Marjoe

Marjoe

United States – 1971

 Director – Sarah Kernochan and Howard Smith

RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video, 1983, VHS

Run Time – 1 hour, 25 minutes

The first impression one gets while watching Marjoe – the man, not the movie- is that you’re being conned. Marjoe the film is about the man of the same name, Marjoe Gortner, whom I was introduced to, as I suspect most people within ten or so years on either side of 30 who watch movies were, by way of Starcrash. He was in a few other choice exploitation films of the late 70’s, but the Luigi Cozzi Star Wars rip off is probably his greatest work (and Cozzi’s.) Before he entered low budget cinema however, Gortner was a Pentacostal revival preacher from the age of four.

The difficulty, if it can be called that, for it is something more akin to suspicion and contagion, is in deciphering which of Gortner’s personalities is real; the speaking in tounges version, or the turned on tie-dye version, for each seems equally genuine. True, it’s unlikely that many of us has been to a revival the likes of those seen in Marjoe, but they bear a striking resemblance to the stories, and if the conviction and feeling of the attendees is anything to go on, Gortner is both effective and affective. Gortner is as convincing in his spasmic and gesticulating Haleilujah’s as he is counting the cash afterwards and explaining the intricacies of the faith healing scam to the documentary crew. Therein lies what I suspect is the convincing factor for so many fans of Marjoe (The Academy deemed it Best Documentary, 1972); its protagonists bizarre lack of duality. There is no difference outside context.

Gortner is not at one time a preacher and at another a hippie, but at all times Marjoe. To me this is what reveals the great lie in religion, for the pious man, the mouthpiece of God, the very conduit of the Holy Spirit (and thus the source of experiential faith) is merely a skilled and practiced (and it appears, weary) man at a job. He preaches because he knows how and it is lucrative, called to it as much as a plumber is “called” to fit pipe. The devout need him to confirm their faith in God as much as his long-haired pals need him to confirm their belief that it’s a sham. And of course, Gortner needs Marjoe in order to prove that he has a moral soul. It is fortunate for us, and I assume for Gortner that he can see and point to the difference between truth and fiction. It’s even more so to those like myself who are unbelievers, that Marjoe (the man and the movie) doesn’t clearly distinguish between the two because to do otherwise would be to rely on a common, but false dichotomy. Whether or not religion or science can be empirically proven is, for most of us, irrelevant. Each exists primarily to affirm through varying methods, our desires rather than any objective reality.

 We're gonna save this here pup, show him the kingdom of the almighty and bring him to Jesus!

Image 2 from MOMA
Image 3 from Jarrett's Blog
Image 4 from Awkwardboyhero

American Ninjae (pl.)

The Confrontation

United States - 1987

Director - Sam Firstenberg

Starring Michael Dudikoff and Steve James

Excuse me Ma'am, wow.
American Ninja 2 trailer courtesy of CannonFilms.

Blood Hunt

United States - 1989

Director - Cedrick Sundstrom

Starring - David Bradley, Steve James and Marjoe Gortner

American Ninja 3 trailer courtesy hailtotheking4051.

And I leave you with this awesome AN2 clip from ZolaC

Starcrash

Starcrash
1978 – Italy

Director – Luigi Cozzi (as Lewis Coates)

VCI Entertainment, 2007, DVD

Starcrash is an homage, a science-fiction movie nerd film. If I had been able to make a seriously budgeted sci-fi film at 15, I would have done the exact same thing. Luigi Cozzi is not a man of subtlety. He knows what he likes, and he seeks to recreate it. He openly admits to stealing the Aliens concept to make 1980’s Contamination. What better way to extend the ecstasy of the original experience than to do your best to mimic it. Cozzi’s films are, for lack of a better term, cinematic masturbation.

