Tagged: 80s
Comic Book Cover of the Week: The HULK Goes Berserk?!
I can’t begin to tell you just how much I love this particular comic book cover and how much as a child I loved this particular issue of ‘What If?’!! It really make sense as we get one of the greatest comic book artists ever responsible for this masterpiece, Bill Sienkiewicz doing an unforgettable rendition of the jade giant on issue #45. ‘What If?’ was an incredibly fun comic book back in the classic Marvel days and this issue from 1984 was one as a kid I carried with me everywhere. This one retells the classic origin story but in this reality Banner fails to save Rick Jones from the gamma blast and while Rick doesn’t die the Army ends up killing him-Sending the Hulk into a crazy rage. The Hulk freaks out and takes down the Fantastic Four and Iron Man killing several them in the process. It’s a great, surprisingly violent issue and in the end The Hulk’s rage costs him his own life. Anyway this cover will always remain one of my faves, Sienkiewicz never fails when doing comic book covers, with the pencil and ink in his hands you always knew you were going to get something truly special!
Herve Villechaize: The Pop Star?!
I’ve loved the show Fantasy Island when I was a kid, it always managed to scare the shit out of me! You know I’ve recently watched several episodes of the show again and it still totally holds up. A super cool concept and a killer cast-which brings me to one of it’s legendary characters “Tattoo” played by Herve Villachaize. He etched the phrase “Ze plane, ze plane” into people’s minds for all of eternity!
But a little known fact about Herve was that back in 1980 he had a small musical career too! Yep in the middle of his incredible success with Fantasy Island he recorded a single for Epic Records. Turns out Herve was also quite a crooner with some seriously rad style.
The single featured two tracks “Why” & “When a Child is Born” unfortunately the songs didn’t catapult Herve to arena tours with Michael Jackson and the song ‘Why’ was released again and included on the Epic records compilation “Children of the World”. Here’s some live footage of Herve gettin’ down with his attempted pop hit ‘Why’!
After that as the popularity of Fantasy Island continued to grow Herve’s ego also reportedly began to grow too. He was said to be quite demanding and difficult to work with insisting that he be paid equally with Ricardo Montalban’s salary. He ended up getting fired from the show and his star power proved quite relevant as the show’s following dwindled during a final season with no Tattoo. Hunt down his Epic single if you dare!
Still haven’t had enough? Well here’s some more Herve killin’ it live again!!
VHS Verdict: ‘Thunder Run’ Proves That in the 80’s Old Guys Kick Ass!
I dusted off a VHS copy of ‘Thunder Run’ from 1986 last night and we got to see a hotshot 67 year old action star kickin’ major ass in his souped up semi truck! Yeeehaw! Yep this one was a total blast, if you’re looking for some seriously over the top action and crazy car chase trucker mayhem then you just won the fuckin’ lottery!
Forrest Tucker is the man here, a retired truck driver named Charlie who’s asked by an old friend/ Gov’t operative to drive a load of plutonium across a barren Arizona highway to lure out some psychotic terrorists and take them out once and for all. Sounds like a fool proof plan huh?
Nope this one doesn’t give us Jean Claude Van Damme or a Chuck Norris type kicking ass, instead you get an elderly bad ass geezer who tricks out his rig with a bunch deadly secret weapons he can activate via dashboard flip switches. We’ve got some classic bad guys too, their leader, a poor man’s Michael Ironside look alike with a nasty attitude and of course naturally a nasty facial scar (because we all know evil people sport nasty facial scars) does his best to be the perfect evil 80’s villain. The best part of the flick though is when the actual dangerous drive cross country begins and Charlie discovers his grandson is hiding in the cab and is fully ready for duo tag team terrorist ass whoopin!
So once the action kicks into high gear it really just does not let up. Nope this one has crazy terrorists coming after the big rig from every direction on motorcycles, fake cop cars, weaponized Volkswagon Beetles & rival semi trucks. Charlie and his grandson get down and dirty roasting terrorists with flame throwers that they’ve installed into the sides of the semi, battering rams and some truly outrageous big rig road antics.
This is the type of flick where it don’t take much more than a scratch to blow the fuck out of car with huge amounts of fire shit flying everywhere. It’s nice to actually see real explosions again in a damn movie that’s for sure. One scene in particular where they jump the 18 wheeler (with plutonium in back mind you) over a moving train! Oh and the finale through the ridiculous laser tunnel is a total blast as well. So check this one out if you’re jonesin’ for a different type of action flick and action hero as ‘Thunder Run’ will deliver the goods on all cylinders and then some! This one’s worth hunting down!
We Can Never Go Home – Truly Dangerous Teen Angst and Punk Spirit in the 80’s!
Oh how I love the 80’s! There’s something truly unique about that decade and even more so to me, having grown up in that era. That might be one of the reasons why I am loving ‘We Can Never Go Home‘ from Black Mask Studios so much, it really holds some serious nostalgia within it’s pages. In the late 80’s I was probably just about the same age as these characters in the book and was fueled by things like skateboarding, punk rock and well for me…girls. This series is set in 1989 and feature two characters who somehow seem like long lost characters from my childhood, only these two teens have something other than just raging hormones pulsating through their veins, they’ve also got some strange superhuman abilities. So what’s so unique about a story with some teenage misfits with dangerous mutant like powers you might ask?
