"Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In" for 4/3/92
cutline: The most underrated (and underdressed) actresses working today starred in the 1991 sleeper hit "Naked Obsession."
By Joe Bob Briggs
Drive-In Movie Critic of Grapevine, Texas
For the first year in the history of the Drive-In Academy Awards, better known as the Hubbies, we delayed the announcement of the nominees until AFTER the fake Academy Awards they had in El Lay, because it was JUST AS WE SUSPECTED:
"Silence of the Lambs," a DRIVE-IN MOVIE, won THOSE Academy Awards, too. The director, Jonathan Demme, has even won many Hubbies in the past. So I'd like to make the following statement on behalf of the Drive-In Academy:
We applaud the new emerging detente between the Drive-In Academy Awards and the Hardtop Academy Awards, and we encourage the Hardtop Academy to seek out many more films based on the life of the famous mass murdering maniac, Ed Gein, in order to continue the tradition established in 1992.
And now, forthwith and herewith--get a pencil, time to vote--the 1991 Hubbie nominees:
BEST FLICK
"Caged Fury," bimbos-in-cages flick about a nubile young blond girl who shows up in Hollywood one day trying to be an actress, gets propositioned by a sleazeball photographer, abducted from a rock-and-roll club, knocked around by bikers, taken home by a kung fu mercenary, kissed by Erik Estrada, ordered to take off her blouse at the "talent agency," and--most horrible of all--ordered to do a love scene with Jack Carter. When she refuses, she's arrested, tried, and sentenced to a year in women's prison. And this is only her THIRD day in El Lay.
"Naked Obsession," stripper flick about a city councilman who's tempted by the devil to spend all his time in topless bars, but unfortunately he's supposed to be tearing down the "armpit of the universe" area (called Dante Square) and replacing it with a modern shopping mall.
"New Jack City," most realistic gangster picture of the eighties, about some undercover drug cops fighting a drug lord who has more guns and more friends than they do.
"Stone Cold," best biker flick of the last ten years, about a Southern motorcycle gang that deals a lot of drugs, murders politicians, and doesn't catch on very quick that fellow biker Brian Bosworth is really an undercover cop.
"Warlock," time-travel flick that answers the question "Could a 17th-century Pilgrim in a fur suit and an El Lay waitress in a mini-skirt establish a bi-coastal relationship?" And the answer is, "Yes, but only if united by the fear of a flying warlock with long blond hair who looks like a rock singer and is trying to destroy the universe."
BEST FOREIGN FLICK
"Dead Sleep" (Australia), starring Linda Blair as a crusading syringe-wielding nurse assigned to the zombie-ward in a mental hospital where all the patients look like watermelons all hooked up to the same vine.
"La Femme Nikita" (France), a combination of "The Terminator," "The Playboy Lingerie Video" and "Gidget Goes to Paris," starring Anne Parillaud as a junkie who gets arrested for killing a cop and thrown into the puke-your-guts-out drug-withdrawal prison and sentenced to a life term, but is quickly recruited as a government assassin so that pretty soon she's running around in high heels and mini-skirts, blowing the brains out of ambassadors, so that all the men fall in love with her.
"Midnight Cop" (Germany), the story of a "Columbo"-type cop searching for a sleazeball who shoots girls up with heroin and then smears Vaseline all over their face and stabs em to death in a meat locker.
"Solaris" (Russia), the sci-fi flick about weirdbeard vodka-drinking cosmonauts wandering all over a space station trying to keep one another from going bonkers when they get close to this huge outer-space ocean which causes you to have hallucinations about your ex-wife and see giant nekkid babies.
BEST ACTOR
Brian Bosworth, "Stone Cold," as a hiney-kicking cop who goes undercover to try to bust a bunch of coke-dealing outlaw bikers who are blowing up Mississippi politicians.
Jeffrey Combs, "Bride of Re-Animator," as the crazed Dr. Herbert West, who wields the green needle, mixes the serum, grafts four living fingers to an eyeball, and says "How dare you judge my work!"
Richard E. Grant, "Warlock," as the Puritan Robocop who talks like a Scottish guy and says "Witches loathe salt" and "Never can no witch set food on consecrated ground."
