"Joe Bob's Drive-In" for 7/24/95
cutline: Amazon vixens travel from the center of the earth to Coney Island in search of enlightenment, in the modern B classic Girlquake.
By Joe Bob Briggs
Drive-In Movie Critic of Grapevine, Texas
The city of Bellevue, Washington, is trying to make Papagayo's Cantina--which, by the way, is an EXCELLENT topless bar if you ever get up that way--the city is trying to force the club to make its stage "wheelchair-accessible."
In case any handicapped topless dancers decide to buy G-strings.
Let me pause here for a moment so you can ask yourself the question, "Is Joe Bob lying to me?"
God's honest truth. Here's a quote from Wayne Tanaka, representing Bellevue's Cultural Diversity Task Force:
"It's hard for me to picture somebody in a wheelchair doing what those performers are doing. But for all I know, maybe somebody would want to do that. It would surprise me, but we live in amazing times."
All right. Let's go with this. It's TOPLESS dancing, right? Not bottomless. So, yeah, all right, I guess you COULD do it in a wheelchair.
But it's topless DANCING, right? There's that pesky dancing part. But, yeah, okay, we have wheelchair races in the New York Marathon. Maybe somebody COULD twirl one of those mothers around up there while the deejay played "Stairway to Heaven."
And I'm not saying the club owners wouldn't do it. Because, let's face it, if there's money in it, they'd put in Iron Lung Dancing. Shoot, they're liable to put a sign out on the street: "Table Dancing, Shower Dancing, Lap Dancing, and--NEW THIS WEEK--Wheelchair Dancing!"
And you know how topless dancers copy one another. So if these crippled girls started making the big bucks, you'd have every busty blonde in a Spandex mini-skirt trading in her six-inch spiked heels for a set of wheels. Within two weeks they'd have little pockets on the side of the wheelchair for you to stick dollar bills in as they rolled by. Within three weeks they'd have nekkid girls in wheelchairs fighting in a mud bog.
Come to think of it, why limit this to topless bars? The last time I checked, there wasn't a single wheelchair-bound member of the New York City Ballet. As far as I know, there's not a single NBA team that has signed a player in a wheelchair, even though wheelchair basketball has been around for at least 20 years. And when was the last time you saw a wheelchair in a Janet Jackson video?
It's not enough to pop your top anymore. You've gotta pop a wheelie, too.
I love this country.
And speaking of preserving our heritage, a guy named Michael Randall just made a flick in the style of the great Russ Meyer. It's a tribute to the 1960's master who invented the outrageous bazoomafest sex flick, the guy who's been having a resurgence this year with the screening of classics like "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!"
And to show you what a legend Meyer has become, here's a picture that tries to COPY him--and does a pretty dang good job of it, too, right down to the groovy saxophone soundtrack and the go-go girls in hot pants. "Girlquake!" is the story of five Amazons from the center of the Earth who erupt into the desert one day and start doing the Pony on a mountaintop. They end up wasting four guys in the local diner after finding out they're 2,000 miles from their destination--Coney Island, where they hope to meet up with their Queen and devote themselves to her service.
Pretty soon you have five babes in brown loincloths and halter tops bopping up out of the New York City subway and hanging out at a strip club, where they announce "We've come to see the Queen! Ruler of the deepest parts! Our Queen!" And so the bartender sends em over to meet Ginger, "the queen of the double-D cups." They scrounge up a few singles to make an "offering," then tell her they'll serve her forever. "I know my act is good, but it's not THAT good," she says. "Where are you girls from?"
They say, "We're from the deepest blackest hole in the earth."
"Oh yeah?" says the stripper. "I got friends in Jersey."
You get the idea--Amazon bimbos schlepping all over New York looking for the queen, so they can start the war for all womanhood. They find a Queen Zahara at a Coney Island freak show, a drag queen in a Greenwich Village night club, a queen of dominance in an underground leather dungeon, as well as various hookers and gang members who get in their way and inspire the staple of all Russ Meyer flicks--the eye-gouging, hair-pulling catfight.
In other words, the ultimate sixties retro-exploitation flick, complete with corny music, corny photography, corny fight sequences, corny dialogue, and a buxom babe in every frame.
I loved it.
Five dead bodies. Two breasts. Head crushed between thighs. Head smothered by multiple bosoms. Death by hamburger-meat suffocation. Two catfighting brawls. Fire-eating. Gratuitous go-go dancing in leather bikinis. Kung Fu. Bimbo Fu. Cat-o'-nine-tails Fu. Drive-In Academy Award nominations for Lana Bergen, as the blonde bimbo who comes up out of the Times Square subway and says "So THIS is Coney Island!"; Etoile Bijou, as the sideshow psychic who says "All the queens I know hang out in Greenwich Village"; Chersteen, as the sequined female impersonator who sings "Queen of the Night"; Kym Ryder, as the friendy dominatrix who says "Just what this club needs--more tourists"; and Kat Walker, as the tough Amazon leader, for saying "Deep down we're all retards. You. Me. All of us. Just a bunch of retards. Spazzing out. Waiting for someone to come along who understands."
Obviously a message movie.
Four stars.
Joe Bob says check it out.
