Judge Dredd (1995) by Ty & Matt

The Three Plisskens are laying down the laaaaaaaaaw with our review of Judge Dredd.

Fergie, or “Shut up” as we called him, (played by Rob Schneider) because every time he said a joke, we yelled shut up. Well - he hides in a robot, and is caught by one Joseph Dredd (Sly) who sends him to jail. Then thankfully we don’t hear from Mr. Fergie for awhile and all is well in the world.

But uh oh - Judge Dredd is framed for murder by Rico (Armand Assante {of Citizen Verdict fame and nothing else}). He is sent to Aspen Jail and guess who he’s seated next to….ol’ Shut Up himself. But their plane is shot down by inbred religious cannibals. Dredd and Fergie are then captured by these folks. They eventually are saved by Dredd’s former mentor, Judge Fargo (Max Von Sydow) who is mortally wounded and tells Joe that not only was he created in a lab as a super soldier/cop, he also has a brother! Gasp! Who could be this mysterious, vaguely Italian, mush-mouthed brother? Surprise! It’s his former partner that he judged and sent to Aspen Jail…RICO (Suave).

After learning of this devasting news, little Joe J. Dredd and Shut Up must break back into the Mega City to clear Dredd’s name and stop Rico from taking over Mega City 1.

Bada Bing Bang Boom, Dredd and Shut Up track down Rico at the Statue of Liberty and find a lab that mass produces Baby Dredds!  Mr. Dredd and Mr. Rico briefly talk about the laaaaaaaaaaaw and who and who may not be the laaaaaaaaaw!

After all that powerful dialogue and spit, Dredd and Rico fight at the Statue of Liberty. Rico passes away after Dredd says “Court’s Adjourned” and drops him to his doom.

Dredd has saved the day and Shut Up was useless and worthless. What a movie!

The Apple (1980)

Hey, hey, hey BIM’s on the way! HOLY SHIT! All three of us watched The Apple for the very first time, and hot damn was it a movie!

This movie takes place in the future - of 1994, which they remind you every chance they get. It starts right in with a big huge rock n roll musical number where they sing about how nothing matters. We see an auditorium where they are filming the Worldvision Song Festival, which is basically a singing competition. A very glittery crazy futuristic looking band called BIM is performing the fuck out of their song. It looks like the end of Xanadu when the club Xanadu opens and the 40s and 70s merge - but it’s on acid and screaming in your face! It’s amazingly cheesy, and so far, it’s 100% living up to it’s whacky reputation. Talk about over the top! But in the very best possible way.

The next set of contestants is an innocent looking folk music duo from Canada, who sing a love song duet that wins half of the audience over, while the rest start rioting over BIM. Mr. Bugalow and company are able to measure how excited people are and then use some sort of red tape to alter their emotions. If it doesn’t make sense, don’t worry, most of it won’t! But trust me, you want to stay along for the ride. Mr. Bugalow, who runs BIM the group as well as BIM the music company, rigs the competition so his group wins. But he also sees the potential in the Canadian duo, Alphie and Bibi. He brings them to his office to sign an exclusive record contract. Bibi signs her contract right away, barely reading it, and ready for fame. She has zero probs leaving Alphie in the dust. Alphie starts to look the contract over and begins to feel an earthquake and apocalyptic visions of the future that involve another dance number showing BIM’s true nature - they’re evil as Helllll.  He does not sign on the dotted line and all the visions go away.

Bibi is whisked off and made over into a BIM star and comes out all glittery with crimped hair and strutting her stuff to a song called Speeeeeeeeed!!!!!! There is a lot of high heeled grinding and silver aluminum foil looking costumes and, well, speed. Bibi has gone full blown rock star. Also look closely, because in this number on one of the motorcycles you can catch a close up of Finola Hughes! That’s right, that diva bitch from Staying Alive made her film debut in The Apple! TWO back to back flicks in which she destroyed it with dance. You’ve gotta love it.

Bibi is seduced by fame and a dude named Pandi, who is also a part of BIM, along with his twin sister Mandi. He looks like a low budget Roger Daltry, and weirdly kind of similar to Alphie. In his first attempt to rescue Bibi, Alphie finds her in bed with Pandi to which she tells him to get lost with zero remorse or acknowledgement they were ever even a thing. Alphie, heartbroken by the loss of Bibi, goes to his sad apartment he shares with a rando old lady character then for some fucking reason he grabs her and feels her up. Hopefully that’s not his Mom! Although, equally weird if it’s his landlady. Is he paying his rent with nature’s credit card - his weiner?

Annnddddd moving on.

