"Skins" (1994) d/ Wings Hauser

Here's a rarely-seen exploitative oddity from the mid-nineties that was written, directed by, and stars one of my favorite bad guys of the eighties, 'Ramrod' himself, the one and only Wings Hauser. Of course, he also croons a tune, "Walking on the Right Side of the Devil", for the production, but it pales in comparison to his unforgettable "Neon Slime". Also singing (sort of) her way through a co-starring role is Linda Blair, of "The Exorcist"(1973) fame and "Exorcist II: The Heretic"(1977) infamy. She gets 'em out, here, too, and it's always a good time, whenever she does do just that, in my estimation.


"Fruit cocktail?? Thanks boys, but I'm watching my figure...", laughs Bentz (Cole Hauser).
A gay kid named Marjoe (!) gets fagbashed by a gang of skinheads and left to die, naked and spray painted in an alley. His mother, Maggie (Linda Blair) pollutes the air in honky tonk dive bars with something vaguely resembling singing, while his father, Joe (Wings Hauser), an alcoholic ex-cop, spends his nights knackered in Mexico, while the skins brazenly terrorize Hollywood Boulevard, kicking over trash cans, slamdancing to the house band (the singer says "Oi!" a whole lot) at their elaborately decorated clubhouse (Nazi stencils, swasti-curtains abound, and even a dramatic hulking floor-stika) and spray painting the obligatory swastikas over Walk of Fame stars, those bald-headed bastards. When Maggie travels down to Mexico to enlist her drunken sot of a husband, he calls his own son a fag(!!) before finally agreeing to dry out and get involved.


"I'll climb outta this jumpsuit if you're bringing something like this to the table..."
When Joe's first attempt at drunken payback goes miserably wrong at the clubhouse (the leader, Bentz, played by his real life son, Cole, beats him bloody then pisses on him...jeez, that must have been a fun shoot), he makes a teary-eyed vow to his wife and recovering son to turn things around, by cutting off the hooch, and repeatedly stumbling up a steep hill while dressed like Richard Simmons, being cheered on by his flamboyant son at the top, in one of several montage sequences. Meanwhile, the skins are raping the female half of an interracial couple, and later getting off the hook when the girl is too intimidated to finger the responsible eggheads. Maggie, impressed by Joe's sweaty efforts and improved relationship with Marjoe, gives her husband a piece of montage-pussy, as a reward. At the climax, Joe turns the usual Hollywood Boulevard rabble into a lynch mob, jogging down the middle of the street with bats and weapons to the clubhouse, where they take it to the bellicose bootboys, in a pro-wrasslin' style free-for-all. The reunited family walks off, arm-in-arm, while Bentz, who ducked out on the beating, and his rottweiler move on towards a whiter, brighter future...Skins 2? Never happened.


"Can I marinate both of these in neon slime?", ponders Joe (Wings Hauser).
Besides Wings and Cole, the film also features Wings' partner/wife, Cali Lili Hauser as the skinheads' punky plaything, and his daughter, Bright Hauser, as a "Young White Angel", sieg heiling in a swazzy armband, and reciting "America, the Beautiful". It's nice to see families working together like this. Interestingly, Cole would again portray a skinhead gang leader just a year later in John Singleton's lifeless imbroglio/ethno-wank, Higher Learning (1995). As far as skinhead-related movies go, this one's not as engaging as 16 Years of Alcohol (2003) or Romper Stomper (1992), but it isn't quite as mephitic as cine-turds like Pariah (1998) or Greydon Clark's legendarily laughable Skinheads (1989). Still, it's closer to the latter two than the former, with unintentional laughs galore and Linda Blair's bountiful bobblers. There's a region 2 dvd out there, should your curiosity win out. Two wops.


The one at the front, giving it the mouth, but at the end of the night, we'll all shout...

"Hey Good Lookin' "(1982) d/ Ralph Bakshi

Following the success of Heavy Traffic the previous year, Ralph Bakshi began work on tonight's review, a feature that would incorporate animated main characters who would interact with a live-action supporting cast, initially completing the film in 1975 for Warner Brothers, who repeatedly postponed and pushed the project back for various reasons, until it was finally granted a limited release seven years later as a much different film than the one it began as. I remember excitedly snagging a VHS copy off the shelves at Wyoming Valley Video, a favorite hole-in-the-wall shop of mine at the end of an avenue strip mall in the eighties, only to walk away feeling mostly indifferent about the entire experience in the end. I really hadn't watched it in thirty years or so, but since we're on a Bakshi kick here of late at the Wop, and my recalcitrant Libran values demanded a revisit before casting a final judgmental stone, here we are...


