"Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In" for 6/3/94
cutline: Chanda (yes, that's her whole name) standa, in "Angel of Destruction."
By Joe Bob Briggs
Drive-In Movie Critic of Grapevine, Texas
Don't you just hate it when people say, "Well, at least you TRIED"?
There's an even worse one. "At least you followed your dream."
What if your dream was stupid? What if a guy's dream was to start violin lessons at age 65 and play with the New York Philharmonic?
If you were the guy's friend, wouldn't it be the right thing to say, "Hey, bud, you just picked a goal that will require a natural disaster annihilating every professional violin player in the world"?
But we're not supposed to say that. We're supposed to say, "Follow that dream!" Entire movies are devoted to this thesis--that it doesn't matter what the dream is, but it DOES matter how dimwitted and single-minded you are about pursuing it. If some guy took up weightlifting and actually killed himself by trying to bench-press 1200 pounds, we'd say, "Well, at least he followed his dream."
Of course, the main problem with "following your dream" is: How the heck do you know when you've ACCOMPLISHED your dream? I mean, if you take up acting, do you win when you get an Academy Award? Do you win if you get a paycheck for doing walk-ons on "As the World Turns"? What's the standard of DREAMINESS here?
What if your dream is to race in the Indianapolis 500, but you crash and burn at Yellow Belly Speedway and suffer burns over 90 per cent of your body? Does God say, "Okay, that counts--that's the same as winning the Indianapolis 500"?
What if your dream is to be president, but you lose every election you ever enter? Do you get points for this? "Well, Gerald, looks like you got six per cent of the vote AGAIN, but, by God, we followed that dream, didn't we?"
In other words, a lot of dreams depend on stuff you have absolutely no control over.
But we've taken care of this. We have another great American saying:
"You should be proud of finishing second (or third, or fourth, or fifth), because there were a lot of people who DIDN'T EVEN GET THAT FAR."
Parents love to use this one, and they think it's supposed to make you feel good. In other words, you find a bunch of people who did WORSE THAN YOU to make yourself FEEL GOOD. Isn't this kinda sick?
Some people even say, "Your problems aren't that bad. There are people in this world who don't have any arms and legs and live in an iron lung all day."
What are you supposed to say? "Wow, that makes me feel GREAT about myself."
The world is very very diseased, isn't it? What bothers me is that NOBODY NOTICES.
Speaking of unexplained phenomena, this week's movie, "Angel of Destruction," doesn't make a lick of sense, but I'll give it a shot. It's the story of a gorgeous private detective who lives in the Philippines and is used by the Filipino police to solve crimes all the time, only she gets killed by a sadistic serial killer and ex-mercenary who likes to dress up women in bridal gowns and then slit their throats, but as soon as this happens the private detective's gorgeous STEPSISTER shows up in the Philippines and takes over the case, which is convenient because she's been sleeping with the dead sister's ex-boyfriend, who is a Filipino cop, who helps his girlfriend figure out that the crew-cutted kung-fu serial killer is about to go after the gorgeous lesbian performance artist Delilah, and so the stepsister signs on as the personal bodyguard to Delilah and her lesbian lover Reena, but Delilah's creepy boyfriend keeps bothering everyone because he's been ordered by a mobster and recording industry investor to force Delilah to change her act so the mobster can recover his $2 million investment, only after a while he decides to just murder her and get $1.5 million for the insurance police he has on her, only meanwhile the serial killer is wasting hookers all over town and closing in on Delilah, and the stepsister--who is played by Maria Ford, by the way--starts kung-fuing everyone in sight until the big final scene in the Manila shipyards where the killer has Delilah tied up and he's gonna try to marry her and then slit her throat, but . . .
I give up.
I quit.
Why do I do this? Week after week after week, I try to tell you what happens in these movies, and do you appreciate it? Do you care? No. All you wanna know is the lowest common denominator consumer information.
Me, too.
Fifty-eight dead bodies. Sixteen breasts. Through-the-window plunge. Lesbo bondage lingerie musical night-club act. One motor vehicle chase, with crash and burn, two fireballs. Gratuitous music video. Eleven Kung Fu scenes. Drive-In Academy Award nominations for Charlie Spradling, as the sister who dies in the second reel, for kung-fuing five guys attempting a gang rape and saying "The broken nose is for the girl--the vasectomy's free"; Jessica Mark, as the airhead singer who says "If this album hits, I'll drop him like a greased pig"; Maria Ford, for doing a five-minute kung fu scene in the nude, complete with scissor-kicks, and for doing a strip-tease because the killer has a hostage and says he won't release her unless he sees Maria Ford nekkid; and Jimmy Broome, as the guy who likes Filipino brides, but only after they're dead, for saying "Remember me, Carl? You left me and my men to die in Angola. I didn't like that."
Two stars.
Joe Bob says check it out.