Meanwhile everyone is given these little shiny, glittery triangle stickers to wear called BIM marks. At first it seems like a fashion statement, but turns out it is like a shiny delicious tracking device and it’s now illegal NOT to be wearing it. BIM starts to seem more like a Big Brother apparition than a music company and things just keep getting weirder. Citizens are forced to live under the regime of BIM, which is starting to feel a little bit like the old 60s show, The Prisoner, but more depressing and hiding underneath eight layers of caked on glitter. Citizens are stopped when not wearing their BIM marks by the police, and even get arrested. Everyone must stop what they’re doing and  take part in the official BIM exercise time of day. We even see fire fighters stop putting out a fire to do their BIM workout as a building and people go down in flames. WHAT?!? Everything becomes about serving BIM.

As Alphie grows stronger he goes off to live with a hippie homeless group in the park. He decides it’s time to rescue Bibi from her rock stardom and bring her to his weird commune. Rescuing Bibi seems to involve having an affair with BIM’s Mandi, who sings a song about coming to get him, which is actually about cumming to get him, and basically rapes him. But instead he bones the evil straight out of her, which begs the question, is his weiner magic? ...

Her glitter disappears and she becomes all about Alphie and Bibi being together, because she feels his love for her while she’s having sex with him and his magical penis. She completely changes post coitus while he lays there whining for Bibi. What?!? I don’t care.

So Bibi decides she hates fame, she hates BIM, that she had a good thing going and needs to be with Alphie too. She leaves with the help of Mandi, who because she got dickmitized into believing in real love and wants them to be together again. Mandi helps Bibi escape and takes the punishment for it, believing she did the right thing and sings a weak ass song about it.

Bibi and Alphie go to live in the park with the hippies. You don’t realize like two or three years has passed until Bibi comes walking out looking totally hippie and carrying two small children. They live in a commune situation and consider themselves married. Mr. Bugalow locates them (years later??? Like give it up Bro.) and is ready to arrest them, and all the other hippies, cause hippies are not down with the BIM. Suddenly, a dope white car flies out of the sky carrying a man looking kind of like the Colonel that they call Mr. Topps. There is no reference to Mr. Topps at any other point in the movie, but somehow Alphie knows he’s coming to save them. He gets all spirit in the sky and takes everyone's souls to a new safe planet where Mr. Bugalow isn’t allowed. Cue the Jesus music, you just got allegoried bitch! This was one big Old Testament rock musical and you just got tricked into watching it. Mic drop. Testify!

I admit, when this movie ended I was so mad. I felt like I got tricked into church. I don’t want to be tricked into church. But the fact is I could not stop obsessing over this dumb movie. The next day I watched features and commentary. The day after that I was miming the dance moves around the house. Ty and I texted about this movie endlessly. Matt and I hummed the songs for a day or two. So you have to think, if a movie is judged by it’s entertainment value alone, dumb or not, this was very entertaining and thus, a successful movie! I actually went and changed my original rating for it after writing this. Turns out, I loved this shit!

We were lucky enough to be able to watch this on blu-ray. It had a gorgeous transfer that was remastered in 2016. It looked so fresh, vivid and modern that I had to keep reminding myself that this movie was made in 1980, even though it takes place in 1994, and looks like it was made in the 2000s. The blu-ray also includes an incredibly informative commentary track with actress Catherine Mary Stewart, who played Bibi. For example, while watching the film I developed a theory that the more glittery you are, the more you’ve been consumed by the evil of BIM. In the beginning everyone is covered in glitter except for Alphie and Bibi. When Mandi begins to have feelings and helps Bibi escape, she hardly has any glitter on. The more evil Mr. Bugalow gets, the more glittery he gets to the point of a devil horn coming out of his head. (It’s literally just one horn.) A lot of this supported my theory. However, after listening to the commentary, turns out the lack of glitter is actually from running out of money, and everyone was too tired to finish applying all that make up everytime they filmed. The further into production they were, the less everyone cared. So you start to see more lackluster futuristic looks. The timing just happens to coincide with the linear filmmaking, supporting my theory by accident.

Honestly, our ratings don’t matter so much on this one. This is a movie that must be seen to be believed. If you can get your hands on it, watch it at least once. It really is a crazy movie experience you won’t soon forget. I thought I hated this movie, but as the case may be, I think I’m obsessed with it now. I think all three of us are.

The Best Parts

-Mr. Bugalow

-Over the top songs, dancing, musical numbers and crazy sassy extras.

-Glitter and BIM marks.

The Worst Parts

-The slow decline of enthusiasm by everyone in the movie

-You’re tricked into religion.

