Ok, glad I got that out of my system. Now on to the movie. Burt Reynolds is a murdering sociopath pederast with a case of jungle fever, but his real flaw is that he’s a cop. I’ve had my car broken into. I’ve had countless things stolen from me. I’ve even had a gun pulled on me. Not once has a police officer solved any of those cases; however, I’ve had them write me tickets for six miles over the speed limit. I’ve had them threaten to harm me for attempting to film them beating a helpless drunk. I’ve endured countless condescending speeches and barked orders, knowing the slightest deviation from said orders would introduce my ribs to a nightstick. You see, in a fight, cops are not allowed to lose. You try and remove his hands from your neck and it’s assaulting a police officer. If a policeman wants to beat you, you better just close your eyes and think of England. And that’s why so many wusses become cops. Their life is a game of Mortal Kombat, and they get all the cheat codes. I’ve never committed a crime in my adult existence, yet I fear police somewhere between cancer and dropping my cell phone into a public toilet. I know that all of them are not bad, but enough of them are. That’s why it pained me to see Devin Butler, our film’s adorable protagonist, want to grow up to be a police officer.

We soon learn why this is so. Devin’s responsibility to the community takes a back seat to his desire to be respected. He’s regularly bullied by two teenagers who inexplicably spend a majority of their time in a grade school bathroom. Instead of taking life’s lumps, learning from the pain, and channeling his rage into something productive, he looks for the shortest way possible to dominance: police work. He wants to feel the spinal cord of his assailers under his boot while he calls them scumbags. He wants to hear fear in their voices, fear that will give him a high of orgasmic reveling that he will chase the rest of his days like some gutter-dwelling junkie. It is here the bullied becomes the bully. Such is the life of a cop, cursed to walk the earth in a state of infinite anxiety while having birdshit for a soul.

Cops create crime the way a drone’s collateral damage creates terrorists. They are abhorred in many communities as untrustworthy, lying abusers of power just as crooked as the men they pursue. They do almost nothing to deter youths from turning to crime. An athlete who goes into a gymnasium in an inner city public school and gives a heartfelt speech about the stupidity of drugs and the nobility of respecting your neighbors does the job of a thousand police officers. Ok, maybe I’m over doing it, but the next time I get robbed, I might as well call Chad Ochocinco. It would accomplish just as much as 911.

So back to the movie: using 80′s logic, Devin Butler isn’t allowed to carry a movie himself. He’s too short. Too sassy. Too black. We all know what happens to short, sassy black kids (think Gary Coleman and Webster): They ended up being owned by an old white guy. That’s where Burt comes in. He complains about having to take the kid in and hates how you can’t take a child to a bar because after two drinks they fall off the stool. It’s a rocky start, but the hate soon morphs into some kind of man-boy lust, and thats when things get weird.

Here are the top three creepy, homoerotic, pedophilic scenes:

3.) A long, hot hard hug. Burt saves the kid from an oncoming car. He tackles him. They roll around like lovers having a ticklefight on clean sheets. They come to rest and look in each others eyes for a really, really long time. It’s here I realize that I should delete this movie from my computer as soon as it’s over. Burt’s chest hair has entangled the child in it’s grasp. It’s the only explanation for such a prolonged embrace.

2.) Burt gets shot in the shoulder and decides he’s unfit to operate the most basic of seacraft. If Forest Gump could operate a shrimp boat by himself, I’m positive a one armed Burt could drive a speedboat. In any case, he asks the kid to take the wheel and places innocent little Devin right on his lap. They then go on a very bumpy boat ride. Burt’s facial expressions suggest climax.

1.) The kid is brushing his teeth in Burt’s bathroom. Burt walks over, whips it out, and starts peeing in the toilet. It takes a sick fucker to do that, and the fact that Burt achieves such a strong, continuous stream almost immediately shows that this isn’t his first time peeing in front of children. The kid abandons his oral hygiene and decides to walk right up to Burt’s dick which is about eye level. The kid takes his dick out too. That’s right, this is happening. The kid asks to sword fight and proceeds to piss all over Burt’s feet. It was then that lust turned into love.

And now, questions you may be wondering about:

How much dick-jabbing is involved: Lots, Burt even teaches the kid how to do it, throwing a fist into testicles is something all cops love to do, and he even teaches little Devin how it’s done. He becomes known around the schoolyard as The Little Cockpuncher That Burt Built.

Does Devin make a good cop: Sure, he actually does. Proof that it’s a pretty easy job if an 8 year old can do it. I bet he could also work in a toll both or the House of Representatives.

Underlying racism: Of course, it was the 80′s. Burt threatens to tie Devin to the axel of his car and drag him around town. That’s a little insensitive given the history of that acutally happening. Also, the name of the movie, Cop and a Half is racist in itself, as black people used to count for 1/3 a man in the 1880′s. In the 1980′s they made it up to 1/2. It was almost to a whole number before Martin Lawrence made Big Mommas House.

Does Burt really give a shit about the kid: The molestation suggests there is at least some sort of connection, albeit physical; however, he brings him to a bar, stakeout, and gunfight, all in between blowing second hand smoke in his face.

Who were the villains here: besides the racist pedophile and the black nerd, there was a guy named Vinny Fountain who wore a hair piece and liked to sing golden oldies. He and his goons were so cartoonish, it made me wonder if the entire movie was supposed to be some metaphysical parable inside of a dream, seen through the eyes of a child. I expected Devin to awake, alone in his grandmother’s house, yearning for a paternal Reynolds whom never existed at all. He would eventually return to his school where he would be bullied into suicide.

Fun Fact: Henry Wrinkler directed this

Fun Fact B: The kid currently performs as a rapper known as Enormus.

You probably think this movie is about Indiana Jones. You probably also think it’s about a temple made out of doom. Well, you’d probably be wrong! It’s about one man’s struggle to practice his religion. Before Stallone’s sweat ever touched a Russian or Van Damn ever roundhoused an Asian, a man by the name of Mola Ram was ripping the still-beating hearts out of his frail, malnourished countrymen, and he was doing it so that he could eventually rule the world. To me, that’s more interesting than any storyline involving some adrenalin-seeking professor and his crew of flunkies (a superficially shallow white geisha and a Chinese child who knew slightly less kung fu and slightly more English than Jackie Chan). I think “Short Round” (as Indie called him) was actually Data from the Goonies, but who knows, they all look….Chinese. And Short Round is extra Chinese, rike rearry rearry Chinese. I’m surprised they didn’t have him eat a dog right after building a cheap computer. But back to the most charismatic cult leader since Jim Jones:

Mola Ram is a man of action, vision, and intense spirituality. He believes if he can find these magic stones while performing heart rips to these ancient chants, he can rule the whole world. It’s not clear what he will do when ruling the world, possibly ripping more hearts, mandating the wearing of devil-horned hats, or even legalizing pot. Who knows? All that is certain is that a future where Mola Ram reigns would be quite interesting. Growing up, my sister and I were mesmerized by him. Sure we thought his savage cardiovascular pursuits were horrific, and his beliefs in some heathen God were misguided, but we ate hotdogs (do you know what they put in hotdogs!) and worshipped the sandal-wearing zombie son of a deity who lived in outer space and condoned slavery, incest, and polygamy. Funny how time puts all things into perspective. Who were we to ever judge Mola Ram? When we’d used to get in fights, I remember I’d put my hand over her heart and chant the magic words, “Bali Mathi Kali Ma, Shakthi Digi Kali Ma…Kali Ma…Kali Ma!!!” I’d always refraining from saying, “Kali Ma” the third time, actually afraid that it might work, and I’d de-heart my little sis. It would scare the shit out of both of us. Even now as an adult, I’ll hold up my hand like a claw and yell, “Kali Ma” to any aggressor who happens to be smaller than I am. I actually did try it on a dead tree frog before, and it worked, so I can honestly say when it comes to heart rips, I’m batting 1.000.

Stupid Political Content: It’s 1930′s India, and Mola Ram kidnappes a bunch of children from a nearby village and makes them work in his rock quarry looking for these magic stones (which look kind of like petrified T-rex jizz). This may seem harsh on one hand, but retrospectively knowing these little tikes were destined to grow up stitching swooshes on Nike’s for 16 hours a day anyhow makes it sort of understandable. Mola Ram is inadvertently trying to fashion a future for India that doesn’t involve them and their grandchildren toiling away in sweatshops so fat Americans can buy a 5 pack of XXL T-shirts for $4.99. It seems logical to have one generation of children enslaved so that future generations won’t make twenty dollars a month in the garment business. For that, he gets a pass. There is also a scene where Indie has the keys to the shackles of the enslaved children. They are crowding around him begging to be freed. I’ve been to the Indian subcontinent, and had children crowd around me begging in a similar manner, but I didn’t feel like a great liberator, not by a long stretch, not in my XXL T-shirt. It says a lot about the world when you wonder if a heart-ripping lunatic taking over the globe might lead to a better future for the world’s poor. But it doesn’t matter. Indie stopped him, and I can find more change in my couch cushions and center consol than a garment worker makes in a week. That doesn’t make me happy, but I’m not sure I’d change it either. Excess breeds its own weird brand of selfishness.

Crazy Indian Stereotypes: Back in the 1980′s, Google didn’t exist; therefore, nobody knew the truth about anything. Somebody once told me that everybody urinated blood on their 13th birthday. I believed that until…well, my 13th birthday. I was also told that French people had this thing in their bathrooms next to the toilet that would shoot water up your butthole and it would come out your dickhole, rinsing out your whole body, and that’s why they lived longer in France. In the 80′s you could say anything about a culture and it was believed. In this movie, they have a gross-out scene at a dinner table where Indians eat eyeball soup, monkey brains, and live snakes. The people in my hometown thought that’s exactly what Indian food was, which is why they still don’t have an Indian restaurant within 40 miles of them to this day.

