"Van Nuys Blvd."(1979)d/William Sachs

Raven-tressed dames o' the world, take solace in knowing you'll forever occupy my top spot, and I'll always do whatever's in my power to remind you of that undeniable fact.It's just that, every once in awhile, a blonde'll come along from which the vibe that emanates forth is very pleasurable, indeed.Tonight's review has just such a butterscotch goddess, but we'll touch more on that later on.For now, let's return to the groovy seventies once again, and the days of disco, customized vans, cruising the boulevard for some mogambo, and  quease-inducing fast food delivered to your car by a gum-chewing bimbo in see-thru plastic pants who may or may not feel compelled to climb in the back of your '72 Chevy Van 30 and make it with you after your meal.Or during, depending on what scene she's into, man.It's a world where a sensitive Jeff Foxworthy lookalike with a gaudy porn stache and smokes rolled into the sleeve of his t-shirt could rule the boulevard, despite having the nickname "Chooch".On the drive-in exploitation set, Van Nuys is a potent blend of drunken disco dancing, feathered hair, amusement park montages, vans dragging, fatty spleefs, boobs, and dumb dick cops, everything that summer's all about really.It'd take a real antediluvian to not have a good time with this one.
 

 "Anticipay-ay-tion is making me wait! Come on, already, Heinz!"

Bobby(Bill Adler) is fed up with his small-town existence of lying around with horny nude chicks smoking grass all day(wait...what?), and decides to blow the scene for the outta sights happenings of the legendary Van Nuys Boulevard, a cruising Mecca for hot rodders and together chicks, alike.In fact, at the first drive-in restaurant he pulls into, he parlays a gross-looking burger into food sex in the back of his van with hot waitress, Wanda(Tara Strohmeier).Meanwhile, Greg(Dennis Bowen) gets into a demolish-off with a possessive hothead over his girl, Camille(Melissa Prophet), who ends up splitting on both of them and hitching a ride with sexy blonde van dragger, Moon(Cynthia Wood), who's got romantic designs on a busy Bobby in the drive-in space next to hers.We see resident blvd vet and phony cool guy, 'Chooch'(David Hayward) land in central holding after the usual weekly confrontation with Officer Zass(Dana Gladstone), a childhood rival of his.Eventually, everybody ends up in the same cell together and they all become the best of friends before the night is through.Wanda ends up getting pawed on the beach in Zass' cruiser, before handcuffing him outside the car door in his drawers and breaking camp on him.That'll learn ya, ya cockbag.Bobby, Greg, Moon, and Camille go disco dancing.For a really long time.Both couples hit it off, though Moon and Bobby still have a drag race to hold, to like, see who's van is the choicest, obviously.
 
 "You soooo cannot take me on 'Galaxian', bitch !"
All three couples hit Six Flags Magic Mountain for a lengthy amusement park montage, during which many cheap Asian sweatshop stuffed animals are won in games of chance and Chooch blows his cool and tosses his cookies.I always wondered why so many movies incorporated sequences like this, being the kind of fun you like to experience first-hand, rather than vicariously through characters getting paid to look like they're having a blast together.Anyway, Zass gets his stuff jacked by a biker, the cuff keys buried in the sand by a real ballbuster of a doggie, and is finally rescued days later by his mommy.Chooch undergoes a spiritual transformation and sells his hot rod, choosing Hawaiian shirts and a life with Wanda over failing miserably at being 'hip'.Bobby spends all night modding his engine for the big race with Moon, who's turned off by her lover's immaturity and drives off angrily.Meanwhile, we see Chooch's rod getting pulled over again, only Zass is driving now.A-Ha! That explains everything! To show her his newfound maturity, Bobby drives his van off a cliff(!).It works, she drives back and runs to embrace him while their friends do donuts around them and the credits begin to roll.How fucking Nuge is that?
 

 Move along, folks, nothing to see here: It's all fun and games until the jerkoff cop(Dana Gladstone) gets handcuffed to the door of his cruiser in his drawers on the beach.

