Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons on VHS video. Starring Justin Whalin, Jeremy Irons, Zoe McLellan, Bruce Payne, Marlon Wayans, Thora Birch, Kristen Wilson, Lee Arenberg. Based on the game by Gary Gygax. Directed by Courtney Solomon. 2000.

Dungeons & Dragons on VHS video. Starring Justin Whalin, Jeremy Irons, Zoe McLellan, Bruce Payne, Marlon Wayans, Thora Birch, Kristen Wilson, Lee Arenberg. Based on the game by Gary Gygax. Directed by Courtney Solomon. 2000.

From the VHS box:

In a world… [obscured by sticker]… diabolical mage who plots to take over the kingdom of Izmer. The Empress Savina fights to return peaceful times to her subjects. Now, the hopes of Izmer rest with Snails, Ridley and the fighters brave enough to help them battle the dark forces of Profion. Dazzling special effects and spellbinding performances conjure up a supernatural film that brings the adventure home to you.

DVD upgrade (with special features): Dungeons & Dragons (New Line Platinum Series)

Double D&D: Dungeons & Dragons / Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God





S.O.B.

Blake Edwards' S.O.B. on VHS video. Starring Julie Andrews, William Holden. With Marisa Berenson, Larry Hagman, Robert Loggia, Stuart Margolin, Richard Mulligan, Robert Vaughn, Robert Webber, Shelley Winters, Loretta Swit, Rosanna Arquette. Directed by Blake Edwards. 1981.

Blake Edwards’ S.O.B. on VHS video. Starring Julie Andrews, William Holden. With Marisa Berenson, Larry Hagman, Robert Loggia, Stuart Margolin, Richard Mulligan, Robert Vaughn, Robert Webber, Shelley Winters, Loretta Swit, Rosanna Arquette. Directed by Blake Edwards. 1981.

From the VHS box:

The director who made the panther pink and taught you to count to 10 coins a new term for comedy.

Gobble-gobble! Felix Farmer’s latest film is a colossal turkey — and that sends lots of Hollywood types into action. Agents are called. Lawyers are retained. Press statements are issued. It’s what filmmaker Blake Edwards calls “Standard Operating Bull,” the subject of his gleefully satiric S.O.B.

A long list of notables joins in this convivial sock to Hollywood’s kisser. Julie Andrews is squeaky-clean superstar Sally Miles, married to Felix but living apart in one of their several homes. She’s the key to Felix’s sudden plan to flip his flop into a smash. He wants her to appear topless in a re-shot version of the film.

Sally’s agent says, “No… Maybe… How much?” A medical quack to the stars and a worldly director supply gin as a tonic for frazzled Felix and his equally frazzled press agent. A studio mogul angles for a piece of Felix’s can’t-miss idea. And a hitchhiking waif, studio yes-man and gossipy gadfly provide more tinsel beneath the tinsel.

The dialogue crackles like fat in a fire, the gags range from dead-on deadpan to comedic broadsides, the insights bristle and sting. There’s nothing standard here. S.O.B. is extraordinary.

Buy the DVD: S.O.B.

Or, watch now: S.O.B.



Backyard Dogs

Backyard Dogs VHS cover scan. Movie starring Scott Hamm, Bree Turner, Walter Jones, Roger Fan. Directed by Robert Boris. 2000.

Backyard Dogs VHS cover scan. Movie starring Scott Hamm, Bree Turner, Walter Jones, Roger Fan. Directed by Robert Boris. 2000.

From the VHS box:

For the Fame and Fortune They’ll Fight Like Dogs

No choreography, no protective gear, just hardcore fighting where steel folding chairs and baseball bats wrapped in barbed wire are all part of the fight. Follow three underdogs as they fight their way to the top. The Backyard Dogs are coming and all hell is about to break loose!

DVD Upgrade: Backyard Dogs

The Extreme Adventures Of Super Dave

The Extreme Adventures Of Super Dave on VHS. Starring Bob Einstein, Dan Hedaya, Gia Carides. Directed by Peter MacDonald. 2000.

The Extreme Adventures Of Super Dave on VHS. Starring Bob Einstein, Dan Hedaya, Gia Carides. Directed by Peter MacDonald. 2000.

From the VHS box (still in its shrinkwrap, with collector notes):

Accidents Happen

Break out the body casts! The world’s most painfully funny stuntman is back with a powder-keg of laughs! Super Dave Osborne (Bob Einstein) gives a crash course in comedy in this wacky adventure of daredevil antics, whiplash humor and crash-test love!