Creepy Undertones: All the kiddy violence. If you’re the kind of pedophile that likes violence against shirtless little boys, you’re gonna consider this a classic. There is an inordinate amount of child beatings going on in this movie. Little shirtless, shackled kids toiling away in mines and being whipped by sweaty, smiling mustachioed creeps. Most of the adults inflict pain on children during the course of the movie. At one point, even Indie gets in on the action: after drinking some slumdog blood, he turns into a crazed zombie controlled by the heart ripper himself and even smacks around his little sidekick. We also have kids punching kids. Kids getting slapped. Kids being burned. Even a gay kid emperor playing with a voodoo doll. If all that doesn’t make you uncomfortable, your name and address should probably be in some database.

Novelty Deaths: There are quite a few. Indie throws a flaming shish kabob through an unsuspecting Chinaman. A dude gets hanged from the strongest ceiling fan in the world. A burly S&M child abuser gets sent through a rock rusher and comes out flatter than a drunk freshmen on karaoke night. A guy gets his heart ripped out and lowered into a tornado of fire, a firenado! There are so many great deaths and fight scenes. Indie regularly knocks out bad guys with just one punch. I’m starting to think the only Indian who can adequately defend himself is “Great Tiger” from Mike Tyson’s Punch Out, and even he is ranked lower than a guy named “Soda Popinski.” No wonder their greatest warrior was a guy who advocated passive resistance. What else could they do?

But back to Indiana Jones, I’m not even sure Indie is even a real Doctor. Back then, it was easy to forge documents. Leonardo Decaprio faked his way into being a pilot. Tim Robbins got his alter ego a driver’s license, from fucking jail. How do we know this guy graduated from a reputable university? So what if he knows the Himalayas from the Alps, it doesn’t mean he’s a geographical genius. If I lived back then, I’d have convinced everyone I was a war hero named Deek Whole with a doctorate from Harvard in hopscotch. People were so stupid and trusting back then. Nowadays, you need two forms of I.D. just to get a job at Taco Bell. Times have changed. In any case, this is my favorite of the Indiana Jones movies by far. It has a darkness to it that most Hollywood blockbusters don‘t. They tried making up for that with the picturesque ending, but it was too late. The kids were returned to the village, but after what they went through, were they really still kids? Would they ever be the same after the summer of 1936 when they all got kidnapped and forced to work in a rock quarry while being tortured by a bunch of weirdoes? None of it really matters to western eyes though because Indie kisses the bimbo, the elephant shoots water on them, and the little Chinese kid points and says, “Werry Frunny“

THE END

Cannonball Run. Could a film more accurately encapsulate the competitive ass kickery that once consumed our culture? I think not. Let’s delve into the devolution of how us Americans interpret a race:

In today’s narcissistic, introspective society, metaphysical revelations tell us that in the end, the race is only with one’s self. There is no competition. We all run to the beat of a different auto-tuned song. It’s about the inner-journey, man.

Back in the early 2000′s, the winner of a race was anybody who had the guts to try. Everyone who dared step to the starting line was rewarded with a little trophy that said, “Participant!” The only way to lose a race…was to not enter one.

Back in the 1990′s, to even mention the word “race” was taboo, as hyper-sensitive honkeys were terrified some minority would take it the wrong way and sue them…or worse, accuse them of being a “racist.” Reginald Denny even stopped his truck for brick-wielding, rioting thugs in fear of being labeled a racist. He got his skull caved in, but proved that he was metaphorically color blind in the process… and became regular color blind after. I think America back then lost its since of humor (and Denny lost his sense of smell) because we ignored that we are a nation of diverse, beautiful people. Without getting too specific, some of us are great at math but can’t drive. Some of us are fantastic singers but go all bonkers when watching street magic. And some of us have all the money but age poorly and can’t dance. I think in the 90′s, we all tried to pretend these generalizations had no factual basis, and that made us a lame ass bland bunch of wusses.

But in the 1980′s, a race was exactly what it should be: One winner and a shit load of dust-eating losers. The title “honorable mention” carried the same weight as “Faggot,” and bronze and silver were relics of failure and shame. Back then, you didn’t race to learn about yourself. You didn’t race prove something to your daddy. You raced to win the fucking race, hello! It was done in the same vein as Oscar Wilde’s decadent bunch doing “art for art’s sake.” It was for the love of the action, nothing more. There was a level of purity in it. In the 80′s, there were winners, losers, and nothing in between. Gray area was for European poets and the morality of fucking your second cousin.

So that brings us to the movie, which is about a race, The Cannonball Run: an illegal street race from sea to shinning sea across this great nation of ours. There are no rules. Fastest time wins. Try not to die, get arrested, or lose. Those are the only suggestions. Now gentlemen, start your engines. But first, let’s take a look at our racers:

The Protagonists: Burt Reynolds and Dom Deloise team up to take on the world. Now I have to stop here to dissect their mustaches. Dom’s stach looks like Super Mario meets military dictator, and Burt’s is a cross between adolescent Mexican and latent homosexual mail carrier. That’s powerful. Put it this way, if their mustaches got together and had a baby, it would probably be a leather disco ball that grunts and has a 427 cubic inch V-8 that runs on after shave. They pick up two people along the way. One’s name is Dr. Van Helsig, a proctologist who got his credentials from taking night classes at the Knoxville Tennessee College of Faith Healing. When asked if he should bring his medical equipment, he extends his elongated 9 inch middle finger and says something to the effect of, “This is usually all I need!” He spends most of the film trying to fingerbang people up the ass and shooting himself up with morphine. Also joining them is Farrah Faucet, a tree-loving dingbat with a heart of gold and a brain of air. She’s a little seperated from reality, as evidenced by her constantly saying, “You know what I like most about trees…you can lie under them on a moonlit night with the breeze blowing…and then blow your brains out!” She spends a good chunk of the film fucked up on Dr. Van Helsig’s dope, which shouldn’t have been much of an acting stretch for her. It’s entirely possible that she never realized they were shooting a movie.

Car: This foursome parades around in an Ambulance, which is good because they can speed through towns under the guise of a medical emergency, free from judicial indictment. The downside is that this ride is a lot like a live Anna Nichole Smith: slow, top-heavy, and filled with meds.

The Rat Pack: Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin almost stole this film. This binge-drinking, fast-talking duo certainly stole my heart. Sammy, with the mannerisms of Izzy from “Miami Vice,” rambling like Bill Cosby high on pudding pops, and flaunting his giant Jew chain to claim that Yahweh is their co-pilot, provided constant yuks. Dean Martin, constantly on SDJ’s hip, playing a lush, crude pervert who slurred his way in and out of scenes with the slickness of a handsome fedoraed hipster at a drunk office party. Did I mention that they were both dressed as Catholic priests? Burt Reynolds at one point calls SDJ a “chocolate monk.” Rarely is a joke both racist and religiously offensive. We call that a two-fer.

Car: A red Ferrari! The pros are that it’s fast as fuck and will moisten panties; the cons are that multi-racial priests in a convertible Ferrari holding alcoholic drinks while speeding kind of sticks out.

007: Roger Moore playing himself, and doing it even better than Kareem did in Airplane. Whenever he was driving, the Bond music was playing, and he had a different random bimbo in his passenger seat every time. Classic Bond.

Car: Some shinny European ride; I think it was a Jag. The pros were that it was fast and filled with gadgets; the con is that the steering wheel is on the wrong side. Unless you’re delivering mail, get your ass back on your side of the pond with that slab you limey bastard.

The Nip Whip: This is the 80′s, you didn’t think the Japanese wouldn’t have a horse in this race did you? Our competitive capitalistic cohorts must be represented honorably. A young, horney, kung-fuing Jackie Chan takes the helm and puts his technologically superior country on his shoulders and drives with the discipline of an Asian and the balls of a roundeye. Occasionally, he gets in a situation more sticky than an anime body pillow on valentines day, but he always pushes a button and activates some gadget to get out somehow.

Car: Subaru hatchback. The pros are that it looks like a space shuttle inside, and a has a TV/VCR combo which plays porno. While Jackie is on a boring stretch of New Mexico highway, he takes the opportunity to rub one out. I’ve been there brother, except I didn’t almost crash my ride. You never close your eyes! I guess that’s harder if your eyes are already halfway closed though, so I’ll give Jackie a pass on that one. It also has a GPS and a rocket attached. The only con: the noise this car makes!  Cars aren’t supposed to sound like that; it reminded me of a vibrator left on a glass table.

The Hillbillies: Terry Bradshaw and his brother (equipt with a speech impediment) team up to pursue racing greatness. We find that Terry can look like a fool without Howie Long’s condescension or Frank Caliendo’s impressions. This duo bumbles their way around to eventual failure, but they at least get stinking drunk doing it. Their backseat is stacked to the roof with Budweiser, proving without of doubt, it’s the drink of incestuous, peckerwood 4th grade drop-outs everywhere.

Car: Yes a fucking racecar, sponsored by Hawaiian Tropic of all things. The pros are that it’s fast, the cons are that in an illegal race where camouflage is key, you shouldn’t actually use a racecar! Little known fact: “Racecar” spelled backwards is “racecar”, and Terry Bradshaw spelled backwards is 47 Chromosomes.

CEO and the Fatman: Yes, this adventure seeking wall-street type dude enlists the help of the tubby founder of Shakey’s Pizza, and they team up on a motorcycle to try and win the whole thing. Last time an affluent adventure seeker and his fat friend embarked on an intercontinental motorcycle journey, it lead to bloody revolutions and shitty iconic t-shirts.

Car: Motorcycle. It’s cool because you can weave in and out of traffic, but the downside is that spending over two days pressed against another dude is something I wouldn’t want to do, unless I was freezing to death in some airplane wreckage in the Andes Mountains or that dude’s name was Clive Owen. Seriously, he’s a handsome guy; don’t judge me. I didn’t say I’d fuck him, only that if he asked me to go on a two-day motorcycle ride with him, I’d probably do it. No big deal. Let’s change the subject.