Where were we again?Oh yeaaaaah, Cynthia Wood. If you don't click the hyperlink, you've got no one to blame but yourselves, for serious.You brunettes are gonna wanna cover your eyes for a minute now.Were I in possession of a mint honolulu blue metallic flake custom '73 Chevy sin bin with a fasces-shaped bubble window, quadrophonic eight track blaring Ursa Major's "Sinner" while hanging out on the faux waterbed in the back with a two foot glass lungbuster full of goodies and a scenic overlook at dusk ahead, I can't think of any chick that'd decorate that dream scenario any prettier than Ms. Wood.Like I said before, you won't enjoy this one if you hate shit that rules.Three big ones.
 

"Winner has the Jordache Look! On your marks..."

 

"Xanadu"(1980)d/Robert Greenwald

When it comes to dancing, I'm pretty indifferent about it unless it involves a circle pit or a private lap dance, but that's just me... a single voice adrift in an ocean full of motherfuckers who think they can dance with the stars, leaping across the stage like a vasectomized Errol Flynn on Christopher Street.Though thirty plus million of you might entertain a difference of opinion on the subject, I'm sticking to my guns over here.Thirty years ago, dancing was just as big as the silk butterfly collars and platform heels guys would throw on in hopes of scoring some trim from a hot-to-trot chick with a Dorothy Hamill hairdo and a rayon jumpsuit, and disco still hadn't officially flatlined at the outset of the decade, enjoying a late surge with the 'roller disco' phenomenon, as evidenced by Linda Blair's Roller Boogie(1979) effort and Skatetown U.S.A. the same year.Tonight's entry started out as a cash-in attempt on that particular craze, but veered off into fantasy/musical waters before the project's completion instead, and the rest, as they say, is a failure of truly epic fucking proportions.With Travolta unavailable for the lead male role, the producers turned to Michael Beck, of The Warriors(1979) fame.Also lending his legendary twinkletoes to the production was singer/dancer extraordinaire, Gene Kelly, who shakes his aging groove thing to a soundtrack(an admittedly pretty killer one) provided by E.L.O. frontman Jeff Lynne, whose afro was not a thing easily scoffed at.I'm overjoyed at the fact that I was too young to have had to bear witness to this ham-fisted craptacular on a date/feelings endurance test with some eager makeout recipient, and I pass on to you that, unless you're a skirt-wearing Mary or some other such frail pansy, you're not gonna enjoy Xanadu's hokey Tron-esque neon visual effects or roller disco romance very much.

By Crom, what manner of neon-aura surrounds you as you boogie, Valeria?!!
A starving artist named Sonny(Michael Beck) chucks his latest failure out a window where the wind catches and carries it into an alleyway adorned by an intricate mural of the Nine Greek Muses that suddenly comes to neon-enshrouded life to Solid Gold-style boogie to E.L.O. tunes.Among these inspirational beauties is Kira(Olivia Newton-John), who teleports into Sonny's life as a ball of light, appearing to him as a roller skater on the boardwalk and the subject of album art he's been hired on to reproduce and enlarge.While beachcombing, he bumps into a clarinet-blowing dotard with a gleam in his eye, named Danny McGuire(Gene Kelly), before spotting his rollerskating reverie, and stalking her to the condemned Pan Pacific Auditorium, where he can observe her practicing her skate routines from the shadows, all creepy-like.Before too long, the old guy is inviting Sonny back to his mansion to listen to records and reminisce about his glory days in the big band jazz era, segueing into a musical number where Danny cuts the choreographed rug with some transparent ghosts, one of which bears a striking resemblance to Sonny's love interest, Kira.If that sequence didn't give you diabetes mellitus, Kira soon accompanies Sonny to a soundstage dressed with various hokey props for use in a Peter Pannishly embarrassing display of rollerskateage-on-wires.They return to the Auditorium, where Kira suggests the building could be the perfect location for the nightclub the old man's been kicking ideas of opening up around."I think this place could be anything you want it to be.", she says, although I must have missed the part where she adds, "...even a gaudy roller disco!"

