Pink Lady & Jeff, Episode 1

Directed by: Rudy DeLuca
Starring Pink Lady, Jeff Altman, Sherman Hemsley, Bert Parks
Genre: Variety show/Insanity

"I loved the song, I just didn't realize your honorable ancestors had boogie fever."

Everybody loves a good train wreck - at least on television - and they don't come much wreck-ier than this. Pink Lady (AKA Mei and Kei) was a popular Japanese singing duo - popular in Japan, that is - who happened to catch the eyes and ears of NBC president Fred Silverman, who saw a potential goldmine in the disco-pop duo. Without nary a whiff of homework, he signed the bewildered Japanese dolls to a contract and roped in psychedelic kiddie-show kingpins Sid and Marty Krofft to produce a weekly Pink Lady-hosted variety show. There was, however, one major stumbling block to this operation: the girls didn't really know how to speak English.

In these more sober times, that devilish detail would be a deal breaker. But this was 1980, brother, and anything could happen in the 1980's. And so Sid and Marty forged on. Schlubby comedian Jeff Altman - probably most well-known, if at all, for a series of Arby's commercials in the mid 1980's - was signed on to smooth over the rough spots, and a cast of low-watt yucksters were recruited (including a pre-Ernest Jim Varney) for further distractions. Ultimately, it all proved futile, and all Pink Lady could really do was (badly) lip-synch their phonetic-English versions of hit pop and disco tunes and push Jeff into a hot tub at the end of every show. There were also a few bewildered guest stars (Lorne Greene! Larry Hagman!) and some surprise (and weird, and godawful) duets as well, including Pink Lady with Donny Osmond and Pink Lady with...erm, Greg Evigan.

Suffice to say, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

The pilot opens with a montage of Mei and Kei playing in stadiums and rolling around in limos, cut with scenes  from the show. And then Jeff Altman comes out. No Pink Lady, just Jeff. He does a pretty painful monologue ("I wish my parents could be here to see me, but they're over at the studio next door, watching Merv Griffin interview his suit"), and then he introduces Pink Lady. They come out with Kimonos and sing in Japanese for a couple seconds, and then rip those off to reveal matching pink dresses underneath. And then they lip-synch to "Boogie Wonderland". Eventually, they're joined by a bunch of over-ripe, crazy-eyed dancers, who at least offer a distraction from the girls' not-even-close lip-dubbing.

Anyway, after that travesty, the girls saunter down to the lower-stage to goof around with Jeff. He goofs on them for not knowing English very well, and Mei changes the subject by telling him she thinks he's handsome. His reply: "Oh, you're just turned on by my round eyes." Ha ha, what?

Then there's a gag about how the girls have a bodyguard (a sumo wrestler busts through the wall) and then, mercifully, the bit comes to a close when Mei and Kei announce tonight's guests: Sherman Hemsley ("Chermin Humsley"), Bert Parks, and Blondie ("Blundie").
"And don't forget our bodyguard-o friend here," adds Jeff. "He might come on the show later and swallow a Dastsun."
Oof.

In the next segment, the girls dress up in spandex and dance in front of a giant boombox. Every so often, the camera zooms into one of the speakers, which opens up to reveal a hilarious skit waiting inside! In one, Jeff plays a pompadour'ed preacher trying to cure disco-obsessed Mei from hearing loss by hitting her on the head.

In another, he plays a brain-dead boxer being interviewed by a hot redhead (Anna Mathias).

And in yet another hopeless gag, the girls dress up like the Supremes and Jeff does a soul-powered Richard Nixon impression. This is in 1980, mind you.

Next, Jeffersons' star Sherman Hemsley drops by to goof around with the gang. Somehow or another this leads us to a another skit wherein Pink Lady play sailors watching a USO gig at the first all-girl army base.

Jeff plays some kind of medallion-wearing, bare-chested stud. And then Sherman Hemsley (in shorts) does an Andrews Sisters send-up. Hilarity does not ensue.