The Sheik: Boy, don’t you miss the 80′s when Arabs weren’t always thought of as terrorists and camel-fuckers. They were known as pushy oil tycoons who dressed like rich Jesus and talked like Russian mobsters. It’s interesting: in a decade known for tackiness, Arabs were thought of as gaudy and kitsch. That’s saying something. The Sheik in this film drives like a maniac and only wants to show these infidels how to push a luxury ride across our interstate system. I loved him. While picking up some fast food, he hands this fine piece of underage waitress ass a handful of greenbacks and tells her she should be in his harem. As he sped off, you could tell she was thinking it over. That’s how the next episode of Law and Order SVU should open.

Car: Rolls Royce. It’s fast, luxurious, and a downright beast. It even comes equipt with a Zack Morris telephone and nerdy western w.a.s.p. assistant in the backseat! The cons: nothing at all, it’s a Rolls.

The Hot Chix: Two super-hot 80′s broads dressed in glossy unitards, like the kind pornstars wear in the Star Trek porno parodies. They use their bodies to get out of dozens of speeding tickets by unzipping a little and showing some cleavage. They got issued more “warnings” than a trust-funded eight year old acting up in a supermarket.

Car: The sweetest ride known to man, a black Lamborghini! And it was driven like a mother fucker. Peelouts, doughnuts, and skid-stops. And knowing that hot chix were driving it kind of increased the boner factor (even though in real life we know it was probably penis-having stunt men behind the wheel because nobody would put a car worth that much money in the hands of a woman. If you let a woman drive a lambo, she will decorate the nearest tree with it and then stumble out the heaping wreckage and ask why there are three gas pedals)

The Cops: Now the cops weren’t in the race, but they were trying like hell to catch our contestants. Most of the police were of the keystone variety who couldn’t locate their own nutsacks with a nutsack locator. Some are fumbling idiots. Some are trigger happy goons, but what they all have in common is general ineptitude and incompetence. My favorite was a local sheriff running for re-election, and his banner flung across town read, “Re-elect Sheriff Sean ‘Kill a Commie’ O’Scandlon: God, Guns, and Guts Keep Us Safe From Hippie Nuts” He was so tea party before you needed hypertension and a misspelled sign to join.

Novelty Awesomeness: This film is filled with it, and I’m not going to ruin any scenes for you guys. For those who haven’t seen this movie, and I recommend you see it. You should watch this on a night you just feel like laughing. Open a sixer, kick your feet up, and prepared to be taken back in time, to an era where we didn’t take ourselves or our film so seriously. Planes, boats, and automobiles are wrecked, abused, and pushed to their limits. Racism, religion, cleavage, and the rule of law are treated with irreverence. There are no social messages. There are no pretentious cinematic elements. It doesn’t aim to be quirky. There is no pedantic hyper-awareness. There is no shame. And best of all, there are no apologies. It’s meant to entertain. The film is as pure as the race itself; it’s simply art for art’s sake.

Yes.

Episode three: The Children of Jamestown

Hopefully I won’t shatter your faith in artistic integrity by revealing this, but 80′s Action TV sort of, kind of, recycles plots. “Airwolf,” “Knight Rider” and “The A-Team” all have episodes that deal with cults and the cults all wear the same monastic, brown robes, probably from the same props department. Also it seems like there is always at least one van. I miss vans. How are SUV’s better than vans? I don’t think they are at all. Like, according to SUV commercials you can drive them up sand dunes and mountains and shit, though if you actually do use an SUV for that it will break. But even if that crap was real, I’ve never seen an SUV with a boss wizard from a Rush song painted on the side.

You can get with this:

Or you can get with that:

Case closed!

Also, as I’ve grown older, I have come to kind of see the appeal of joining a cult. You grow some vegetables, catch some Z’s and look the other way when the cult leader rapes a twelve year old girl. Hey, that’s an easier life than I lead. But the A-Team is composed of individuals far more scrupulous than myself. The introduction of Dirk Benedict as the new Face Man really does constitute a huge upgrade. The man just oozes a mix of charm and smarm that I like to call schmarm. And he plays a key role in initially duping the cultists and snagging the kidnapped girl the team have been hired to retrieve. This is the first episode in which the plans that come together actually seem thought out instead of created ad hoc to meet the story arc. Like the whole set up with Amy, Face and Hannibal staging a false three way confrontation in the general store to distract the cultist must have taken minutes of forethought. I like this still because of how Hannibal is lurking in the background, masterminding.

Worth noting: Amy is underrated as an 80′s fuckshell. Our own Wax wears the exact same jacket as Face is wearing in this still. I’m not 100% sure but I think this cult leader is based on Jim Jones, and they just changed ‘Jones’ to ‘James.’ I know it seems crazy at first, but mull it over. Masticate.

So after they rescue the girl, the A-Team, minus Murdock are captured by the cultist. The cultists have no idea who they are fucking with and the A-Team smash their shit as though the were Delonte West and the cult was LeBron’s mother. Also, after they are captured the A-Team explain the basis for their courage to Amy in what I found to be a very profound scene. Their basic message was best articulated by Face: “Accept death. It calms you.” It’s like a cross between Mel Gibson’s speech in Braveheart and Gore Vidal’s Messiah.

Best B.A. Line as nearly as I can decipher it: Hannibal why you go busting Face man in the lip for? You know you can’t go ???? making a mess of my meal ticket. Won’t be able to get no good hotel rooms!

By the way, I went with good old Olde English for this installment. Solid alcohol content, rancorous taste. This is the one malt liquor I believe to be deliberately designed to taste horrible. I’ll still take it over King Cobra’s weak ass, but getting it down is not fun. Also, if anyone can come up with a recipe for worse farts than OE and hard boiled eggs, I’d like to hear it. After Mengeling my second floor apartment, I walked about four blocks to the store and when I came back I could still pick up the smell about half way up the steps to the place.

Episode 4: Pros and Cons (that is a very clever title)

So this episode is about is about how one of the many kids who looks up to B.A. has an older brother who is imprisoned on false pretenses in the South, where he is forced into gladiatorial fights. One thing I’ve come to realize about 80′s Action TV is that, although it is right wing in it’s overall tone, it caters to prejudice more than anything. Like, in this case, the South of United States is depicted as a backwards world beyond the rule of law, where hillabillies who have stumbled into money, perhaps earning their fortunes by combing the highways for picture books and bars of soap that have fallen of trucks traveling between the coasts, bet on human cockfights. The A-Team infiltrate the hick prison system by 1) Having Hannibal and B.A. deliberately arrested and 2) having Face come into the prison as a bogus, federal investigator named Doctor Pepper. Of course, B.A. is chosen as a gladiator and the A-Team turn the hillabilly fiefdom upside down and sodomize it. The best part is when Hannibal and B.A. first enter the prison and some fool steps to Hannibal and declares him a fish. Hannibal disagrees. The dude asks if he is a tough guy and Hannibal points to B.A. “No, he’s the tough guy.”

How fantastic would be to have Mr. T covering your back in real life? Because I work in the filth of the California gambling industry, I used to be a friendly acquaintance of this gang of Laotian bloods, headed by a guy who was basically the Asian version of Mr. T. I’m not saying we hung out or anything , but we were on good terms and I always wished someone would cross me so that I could kick Bune a few hundred bucks to correct them. Unfortunately, I’m an easy going and likable person, so it never came to that.

Best B.A. Line: Like them gladiators in Rome, man.

Episode 5: A Small And Deadly War

This one is about about a cop who hires the A-Team to catch a corrupt unit in the LAPD. You heard me right. Crooked cops in the Los Angeles Police Department. Ah, the magical realm of the human imagination: where anything is possible, except for dying in a dream but not in real life. Basically, the captain of the SWAT team has recruited a bunch of guys he has dirt on and blackmailed them into becoming a hit squad. Some random Sarge catches on and hires the A-Team to flush out the only crooked cops in LA. Murdock is conned out of the psych ward for the 38th time in five episodes and the A-Team set about proving themselves against the elite of the LAPD. The best line by a cop who doesn’t really dig the whole operation: “Eight grand to blow away your brother so you can take over his stinking laundry.” Even in ’85, or whenever those seem like pretty low rates for a SWAT team to bump someone off. But in the 80s and through the 90s TV shows would consistently condescend to viewers by regarding any sum of money from the perspective of a homeless person. I remember both “Rosanne” and “Married With Children” having episodes where everyone acted like landing 20 grand would make them “rich.” I mean, my dad made 20 G taking a dump, but that wasn’t what was so annoying about it. It was annoying because even viewers who made $20,000 per year knew all too well that falling into that sum would not make them rich. And indeed, even figuring for inflation, $8,000 dollars seems like a paltry sum to hire a four man SWAT team for a killing. I don’t really know about such things, but I suspect you’d be hard pressed to find a hard core gangster to risk the gas chamber for so little. This episode also contains an explicit reference to The Seven Samurai. Pretty cool, especially since 80% of A-Team episodes rip it off.

Anyway, Face infiltrates the LAPD as a roach killer by planting literal bugs and this allows him to plant figurative bugs, created by B.A. Look out, Bela Tarr! The A-Team catch on to their game and send them up the river, just as the deserve! This also, as nearly as I can remember, marks the first use of , “on the jazz,” the catch phrase that just wouldn’t catch, no matter how many episodes they wedged it into.

Best B.A. Line : Look, we don’t work for no Po-lice!

Can the premise even be articulated?

Well, it begins in the 12th century, jumps to the 50’s and winds up with Chuck Norris fighting Demons in “Present Day Chicago” and then chasing them to Israel, so I guess the answer is no.

