Hard Ticket to Hawaii/Picasso Trigger (1987/1989)

Directed by Andy Sidaris
Starring: Dona Speir, Hope Marie Carlton, Harold Diamond, snakes, model airplanes, razorblade frisbees, and tits-lots of tits.
Malibu Bay Films 

Andy Sidaris (RIP) was just as obsessive and accomplished a film maker as Russ Meyer, with  (sadly) none of the hipster accolades or high brow literary dissection, but that might all change with his comprehensive 12 volume DVD series. Sidaris had a lurid but imminently marketable vision of a bleach blonde Shangri-La, with bikini-stretching government agents and their muscle-tearing Kung-Fu sex toys taking on the most vague forms of machine gun evil imaginable in lush landscapes of extravagant beauty, and this 80's born Sidarisian wonderland found a happy home in the blurry-eyed world of late night cable television. Still does, in fact. Click on anything form USA to Cinemax at 2 AM, and the next popped top is most likely Andy's doing. What makes his films so watchable, even after many repeated viewings, is their complete lack of pretense, their campy absurdity played as straight as humanly possible, and of course, the chicks. His unwavering faith in "Bullets, Bombs, and Babes" became such an exact science, that the DVD booklets come with a handy guide for how many of the three B's are included in each chapter. And of course, at least one and sometimes all three come rolling in without fail, every time.

Hard Ticket to Hawaii is his first film in this gonzo series. Try and keep up with me on this. Donna (Dona Speir) and Taryn (Hope Marie Carlton), two chesty blondes that couldn't possible exist in any other time than the cocaine and silicone fueled 80's, are government agents. I'm guessing the US government, but God knows what division hired and trained these two. They're working undercover as cargo plane pilots, secretly ferreting out dope smugglers and the like. Right off the bat, they're up to their bra-stuffing tits in trouble, as not only is a contaminated snake running amuck, thanks to their inept handling of clearly marked snake boxes, but they discover a sinister cabal of diamond smugglers and dope dealers on the far side of the island. I'm not sure how much you have to worry about diamond thieves that attempt to move their stolen ice by model plane, but they do have plenty of machine guns. But before we get ahead of ourselves, I must explain the snake. See, he's been shot up with some kind of cancer, and if bitten, his victims will be infected as well. That particularly nasty fact doesn't even matter much, since the serpent is so berserk, he just tears his prey up into bloody shreds, as a couple of hapless honeymooners soon find out. Anyway, Seth Romero (Rodrigo Obregon), the drug dealer whose as mean as the contaminated snake is on to our bubbly supergirls, thanks to an entirely unconvincing transvestite bartender/spy, so they call for back-up, and some old pals show up, including a pony-tailed Kung Fu guy (Harold Diamond) and a weapons expert (Ron Moss) who rigs up the most implausible looking incendiary devices you've ever seen. Like a skateboard bomb, for example, or a razor-tipped frisbee. Between showers and skinny dipping and drunken revelry, the unlikely team of undercover Feds concoct a scheme to bring down the bad guys- it involves motorcycles and bazookas, with a surprise appearance by that goddamned snake-and it all ends in a flurry of explosions and kicking. Of course, the good guys win, and the girls live to blunder and jiggle another day.

Despite the over-reaching tongue-in-cheek plot contrivances and the gratuitous nature of...well, everything, "Hard Ticket" is a seriously well-crafted film, aided greatly by the amazingly lush location and Hope Carlton's Playboy bunny charm. I wanted to kick the pony-tailed guy's teeth in the second he showed up on the island, but that was probably part of the plan as well. The DVD has a host of extras, including Andy and gravity defying miracle of nature Julie Strain clowning around in an impromptu intro, a complete set of trailers, a still gallery, and some handy b-movie making tips from Sidaris. The whole thing is a blast, both literally and figuratively speaking, from start to Finish.

Picasso Trigger is Hard Ticket's high concept follow-up, featuring many of the same players including lethally blonde agents Donna and Taryn and their Kung Fu fighting pal. First, though, their is intrigue in Paris to ponder as vaguely sinister arch-criminal Salazar decides to turn his back on his evil ways and give back to the city that he's taken so much from, donating a priceless painting of a big blue fish- The Trigger, naturally, to some swanky museum. But wouldn't you know, as soon as he strolls out, his new life as an honest citizen sprawled out in front of him, he's assassinated by some dirty sniper. Or is he? Well no, he isn't. Saddam himself must of have picked up some pointers from this film, as Salazar has merely dispatched an unlucky look-a-like to take the bullet for him so that he concentrate on his life's work without interference. His life's work being revenge on the g-string wearing secret agents that killed his brother- you know, the diamond/drug guy from Hard Ticket to Hawaii.