So then Bert Parks comes out. He used to host the Miss America pageant. They have a guy dressed up like him somersault onto the stage, to give the impression that he's still spry. Pink Lady act super-excited, even though they clearly have no idea who he is. Burt introduces a skit, which turns into another skit - neither of which feature Pink Lady - and then they show a Blondie video. "Shayla". Horrible song.

There's a short skit called "The Adventures of the Pink Falcon" wherein Pink Lady are jewel thieves and Jeff is a Cagney-esque gumshoe. Pretty stupid, but at least the girls wear black leather jumpsuits for it.

Next up: A Tonight Show parody. Jeff, naturally, does his Carson impression. The girls are serious marble-mouths in this segment. Who knows what they're talking about? All I can say for sure is they show a television ad Pink Lady did in Japan for some weird product - looks like a portable smoke alarm? - and then they introduce a Japanese stand-up comedian, "Shecky Nakamoto" (Richard Lee-Sung). He does his act in Japanese. It's the funniest part of the show so far.

And then Bert Parks and Sherman Hemsley come back for a long and pointless "salute to old Hollywood". There's a Kissinger joke in there. That's all I remember.

And there's a Howard Cosell meets Marilyn Monroe thing, too. Sketch comedy gobbledy-gook.

Finally, we reach our finale. Jeff comes out with Pink Lady and says, "Girls, I think we're going to make a great team."
"Don't bet on it!" Snaps Kei. Truer words may have never been spoken.

And then they lip-synch their cover of James Taylor's (by way of Carole King's) "You've Got a Friend". Or, more accurately, "You've Got a Fwend".

You figure that would be enough 'entertainment' for one evening, but nope. Suddenly, a full rock band appears out of nowhere and the ladies launch into "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow". There's even some psychedelic video effects!

They finish up with their Engrish take on "Knock On Wood". Not one word of it is understandable. Complete gibberish. Sort of adorable gibberish, but gibberish nonetheless.

Oh yeah, and then they take off their dresses and change into bikinis!

And then they dunk Jeff into the hot tub. This part, I like.

So ends the pilot. Any sane group of individuals would take a hard look at the horror they just created and close down production, but clearly the lunatics had taken over the asylum, because Pink Lady and Jeff hobbled along for another five magnificent episodes.

Stay tuned.

- Ken McIntyre 

Gothic & Lolita Psycho (2010)

AKA Psycho Gothic Lolita
AKA Gosurori shokeinin
Directed by Go Ohara
Starring Rina Akiyama, Misaki Momose
Unrated
Japan

“I've come to execute you.”

Yuki (Rina Akiyama) celebrates her 16th (?) birthday with mom and dad. The first sign of trouble is that  their little party takes place in an all-white room and they're wearing all-white clothes. Something tells me things are about to get messy. Sure enough, a gang of black-cloaked martial artists/occultists burst through the door in a slow-mo fury, paralyzing dad, smashing Yuki in the face, and crucifying mom to the wall while her family watches. Ouch.

Cut to: sometime later. Yuki is now dressed wearing an black lolita ensemble. Her dad (a priest, incidentally) is in a wheelchair. He hands her an umbrella with a sword tip, and sends her off to execute the thugs that murdered her mom.  And that's what she does, one by one. In between the bouts of bloody revenge, the story of why this all happened is slowly teased out. Hint: mom isn't exactly what she appeared to be.

About 90% of Lolita is fighting, which leaves little time for characterization or nuance or even logic, so don't expect a gripping story. Also, like a lot of Japanese gore flicks, Lolita is a low-budget affair, but they make up for it with stylistic excess: lots of cartoony lighting, firehoses of arterial bloodspray, soft-focus, slow motion, etc. That being said, the film isn't gooey and disgusting like Tokyo Gore Police, for example, and it's not all that slapsticky, either. It mostly harkens back to 70's Pinky Violence films, and often resembles a micro-budgeted Kill Bill, especially during the extended battle with eye-patch sprting sniper Lady Elle (Misaki Momose). Elle might be the most enthralling - yet incredibly annoying- Japanese villainess I've ever seen. She yammers and giggles in a sing-songy chipmunk voice while she sprays bullets willy-nilly with her twin knife-guns (!). Halfway through her battle-to-the-death with Yuki, she gets a phone call from her boyfriend. Turns out, one of the guns is also a cell phone. She takes the call, while continuing her gunfight.

