As some of you know, I recently got a Roku-enabled TV for the first time. I'd had a smart TV before, but this is next level- it's basically like having numerous home video stores at your fingertips, many of them catered to specific tastes. For instance, there are many horror and sci-fi channels that offer nothing but movies and sometimes TV shows within that genre. And we're talking completely for free.
In addition, you get access to all the biggies, like Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu, etc. You can also "rent" movies and TV shows from Fandango, including some first-run movies, i.e. The King of Staten Island, Trolls World Tour, Irresistible, etc. Of course, you have to pay for all that, and depending on what you're watching, it can get pricey. (Some of those movies I mentioned run as high as $19.99!)
But why go there when you can get so much for free? Granted, there are some drawbacks- most of the movies concerned are old, and, depending on the service you're looking at, the quality can wildly vary. Also, upon closer inspection, what at first appears to be more "channels" that one would ever know what to do with, actually prove to feature a lot of repeats- meaning that a lot of said channels feature the same movies. Some are also ad-supported, so fair warning there, too.
On the other hand, that means you can simply pick a few good ones, save them for easy access and you're good to go. My advice for newbies is to go with the more "official" ones- you'll figure out which ones are more legit pretty quickly, sometimes on sight. Good ones include the self-explanatory Roku Channel, Vudu, Plex, Crackle, Pluto TV (where you can watch a host of channels live and on demand) and what is swiftly becoming my favorite, Tubi.
Tubi alone features a variety of "sub"-channels, like Shout Factory TV (which should be a familiar name to cult movie fans) and Full Moon Features (which features most of their output, including the flashback-inducing likes of Trancers, Dollman, Demonic Toys and plenty more where that came from), while Pluto TV has such "sub"-channels as Mystery Science Theatre 3000 and Rifftrax, which, yes, play those guys 24/7.
There's also Pluto channels that cater to everything from Unsolved Mysteries to Doctor Who to The Addams Family and plenty more, all day and all night, all the time; and channels that break things down by genre: action, horror, western, romance, drama, cult films and even Kung Fu flicks, and, God help us all, a channel devoted to the films of The Asylum (if you have to ask... don't.). So yeah, it's both awesome and overwhelming.
As anyone who's had access to Netflix knows, sometimes the preponderance of choices can be so much that you end up surfing for stuff so long that you could have watched a movie in the time it took for you to find something specific to watch. Which is how one ends up throwing up one's hands and watching, of all things, a semi-obscure sexploitation flick from the 80's called Joysticks.
Now back in the olden days, I had access to exactly two major movie channels, for the most part: HBO and Cinemax, affectionately dubbed "Skinemax" to those of us in the know. Every month, you'd get a cable guide, which broke things down in damn near Joe Bob Briggs-like terms, in terms of why movies were rated what they were. L stood for language, V was for Violence- GV, if it was particularly graphic- and the Holy Trinity of ratings: N for nudity, SC for sexual content and SSC for Strong Sexual Content, aka the Mother Lode- or should I say "Load," lol?
If a movie had all of the above, it was a must watch, but for a certain contingent, it was the latter three that made one most inclined to watch- that is, if one were a certain age. I once watched a three-hour+ movie called Reds about the rise of Communism because it had nudity in it. Actually, it was just a good movie- Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty are in it, and the latter directed, but I digress- you get the point.
While Skinemax had its fair share of more high-end-looking productions like the Emmanuelle series, Lady Chatterley's Lover ,The Sensuous Nurse, and so forth- and Lord knows, I watched those, too- the most appealing to the younger contingent was arguably the sexploitation comedies of the 70's and 80's.
While Skinemax had its fair share of more high-end-looking productions like the Emmanuelle series, Lady Chatterley's Lover ,The Sensuous Nurse, and so forth- and Lord knows, I watched those, too- the most appealing to the younger contingent was arguably the sexploitation comedies of the 70's and 80's.
We're talking stuff like The Student Nurses series (from uber-producer Roger Corman), the various Cheerleader-themed flicks (The Cheerleaders, The Pom-Pom Girls, Revenge of the Cheerleaders, etc.), and "teen" comedies (I put it in quotes, because the "teens" are usually actors in their 20's or even 30's) like The Beach Girls, Private Lessons and the Porky's movies.