And so, the team gets back together, amidst much crazy talk of snuff films and a few sub-Vegas vaudeville T&A acts, to take on the Picasso Trigger and his swarthy henchmen. PT contains much of Hard Ticket's plot elements- including the Mcguver-esque weaponry. This time out, you get missile launching crutches and a boomerang bomb. The latter you could think about for days- if it's got a bomb attached to it, why the Hell would you want it to fly back? The model airplane hijinks are back too, as a payload bearing craft blows up Taryn and Donna's rather boss cigarette boat. It all ends in a climactic showdown at Salazar's remote hide-out, and in lieu of no cancerous snake, a well-placed surfboard helps out the cause. Explosions and a hot tub after-party ensue.

Being a sequel- or at least a semi-sequel- Picasso Trigger is more formulaic than its anything can happen predecessor, but Sidaris wisely upped the ante on the cheap thrills quotient by littering the film with no less than 7 Playmates, and all of them find the time to get at least half-naked somewhere in the mix. All in all, it's another righteous display of 80's excess, as loud and as implausible as the decade it was made in. The DVD contains much of the same extras as "Hard Ticket", with the addition of some sexy Julie Strain out-takes from some of her films further along in the series. The best part of it all is watching Andy himself living it up with Strain at his side, flashing freely and declaring her love for the T&A auteur as his long-time muse and business partner, wife Arlene, looks on, bemused at the whole silly affair. He's obviously a man that lives the dream and for that- not to mention all the tits and bazookas- Sidaris deserves a rousing round of applause.

Or just buy his movies, either way.

PS: Andy passed away in 2007. I was honored to speak with him a couple times, and I am happy to say that he was a prince of a fellow. He will be missed. Bazookas are just no fun  without him.

- Ken 

Thirteen Erotic Ghosts (2002)

Directed by Fred Olen Ray
Starring Julie Strain, Mia Zottoli, Aria Giovanni, The Porcelain Twinz
Unrated
USA 

"She died in a girl-girl orgy with the student body."
"What student body?"
"All of them."

The insanely prolific Z-flick king Fred Olen Ray has two distinct filmmaking modes. There's the "I'm making a real movie" mode - see Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers and Phantom Empire - and then there's the "I'm making a quick buck" mode - see everything else he's made, including this. Lesbian softcore is one of his quick-cash specialties, and he can wrap just about any gimmick imaginable around a handful of girl-girl scenes. In this case, he's riffing off of the success (?) of the 2001 Thirteen Ghosts reboot, adding a 3D twist to the proceedings, and tossing a generous helping of gratuitous naked Julie Strain on top. Plus a little playful twincest! Who could resist such a tasty confection?

The opening scene features a towering Strain cavorting in a kiddie pool with two identi-blondes (the Porcelain Twinz!)  and a dildo. Although she does a lot of goofy ballet moves, and the cheesy violin score sounds like something from a bad Italian restaurant, the scene is surprisingly potent, as close to hardcore as you can get without any graphic insertion. Semi-hardcore, let's say. Anyway, halfway through this lusty Sapphic threesome, a bolt of lightning shoots from the sky, strikes the dildos, and fries the lithesome ladies. The end.

No wait, it's just the beginning. Fast forward to "Many years later", where we meet disgraced ex-anchor man turned low-ball journalsit Ted Nightingale (frequent Olen Ray goofball Jay Richardson), his snarky producer Gina Dicaprio (Mia Zotolli), and a jumpy cameraman (Assault of the Party Nerds director Richard Gabai), as they are about to broadcast the first-ever televised exploration of "Waffle House", the very same finishing school where Strain and the twins were, ahem, finished so long ago. It's haunted now, you see. With sexy ghosts!

Of course, much like in the original 13 Ghosts - which was definitely lacking in the lesbian sex department, so I'm glad this one got made - they'll need special "Ghost goggles" to see the ghosts. So they put 'em on and snoop around the castle, running into various sex-spirits along the way, who either have sex with Gina or with each other. So that's pretty awesome.

Also, the twins are now punk rock cheerleader ghosts. How does that happen?

Julie Strain also pops up as Baroness Lucrezia. It's been two-hundred years to the day since she was fried alive by the electric dildo, and if she manages to have sex with the investigators, she will be released from her ghostly confines in the house. I think that's what's happening. Either that, or she just wants to bone some live meat.

Halfway through the movie, there's a 3D sex scene with the punk rock cheerleader twins and Julie Strain. Maybe. I don't have the glasses to verify this. Still, even the promise of a 3D sex scene with Julie Strain and the Porcelain Twinz seems worth the price of admission to me.

