Friday, December 31, 2010

THE ETHEREAL CRY OF THE HAWK



Throughout the history of mankind certain symbols and sounds have become subconscious indicators ingrained in our manbrains to illicit certain responses or help us orient ourselves to situations and our surroundings. One of these sounds is the cry of hawk.



As time has shown us, when this screeching call rains down from the heavens above it can mean one, or a combination, of three things.

1. Extreme Physical Isolation.



If you find yourself on the edge of civilization the cry of the hawk will echo through the wasteland and into your mind. If it does not, there is still a Starbucks within 5 miles and you still time for Venti Frappe© before your journey into the unknown begins.

2. Life Threatening Challenge.



Face to face with death, in a contest between man and or beast, you have only yourself and your will to survive. The soundtrack to your struggle with mortality will be the beating of your heart and the banshee like scream of the hawk.

3. Mystical Experience.



You stumble out of the sweat lodge after 3 days of eating peyote. Reality as you knew it melts away, the great wolf spirit inhabits your mortal body, your mind's eye opens up to a rainbow world known only to ancient shamans, you see the white horse, you hear the cry of the hawk, your spirit is released into the river of souls and your return to the earth mother is complete.



Next time you hear the song of the hawk thunder down upon you will you rise to meet it's challenge? Will you clench your fist, grit your teeth, and prepare to fight for your life? Or will you scowl, mumble "goddamnit, not today", and walk back into your shitty studio apartment? The choice is yours.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

YES VIRGINIA, THERE IS A KRAMPUS



If you grew up in northern Europe you were probably a pretty nice kid. Not because you really wanted to be, or were innately a pleasant little lamb, but because if you were bad Krampus would come hit you with a birch branch, shove you in a bucket, possibly molest you, and carry you off with all the other little baddies. Where to? I don't know. Most likely some level of hell, a mass grave, or where ever GAP sweaters are made.



Krampus is Santa's horned sidekick who would dish out the medieval style street justice on those who misbehaved. This good cop/bad cop routine would hit the streets every December and wreak havoc on little towns.



So if you did not heed the ominous warning of "you'd better not cry, you'd better not pout", say your prayers because Santa is coming to town and bringing Krampus with him.



And don't think that just because you're 14 you're too old for Krampus to come crashing through your door in a holiday home invasion. The only differences are there is now a chance of pregnancy and Santa is going to watch.



As with most traditions in America, Yule time festivities have been watered down, pacified, re-packaged and sold to the masses as a consumerist feeding frenzy. St. Nicholas is now Santa, a drunk who works for Macy's, Black Peter just doesn't 'read' the same way in the states, and Krampus has been renamed Michael but essentially still acts in the same way.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

SEXY SUNDAY

SUNDAY MASS

TUF E NUF FILM BUF - RAIDERS OF ATLANTIS

The soundtrack to this movie is so good it can also be the soundtrack to this review. Play the video and read on!



It is the future year of 1994.



Two men of action, Mike and Washington, infiltrate a building surrounded by armed guards.



Guided by a pulse-pounding synth-disco soundtrack the two are a veritable Yin and Yang of action as they punch and kick their way in to the building.



The mission is to extract an old man who might have gone along with the plan nicely but not risking any funny business he is drugged like a prom date



and dragged out of the house in a body bag Cobra Kai style.



They deliver the man to a mysterious figure referred to simply as "The Colonel" who pays them $50,000 for their kidnapping service.



The two take their earnings and hit the high seas in style on a quest to find the lost city of Margaritaville.



Little do they know they will not be listening to dad rock while they drinking rum out of coconuts on the beach with 14 year old island girls. No, fate has a different plan because close by there is an oil rig full of scientists who are researching an artifact found in the ocean by a sunken Russian nuclear submarine.



The mysterious origin of the skull stone has the nerdy scientists so baffled they call upon the largest unsolvable mystery to scientists in all of scientific history, a woman, to help decipher the writing on the stone.