Starcrash may very well be the pinnacle of that form, an amalgam of great moments from the best sci-fi nerd films very poorly redone . Lets begin with an egregious Star Wars rip-off opening. Within the first scene, we meet Marjoe Gortner’s character (the reason I picked this up) and soon, a plethora of other B-list actors and brutally dollar store special effects. First is his sidekick, Stella Star (Caroline Munroe). The two are on the run from the space cops and enter hyperspace to escape, but when they stop to check out an abandoned ship, they are busted and sentenced to hard labor by a goofy brain creature (which screams “directly stolen from another movie”, but I can’t place it). While doing penance in a balloon mine, Stella uses a guards laser gun to escape the barbarian movie set and “board” a model ship where badguys inform her of her clandestine mission with Marjoe…

Somehow, dirty drunk Italians, Stella and her dumb-redneck sidekick Robot-L end up landing a ship on a beach and blundering into a Jason and the Argonauts ripoff with a giant metal-boobed robot titan. Yes, this fucking open theft is such garbage!


Yes, there’s some snowy planet Empire Strikes ripoff, but wait! That movie hasn’t been made yet! Another search of another shipwreck results in Stella and the damned huckster-robot being captured by cave-dwelling dwarves. (insert 2001 rip) Suddenly they are almost rescued by a hideous monster guy in tights who shoots lasers from his makeup caked eyes, David Hasselhoff! What? Hoff screws up and Marjoe must perform the final heroics with his awesome laser-sword thing, damn what a genius concept.

Luckily our heroes have tripped and fallen into the right planet, the Evil Counts HQ basey thing, where he keeps his stop-motion robot-golems. Yes! Finally, a giant incredibly prolonged laser battle, with a few mercifully brief breaks, takes place between the good guys, who make some benevolent plans, and the Count, who does some evil-planning betwixt spaceship launchings. The Count, Zarth Arn, played to the absolute hilt by Joe fucking Spinell cackles a lot, and his evil space base, which is shaped like a giant evil claw, literally curls into a fist and shoots lasers at stuff, and goes down in sparkly space-flames as Zarth Arn and I both chortled our way into glorious idiotic hell.

Watch the Starcrash trailer at CultTrailers.
See some rad promotional art at Satan's Hope Chest.


The John Solie poster that became the video cassette cover.


The publicity shot that became the DVD cover of a different title.

Thai or Indonesian poster I got from somewhere.

Jungle Warriors

Jungle Warriors

a.ka. Euer Weg fuhrt durch die Holle

Germany - 1984

Director- Ernst R. von Theumer

Media Home Entertainment, 1985, VHS

What a whole load of good vibes I got off this movie. Sybill Danning is in it, and I saw a photo-still of her holding an assault rifle and standing with a bunch of girls in bikinis. "This son-of-a-bitch has got to be really good," I thought. I read that it was directed by a German guy, and originally went by a German title, cool, I like German sensibility. Fuggin' guns and drugs 'n' girls in small clothing, what could be better, right?

It opens with a short battle scene involving Woody Strode in a beret and sporting a small children's bow and arrow. Lethal in jump cuts at all ranges, Strode and Co. kill all other people in the scene, whoever they're supposed to be.

A fat white guy, John Vernon (Chained Heat and tons of other crap) is a sleazy, cocky American drug dealer who heads down to fictional cartel country to cut a huge deal with an even fatter white guy (posing as a brown guy). In the meantime blonde jerky-stick (Marjoe Gortner of Starcrash) is dragging his squad of supermodels down to South America for an exotic photo shoot. Get it? Massive narcotics deal, plus massive sex appeal equals action movie! With hot chicks! And no action!


This turns so quickly into a talkie that it's hard to really shake the first couple of scenes from your mind. Wait, Marjoe just got impaled on a jungle trap, are you really going to attempt to develop the shallow ridiculous plot for the next hour? I was made sad by so much of the repeated foundering at intrigue this attempted that, with the CIA ops and cartel and fat white dudes, it completely lost me.
John Vernon and Sybil Danning are both remarkably disappointing in the wake of Panther Squad, and Chained Heat, some of my recent favorites. All in all, this flick is punctuated by a few moments of effectively repugnant behavior and a more or less awesome soundtrack (except for a scene of 80's pop pap). And as excitingly gross (no really) as that is, the movie never seems ready to admit that that's it's purpose. If only we could admit that sometimes all we wanted was big boobs and bloodsplosion medicine. Then maybe we wouldn't get tricked into gagging repeatedly on this completely inedible spoon called "plot".

Some DVD covers from Europe and Japan, poor suckers.A crappy French poster:Compare the Jungle Warriors video box at the top, with the box art from Future Hunters, I think they're the same artist!