I've got my mallet raised, the gong's in plain sight...
When Sonny shows the place to Danny, it cues another lengthy musical number, this time a forties big band is contrasted against an eighties new wave outfit, headed by Tubes frontman Fee Waybill in an orange jumpsuit, before the whole event turns up into a crazy mixed-up party exactly how you thought it might have!Kira suggests the name Xanadu and the couple goes off to celebrate Sonny's new partnership with Danny, and when they kiss they're magically transformed into Don Bluth-style animated fish and lovebirds after frollicking atop a rosebud.One musical ridiculous outfit-changing montage for Danny later, and Xanadu is open for business.Kira confesses that she's a Greek Muse who's fallen in love with a mortal then teleports back to Olympus.Sonny discovers the alley with the mural from the opening while rollerskating, and skates directly through it, a portal to the gods that preside over Neon Heaven, where Zeus denies Sonny's pleas for one more night of mortality for his love.Back at the club, the geryatric Danny leads a rollerskate chorus line of jagoffs around the place while jugglers chuck bowling pins at him amidst the heavy boogieing of surrounding disco dancers.Kira emerges, apparently on heavenly reprieve, to sing several songs complete with intricate costume change gamut(why is it, that any Olivia Newton-John movie of the era felt it necessary to transform her from wholesome sweetheart to skeevy slut by the final reel?Any ideas?) run from eighties satin baseball jacket to fringey cowgirl to cheap prostitute, before being abruptly zapped back to Olympus.Bummed that his muse chose to boogie in a beaded wig rather than lay the otherworldly snatch on him on her final night on earth, Sonny is alerted to a cocktail waitress who looks like...no, it couldn't be.Awwwww, isn't that a cute story?Yeah, I'll be french-kissing a pail over in the corner, if you're looking for me.

He's professing eternal love to you from atop a rose's petals, that pussy.
After directing this stink-loaf, Greenwald helmed the legendary 1984 NBC spousal abuse telepic, The Burning Bed, with Farrah Fawcett and Paul Le Mat, before spinning off out of control in a tragically left-wing documentary sort of way.Newton-John would pair up again with Travolta in 1983's Two of a Kind, another romantic fantasy movie I don't care if I ever see, to be honest with you.Pittsburgh native Kelly would follow up his return to the marquee here with a two part episode of the Love Boat.Four years later.Beck would reprise his role as Swan in The Warriors in 2005 voicing the part for the movie-based video game.This was the first time I'd seen this thing since the cable box days, and even under severely altered states, it hurt like a bitch to get all the way through.On the scale, one lousy Wop for the groovy soundtrack.There's not even one stinking boob in the whole movie.Steer clear.

This screencap takes me back to certain booze-drenched 80's dance-offs in Emmaus.

"Thank God it's Friday"(1978)d/Robert Klane

Long before "Thank God it's Friday" became an end of the week mantra for the work-weary or the name of an overpriced restaurant chain with servers decked out in more pins and badges than an eighties voc tech student's jean vest, it was the title of this particular movie, a disjointed tribute to dance culture of the 1970s that probably unwittingly drove the last nail into disco's coffin instead.Growing up smack dab in the middle of said phenomenon, I have to admit, I haaaaated disco as a grade schooler, having already sold my soul for rock n' roll around the time Donna Summer first felt love.Of course, being faced with the improbable mess that is today's pop culture has me nostalgic for most things seventies these days, including some pumping disco tunes of the era, as evidenced by all the boogie fever one might encounter should my 70's mp3 mix fall into their hands.I'd first forced myself all the way through tonight's movie in the cable box days, hoping to glimpse some sexual situations or a stray boob while my parents were changing guardwatch on protecting my innocence, and of course, I ended up hating the fucking thing, and even hating myself a little for sitting through it.
So, last week, while zooted at the bar and challenged to scribble down some movies for the Netflix queue, I decided to give this one another look, thinking my judgment might be less harsh the second time around, thirty-plus years later.It just so happens that Friday is a cinematic atrocity, less a movie than a series of unfunny vignettes involving headache-inducingly annoying characters whose grating personalities are only matched by their atrocious, dated seventies fashions, with appearances by funk/soul outfit Commodores and disco diva Donna Summer not helping matters at all.Also sinking with the spinning mirrored ball and tacky polyester slacks here are Berlin's frontwoman, Terri Nunn, Mews Small, who you'll remember as Jack Nicholson's lady friend, Candy, in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest(1975), John "The Wanderers" Friedrich, Debra "Officer and a Gentleman" Winger, and lanky schnoz Jeff Goldblum as a Porsche-driving, disco owner/lothario.Think about that for a second.