Mark Hamill, "Black Magic Woman," as the guy who has a one-night stand and ends up coughing blood, with dead roosters in his bed, snake eggs under his pillows, and Mexican witch doctors squeezing eggs on his body.
Wings Hauser, "Street Asylum," as the only cop smart enough to finally say, "You know what? I think I have a mind-control device planted in my back," and then he dealing with it--by asking his girlfriend to CUT IT OUT.
Orville Ketchum, "Tower of Terror," as the fat, pocked-face, plaid-shirted weirdo geek who says "They may have killed his body, but he swore his spirit would never die" and for getting stabbed repeatedly with a letter opener, strangled, spiked in the neck, head-butted, staple-gunned, knocked down a flight of stairs, bashed with a garbage lid, pushed off a fifteen-story building, and machine-gunned three different times, but living to tell the story.
BEST ACTRESS
Apollonia, "Black Magic Woman," as the voodoo witch with wicked fingernails and heaving Bronskis who shows up with a crystal brooch dangling down in the valley of the lost wedding ring and says things like "How bout a private tour?" so that Mark Hamill will make the sign of the triple-winged gila monster with her and she'll take possession of his soul.
Meg Foster, the Ice Queen, for two roles--"Diplomatic Immunity," as the evil dominatrix who rules Paraguay from her island fortress--until she dies with a harpoon through her chest, and "Future Kick," as a rich housewife who lives on Mars, along with all the other 21st-century Yuppies, but she has to come down to Earth to find out what happened to her dead husband.
Linda Hamilton, "Terminator 2," as the mother of the freedom-fighter of the future who's been living with Central-American revolutionaries since 1984, learning how to use pump-action semi-automatic assault rifles, and when she wasn't doing that she was in the loony bin, pumping iron and trying to make the weirdbeard doctors think she was "normal" by denying that she ever saw the Terminator in the first place--and then she loads up and becomes MORE OF A TERMINATOR THAN THE TERMINATOR!
Kathleen Kinmont, "Bride of Re-Animator," in the title role, as a reanimated do-it-yourself corpse with the feet of a ballet dancer, the legs of a hooker, the body of a virgin, the arms of a waitress, the left hand of a lawyer, the right hand of a murderess (better nail polish), and the heart of the doctor's dead girlfriend, which she rips out and gives to him.
Roxanna Michaels, "Caged Fury," as the innocent girl introduced to the sadistic guards, the lesbian warden, the friendly members of "your personal parole board," tortured, abused, and dressed in standard-issue prison garb from Frederick's of Hollywood.
Vivian Schilling, "Soultaker," as the main teenager who is SUPPOSED to die in a car crash, but her soul gets separated from her body, and so the souls of her and her friends wander around the countryside, trying to call the police, while the bodies are hooked up to life-support.
BREAST ACTRESS
Linda Corwin, "A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell," in the title role of the movie "Where the Prehistoric Meets the Pre-pubescent," as the last woman on earth after nuclear war has wiped out all the cities and all of her wardrobe except an animal-skin loincloth, getting clawed at, manhandled, groped, chased, pinned, clubbed, roughed up, beaten, and her hair gets REALLY ratty, before a dimwit hunter named Marn can fight his way past giant sea serpents to a castle where she's being held captive by a gap-toothed skull-head medicine man with a broken nose.
Holly Floria, "Bikini Island," as a model who goes to a cattle call, gets selected by some drooling sleazoids to be part of a swimsuit edition, takes a couple showers, roots around on the beach, and eventually battles a bow-and-arrow-wielding Bikini Bunny to the death.
Maria Ford, "Naked Obsession," the hottest new actress in exploitation flicks, as a stripper who gives a city councilman a special how-about-giving-me-a-ride-home dance and then asks him to do that kind of sex where you twist a rope around your neck and . . . well, way too sleazy to go into here.
Robyn Harris, the world's only Valley Girl with a British accent, for two roles in cleavage-and-cleavers classics--"Nightie Nightmare" and "Tower of Terror"--both of which were performed almost ENTIRELY in Frederick's of Hollywood lingerie, as the head bimbo who gets blood all over her breasts and limps through half the movie like Jamie Lee Curtis, screaming "I'm sorry to be so blunt, but we just don't have the time!"