As for our girl Yuki, at some point she trades in her umbrella-sword for an umbrella-machine gun, but mostly she Karates everybody to death. That is, until the hair-raising climax, when Lolita suddenly shifts into an 80's Italo-horror flick, with demons and guillotines and latex abuse and fog machines galore.

If Gothic & Lolita Psycho was not one of many Japsplatter flicks, if it was a just a one-off anomaly, it would blow your fuckin' mind. I mean, this is one seriously caffeinated movie, featuring a sexy heroine in a black-leather babydoll outfit chopping fools heads off in showers of bloody mayhem. But the fact is, you've seen it a dozen times already. Even director Ohara has sifted through this material before with 2008's Geisha vs Ninjas. But if you're alright with a rehash, then good times await you, because this is almost non-stop mayhem. Someday it may be worth examining how and why culture has gurgled so far down the drain that 90 minutes of decapitations eqaul an enthusiastic thumbs-up, but not today. Today is my day off, so fuck it. Thumbs up!

PS: In Japan, Akiyama is known as “Bishiri no Joo”, the “Queen of the Beautiful Ass”. That's her main gig, showing that thing off in magazines and whatnots, and her ass-model status was featured heavily in the promotion of the film. So it seems like a serious oversight when, aside from one brief flash of her black leather panties, you never actually catch a glimpse of it in Gothic & Lolita Psycho. I mean, if that's the main reason I bought it in the first place (ahem), I would be sorely disappointed. Luckily, the internet is pretty generous with its Bishiri no Joo collection, so here's a few pics to lessen the pain.

- Ken McIntyre

School of the Holy Beast (1974)

Direwtyed by Noribumi Suzuki
Starring Yumi Takigawa, Emiko Yamauchi
Unrated
Japan


"Lord, beat me with a whip." 

This film really only needs a one sentence review.  Hot young naked Japanese lesbian nuns.  Yes.  I said hot young naked Japanese lesbian nuns.

There was a plot.  Trite at best, of  a young girl trying to discover what happened to her mother,  so she enters the “School of the Holy Beast” to become a nun and find her past.  The plot really doesn’t matter as this film declares itself “Japan’s most notorious Nun-Exploitation film”.  Does that mean there’s more nun films?  And where can I find them?  I tried to follow what was going on, but a bunch of hot chicks in habits are kind of hard to tell apart, and it got confusing keeping track of who was doing what to who.  But again, it didn’t really matter because of the hot naked lesbian nuns.  Those naughty nuns kept getting in all sorts of trouble and were constantly being punished.  Punishments were all received naked, and consisted of some kind of whipping.  Whether it be two hot young naked nuns whipping each other, one lone nun flogging herself, or our main hot young nun wrapped in thorns and beaten with longstem roses, there were plenty of bloody breasts bared.

 The film is surprisingly well shot with a great use of lighting and color.  Seeing as it was made in 1974, it has a fantastic 70’s feel reminiscent of James Bond films from that time, complete with fluffy white cat warning us upon meeting the Mother Superior, that she is, of course, “ee-ville”.  The lesbian scenes are laughably symbolic, but very pretty, shot in a flower garden in the haze.  While there is nothing explicit shown, the allusion is made with some ridiculous finger licking which had me laughing hysterically.  Better than that is the sex-starved nun finding dirty pictures and going within seconds from horror to horny and having a grand old time with herself.

By far the best part of this DVD is the recent interview with the main actress.  Yumi Takigawa spends a good 15 minutes denouncing this film.  She tells the story of how she was tricked into appearing in it, and how she had no idea of the erotic nature of the script when she signed on.  Come on here, naked, wrapped in thorns, being flogged by a bunch of overly righteous nuns, and she didn’t know the nature of the script?  But on she goes telling us how she was so innocent, and how she regrets making this film.  She even tells us she has no idea why this, of all her films, was put to DVD.  Come on honey, HOT YOUNG NAKED JAPANESE LESBIAN NUNS!  I want to see that.