The skull stone must be pretty awesome because not before long the ocean starts to violently stir, a tidal wave takes out the oil rig, and every Pure Moods listening, flowy garment wearing, crystal rubbing new-age spiritualist's wet dream rises to the surface.



The mythical island of Atlantis returns and with it it's people, a spikes and chains gang of road warrior psychos who are hell-bent on more than leather, they want the stone and they are going to turn all of humanity into their power-bottom to get it.



Their leader is a fearsome man named Crystal Skull who rolls with a spiked-out car and a harem of barely clothed apocalypse babes.



His Atlantean murder cult rip their way through town on a berzerk death spree.



Not only do they want their stone back, the Atlantean Interceptors also want to kill the human race who have been squatting on their planet for centuries. There is really no winning with these people so our hero Mike, his sidekick Washington, and the hot scientist fight for their lives in the charred remains of San Pedro.

During the bloody ordeal the group must survive a seemingly endless wave of hyper-violent wasters



strange Atlantean technology



and an asshole in a crystal skull helmet.



By the end of it there are exactly 29 explosions, 80 corpses, and 1 decapitation. Well worth the journey.

Unlike most movies reviewed on Film Buf, this one is actually really worth seeing. It's an Italian exploitation movie high on PCP. It's an orgy of all the genre cliches, shit-brained logic, gore, and violence you could want. A reminder that it's not you that's so crazy after all. There are Italian filmmakers, southeast Asian islands with no laws concerning ethical film-making, and their mouth-breathing, sweaty-faced target audience that are way crazier than you. From that unholy menage comes a movie like Raiders of Atlantis (also known as The Atlantis Interceptors) and is directed by Ruggero Deodato (of Cannibal Holocaust fame).



Get more obscure and hard to find Eurocult in your life.
Watch the trailer and download the torrent.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Monday, November 22, 2010

Thursday, November 11, 2010

R.I.P. DINO



Dino De Laurentiis helped bring some of the best movies of all time to my VCR. Read his IMDB and you'll spot at least a few films you hold in high regard. Conan, Dune, Army of Darkness....and even that square-face-lady who cooks shit.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

TUF E NUF FILM BUF - THE LOST EMPIRE

In every major city in the United States there is a Chinatown. In every Chinatown there is a little shop of ancient Chinese curiosities run by an old, seemingly wise but suspiciously sneaky Chinese man. His shop is stocked with foreign trinkets, remedies, and oddities. Things from an ancient Eastern culture shrouded in mysterious mysteries that hold the Western imagination in it's kung-fu grip with intrigue, fear, and excitement. Jars containing herbs from afar, strange animal parts deemed edible, mogwais, skeleton keys to trap doors, the bones of unwanted children, and treacherous traps for your index fingers.





In the case of The Lost Empire, directed by Jim Wynorski (of Deathstalker II and Chopping Mall fame), it's a place where a giggling, red-faced Chinese jeweler can go from pervin' on some blond's huge boobs





to fighting off ninja cat-burglars with ninja star yo-yo's in a Chinatown minute (approximately 1:00 on screen).





He tries to blow them away with a revolver but they deflect all his shots with their yo-yos and put down the shopkeeper by throwing one at his head.





With him out of the way they proceed with their purpose, to wrench a glowing stone out of the eye socket of a statue. Could this glowing gemstone be a priceless artifact? A magical crystal with unknowable power? A key to a secret world? Whatever it is the fuzz shows up before they can complete their devious task.





There are casualties on both sides and ultimately the blood fight ends in a double K.O. Which if you know your Street Fighter is extremely fucking rare. The strange statue head is the only witness to the melee, it's one eye glowing like it likes it.







Right off the bat Lost Empire hits us with boobs, magic, ninjas, and death. Appealing to the very core of our Western sensibilities but hey, there is more here than our collective short-term American memory can know without a scrolling, world establishing, text summary that catches us up on the history of the East that I certainly never learned of in school. Maybe it's that I was only taught a revisionist history or perhaps it's because all this unfolded behind the walls of that city no one was allowed in. I don't know, but now we both will because I will summarize the historical text for you now.