Oblivious to Mr. Kotter's pleas, Barbarino prepped for the big rumble with Boom Boom.
We see a garbage can and some trash having an existential debate before the trash hears an epiphany or an approaching garbage truck, and hops on, shouting "Fuck this city!". What an opening. In 1980's Brooklyn a shadowy figure rendezvous with a washed-up-on-the-beach (Eyyy-yo, Slade!) dame under a streetlamp, throwing her a chunk of biker leather, which she sobs over as he takes us back to the fifties, and the coat's origins. Vinnie (Richard Romanus) is the leader of a gang called The Stompers, his best friend is a Joker-esque cat called "Crazy" Shapiro (David Proval) whose homicidal father is a badge named Solly (Angelo Grisanti). When Vinnie's attempted coitus with a local kosher dish named Roz (Tina Bowman- later Romanus) is interrupted by her smothering papa (he chains her to her bed), the guys score some hookers and crash on the beach, waking up in the middle of a mafiosi beach party that Crazy eventually beats to death in a bloody brawl. On the run, Vinnie bumps into none other than Boogaloo Jones (Philip Michael Thomas), the head of the Chaplains, on the black side of the beach, leading to an inevitable rumble.


"When Milton Berle Ran with Street Gangs" will return after these messages...
After Crazy ices a couple of Chaplains while on a double date with Vinnie, Roz, and Eva, his father investigates the murders and is pointed towards the Stompers by Boogaloo. Roz tells Crazy that his best pal is ditching town, making him the new head of the gang, entitled to her goodies as such, and he breaks himself off a warehouse piece upon hearing the news. Solly makes the scene and beats his son like a rutabaga until he sells Vinnie down the river over the double moidahs. As Vinnie's about to break the eff out like the measles, he unwittingly bumps into his old crew as they're about to rumble with the Chaplains. Crazy lives up to his nickname and busts wild shots from a nearby rooftop just as his old man is about to arrest Vinnie, and in a surreal swirl of psychedelia, swan dives on top of the detective, killing them both. As a heartbroken Roz makes a song request for her lost love, Vinnie leaves the city. Back in the eighties, the overweight has-been reveals herself as Roz and fingers the shadowy stranger as Vinnie, who decides to stick around this time, bringing the story to a happy ending of sorts...


I think you know which side of the beach towel I'd be on.
There are a lot of good ideas and nice visuals here, but they seem disjointed by time, and further hindered by an unflattering, mismatched score that wears a synth-soaked eighties stamp even when recalling sounds from three decades earlier. Bakshi probably should have paid the licensing fees for the original tunes he wanted on the soundtrack, for better results. I would have liked to see the live action sequences with Yaphet Kotto and the New York Dolls that were ultimately cut from the film, too. When talking about this one, I find myself saying "I would have liked" more often than any of the other Bakshi films, and that ought to tell you something. On the scale, Good Lookin' earns a pair of Wops; not entirely unattractive, by anyone's standards, but far from gorgeous.


"Somebody dosed Kid Creole's drink! Get the Coconuts, he's freaking out!"

"The Wanderers"(1979)d/Philip Kaufman

Released six months after Walter Hill's stylized gang vision, The Warriors, on the Fourth of July in 1979, Philip Kaufman's Bronx-flavored period piece and the subject of tonight's review, ended up on the losing end at the box office, but would go on to rightfully achieve cult classic status anyway.What looks like just another gang-related drama at first glance turns out to be a bittersweet and often very funny keepsake of bygone days of innocence, and a far superior movie than its predecessor.Kaufman expands on and transforms the 1974 novel by Richard Price(who cameos in the bowling alley scene btw) into a congruous time capsule of the turbulent sixties and coming of age therein; executed with ease due to zealous performances from a game cast of performers that include Ken Wahl, John Friedrich, Toni "The Sopranos" Kalem, Tony Ganios("Meat" from Porky's(1983)), Linda "gummo" Ganz, and everyone's favorite mountainous operatic bass-baritone(!!!) from the Netherlands, the late 6'6", 400 lb Erland van Lidth de Jeude(Interestingly enough, I must have known at least six van Lidth clones in my travels over the years, at least one of which who shares his cinematic monniker).Adding to the gnarl-gravy here is a mint soundtrack of fifties hits from Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, Dion and the Belmonts, The Shirelles, and others.All of the gangs' names, from the Del Bombers right through to the Fordham Baldies, are borrowed from real gangs that bopped through the streets of the Bronx during the fifties and sixties, with only the titular Wanderers being a real life Brooklyn-based unit of the day.Forwards!

