"Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In" for 5/15/92
cutline: Maria Ford is the Drive-In Woman of the Year as she wins the Breast Actress Award in "Naked Obsession," Best Flick winner in the 1991 Hubbies.
By Joe Bob Briggs
Drive-In Movie Critic of Grapevine, Texas
After a two-year search for a suitable location for the Drive-In Academy Awards ceremonies, we were lucky to be invited to one of the world's greatest tourist meccas and convention sites, and we had better attendance for the Hubbies than in any previous year--better than Cleveland, better than San Francisco, better than Dallas, and, yes, better than Kokomo, Indiana.
You know where I'm talking about by now.
That's right:
Hackensack, New Jersey.
This year's ceremonies were held in the gymnasium of Fairleigh-Dickinson University as part of a convention of horror movie fans called "Chiller Theatre." It was an emotional event when I handed out the hubcaps. Of course, no one showed up to ACCEPT their hubcap--some things never change--but Zacherle, the great late night horror host from New York City, was there, along with Al Goldstein, publisher of Screw Magazine, and Seka, the great porno star, now retired. I also got to meet some of the finest citizens New Jersey has ever produced.
I realize that many of you made the trip to Hackensack, and so this information will be redundant. But remember, everything ELSE about the Hubbies is redundant, too.
Henceforth, to wit, and ex post facto, the winners of the 1991 Drive-In Academy Award, which is engraved on a 1968 Oldsmobile hubcap, are . . .
BEST KUNG FU
The runners-up are:
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.
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."
And the winner is . . .
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."
BEST DIRECTOR
The runners-up are:
Dan Golden, "Naked Obsession."
William Lustig, "Maniac Cop 2."
Steve Miner, "Warlock."
Hope Perello, "Howling VI."
Mario Van Peebles, "New Jack City."
And the winner is . . .
Craig R. Baxley, "Stone Cold."
BEST DIALOGUE
The runners-up are:
Linda Hamilton, "Terminator 2": "Anybody not wearing a two-million sun block is gonna have a pretty bad day."
Jasae, "Bad Girls From Mars": "We need healthy young earth studs to repopulate our world--we need your love rocket."
Wendy MacDonald, "Legal Tender": "She's gonna be the next bounce on your king-size Posturepedic, isn't she?"
Tanya Roberts, "Legal Tender": "That bitch treated me like a used pair of panty hose at a swap meet."
Robert Shurtz, "Vampire Trailer Park": "Let's get us some lunch, and let's get us some puking vampires."
Jimmy Medina Taggert, "Class of 1999": "The mind is a terrible thing to waste--don't make me waste yours."
And the winner is . . .
Wesley Snipes, "New Jack City": "Sit your five-dollar ass down before I make change."
BEST BAD GUY
This is always my favorite category, because these are the hardest-working guys in showbiz. The runners-up are:
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.
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."
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."
And the winner is . . .
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.
For those of you that don't know, it's now the LATE David Gale. Last November, David had a sudden heart attack and died. He was ONSTAGE at the time, performing in "Other People's Money," the Off-Broadway play that was at the Minetta Lane Theater in Greenwich Village. And they got him quickly to the hospital but it was too late. I'm really gonna miss this guy. He was really one of THE most original actors around.
BEST ACTOR
The runners-up are:
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.
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 foot on consecrated ground."
And the winner is . . .
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. (Wings has been nominated many years in the past, so this was probably the Academy's attempt to reward Wings for a memorable career that got started when he was the coat-hanger-wielding pimp in "Vice Squad" some ten years ago.)
BEST ACTRESS
The runners-up are:
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!
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.
And the winner is . . .
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.
BREAST ACTRESS
The runners-up are:
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!"
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.
And the winner is . . .
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.
BEST FOREIGN FLICK
The runners-up are:
"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.
And the winner is . . .
"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.
And finally . . .
BEST FLICK
The runners-up are:
"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."
And the winner is . . .
"Naked Obsession," the 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.
There was never really any doubt, because this may be the greatest topless-bar flick ever made.
That's it. Remember:
Next year in Hackensack!