JOE BOB'S ADVICE TO THE HOPELESS
Religious Fanatic Alert! The Woodland Drive-In, on Breton Road in Grand Rapids, Mich., is now the Woodland Drive-In CHURCH. The Rev. Verlyn Verbrugge promises "contact between Heaven and Earth." Obviously he doesn't intend to show "The Exorcist." Richard Fraser of Wyoming, Mich., reminds 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 Joe Bob's world-famous newsletter, "The Joe Bob Report," 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:
About two weeks ago I sent you the anti-abortion tape which I found hanging on my front door, along with 99,999 citizens of Milwaukee. Needless to say, I was "agitated."
You'll note in the enclosed article that the police said there was nothing illegal about it. Well, you can damn well bet that if it'd been a copy of "Nightmare on Elm Street" that someone would have found something illegal!
Something ain't right here. What's your advice?
Cordially,
Richard E. Maxwell
Milwaukee
Dear
Richard:
Personally I'm very happy that the Fetus
Fans give away gross-out videotapes to people who don't want them.
Every time they do that, we're reminded of what total buffoons they are.
Dear Joe Bob Briggs,
Happy belated Fourth of July! I know yall had one hell of a hot time back there in Texas. I wish I could've been there to help celebrate. My Mom probably was saying "it is hotter than a firecracker on the 4th of July!" I am originally from Houston, the ex-capital of Texas, but I am currently living in Gaeta, Italy, serving on the USS Belknap, CG-26, as Commander Sixth Fleet Staff meteorologist. For you Dallasites, that means I am a weatherman (pronounced WHEAT-HERMAN by a friend of mine).
Anyhoo, I was reading Stars and Stripes, a world-wide military propaganda rag the other day, and came across one of your articles. I used to hear you on some obscure radio station in Norfolk, Virgina, but they were taken over by some rednecks or something and you were no more. At the bottom of your article it said to write to you to receive some freebies. Since we spend a lot of time at sea, we, the Chief's onboard, could use some reading material or maybe some tapes of your movie reviews. We have quite an assortment of movies here and we would be interested in hearing your hilarious remarks about them. Basically, hell, send any ol' damn thing.
Living in Italy is great, but it is hard to get good BBQ here. Of course, I do burn some tasty roadkill now and then on my yuppie Weber kettle. No mesquite or hickory trees here, so we use olive trees for that smoked flavor. You make do with what you got. Not much wildlife over here for cookin', quite a few cats, but they're so damn hard to coax onto the grill. Mostly we resort to store bought viddles and make believe. Actually, my beautiful bride is from coastal Virginia, and she doesn't much believe my stories about my great-grandmother sucking the buckshot out of some ol' fried squirrel heads that I had shot for her one Easter morning in Frankston, Texas. Those were the days.
Well, time to go write a weather forecast. Send along those freebies now, ya hear? I would hate to have to send my ol' sissy cousin from Duncanville over there to kick some ol' Joe Bob butt!
P.S. The enclosed is a satellite picture of the central Mediterranean with Italy, Sicily and Sardinia. If Italy looks like a boot, then I live about where the kneecap is.
Ciao from Italia,
Albert J. Mauzy
U.S. Navy
Gaeta, Italy
Dear
Albert:
I won't tell anybody about those three planes that went down because you were busy smoking olive trees under a dead cat.
Joe Bob;
While it may seem pleasant to think that apartheid is dead and that therefore Cape Town drive-ins are doing particularly well, the more probable cause, according to Thomas V. McClendon, a pre-eminent South African history scholar from Stanford University currently doing research in the bars of Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, is that due to higher indigenous numbers of blacks in Durban, the former traditional vacation area for white South Africans, Cape Town has become the new trendy vacation locale for same said whites, therefore increasing two vital elements necessary to world peace--long, gas-hogging road trips and the resurgence of the Cape Town drive-in theater industry.
But all is not well in darkest. The drive-in in Pietermaritzburg itself was recently closed. Surely a blow to freedom-loving sand-line drawers everywhere!
Will McClendon
San Francisco
Dear
Will:
Are you implying that the blacks of Cape Town do NOT appreciate the cultural influence of the drive-in? You are in danger of being branded a racist.
Dear Joe Bob:
Are you pals with George Strait by any chance or is that like asking Alberta our postmistress if she knows Magic Johnson just because they're both black?
Ralph McConnell
Kirkersville, O.
Dear
Ralph:
George Strait is black?
Joe Bob,
When I was a kid my parents took us to a lot of real good educational horror flicks. One that stands out, I think, was called "The Undertaker and His Pals." Ever heard of it? How about doing a TV review of some of these classics?
David R. McCollum
Grass Valley, Calif.
Dear
David:
Yep, "The Undertaker and His Pals" was very educational for those people who wanted to learn how to murder young girls with biker chains, get a kickback from the mortuary, and sell their body parts to a diner. A classic. One of the finest movies to appear in March 1967.
© 1994 Joe Bob Briggs All Rights Reserved