So Gina has a four-way with the ghosts, and camera-guy figures out how to shoot it (by putting the ghost-goggles over the lens, naturally), which frees all the spirits from the house, and allows Baroness and Hugo to split for England to get drunk and bone.

Clearly, F.O.R was not trying particularly hard with this one. The plot is not just flimsy, it's virtually translucent, and the castle the entire film is shot in...well, it has shag carpeting. So it's a 1974 castle. Still, there's a fully-nude lesbian softcore scene every ten minutes, the always impressive Julie Strain is topless for most of the running time, and the cast is littered with familiar faces mugging shamelessly through what is obviously a very fun afternoon for everyone involved. Boners will be popped, laughs will be had, eyes will be strained trying to get the half-assed 3D to work.

- Ken McIntyre 

Boobs: An American Obsession (2010)

Directed by Nina Brownfield-Berry
Starring Julie Strain, Mamie Van Doren, Tom Arnold, Melonie Charm
Unrated 
USA

"I'm a sideshow freak. I'm not normal."

Given the cleavage-filled cover, and the exuberant title, I naturally assumed this was a celebration of boobs, especially since it features top-heavy good-time gals like Julie Strain and Mamie Van Doren. Sadly, this is not the case. Boobs is actually a fairly sober documentary on the various realities of owning a pair of breasts. One shallow bubble-head gets a tit-job because she thinks it'll help her snag some movie roles, an aging big-breast internet model smokes cigarettes with her lesbian neighbor and laments the fact that she can't really go outside, a very adorable older couple talk about life after a double-masectomy (!), etc.

Most of the subjects make you feel sorta judge-y; one nerdy creep with a frumpy wife cajoles her into a needless breast job and then parades her around in lingerie he proudly bought off the clearance rack, a 50 year old mom gets a breast job and starts stripping at the same club as her daughter to pay off her escalating debt, some ancient bearded lunatic in Rochester, New York, coerces his dim-witted child bride to walk around town topless, and all the feminists interviewed are stoic and sexless.

Mamie Van Doren is onscreen for five or so minutes looking insane - if you're wondering what happened to Baby Jane, here she is - and utilizes her time to mention that if it weren't for her boobs, she's probably have to use her brain more often. On a similar note, b-goddess Julie Strain sells herself short by claiming that all her success is based solely on her boob job, and not because she's a 6 foot tall glamazon who looks amazing when she's shooting a machine gun with one arm while steering a speed boat with the other.

 There a few sympathetic characters - a girl with natural breasts so large and heavy they made it impossible for her to walk without pain gets breast reduction surgery and finally gets to live a normal life; a pixie-esque LA stand-up comic recounts about how she realized, in the doctor's office, that she was fine just the way she was, and a pair of regular-folks couples laugh at the folly of America's breast obsession. So that's something, at least.

First-time director Brownfield-Berry clearly attempted to be even-handed, but the with so many creepy doctors, pervy nudists, delusional breast surgery addicts, mean-spirited conservative talk show hosts, opportunistic skin-rag publishers, and potential cult leaders that by the end of it, you're actually sick and tired of boobs. And, quite frankly, I thought that was impossible. In that respect, Brownfield-Berry is like the anti-Russ Meyer, ruining everybody's bountiful good time with her graphic surgery and her long-one losers. Do yourself a favor - skip Boobs and spend some time with some real boobs.

- Ken McIntyre

Lusty Busty Babe-A-Que (2008)

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Takin' It Off Out West (1995)

Directed by Ed Hansen
Starring Julie Strain, Buck Flower, John Goff
Rated R
USA

"Your condition is keeping us from getting rich. Why don't you just try playing with yourself?"

Sadly, this is the final installment in Ed Hansen's Takin' It Off trilogy. Not so sadly, it's probably the best one. It's still not good, mind you, it's just not as eyeball-abusingly bad as Takin' It Off or Takin' It All Off. So that's something.

It's the Wild West. Well, it's one of those low-rent Wild West backlots, really. John F Goff resurrects his flouncy Elliot role from Takin' It All Off, only now he's Virgil, and he's leading a trio of out-of-work strippers (Anastasia Brown, Kimberly Knight, and un-credited girl number 3) to some mining town in the desert via stagecoach. They stop at a ghost town for water (classically not the best place to find any), where they proceed to strip down and frolic. They meet the longhaired marshal (of a ghost town?), Quiet Earp (Dallas Austin), and make themselves at home. Earp is supposed to help them safely make it to the mining town.