TY - 2 Plisskens

MATT - 3 Plisskens   

JILL - originally 2 Plisskens, changed to 4 Plisskens

Gentlemen Broncos (2009)

Maybe audiences were disillusioned and expected a Napoleon Dynamite 2. Maybe they didn’t get it. Maybe it was a poorly timed release. Maybe it was just too Utah for the rest of the country. The fellas and I got together for what I like to call a TTP Day and watched Gentlemen Broncos! And frankly, we loved it. TTP!

The movie opens with what I think is one of the best movie openings I’ve ever seen. I could watch those sci-fi covers as this song plays forever.  It wonderfully sets up the movie and it’s weird Utah style. Maybe this movie is funnier if you’re familiar with the towns and Utah. While the cities are some of the most beautiful, eco-friendly and progressive in the country, the small towns have this feel like the 80s never really left and is merged with the wholesomeness of the 50s. This is also the perfect way to explain the young homeschooled writer character of Ben and his very unusual, creative but sweet mother, Judith - who is also a mature nightgown designer.

Ben is about to go on a trip to Cletus Fest with a bunch of other students and writer hobbyists. It very obviously seems like it’s his first trip away from his Mom which is both freeing and terrifying. She begrudgingly gives him a few bucks ($4) for the trip, which her face says she immediately regrets and sends him on his way.

Sassy French mystery writer Tabitha immediately gets to know Ben and kind of befriends him after ripping him off for “tampon money”, and then goes and buys a mountain of snack foods, which had me dying laughing. She continues treating him like a garbage person until she reads his story, Yeast Wars, featuring the character of Bronco. Every time someone reads Ben’s story, we are treated to a visual portion of it and get to see what Bronco is doing, who is perfectly played by Sam Rockwell.  

Tabitha introduces Ben to her travel mate and bestie, low budget director, Lonnie Donaho. They love Yeast Wars and want it to be their next film project.

At Cletus Fest, Ben goes to a panel featuring his hero Dr. Ron Chevalier, played by Jemaine Clement from Flight of the Concords. He is doing a deep Alan Rickman impersonation with a turtleneck and sport coat. He’s that douchey guy. A sci-fi fantasy writer in the vein of Piers Anthony with a set style and formula and perhaps a fading narrow view of ideas. He announces he’s holding a contest for the writer attendees. Submit your novel and if it’s good enough he will edit and release it with personally created artwork for the book. Everyone gasps at the opportunity. Benjamin wiggles in his chair endlessly and eagerly submits Yeast Wars.

Chevalier is going through novel after novel and none are working for him. His agent pushes him to get it done, but then he sees Yeast Wars. He reads it and is totally feeling it. Instead of calling it as the winner, he changes all the proper names and steals the story. Bronco becomes Brutus, also played by a hilarious Sam Rockwell. Brutus is a much more flamboyant version of Bronco but the basic premise of the story is exactly the same.

Meanwhile, Ben goes home and encourages his mom to reach for the stars with her new “collection” of weird old lady nightgowns. She meets and recruites Dusty, played by an incredible Mike White in the most perfectly absurd long curly blonde wig. You can tell, Judith thinks the younger Dusty is an adonis. She steals sideways glances at him and smiles. Trust me, she is the only one doing this. The fellas and I really dug that wig.

Lonnie and Tabitha ask Ben to option Yeast Wars to make as a film. They’ll pay him $500 and asks that he play some characters for them in their current movie, so that they can wrap it up and start filing Yest Wars immediately. They also totally love Dusty’s amazing look and recruit him to be their Bronco in the Yeast Wars film.  And now we get to see a third version of Ben’s story! And it’s just as entertaining because it’s soooooo whack!

Ben also feels the lack of quality in his story and gets angry when Lonnie and Tabitha ignore him and his ideas for the film and he just leaves. It isn’t long before he realizes the $500 check wasn’t legit. In fact it’s dated a year from the day. He confronts Tabitha who giggles at him and then puts the moves on him. She drags Ben to her favorite place, a bookstore, and tells him to chill. Then Ben sees a rack for the new Chevalier book with what appears to be Bronco on the cover. He randomly flips open a chapter and starts reading and immediately recognized his story, with some slight differences. He forces Tabitha to read it as well and they realize they’re all screwed.Trying to confront Chevalier does nothing.

Soon a depressed Ben tries to refocus his energy on helping his Mom. She’s designed a new “collection” of night gowns and she wants to try and sell her new pieces to the department store owner of the store she works at. Benjamin drives her to their meeting and she walks in nervous and proud. Low and behold this is just another con. The sleezy owner tries to get Judith to sleep with him and she runs out dishelved and crying. For Ben, this is the last straw, you don’t mess with his Mama! He goes in fully intentioned to beat up the guy, who suddenly pulls out a gun and a wild shootout takes place - complete with mannequins in old lady robes!