Well writer Matthew Rosenberg pulls no punches and at issue #2 we see our two leads getting into a boat load of serious, serious trouble. Imagine if you were a teenager with raging hormones and you had a peculiar case of superhuman strength or could kill someone with your mind? It’d be a dangerous scenario and after our two troubled teens Madison & Duncan become friends it becomes quite an unholy alliance. With Madison sending her boyfriend crashing through a car window after he picks a fight with a loner punk rocker Duncan, things begin to get real messy real quick. Soon these two find out they have more in common than they ever imagined.
After one fatal move the two are bound to never go home and head off on a road trip that by issue number two will have you gasping for air. These two teens just seem to get deeper and deeper into a tangled web that could easily cost them and anyone they care about their lives. So what better solution than stealing a car and robbing the local drug dealer of all his cash huh?
I’m also loving all of excellent references to old punk rock, mix tapes with everything awesome & confusing about being a teen in the 1980’s. It’s clear Rosenberg himself is a fan of the era and he captures the heart of a great rebellious 80’s flick within the pages of his book, which isn’t an easy task. I can already see this series transformed into great tv series or movie, kind like if ‘Heathers’ and ‘Firestarter’ got together and had lovechild.
So in a time when superhero books leave you feeling a bit empty inside it’s nice to know we’ve got a true alternative to the genre and one more exciting road trip left to go on with that awesome girl (or boy) that may have have got away many years ago. Just make sure to bring that totally rad old mix tape on this ride because is gonna get epic and most definitely deadly…
1-900-MONSTER! The Best 80’s Halloween Horror Hotline!!
Dang, sometimes I reaaaallly miss the 1980’s! They were such a fun time to be a kid especially around this time of year for the Halloween season! So here’s a little totally radical blast from the past, an awesome 1980’s horror hotline 1-900-Monster!! Yep back in the 80’s we had to be super creative because we didn’t have shit like smart phones and the internet to distract us 24-7! If we wanted to spend our time obsessing over a telephone it was over shit like 1-900-Monster and it was a parents worst nightmare-because this shit was expensive-it was 2 bucks for the first minute and an additional 50 cents every minute after that! Yeah and once you got a demon on the phone you better believe you were gonna listen to what he had to say!! Check this awesome vid out and stick around for the incredible short Halloween segment that follows, ah the memories…
The Seventh Curse: Indiana Jones….on Acid!
I finally checked out a movie I’d been wanting to see now for the longest time-The Seventh Curse from 1986! This is surely one of the coolest movies that you’ve never seen! This Chinese action/ adventure/ horror movie has got it all and I’d really expect no less from a flick by Ngai Kai Lam. If you aren’t familiar with Lam you’ve missed out big time for a long time. Most famous for “Riki-Oh:The Story of Ricky” from 1991, which is seriously one of the coolest movies ever made, The Seventh Curse is equally as good in different yet similar ways. I guess I’d best have to describe The Seventh Curse as Hong Kong’s fucked up version of Indiana Jones, and I mean that in the best way possible.
This one has it all really, a young adventuresome cop deep in the jungles of Thailand tries to rescue a beautiful girl from being sacrificed by the evil “Worm Tribe”. In doing so he’s captured by an evil witch Doctor who casts seven “Blood Curses” on him, which burst through his legs periodically. When the seventh bursts, it will affect his heart killing him swiftly. Betsy (a strange mane for a member of The Worm Tribe), the hot jungle vixen he saved, stops the curse with an antidote, that she draws from the most peculiar place(trust me).
This however will only protect him for one year, so on the advice of his friend Wisely (Chow Yun-fat) he heads back to Thailand to find a permanent cure. Serious adventure ensues as the cop and his mercenaries battle the evil sorcerer of the Worm Tribe, a ridiculously hideous blood hungry baby-like creature, and finally “Old Ancestor,” a skeleton with glowing blue eyes that’s got some impressive kung fu chops himself and can transforms into something far more sinister!
Sound like fun? You bet it is! Throw in some great 80’s style monster effects, some great sets, jungle adventure sequences, top notch kung fu, some nice gore and a bunch of really bizarro plot twists and you’ve got a true genre classic that is not to be missed by any fan of awesome odd ball cinema. The Seventh Curse is just as cool in my opinion as Riki-Oh and it really makes me want to hunt down down more of Lam’s movies. This one pretty hard to find on dvd, but I’m sure it could be downloaded somewhere on line, or you could buy it on Amazon.com. If you’re craving some wild offbeat 80’s adventure then this one movie NOT to be missed!!!
Chuck Norris Really is Expendable!
So here’s a picture from the next Expendables movie currently filming with none other than Chuck Norris! I was actually doubting that he was going to be in the sequel, well because that’d be too damn awesome! But alas here he is in the flesh at 71 years old! So now I wonder if Chuck will be pulling out any of his classic moves in this flick? Can he still kick ass? Time will tell I suppose but I have to say my childhood self is getting pretty pumped for this all star cast-this movie is going to be pure loud dumb awesome nostalgia!! Served just the way I like it….
Dorks, and Dating.
Dating has been a long time challenge for extremely smart men with active imaginations (Dorks). But luckily there are some great dating services out there to help those lonely souls in need of companionship. After watching this we might need to bring video dating back to the forefront of the singles scene.
Universal Dork 