Columbia's Torch Lady loves the nightlife and has got to boogie on the disco rooooooound, oh yeah.Wait, what?
After watching an animated version of Columbia's logo disco dancing(!), we're introduced to lots of characters, all tied together by an LA discotheque called "The Zoo", none of them particularly interesting.Tony(Jeff Goldblum), the owner, looks like a Jewish Tony Manero after being stretched on a rack and/or starved half to death, trying to put the moves on a young married woman with a Dorothy Hamill hairdo named Sue(Andrea Howard), who's looking for some fun with a half-buttoned top, and win a money bet with the DJ, to the dismay of her uptight accountant-husband, Dave(Mark Lonow), who, in turn, is being fed various drugs and re-dubbed "Babakazoo" by a dental hygienist-in-a-bright-red-Chaka-Khan-lookin' wig named Jackie(Mews Small), in attempt to loosen him up and get his boogie on.Then there's aspiring singer, Nicole(Donna Summer), who just wants to get up there on the miniscule stage and sing her little heart out, dammit.Frannie and Jeannie(Valerie Landsburg, Terri Nunn) are two high school girls trying to sneak their way into the club so they can win the dance contest and use the prize money to buy tickets to a KISS concert.Want more?Bobby Speed(Ray Vitte) is the first-time DJ copping radio airtime by booking Commodores to play the dance contest, only their equipment is in a van driven by "Wrong Way" Floyd(DeWayne Jessie), and that cat is m.i.a.!Jennifer(Debra Winger) is a new girl in town being shown the nightlife by her friend Maddy(Robin Menken) who warns her to stay away from creeps in polyester, before, you guessed it, breaking camp with a couple of polyester creeps herself.Carl and Ken(Paul Jabara, John Friedrich) arrive in a beat up VW convertible after toking a jib and smashing into Tony's Porsche.Everybody's smashing into the Porsche, get it?

"Yeah, Das Black Milk.Don't even try to tell me you've never heard of us..."
Add to the equation a couple of star-crossed computer dating misfits(she's a stiltish grade school teacher, he's a punchy fat garbage collector) and Marv Gomez(Chick Vennera), a guy who's only concern is "danseeng!Everytheeng else is boolsheet!", and who goes by the nickname:Leatherman.Sue recognizes Tony for the slimy shitbag liar he is, but her husband's preoccupied with Jackie, and banged out of his mind on drugs, judging by his mid-dance floor swandive onto a high trapeze holding a guy in a Tarzan costume, during which he accidentally removes the dude's loincloth with his head and takes a faceful of bare male ass before plummetting to the ground in front of his wife.Maybe the most unintentionally funny thing I've ever seen, rewound several times.Nicole finally gets her shot, sings "Last Dance"(Evidentally thirty years of not hearing that song hasn't warmed me up to it very much), and hooks up with the DJ.Frannie gets Leatherman to be her dance partner, and they win the prize money.Jennifer, a clumsy oaf as evidenced by several unfunny pratfalls throughout the production, stumbles into Ken(who's been taught to dance by Leatherman outside the club, through a clumsy and awkward solo disco dance sequence on the top of parked cars) and they hit it off.Carl, the nearsighted dork with the Jew-fro, ends up locked on a stairwell with one of Tony's scantily dressed throwaways.They boogie.Wrong Way finally makes it to the club with the instruments after having to pretend to play them over piped-in music to various police officers who keep pulling him over for speeding.Stop, you're killing me.The Commodores play a couple of songs while decked out in freaky astronaut costumes.Lionel Richie's 'fro is woofin'.So yeah, all's well that ends well, I guess.Except I'll never get that hour and twenty-plus minutes back that I just wasted.Get down, muthafuckas!

