The Fruit Guys

I don't watch much television when I'm at home, but there isn't much else to do sometimes when you're traveling.

And maybe it's because I'm away from home at the moment, but the Fruit of the Loom television commercials with the singing fruits are seeming funnier to me than ever before. And it got even funnier when I went to this website. (It's perhaps the goofiest way to sell underwear ever devised.)

What's more troubling than the fact I found myself laughing like a madman over guys dressed up in fruit costumes singing about underwear, is that I found the music videos and the songs more entertaining than most REAL pop songs I've also been watching recently on television.

The film of choice for a drug intervention

Zardoz (1974)
Starring: Sean Connery, Charlotte Rampling, Sarah Kestleton and John Alderton
Director: John Boorman
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

In the distant future,the intellectually curious (yet violent) barbarian Zed (Connery) hides in the floating head of his tribe's god Zardoz and ends up being brought to a Utopian land of immortals who have developed telepathy but lost all passion for life. Here, he may become their salvation or their destruction... or perhaps even both.


If you have a friend or family member you want to convince to stop drinking or using drugs, do this:

1. Get a copy of Zardoz.

2. Get a copy of "The Russia House" or "Hunt for Red October" or "Goldfinger", whichever Sean Connory-starring film they are most likely to want to watch.

3. Put the copy of "Zardoz" in the other movie's box.

4. Next time the friend or family member is blitzed, sit down to watch the movie with them. Show them the box when they ask "what is this shit?" or "why is James Bond wearing pirate boots and a diaper?" or "why is that giant floating head vomiting guns and shouting about penises?" or "why are those old people doing ballroom dancing?" or "why is James Bond pulling Clay Aiken in a rickshaw while wearing nothing but red man-panties?" and say you don't know what they're talking about and make comments as if you're watching the movie the box belongs to.


5. When they stumble off or pass out, switch "Zardoz" for the real movie. Return "Zardoz" to the rental place or destroy it.

6. When your momentarily sober friend or loved one next asks about that weird movie they half-remember from the night before, insist that it doesn't exist. Put the movie that belongs in case in the player and show them what they watched.

7. The fact that they hallucinated something as unbelievably strange as "Zardoz" will scare them straight right then and there. They will be BEGGING you to enroll them in a detox program and they will never touch drugs or booze ever again. Guaranteed.


"Zardoz" is a beautifully filmed sci-fi movie that is so desperate to offer intellectually deep social commentary that it ends up coming across like a boorish grad student at a party trying to convince you of how smart he is. There are some interesting points raised about human nature and civilization, but they are presented so heavy-handedly and in such a trippy environment that you won't really be able to pay attention to them; you'll be too busy wondering how ANYONE thought this movie was a good idea, and, more specifically, how ANYONE thought featuring Sean Connery in pirate boots and a diaper was a good idea (including Sean Connery... he must have been really desperate for a paycheck in those initial post-Bond years).

Aside from curing drug addicts and alcoholics, "Zardoz" might bring a dose of startling weirdness to a Bad Movie Nite. It's not a very good movie, but there's enough here to make it worth watching if you're in the right frame of mind. It's a botched sci-fi film that exists at the crossroads between "Brave New World" and "Road Warrior" and "2001" and "Slipstream", but that crossroads is also home to a pseudo-intellectual swamp haunted by giant floating heads and patrolled by a gun-toting Sean Connery in a red diaper!

The Atom Bomb and Hiroshima

Today, it's exactly 65 years since the first atom bomb used in warfare was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.


I think it was the right decision, and I think it saved hundreds of thousands--if not millions--of American service men from dying during a bloody invasion. The survival of America and American citizens should be the top priority of our government. In 1945, America had leaders who knew that.

The military regime in control of Japan was every bit as evil as the Nazis. Japanese culture of the time promoted that the highest glory was dying for the Emperor... it was dominated by a rotten culture of death that has much in common with the ideology promoted by the various Islamic terrorist groups (and even a couple of Mid-eastern governments) today.