The defeated Ben and Judith return home to share their weirdness with Dusty. Ben tells them everything including his drama with Chevalier and his beloved Yeast Wars.Suddenly, Judith unknowingly saves the day, She tells Ben that she remembers Yeast Wars and had the books copyrighted. She had been doing it with his books since he was little, because she thought it would be a nice way to save them and for Ben to pass his talent and gifts on to his own children someday. Ben looks on in astonishment and crookedly smiles knowing he’s got this now!

Now Chevalier’s book is being pulled from shelves and Yeast Wars is the newest coolest best selling novel! He’s at last able to get some real money, not just $500, for his book. And Tabitha seems to be hanging on as a girlfriend now. The movie ends with a large thank you from Ben to his mother. He has produced a fashion show for her new collection and all her crazy designs come to life. The star of the runaway is of course, Dusty. And we get one more adorable long look of Judith yearning for Dusty - her Adonis muse. I'd like to note the irony of how much this fashion show is like the fashion show in Mahogany, which we reviewed a few weeks back. Really the only difference being that in this movie, the joke was intentional.

Again, I’m not sure what happened here or why this second film by Jared Hess was not as well received as Napoleon Dynamite. The only thing I can figure is that this had a very limited theatrical release. But then again, so did Napoleon Dynamite. I think the difference is that Napoleon was an unexpected sleeper hit because of the word of mouth. Gentleman Broncos just didn’t have that same buzz built around it. My guess is by the time of this release, the market had already been flooded with awkward comedies starring awkward leading men. In fact, a whole genre was spawned that started with Jon Heder and created starring vehicles for people like Michael Cera and Jesse Eisenberg. My guess is by the time Broncos came along, no one cared for that style anymore. That even though Hess is an originator, he’d just been copied too many times, and this was just not a compelling enough story to compete anymore, and at the end of the day, the world just wanted a Napoleon sequel or rehash.

Now it’s ten years later and viewing this movie now is a different ball game. I find a fresh original and unusual comedy that is well acted. We even questioned as a group, is this movie too good to review? Because it’s not awesomely bad, it’s awesomely GOOD! If you haven’t seen it and you are like us, who yearn for the weird and original from a good movie, give it a try. It’s silly fun that leaves you wishing to be able to read and watch the film of Yeast Wars!

The Breakdown:

The Best Parts   - All the Broncos!

   - Hand Massages

   - Every character is unique and amazing.

The Worst Parts - We wish there was more!

Ty - 3 Plisskens Matt - 4 Plisskens Jill - 4 Plisskens

Staying Alive (1983)

Oh, boy, where do we begin with Staying Alive. This is the sequel to the wildly popular Saturday Night Fever, a story about Tony Manero, an Italian-American dude from New York when it was still deliciously dirty, trying to hustle his way through life during the day and lives his dreams at night doing the thing he’s best at - cruising chicks and disco dancing. This continuation is yet another price of fame movie, but really more like the price of mediocrity and showing off for your Ma.

So this movie starts right away with 80s music, leotards and extreme dancing! MONTAGE! Everyone is just dancing and sweating and auditioning sooooo hard. Tony Manero is no longer disco dancing, nope he’s gone legits, and he wants to be on Broadway! He wiggles his pelvis and eye fucks every woman insight. His oblivious girlfriend is also auditioning. They’re having a good time and going for it together, meanwhile he’s making it with every girl that glances in his direction. All of the actors are really full on dancing - no body doubles here. The dance moves are completely ridiculous. And it’s only the first five minutes!

We get another immediate MONTAGE! We see Tony juggling his jobs as a dance teacher and as a fancy waiter. We also get a Sly Stallone cameo as Tony is bouncing from one place to another. They look back at each other and give this strange look. As if Sly is silently saying, do you know how bad I’m about to damage our careers? So, so badly.  

So we see that Tony lives in a teeny room in a boarding house. He shares a phone with the residents. He owns like 2 or 3 outfits and washes his clothes in the shower with him, we don’t really see him eat or drink much. We get the impression that he’s suppose to be ripped muscle wise. I guess he’s kinda ripped? Ripped for John Travolta, anyway. Director and co-writer Sly Stallone was training him for the role - in which, according to the script, he was supposed to be really big, like super hero muscular. Nope.