Possibly the least impressive dance choreography sequence ever filmed.Nice moves, jagoff.
You may have seen director Klane's other work, apart for his rejected Grease sequel("Greasier".I shit you not.), like Weekend at Bernies II(1993) and, uh, yeah that's it.After testing for the role of Princess Leia in Star Wars(1977), the ever-gorgeous Terri Nunn appeared on television a whole lot before singing "The Metro" with her aforementioned band.Chick "Leatherman" Vennera did voice work on Pinky and the Brain and Animaniacs.Andrea Howard also appeared in The Nude Bomb(1980).Jeff Goldblum, who got his start in Hollywood as "Freak No. 1" in Death Wish(1974), also scored genre work in movies like The Fly(1986) and The Fly II(1989), The Sentinel(1976), and the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.I'm actually surprised anyone involved here went on to have any semblance of a career in movies afterwards.On the scale, it earns a single Wop for that pisser of a stunt mistake above, and some of the soundtrack, perhaps.You'll do better reminiscing upon the booty-shaking decade elsewhere, I'm sure.Avoid like a post-show couch with G.G. Allin.

The only thing worse than accidentally smashing your face into some dude's bare ass during a stunt in a disco movie, is ending up here as a screenshot as a result.

"Prom Night"(1980)d/Paul Lynch

When Jamie Lee Curtis,daughter of "Psycho"(1960) star Janet Leigh and actor Tony Curtis, was crowned the apex 80's scream queen after the success of "Halloween"(1978) and "The Fog"(1980),it seemed like she could do no wrong.But then "Terror Train"(1980) and this little Canadian disco slasher brought us all back to earth.Is it any wonder her bleached out,drugged up appearance and five lines of dialogue in the emptiest hospital in history in "Halloween 2"(1981) marked her final horror appearance for over a decade?I think not.Of course she's had a long,fruitful Hollywood career since then,amidst rumors of batwanger-dom(probably started by me,and due to that mannish square chin of hers)which I'll dismiss once and for all with the following publicity still:

Yeah,Jamie was rocking a serious pair of dirty pillows.
Hermaphroditic rumors put to final rest,let's get on with the review,shall we?

Callous kids send she-stutterer to early grave.
There's no doubt about it,kids can be venemous,hurtful little bastards.All Robin wanted to do was to fit in with the local scruffy young tearaways as they played "The killers are coming"(popular children's game?) in an abandoned warehouse somewhere in Canada.Stuttering,a sure s-s-s-sign of weakness marks the little girl for ridicule followed by abrupt gruesome death as she plummets out a window to the pavement below.Adding insult to injury,the remaining shards of broken windowpane follow,cutting the corpse's throat and removing all doubt.Gross.The four kids,fearful of retribution, form a pact to keep the events of that day a secret between them.Six years later the murderers are all high school kids in their twenties, preparing for the annual prom,only a vengeful killer(in a disco glitter ski mask...no,that's not a typo.) has different bloody plans for them as well.
Kim(Jamie Lee Curtis) and Alex are Robin's siblings(Leslie Nielsen is their father...remember when this guy took serious acting roles?),putting the tragedy behind them through exhilarating disco moves on the dancefloor.Each of the guilty teen/twenty-somethings,Nick(Kim's prom date),Kelly,Wendy and Jude is plagued by crank calls,reminding them of their terrible secret and taking the joy out of prepping the gymnasium for the prom's "Disco Madness" theme(no,that's not a typo either).Somewhere in there is an overweight afro-coiffed Jewish pot smoking nerd with a makeout van with plush carpeting in the back,and a moronic Sicilian-type bully who doesn't seem to realize Welcome Back,Kotter had already died a syndicated death,aping an aggresive,more stupid(is this possible?) Barbarino at every turn.One by one the childhood killers get their comeuppance at the aforementioned dance,but not before Kim does an onscreen ten minute boogie,and later evades the glittery axe-wielding killer with blouse open,exposing her ample sweater mates for a solid five minutes.In the end,people die violently,Kim survives the onslaught,and her brother Alex is unmasked as the murderer and lone witness to their misdeed six years earlier after Nick heroically beats him upside the domepiece with his own axe,effectively killing him.It's safe to disco once again.

Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba beheaded.
Certainly not a top slasher entry by anybody's standards,this one does boast of some decent gore and atmosphere at times,though weighed down by a drawn out script full of loose ends,and badly dated,thanks to the prom full of boogiers.Nielsen is used too sparsely here,and the cast of co-starring caucasian afro-coiffed canucks(they all seem to enjoy the hairdo,strangely) doesn't add much beyond a chuckle.Jamie's lungs don't get much of a workout in the scream department,though the sight of her hustling underneath the mirrored ball just may give you many sleepless nights anyway.

One out four B.W.'s