“School of the Holy Beast”  probably isn’t the “shocking, unforgettable masterpiece” it claims to be, and I’m probably not a better person for having seen it.  However, I now have been initiated into the “nun-exploitation” genre, and oh I am surely a better person for that.

- Scarrie Sinsation

Weather Woman (1995)

Directed by Tomoaki Hosoyama
Starring Kei Mizutani, Takashi Sumida, Yasuyo Shirashima, Saori Taira
Rated X
Japan

“God! She's got no knickers on! That's what I call a woman!”

Based on the adult manga series ‘Weather Report Girl’, Weather Woman (known as Otenki-oneesan in Japan) was a straight to video affair when first released. However, after showings at numerous film festivals – including awards at the Stockholm and Oslo International Film Festivals – it was pulled from the shelves and given a proper theatrical release in 1996. It ended up being one of the highest grossing films in Japan that year. It’s also, in that great tradition of Japanese film, totally batshit insane: a sex and violence filled live-action cartoon, with martial arts, magic, songs and nudity galore.

Plus, as a bonus, it functions reasonably well as a satire of the nature of ratings and celebrity. I even had a media studies teacher who claimed it was his favourite film around the time it came out, so that must mean it’s clever. Well, maybe.

Things start as all good films should – with the main character dressed in high school uniform masturbating on a roof top.

It’s not really clear what Keiko Nakadai (Japanese softcore queen Kei Mizutani) is doing up there, but it’s not really important either. Watching her – again, for some unexplained but unimportant reason – is Minoru Yamagishi (Takashi Sumida), a classmate who is totally obsessed with her.

He interrupts to confess his love to her, so she jump kicks him in the head. “You're the first woman I could give my life to!” he exclaims.

“Alright,” she replies. “Jump off the building.”

He climbs to the edge, but can’t quite bring himself to do it, so Keiko jumps off first, telling him to follow. A pole gets struck by lightning while he watches her fly off and then the opening credits roll.

The action cuts to a few years later – Minoru is flipping burgers for a living, while Keiko is masturbating in a cubicle in a flashy TV station office building.

Regular weather woman Michiko Kawai (Saori Taira) is off sick, so Keiko is set to fill in for her. She reads through the weather demurely and politely, until she gets to the end of it.

“In Sapporo 40cm of snow fell,” she says, stepping out from behind the desk. “As my skirt is 10cm above the knee, 40cm will be...this high!”

Minoru, who’s watching from a ramen shop, is stunned. Then the whole city goes bananas for Keiko. She’s on the front page of the newspaper, and copies are selling like some kind of heated cake product.

Unsurprisingly, she’s brought in to face the station’s board of directors, although she arrives late. Also she flips into the room.

“What have you been doing?” one of them asks.

“Masturbating, actually,” she replies calmly. “A part of my morning routine.”

She goes on to point out that the ratings are the best the station has seen in some time. The chairman of the board enters the conversation and gives Keiko his blessing. There’s a little argument from the rest of the board, but he silences it quickly. “Don’t you like panties?” he asks.

Keiko is given her own executive suite, and then sings a song.

Minoru helps bring some of her furniture in, then proceeds to hide while she goes off to do her panty-flashing weather segment.

This time, she’s being watched by ousted weather woman Michiko and her boyfriend, Masao (Kunihiro Ida). “She’s not bad,” he says. She gets whiney, so he promises to find a way to get her the position back. Then he feeds her cold jelly noodles from his mouth while wearing just a towel.

Keiko finishes her segment and begins to berate one of the station’s workers for leaving her with such an austere corridor to walk down on her way to the executive suite. So he fixes it up.

She flips down it to her suite. When she gets there, she masturbates in the bath for a bit, then begins to organise her chest full of sex toys in a display cabinet.

Before she can get through more than one handful of toys, Minoru pops out and once again declares his love for her. She tells him to jump off the roof, then jump kicks him in the head.