At this point the fellas and I are 27 minutes into the movie and we are on our FOURTH MOVIE MONTAGE! I feel like my brain might explode with the leotardedness of it all. Suddenly, Tony finally nails an audition! You’d almost be excited for him if he wasn’t such a jerk. He goes and calls the only connection to the first movie we’ve seen, his mama. He’s so excited, he tells her he got a real job on Broadway -  and she automatically assumes it’s stripping! He sputters like the Tony we remember and tells her it’s a real show and he’s gonna spend a whole $27 on her ticket!

Tony starts striking it up with the limo driven prima starlet of his new Broadway show, Satan’s Alley. They have this weird competitive love hate thing going on right from the jump. Played by Finola Hughes, she makes it clear that Tony isn’t good enough for her or the show, and she matches his narcism and cunning. Tony flaunts his relationship with Finola right in front of Cynthia Rhodes - his girlfriend, and then denies, denies, denies when she asks him what’s up with that girl. It almost becomes a battle between the two ladies over him. Why? Who knows! He’s a total slime bucket!

Eventually they both are over it and quarrel with him, Cynthia is moving on to her musician band mate, Frank Stallone and Finola to pretty much any man she wants, leaving Tony to go on a I have a sad weiner walk, and trip that leads him back home at his mother’s house. Even she doesn’t want him there! When she asks why he came, he apologizes for being a jerk all of his life and so full of attitude. Apparently, it took women not wanting to bang him anymore to come to that conclusion. His mother tells him not to apologize, he must have been doing something right, because attitude got him out of that neighborhood. (And into living in a boarding house?) To which he responds:

“So what you’re sayin’ is I’ve always been this bastard, but it’s alright, because like - it comes naturally to me.” And then she says “Something like that… Yeah. YEAH. Double yeah!”

Like what you’re sayin’ is I don’t need any redemption as a piece of shit human right? Yeah. Double yeah!

So Tony heads back home with a new attitude, sort of, and he wants Cynthia Rhodes back. You know what that means? Another mutha fuckin MONTAGE! So they have a weird love dance montage that signifies their back together and she’s totes going to dump Frank Stallone, even though he doesn’t cheat on her and treat her as second best. Because love? I guess.

Now it’s time to kick some ass as everyone is getting ready for the opening of Satan’s Asshole, oh I mean ALLEY, Satan’s Alley. Finola and Tony are dancing to a song that just randomly yells the words DANCE! And FIRE! Over an electronic drum beat. Oooh, arty guys. Tony has a little I’m the star meltdown.The director explodes at him and says everything you’re thinking - that his dick and his narcism are ruining everything and if he wants to be a star to stop being such an asshole and focus on the SHOW. Like yes!!! FINALLY! Someone is saying something intelligent and Tony has an actual consequence of his behavior! But that feeling won’t last for long! Cause we’ve got a getting the show ready MONTAGE!

We are literally up to 6 or 7 montages now. I’ve lost track and they’re all becoming one big blur. My guess is the script was like 30 pages because every few pages it just says like 8 lines and then [ poorly executed dance montage ].

At long last, we finally get to see Satan’s Alley - and it is one spectacular shined up turd. There is so much dry ice, it takes a minute to clear enough to see anyone. At first view, it feels like watching an insane S&M zombie musical, but instead of zombies it’s very sweaty, oiled up glistening people. They use every chance they get to show off Travolta shirtless, shiny and in a loincloth. If you’re into moist men, it could be sexy, I guess. Just don’t let his skin touch any of your fabrics. Now that’s a stain!

Things go super cuckoo bananas as the show kicks into high gear and becomes an almost exact replica of Goddess’s S&M number in Showgirls.(Or other way around, but I refuse to think Showgirls stole anything.) Except instead we get Travolta battling Finola Hughes for control and stardom, live and on stage! His ego monster emerges as he tries to end the number by planting a kiss on her. Angry and embarrassed she literally tries to scratch his eye out just narrowly missing, and runs off stage. Everyone yells at him for improvising and assholing off again. His girlfriend also sees this and is none too pleased. I mean the Love Montage was only 2 montages ago guys. Sad face!

We get another MONTAGE! This time on stage, and it’s all just kicky, arty jumps and leaps. At the end of the show, Tony leaps onto a giant disc like he’s in Cats. Every character gets a shocked face shot yelling something like OMG What’s he doing! Finola Hughes freezes, panics and is like oh no what do I do? Literally, everyone on stage is telling her to jump on the disc thing too. She acts like she has no clue how to jump and then suddenly leaps up and Travolta does a Dirty Dancing style lift, but as a one handed hold that is probably going to hurt like Hell in the morning. (Weirdly enough, Patrick Swayze is a background dancer in a few of these scenes. Shit are we talking about stealing again?) Tony is grunting and dripping sweat everywhere. Everyone wildly applauds, his mama cries, and now they’re both big stars. Cynthia Rhodes even pretends that kiss with Finola never happened and cries as well.