JOE BOB'S ADVICE TO THE HOPELESS
Victory Over Communism! The Holiday Drive-In in Hamilton, O., had a very decent season and showed a profit. Tom Rentschler of Hamilton reminds us that the drive-in will never die. To discuss the meaning of life with Joe Bob, or to get free junk in the mail and Joe Bob's 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,
I would like to know what you think of one of my personal heroes. He's the most terrifying, indestructible one-man wreckin crew since Arnold the Barbarian. He's the man who's brought the whole of white trash civilization to its knees, leaving in his wake barbecued yuppies and their psychologically scarred offspring. No missile can stop him, no woman can woo him, no politician can buy him. He's Ernest P. Worrel, and if you don't know who he is, you may pay later for such a lack of knowledge. The man who has since gone on to bigger and better things makin money with as little work as possible, like God intended. Young, respectful drive-in patrons are payin to see this guy get fried, electrocuted, blowed up, barbecued and B-B-Q'd and still finish the movie! So there may be hope for the East Coast Drive-in yet--that is, if you approve of Ernest. So do you? I figured with such a wonderful drive-in film as "Fast Food" to his credit, you gotta say somethin for the guy. So, say it to me. Or you could talk about him (if you haven't already) in your newsletter. You could label the article "The Importance of Being Ernest."
Until later, your (to my knowledge) sole fan who goes to college,
Ed Sharkin
Silver Spring, Md.
Dear
Ed:
I think "Ernest Goes to Camp"
is a masterpiece of the twentieth century. I LOVE Ernest. Unfortunately, the
latest Ernest movie, that came out in October, was a disappointment at the box
office, and the people at Disney were none too pleased about it. Write letters!
Let em know what you think! The future of Ernest movies is looking a little
grim right now.
Also tell em how totally unfair this is, that people like Bruce Willis and Meryl Streep can have colossal flops and keep on making movie after movie, but Ernest puts out three blockbusters, then has one flop, and people start talking like the guy's career is over. Who are these loonies anyhow?
To Cowboy Joe Bob Briggs:
We read your article in today's Times Daily, and think you need to hone your journalistic skills. The article was filled with generalities and prejudices.
Are you accusing Congress, or the whole American population, of being ignorant and callous?
Are you saying that all southern preachers have a below 30 I.Q.?
Are you aware that there are thousands of ailments, illnesses, injustices, maladies, and diseases in the world for which there are hundreds of thousands of people working hard to correct and conquer?
Maybe you ought to get acquainted with some of these people who are concerned and ready to fight for everyone's rights, so concerned that they are willing to work, not just protest and demonstrate, and gripe and complain.
Perhaps the high risk groups should roll up their sleeves and get to work to correct and conquer AIDS.
Signed,
Sick of the Whining
Aspen, Colo.
Dear
Sick:
The so-called "high risk
groups" are the only people who ARE working to correct and conquer AIDS.
I'm in the entertainment industry, so there's not a week that goes by that I
don't come in contact with an AIDS fund-raiser, or a benefit, or a request for
volunteer work.
The "high risk groups" are
doing all they can.
The column was directed at people like YOU.
Joe Bob,
I'm in the Navy, stationed in Rota, Spain. The locals speak Spanish, of course, yet they do so with such a wimpy accent. No rolling r's, the way Mexicans do, just high pitched yapping. Anyway, we have a drive-in theater on base, which is great, but there are two problems. One is the quality of pictures they run. We get whatever is on the military circuit. Never any classic drive-in stuff, just artsy-fartsy crap and lame big grossers. No horror, gratuitous nakidity or anything GOOD.
The other beef I have is the class of female available to accompany you there. Spanish babes only want to disco or see some poor cow tortured to death, and the American women are either in the Navy or married to some guy who is. This precludes most drive-in fun, because most Navy women are either too ugly or fat to even consider asking her to hold the popcorn between her legs so you always have to brush against 'em to get a handful, and married women, bimbos or not, are just plain uncool to fool with.
We get your column in the Sunday "Stars and Stripes." I haven't seen your work in a while, and I'm sorry you had to tone down your efforts. I used to read you religiously in Hawaii some years ago and I was never offended.
Please press on! Perhaps someday the Navy will understand the true spirit of the drive-in experience, and start showing a few slasher movies once in a while.
Yours,
Tom Shaver
U.S. Navy
Rota, Spain
Dear
Tom:
Tone down? Me? Never! Your letter makes
me think the Navy Propaganda Department has been getting out the scissors
again. Last year, during the Iraqi Mini-War, they censored all my camel jokes.
Is this America or what? (You don't have to answer that.)
Dear Joe Bob,
Jeffrey Dahmer is NOT from Wisconsin! Ohio, to be exact! Please make a note of it! Ed Gein is enough!
A forever Wisconsin resident,
Steve Seiberlich
Martinez, Calif.
Dear
Steve:
He might have been BORN in Ohio, but he didn't really hit his stride as an artist until he got to Milwaukee.
Dear Bub,
Can you tell me of a church in my area that practices the literal celebration of the divinity of human flesh? Preferably not at midnight as it would not convene to my schedule.
Mr. Scrubb
Redwood, Calif.
Dear
Scrubb:
That would be the Church of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in Napa. It only meets on game nights, when the wives will let em out of the house.
© 1992 Joe Bob Briggs All Rights Reserved