, zero sex, zero character development, zero explanation of the title.

Outside of the drawing power of the two leads, I have no idea why the filmmakers thought that FIREWALKER would make any money...which probably explains why it disappeared from the theaters after just a few weeks. Skip it.

Lou moving his left leg before Chuck has untied it.