When the show is over Tony tells Cynthia Rhodes he wants to start over and be with her. He kisses her, while creepily staring at Finola Hughes. Cynthia gets all happy for no reason and says like OMG Tony, you’re like a big bright shining star. What do you want to do now? What do you think he wants to do? Nope, not cheat on you AGAIN with Finola Hughes... yet!

He wants to strut! And cue those beautiful Bee Gees! He literally leaves Cynthia Rhodes in an alley and struts through Manhattan alone. THE END!

Perhaps you thought this soundtrack would be dominated by the Bee Gees once more, well it sort of is. They are less than half of the music on the soundtrack. But the real domination is the sounds of Frank Stallone. Here’s an interesting Plissken fact, Ty Burger-ler is a HUGE Frank Stallone fan! Not just for his acting - but for his sweet sweet jams! He had never seen Staying Alive before we reviewed it  But I remember back in the day, when we all worked as lowly video store employees, Ty would sneak Frank Stallone albums into the store rotation. Well, Ty must have been elated with joy, because Frank Stallone has no less than TWENTY vanity credits in this movie!

I’d also like to mention, I think Finola Hughes knows exactly what movie she is in. In fact this movie flung her right into soap opera stardom, where she has stayed for, a few decades now, serving time on both All My Children and General Hospital. We’ll actually be discussing her very first movie - The Apple, in a future Plissken review. (Geez, no wonder she was banished to the soap opera Forbidden Zone.)

If you want to blame someone for this dry ice, glittered up mess, you can blame John Travolta directly. For a while, Travolta had no intention of doing a Saturday Night Fever sequel. He even turned down $10 million dollars to revive his role. But while on a vacation he saw Rocky III, and was so impressed, he said he’d do a part two, if they got Sly Stallone to write and direct.  

At the end of the day, this is a movie made, almost completely, of montages! It’s about a piece of shit character, who attempts to redeem himself, but doesn’t really learn all that much. Maybe possibly, he learned to keep his dick in his pants, but that’s doubtful. I’m sure he’ll be back to being that unlovable asshole in no time! Just another tale of unlikable characters that destroyed an entire movie with dance.

TY - 3 Plisskens MATT - 2 Plisskens JILL - 3 ½  Plisskens

References:

Staying Alive Movie Review with Michael Medved - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAJJyEaBWs8

Staying Alive - So Bad But So Good -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDrViNBUtwY

Mahogany (1975)

Get ready for a cocaine-addled ride through 70’s fashion! I made the Plisskens watch Mahogany, a movie so embarrassing, Sweet Matty could barely look at the screen.

We open to the world’s most ridiculous fashion show. Very reminiscent of our last review, Gentlemen Broncos. It’s all different kinds of kimonos. Floral kimonos, bathrobe kimonos, space kimonos, punk kimonos, racist kimonos, everything, all of it. A sad and exhausted Diana Ross comes out on the runway and everyone is floored. You think they’re thinking the same thing - what in the Hell was THAT!?! But instead one, I guess important Italian dude, stands up and gives her an ovation. Then the whole room stands up and applauds. Applauds the house down like it was the most amazing shit on planet earth.

AND FLASHBACK! - We see 1970s NYC, the hipster parts of Brooklyn looked like a bombed out warzone and was the bad part of New York. We meet Tracy, as played by Ms. Diana Ross, a  young woman living in one of these run down Brooklyn neighborhoods. She goes to school at night for fashion and works as an assistant during the day for a major department store and fashion warehouse. Her boss is an old uptight white bitch that treats her with slave mentality, and tells her if she wants to keep her job, quit going to that stupid school at night to better herself. Sheesh!

Tracy also loves practical jokes. she meets the handsome Billy Dee Williams, a take charge kind of man from her neighborhood who aspires to make it a better place for his community and is running for alderman. Instead of helping his cause, she decides to cause a little trouble, and for some weird reason - pours milk into his bullhorn so when he picks it up, the milk pours all over him and he’s an old milk face. He assumes it’s one of the construction worker white guys that’s been hassling him and a huge fight breaks out. Instead of show any concern, Tracy laughs her ass off and waves around her ½ gallon of milk like it’s a 5th of bourbon while saying oooohhh ohh woooo oooh oohh like this is exactly what she thought would happen and it’s hilarious. It’s not.

