As always I´m adding new things and the video section is completely new so you can still check out the old post via the link above and if you want to read more about Andy Sidaris´ movies check out the tag or go to my JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA CASTING - ANDY SIDARIS SPECIAL post.
Andy is probably THE BEST director of action movies for adults. And his cast reads like a WHOS´S WHO of playmates : Roberta Vasquez, Ava Cadell, Cynthia Brimhall, Dona Speir, Pandora Peaks, Julie Strain, Suzi Simpson, Samantha Phillips and Julie K. Smith to mention just a few.
His business plan was as effective as it was simple : make action movies with playmates who get naked very frequently. What´s the best part of the Bond movies ? The Bond girls. What´s the worst part of the Bond movies ? That we don´t get to see more of the Bond girls. So why don´t make a movie where the Bond girls - or government agents that are as hot as the Bond girls - are the main characters ? I know it sounds simple but the question is : why has no one done it before - or since ? Thanks to the only legitimate heir to boob king Russ Meyer we could see dozens of hot playmates and small screen babes get naked and get their freak on.
But if you now think that the girls in Andy´s movies were just stupid bimbos there to take their clothes off you couldn´t be more wrong. Okay, in MALIBU EXPRESS where we have a male lead the damsel in distress rule applies but starting with HARD TICKET TO HAWAII the girls took over. And for them to be believable main characters they had to be capable agents and what´s more independent women. Yes, the women in these movies were clearly ahead of their time because they could get along without the help of a man. Which doesn´t mean they were prudes, quite the contrary.
But they didn´t wait around until some Prince Charming decided to get it on - these women took charge at the workplace and in the bedroom.
Another cool thing are the locations in the movies. The first couple stick to Hawaii, then they start to expand out - but usually to the same places - Las Vegas, Texas, Lousiana, and Lake Havasu, Arizona in addition to the regular shoots. There are also stops in Washington DC and Paris. Unlike most movies like this, which make do with stock establishing shots, then faking the locations - Andy and Arlene really made their movies in the locations. The only time they diverted from this was Washington - which was faked. But the funny thing is, the stock shots are real footage shot for the movie! It seems one of their regular crew members was headed to DC to visit family, so clever Andy sent the camera rig with him, and the guy got Malibu Bay a couple of nice, new, crisp establishing shots that completely match the rest of the movie they're put into!
The website CRAVE ONLINE has The Series Project : L.E.T.H.A.L. Ladies which takes a look at all the Andy Sidaris movies in three parts and it promises : Professor Witney Seibold introduces you to the greatest action series you've never heard of, with babes, bazookas and blow-up dolls.
I´ve taken the liberty of borrowing this part form the intro : Andy Sidaris, who wrote and directed all but the 8th and 9th films in the series, was a veteran of television, and was perhaps best known for his work on The Wide World of Sports and Monday Night Football. He has been credited in several places for having pioneered what he called the “ Honey Shot ”, which was essentially a gametime reaction shot of the buxom cheerleaders. Sidaris, with his wife Arlene, decided in the early 1980s to move into dramatic features, and his entire career was dedicated to a single series of films. This series features all the best and cheapest special effects. Sidaris hired Playboy Playmates and Penthouse Pets as the lead actresses, and notoriously had them strip, rather frequently, for no good reason. He went to exotic locales, hired some expensive vehicles, and got bodybuilders and martial artists to pilot them. Squibs and explosions followed. And many, many softcore sex scenes.
And while his scripts were always pretty shoddy ( for b film cheapies these movies have surprisingly complicated stories ), and the acting was commonly pretty bad ( bodybuilders and Playboy Playmates aren't known for their thespian virtuosity ), there was a straightforward purity to Sidaris' b movie sensibility. He seemed to have a very sensible and simple filmmaking philosophy: The cheapest special effects are, after all, bare breasts. Throw some bare breasts into a passable action plot of spies and double - crosses, shoot on the beaches of Hawaii, and blow up a few vehicles, and, hey, you've got a pattern that will have audience appeal for time immemorial. He even included an original song in each film, kind of running a parallel to James Bond. His formula lasted through 12 films over 13 years, and he probably would have made more in the series, had he not tragically passed from cancer in 2007.
But the Andy Sidaris movies did not only have playmates, penthouse pets and actors from b movies and tv soaps. For every Erik Estrada there was a Danny Trejo or Pat Morita who starred in DO OR DIE. You know that the reason why he accepted the role were the many happy ending massages by sexbomb Lady Silk that Andy Sidaris wisely wrote into the script.