Meanwhile, Julie Strain, dressed up like some sort of glamazon American Indian, skulks around with a bow and arrow, while Buck Flower, as Pappy, and his idiot son Pink (Anthony Mitchum), watch from the bushes. Apparently Pappy has recently sold his horses for a 'Wishing Stone'. Pappy and son both wear eye patches. So does Pappy's other son, Purple (Jeff Beasely). So they might be pirates, not cowboys.

The Marshal's name is Quiet Earp, by the way, because he doesn't say much. Also, Pappy's sons are named Pink and Purple because he already had a dog named Blue. Also, I'm guessing, because both are penis colors. Haha.

In one gutbusting scene, Purple rides up to the mining camp on an invisible horse. Also, there's a classic Ed Hansen scene early on where Virgil, wearing a chef's hat, attempts to make dinner outside. One of the girls says, "I feel like somebody's watching us. It's a different feeling from when I take off my clothes."
And then the other girl knocks into her, and she falls down. This is accentuated with Hanna Barbara boinks. She gets up and calls the other girl a slut, and they start to wrestle, with Virgil between them. And then fiddle music plays. Hansen never realized the sound cues make things less funny, not more.

Then Julie Strain smears on some war paint.

The "guvmint" is paying the strippers $500 a day to entertain the sad-sacks at the mine. Pappy's plan is to kidnap the girls and hold them for ransom until the government pays them off. It seems like a solid enough plan, but he is somewhat stymied by the fact that Pink, whenever he sees a beautiful woman, starts doing backflips and making boinking noises like a flipped-out Daffy Duck. This makes stealth-y operations like kidnapping nearly impossible.

Under the cover of darkness, Pappy and his sons creep into the camp. "Wake up, Marshal. Time to die," Pappy says, brandishing his pistol. "Nothing personal."

The noise wakes up the strippers. One of them says "Somebody do something!" which makes her boob fall out which, in turn, makes Pink go into boinging backflip convulsions. This thwarts their plans, and they are, sadly, forced to retreat.

Meanwhile, Julie Strain sharpens her arrow.

Free of marauders once more, the girls take soapy baths. Pink and Purple use the opportunity to sneak back in, but instead of shooting the marshal (who is suggestively shaving a plank of wood), they just have sex with the girls.

Ands that's it for quite some time, just softcore fucking, Julie Strain working on her weapons, and Pappy getting drunk.

And then Virgil accidentally shoots his dick off.

Meanwhile, at the mining camp (actually just a patch of mud), the men are airing their grievances at Marshmallow Malone (Hardy Oliver). They paid good money for strippers, dammit, and they've yet to show up. All they have to amuse themselves with is Magic's (Jimmy Sarno) lame-ass card tricks.

Magic: Wanna see my new card trick?
Cowboy: Magic, you can take those cards and shove them up your ass.
Magic: How'd you know that was my trick? I only came up with it last night!

Marshmallow sends his tomboy daughter, Catastrophe Kate (Kathy Pasmore), to fetch the strippers. Kate is dressed in layers of what looks like burlap, and her face is coated in dirt. She gets to the town and berates the girls for being tramps and floozies. They, on the other hand, are unsure whether she's a boy or girl. Five minutes later - after Kate falls head over heels for the monosyllabic marshal - she's taking a soapy outdoor shower, giant silicone melons glistening in the sun, her face now miraculously slathered in make-up.

Pink and Purple attempt another raid, and Kate takes off on her horse. Topless.

Meanwhile, Julie Strain takes off her leather bra and paints her nipples.

Pink and Purple find out they're not Pappy's kids after all ("We're Peckers, not Putzes") and chase Pappy out of town. Everybody clops on over to the mining camp, where the men finally get their strip show. As in all Ed Hansen productions, it goes on forever. And then, for whatever reason, Magic does a striptease.
And then Julie Strain, who it turns out is not an Indian at all, just a pissed-off white chick, shoots Pappy in the ass with an arrow, and becomes Mayor of the ghost town. The end.

Alright, so on the plus side, the new hillbilly Takin' It Off theme is less annoying than the previous disco version, and the girls in this one are far better looking than the over-the-hill two-dollar strippers from the first two films. Everything else, however - Flower's drunken lurching, the childish gags, the sound-effects album abuse - is prime Hansen. The Wild West theme just adds that extra slug of lunacy to the proceedings. Seems kinda nuts to leave jaw dropping force-of-nature Julie Strain out in the woods for the entire movie, but I'm sure Ed had his reasons. At any rate, it will take you about ten seconds to figure out whether Takin' It Off Out West is for you or not, but odds lean toward the latter.

Ed followed this up, amazingly enough, with a zombie movie.

Availability: Takin' It Off Out West is available on VHS.

- Ken McIntyre