Firefox (1982)

... via special effects that borrow heavily from Namco arcade staple ‘Afterburner’, we sullenly learn that the approach vectors at six times the speed of sound make dogfights quite impossible...

Vibes (1988)

A looseleaf Da Vinci Code for the 'godless teen huckster' set...

Best Defence (1984)

... the result is like a hideous fever dream. Murphy delivers his dialogue through tears of confusion and bounces around ‘Kuwait’ with the military bearing of a black Bilko...

Hanky Panky (1982)

Ninety minutes of utterly impenetrable Hitchcock-lite screwball Parallax View shenanigans on a brave new quest for that Higgs Boson of the mismatched caper-com – side-splitting suspense...

Loose Cannons (1989)

A dark meditation on such late-Eighties hot-button topics as post-traumatic stress disorder, the revival of fascism and the seedy underbelly of the LA porn network that one would normally expect to find within the covers of a particularly harrowing James Ellroy novel...

Homeboy (1988)

... Mickey tacitly understands - with all the diamond-eyed acuity of a freebasing astronaut - exactly two things; salon-effect hair gel application and his undying love of thumping people...

"Nobody fucks with the Fountain!"

We're sure you'll need no reminding that John Turturro was molesting the scenery well before his iconic turn as Jesus Quintana in 1998's enduring (Dutch) coffee-house fave The Big Lebowski, but whilst we were rooting through the files for random bongo on this torpid, back-to-work weekday we found this 8x10 hymn to King Tut's long-gone craziness.

Sprung from the production notes to painfully whimsical 1996 indiefest Box of Moonlight, this gonzoidal still of him as unglued salaryman Al Fountain recalls his boiling point psychotics of yore. We're thinking Herbie Stempel in Quiz Show, or Pino from Do the Right Thing, or, of course, Roland K. Flakfizer in Dennis Dugan's harrowing mental health allegory Brain Donors - co-starring Blighty's own Mel Smith as - oh, brother! - Rocco Melonchek.

Would you fuck with the Fountain?

Deal of the Century (1983)

A hand-to-mouth sleaze-go-round of sweaty handshakes in bare lightbulb Tex-Mex border cantinas and attaché cases left in the laundry rooms of Tijuana loveshacks...

EasteRH: "Wholly Moses!" (1980)

The life and times of Herschel, a contemporary of Moses, and who was in fact the real mover and shaker of the Exodus - the Maurice Gibb to Moses’ barnstorming Barry; the Radar to his Hawkeye; the Starscream to his Optimus Prime...

Photo Archive: B.S. I Love You (1971)

ERH has craved many things in its time - a definitive walk-through of the plot of Highlander II, to one day complete its Boondock Saints commemorative Mickey's Big Mouth beer-glass set, a harmonic cloud of well-being and understanding enveloping Mother Earth and all her offspring - but now all it wants is to be this guy!

It's a slice of double-breasted wonder that exists as a production still from 1971 advertising satire/ill-disguised softcore no-no B.S. I Love You, but all that really matters to us is if this guy can carry off that look, then ERH is going to bust out the brown leather three-quarter-length, owl-print silk neckerchief and Sta-Prest nut-smugglers stat!

Click through for a couple more crunky stills from the film, none of which, it must be said, approach the handlebarred majesty of the above, but what could? What could..?

High Risk (1981)

The cinematic equivalent of  a weekend strapped to a mechanical bull in the middle of a Managua rub’n’tug shop double booked by a Grateful Dead wig-out and a Wild Geese reunion...

Carbon Copy (1981)

“When you’re shoveling manure, you really find out which way the wind is blowing…"

Die Laughing (1980)

“Get me six wine bottles and a tuning fork!”

Trailer Time: Timerider (1982)

Click above for trailer

ERH has of late - and whyfor we know not - become minorly obsessed with the output of forgotten '80s production-distribution outfit Jensen Farley Pictures. Flitting right around the dial from crunky smutfests like Private Lessons and Homework to the lunatic spoofery of The Return of Captain Invincible and Wacko to schlockers like Curtains and killer-turtle aria The Boogens, they were emblematic of the VHS decade's spirit of 'run it up the flagpole and see who salutes'.

Our investigation into the Reaganomic complexity and layered Cold War allegories smuggled within their outwardly retarded 1983 polemic Joysticks is on it's way, but in the meantime, click on the groovy logo above for a peek at another of JF's burnt offerings in Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann - a film that, if nothing else, possesses possibly the greatest film title ERH has come across since 1897's Children's Toilet.

'When I asked you to help me pull off my helmet, I didn't mean...!'

And a little factoid for all you pop-pickers out there - the script for this nutty concoction was written by none other than Mike Nesmith, bobble-hatted axe-man and full-time oddball with impossibly loveable tunesters, The Monkees!

Raise the Titanic (1980)

Milky tea, rhino pie and plenty of hot potatoes fill the groaning board of what must be - pound-for-pound - the dullest film ERH has ever seen...

Light Blast (1985)

Erik Estrada ditches Larry 'Cornfed' Wilcox long enough to star in Enzo G. 'Inglorious Bastards' Castellari's bizzaro clockpunk'd San-Fran policier that was described by never-mourned 80's London style-guide City Limits as "Metropolis for the digital slimline set'...

Photo Archive: S*P*Y*S (1974)

We zip back to 1974 for a dip into the ERH picture archive that finds Donald Sutherland and Elliot Gould on fine photographic form in Irvin Kershner's S*P*Y*S...

The Best of Times (1986)

...to deride The Best of Times as simply being to Wall Street what Slap Shot was to The Deer Hunter is to miss the point entirely...

Black Moon Rising (1986)

Back to the Future; 'Knight Rider'; Christine: In the Eighties, the Supercar! was king...

Hollywood Vice Squad (1986)

Traumatic acts of underage S&M sit uncomfortably next to scenes of googly-eyed prurience and slapstick violence in Penelope Spheeris's godless hymn to the LA porno scene...