"You're Italian, right? Then you got to get into an Italian gang, like the Wanderers."
We meet Joey(John Friedrich) as he unsuccessfully tries to talk fellow Wanderer Turkey(Alan Rosenberg) out of probating for the Fordham Baldies, when his insults send the bald boppers chasing after both boys with violence in mind.A trademark Wanderer whistle brings gang leader, Richie(Ken Wahl), who's been giving it to Despie(Toni Kalem) on the couch by the glow of a Three Stooges movie on the television, to their aid, but when he finds out it's the Baldies giving chase, he's soon running for his life as well.Cornered down an alley, the Wanderers are rescued by the hamfists of Perry(Tony Ganios), a hulking new kid in town.Living just across the hall from Perry(whose alcoholic mother has already begun having an affair with Joey's abrasive muscle-bound father, Emilio(William Andrews)), Joey quickly divulges the pecking order of neighborhood gangs to the newcomer and adds him to the Wanderer ranks.A study on equality in all men in Mr. Sharp's class goes from bad to worse when racial insults are hurled back and forth between the Italians and the blacks until a rumble between the Wanderers and the Del Bombers is promulgated.Worried that the black gang, premier in the area, is more than the crew can handle, the Wanderers look for help, first from other units, then from Despie's mob-tied father and his brothers, then finally, upon insistance from Turkey, the Baldies, who get the potential new member to tie ropes with rocks on the end to Richie's and Joey's dicks and drop them off a bridge("What about cock n' roll, muthas?" asks Roger, the lone black skinhead).At the bowling alley, the Galasso brothers dish out a hearty beating to some hustlers from Long Island that had conned them out of money a week earlier, then suggest to Richie and Clinton that their gangs should settle their differences like sportsmen, with a football game, instead.Some of the Wanderers enjoy a healthy bout of elbow-titting on the street, where Richie meets Nina(Karen Allen), and is instantly enamored of her.Perry tries to follow her car, but unwittingly drives into Ducky Boy territory, where the pint-sized Irish brawlers swarm his car, breaking his arm before the boys can escape by the hair of their teeth.

"You know what I think we just done? I think we just joined the fucking Marines."
With her father away, Despie, who registers an eleven on the annoying Dagette-o-meter, holds a large house party where Richie can barely harness his lust for Nina, who he's half-heartedly set up with Joey.Meanwhile, Turkey has been just been made an honorary Baldie, and the drunken gang celebrates by being tricked into being sworn into the Marines(!) by a shrewd recruiter.At the party, a fixed strip poker game goes awry, and while Richie and Nina get it on in her back seat outside, Turkey crashes the party with the Baldies, who drive off on him.The commotion brings the couple's makeout session to Joey's attention(betrayed, he punches his friend in the grill), then to Despie's(she weepingly calls him a shit heel).Turkey, drunkenly wandering the streets in search of his crew, stumbles upon a church full of Ducky Boys, who coerce him up a telephone pole, which he falls to his death from.At school, none of the other Wanderers acknowledge Richie, and his day just gets worse from there.He watches President Kennedy's assassination on a store window television set, and later discovers he's knocked Despie up.Chubby G. tells the terrified boy he should have bought his daughter an ankle bracelet and stuck to jerkin' off(!!), before telling him he's going to have to marry her.The rival football game looks bad for the Wanderers until Richie pads up and apologizes for being a dick to Joey, but the comeback trail is soon blocked by hundreds of brawl-hungry Ducky Boys who surround the game.The Wanderers and Del Bombers are joined by Joey's father and also the Wongs(an oriental gang who ought not to be fucked with, as their rep warns) and together they manage to stave off the silent psychos, while a battle-crazed Emilio wallops his own son in the bread basket.The punchy weightlifter later gets his when Joey smashes a bottle over his domepiece while hiding out at Perry's and his father comes a-knocking for the boy's mother with amorous intent.An impromptu bachelor party is held for Richie, who spots Nina passing in the street, impulsively darting out and following her to a club where, from the front window, he realizes he has no place in her Bohemian world, and returns to his own party where Wanderers, Del Bombers, Wongs, and Terror's tiny girlfriend/Baldies head of ladies' auxiliary, Pee Wee(Linda Manz), all have a good time together.Perry and Joey cut out early, hitting the road for parts unknown, but assure Richie that they're Wanderers forever.