You know that Andy Sidaris made things up on the go and changed things whenever they script needed it because the role of Kane played by Pat Morita was later played by a white actor. I´m not entirely sure what the reason for this was, if there was any explanation given like Pat Morita had not been the real Kane but the new Kane is descended from Nazis and his german name was Rohr, which could be translated as Kane. These inconsistencies are the topic of Playboy Playmates, Penthouse Pets, and Parallel Realities: The Comic Book World of Cult Filmmaker Andy Sidaris which analyses the different parallel worlds of the Andy Sidaris movies that have similarities with the retconned DC universe after CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS. It has many interesting insights about the movies :
There is no doubt that the films of Andy Sidaris appeal to a specific audience, one that very probably included Sidaris himself. The world he created was one full of spies that were, for all intents and purposes, the cheerleaders and football players everyone knew in high school who had gone on to live the exact same kind of life on the stage of international intrigue. Like comic books, everyone who appeared in a Sidaris film was idealized or larger than life, and like vintage adventure comics, the line between good and evil is always very clear. Even with their reputation as low-budget exploitation, Sidaris’s films feature hardly any profanity at all and each one of them prominently features strong female characters who can more than take care of themselves. The tone of the films never becomes too dark, despite the bright splashes of blood that punctuate every gunfight.
In many ways, the films of Andy Sidaris are very similar to comic books, but not the contemporary books that were being released at the time of his most popular films, when many superhero books were trying to tackle “ real world ” problems and recasting their characters in darker, more violent stories in a desperate attempt at remaining relevant. The simple good vs. evil storylines, the beautiful people, the ass-kicking women and sophisticated villains, and yes, even the complete disregard for any kind of standard continuity seem more an echo of Silver Age comics of the 50s. Sidaris refers to the films as “ family films ” in an interview that appears as a film introduction in the Girls, Guns & G-Strings collection, and while he’s obviously joking, the straightforward nature of his stories and the lack of any significant moral ambiguity ( along with the curious lack of profanity ) make the comment much closer to truth than even he may have realized. While the quality of the films took a noticeable turn for the worse in the later installments, it is inarguable that Sidaris always strove to deliver pure entertainment, and in the process he may have inadvertently given “ comic book ” B-movies a good name. Or, at least, a better one than they had before Hard Ticket to Hawaii.
I can´t mention DO OR DIE without mentioning the best scene featuring the hot Ava Cadell. In later Andy Sidaris movies she had the part of Ava ( coincidence ? ) who was head DJ and president of local Hawaiian radio station KSXY in HARD HUNTED. 24 hours a day, she broadcasts sleazy, porny F&S music, giving out some sex advice and moaning in orgasmic ecstasy. Her sexy speeches also serve as code to spies in the field.
Then there’s the office assistant, played by Becky Mullen, who fetches coffee in a skin tight red leather bikini. And if dressing for work nearly naked wasn’t enough, then hold on, because later in the film they actually do work naked, well, almost naked. Ava proceeds to do her radio show from a hot tub topless alongside her by then topless office assistant. It seems that Ava works from wherever she wants wearing whatever she wants. Seriously, if this was a real radio station it had to be on tv !
By the way - talk about playing what you know - DOCTOR Ava Cadell ( you can call her The Sex Doctor ) is America’s number 1 sexpert as a Clinical Sexologist, AASECT Certified Sex Counselor, Hypnotherapist, Founder of LoveologyUniversity.com and President of the American College of Sexologists International. Dr. Ava Cadell’s brand is sexual empowerment as an the author of 8 books and the monthly Sex Advice Columnist for Penthouse Magazine for whom she has she created a series of online courses and videos entitled, Sex Academy. Dr. Ava is also a sought after media therapist, and global speaker; her mission is to empower people to overcome sexual guilt & shame so they can enjoy the benefits of healthy, sexual relationships. She also has a radio show called SEX DRIVE !
But Ava plays the contract killer in DO OR DIE and she looks spectacular !
But the best part with her is not when she takes her clothes off ( I had to omit the part with nippleage so it´s SFW ) but when she puts them on. I have never seen a woman putting on leather pants the way Ava does.
Especially the way she pulls the zipper up is just soooooo provocative !
By the way, Ava Cadell´s blonde bikini clad / topless office assistant was played by sexbomb Sandra Wild in later movies who was a TUTTI FRUTTI girl like Carolyn Liu. Although in the case of Sandra Wild it´s not really surprising since she starred in a few Playboy videos before playing Sandy.
I´m not sure if she really was a playmate of the month since she is credited as Miss August 1991 in some sources while other say that she worked as a Playboy model between 1988 and 1994 and was featured in several magazines and on covers, as well as in several Playboy videos.
Here is a page that has most of her acting credits as well as an uncredited appearance on STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION.
