The long-running blog of American poet Thomas L. Vaultonburg: poetry, horror and cult movies, Rockford history, cryptids, art, humor, gaming, and cultural commentary.
I re-watched Soylent Green on a VHS tape last night, as the gods intended. Seems like with this movie, The Omega Man, and Planet of the Apes, Charlton Heston was one of the great science fiction actors of all time. There's a scene in Soylent Green where Heston, who portrays a cop, plunders the apartment of a homicide victim for a slice of beef and some apples, delicacies in this bleak future, and he and Edward G. Robinson eat them in a scene celebrating the miracle of food. It's a scene that is hard to watch without wanting to go to the kitchen and just revel in all the variety of fresh foods we have available to us in America.
The joy of something we take for granted, like an apple, is conveyed with some good acting in this scene from Soylent Green. I paused the tape at this point, suddenly overtaken with an overwhelming desire for a piece of fresh fruit. I live in a food desert here in the fifth most dangerous neighborhood in America, but fortunately there is one convenience store that puts out a few pieces of fruit each day. Bananas, apples, and oranges. It was only 9:13, and since they are open until ten I set out. It was a nice night, and I don't pay too much attention to the crime statistics, as I have been walking this neighborhood for the five years I've lived here now without any problems. But when I got to convenience store I was disappointed to see they had closed early, as they commonly do. The next closest piece of fruit was over an hour away on foot, so I abandoned my quest for fruit and went back to my apartment dejectidly. I wanted to mope. I really, really wanted a piece of fruit, and most of the food choices I had left at my apartment looked like Soylent Green. But I cheered up when I saw them make a fuss over a real egg in the movie. I had eggs. In this future a jar of strawberry jam was so scarce it sold for $150. I happened to have a small jar of strawberry jam I had been ignoring for over a year. I got out my eggs, my small jar of strawberry jam, grabbed a hunk of cabbage that was leftover from the last time I made a corned beef, and I had a feast. I also had milk and peanut butter. I ate it all. I made a glutton of myself. And I was grateful for every ounce of it. Water flowed from the faucets, uninterrupted electricity powered my utilities, a nice breeze flowed through the window. Thank you, science fiction, for creating a scenario of the future so bleak that even my modest accomodations here in this real present seem even that much better. If you're having trouble appreciating what little you have in this life, watch this movie. You'll cheer up.
In the 1970's the unwritten rule was it was permisable to make an intentionally schlocky, exploitation movie full of nudity, violence, and drug use because if it was only to be shown at night outdoors as part of a double or triple bill where everyone knew the rules. If the only thing I ever told you about the drive-in classic Revenge of the Cheerleaders was that
David Hasselhoff plays a character named Boner wouldn't that be enough to send you out to the corner gas station to rent the Betamax copy? Oh, there's more. Lots more.
They have sex, they take drugs, they do whatever they want, including...
Robbing their fellow students at fire extinguisher point for their drugs, then dump them in the spaghetti sauce leading to a naked food fight that requires an orgy shower scene, sounds like these chicks got their turf under pretty tight control, so who they need to take revenge upon?
The Lincoln High cheerleaders, of course, because they refuse to do sex and drugs and want to plow Aloha High under to make a shopping mall out of it. These chicks are so uptight when they say cock they actually mean rooster.
A new principal is brought in to save Aloha from the evil developer who wants to turn the school into a mall, but instead decides the cheerleaders are actually the source of the problem and replaces them with the good goody cock squad.
Bummed out, the girls team up with the Go-Gos, take a field trip to the woods, knock over a liquor store, then seduce a Boy Scout just for fun.
Their sin batteries recharged, the cheerleaders decide instead of giving up they'll kick some goody two show ass and regain their turf. However, when they return, things have really gone to Hell at Aloha High
When they return to school, the basketball team is losing the match to Lincoln High because the cheerleading is so uninspiring. So they whupp some ass and stuff them in lockers, but then the evil Nurse Beam chloroforms Boner, who instantly goes limp. But one of the cheerleaders knows that if there's one thing Boner loves, it's the smell of (cinnamon rolls), so she whips off her penties, and two sniffs later Boner is rock hard again and ready to lead the Aloha team to a rousing defeat of Lincoln.But this is where things start to get a little weird.
Nurse Beam, secretly working for the evil land developer,Hartlander, blows the school up overnight and the cheerleaders learn the principal has been kidnapped by Nurse Beam and a giant brontasaurus the gang hops in their convertible and goes to the rescue.
The chase in on through a series of winding caves leading to this elevator that appears out of nowhere and leads to
.
A shopping mall, where the girls chase Nurse Beam until they all end up on a golf course where Beam sinks into quicksand.
The sanctity of sex, drugs, and rock n roll is restored. Not particularly in that order. Credits roll, party out. I actually didn't watch this movie and now I feel bad for the review because it's not my style but I saw the picture after I reviewed Revenge of the Dead and it looked like fun. Now it just looks like exploitation garbage.
.jpg "David Hasselhoff Revenge of the Cheerleaders")