Today's Wanderers vs. Del Bombers football game has been postponed due to a proliferation of Ducky Boys.A makeup game may be scheduled at a later date if anybody survives.
To any ambitious filmmakers aspiring to remake Wanderers(as I said earlier with Warriors), I'm available to play an updated Terror, if he was brilliant, better built, and gorgeous...Curiously enough, I first watched tonight's entry with a chelsea girl(I'm still a sucker for that hairstyle, sue me) who loved the movie so much she carried a VHS copy around in her bookbag.Thanks, Andy.Joey's football banner was drawn up by none other than artist extraordinaire, Neal Adams.Olympia Dukakis, who played Joey's mother, would go on to win an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress in 1987's Moonstruck.Her genre work came earlier, with roles in Brian DePalma's Sisters(1973) and Death Wish a year later.Karen Allen, who got her start in John Landis' Animal House(1978), went on to a very busy acting career, appearing in everything from Cruising(1980) to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull(2008), and remains active today.Wahl, who was born Anthony Calzaretta(!), would be best remembered for his work on television's Wiseguy series.Interestingly, he was also married for seven years to Penthouse Pet/actress Corinne Alphen.Not bad, Ant'ny.Sadly, the Dutch noble, van Lidth died in 1987 at the age of 34, after only four movies, with 1982's Alone in the Dark his lone venture into genre films.On the ratings scale, Wanderers scores a perfect four wops, and comes with my highest recommendation.See it.

When people talk in the hallway, Emilio(William Andrews) gets angry.

"The Warriors"(1979)d/Walter Hill

Tonight's movie goes out to John in Chi-town,an epic partier with 1787 Chateau Lafite taste in diversions.Holdin' down the (Monte)forte on this end,brother!1979 was a motherlode for gang-related movies,apparently,seeing the release of The Wanderers,Quadrophenia,and The Warriors all in the same year.All three enjoy significant cult status,the Who vehicle helping to ressurect mod culture in England,and The Wanderers and Warriors supplying an infinite number of bands of varying genres of music with their names based on gangs from either of the films.It was probably around this time when I first started dreaming of one day being in a gang myself.The tattoos,they date back to 1st or 2nd grade,when we would draw them on each other with pens at school,little tough guys.Though,looking back, I'm probably the only one who took all this crazy stuff to heart.Interesting when you're refused admittance to a club for "flying your colors".Whattayagonnado?
For those up on their Greek accounts,Yurick's novel and Hill's subesequent feature film closely echo Xenophon marching his troops through enemy territory,battling their way to the safety of the sea.Though Walter Hill has had a hand in such films as Hard Times,48 Hours,and the Alien series,tonight's review remains his most popular work to date.The film opened in February of '79 to brisk box office business and mixed reviews,followed by reports of vandalism and a handful of killings involving theater patrons during its second weekend.Maybe there's a little bit of warchief in all of us,no?

What am I diggin',Cyrus(Roger Hill)?The silk robe isn't my style,brah.
Nine delegates from over two hundred gangs gather in Van Cortlandt Park to hear the leader of the Gramercy Riffs,Cyrus(Hill),break it down on unity,claiming that since the gangs outnumber the police,the streets can belong to them like they once did.Can you dig it?Luther(David Patrick Kelly)of the Rogues didn't,and shoots the flamboyant Riff from the top of a jungle gym.As chaos engulfs the scene,he pins the blame on The Warriors,a solid Coney Island unit,and Riffs quickly overtake Cleon,their leader,and speedily bop him up to that big turf in the sky.The remaining eight Warriors(Swan,Ajax,Cochise,Rembrandt,Vermin,Fox,Snow,and Cowboy)regroup in a nearby cemetery,unaware that the Riffs have put a bounty on the Warriors out to all other gangs in the city.They narrowly escape the Turnbull A.C.s spraypainted schoolbus of chain and bat-wielding bald boppers on the way to the subway platform,but their train ride is cut short by a fire on the tracks ahead(probably set by another gang),leaving them in the Tremont section of the Bronx.There they encounter a small-time gang,the Orphans,who they easily scare off with a molotov deterrent when a trouble-making prostitute named Mercy(Van Valkenbergh)goads the lazy-eyed Orphan leader into action.With Mercy now tagging along,their next stop is 96th Street in Manhattan,where a waiting reception of cops leaves Fox to eat crushing subway train-inflicted death when he falls on the tracks after a struggle.Out on the street,Swan,Ajax,Snow,and Cowboy kick the asses off of the ambushing Baseball Furies,but Ajax(James Remar) is arrested afterwards by an undercover cop posing as an easy rape victim on a parkbench.