Some were better than others: the superlative Fast Times at Ridgemont High, written by a young Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous, Singles) and the better-than-you-remember Last American Virgin and Valley Girl. Others had a memorable hook, like The Bikini Car Wash Company, Gas Pump Girls, Tomboy, The First Time, Bachelor Party and the hilariously bad Carrie rip-off Zapped! Many of them featured future stars on their way up the Hollywood food chain, which is why they tend to be more fondly remembered.
Joysticks is not one of these movies, but it does have a unique hook: it revolves around the wacky shenanigans at a local video game arcade that runs afoul of a local businessman (Joe Don Baker, a long way from Walking Tall), who leads a crusade to get it shut down because he sees it as a bad influence, notably on his Valley Girl daughter, Patsy (Corinne Bohrer, who I mistook for Lisa Langlois, of Happy Birthday to Me and Class of 1984 fame).
The arcade is being managed by Jefferson Bailey (Scott McGinnis, of Star Trek III and Secret Admirer), in lieu of his grandfather's absence, who is off on business or something like that. Needless to say, this is no normal arcade, as the patrons regularly party down and even get into the likes of strip gaming, because of course they do, it's an 80's sexploitation flick.
However, one has to understand that, at the time, the nerds of the world most certainly had not inherited the earth as of yet. Back then, nerds and geeks were more ridiculed than anything else- I make the distinction, because, in my neck of the Southern woods, there was one. Nerds tended to be more of the classic depiction of glasses-wearing, pocket-protector sporting, computer-savvy, sci-fi and fantasy-loving variety, while geeks tended to be withdrawn outsiders that listened to hard rock, punk and new wave music, dressed like hoods and loved horror and cult movies. (I was definitely the latter.)
Mind you, there was a little crossover, but nerds tended to, for the most part, be a little intimidated by geeks, while geeks tended to make fun of the nerds like everyone else. Popular types, though, thought we were all weirdos. Obviously, the worm has turned and lo and behold, the nerds and geeks did indeed go on to inherit the earth after all, but the 80's was not that time, and the 90's, in which I came of age, wasn't much better.
As such, it was a lot of fun back then seeing movies like this and the Revenge of the Nerds series, where the nerds and geeks saved the day. It allowed one who fit those molds to dream, I guess you could say. Who knew what was just around the corner? Definitely none of us, that's for sure. And I certainly never could have predicted that gaming would be an actual profession, rather than a time-wasting pastime. Go figure.
Joysticks is perfectly ridiculous, of course. But it is a lot of fun, and the characters are likable, in a very 80's way that seems to have gone the way of the dodo these days. I mean, even the villains- save Baker's character, the obvious heavy, as the lone main adult character- are pretty enjoyable, and played by some fairly recognizable faces to boot.
As the punk rocker type, King Vidiot, who resents the gamer crowd because he doesn't fit in, there's Jon Gries, who should be a readily familiar face to cult film fans, even though he looks a bit different here, for obvious reasons. His many credits include the likes of Real Genius, TerrorVision, The Monster Squad (he was the Wolfman, who did, indeed, have 'nards), Fright Night 2, The Grifters, Ed and His Dead Mother, Get Shorty, Men in Black, The Rundown, Napoleon Dynamite and the Taken series, among many other credits.
As Baker's character's henchman/nephews, there's John Diehl as Arnie (above right, in the hat) and John Voldstad as Max (above left). Diehl is another one with an extensive resume that ensures you've seen him in something over the years.
His credits include: Escape from New York, D.C. Cab, National Lampoon's Vacation, Angel, Cool Blue, Kickboxer 2, Whore, The Client, Stargate, Mind Ripper, Nixon, A Time to Kill, Foxfire, The End of Violence, Con Air, Anywhere But Here, Lost Souls, Pearl Harbor, Jurassic Park III and Down in the Valley.
