by Ken Knight
The man’s name is Cody Abilene, and he pulled into his own reserved parking space at the shooting range first thing this morning to target-practice his Dan Wesson .44 Magnum revolver with 8-inch barrel. Well at least he hit the board that held the target!
Not the best shot in the world, he shrugs it off and leaves the range to drive out to California’s Willow Springs Raceway, no one saying shit about his bad range score because no one talks shit to Cody, he’s just way too damn cool. Once he reaches the raceway in his red DeLorean sports car, he watches as his lady friend June Khnockers (yes, spelled with an h!) qualify in her stock car on the track, getting there just as the female racer finishes her final lap. Cody’s a likeable guy, enough so he’s even welcome inside the locker room as June slips off her helmet and peels down her racing jumpsuit from her otherwise nude body, turning to look at Cody sitting in a chair taking his sunglasses off and asks him what he thought about her driving, to wit he remarks:
“I think they’re dynamite…the driving and the body.”(in reference to her plump tits she’s displaying right in front of him now). June Khnockers walks up to him with a kittenish look and says: “You’re such horseshit at showing emotion, but I like that in a man!” then she falls into his arms for a passionate embrace and kiss (i.e. “friends with benefits”).
This is the opening scene of an R-rated “Guy-Flick” written and directed by the late Andy Sidaris in 1985 entitled MALIBU EXPRESS. Chances are if you were old enough to stay up late during the mid-to-late 1980s watching Cable TV you likely caught this underrated guy-flick around midnight and enjoyed its outlandish humor and gratuitous nudity (provided by former Playboy® Playmates playing the female roles in the film).
B-movie Potentate Andy Sidaris produced straight-to-video feature films starring such notables as 80s femme-fatale Sybil Danning and famous sex-therapist Ava Cadell (Ava was also the busty motel room chick in the 80s action film COMMANDO). What really stands out in Andy Sidaris’ sexploitation films is not just campy “action” with hot chicks and guns but also rather positive (also humorous) male character roles in each of his films that are increasingly non-existent in films made these days. Sidaris’ male characters almost always saved the female characters from dangerous trouble, and always…and I repeat…always….got the girl! B-movies yes, with less than stellar acting and usually outrageous situations that would never occur in real life, but that is the bread n’ butter of “guy-flick” entertainment: reality sucks and doesn’t apply! You want to see reality???
Turn on one of your ex-wife’s “cooking” shows or go to Macy’s with your cupcake and carry all those shopping bags of over-priced shit to your car for her.
Andy Sidaris’ films can be found in a DVD box-set nowadays and I recommend adding them to your guy-flick collection for the simple reason of their “historical” value…what I am referring to is not just the fun action sequences, cheesy sex scenes, and loads of well-shaped naked female bodies not found just anywhere….but also NICE female attitudes and behavior toward men portrayed therein! Seriously guys, how many recent motion pictures produced in the past decade or more have female characters that interact with their male counterparts with nice respectful camaraderie? *As opposed to the snarky “all men are pigs” attitude, “grrrrl-power” trip, or “I’m gonna kick his ass”(and then she is shown doing so) parley showcased in more Hollywood films than I can personally count!
Past B-movie Directors such as Andy Sidaris, Fred Olen Ray, and Dan O’Bannon would show a femme-fatale more as “sexy villainess” and yet still manage to keep blatant misandry from rearing its head in their plotlines and created some of the most memorable (among B-movie fans) female characters who are no feminist heroines by any means, and contrary to most female characters portrayed in major films today: LIKED MEN!
It has been discussed quite extensively here on The Spearhead about women of the western world developing (and getting away with) an increasingly hostile and blatantly androphobic attitude toward men in general, an outlook taught them by a liberal media and feminist-savvy entertainment arenas (and I won’t even go into what goes on at College campuses). As a bachelor myself, I see the “men are pigs” attitude in virtually every single woman I meet, and yes…the married ones are even worse. We could fill volumes detailing examples of this growing hatred and poor treatment of men in our decaying western culture, but that is a subject I’ll leave to another writer and stick to my point here: “Guy-Flicks” (films that straight men tend to enjoy for action, adventure, sexy chicks and nudity as well as outrageous fantasy fun) may very well become historical points of reference even though they are fantasy-based for men now and in the future to view and see women acting nice and sexy toward men in the storylines without any misandry or the current “you-go-grrrrl” shit thrown in with lesbian love tokens, not to mention the portrayal of male characters as heroic warriors, good cops, valiant citizens, and just plain manliness as a positive. Who hasn’t experienced the increasingly hostile and negative attitude from women around you whether at home or in the general public? Even that “Captain Awesome” guy who thinks he’s got himself a harem of female admirers in his life has been snapped at by a soccer-mom when he drove too close to her mini-van or got ignored by a secretary whose only love is the 8 cats in her apartment.
With men portrayed as drunken saps, cheating liars, and perverts on the prowl in TV shows like LAW AND ORDER or as weaklings and cuckolded dummies in current major movies such as HALL PASS, is it a stretch to determine that looking into films and entertainment of the past will become an “escape” from seeing men in general portrayed in such ways as well as a “historical record” of the way life used to be between the sexes? No stretch at all, really.
Ken Knight is the author of “THE MIDNIGHT SHOW~ Late Night Cable TV Guy-Flicks of the 80s” and a Feature Contributor at Mondo-Video.com.