Like Sandra Wild Carolyn Liu was a model, a PLAYBBOY cover girl, she starred in a few PLAYBOY videos and played Silk in DO OR DIE, HARD HUNTED, FIT TO KILL ( the one in the golden bikini below ) and RETURN TO SAVAGE BEACH and Alice in the movie DAY OF THE WARRIOR.
I have already done it in my post about ITALIAN SOCCER MOM SIMONA VENTURA but for the benefit of new readers who might have missed this I should probably explain what TUTTI FRUTTI was. There was a show called COLPO GROSSO from Italy with some dancers dressed as certain fruits who would dance to a special song and when the last refrain said " chin chin " they popped their tops and the candidates had to bet ( before they opened their tops ) if they had stickers of fruits on their breasts or not.
If they had fruits - or rather stickers with fruits - on them the candidates would win points and if they had enough of them they could get the women who presented the european nations to strip. Who could get the most women the most naked was the winner and the points they would score were called country points or Länderpunkte, a word that has become a household expression in Germany. It´s not unusual to hear german tv viewers say : Well, we´re not going to see any Länderpunkte in this movie. Anyway, the show was done to promote the Ecu, the new currency for a United Europe ( no, that really didn´t work out that well ) but the important part was getting to see girls strip. Although the men always couldn´t remember which girl represented which country and so often the hottest looking girls never got their turn. This one was my favorite.
The show was adapted by various countries and it was called AY QUE CALOR in Spain and TUTTI FRUTTI in Germany. In Germany it was the show nobody watched ( or admitted watching ) but everybody saw.
When it was first shown in the 80s I was doing my military service in Munich and in my room there was cable tv - unlike at home. So every Sunday afternoon I took the ICE to Munich, bought some american comics at the station, went to the barracks, showered, shaved and watched TUTTI FRUTTI before going to sleep. And I always made sure to catch the beginning, I didn´t want to miss the big breasted hottie from the intro.
Boy, she was something else. I had some happy dreams back then.
A few years back I bought the Andy Sidaris DVD box via amazon because it was offered at a bargain price and I am glad I did it because it´s not available through amazon anymore or if it´s going for a really extreme price. The only downside is that the box does not include ENEMY GOLD and THE DALLAS CONNECTION because they were directed by Andy´s son. The last one is also known under the title DEADWORKS and features two sexbombs who were in a few of Andy Sidaris´ later movies : Julie Strain and Julie K Smith a.k.a. Julie & Julie the double rack attack. There are two great scenes ( among others ) in DALLAS CONNECTION : in the first one Julie Strain ties a guy to a chair and strips to make him ultrahorny.
Julie Strain debuted in FIT TO KILL, where she played the evil Blue Steele, then she portrayed bad girl Jewel Panther in ENEMY GOLD and bad girl Black Widow in THE DALLAS CONNECTION. Since she wanted a recurring role in DAY OF THE WARRIOR and RETURN TO SAVAGE BEACH she became federal agent Willow Black. And for those that moan about me bringing up Julie Strain in a comic blog I want to mention that this Penthouse Pet of the Year 1993 not only starred in over 100 movies and was the inspiration for the main character in the animation movie HEAVY METAL 2000, she was also married to Kevin Eastman who created the TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES with Peter Laird and was Editor in Chief of HEAVY METAL.
The second great scene in THE DALLAS CONNECTION is with Samantha Phillips who has her Andy Sidaris debut ( and what a debut it is ! ).
Sadly it´s her only Andy Sidaris movie and I would really have loved to see more of her. Not that we don´t get to see a lot of her here - you know.
Of course other hot playmates in this movie are leggy Wendy Hamilton and real life Power Girl Julie K. Smith who also does her Andy Sidaris debut here and who also starred in subsequent Lethal Ladies movies. For a girl with her slender frame she really has an incredibly big bosom !
Together with Andy Sidaris veteran Julie Strain new girl Julie K. Smith becomes the new mainstay of the Andy Sidaris movies after the combo of Donna Speir and Roberta Vasquez had their last Hurrah in FIT TO KILL. In any case, things were in good hands with new leading lady Julie K. Smith.
One last thing about the Andy Sidaris Box, for some reason the DVDs are out of order so I had to use the internet to watch them in the right order.
And the extras contain the Andy Sidaris Film School that have helpful tips if you ever want to take a camera into your own hands and shoot a movie to get some hot chicks to strip naked. Here´s looking at you, Yaya Han.
Since you can find all my links for Ava Cadell and everything Andy Sidaris in previous posts we get right to all the other people who celebrate their birthday Today and we start with puerto rican actress, model and tv presenter Maria Del Pilar Rivera Alomar a.k.a. Maripily. She turns 39.