I can’t quite make out the tagline on the box cover…

I made sure it was small enough that it would be difficult to read, so that I could highlight it, as it is worth more than one look. A Chicago cop faces his worst nightmare… only this time it’s real…

Could I trouble you to take a dump on the direction?

Sure! I think the director is making reference to Rashomon with an early shot of medieval soldiers taken from behind some bushes. Perhaps he’d be glad that I noticed if not for the fact that I noticed with tearful, derisive laughter. Actually taking time to think about it, which I realize I shouldn’t really be doing, it’s worse than it seems because the scenes near the beginning of Rashomon establish obfuscation and doubt, whereas the primary message of Hellhound is that Satan is bad. So the reason for using the shot is… a dim hope that someone will spot the similarity, but not the pointlessness? The whole opening sequence is really very AK heavy, but it’s prefaced by these retarded titles. So, like, you can practically see the guy’s life laid out in the first 30 seconds. He watched the Star Wars movies hundreds of times, then read somewhere that Kurosawa was a primary influence on Lucus, so he’s trying to be influenced by Kurosawa too. How cute! Also, the director is Chuck’s brother. You think I’m taking this too far, I know. But look at the creative journey of Aaron Norris for yourself:

Hellbound

Star Wars:

Hellbound:

Rashomon:

Hellbound:

Kagemusha:

Who Produced the film?

What an odd thing to ask, unless you already knew that this was a later production from the 80’s Action conservatory that was Cannon Films.

Is the whole medieval segment scored with sinister, classicalish music with abrupt latin verses?

Ita vero.

Did the film lift any one liners from Crocodile Dundee?

It sure did. Norris, upon trading punches with a baddie. “Do you call that a hit? That’s a hit!” That is an actual line in a movie with five credited writers.

So this is a film from Chuck’s Christian period?

Yup.

How does it express the layers of depravity that underlay religious fundamentalism?

The most unintentionally profound scene comes when the Son of Satan emerges in Present Day Chicago. He turns up in a cheap motel with a hooker he has hired, though he is not interested in her sexually or in any other way whatsoever. She trots around the screen in some nice lingerie, she showers, she is hot. Her presence does nothing to advance the plot. Then she is righteously thrown out of the hotel window to her death, not by the agent of good (Norris) but by the agent of evil (the devil guy). It’s like Jimmy Swaggart on purpose. She is immoral, but the audience is invited to indulge in her immorality, though with plausible deniability, then to see her disposed of for the crime of arousing them. Yet, the agent of her demise is also evil. Enjoy the harlot, enjoy her punishment, but none of it is on your hands. The level of sickness here is akin to the mythical snuff film. I get my rocks off. She is dead and damned, and if it all blows up, the “evil” producer takes the fall while I remain clean and sanctimonious. Even though I just came in my sweatpants.

Aren’t you reading too much into this?

You said the same thing when I made the Kurosawa observation and you were wrong then. This is a movie made by fundamentalists meant to represent their agenda. It lingers on a hot hooker who is in the movie for absolutely no reason whatsoever. And I mean, like there is not even an ostensible purpose for her being there. Then she is thrown to her death by the spawn of Satan. Find some other way to make that all add up.

Post Mortem Exchange:

OK wiseguy, explain that over there.

Holy shit! His heart’s gone!

No it isn’t, it’s over there.

HOLY SHIT!

Was there a stupid Chief?

Yes. The casting call must have been for women who look like Jewish, lesbian college professors. They put her in a police uniform several sizes too big for her. All coincidence.

Exchange that Chuck actually has with his black sidekick:

Chuck: Do you know where the University is?

Black Sidekick: I don’t know, and I don’t give a shit.

Fashion Statements:

Not the kind of thing I’d normally chime in on.  However.

Novelty Death:

Chuck delivers a nice fatal backbreaker in silhouette. Otherwise, it’s pretty slim pickings. The son of Satan does throw a priest from a train, but it’s done in a lame, cut-away fashion because they blew their whole budget on Kurosawa allusions during the opening five minutes.

How bad was it really?

I mean… I was too drunk to really do a proper corpse count, but I wasn’t bored with the film. This is mostly due to the fact that it is unbelievably bad, but in the Cannon tradition, it’s also put together well enough to kind of hold your attention. So it’s not as arduous as some of Seagal’s 90’s Inaction, for example. The refusal to work with homosexuals hit the wardrobe and stylist departments pretty hard. That’s a pretty unconvincing beard…

…

….

…

Tagline:

Chose your weapon

Entire story in fewer words than are in this sentence:

Predator, without a predator.

Homoeroticism:

I’m not saying it isn’t there. There’s something at least non-heterosexual about declaring your shotgun to be your girlfriend. The problem is that the bar was set so high in the 80s with “take me in, pig” and “we don’t need the girl,” that simple stuff like gun fetishism and drenched musclemen locked in MMA holds barely even registers. We do have two straight love stories without any physical contact between men and women. Each woman serves primarily as an excuse to slaughter other men. Seagal turned down a role in this film and it seems fairly obvious that it went to Statham, who does fine with it. When his lost love’s new man leaves her with a shiner, he finds the louse and his boys playing basketball. They are about half way through rallying and pumping themselves up for an initial shoving match and ritualistic build up before Statham wordlessly launches forward with a flurry of serious business that smells of krav maga and pain, quickly reducing the jock/business school crew to a pool of tears and fear. Good scene. With Seagal, it would have been great though. Statham certainly scared the shit out of these guys and some of them will be feeling the beating for weeks. But Seagal would have left Trent to try to push Chase’s femur back in with poor depth perception because of the fact that Seagal was beginning to digest one of his eyeballs.

Corpse Count:

I came up with 128 confirmed kills. I’m a stickler on this, remember. Plenty more were killed by implication and still more were merely fucked up or KO’d, like Statham’s basketball buddies. For the official 128, we’re only talking about straight-up shootings, eviscerations, decapitations, spine-snaps and immolation. They come at the rate of just about one a minute and a lot of them are glorious, if a bit CGI-heavy. Decapitation is too kind a fate sometimes. “Hey, what the-” peaceful oblivion. It’s so much better to chop off a hand first, let it sink in for a moment, then rip out that fucker’s adam’s apple and watch him flop around on the ground like a fish out of water.

Was the scene with Bruce Willis and Arnold too forced?

Well, you try figuring out a way to get Bruce and Arnold to both suddenly appear in a one-minute scene with Sly and then have their characters disappear from the movie entirely– it is unavoidably going to be as forced as Lexington Steele having sex with a baby. But it was worth it and how lucky we are that, at the end of his career, Sly has set about indulging our every wish, instead of trying to remake The Seventh Seal or entering the political realm. It’s extraordinarily rare, if not unprecedented, for a major movie star at the end of his career to really know the score like this.

Where were the other 80s Action big shots?

Sly explained it this way: “I talked to Van Damme. I talked to [Steven] Seagal. I even talked to Chuck Norris.” He then added, “But there are certain considerations, like insanity.” Fortunately Dolph is the most awesome character in the movie, a junkie Expendable who, after rescuing a ship from Somali pirates, decides to hang one of them and he argues his case like so:

Sly: That’s not how we work!

Dolph: But it’s good to hang pirates.

I also dug his one-liner after he demolishes the spine of his overseer on an assassination mission. The guy is barking orders at Dolph and calls him a junkie, which prompts Dolph to squash his head and neck and say, “insect.”

What does Mickey Rourke do?

Nothing.

Are you going to make me ask about each, individual guy?

No. Jet Li is pretty great. I thought his agility and skill could have been exploited a bit more, like he should have put in a better showing when he fought Dolph, but this is a crowded film. Though I understand the reasons for casting Couture, Cro Cop should have been in his place, since Cro Cop really is a commando and is way cooler than Couture in general and all I really remember from Randy in this film is a fifteen minute speech in which he explains what cauliflower ears are and why he has them. Eric Roberts is a top drawer cartoon villain and Stone Cold is perfect in his part as a paramilitary goon. The black guy had one of those guns that is so awesome you’re like, “why don’t they all just use that? They’d be invincible.” Was Carl Weathers too busy making a stew? Statham delivers, as has already been established. Plus…

Novelty Death:

There are a lot to chose from, though none quite have the bite of the best Punisher: Warzone novelty deaths. Eric Roberts is gunned down from the front by Sly and, as he looks down to see his chest wounds and realizes that he is about to die, a giant knife explodes through his sternum after being thrown by Statham, who was lurking behind him. But I’m just a sucker for immolation. Couture’s one shining moment comes when he torches the phenomenally hateable Austin in a grand fashion. What makes it for me is that, after the flames reach the point where Austin’s agonizing fate becomes inescapable, Statham can’t resist jumping in with a final kick, for absolutely no other reason than the feeling that just burning the prick alive isn’t good enough.

Post-mortem one liner:

Again, there are several excellent candidates, but I’ll go with this one– Roberts and his goons are questioning some dissidents who say they are innocent. The general says that he can’t see inside of them so he doesn’t know if they are lying. Roberts has them wasted and says, “ Now I can see inside you… and I see lies.”

Stupid Political Content

To the extent that there is any political content, maybe the famously Republican Sly is drifting left. Firstly, there is the film’s fondness for knives, which are like a renewable energy source in contrast to guns. On top of that, there are like thirty scenes in which knives are reused, renewed and recycled, scenes wherein one knife is used to stab three people seven times. If plunging a knife into one enemy, then ducking a punch from another, then pulling the knife back out before the first guy collapses and using it to slit the second guy’s throat isn’t going green, what is? The villain is also a rogue CIA agent who uses water boarding on the female lead, which I guess is an anti-torture statement.