JOE BOB'S ADVICE TO THE HOPELESS
Victory Over Modern Trends! The Oregon City Drive-In, on Old South End Road in Oregon City, Ore., still lets people in for FOUR BUCKS A CARLOAD on Monday nights. Now THESE are Americans. Sam Graham of Des Moines, Ia., reminds us that, with eternal vigilance, 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 newsletter, "The Joe Bob Report," write Joe Bob Briggs, P.O. Box 2002, Dallas, TX 75221, or Fax him at 214-985-7448, or e-mail him via CompuServe: 76702,1435.
Dear Joe Bob,
Can you tell me the five best cars to take a date to a drive-in movie in, and why you so deem them? Thanks.
Sincerely,
Chris Charles
Clearlake, Calif.
Dear
Chris:
1972 Hemi Cuda (best muscle car ever made), 1968 Olds Toronado (biggest car ever made--no hump), 1957 Chevy (nostalgia--symbol of an era), 1965 Mustang (symbol of the drive-in in the sixties), 1982 Firebird (greatest white-trash car ever made).
Joe Bob!
Help! Do something! Women are making erotic films! (See attached clipping: "Director makes adult films with women in mind.")
Hey--don't get me wrong! I WANT women to explore the erotic. They should feel free to make lots and lots of erotic films . . . I just worry about WHAT they think is EROTIC.
Here we have them saying that the question "will they or won't they" (get sexually involved) is "very erotic." Point taken.
My problem is that after 40 years of exploring the erotic aspects of that question, the reality has hit home. The ANSWER here is "NO THEY WILL NOT!" Fully 98 per cent of the time!
Joe Bob, "No" is not very erotic to me! And I assure you that 40 years of "no" is quite depressing actually.
Bob Clark
Key West, Fla.
Dear
Bob:
I knew we were in trouble when one of
those female directors said "What's erotic to me is the RELATIONSHIP.
Anyone can get naked."
Yes, but we don't want to see ANYONE get
nekkid.
We want to see PEOPLE BETTER-LOOKING
THAN US get nekkid.
Let's keep our priorities straight here.
Joe Bob Briggs,
I have a question for you. What is the longest word in the English language?
Thank you,
Timothy Clark
Oklahoma City
Dear
Timothy:
The only one I ever heard was
antidisestablishmentarianism. But that one's probly outdated by now.
I guess we're not counting supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, right, because it was invented for a musical? And a BRITISH musical, no less. And it reminds you of Julie Andrews.
Dear Joe Bob,
Of all the people I'd have to tell this, I figured you'd be the last.
It's not just Republicans turning the US of A into a jail. Democrats are doing a pretty good job of helping, too. One bunch wants all the drug dealers locked away, the other bunch wants to lock away all the guys with guns, but it's all the same old thing: folks thinking they can cure the "disease" by treating only the symptoms. So if we put all the bad drug dealers behind bars and get rid of all the guns, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy will get their act together and give us peace. Well, I'm not leaving any milk and cookies out in anticipation, that's for sure . . .
Joe Bob, I'm disappointed and annoyed. If I wanted to hear the partisan tale of the eighties, I'd turn on CNN and watch Comrade Billy, and if I wanted to hear propaganda, I'd watch 2 a.m. infomercials until I'd puke. Stop the insanity . . .
Do what you're good at and leave this petty politics out of it. You're made of better stuff than this, than having to take the cheap political shot when it's so passe.
Sincerely,
Chris Cheyney
Austin, Tex.
Dear
Chris:
I don't give a flip about the politics of it, I just can't understand why we KEEP THROWING EM IN PRISON when it's obviously driving the crime rate UP.
Dear Joe Bob,
Here I am watching "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and reading my copy of "Joe Bob Goes Back to the Drive-In" which I bought this last Saturday (and let me say it was the best $1.50 I've ever spent) when I think "Is Spam one of the four food groups . . . uh, I mean the food triangle?" And after that I think "Hey! There's an address to write to Joe Bob and get his newsletter along with some of his free junk!"
Speaking of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," I have two questions about parts 2 and 3. First of all, in "Chainsaw 2" is Hulk Hogan the grandpa or do I have some kind of disorder caused by watching four straight hours of the all new "Leave It To Beaver?" And is it just me or did someone really screw up "Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3?" Also, I have a question about the "Killer Tomato" sequels. The question is, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?! I mean, in "Return of the Killer Tomatoes" the tomatoes can be turned into people, then in "The Killer Tomatoes Strike Back" for some reason a few of the tomatoes have faces--we're talking mouths and all. From what I've seen of "Killer Tomatoes Eat France" (and I've seen very little of it) this movie is totally screwed!
Oh yeah, could you please do me a favor? First of all, I should say I run a "Rocky Horror Picture Show" fanzine, "The Darkness." My fanzine needs contributions and I was hoping you would go to (no, I'm not going to say hell) the Caruth Plaza, a theater in Dallas, Texas and view the film then send me a review of the film?
Thank you,
Robert Chillders
Portland, Ore.
Dear
Robert:
You're not hallucinating. Somebody REALLY screwed up "Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3." David Schow, the screenwriter, CLAIMS it's not his fault. We're not letting him off the hook yet, though.
© 1995 Joe Bob Briggs All Rights Reserved