So, if you lean toward wringing your hands over the bombing of Hiroshima, you should remember that Japan chose to attack America first. Maybe you should also read about the way Japan murdered hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians while testing biological, chemical, and conventional weapons. Much is said about the evil Americans and their A-bomb in history classes around the world, but hardly a word--if any at all--about Unit 731. When you're done reading teary-eyed accounts of firestorms and radiation burns at Hiroshima, perhaps you can read this piece by Judith Miller about the monstrous behavior of the Japanese in occupied China.


This article about the Japanese atrocities during World War II is also worth reading. (Of course, that article also shows that even in 1940s, America could be its own worst enemy as far as propaganda wars go, as it was us that put the foundation in place that permits the ever-growing denial among the Japanese that they did anything at all wrong during WWII.)

And finally, the author of "Japan's Secret War" has this straight-forward article.

When "put in context" (to borrow a phrase that Oliver Stone has been misuing of late), dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima was the right choice. Dropping the second one was equally justified and correct.

Chinese peasants give the Japs what-for!

This month, it's 65 years since the United States of America dropped two atom bombs on Japan and brought an end to World War II. This is one of several reviews I'm posting to mark the anniversary.


Blood on the Sun (aka "The Big Fight") (1972)
Starring: Roc Tien and Ching Ching Chang
Director: Ting Mei Sung
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

During the Japanese occupation of northern China during WW2, a local commander of the forces occupying a small town and its corrupt, collaborating leadership engage in a campaign of oppression and terror. When resistance fighters start appearing and successfully challenging, the Japanese stage a competition where they invite the villagers to test their fighting skills against the best of martial artists in the region's occupying force, hoping pride will draw out the rebels and allow them to be killed.


"Blood on the Sun" is nicely staged martial arts drama with thoroughly despicable, perverted villains (the Japanese troops and their Chinese collaborators harass and/or rape any woman they come across... and that's just to warm up) and brave, morally upstanding peasant heroes.

This movie is one of countless Chinese movies that portray the Japanese military as evil, perverted butchers... and given what happened in places like Nanking and in backwaters like the one portrayed in this film, it's understandable. However, it is also a great martial arts movie with some great set-piece fight scenes--like the one where the girl resistance fighter whips off her skirt and reveals it to be lined with dozens of razor-sharp metal disks and ready for use as a weapon--and better-than-average dubbing (as far as obscure 1970s martial arts flicks go).


The film will also entertain those who appreciate down-to-earth, realistic martial arts battles. The most fantastic the film even gets is when the hero throws a dagger at a Japanese soldier and kills him without even turning around to draw aim. And please don't mistake down-to-earth with boring in this case. Every single fight in this film is very dramatic and exciting. In fact, I think I this film may now rank among my favorite martial arts movies of all time.

Of course, with a movie like this, one has to just live in the moment and not consider what happens to the heroes once the film is over. Given the historical truth regarding the brutality of the Japanese Imperial Army, I doubt any of the villagers in the film would survive for long once more troops arrived and that the burning rubble of their homes would serve as their graves. The triumph at the end of this film is a fleeting one at best, and while the Japanese were ultimately defeated, uprisings such as the one in this film in reality ended badly for the rebels.

Still, "Blood on the Sun" is an entertaining and well-paced film. The only real complaint I have is with the abrupt ending, but I'm not sure if the version I saw is complete. The print used for the DVD transfer was pretty ragged in places, so I wouldn't be surprised if a few seconds were completely missing at the end. (Despite this flaw, I count this film among the many pleasant surprises that I've found in the "Martial Arts 50 Movie Pack" DVD collection.

Tom Mankiewicz dead at 68

Tom Mankiewicz, screenwriter for three of my favorite James Bond movies--'The Man with the Golden Gun', 'Live and Let Die' and 'Diamonds Are Forever'--died this past Saturday at the age of 68. He had been battling pancreatic cancer for some time,and he passed at his Los Angeles home.