Blake Pickett, "Vampire Trailer Park," as the Zen-spouting bimbo in a mini-dress who says "It's not how much we steal that matters--it's the process itself that's important."
Stephanie Schick, "Do or Die," an Atlanta model with the two most enormous talents seen on the screen in the past five years, for aardvarking under a waterfall.
Dona Speir, "Do or Die," three-time Breast Actress winner, for being chased by a van spraying machine-gun fire at her and saying "Oh, damn!" and for screaming "You can't treat me like one of your bimbos!"
Roberta Vasquez, the 1984 Playboy Playmate, for two roles--"Street Asylum," as a hooker who dresses up in black leather and makes G. Gordon Liddy bend over a desk and bark like a dog; and in "Do or Die," for looking up at a helicopter that's buzzing her Jeep and screaming "Donna, he's got a gun!"
Edy Williams, "Bad Girls From Mars," who manages to take her clothes off in every single scene of the movie while playing an actress being stalked by a killer transsexual dressed up like a ninja in a Jason mask who's trying to replace her as the star of a B movie.
BEST BAD GUY
Morton Downey Jr., "Legal Tender," as a sleazoid coke-dealing hot-tubbing Texas savings-and-loan executive who, in his big scene, bugs out his eyes and rams an 18-inch meat cleaver through his henchman's heart three times--once "because I love it."
Joe Estevez, "Soultaker," as an Angel of Death who skulks around Mobile, Alabama, in a black trenchcoat, sucking the souls out of dead people and taking em up to heaven in a little box.
David Gale, the Vincent Price of the nineties, for two roles--"Bride of Re-Animator," as the doctor who, despite losing his head halfway through the first "Re-Animator," manages to graft bat wings to his ears so he can make a comeback in the sequel; and "Syngenor," as a goofball maniac chief executive who gives himself neck injections with a weird green fluid, murders his senior staff after dressing them up in lingerie, and wears bunny-rabbit ears while wasting people with a super-laser death-ray machine gun.
Lance Henriksen, "Stone Cold," as Chains, the baddest biker in Mississippi, who leads an army of motorcycles in an assault on the Mississippi State Capitol, and who says "God forgives--the Brotherhood doesn't."
G. Gordon Liddy, "Street Asylum," as the mastermind behind a secret elite El Lay police unit with electronic super-hormone devices implanted in the small of their backs, turning them into scum-wasting bug-eyed animals.
Patrick Moran, "Vampire Trailer Park," as a bulimic vampire who moves into a trailer park with his creepy aunt and lures dimwit retired people into their trailer house, forces em to watch reruns of "The Flintstones" and "Gilligan's Island" until they become vacant-eyed zombies, uses em for TV dinners, and then pukes blood all over the walls.
Bruce Martyn Payne, "Howling VI," as Harker the freak show owner and part-time werewolf, who manipulates a circus full of deformed people by saying things like "You're the worst kind of freak, one who tries to control it."
Julian Sands, "Warlock," as the Pilgrim criminal who boils the fat of an unbaptized male child so he can fly better, and threatens to turn the unborn twins of a pastor's wife into "slugs of cold flesh."
Wesley Snipes, "New Jack City," as a two-bit basehead who becomes king of Crack Street and takes over entire apartment buildings with his operation; his motto is "You gotta rob to get rich in the Reagan era."
BEST DIALOGUE
Starr Andreeff, "Syngenor": "The pod! He wanted me to destroy the pod!"
Warren Beatty, "Truth or Dare": "She doesn't wanna LIVE off-camera, much less talk off-camera."
Brick Bronsky, "Class of Nuke 'Em High, Part II": "Just because Victoria had lips on her belly didn't stop me from loving her" and "The whole thing made me want to projectile-vomit."
John Carhart III, "There's Nothing Out There": "Really, Mike, it's logically stupid for you to be worried by this."
Hope Marie Carlton, "Bloodmatch": "I think of it as money--I kiss his money--I sleep with his money."
