- The Six String Samurai is Buddy, a mysterious and powerful hero of the post-apocalyptic future, who must fight his way to Lost Vegas and ditch a bothersome orphan kid if he's ever to become the next King of Rock 'n' Roll. Along the way, they encounter bounty-hunting bowlers, a cannibalistic "Cleaver" family, a Windmill God and even the Russian army. Winding up at the gates of Vegas, Bu
The Chicago-based Steve Sandner Band plays with jazz singer Holly McGuire in a straight-ahead swing style with a touch of blues. Pianist Judy Roberts sits in on one track.We all have or will have this moment in our lives. The moment before the rain in the evening after a day spent. The moment when someone or something simply says "This is it... this is what life is about", and then the nods come. That moment is Porched Hopes. The eve of day coming down on all us simply, softly and in sanctuary. We have all hea! rd of shelving our dreams. To that thought there is but one rebuttal and it is to porch our hopes.Tracks: Rock Around The Clock 2:12 Bill Haley & The Comets Poison Ivy 2:39 The Coasters Mack The Knife 3:09 Bobby Darin I Only Have Eyes For You 3:18 The Flamingos The Great Pretender 2:41 The Platters Since I Don't Hve You - The Skyliners 2:39 In The Still Of The Nite - The Five Satins 3:03 Peggy Sue - Buddy Holly 2:32 Get A Job - The Silhouettes 2:49 Yakety Yak - The Coasters 1:53 Book Of Love - The Monotones 2:22 16 Candles 2:55 The Crests Sincerely - The McGuire Sisters 3:01 There Goes My Baby 2:11 The Drifters Great Balls Of Fire 1:50 Jerry Lee LewisBuster Keaton's second feature,
Our Hospitality is his first masterpiece. He plays a New York city boy who travels south to receive his inheritance, only to discover he's in the center of a generations-old feud. While his sworn enemies (the family of the girl he has fallen in love with, naturally) vow to gun him down, Southern hospitality forbids them from harming him as long as he's a guest in their home. Plenty of comic mileage is mined from Buster's desperate attempts to prolong his stay, and highlights include a deliriously surreal train (run by Keaton's father, Joe) and a heroic rescue involving a rope, a log, and a mighty waterfall.
Sherlock Jr. is a delightfully surreal fantasy of a film projectionist and amateur detective who climbs into his movie screen. Like Daffy Duck in the famous cartoon "Duck Amuck," Buster is at the mercy of sudden scene changes, sent from desert to snowstorm to lake in simple cuts whil! e he remains helplessly fixed onscreen. (Even more astounding is that he accomplished this engineering marvel with nothing more than surveyor's tools and an exacting eye.) Settling into his dream role as a master detective and society bon vivant Sherlock Jr., he chases the dastardly villains in a world as wild and unpredictable as the French serial Les Vampires: bombs are hidden in billiard balls and Keaton leaps through the torso of a peddler woman and into nothingness! No other silent film turns logic on its head with such grace and comic hilarity. --Sean AxmakerSIX STRING SAMURAI - DVD MovieAs a genre-buster, Six-String Samurai--just your average, run-of-the-mill postapocalyptic kung-fu-rock & roll road movie--has a lot going for it. The film takes place in a Soviet-ruled America (they nuked the U.S. in 1957; with the exception of Lost Vegas [sic] and the badlands around it, the country is a Soviet territory). It revolves around Buddy (Jeffrey Falcon! , who bears a remarkable resemblance to Buddy Holly), a guitar! -slinger -swordsman who's on his way to Vegas, where he plans to succeed the just-deceased Elvis as the King. Along the way, he picks up an orphaned preteen traveling companion, and the pair's quest leads them to confront various Mad Max-style pop-culture weirdos, the Red Army, and Death--a rival guitarist who looks suspiciously like Guns n' Roses' Slash.
Falcon's background is in Hong Kong cinema, and it shows in this made-on-a-shoestring production, filmed mostly in Palm Springs and Death Valley. (He certainly had enough opportunities to influence the production, since, besides playing the lead, Falcon pitched in as cowriter, coproducer, production designer, and costume designer on the film.) Despite the limited budget, the movie is generally entertaining, though it could probably stand to lose a couple of go-nowhere subplots that account for about 15 minutes of the 91-minute running time. --Randy Silver