Meanwhile, the lesser-known Voldstad still has some pretty solid cult flicks on his resume, including Switchblade Sisters, An Enemy of the People, 1941, Midnight Madness, Stripes, Daddy's Boys, Why Me?, Leprechaun, Josh and S.A.M., Forest Gump, It Runs in the Family, Night Train and Falling Like This. However, if he looks familiar for reasons other than any of those films, you're probably a Newhart fan- yep, Voldstad was none other than "other brother" Darryl on the show, a man of few words, as seen above.
His credits include: Escape from New York, D.C. Cab, National Lampoon's Vacation, Angel, Cool Blue, Kickboxer 2, Whore, The Client, Stargate, Mind Ripper, Nixon, A Time to Kill, Foxfire, The End of Violence, Con Air, Anywhere But Here, Lost Souls, Pearl Harbor, Jurassic Park III and Down in the Valley.
Meanwhile, the lesser-known Voldstad still has some pretty solid cult flicks on his resume, including Switchblade Sisters, An Enemy of the People, 1941, Midnight Madness, Stripes, Daddy's Boys, Why Me?, Leprechaun, Josh and S.A.M., Forest Gump, It Runs in the Family, Night Train and Falling Like This. However, if he looks familiar for reasons other than any of those films, you're probably a Newhart fan- yep, Voldstad was none other than "other brother" Darryl on the show, a man of few words, as seen above.
Moving on to the main cast, in addition to the aforementioned McGinnis, as the newly-employed, stereotypical nerd Eugene, there's Leif Green, who has but one main claim to fame beyond this film: he was one of the main leads in the much-maligned Grease 2. He played Davey, one of the T-Birds. (That's him on the top left in the pic above.) After a few TV appearances, he went into production, working on Osmosis Jones, Looney Tunes: Back in Action and Brother Bear 2.
Cutie Corinne Bohrer was in quite a few of these sorts of movies, including some of the ones I mentioned already: The Beach Girls and Zapped! Other credits include I, The Jury; My Favorite Year, They Call Me Bruce, Surf II, Stewardess School, Police Academy 4, Cross my Heart, Vice Versa, Dead Solid Perfect, Revenge of the Nerds 4, Star Kid, Inconceivable, Big Eden and Phantom of the Megaplex.
She's also a TV regular, cropping up on lots of shows, with recurring/leading gigs on E/R (nope, not that one- though, oddly, both feature George Clooney!), Free Spirit (with a young Alyson Hannigan, of Buffy fame), Man of the People, Double Rush, Partners, Rude Awakening (with Twin Peaks vet Sherilyn Fenn), Murder in the First and perhaps most notably, as the absentee mother of Veronica Mars. She also cropped up in both TV versions of The Flash, playing Trickster's partner, Pranks, in the 1990 version.
Rounding out the main cast is Jim Greenleaf as the portly Jonathan Andrew McDorfus, a former high school valedictorian-turned-video-gamer par excellence. Greenleaf got his start on TV in shows like James at 16 and The Fitzpatricks (alongside a young Helen Hunt) before making the leap to the big screen in movies like Gorp, Liar's moon, Carbon Copy, Evilspeak (another one I loved as a kid), TAG: The Assassination Game, Night Shift, The Vals, Surf II (which reunited him with co-star Corinne Bohrer), Toy Soldiers and the memorable TV movies Elvis (the one directed by John Carpenter with Kurt Russell as the King), Marilyn: The Untold Story, Pigs vs. Freaks and as the voice of "Weatherman" on the animated superhero spoof Hero High.
As the sexy, oft-naked ladies, Lola and Alva, there's also respectively, Kym Malin (the blonde) and Kim G. Michel (the brunette). The latter has no other credits to speak of, but Malin has some solid credits to her name including Weird Science, Die Hard, Road House and she was in no less than four Andy Sidaris movies: Picasso Trigger, Guns, Enemy Gold and The Dallas Connection.
That isn't her only "Dallas Connection," as she was voted "Most Perfect Body in Texas" in a beauty pageant in her native city, Dallas, and was Playmate of the Month in July of 1982, a year before she made this movie, her film debut. She's now a pediatrician! (Lucky kids.)