Meanwhile, Michiko and Masao are in bed, both dressed in girl’s school uniforms. He’s also wearing some kind of miner’s lamp headset. He tells her it’s because he works for an ad agency and knows all the top trends, which she seems pleased about. “You and I are creating a new era right now,” he mumbles, checking out her feet with the lamp while rubbing her butt.

“Oh, Masao?” she says suddenly. “I'm having my period now. Is dry humping okay?”

Next day, the two of them are at a restaurant, talking with one of Masao’s bosses. He promises to do what he can to get Michiko her job back. She’s a little concerned that it might make things worse for her, but it’s not long until they get a phone call telling them to come to Keiko’s suite.

Unfortunately, when they get there, Keiko’s well and truly taken control of the situation.

It definitely makes things worse for Michiko. Not only does Keiko make the ad executive bark at them while riding his back, she orders him to come up with an “interesting new program” for Michiko to host.

And so, Michiko ends up hosting ‘Hello, Mr Pervert!’. The first episode is about an enema enthusiast. Michiko has to hold the washbasin in order to catch the, erm, exiting fluids, but doesn’t quite get the angle right.

Meanwhile, the network chairman’s daughter, Kaori Shimamori (Yasuyo Shirashima) catches some of the media frenzy about Keiko on TV while she’s over in France. She’s incensed because the entire reason she’d been sent over there was to learnt how to be the best weather woman ever, so she immediately heads back to Japan. “She looks like the girl who spilt milk on my lunchbox at school,” Kaori rages to an assistant at the airport. “Unforgivable!”

She yells at her father – who’s busy putting together a Keiko jigsaw puzzle – but he’s not about to fire the network’s biggest star without a reason. So Kaori hatches a plot: Michiko will serve as Keiko’s maid in order to dig up dirt. Mercifully, in exchange, ‘Hello, Mr Pervert!’ will be cancelled.

So, this time, when Keiko finishes her segment and flips down a corridor of half-naked men, Michiko is waiting for her. She explains that she’s the new maid, and the two of them end up in the bathroom. Michiko is just about to begin sponging Keiko off after her bubble bath when she’s stopped. “Doing it like that might damage my skin,” says Keiko. “Use your tongue instead.”

So she does.

Things take a turn for the worse the next day though. Keiko’s segment is dropped after a breaking news story comes in at the last minute: a self-confessed Keiko fan robbed a young girl of her ice cream. Keiko seethes at the humiliation of being bumped off air, while Kaori smirks upstairs in the control room.

Next day, the police ask Keiko and the station chairman to tone down the segment. And so, she reads the weather politely, dresses conservatively, and stands behind her desk the whole time.

Not that this changes anything in her executive suite.

However, not only is Kaori concocting news stories – she’s watching and taping the lesbian action in the bathroom too. The next night, she gets the tape put to air mid way through Keiko’s segment, and Keiko’s career is ruined. “This old man really enjoyed seeing you flash your panties...” says the chairman, mournfully.

Kaori steps in as weather woman, and begins to plan a weather report that will be more than a segment – it’ll be it’s own show. Michiko still has to work as a maid though.

But Keiko hasn’t given up yet. She enlists the help of Minoru, and the two of them go off to a hut in the forest to train with the legendary Heavenly Whip, which Keiko has tracked down in an effort to defeat Kaori.

Apparently, the training involves hanging Keiko from the roof while Minoru whips her. Seems valid.

Eventually, the training is complete, and Keiko – in blonde wig and an outfit made by Minoru – crashes the debut of Kaori’s new show.

What follows is battle of the weather women, complete with magic, martial arts and also two commentators. It’s almost crazy enough to make the rest of the film look sane in comparison.

Despite (or maybe in addition to) its rampant insanity, Weather Woman is a truly great film. It shoots for an absurd number of genres – comedy, satire, martial arts, softcore, occasional musical – and somehow manages to succeed on every front.

Plus, it all moves at such a pace that it’s never for a single moment of its very economical 85 minutes boring; and even if it were, there’s enough sex, violence, laughs and nudity to keep things entertaining. Easily, and highly, recommended.

- Alistair Wallis