"In a time before history, there existed a forgotten civilization - a strange, mystical race ruled by creatures of myth and magic. They were called The Lemurians. To protect their great power, they implanted their secrets of super-science into a pair of incredible jewels - THE EYES OF THE AVATAR - shimmering stones that possessed a life of their very own. Then, during a cosmic battle that nearly destroyed the Earth, the Lemurians were vanquished and the Eyes separated. It was written that whoever brought the jewels together again would rule with absolute power."

With murdering ninjas sent to retrieve such a powerful stone we can only ascertain that there are dark forces led by a nefarious evil genius who is hell-bent on joining the stones and ruling the multi-verse with his unlimited power. We're going to need a hero, maybe even multiple heroes, and our introduction begins right away.

Present day - Elementary school - Drug addled thugs hold a classroom full of children hostage.



The police don't know what to do. The scumbags have demanded money and a helicopter and if they don't deliver their going to start tossed bodies out the window by the hour.





Typically, the Feds and the locals argue it out over jurisdiction, but this situation is gonna need more than talk, it's gonna need action. Action arrives in the form of a bad-ass dude dressed all in black who rolls his motorcycle right up on the lawn like he doesn't give a fuck.





But he does give a fuck, he gives a fuck about the kids, and he is about to slay some wastoid punks to save them.

He skillfully rides through the front door and takes out all the terrorist gangsters.







BUT WAIT WHAT'S THIS? THE DUDE IS ACTUALLY A BABE! This shit hasn't happened to me since I beat Metroid!



Having challenged our very notion of gender, the filmmaker shows us just one layer of this artfully crafted narrative that will surely continue to redefine how we think and approach the very core issues of gender and society's predication to archaic, prescribed gender roles. Maybe. But first this hard-bodied lady-cop named Angel Wolfe has to find out her killed her brother, her only clues a ninja star found at the scene



and the broken English ramblings of a white actor playing a Chinese man



who tells of a lost world, a sinister Dr. Sin Do, an evil undead wizard named Lee Chuck, and a martial arts tournament on a secret island fortress. Her only way inside this heavily guarded fortress is to enter the competition herself. So our determined heroine calls upon some martial arts friends to join the quest.

The first is an Indian warrior-woman named Whitestar who reminds you of her Native heritage every one-lining chance she gets.



The second a scrappy pit-fighter in a women's prison named Heather McClure.



With the crack team now assembled the ladies go to sign up for the tournament. Which just so happens to be a babes-only competition.



The journey ahead will be full of much peril and danger that's gonna take more than fighting skills, sharp wit, and a pretty face to get through. It's going to take a lot of cleavage as well. Things are looking good.



To the island fortress they go to compete in the Dr.'s sinister game.



On the island they face seemingly insurmountable obstacles to justice. Obstacles that take many forms. Like -

Poisonous cleavage spiders!


Rigorous exercise!


Sword swinging cultists!


Eastern mysticism!


Rape snakes!


The Tall Man from Phantasm!


And a sexually frustrated skeleton-man with a giant dick cannon!


Will the girls defeat the evil Dr. and the undead wizard Lee Chuck? Will they stop the joining of the Avatar Eyes of unlimited power? How many times will their tits fall out of their fur and leather bikini tops? Will they make it off the island alive?

The Lost Empire is a harrowing adventure through the many perils and pitfalls of the mysterious East. A world now thankfully confined to small ethnic neighborhoods in larger metropolitan cities where the only harm it can do is to small-minded tourists and animal rights. In the end it all goes to show that the West's biggest powers are in our xenophobia, large breasted blond women, and knack for flying off islands right before they explode. Except maybe in the case of Hawaii.

Watch the trailer-



Download the torrent.