That isn't her only "Dallas Connection," as she was voted "Most Perfect Body in Texas" in a beauty pageant in her native city, Dallas, and was Playmate of the Month in July of 1982, a year before she made this movie, her film debut. She's now a pediatrician! (Lucky kids.)
Other semi-familiar faces include: another Playmate-turned-actress, Lynda Wiesmeier (Avenging Angel, Teen Wolf, Real Genius, Malibu Express), the so-called "Queen of Pay-Per-View" Becky LeBeau (Back to School, Not of This Earth, Transylvania Twist), former B-movie starlet Jacqulin Cole (Satan's Sadists, Satan's Cheerleaders, Angels' Brigade), Morgan Lofting (voiceover artist who did the Baroness on the G.I. Joe cartoons from 1983-1991 and voiced Aunt May and The Black Cat on the 80's Spiderman cartoons), Reid Cruickshanks (High Plains Drifter, 48 Hours, Fletch) and Logan Ramsey (the Walking Tall movies, The Beast Within).
The film was directed by actor-turned-writer/producer/director Greydon Clark, who went from starring in B-movies to making them. He was in the aforementioned Satan's Sadists- he was "Acid"- Hell's Bloody Devils, Dracula vs. Frankenstein and Psychic Killer, among others, before turning to the other side of the camera primarily, though he occasionally acted here and there, mostly in his own movies. His movies are iffy, quality-wise, but a lot of fun, nonetheless, and boy, did he churn them out at quite a pace- though not quite at a Corman or Richard Band level. (Stiff competition.)
Movies he directed include Black Shampoo, Satan's Cheerleaders (love it), Angels' Brigade, The Return, Without Warning (another good one), the slasher spoof Wacko (which features a lot of the same cast as this one), Final Justice (also with Baker), Uninvited (about a killer cat!), Skinheads, The Forbidden Dance (one of several movies about the Lambata, with a young Laura Harring, of Mulholland Drive fame), Dance Macabre (another dance-themed flick, this one about a killer instructor, played by Robert "Freddy Krueger" Englund!), Russian Holiday, Dark Future and Stargames.
Clark shot this one in a mere 13 days, on a $300,000 budget- it ended up making nearly $4 million at the box office, a pretty solid return investment. As I mentioned, it was a popular favorite on cable TV, and on home video, via the almighty Vestron. It has been released both on DVD and Blu-Ray, though the latter is out of print.
If you can find it, the Blu features a commentary and interview with Clark, plus the requisite trailer. (Here's a solid Q&A with Clark, for those interested.) The DVD is still readily available, though, and, as mentioned, it's streaming in various locales, including Amazon Prime. It was free on Roku, though.
Obviously, this is a silly little film. It's super low budget, and looks it, but if you tuned into a movie called Joysticks looking for high quality, you need to rethink your priorities- it's not that kind of film. That said, you know you're getting old when you find yourself enjoying the invaluable footage of classic arcade games than the boobs. After all, you can do a search on any given porn site for "gamer girl" and see a damn sight more than you do here.
Seriously, though, if you were around in the 80's-early 90's, this thing is flashback-inducing. I saw games I hadn't thought about in years- we're talking Moon Patrol, Gorf, Millipede, Galaxian, Beserk, Jungle Hunt, Joust, Pole Position, Starcastle, Defender and plenty more where that came from- a complete list can be found here.
Also, three key sequences revolve around arcade game competitions- shades of The Wizard- two of which involve fairly obscure games: Streaking (see footage of the game here- it was the rare one involving nudity, which is probably why its lesser-known here in America) and Satan's Hollow (see footage here), as well as a then-advance look at Super Pac-Man. Clark got the rights to use many Williams and Midway games, including the right to use Pac-Man himself as a "wipe," aka a segue between one scene to another, which is pretty cute.
For what is was, I really enjoyed it. I had a nice beer buzz at the time and was in the proper frame of mind for something like this- you might want to do the same, especially if you're going to watch this with a group- though I wouldn't advise that right now, what with the pandemic in full swing. Maybe watch it in a group Zoom of something, lol. Whatever the case, I had fun with it for what it was.