The sillier looking the gang,the heavier their rep,apparently.
At Union Square,Vermin,Cochise,and Rembrandt are greeted by the amorous advances of some foxy mamas,who turn out to be members of the lezzy outfit,the Lizzies,laying for Warriors on orders from the Riffs.They barely escape the sapphic trap with only Rembrandt getting a stiletto cut he can brag about in the melee.After Mercy relates Fox's tragic demise to Swan,he returns to the 96th Street Station,where he's tailed by rollerskating members of The Punks to Union Square.Reunited with the remaining delegates,the Warriors dispatch the Punks in the lavatory,then board the last train for Coney.On the train some partying prom-goers are shocked by Mercy's filthiness(and moustache,probably),but when one of the girls drops her corsage,Swan picks it up and gives it to his embarrassed hooker galpal.They arrive with the sunrise at Coney Island,where the Rogues lie in wait.Luther slips empty beer bottles on his fingers and clinks them together repeatedly,calling out the returning gang in what has to be the most annoying voice ever committed to celluloid.The Rogues and Warriors gather on the beach for a scrap,and Luther admits icing Cyrus for no good reason at all,but before the fight can commence,both gangs are swooped down upon by the Gramercy Riffs,who have discovered through an eyewitness source that the Rogues killed Cyrus,not the Warriors.The Riffs congratulate the Warriors on being a top outfit with a deserved rep,then descend upon the cowering Rogues for violent revenge.A dj who had spent the night giving play-by-play of the gang activity,apologizes for the Warriors misfortunes and dedicates a Joe Walsh song to them.Wait a second,I thought she was sorry...

Hey DJ,why don't you play some FEAR already,ferchrissakes?
The movie reviewer with the heaviest rep,and my long-time favorite,Joe Bob Briggs,did a fantastic job charting out the Warriors route from the Bronx back to Coney Island via subway maps on his superior TNT Monstervision series which ran from 1995 to 2000,so we'll avoid that here,although... if you're looking to bop over it,J.B.,come and get one in the yarbles,if ya have any yarbles,you eunuch jelly thou!A nozh scrap any time you say.Director Hill,a comic book fiend from way back(I can relate,brother),looked to turn Sol Yurick's novel into a flashy screen adaption with a comic feel,but the limited budget put the blocks to that idea fast.Deborah Van Valkenburgh,who will always be Henry Rush's daughter on Too Close For Comfort(Wha-wha-wha-what are you talking,Monroe?)to me,has had a varied and interesting film career,with roles in genre films ranging from Firestarter 2 to The Devil's Rejects.The late Lynne Thigpen who plays the witty DJ dialed into the gang activity,will most likely be remembered by anyone with kids for her work in Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?Remar has acted in everything from 48 Hours and Cruising to Sex in the City,where he played Kim "Lassie" Cattrall's millionaire fuckbuddy,Richard.Can you tell I was married for six years?I also did my share of time in gangs,and I'm here to tell you,if I ever get surrounded in the pisser by a gaggle of Marys on rollerskates,or outnumbered by dipshits in greasepaint with baseball bats...oh yeah,that'll never happen since no fucking gang anywhere rolls like that!Aussie Park Boyz(2004)replaces the Warriors with some Australian martial arts guidos,and is an embarrassing recent rip-off.Speaking of rip offs,Tony "American History X" Scott plans to remake Warriors itself,with a scheduled 2011 release date,and I'm fully available to read for the role of the head of the Turnbull A.C.s,Hollywood.Cough,cough.As for tonight's entry,your favorite lousy skinheaded fuck gives it an impressive three wops,for its escapist cheez-o-licious fun.

Insert the most annoying sound you could possibly think of,right here.