DTH Omnibus Page 3
Thursday February 14, 1991
A subliminal suggestion:
his week, a broken man
writes.
This is not the story about
Mardi Gras I promised two
i weeks ago. Because not once,
not twice, but three times Fate screwed
me over. Three times my "ironclad"
plans to go to Mardi Gras went "poof."
Three times my hopes that the thou
sands of dollars in telephone charges
between New Orleans and Chapel
Hill would pay off were dashed.
So, while tens of thousands of
people celebrated life in New Orleans,
I spent my weekend at home in
Kernersville, shattered and hollow.
And my old friend Mark Tebault,
trying to be helpful, offered a sub
liminal self-help tape to get me past
the pain.
Thanks a heap, Mark.
For those of you unfamiliar with
the self-help tape concept, an expla
nation. A psychologist who did his
graduate work at Battle Creek Com-
The best
he official nominees for the
1990 Drive-In Academy
Awards, better known as the
"Hubbies." Get a pencil,
cause they're humongous this
year. And I've decided to make ev
eryone eligible to vote, so zap me those
ballots.
BEST FLICK
Basket Case 2, the continuing
story of the horribly deformed, twisted
mutilated Siamese twin who lives in a
picnic basket and is very angry about
it, but has now learned to eat people's
faces off in kinder, gentler ways.
Brain Dead, the story of what would
happen if a man decided to keep a
whole lab full of pickled brains that
used to belong to paranoid
schizophrenics, so he can figure out
how to stick incredibly long needles
into the brains and turn loony people
into perfectly respectable game-show
hosts.
Darkman, the story of a scientist
who's working on the ultimate plastic
surgery discovery making skin in a
test tube but gets half his face
blown off by some gangsters who like
to collect human fingers in a box and
so he has to learn to build synthetic
skin Mission: Impossible fake faces that
last 99 minutes at a time.
Delta Force 2, proving once again
that all it takes is one helicopter full
of American kung-fu masters to solve
any problem in the universe, includ
ing wiping out a South American
drug dealer whose idea of a good time
is to kill babies because their mothers
don't harvest the coca leaves fast
enough.
Frankenhooker, the romantic story
of a man whose fiancee gets
Cuisinarted by a runaway lawn mower,
and so he's reduced to shopping for
body parts on 42nd Street by selling
crack that makes the heads of hookers
explode.
Hardware, the best nuclear-radiation
twisted-metal jubilee since the
original Mad Max.
Chip Sudderth
aiuiitollf to
munity College opens by saying
something like, "I'd like to actualize
your potential in the next thirty
minutes." Then the tape plays lots of
"soothing" sounds while little sub
sonic comments that are supposed to
make you whole get absorbed into your
brain:
Day by day , in every way , I get better
and better.
I have the potential to achieve great
works.
Even though I spilled a Coke alLover
my dateandruinedher 135'doUar jacket,
then described in graphic detail just what
is wrong with IRS collection practices, 1
am not necessarily a poor dining com
panion. You become the soul of mellowness
of the worst: the Hubbie nominations
Joe Bob Briggs
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, the
first movie in history to get an X for
"moral tone."
Martians Go Home, the nightmare
about what would happen if the
Martians invaded the world and they
turned out to be stand up comedians.
BEST ACTOR
Kevin van Hentenryck (Basket
Case 2) for making the second movie
even after he died in the first one, for
having even a more disgusting scar on
the side of his body where Belial was
cut off, and for slowly going crazy as
he says, "I just wanted people to think
I was normall"
LiamNeeson(Darkrnan):Theman
is ugly, the man is evil, and the man is
in love.
Chuck Norris (Delta Force 2) for
cleaning out a mountain drug fortress
surrounded by a hundred armed men
and protected by a South American
army equipped with heat-seeking
helicopter-gunship missiles.
George C. Scott (The Exorcist 111),
a cop with a carp in his bathtub, who
gets a little testy when he finds a 12-year-old
kid with ingots driven into
his eyes and his head cut off and a
Jesus head made up like a black
minstrel stuck on his shoulders where
his head used to be.