The basic premise is that The Expendables are some old school mercenaries hired to take out the ex-CIA guy who has turned some tiny Mexican country into a drug principality. Really, it just seems to gloss over political stuff–CIA/drugs, mercenaries, oppression in Latin America–without really having any conviction. As wonderfully asinine as Invasion USA or First Blood Part II might have been, they had conviction. And action conviction is possible in our more complicated political landscape, as we’ve seen as recently as Rambo. Though I enjoyed the “rogue” CIA drug pusher, that’s kind of a throwback and Seagal has long since taken out the likes of Roberts and Austin. To break new ground with feeling, I’d have greatly enjoyed seeing The Expendables take on the Blackwater goon platoons of real life cartoon villain Eric Prince. “That’s not a mercenary, mate. This is a mercenary!”

Great Movie or Greatest Movie?

After a year of fevered internet hype, the film doesn’t disappoint. And that is not a minor achievement. After the marketing campaign, I feared that Sly might pull some punches on the violence, but not so. One of the better scenes is when Sly and Statham unleash their conversion of a cargo prop plane into a gas bombing death machine. But the film also made me think of Baudrillard and Las Vegas. I’m truly sorry, but it did. I’m glad Sly didn’t try to do intentional unintentional gay erotica. It would have been weird if he tried to wedge in phony hysteria about race or communism. But without those things, the film doesn’t feel earnest. It’s too self-aware. And that means that the horrific violence doesn’t have a suitable context. Something doesn’t quite match up when you’re winkingly taking us down memory lane with a soundtrack of feel-good oldies as we watch dozens of people being dismembered and burned to death. Don’t get me wrong. I will probably watch this movie four more times in the next year. It’s just that you can never really go home again. 80s Action will never be fully recaptured. As my father once told me, “life is a process of loss.”

Tagline:

Reanimated. Rearmed. The Ultimate Rematch.

Entire Story in Fewer Words than Are in this Sentence:

Dolph and Jean-Claude convalesce, reunite with clothes on

Homoeroticsim:

Universally absent. With Andrei Arlovski on board I thought for sure we would witness a sweaty kimura or shirtless takedown at the very least but no, nothing substantial to report. Dolph and Van Damme exchange an uncomfortable moment before they man-wrangle that should be understood within the context of how poorly the Belgian has aged compared to his Swedish contemporary. In JC’s defense, he can still lob a pretty vicious pacemaker, er, haymaker when provoked. The pre-fight silence is awkward and Dolph, further deranged by his recent cloning, begins mumbling about how he wants to say something to his old private but can’t remember what. Perhaps, “Should we finally fuck now?” He never really spits it out but a “g00k traitor” also comes to mind. And what the hell was Dolph doing in this movie other than to be handed one of the greatest novelty deaths in the history of cinema? More on that later.

Corpse Count:

Elevated. At least 73 bloodied bodies flew across the screen in such relentless heaps I could hardly stay focused. As meticulous as I tried to keep my notes, the final count could very well be as high as 80. This movie is fucking violent. Aside from a bodyguard who gets rearranged by a car, virtually everyone else is shot, stabbed, blown up, or punched to death.

UniSol Corpse Count:

Six, including Dolph, who was onscreen for about ten minutes. The roughhousing between the 4th nameless UniSol and Arlovski (an NGU: New Generation UniSol) makes for a better MMA fight than I’ve seen in recent memory. Also, Andrei is 6’4″which is admirable, but he is totally wearing platforms because he lumbers around like a Belarusian Yao Ming.

How Bad Is It Really?

Compared to, say, The Return, it’s actually quite good despite taking itself a little serious. Wall-to-wall carnage coupled with fairly inoffensive acting and backed by an adequate budget makes for one hell of an entertaining straight-to-video. Much of the film is shot in a gritty, muted grayscale indicative of the fallout that permeates the setting and there’s some pretty competent fight choreography to boot. The score is unusually creepy for an action flick. It’s like Alien meets The Thing, but given the state of JC’s visage and the fact that the UniSols are repeatedly referred to as “freaks” it’s not entirely out of place. Sure, the plot is thin and predictable. A grungy rabble of Russian freedom fighters have abducted the prime minister’s children and taken them to the ruins surrounding the Chernobyl power plant, threatening to blow up reactor #3 if their comrades aren’t released from prison. Not exactly the safest place to sit around drinking vodka and waiting for demands to be met but we are talking about the Ukraine. For no legitimate reason the rebels are joined by a rogue American scientist and his pet Andrei “The Pitbull” Arlovsky.

Over in Switzerland, another scientist is helping JC attempt to live a normal life as part of a Universal Soldier rehabilitation program that clearly isn’t going well because he’s still spending most of his time moping around, assaulting people, and casting his trademark empty stare. We hear him grind through a few lines here and there but he is largely uninvolved until the end. A third really smart scientist has kept some random Gen-1 Soldiers on ice over the years so we confidently send them in to pacify the Chernobyl insurrection. They are all quickly dispatched by the former UFC champ– two gutted, one impaled, and one triangled into UniSol heaven. Fearing the worst, and because Eastern Europe has fallen into a state of limp-wristed compliance, the prime minister collapses and agrees to release some prisoners. Enter Van Damage.

While the splitting of his legs redefined the 80s action genre, I always thought JC was robbed of his Cobra moment, his Commando moment, that golden moment where he could abandon the flexing, training, tanning, and apply it to a greater purpose. Well, my friends, that moment has finally arrived. JC is abducted by the military and forced onto a treadmill, pumped full of horse semen®, and turned loose. All told he slices, dices, lacerates and emasculates his way through no less than 30 rebels before confronting Dolph and Arlovski. It’s an absolute joy to watch. In fact, I’m convinced that the Muscles from Brussels passed up a spot in The Expendables because he finally silenced the nagging little specter that’s haunted him since the heyday with this career-defining killing spree. At last we have our lobotomized butcher!

Novelty Death:

I guess it makes sense that JC would be lumpy and haggard at this point but I seem to remember Dolph being fed through a giant bale shredder in the first movie. Point is, our two legends rumble through the radiated ghost town in a clash that rivals any of the old classics, and without the banter. They punch and throw each other down dusty hallways and over crumbling walls for several minutes before crashing out of a window. At this point JC grabs a burr-encrusted pipe and slams it through the front of Dolph’s skull. Then he slides the barrel of a shotgun into said pipe and makes his own little Lundgrenobyl.

Stupid Political Content:

Holed up in the twisted industrial wreckage of the Soviet Union’s greatest technological folly, the Ruskies are portrayed as nothing more than disheveled drunks. One unfortunate stooge is so caked in soot he appears to have been spat out of a muffler. In America, however, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it because we get better with age. Not only did we win the Cold War but 20 years later we will rub it in by demonstrating that a reasonably fit 50-year-old can take down an army of hapless Dimitrovs and Pishtolovs with little effort. Not to be overlooked are the obvious benefits that will come with the advancement of biomedical gerontology.

Was There An Atomic Blast At The End?

No, but there would’ve been had JC not wrenched the detonator from reactor #3 and driven it into Arlovski’s back. The subsequent explosion is satisfying enough but the biggest blast is the one you’ll have watching this murder picnic.

What You Learned:

Got a couple of bullets lodged in your torso? Been toppled from several high places lately? Stabbed a few times? A light jog and some fresh air should clear it right up.

‘

10: COBRA

Cobra skewers and roasts Night Slasher

At number 10, the final death in Cobra is like the Tim Duncan to the Jordans, Kobes, and Lebrons of the other elite 80s Action deaths- perhaps it’s not the most flashy or memorable scene, but when you sit down and look at the end product, everything you could ask for is there-

1) Set in a factory that somehow uses giant hooks to manufacture large quantities of sparks and molten steel. Though obviously abandoned, the factory is humming along at full capacity, which includes like 20 random small fires. I’m not sure about the business model of the facility, but the scene opens with a hook rolling ominously behind the villain in a foreshadowing that can only be called artful.

2) Excellent foreplay. The back and forth between Cobra and Night Slasher over who will penetrate whom with what and their discourse on the failings of the liberal criminal justice system is a fine prelude, as educational as it is erotic. Did you know that it’s illegal for a cop to shoot a man who is threatening to kill him while armed with a sawed-off in one hand and a giant knife that is studded with smaller knives in the other hand? Night Slasher calls Cobra a pig at least four dozen times before finally demanding “take me in. Pig.” Out come the chains–not that there’s anything gay about leather-clad men calling each other “pig” during chain play.

3) Inept women. The bad chick briefly comes to the aid of Night Slasher, postponing his death for two minutes by jumping on Stallone’s back as Sly is about to squeeze the trigger, which has helpfully been labeled “fire.” She is promptly blasted. Stallone’s chick is of even less help, cowering in hiding, rather than blindsiding Night Slasher when he seems poised to kill Stallone. In an 80s Action male encounter, the only function of women is to remind us of their uselessness.

4) Great performances. Obviously, Sly is one of the greatest people ever to live. But Kudos also go to Brian Thompson. While blessed with simian sex appeal, he’s not afraid to die shrieking like a woman. Too many of the stuntmen and karate consultants who die in 80s action go out with pride, depriving us of the satisfaction of a final display of cowardice and agony. Not Thompson who, finally stuck on Sly’s steel, wails and claws pointlessly at the point of penetration in his back as he is dragged to immolation. He even tries to protect himself against a raging blast furnace by covering his face with his arm. Small deduction for going limp when he reaches the flames, rather than emitting a final, blood curdling scream, but this remains an elite novelty death.

5) Pre-mortem one liner: This is where the law stops… and I start.