Billy Dee gets arrested and Tracy feels guilty so she bails him out. When he tries to thank her and asks her out, she tells him leave the bail money in her mailbox and fuck off…. but after a weird role playing scenario where Tracy stands in the welfare line saying hey - you gonna get me my old man back? How about that? All the while Billie is trying to speak to and help the people. For some movie trope romance of a reason, they go on a date anyway. I guess Billie Dee is into assholes.

We also meet another important character early on in this flick. It’s a character that stays with us throughout the film and just gets bigger and more over the top in every scene. It’s Diana Ross’s face! Her crazy faces, teeth gritting and bugged out coke eyes dominate this movie like no other! In just about every scene her eyes are making the craziest faces perhaps ever on screen. It’s borderline disturbing. I asked the guys to do some research in the first 20 minutes because I was worried that Diana Ross had Graves’ Disease, a disease characterized by protruding, bugged out eyes, extreme weight loss, erratic behavior and a thyroid problem. (Wendy Williams has it for example.) From what we could find - She doesn’t have it. My guess is cocaine is Diana’s co-star, and it loooooooves the spotlight! Those faces are on a journey all their own.

Working at her shitty day job, Tracy is accidentally discovered by fashion photographer, Sean, played by Anthony Perkins. He sees Tracy and thinks she’s a model and is thrilled to have a woman of color to photograph. He begs her boss, the bitchy old racist white lady, to bring him 10 more like her. But she recoils and says “She’s no model! She’s my (gagged face) secretary!”

And just like that, Tracy is asked to model for real. They hold a weird photo shoot in the department store backroom the next day. Tracy wears one of her own designs, a giant creped sheer rainbow poncho that you simply need to see. It’s epic on many many levels. By the way ALL the costumes in the movie are designed by real life Diana Ross. So, enjoy that! They just get weirder and weirder until we get to a crescendo of the full bad kimono fashion show that are suppose to be her couture line…. They’re bathrobes guys. Big weird mildly racist bathrobes. NO.

Anyways, Sean / Anthony Perkins starts photographing Tracy and cocaine fueled magic happens. He names her Mahogany and a supermodel is born! Anthony P. also asks Mahogany to assist him on his next shoot, which is held at a rundown building in her neighborhood. Mahogany is having the time of her life moving around models and pulling neighbors from the crowd to be in the shoot. Naturally, Billie Dee shows up and is like, uh, what’s this all about? She tells him as she is pulling what looks like a homeless woman from the crowd to put in the foreground of the shot. Billie Dee snarkily asks, what’s she getting paid? Is she being paid the same as these models? Diana says no pay, they are getting to be in this shoot! It’s art! It’s exciting! Billie Dee corrects her and says no, it’s exploitation. But Diana Mahogany thinks he’s just being a dick and doesn’t get fashion. It’s SHE that is dicks! And they seemingly agree to disagree.

Tracy and Billie Dee have a love montage and start dating. Magic happens there too and Tracy is soon singing made up campaign songs for her do-gooder boyfriend. You can tell by his face this is the point in the movie where he falls in love with her. Billie Dee expresses this with smiles and facial cues, and his overall presence, you know, acting! Diana chooses the Oh we are filming that subtle love scene today SNNNNOOORRRTTTTT sniff sniff, ok guys I’m in LOVEEEEEE!

As Mahogany’s star begins to rise, we start to see a change in her. She goes from a poor mean-spirited jerk to a rich mean-spirited asshole. Her lack of redeeming qualities is dwindling down from one (she bailed BDW out of jail after he gets arrested for a fight she caused) to ZERO. Ah, my favorite kind of storyline begins to emerge. The price of fame storyline, where the character is completely unlikable, yet everyone seems to love her and help her, while she acts like a raging bitch, then something awful happens and they walk away from celebrity. We have seen this story told a million times in a million different ways. Showgirls is another great example, or the classic - All About Eve, a quintessential example.

In this version, the beginning of the fame gone too far starts immediately. She becomes besties with Sean and they almost have some kind of sexual affair. Perkins whining that the rumors aren’t true and he’s going to PROVE he’s a real man and then instead lays at her tummy and snuggles while oddly touching her while she just lays there and takes it. Then, Mahogany throws a hissy fit on set when she is told she can’t wear her own line of fashions in the photo shoot they’ve already set up and paid people for. She has to wear the designer’s dresses, because well, the designer is the client, who is paying you, and that’s how fashion works. Instead of going like right - this is my JOB, her face goes from zero to 1000 and slaps Sean and rages off set, complaining when is it HER turn! Anthony Perkins creepily smiles. Here is the point where he goes from loving her to wanting to break her. Ok, Anthony, bring on the Psycho! And he DOES!