Dylan McDermott (Hardware), as
the techno trash collector.
, MichaelRooker (Henry: Portraitof
a Serial Killer), as Henry, for saying
"Guns are easy to get I can make a
phone call and get a gun anybody
can get a gun, Otis," and "Oh, yeah.
That's right. I stabbed her."
Noel Peters (The Invisible Maniac)
as a nerdy psycho physics professor
giving himself invisible-man serum
injections so he can sneak up on
blonde cheerleaders and rip their
with a speed formerly associated only
with dangerous drugs.
Uh-huh.
Curiosity got the better of my
natural skepticism, so I popped in the
"Self Hypnosis" tape. Immediately I
was assaulted with the sound of some
damned annoying seagulls. (An aside:
Wouldn't it make more sense for a
self-confidence tape to play "Fight For
Your Right to Party" real loud instead
of ocean noises that sound like my ex
roommate snoring? I'm sorry, but
that's hardly "mellow.") Suddenly my
eyelids felt quite heavy ...
When I awoke the next morning,
the first thing I noticed was that I was
wearing pantyhose over my head. This
I found interesting, since I'm not quite
in the habit of keeping pantyhose in
my room.
What I did find in my room, how
ever, was a fully functional .45 auto
matic and two burlap sacks filled with
tens and twenties.
blouses off.
Randy Quaid (Martians Go Home)
as a theme-music composer for T.V.
game shows, who accidentally sum
mons billions of green-skinned stand
up comics from outer space.
BEST ACTRESS
Riba Meryl (Beyond the Doors) as
Janis Joplin, for porking up for the
role, shooting up with heroin, belting
out a couple tunes Janis-style, and
saying, "I go out and make love to
25,000 people, and then I go home
alone."
Catherine Carlen (Chopper Chicks
in Zombie Town) as the leader of the
Cycle Sluts, for saying, "You're the
Sluts! Try and act like it!"
Frances McDormand (Darkman) as
Darkman's girlfriend, for saying, "If
you're not going to kill me, I have
things to do."
Stacey Travis (Hardware) as the
blowtorch sculptress, for drinking
Lactoplasm and destroying the Mark
13 killer robot.
Deborah Foreman (Lobster Man
From Mars) as the damsel in distress,
for saying, "It's all very simple! Bunny
men from Neptune have invaded
Mars!"
Anita Morris (Martians Go Home)
as a talk-show shrink who keeps tell ing
people they are having "delusions"
when they think they have Martians
in their Hydro-Spa.
Hilary Shepard (Peacemaker) as the
girl who doesn't know whether to
blow an alien's head off" or fall in love
with him.
Roxanne Rogers (Punk Vacation) as
the Head Mama Punker who has set
up a Charlie Manson rock-and-roll
party at an abandoned ranch out by
Tehachapi.
Sandra Bogan (Punk Vacation) as
the revenge-minded pistol-packing
redneck daughter, who gets stripped
down to her bra, tied to some railroad
ties, and forced to listen to real loud
music while everybody else gets to
dance.
stop the
The moral of this story:
1) If you are ever listening to a sub
liminal self-help tape, be sure the high
speed dubbing is turned OFF.
2) If you are ever fool enough to listen
to a subliminal self-help tape at twice
normal speed, make sure you didn't ac
cidentally put in the "Accumulate
WealthAssert Yourself tape.
See you in ten to twenty years.
On top of everything else that
happened to me in the last two weeks,
I learned ghastly news about two of
the most anxiously-awaited action
movies of 1991. Enough to make a
guy certain that God exists, and He
doesn't like us.
Terminator 2 A textbook les
son in "How to Make a Sequel that
Screws Up the Whole Reason People
Saw the Original in the First Place."
Arnold Schwarzenegger decided he
really couldn't be in this movie unless
he played ... a good guy. The Termi
BREAST ACTRESS
Ginger Lynn Allen (Back to Hol
lywood Boulevard) as the porno star,
for being such a great actress that she
successfully portrays a virgin.