9: ROADHOUSE

Local man unable to continue living without throat

Marshall Teague’s epic demise in Roadhouse ranks right up there with the very best novelty deaths that 80s action has to offer. While the mode of death is fairly unique, it’s the gritty, sweat-drenched pre-mortem fight that makes it one of my personal favorites. Teague’s character, Jimmy, is the embodiment of what you want in an 80s action henchman- he’s cocksure, wears an earring, leaves his chest exposed, has an accomplished martial arts background, and after knocking out the token fat guy, he uses the dude’s belly to vault himself onto a stage with a pool cue. Swayze, however, is the peaceful warrior– calm, calculating, and possibly heterosexual. Yet from the moment we see the two of them on screen together we know a bloody engagement of some kind is imminent.

After blowing up the old landlord’s house, Jimmy rides off on a dirt bike, stops to look back at his handiwork, and laughs the kind of ridiculous bad guy laugh that cracks me up every time I see it. Swayze, meanwhile, is wearing nothing but tight gray sweats and a beaming coat of oil. The two square off near a small pond and it isn’t long before Jimmy takes Swayze from behind in a chokehold and says, “I used to fuck guys like you in prison.” Now interpret this however you want but Jimmy is gay; it’s clear from the beginning what he’s interested in. When he realizes that he cannot have our hero, he decides that nobody will, and pulls a gun. “I’m gonna kill you the old fashioned way,” he says. What’s the new way, you ask? Right, Swayze knocks the gun into the air and promptly rips Jimmy’s throat out with his bare hands before kicking him facedown into the water. Somehow Jimmy lets out a final audible grunt despite missing a good portion of his neck.

Kelly Lynch shows up at the end of the fray to see if Jimmy is alive because she’s hot, sympathetic, and useless. Okay, she also happens to be a doctor. After discovering that there is nowhere on Jimmy’s neck to check for a pulse, she stands up and casts a disapproving scowl at Swayze, who she awkwardly fucked mere nights before, and walks away without a word. Naturally Swayze becomes enraged. He hauls the corpse into the pond and sends it adrift to be carried out by a pretty damn strong current in what amounts to little more than an Olympic-size swimming pool. While Teague’s death is only a preamble to the symphony of murder Patrick conducts at Jackie Treehorn’s mansion, it remains in 9th position for obvious reasons.

8: DEATH WISH III

Bullet proof vest < rocket launcher

Death Wish is one of the seminal films of 80s action and therefore, the Western Cannon. The innovations of the film would echo through countless depictions of inept cops, unpunished criminals and hot, steamy vigilantism. I don’t know how legendary 80s Action producers, Golan and Globus–-figures celebrated alongside the likes of Yitzhak Rabin and Golda Meir in their native Israel– got their hands on the franchise, but it took their genius to improve upon such a classic. With some critical examination they saw that, for all of Death Wish’s greatness, there was fat to be trimmed and replaced with lean muscle. Rather than squandering running time on a coherent story line, they could have Bronson kill a bunch more people. Instead of a compelling, emotional core, why not a bigger gun? Lesser filmmakers would have run into a dead end were they to follow this line of thought, because the conventional (and inferior) story elements (such as character development) used to build to a climax have been replaced by violence and hardware. Where do you go after ninety minutes of Bronson blasting thugs with the biggest hand gun in the world? It seems like a question with no answer.

Until you see Bronson use a rocket launcher to kill one guy. At close range. Inside a small apartment. But, given that the gloriously reverse-mohawked villain, Fraker, is wearing a bullet proof vest, it’s the only logical solution. Fraker has already been shot half a dozen times. The way bulletproof vests work is that, if you are shot, you pass out. Then you spring back to life and have the drop on everyone. Everyone, that is, who doesn’t happen to keep an anti-tank weapon by the phone, next to a pencil and paper for taking messages. Bronson blasts Fraker, turns half the apartment into a flaming hole, and Fraker’s scant, smoking remains become a spectacle for passers by on the street bellow. The scene worked so well that there was no real choice but to rehash it in the Death Wish 4 climax.

7: OUT FOR JUSTICE

Italian scum beaten almost as badly as he deserves

There is no movie in Seagal’s catalog that better demonstrates his streak of sadism than Out for Justice. Virtually every scummy, unlaundered guido in Brooklyn gets beaten to an oily pulp at some point. Nobody escapes. Hell, even a Chinaman and a crusty Irish boxer get their asses handed to them on a silver platter. But when the dust is settled and the trail of corpses carted away, none of the beatdowns come close to the hurt that Seagal puts on Richie Madano (William Forsythe). See, Richie killed Bobby Lupo, which, is, really the last thing in the world you want to find yourself doing. So Seagal appropriately saves his most severe ass-mugging for last. He pummels Richie, and I don’t mean quickly, I mean he fucking pummels him in what can only be interpreted as a degrading S&M snuff session. Somebody, somewhere, has masturbated to this clip, I’m sure of it.

Richie doesn’t land a single punch. Instead, he is clubbed and prodded with a variety of cutlery and other kitchenware including a humungous pepper-grinder. He is thrown into walls, onto tables, into cabinets, and finally, headfirst through a window. Having already confessed to liking pain, Richie understandably convinces himself that his next effort to kill Seagal will succeed. What results is a cataclysmic failure to achieve and surely one of the most bizarre and kinky novelty deaths of all time. Rather than drop his jeans and slather Richie’s chest with a broiling mound of feces, Seagal opts to conclude the humiliating rendezvous by planting a corkscrew into his forehead, thereby avenging the proud memory of our beloved Bobby Lupo. Also, this particular killing might be Steven’s most passionate as it was among the Italians. It was real greaseball shit.

6: UNIVERSAL SOLDIER

Horse spunk saves the day, yet again.

The “X-factor” of this epic battle between Dolph and JCVD is a syringe which, particularly in a barnyard setting, seems to be loaded with horse semen. Now people have accused us of reading homoeroticism into these films where it doesn’t exist. But you don’t have to crack page one of Freud to raise an eyebrow at a pair of rain-soaked, musclebound studs achieving greater power through semen injections. “Hey, what’s the big deal? Popeye ate Spinach, Dolph and JCVD shoot piping hot ejaculate into… their hearts?” And no, I don’t buy that it’s just a coincidence that the substance is identical in color and consistency to the ol’ baby batter, especially since the power juice at the center of Dolph’s I Come in Peace is exactly the same. JCVD’s useless chick is seemingly dispensed with a nice preliminary killing-– she’s fleeing to safety when Dolph chucks a grenade that blows her up. Is JCVD upset about his love interest being blown into cornflakes? Sure baby! Like he’d be upset if you spilled his Fresca.

Watch on Youtube.

There’s some more horseplay before the actual death and frankly, it’s pretty dull stuff. Eventually, JCVD, powered by a fresh sperm injection, impales Dolph on the blades of a corn thresher and there’s a satisfying moment of agony. But Dolph then plays possum, drawing JCVD in for a closer look. When he gets his chance, Dolph makes a last ditch effort to pull JCVD onto the blades, but he counters with a Seagal-worthy arm snap, leaving Dolph helpless, in agony and slowly bleeding to death. That’s a good start. Finally, we get what we have been salivating over since the corn thresher first entered the frame. JCVD turns on the machine and chunks of œbermensch are sprayed across the heartland, fertilizing the fodder of continued American supremacy.

5: RAMBO III

Kourov gets hanged and banged.

Whether he’s wandering the foggy backroads of the Pacific Northwest, shoveling rocks in a military prison, or repairing wagon wheels in Thailand, history has shown us that it doesn’t take a whole lot to get John J. Rambo back in the swing of killing commies. In Rambo II we saw him duped and leg-swept into refighting Vietnam by Charles Napier and the Cobra Kai Sensei. This time around Rambo’s hand is forced into action by the capture of Colonel Trautman who, for some reason, decided to deliver American missiles to the Mujahideen with a few jeeps, an AK, and a dozen ill-equipped guides who are all stuffed with bullets in a matter of seconds. Are we to believe Trautman thought he could actually make a difference in Afghanistan? Or are we to believe he sacrificed himself knowing that Rambo is the only human being capable of defeating Russia single-handedly? Or are we to believe that Rambo merely wants to uphold the right of Afghan men to participate in their sacred game of drag-the-goat-carcass-through-the-sand without fear of Russian helicopters launching rockets at their horses because he is better at it than them and feels guilty? Have fun sifting through the mound of bodies to find your answer.

Watch on Youtube.

There are some complicated novelty deaths to consider here as the movie is basically an endless string of them. For example the Russian Spetsnaz Commander is shot, then impaled by the cannon on Rambo’s tank, then blown up, which is a death as improbable as Charles Bronson’s reanimated corpse lacing your cannolis with cyanide. For sheer hilarity, though, the novelty award goes to the Commander’s bodyguard, Kourov. We all know the mountains of Afghanistan are littered with giant holes in the ground that serve as entryways to a gargantuan subterranean netherworld of Islamic horror. So Kourov and Rambo throw down near one of these openings as Trautman creepily watches, sometimes observing through the scope on his gun. After a quick and playful tussle, Rambo wraps a nylon rope around Kourov’s neck, pulls the grenade pin attached to his vest, then kicks him into the blackened maw where he falls roughly thirty feet, snaps his neck, and erupts into a fireball that rivals the explosion of Alderaan. USA!!!!

4: ROBOCOP

Emil briefly experiences life as a goulash.

I think I’d actually like Emil M. Antonowsky if it hadn’t been for the scene where he was going to murder the gas station attendant because he went to college. Other than that, he just seems like a fun-loving degenerate who smokes while pumping gas. Plus, I like how screenwriter Edward Neumeier felt that a character with 4 minutes of screen time required a middle initial. But the way he tormented the gas nerd was just unforgivable. It revealed Emil to be a bully and an anti-intellectual so he probably deserved to be shot off of his motorcycle while trying to get away from the gas station, then to skid across the top of a car and some asphalt and land in a heap of injuries. If that’s the second worst thing to happen to you in the movie, and a very distant second, you’re making a run at 80s action immortality.

