Jan 31
Rolf (1983)
Posted by monsterhunter Under Action, All Reviews, Italian Cinema, Sleaze, War on Sunday Jan 31, 2010
Mario Siciliano was a pretty minor player as far as Italian scuzz cinema goes with credits on a few spaghetti westerns, a bunch of sex comedies, and Evil Eye. Mario proves though that it isn’t how much you do, but what you do with what you have. Some folks like Lamberto Bava or Bruno Mattei may be willing to share their gifts with us three or four times a year. Others, like Mario, may simply explode one day on the scene and burn brightly for a single film or two before returning to the relative obscurity whence they came. Read More
The Inglorious Bastards were just like the Dirty Dozen, only half as many and twice as ass kick! Once again, it’s left to the Italians to take all that’s awesome about a particular genre of American film (in this case, the “misfits on a mission” brand of war flick), and boil it all down to about 90 minutes of relentlessly violent action while amping up the vulgar touches that we come to crave from such fare. 
That not many folks remember John Lincoln Clem (codename Johnny Shiloh) and his patriotism anymore is a testament to how much this country has become pansified by all the anti-war do-gooders that seem to sprout up whenever Democracy needs to lay a whupping on someone. 
Everybody goes home! With these three simple words, David Carradine’s character (Colonel Jim Cooper) ensures that P.O.W. the Escape is one of the great movies of our or any time! Films that dramatize the bravery, honor, respect, and ass kick of our boys who are still over in Nam and the gutsy bastards who go back to bust them out of their tiger cages are the only reason that America tolerates the otherwise disgusting and unpatriotic practices and beliefs of liberal Hollywood 
I think I must be suffering from Gulf War Syndrome. Chronic fatigue? Yep. Muscle pain? That’s a roger on that, too. Dizziness? I’m typing this as I lay down on my floor with eyes closed. Jock itch? I’m typing with one hand, aren’t I? The weird thing though is that I didn’t catch it digging Charlie or whomever out of their grody spider holes. Nope, I picked me up dose of GWS from Michael Dudikoff’s virulently bad film, The Human Shield! 
Freedom is awesome, no doubt about it. Super Bowl, college football, keg parties, new flavors of Doritos constantly appearing on store shelves, hyper-sexualized women, Jesus, and the best gosh dang flag ever! How can you not get a American-sized chubby just thinking about? 
Clark Gable plays a successful surgeon named Ulysses Lee Johnson, but you’ll immediately know him as Ulysses S. Hunk. Anne Baxter plays his wife, Penny and together they lead an existence that is so shallow that not only would Ulysses rather go dancing at his country club than helping out his doctor friend Robert Sunday fight malaria in the bad part of town, he actually tells this to Sunday’s face without a smidgen of guilt! 
There’s a scene in some little bar that Steve McQueen’s John Reese isn’t supposed to be at where he’s getting himself some firewater and the barmaid is saying that he’s going have problems when the MPs find him there. “Are you looking for trouble?” she asks. He pours himself another and says “the world’s full of trouble”. And there’s no way you could argue with that, I thought. Especially since some shell-shocked combat burn out who only goes crazy when he’s not in battle is saying it! 
Their names roll off my tongue far easier than they ever had a right to: Tobruk, Corregidor, Guadalcanal. And even now after all these years, sometimes late at night when the house is at its quietest and I close my eyes, all I can see are the flares lighting up the night, illuminating the hellish place of dirt and rock and blood where we dug in and prayed that some Axis pillbox didn’t hit the jackpot, sending a telegram to our moms and dads that began “we regret to inform you.”