Cynthia Bond (Def By Tempta
tion) as the Devil Woman, for putting
on her Christian Dior stockings with
no hands, and for saying, "Honey,
I've given you something there's no
cure for."
Patty Mullen (Frankenhooker), a
former Penthouse Pet of the Year as
Frankenhooker, for staggering down
42nd Street with suture marks all
over her body and giving new meaning
to the phrase, "Wanna date?"
Bo Derek (Ghosts Can't Do It) for
having the courage to take four baths
instead of her usual three.
Cynthia Brimhall (Guns), lead
singer in Playboy's Girls of Rock and
Roll, for singing two lounge songs
while dressed in a lace corset.
Devin Devasquez (Guns) as Erik
Estrada's girlfriend in a leopard-skin
leotard, for saying, "Let me kill for you."
Roberta Vasquez (Guns) for
showing off her two enormous talents
by aardvarking in the desert on a
motorcycle seat at sunset.
Dona Speir (Guns), three-time
winner of the Breast Actress Award,
for running around in a halter top
carrying a rocket launcher, and for
saying, "That's it for me! I'm hitting
the shower!"
Shannon Wilsey (The Invisible
Maniac) as Vicky the blonde, for
saying, "I need an A to graduate, and
I'd be willing to do anything.
Isa Anderson (Night Angel) as the
demonic ex-wife from hell who plans
to turn the whole world into sex
crazed zombies by posing for the cover
of Siren, a high fashion magazine, and
putting a lot of subliminal messages in
there like, "Have sex with the cleaning
lady today."
Morgan Fairchild (Phantom of the
Mall) she's pouty, she's sequined,
she's the evil mayor, and she's wear-.
sequels
nator is the hero of the movie and he's
protecting Sarah Connor (Linda
Hamilton) from the bad guys! Call this
movie Robocop 2 112.
It gets worse.
Highlander 2: The Quickening
All those "if you've never seen this
movie ..." cliches apply to Highlander,
a cult actionrock videoheroic ro
mance movie that's pure video gold.
Rent this movie. Now.
But if you loved the climactic sword
fights, blistering soundtrack and en
thralling scenery of the original, then
you'll absolutely hate Highlander 2. In
2034, Space Aliens from the Planet
Zeist invade Earth, and Connor
MacLeod (Christopher Lambert)
fights them on his flying jet skis.
I made none of this up.
God, I hate Hollywood.
Chip Sudderth, a license plate
stamping major, may be reached at cell
block 9620245.
ing too much makeup!
BEST DIALOGUE
Steve Vinovich (Back to Holly
wood Boulevard): "I don't think a little
thing like minor tissue damage should
get in our way."
Annie Ross (Basket Case 2): "I
understand your pain, Belial, but
ripping the faces off people may not
be in your best interests."
Larry Buchanan, director of Beyond
the Doors, for writing lines like "I know
I didn't need that second barrel, but
who counts birdshot in a man's chest ?
Rock and roll is dead. Long live rock
and roll."
Don Calfa (Chopper Chicks in
Zombietown) as the evil mortician who
buries the dead with the touching
prayer, "Why dwell on it?"
David Knell (Chopper Chicks in
Zombietown): "Jeez, Dad, maybe if you
don't eat anybody, nobody'll notice
you're a zombie."
Brad Dourif (The Exorcist 111): I kill
at random no motive that's the
fun."
James Lorinz (Frankenhooker):
"After all, I'm not killing anybody.
It's the crack that's gonna kill 'em. If
they don't wanna do it, they can just
say no."
John Lynch (Lobster Man From
Mars), the cocaine-worshiper who
says, "It's my heart it feels like an
alligator."
Clive Turner and Freddie Rowe,
screenwriters on The Howling V:
"There is an ancient Hungarian
proverb Check the one who looks
innocent!"
Noel Peters (The InvisibleManiac):
"I'm injecting the serum into the
bunny rabbit now," and "I was inex
plicably drawn to the girls' locker
room."
Terry Laughlin (Killer): "Young
and in love makes me wanna throw
up."
Tommy Sledge (LobsterMan From
See JOE BOB, page 10