Jeffrey Combs, "Bride of Re-Animator": "Pure potentiality, the primordial ooze from which life originates!" and "He's a wife-beater, Dan! Use the gun!" and "I created what no man's mind nor woman's womb could ever hope to achieve."
Linda Corwin, "A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell": "Sometimes my juices start to flow and I feel like a nymphoid barbarian in dinosaur hell."
Jeff Dachis, "There's Nothing Out There": "I don't exactly call a disappearing raw chicken a murder attempt."
Erik Estrada, "Do or Die": "Synchronize your watches!" (Yes, he really said this.)
William Forsythe, "Stone Cold": "You gonna use that stick, or you wanna dance with me?"
Meg Foster, "Future Kick": "I hate it when you go to Earth."
Edward Furlong, "Terminator 2": "You just can't go around killing people."
Linda Hamilton, "Terminator 2": "Anybody not wearing a two-million sun block is gonna have a pretty bad day."
Robyn Harris, "Nightie Nightmare": "I know you're out there--you really hurt me--please, if you've got an ounce of humanity left, you've gotta remember!"
Wings Hauser, "Street Asylum": "All of a sudden I went animal."
Jasae, "Bad Girls From Mars": "We need healthy young earth studs to repopulate our world--we need your love rocket."
Eb Lottimer, "Future Kick": "There are only two things I'm gonna take--your body and your soul."
Wendy MacDonald, "Legal Tender": "She's gonna be the next bounce on your king-size Posturepedic, isn't she?"
Joe Morton, "Terminator 2": "It's not every day you find out you're responsible for three million deaths."
Armin Mueller-Stahl, "Midnight Cop": "I want this report in 23 hours--because EVERYBODY says '24 hours.'"
Charles Napier, "Maniac Cop 2": "When it comes time for your execution, you can't con Con Edison!"
Judd Nelson, "New Jack City": "Is this one of those black things?"
Bruce Penhall, "Do or Die": "I can't get over it--I shot a duck."
Alex Pirnie, "A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell": "The hell with you--you're lizard meat!"
Tanya Roberts, "Legal Tender": "That bitch treated me like a used pair of panty hose at a swap meet."
Arnold Schwarzenegger, "Terminator 2": "It's in your nature to destroy yourselves" and "I have detailed files" and "Hasta la vista, baby" and "I need a vacation" and "I know now why you cry, but it's something I can never do."
David Shark, "Soultaker": "Led Zeppelin was wrong, man. There IS no stairway to heaven."
Shelby Shepard, "Class of Nuke 'Em High, Part II": "So, you'd say you witnessed a subhumanoid meltdown?"
Robert Shurtz, "Vampire Trailer Park": "Let's get us some lunch, and let's get us some puking vampires."
Wesley Snipes, "New Jack City": "Sit your five-dollar ass down before I make change."
Michael Street, "Vampire Trailer Park": "I brought my party pickle!"
Jimmy Medina Taggert, "Class of 1999": "The mind is a terrible thing to waste--don't make me waste yours."
Seth Thomas, "Bikini Island": "I want those girls in the magazine, not in your bed!"
Edy Williams, "Bad Girls From Mars": "The smell of garbage turns me into a wild woman!"
Jim Wolfe, "Invasion of the Space Preachers": "Oh no, there's mouse doo-doo in the cereal."
BEST KUNG FU
Thom Mathews, "Bloodmatch," as a guy who's torturing kickboxers in the desert, kidnapping karate fighters from the ghetto, and generally rounding up a bunch of kung-fu masters so he can tape them to chairs in Las Vegas and force them to fight him to the death.
Jeff Speakman, "The Perfect Weapon," the most AUTHENTIC marital artist since Bruce Lee, a black belt in kenpo karate, playing a hothead who takes on the Korean Mafia, trying to get even for the murder of an old friend, only to endanger a bunch of people's lives--until he figures out to "become the dragon, not the tiger."
Don "The Dragon" Wilson, "Future Kick," as a killer cyborg bounty hunter who knows kung-fu and is Earth's last chance against the evil corporations. His motto: "All you get from feelings is dead."
BEST DIRECTOR
Craig R. Baxley, "Stone Cold."
James Cameron, "Terminator 2."
George Elanjian Jr., "Syngenor."