Mahogany forces her sad fashion designer debut, instead, at a charity fashion show in Italy she is modeling for, so that they can auction off the dress - for charity. Charity! She decides to NOT wear the money fetching designer dress that could help raise a bunch of money and instead wears her shit handmade dress and shoves it down everyone’s throat. Clearly, no one likes it. It is really…. Interesting… Anthony Perkins laughs and offers 5 lire, which is a dead currency, but I believe it’s the equivalent to like .02 cents? A rich dude feels bad for her (stop feeling bad for her!) and offers something like a couple million for it. GASP! And now she’s a goddamn fashion designer. Congratulations no one!

Now Anthony Perkins / Sean is super pissed. His bestie is out doing him, and he is not having IT. He throws a crazy swinging fashion party, which Mahogany brings her bf, Billie Dee to. He’s looking fly and seemingly having a good time until a drag queen tries to feed him dip from her fingers. Then he gets kind of weird. I don’t know if it’s gay panic or if he’s like dude, I’m not eating gross dip from your questionable fingers. Either way, Billie Dee is out of his element and he feels it. Anthony Perkins pops over to say a bitchy hello. Then we get a real treat with one of the weirdest scenes in the movie. As Perkins is showing him around the place, they stop in his special office full of photos of death and fear from real life war crimes and a very creepy Nazi gun, which Perkins pulls on him. He appears to be getting off on it. He and Billie Dee then do this weird sexual slow motion wrestle for the gun. Not slow motion as in a movie effect. Slow motion as in they seem to be moving in real time slo-mo and the scene lasts an uncomfortably long amount of time. You’re not sure if they’re going to kill each other, or get it on and it’s not a sexy tension. It’s very uncomfortable, but you can’t stop watching. As if trying to out face Diana Ross, Anthony Perkins begins to go all bug eyed and gritting his teeth. He opens his mouth to take gun barrel, when the gun doesn’t go off, he laughs and smiles.Then he starts to say over and over “Bye bye, fella.” It’s just weird!

When Billie Dee wants to peace out because Anthony Perkins was a tad too Psycho for him, Diana Tracy has a meltdown because she’s having a good time. Billie Dee angrily leaves the party and Tracy Mahogany has the fashion fabulous meltdown of the century! Ole crazy face starts stripping off her clothes and wig and begins to pour hot candle wax all over herself, which, let’s face it, just looks like jizz globs all over her. Great look for the Roman orgy.

Mahogany does the walk of shame back to her apartment where Billie Dee fumes, because now it’s morning and she’s still partying. She changes her kimono into a fresh new kimono and starts the fight of fights with BIllie Dee, which ends in the bitch don’t you know who I AM speech. Because she’s MAHOGANY! Everyone LOVES Mahogany! I’m a winner baby! And you’re just a loser! Loser, loser, loser. Boy, Bye. *glug glug glug*

Now Tracy Mahogany is back on a shoot with her old bestie / psycho frenemy. She’s pissy and tired. But Psycho Sean has a great idea to take modeling shots of Mahogany AS he drives a cool old sports car on the highway. Yup, sounds legit! Once behind the wheel, Psycho then reveals his real plan, to get pictures of fear and death of Mahogany! He’s going to take the pictures of her last moments. Just when you think this can’t get any more weird and campy, Diana’s face goes to max power and she shows him her max modeling skills as she pulls her own hair makes her most insane face of the film! It will make you laugh and simultaneously haunt your dreams. I had to check if I wet my pants, I laughed so hard at this weird wild shit.

Then CRASH! Anthony Perkins is dead NOT Diana Ross, and they quickly scurry to the end of the movie, realizing they’ve killed off their most interesting character.

For some reason the rich guy who bought Tracy Mahogany’s sad dress at the auction, must be feeling sad for her again, and gives her the investment capital that was burning a hole in his pocket. She hires some folks and starts her mediocre line. The bathrobe kimono line! She has her big amazing you’re a big bright shining star fashion show and we come back to the beginning of the movie.

After her great fashion success, Ms. Tracy, not Mahogany, is doing her ‘can you help me get my old man back’ line at Billie Dee’s campaign rally. Except this time, she’s serious, and it’s for real. We see this great romantic exchange between them and a great onscreen kiss to end the movie. At least the ending was good.

The breakdown:

The Best Part - Billie Dee Williams is still a smooth mother fucker, even amongst the scenery      chewing.

The Best Parts are the Worst Parts too!

• Diana Ross’s faces must be experienced to be believed.
• Insane 70s fashions
• Anthony Perkins is a different kind of Psycho

TY - 2 MATT - 2 JILLIAN - 3 1/2