Tasty Tuesday: Chicken ala Walken

This installment of Tasty Tuesday brings a video from actor Christopher Walken. The man knows how to cook a chicken.

'God's Gun' is flawed but worthwhile

God's Gun (aka "A Bullet From God") (1977)
Starring: Lee Van Cleef, Jack Palance, Leif Garrett, Sybil Danning, Robert Lipton, Heinz Bernard, and Richard Boone
Director: Frank Kramer
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

When the vicious outlaw Sam Clayton (Palance) and his gang murder a small-town priest (Van Cleef), the church's altar boy, Johnny (Garrett) and the priest's twin brother (also Van Cleef) set about getting revenge and stopping the outlaws in a most unusual fashion.


"God's Gun" is a dirty, grimy western in the mold of "For a Fistful of Dollars." Even the good guys are somewhat questionable when it comes to their morals, virtuous acts are tainted with blood and evil, and you can almost smell the sweat and feel the dust gritting between your teeth as the wind blows from the screen. It also features fairly convoluted storyline that rivals those found in more famous westerns from the same period, and while there aren't any developments that are particularly surprising to viewers paying attention or who are well-versed in the western genre, the twists and turns of the plot are well executed.

The film also features some fine acting from Lee Van Cleef, who plays the dual role of twin brothers who are retired gunslingers. One has become a priest, the other a rancher just across the border with Mexico,but both have sworn off violence and have committed themselves to lives of peace. It's rare that we get to see Van Cleef actually act in a film--beyond his usual "I Can Stare At You And You'll Drop Dead"-type characters--and to see him in in an almost Obi-Wan Kenobi-esque role is pretty cool. (As the priest, Father John, he is attempting to mold young Johnny into a responsible adult. Even as Lewis, the gunslinger-turned-rancher, he attempts to direct Johnny away from a life of violence.)

Another remarkable part of the film is Jack Palance. Although he once again is playing a psycho--and a psycho who is so far around the bend that the quiet menace that so often hangs around Palance's characters is all but dispelled by naked brutality--he is fun to watch as he brutalizes everyone from townsfolk to the members of his own gang. His idea of family values is also creepy, or unintentionally hilarious, as his idea of getting to know the son he never knew had in the second half of the movie is to bellow, "Come out here, or I'll kill your mother!"

Speaking of Sam Clayton's son, Leif Garrett does an okay job, but he's like most child actors... in some scenes, he overacts slightly while in others he barely seems to be running lines. He's not exactly bad, but he's not exactly good either.

Every other actor in the film is decent enough, but they aren't portraying characters so much as they're just filling the shoes of figures that populate any western (the druken sheriff, the cowardly townsfolk, the plucky saloon girls, the sleazy bandits, and so on). None of them detract from their place in the scenery, so they're all good. (Although a few of the bandits get to shine a bit during the gang-rape scene in the saloon, and durning the sequence when Johnny and Lewis are executing their unusual revenge scheme against the Clayton Gang),

Despite all its good points, the film suffers from a lack of moral focus. The writer and director seem to want to give Sam Clayton an eleventh hour redemption after he discovers Johnny is his son, but the character's actions--and Palance's portrayal of him--have been so repulsive and over the top that there is absolutely no way that any amount of speeches about how he now just wants to raise his son in peace will win viewers onto his side, nor make us believe that even Clayton himself believes what he is saying. So, while Clayton's ultimate end has a degree of irony to it, the climax of the film is undermined by the way the filmmakers suddenly seem to desire to invoke sympathy for him. This weakness in the ending is what keeps this movie from rating any higher than average.

"God's Gun" is an undeservedly obscure entry in the Spaghetti Western canon (and I'm using the term loosely here, as it was actually shot in Israel and produced by the Israeli team of Golan-Globus) that fans of the western genre should check out. It may be a tad too confused about its own moral viewpoint, but it's still worth seeing.