Dan Golden, "Naked Obsession."
William Lustig, "Maniac Cop 2."
Steve Miner, "Warlock."
Hope Perello, "Howling VI."
Arch Stanton, "Nightie Nightmare" and "Tower of Terror."
Mario Van Peebles, "New Jack City."
Brian Yuzna, "Bride of Re-Animator."
JOE BOB'S ADVICE TO THE HOPELESS
Republican Alert! The famous Solano Drive-In, just off Highway 4 in Concord, Calif., is being ripped down for no reason at all, except that the two giant outdoor screens can be replaced by EIGHT itsy-bitsy indoor jobs. Syufy Enterprises, which owns the Solano, wants to trash the playground and huge cafeteria to make a few measly extra bucks. Jim Prevallet of Bethel Island, Michael D. Smith of Pittsburg, and William Chavez of Pacheco remind us that, without eternal vigilance, it can happen here. To discuss the meaning of life with Joe Bob, or to get free junk in the mail and his world-famous "We Are the Weird" newsletter, write Joe Bob Briggs, P.O. Box 2002, Dallas, TX 75221. Joe Bob's Fax line is always open: 214-368-2310.
Dear Joe Bob,
"Homeless Performance Art" was on target. You caught a new development of Street News peddlers with no papers, who lay down the same rap and receive money anyway. This past week I saw a subway "performance artist" selling Street News wearing a sign around his neck listing degrees in Psychology and English Lit. From what I could see he purported to have four degrees--one from the University of Bombay (he was Indian), another from Tufts, and he ended his cardboard resume listing the Ph.D. degree program at NYU that he had dropped out of. Last winter at the West Side I.R.T. 42nd Street station I saw a little black kid five or six years old who was selling Street News like hot cakes. He didn't have a rap, just a big smile. Kids always steal the show.
We are the weird,
Kathi & Rich Olson
New York, N.Y.
Dear
Kathi and Rich:
I got several great "homeless performance art" stories after I wrote that piece. The best one is the guy who hangs out outside the theater where Neil Simon's new play, "Lost in Yonkers," is showing. At intermission people come out on the street to smoke, and he says, "So how do you like the play?" while begging. Whether you answer him or not, he quickly adds, "The second act is MUCH better."
Dear Joe Bob,
I just found out (and don't ask me how--she MADE me do it) that the official Latino name for the Austrian Pine is "Pinus Arnold."
I'm stumped. I'm Dutch. In Dutch "pine" means "pain." Everything falls into place. The wooden acting, the accent. He really DOES say: "I'll be bark!"
Needless to say I'm pining for your opinion.
Yours,
Peter Oosterhoorn
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Dear
Peter:
You forgot to mention the tree-trunk legs and the sappy grin.
Joe Bob,
"Vampire Trailer Park" certainly is the biggest thing to come out of central Florida since a portion of the upcoming "Lethal Weapon 3" was filmed here. They filmed the City Hall building being blown up.
I wanted you to see this quote which appeared in the local newspaper, The Orlando Sentinel. Melanie Griffith explains how her role in the film, "Shining Through," opened her eyes to World War II history: "I didn't know that six million Jews were killed (in the Nazi Holocaust). That's a lot of people."
Your number one fan,
Wes Pierce
Orlando, Fla.
Dear
Wes:
At least she didn't say, "I didn't know six million Jews were killed. Just think of how many agents and producers we lost."
J.B.,
If anyone says he hates war more than I do, he better have a big knife, that's all I have to say.
Gary Pattillo
Dallas
Dear
Gary:
Cute.
Joe Bob,
There is a book that lists most, if not all, of the nude scenes in "mainstream" movies. I've had a few people ask about it but no one seems to know much about it.
I figure of all the people in this business, you should know the details.
If you do know about this, please send the info to me.
One of the diligent,
George Page
Hanna-Barbera Home Video
Hollywood, Calif.
Dear
George:
The book you're talking about is "The Bare Facts Video Guide," written and compiled by the esteemed Craig Hosoda of Santa Clara, California. For a copy, you can send me you name and address, and I'll send you an order form.
© 1992 Joe Bob Briggs All Rights Reserved