Thrashin' (1986)

Classic 1980s youth gang action on four wheels, four wheels of a skateboard that is!

Corey (Josh Brolin) is a young hotshot skateboarder who arrives in LA with his crew to compete with the best. They immediately come into conflict with a bunch of skateboarding punks led by Hook (Robert Rusler). Corey is going to take part in a downhill race and grab all the glory and money. Hook has other ideas of course. Things get complicated when Corey meets Chrissy (Pamela Gidley) and they fall in love. Complicated because Chrissy is Hook's kid sister...

This is a fairly formulaic teen drama with the usual tale of challenge, set backs and eventual redemption. The film is often quite silly but is cool (especially if you are nostalgic for the 1980s) and fun. The skateboarding is realistic (and includes many accidents!)

Look out for the young unknown band who appear in an early scene. They were pretty good, i wonder what happened to them. They called them the Red Hot Chili Peppers i believe...

The Wild Women of Wongo (1958)

A very strange film, that somehow could only have been made in the 1950s.

Some time in the distant past, the jungle village of Wongo apparently has a problem, all the men are ugly and all the women beautiful. So beautiful in fact they look like they just came out of a salon instead of living in the prehistoric jungle and worshipping an alligator god. Then a young man called Engor (Johnny Walsh) from another village arrives asking for help against some wild men. Apparently in his village all the men are handsome hunks and the women ugly!

The daughter of the king of Wongo (Jean Hawkshaw) decides she doesn't want to marry a local ugly man and instead she wants the handsome guy from elsewhere. After disrespecting the alligator god (a prop which looks it was bought in a zoo souvenir shop) she and a group of other Wongo girls head off to hunt... guys.

Its a truly terrible film to be sure though the sheer camp makes it compelling. The actors look good in their designer animal skin swimwear though recite their lines like they are under duress. A parrot appears throughout the film making random squawks, certainly not annoying at all!

The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant (1971)

A weird and pretty low-rent horror.

Mad scientist Roger (Bruce Dern) has a secret, which he is keeping especially from his wife Linda (Pat Priest). He is conducting strange medical experiments on animals, grafting a second living head onto their bodies. Meanwhile a psychopathic murderer Cass (Albert Cole) has escaped from the asylum. He reaches Roger's home and wrecks havoc. Finally Roger and his assistant Max (Barry Kroeger) gun him down... then of course Roger and Max decide that they now have the perfect opportunity to take their experiments to the next level...

They graft Cass' had onto the body of huge but simple Danny (John Bloom). Naturally the creature escapes and begins a killing spree. The police are assisted by one of Roger's friends Ken (Casey Kasem - yes that one!) Roger and Max are also out to hide their evidence. As for Linda, well she gets attacked and menaced by the monster and ends up put in a cage by her husband. I suspect their marriage doesn't have long for this world...

A cheaply made piece of drivel. The film is fun (for all the wrong reasons of course). The story is pretty much by the numbers and the two headed effects rely on clever camera angles or puppets. Albert Cole is superbly and completely over the top as the paychopath.

Hackers (1995)

A hilariously dated tale of internet antics,

It's the early days of the commercial internet, when downloading a badly pixelated soft core porn Gif took half an hour and would probably fail on 95% after you lost your modem connection. Former virus writer Dade (Johnny Lee Miller) (better known as Zero Cool or Crash Override - on LinkedIn no doubt) gets back into the hacking game and joins a gang of hackers (including a rather amazing looking Angelina Jolie) who are hacking into a system owned by computer expert Belford (Fisher Stevens) trying proving he is on the take. But as Belford prefers to be known as The Plague we can probably guess he is up to no good...

Computing in movies has always been problematic, especially so in this film. The graphics were dated even in the day, of course everyone "hacks" computers by typing really fast! I started my career in internet development when this film came out, to be honest it wasn't much like this. Which is a shame.

It is totally nonsense of course but fun.

Sucker Money (1933)

A reasonable but nothing more film about fake spiritualists, they should have foreseen it had a few problems though.

The Swami (Mischa Auer) is in demand for his mystical powers, this includes naive business men who get financial advice from him (no more dodgy than any other way i suspect) and widows who seem easily swindled by a rather lame act if we are to be honest. Jimmy (Earl McCarthy) a reporter is investigating the Swami and infiltrates the organisation. The Swami meanwhile is trying to swindle banker Walton (Ralph Lewis) out of his cash and his daughter Claire (Phyllis Barrington) too. Jimmy is in a bad place, the Swami's gang are prepared to use murder to protect their interest, and Claire - whom Jimmy is sweet on - thinks he is really part of the rotten swindle...

So, its OK for a B-movie crime film. The concept of the film is more promising than the actual execution. The acting is a little suspect, as is the plot but this is an interesting subject, spiritualists and the mystical powers of beyond were pretty big in the 1930s.

The Black Torment (1964)

Dark Devilish sorcery is happening on a country estate, or is it?

Sir Richard Fordyke (John Turner) returns to his father's estate with his new bride Elizabeth (Heather Sears) to find things are not right. A young girl has been killed and her last words were Richard's name. The tenants are becoming rebellious, especially as Richard has apparently been seen on horseback being chased by his dead ex-wife!

Mysterious happenings at night further raise the tensions. Suspicion falls on Sir Richard although he maintains he was in London wooing Elizabeth. Richard begins to question his own sanity as his assistant Seymour (Peter Arne) or her father's carer Diane (Ann Lynn) wonder if there is something Devilish going on.

An intelligent psychological horror, you might guess what is really going on before too long and before Richard who is a little too overwrought, but this is a very well structured and made film. 

Soho Conspiracy (1950)

A rather cheaply made 1950s musical drama, padded out by footage from another film (Mad about the Opera) and unfortunately they are the best bits...

Plans to hold a charity concert are put in peril by a ruthless property developer who wants to take over a restaurant. That's it really, the film sounds like it should be a crime drama with the title it had but instead you get a rather muddled musical drama with a little too much unfunny slapstick (which relies too much on "funny foreigners and their strange ways").

Real artists like Beniamino Gigli and Gino Bechi appear in the film, sometimes obviously dubbed. The lovely Zena Marshall is one of the film's few good points. To be honest you would probably be a lot better served watching the original 1948 film instead...