Next is Neil Patrick Harris who celebrates his 43rd anniversary. He is best known for his role on HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER which has become very strange since he came out. I have not watched many episodes ( I don´t know if it´s because the show doesn´t have my kind of humor, my father used to give this longwinded stories or because as a single guy through outside forces a show entirely focused on dating is not really something I can relate to ) but I like to watch the Emmy Award shows he has hosted.
And we are staying in the realm of hit sitcoms with our next celebrity birthday : Leah Remini. She is 46 and she played the hot wife on KING OF QUEENS which didn´t make any sense to me. I mean how could a guy like Doug get such a drop dead sexbomb like her ? But then I guess that if you have enough bad experience you can smell when the guy you go out with just wants sex. Which is the point when you´re ready for the nice guy.
I guess I don´t have to explain much about Ice Cube who turns 47. Which is good since I´m not the most knowledgeable man when it comes to him. I DO know I liked RIDE ALONG and I can´t wait until part 2 hits cinemas.
The last three candidates have all been in successful sitcoms so why not continue with Courteney Cox who was on FRIENDS and who celebrates her 52nd birthday ? Somehow I didn´t catch many episodes of the show but I did see the SCREAM movies ( except the last one ) where she had a role.
And we have two more from the realm of tv sitcoms : Helen Hunt who turns 53 was on MAD ABOUT YOU ( which probably doesn´t tell you much but let me tell you it was big in my time ) and 62 year old James Belushi who among a plethora of other things is on tv hit ACCORDING TO JIM.
Our senior award goes to Claude Brasseur who celebrates his 80th birthday. He played the father of Sophie Marceau in the extremely successful teenie romantic comedies LA BOUM and LA BOUM 2 which caused all kind of wild outrage when DESCENT AUX ENFERS ( Descent into hell ) hit cinemas where she had sex scenes with him - everybody was up in arms because of this incest totally forgetting that he played her father in the movies, he was not her father in real life. The magic of cinema.
We start the dearly departed section with musician Waylon Jennings whom I only know from the title song of THE DUKES OF HAZARD since the german music industry is not interested in supporting country music.
The name of Walter Ulbrich may be better known to my german readers since he was the writer for tv series like Treasure Island, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, The Leatherstocking Tales, Two Years of Vacation, Burning Daylight and Die Abenteuer des David Balfour.
Hugo Pratt is one of the comic related birthdays I will not do a post on because I just don´t have that much material on him. While he was omnipresent in the ZACK comics I read in my youth I don´t have read that many Corto Maltese comics. I did however get the GRATIS COMIC TAG issue of Corto Maltese that was available this year which will become part of the comics that will be given away through the big Christmas contest.
Nevertheless I wanted to commemorate the anniversary in some form so here is another chapter of the Corto Maltese cartoon in spanish. Is it just me or have all english language versions of this disappeared on YouTube ?
In the first Justice League movie casting post I mentioned that I would probably cast the mega sexy Yaya Han as the new Doctor Light but I forgot to add a video about her to the post. I know that she´s not a real actress - or at least she hasn´t been in many films YET - but it´s my casting and I don´t care about that. I would totally put her in that movie.
Now being realistic I thought about a possible body double for Yaya Han if she´s not comfortable with the amount of explicit nudity the role would require but it´s not easy finding one for a 40D girl. I thought about banker / model Li Ling Ling from Singapore who also goes by the name of busty Singaporean and about whom I wrote in an earlier post . Supposedly a few pictures of her were " leaked " on the internet by an IT person who was repairing her laptop and landed on various adult websites under the title of " nude pictures of Yaya Han ". Now as you can see below this woman has an impressive chest but it´s still only 38DD. Yaya is two sizes bigger !
Still I´m not giving up hope as there has to be someone out there who is in Yaya Han´s league and can double for her. I would really like to meet someone like that for a special weekend session on the casting couch.
Anyway, it has come to my attention that there are comic fans who bitch about cosplayers because they don´t buy comics at comic conventions.
Just when I thought the in - fightings with comic fans were over. And yes, cosplayers are comic fans too because otherwise they would not spend so much time sewing costumes to become their favorite comic characters. So I think cosplayers at conventions are a good thing because they lighten things up, most of them are just there to have some fun and let´s face it, there are not enough hot babes at comic events. Yes, the media tends to focus on them and especially the female cosplayers get a lot of media attention - sometimes more than they want - but they would get the same kind of attention if they were just wearing jeans and a t shirt. And do we really want the media morons to solely focus on comics with the twisted, misinformed and prejudiced view they have on them ? Most conventions are not only about comics anymore but about all types of entertainment so please, can we stop behaving like cavemen and instead be friendly and positive and not squander another opportunity to make people welcome ?
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