After a near-fatal accident, Super Dave hangs up his crash pads to operate his own theme park and coach a promising young stuntman. But as The Super One soon discovers, he’s been bankrupted by his swindling manager, betrayed by his new young protégé, and foreclosed by the bank. Devastated and almost ready to accept defeat, Super Dave finds strength in a klutzy-but-cute single mom (Gia Carides) and her ailing young son, Timmy. And when he learns that Timmy needs an expensive heart operation, Super Dave shuns retirement to raise the needed money — even if it means doing his most death-defying stunt yet! Facing off against the protégé who deceived him and his arch enemy, a slimy sports promoter (Dan Hedaya, Dick), Dave must once again prove to the world that he’s not only the most outrageous daredevil… he’s also the most accident-prone!

Super Dave is totally explosive in this blazing comedy of hair-rasing stunts, brutally funny crashes and humor that packs a punch. The Extreme Adventures Of Super Dave will break every funny bone in your body!

DVD upgrade: The Extreme Adventures of Super Dave

Watch now (rent or buy on Amazon instant video): The Extreme Adventures Of Super Dave

Replace your VHS tape: Extreme Adventures of Super Dave: Accidents [VHS]

Shock Treatment

Shock Treatment on VHS video. Starring Jessica Harper, Cliff De Young. With Patricia Quinn, Richard O’Brien, Charles Gray, Ruby Wax, Nell Campbell, Rik Mayall, Barry Humphries. Directed by Jim Sharman. 1981.

Shock Treatment VHS box cover front. Video starring Jessica Harper, Cliff De Young. With Patricia Quinn, Richard O'Brien, Charles Gray, Ruby Wax, Nell Campbell, Rik Mayall, Barry Humphries. Directed by Jim Sharman. 1981.

From the VHS box:

Brad and Janet are in trouble again!

The people who brought us The Rocky Horror Picture Show are at it again. Brad and Janet are trapped in a town where all the world in one huge TV sound stage. The couple winds up on the bizarre game show, “Marriage Maze,” where Brad gets hauled off to the local booby hatch so he can learn “to care.” It’s all a plot by the show’s sleazy sponsor (also played by De Young) so he can have Janet all to himself.

This no-holds-barred spoof of TV and television audiences is garishly entertaining fun and frolic from beginning to end. So put on your little black dress and get set for kinky comedy and shocking suspense, without having to stand on line at midnight!

VHS back cover scan:

Continue reading “Shock Treatment”

Junior Bonner

Junior Bonner on VHS video. Starring Steve McQueen, Robert Preston, Ida Lupino. Directed by Sam Peckinpah. 1972.

Junior Bonner on VHS video. Starring Steve McQueen, Robert Preston, Ida Lupino. Directed by Sam Peckinpah. 1972.

From the VHS box cover:

Top rate directing by Sam Peckinpah and delightful performances from Steve McQueen, Robert Preston and Ida Lupino spark this enchanting drama about an ex-rodeo star determined to be in the spotlight one more time.

Junior Bonner, a likeable drifter and regular on the riding circuit comes home to find bulldozers clearing his family land. His father, Ace, wants to start a new ranch in Australia but is short on funds. Junior is broke, as usual, but he knows how to change that — by riding a fierce bull named Sunshine in a coming rodeo. Sunshine has already painfully thrown Junior, who’s now determined to take on the beast again, both to make a new life for his father and to prove to himself that he’s still got what it takes.

A rousing story enlivened by McQueen’s rascally charm and roguish appeal, JUNIOR BONNER will make you want to jump up and shout “Ride ’em cowboy!”

DVD upgrade: Junior Bonner



The Naughty Nineties

The Naughty Nineties on VHS. Starring Bud Abbott, Lou Costello. With Alan Curtis, Rita Johnson, Henry Travers. Directed by Jean Yarbrough. 1945.

The Naughty Nineties on VHS. Starring Bud Abbott, Lou Costello. With Alan Curtis, Rita Johnson, Henry Travers. Directed by Jean Yarbrough. 1945.

From the box:

Featuring Their Famous “Who’s On First” Routine

In this zany musical comedy, Bud plays a ham actor and Lou his dim-witted assistant on the Mississippi showboat, the River Queen.

When the boat docks in St. Louis, Bud and Lou try to rescue Captain Sam from a poker game with three card sharks, but they are too late. The gamblers win a controlling interest in the River Queen and — to Captain Sam’s dismay — set up a crooked casino operation on board.

Before ridding the showboat of the villains, Abbott and Costello perform several of their most famous bits including the hysterical “Who’s on First” dialogues that has become one of the most popular comedy routines ever captured on film.