Indeed, Emil’s actual death is kind of a replay of the first accident, only with more toxic waste and fleshy liquefaction. Emil’s driving again, Robocop shoots his ride again, only this time, he’s not lucky enough to crash into a car. After plowing his truck into a huge container of toxic waste, Antonowsky comes spilling out the back of his truck, a half-melted, steaming-hot insta-mutant. He gasps for air, begs for help (although he is clearly further beyond any kind of medical help or restoration than Rocky Dennis after a chimp attack) and zombie-shuffles in front of Boddicker’s speeding car. In his slightly dissolved state, Emil explodes on impact like a balloon filled with chum, mucking up Bodicker’s windshield something awful. Be sure to appreciate how Emil’s head remains largely intact as it slides like a curling stone along the hood, windshield, and roof of Boddicker’s car.

3: COMMANDO

The Arnold transforms a simple, third world tool shed into a schoolhouse: of pain.

It might seem like there should be more Arnold on the list, but for all the great one-liners and set-ups, the actual murdering is often just a bit less than spectacular. This is not the case with the tool shed scene in Commando. Unfortunately, there is no tradition of oral history amongst 80s action goons because they all die within seconds of assuming their roles. If there were, fathers might pass down to sons the knowledge that firing hundreds of rounds into a small structure where your target is trapped can often be useless if every shot is aimed on the assumption that the target is standing erect in the center of the building. Rake the ceilings and floors to be sure, son, otherwise someone will swing down from the rafters and stab you in the heart with a pitchfork, like what happened to your uncle Miguel.

The glorious violence of this scene largely speaks for itself, but I enjoy the added irony that Arnold has turned on hired Latino help with the very tools that sustain their people. Every tool of the gardener, landscaper and handyman is used to kill a man who, barring this highly unusual case of some guy picking him up at Home Depot to guard a weirdo’s compound off the coast of Santa Barbara, relies upon those tools for his very livelihood. It would be like if Arnold killed Irish mercenaries by throwing drunken police officers at them. The violence itself is elevated to full blown slasher status for a few shining moments. I don’t remember Voorhees ever killing so many with such a variety of pointy things in so short a span. We’d not see a novelty spree killing of this magnitude again until Punisher: Warzone.

2: INVASION USA

And THAT’S why, you don’t snort coke through a metal tube.

We only have to wait about ten minutes to witness the best novelty death sequence of Invasion USA. While Chuck is busy wrangling crocodiles and hamming it up with his pet armadillo in the swamps, Rostov and his cohort of terrorists are literally invading the United States of America. Surely if waves of impoverished Cubans can take over Miami, then a batch of well armed terrorists can take over the country. Rostov’s plan is to bring America to its knees in less than 24 hours but before he does so, he decides to hit up a motel and sell some cocaine to Frank Nitti from The Untouchables. The strange part about the scene is that it has almost nothing to do with anything other than to show us that Rostov is a bad, feathery-haired motherfucker. Presumably he’s trading a couple ounces of blow for a huge cache of weapons that he already had.

Anyhow, before he and Nitti can complete the transaction, Nitti’s broad starts greedily railing lines off the desk as any befitting cokewhore should. This must’ve angered Rostov because he slams her head down, driving the metal tube deep into her nose, sending her screaming and flailing across the room. Rostov then shoots a couple of goons in the hallway before casually sliding his gun into Nitti’s pants and firing two shots at his cock. Afterward he grabs the hysterical bitch and hurls her through the window in a display of wanton violence that’s pretty extreme even by 80s action standards. Because the scene is completely irrelevant to the plot it ends up acting as a pretty effective, and clearly intentional, anti-drug advertisement. People who buy and do drugs deserve to be castrated and killed. People who specifically snort cocaine are always at risk of having their utensil irrevocably lodged into their nasal cavity. Minorities conduct drug deals. People who sell drugs also deserve to be killed but preferably at the hands of bearded American patriots. In fact, the only acceptable form of commerce is a proper and shady cash-only weapons deal.

1: MARKED FOR DEATH

Seagal kills one Jamaican at least four times.

Frankly, the Ruthless camp is divided on the matter of 80s Action’s greatest badass. But their can be no disputing Segeal’s status as master of the novelty death. He has achieved the peerless greatness attained by so few in any endeavor. One might argue about the greatest ballplayer, the greatest director or the greatest beauty. But in the field of novelty deaths, Seagal stands alone in unchallenged supremacy–-the Shakespeare of the severed spine; the Kasparov of defenestration. Half a dozen of Seagal’s kills could be in the top ten of all time, but Marked For Death is his masterpiece. One of the many turns of genius that sets Seagal apart is the corpse kill. He realized that the mere fact he had killed someone, and they were now a dead body, should not prevent him from killing them at least once more. In Under Siege, for example, one assumes that Tommy Lee Jones’ character has perished once Seagal has driven a giant knife into top of his skull, up to the handle. So? Like so many men of innovation, Seagal sees a starting line where most see the finish line. Rather than be satisfied with allowing Jones to die only once, Seagal throws him through a radar screen, issuing a corpse kill by massive electrocution. Now you might think that pushing beyond even the corpse kill would risk ridiculousness. But you’d be wrong. Dead wrong. And dead wrong again. For, in Marked For Death, Seagal performs a dizzying combination that others had yet to even conceive, let alone attempt. Lesser novelty killers were still wondering how to pull off the corpse kill when Seagal surpassed it. While they strove for the 360 dunk, he went straight to the 540 off-the-glass tomahawk: the double kill, corpse kill with a twin.

Now, as every schoolchild knows, the primary villain in Marked For Death is the mysterious Skrewface who seems to have voodoo powers. When Seagal catches up with Skrewface, he quickly crunches through a couple of henchmen and finally gets his hands on the antagonist. Even with the preliminary slice to the balls, you have to initially be a bit disappointed with the quick decapitation via samurai sword after only a few seconds of pain. The only uplifting aspect of the kill seems to be that Seagal lugs Skrewface’s head around town like a newly won Stanley Cup to prove to the henchmen that their leader is not an invincible shaman, but rather a visibly mortal drug-pusher. But then, Skrewface appears alive and well. A twin! Now we are cooking!

Watch the clip on Youtube

You can look at this one of two ways. You can count this as Skrewface being killed twice (corpse kill not included), or you can roll it into one grand ball of suffering for the remaining twin. Before the first punch is thrown in the final battle, Seagal opens with, “Oh hai, here is your twin brother’s head, which I chopped off a while back. I might use it at the bowling alley later.” Using this as a starting point, Seagal proceeds to beat Skrewface shitless, slice open several wounds with the sword, then thumb the Jamaican’s eyes back into his skull. This culminates when Seagal audibly snaps Skrewface’s spinal chord in several places which, if it didn’t kill him instantly, would certainly leave him with nothing more than a few seconds of shutting down. Seagal then lifts the motionless Skrewface and hurls him down an elevator shaft to certain death. Finally, Skrewface is impaled on some machinery at the bottom of the elevator shaft, because after you have lethally destroyed a man’s spinal chord, then thrown him several stories to his death, it’s best to also impale him. No matter how you choose to divvy up this smorgasbord, the basic facts are as follows. At the beginning of the film we meet a character named Skrewface. By the end of the film we have seen him suffer four different fatalities, garnished with various beatings and mutilations.

While we’re at the whole list making thing, we’ve compiled a list of potentially offensive acts you could perform and listed them in order of the severity of the beating, torture and death that you would suffer as a consequence.

4. Take your Vespa club to the Laughlin River Run.

3. Start a chapter of D.A.R.E. in Juarez.

2. Finger paint a picture of Mohamed in the ejaculate you  release after spanking to Ayatollah Khamenei on Al Jazeera.

1. Borrow Seagal’s TV tray and then forget to return it.

THE END

Taurino Beer, imported from El Salvador (“Taurino Beer” is Spainish for “Airwolf”), sells for $10 per 18 pack at Fresh and Easy. Good fucking God it is bad. The upside is that if you should overdo it, you’ll already be acclimated to the taste of vomit. I mean, it seriously tastes vaguely of puke. Hold on a second while I open another one.

Oh right, I promised I would get back to other 80s copter shows. As the middle of this season of “Airwolf” is generally pretty shitty, I’ll see if I can distract you with the intro to “Riptide.” Hey! Look at this! It’s the intro to “Riptide!”

Yowzah. So that’s Donald P. Bellisario 1, Stephen J. Cannell 0 in the game of helicopter shows. Fun fact about Bellisario: He served alongside Lee Harvey Oswald during his stint in the Marines. Fun fact about Cannell: His teenage son was tragically suffocated by a giant sand castle.

Episode 10: Once a Hero

Sting and Archangel meet up with some unsavory Asians in a dodgy bar and trade money for what’s in the briefcase: pictures that place St. John in the prison camp of a Laotian warlord, whereupon String returns home and begins to hatch a plan to recover his brother which involves selling one of his many Louvre-quality paintings to finance the mission and rounding up his ‘Nam pals, one of whom is the front runner in the California senate race and the other of whom is a professional dirt bike racer, to man the mission. There are times when “Airwolf” stretches credibility. They go on the mission, the senator guy goes nutsy-koo-koo and… I won’t ruin the episode for you buy revealing if they find St. John or not. You have to admire them all. Most people go to SE Asia to fuck kids. Right?

Best Borgnine Line: Hey! This guy’s hotter than a two dollar pistol on a Saturday night!

Episode 11: Random Target

Another substandard mid-season episode, but at least we can always rely on String’s fly sense of style, even though this cap is probably from another episode. This one contains the line, “looks like some kind of big gathering of people for some reason.” I mean, overly expository dialog should at least provide some information. “We’re going to find the creator of the robot. Maybe he knows how to destroy it!” Not, “let’s go find some guy for some reason.” A guy who has another air company that the String and Borgs work with sometimes is killed after they do some filming in the desert for him. Then the lab where the film was developed is torched. Then it’s discovered that a lady and her jeep were blown up in the same area where the filming took place. Then Santini Air is torched. The police don’t see any connection. Airwolf must intervene. Though nonsensical, this is an impressively violent episode with a double digit corpse count. I can’t think of another network show nearly as violent as “Airwolf.” Like, dead bodies turn up on all of those dumb cop shows, but you never see people blossoming into their glorious becoming of death.