I say check it out- and Roku, too, for that matter. It's a nicely cheap alternative to the likes of Netflix, Hulu, Fandango and so forth- you can't beat free, after all. Well, with the cost of a smart TV, that is. But still, mine was pretty cheap- it was just over $200 and was almost as big as my previous one, which cost considerably more. If anything, I like it better than that one, in spite of the downsizing. (It's a TLC brand, for the record.)
Game on, people! 👾💥😀
The film was directed by actor-turned-writer/producer/director Greydon Clark, who went from starring in B-movies to making them. He was in the aforementioned Satan's Sadists- he was "Acid"- Hell's Bloody Devils, Dracula vs. Frankenstein and Psychic Killer, among others, before turning to the other side of the camera primarily, though he occasionally acted here and there, mostly in his own movies. His movies are iffy, quality-wise, but a lot of fun, nonetheless, and boy, did he churn them out at quite a pace- though not quite at a Corman or Richard Band level. (Stiff competition.)
Movies he directed include Black Shampoo, Satan's Cheerleaders (love it), Angels' Brigade, The Return, Without Warning (another good one), the slasher spoof Wacko (which features a lot of the same cast as this one), Final Justice (also with Baker), Uninvited (about a killer cat!), Skinheads, The Forbidden Dance (one of several movies about the Lambata, with a young Laura Harring, of Mulholland Drive fame), Dance Macabre (another dance-themed flick, this one about a killer instructor, played by Robert "Freddy Krueger" Englund!), Russian Holiday, Dark Future and Stargames.
Clark shot this one in a mere 13 days, on a $300,000 budget- it ended up making nearly $4 million at the box office, a pretty solid return investment. As I mentioned, it was a popular favorite on cable TV, and on home video, via the almighty Vestron. It has been released both on DVD and Blu-Ray, though the latter is out of print.
If you can find it, the Blu features a commentary and interview with Clark, plus the requisite trailer. (Here's a solid Q&A with Clark, for those interested.) The DVD is still readily available, though, and, as mentioned, it's streaming in various locales, including Amazon Prime. It was free on Roku, though.
Obviously, this is a silly little film. It's super low budget, and looks it, but if you tuned into a movie called Joysticks looking for high quality, you need to rethink your priorities- it's not that kind of film. That said, you know you're getting old when you find yourself enjoying the invaluable footage of classic arcade games than the boobs. After all, you can do a search on any given porn site for "gamer girl" and see a damn sight more than you do here.
Seriously, though, if you were around in the 80's-early 90's, this thing is flashback-inducing. I saw games I hadn't thought about in years- we're talking Moon Patrol, Gorf, Millipede, Galaxian, Beserk, Jungle Hunt, Joust, Pole Position, Starcastle, Defender and plenty more where that came from- a complete list can be found here.
Also, three key sequences revolve around arcade game competitions- shades of The Wizard- two of which involve fairly obscure games: Streaking (see footage of the game here- it was the rare one involving nudity, which is probably why its lesser-known here in America) and Satan's Hollow (see footage here), as well as a then-advance look at Super Pac-Man. Clark got the rights to use many Williams and Midway games, including the right to use Pac-Man himself as a "wipe," aka a segue between one scene to another, which is pretty cute.
For what is was, I really enjoyed it. I had a nice beer buzz at the time and was in the proper frame of mind for something like this- you might want to do the same, especially if you're going to watch this with a group- though I wouldn't advise that right now, what with the pandemic in full swing. Maybe watch it in a group Zoom of something, lol. Whatever the case, I had fun with it for what it was.
I say check it out- and Roku, too, for that matter. It's a nicely cheap alternative to the likes of Netflix, Hulu, Fandango and so forth- you can't beat free, after all. Well, with the cost of a smart TV, that is. But still, mine was pretty cheap- it was just over $200 and was almost as big as my previous one, which cost considerably more. If anything, I like it better than that one, in spite of the downsizing. (It's a TLC brand, for the record.)
Game on, people! 👾💥😀
No comments:
Post a Comment