DVD upgrade: The Best of Abbott & Costello, Vol. 2 (Hit the Ice / In Society / Here Come the Co-Eds / The Naughty Nineties / Little Giant / The Time of Their Lives / Buck Privates Come Home / The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap)



Continue reading “The Naughty Nineties”

Barbarella

Barbarella, Queen of the Galaxy on VHS. Movie starring Jane Fonda, John Phillip Law, Anita Pallenberg, Milo O'Shea. With Marcel Marceau, Claude Dauphin. Directed by Roger Vadim. 1968.

Barbarella, Queen of the Galaxy on VHS. Starring Jane Fonda, John Phillip Law, Anita Pallenberg, Milo O’Shea. With Marcel Marceau, Claude Dauphin. Directed by Roger Vadim. 1968.

From the VHS box:

Barbarella is marked by the same audacity and originality, fantasy, beauty and horror, cruelty and eroticism that make comic books such a favorite. The setting is the planet Lythion in the year 40,000, when Barbarella makes a forced landing while traveling through space. She acts like a female James Bond, vanquishing evil in the forms of robots and monsters. She also rewards, in an uninhibited manner, the handsome men who assist her in her adventure. Whether she is wrestling with Black Guards, the evil Queen, or the Angel Pygar, she just can’t seem to avoid losing at least part of her skin-tight space suit!

DVD upgrade: Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy

You can totally pull off a Barbarella costume: Smiffy’s Women’s 60’s Beauty Queen Wig Long with Bouffant and Fringe, Blonde, One Size

Years after Dr. Durand Durand inspired their name, Duran Duran released a single: Electric Barbarella by Duran Duran







UHF

UHF VHS cover art. Starring 'Weird Al' Yankovic, Kevin McCarthy, Michael Richards, David Bowe, Victoria Jackson. With Billy Barty, Fran Drescher, Trinidad Silva. Directed by Jay Levey. 1989.

UHF on VHS. Starring ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic, Kevin McCarthy, Michael Richards, David Bowe, Victoria Jackson. With Billy Barty, Fran Drescher, Trinidad Silva. Directed by Jay Levey. 1989.

From the VHS box:

It’s crazy. It’s zany. It’s hysterical. It’s TV according to “Weird Al” Yankovic.

RAIDER OF THE FALLEN ARCHES, ALMOST RAMBOW, TOWN TALK WITH GEORGE, CONAN THE LIBRARIAN, WHEEL OF FISH, GONE WITH A WHIM, GANDHI II

George Newman is a daydreamer whose hyperactive imagination keeps him from holding a steady job… until he becomes the general manager of Channel 62, a local television station his uncle wins in a poker game.

Unfortunately, the station is about one week away from bankruptcy. In a moment of desperation, George makes janitor Stanley Spadowski the star of a dull children’s show and stumbles onto a ratings goldmine… who else would treat lucky kids to a drink from a high-pressure hose? “Stanley Spadowski’s playhouse” is just weird enough to attract an audience!

Before long, endless reruns have been replaced with bizarre programming that could only have come from one place: George Newman’s unique imagination. Shows like “Wheel of Fish,” “Name That Stain,” “Conan the Librarian,” “The Wonderful World of Phlegm,” and “Raul’s Wild Kingdom,” where poodles learn to fly from third story windows!

But as Channel 62s ratings start to rise, so does the wrath of TV mogul R.J. Fletcher, who wants to buy the station and turn it into a parking lot.

Can Channel 62 come up with the money it needs to stay on the air? George Newman’s imagination is the only place to find out!

Blu-ray upgrade: UHF (25th Anniversary Edition) [Blu-ray]

Or tune in now to the Amazon instant rental: Uhf

And then listen to the airwaves: UHF Soundtrack: Weird Al Yankovic







High Turbulence

High Turbulance aka High Turbulence on VHS video. Starring Jackie Chan, Samo Hung, Yuen Biao, Deannie Yip, Pauline Yeung, Crystal Kwok. Directed by Samo Hung.

High Turbulance aka High Turbulence on VHS video. Starring Jackie Chan, Samo Hung, Yuen Biao, Deannie Yip, Pauline Yeung, Crystal Kwok. Directed by Samo Hung.

From the VHS box:

A Lawyer Who Knew Too Much!

The waist disposal from a chemical plant is killing the local fish farm business. Yvonne the owner of one of the farms threatens to go to the authorities if something is not done. The plant owner hires a slick lawyer to take care of the problem. Things heat up when Jackie falls for Yvonne’s one and only witness.

Jackie Chan learns that the real purpose for the plant is not waist but drugs. All hell breaks loose when Jackie takes on the drug dealers.

DVD upgrade not found.

Not only was High Turbulance or High Turbulence not found on DVD, but this homemade VHS switches to another movie about halfway through, so you probably should not buy it.

VHS: HIGH TURBULANCE — JACKIE CHAN

No product link found for Jackie Chan waist disposal either.