BBL: When they’re flying over the desert they see some chicks in bikinis and Borgnine zooms in and with a bunch of exclamations like “oooooh look at that!” I don’t know if the producers didn’t realize how creepy the image of a salivating Ernest Brognine secretly filming girls from a helicopter would be, or if they did realize how hilarious it would be.

Episode 12: The Condemned

The Rusians have engineered a horrifying bio-weapon that makes people believe that Tina Fey is funny. We’ve acquired the agent, but everyone on the Island of Research, where scienticians have gone to find an antidote with minimal risk of creating an epidemic if something should go wrong, has turned up dead. This sounds like a mission for… not Airwolf. Probably some kind of elite hazmat team that has spent years training on how to deal with bio-weapons. But they send Airwolf. A sub full of Ruskies turns up for reasons that are pretty unclear, especially since they are on U.S. territory. The story becomes a stirring cold war allegory as everyone becomes infected and the Airwolf team (it’s just String and the chick because Ernest Borgnine was having life-saving awesomeness-reduction surgery) and the Russians walk the precarious path between their national interests and prejudices and mutually assured destruction. There’s actually a very clever twist because everyone on the island seems to go insane and kill each other due to the contagion, but as it turns out, several hours of extreme paranoia is a side effect of the life saving antidote. Is the message that Reaganism was indeed the path to cold war victory and, ultimately, peace? Eventually, everyone gets smashed on vodka and does that Russian dancing that is extremely gay, even by the standards of dancing. String and Caitlin come away with the antidote and a great anecdote!

Best Borgnine Line: Look, I’m trying to move my bowels. Don’t I have enough problems as it is without people screaming at me while I’m trying to move my bowels!?

Episode 13: The American Dream

String and Dom are attending a wedding in one of California’s Central Valley Vietnamese communities. As a vet of ‘Nam String has formed many bonds with the Vietnamese people, as is bound to happen when you drop napalm on someone’s children. This is one of the innumerable similarities between me and an 80s action hero. Having worked in the gaming industry, I too have befriended this gentle and annoying people. Yet another vaguely Shakespearean smoked ham plays the criminal mastermind who threatens this small community with a booming voice coupled with an understated and cordial demeanor that scarcely cloaks his deadly intentions. This ultimately leads to a confrontation between Airwolf and a couple of crop-dusters in the worst mismatch since Charles Barkley last grappled with the written word. Finally, the Vietnamese warlord guy swoops in with a fighter jet, but Airwolf shoots him down, forcing him to parachute to the fields. The leader of the farmers proclaims “This is America! Citizens arrest!” Cut to a soaring bald eagle (really). I enjoyed this episode. Just to reiterate how much deathier “Aiwolf” is than other such shows, the bad guys kill people by spraying them with gasoline from a crop duster, then burning them alive.

BBL: (proposing a cabbage cutting race) “I’ll tell ya what! The first one down to the uh… down to that uh… ditch, down there is the winner! Let’s go! Haha!”

Episode 14: In at the End of the Road

More half-assed mid-season drek. Bank Robbers or some other kind of robbers storm into a little town and try to kill everyone by stuffing them in a meat locker with no oxygen. Airwolf intervenes. String and Dom have this big conversation about which kind of disability you’d most want a hot girl to have so that you could get away with raping her because she’d be unable to report it. String was like, whatever makes it impossible for her to report me, but leaves her body most in tact. So his ideal would be a fresh vegetable, I suppose. But Dom felt it was very important that she’d know what was happening, just not be able to report it. That was the main thing that he found erotic about the scenario–he wouldn’t even care that much if she was disfigured, so long as she was conscious of what was happening but powerless to ever tell anyone.  He concedes that he’d probably even do it to a guy if those criteria were met.

“BBL: Hey, look! Look at that family of bears!”

There was also “Airwolf’s” closer cousin, “Blue Thunder,” with Dana Carvey, NFL stars Dick Butkus and Bubba Smith and in the leading role… some guy who wasn’t famous and never would be. In “Blue Thunder” the super chopper is manned by an elite LAPD unit. As far as I can tell from the intro, the crew use Blue Thunder to travel quickly between schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District so that they can give presentations to assemblies of students in which they promote their message of Holocaust denial, another theme “Blue Thunder” shares with “Airwolf.” I don’t want to get too far off track, so I’ll continue this digression at some point in the future. Let’s get back to “Airwolf!”

Episode 5: Sins of the Past

Borgnine’s estranged daughter turns up dead of an overdose. As the story unfolds we learn that Borgnine’s wife is totally psychotic, even for a woman. She absconded with his daughter when she was seven (the daughter, not the wife- it’s Borgnine, not Mohammed) and he sees his girl for the first time since childhood, kneeling before her open casket, only to have the psycho bitch walk up behind him. He doesn’t know how to react. It’s pretty heavy. Seriously, “Airwolf” is tearing me apart inside. In turns out that the town is being run by some crook who is turning it into a marginally legal gambling destination and putting the squeeze on the locals. Airwolf intervenes. I don’t think that most of the people on this show shit their pants sufficiently when String or Dom get involved in some local zoning dispute and then show up in a gun ship. Like, imagine if that actually happened. Two guys are arguing and then,  one of them shows up in the parking lot with a sock full of nickles and you turn to your friend and say, “dis shit ’bout ta get REAL!” Then the other dude shows up with a billion dollar attack helicopter. On the show, the guy with the sock full of nickles might be thrown off somewhat, but he will generally try to attack Airwolf with the sock, rather than literally voiding his bowels and fainting, which I think is the normal reaction. Generally, even the police wind up being like, “well, thanks for the help fellas. We couldn’t have done it without you.” Not “Someone in a fucking military helicopter is blowing up half the fucking city!”

Best Melancholy Borgnine Line: I suppose I should have some kind of feeling for the place that I was born. But I don’t.

Episode 6: Fallen Angel

Weird-eye-patch-but-not-as-as-much-of-a-tool-as-Tom-Wolf guy is kindernapped in East Germany. I fall asleep.

Episode 7: HX-1

Right off the bat, underrated 80s cutey, PJ Soles, the chick who played Riff Randall in Rock n Roll High School, is listed as a guest star and like 20 people are killed in the first scene, so I’m optimistic. The HX-1 is the new helicopter that is arguably better than Airwolf and is stolen by mercenaries. That means the government has developed two, unique, cutting edge helicopters and immediately had both of them stolen from under their noses.  They’ve also gone from the name ‘Airwolf’ to the name ‘HX-1.’ That would never happen on my watch. The M.O. of the mercs is the same as JMV used with his crew back in The Shit, so he wonders if his MIA brother might be involved in the theft and therefore, most likely still alive. As awesome as Michael’s evil twin was in “Knight Rider,” I was hoping for this to be the case. Lamentably, “Airwolf” takes the high road yet again and the mastermind of the attacks turns out to be a different member of the ‘Nam crew. String’s twin remains MIA, which is unfortunate, but on the upside, he is named Sinjin Hawke. Would it be worth it to spend most of your life in a Vietnamese prison camp to be named Sinjin Hawke? I think that’s one of those questions where the answer depends on your own value system. (editor’s note: Erich apparently isn’t familiar with the whole “Saint John” being pronounced as “Sinjin” thing. I can’t say I blame him, since it’s retarded.)

Best non-Borgnine line: I could have used a man like your brother.

This line is given by some toothy Brit who plays the mercenary leader and is addressed to JMV. As written, it is hackneyed at best. The delivery is great though. We could have used a man. Like, your brother. Ouch! Kudos to you, English guy whose name IMDB will not reveal.

Episode 8: Flight #091 is Missing

This one sort of reminded me of a Margaret Atwood short story, “A Travel Piece.” The premise is basically the same: people trapped at sea after an airline crash with no hope of rescue. This version is better because Airwolf intervenes, in one of the stronger episodes of the season. Hijackers land a plane on the water and let it sink, but the way the plane is designed, the water doesn’t leak in. Why doesn’t it float then? You sure ask a lot of questions. The point is that the hijackers have the passengers trapped under water, undetectable, completely at their mercy and with a deadline that cannot be negotiated: the amount of time it will take for the passengers to run out of oxygen. Caitlin is on board, but I think that is largely to make the scenes in the plane more interesting and that Airwolf would have intervened in this situation regardless of who the passengers were, as this is another mission under the direction of The FIRM. Another brutal moment by the standards of network TV comes when the guys who actually hijack and sink the plane emerge from the ocean in scuba gear, see their partners and start celebrating.”We did it!” “Huzzah!”  Their partners whip out the machine guns, open up on their pals and cut them out of the deal.

Things that negotiate with terrorists: East coast, Jewish, cosmopolitan experts.

Things that don’t negotiate with terrorists: Airwolf.

Best Borgnine line: Oh, what the heck? Hooray!

Episode 9: Once A Hero

This episode is one of the worst. I assume they dump all the turds into the middle of the season, so I made note of the Best Borgnine Line (BBL) and googled “Airwolf fan fiction” which led to http://www.fanfiction.net/tv/Airwolf/

A few postcards from the abyss:
Sleeping Beauties» by bookworm

On their first mission since Cait’s death, Dominic and Hawke go undercover to bust a drug ring and take a dangerous drug off the street nicknamed Sleeping Beauty.

Jingle Bell Hawke by Maria Thorne

BBL: Are you kidding? At these prices, I’ll pop for the sweaters!