Retro Movie Alert: MACHETE Opens This Weekend

Robert Rodriguez does it again with a grainy, early-70’s style badass movie, MACHETE.

Machete is a story of deceit and revenge. Like all fo Rodriguez’s work, it is highly stylized and promises to be one hell of a flick. There’s sure to be plenty of blood, guns, knives, violence and laughs. And web sources say that Lindsay Lohan will be mostly naked onscreen, which is A-ok with me.

Plus…
DIG THIS CAST!

Danny Trejo
Robert De Niro
Jessica Alba
Steven Seagal
Michelle Rodriguez
Jeff Fahey
Cheech Marin
Don Johnson
Lindsay Lohan

Yes, I’m not kidding. De Niro in a film with Steven Seagal and Cheech Marin. And Don Johnson. And Lindsay Lohan. And Jessica Alba. And…ok, you get my point.

For you retro style fans, get ready to bask in the orangy faded glow of low-budget funk-era cinema. Taking his cues from movies like Dual, Vanishing Point and Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! Rodriguez will certainly not disappoint with this period-style flick.

It’s times like these I wish I still had my 1973 Chevy Caprice Classic with the wire caps, dual spotlights, diamond-plate fender skirts and ’49 Packard hood ornament. That low-slung beaut would have been perfect to cruise up to the theater in for this flick.

Here’s the Trailer for Machete, opening this weekend:

And here’s the official site: http://www.vivamachete.com/

-Tiki “Mack the Knife” Chris reporting from the arsenal in the shed behind the Tiki Bar.
Tiki Lounge Talk, the fun Tiki Talk Blog for kats & kittens who dig cocktails and retro groovyness.

Blast from the Past! 1999 for Mod (Retro) Movie Monday

This week we swing back to the glorious ’60s with a mid-century mod extravaganza,

Blast from the Past

Starring Brendon Frasier, Alicia Silverstone, Christopher Walken and Sissy Spacek

Duck and cover kids, because the laughs are flying! Ok that was corny as hell, but it’s in the spirit of this goofy flick. It’s all about a typical, mid-century California couple with a typical, 35 year-stocked underground bomb shelter which houses air scrubbers, a hydroponic garden and an exact duplicate layout of their surface home right down to the corner bar with the martini shaker. A series of events drives them down into the shelter, and once the automatic locks are set, they’re forced to stay for 35 years until the radiation has dissipated.Not long after that their son is born. They name him Adam.

Thirty-five years later, as the supplies finally begin to run short, Adam is given the task of returning to the surface to check out the situation and get more supplies…and find a nice girl to bring home so they can start repopulating the world.

Ok, I think you’re starting to catch the drift. In 1962, the quaint little house was situated in suburban LA among palm trees and orange groves. But by the late 1990s the section had deteriorated into a disgusting, miserable area of failed urban sprawl. When Adam reaches the surface, he finds nothing to be normal, and assumes the weird people are mutants deviated from the nuclear fallout, and that the poor condition of the streets and building is due to 35 years of war. Well, I guess he wasn’t too far off.

As the saying goes, hilarity ensues as Adam (with his 50’s manners and knowledge of culture up to 1962) tries to blend in with the modern times and get the supplies necessary to sustain his family in the shelter for another 35 years.

I think this movie is great on so many levels it’s hard to know where to start. Frasier makes a great 50’s guy from his look to his mannerisms. He can even swing dance. Alicia Silverstone has the right amount of modern wise-ass mixed with a 50’s sitcom innocence. The movie really shows the complete difference between the old days and the modern without over-doing it. Even though the whole thing seems fantastic, it’s all pretty believable. And funny.

As usual I won’t give away any important plot points for jokes. Suffice to say when a swingin’ kat from 1962 lands feet first into 1998, you’re going to have some funny situations. They pull it off great in this flick.

Martinis for drinks, of course, and for food…how about some Atomic Wings? Or maybe just popcorn.

Matt Helm in The Silencers, 1966 - Mod Movie Monday at Tiki Lounge Talk

Matt Helm, The Silencers 1966

First, I’d like to thank the team at GOOGLE for helping with a potential attack. They identified a possible hacking threat, notified me immediately, removed my site from their search listings to protect others (you) very quickly. As soon as I was able to make sure the site was clean the re-instated my search engine rankings within a few days. Thanks Google!

The Silencers starring Dean Martin as Matt Helm, Daliah Lavi and  Stella Stevens.

Watch out, Derek Flint. Move over Austin Powers. And take a back seat, James Bond - Matt Helm is on the case!

When the cold war was at its peak and spy thrillers were taking the place of westerns and war movies, America answered the 007 call with a few good men - one of the best being Matt Helm, a suave, lady-loving swinger who could catch the bad guys, snap some great photos and make love to the girl in the same scene.

This series of movies gives us a fantabulous peak at the styles, cars, furnishing and hot chicks of the swingin’ ’60s. The movies are combination thriller-comedies, with the main lean towards funny. With Dean Martin at the helm (as Helm), you get that groovin’ mix of humor, sex appeal and crooning.

Stella Stevens and Dean Martin

This particular flick, one of my favorites, features a 1960s beauty named Daliah Lavi who’s got the right curves in the right places and a sexy accent that will make you melt. Stella Stevens drops in with her crazy figure too. And there’s an all-too-short cameo by the beautiful Cid Charise, dancing her way through a sultry nightclub scene (she sings too, but apparently it’s not her voice - she’s dubbed by a then very young Vicky Carr.)

While 007 sported an Aston-Martin, Matt Helm had himself a good, solid American car - a 1965 Mercury Parklane Station Wagon - of course his was modified somewhat by Chuck Barris…The car now resides at the Volo Hollywood Car Museum in Volo, Illinois. Leave it to Dean Martin to make a station wagon kool, huh?

Since Dino’s favorite drink was the Martini, set yourself up with a pitcher before the show starts. Martin also loved Italian cuisine, so go with that for your dinner and a movie. Maybe a nice Penne ala Vodka with grilled chicken and zucchini. And make sure you watch it with someone who looks like Stella Stevens, you know, for full effect.

-Tiki Chris reporting from behind the Tiki Bar.
Tiki Lounge Talk - The Tiki Culture blog for Retro Kats & Swingin’ Kittens

The Girl Can’t Help It, 1956 - Mod Movie Monday at TLT

What do you get when you mix sexy Miss Jane Mansfield with a dozen early Rock ’n’ Roll legends? You get

The Girl Can’t Help It, 1956

Starring Jane Mansfield, Tom Ewell and Edmund O’Brian.

The plot is simple but fun: Old gangster wants to make his ‘girlfriend’ a star, but she can’t sing a note. So he hires a press agent, Tom Ewell (the luckiest man in Hollywood at the time by the way) to force her fame. Since she stinks at singing traditional music, they give Rock ’n’ roll a try.

This kookie movie features some of the most famous & koolest Rockers from the 50s, actually performing in the movie in glorious widescreen color. The list includes:

Famous photo of Sophia Loren and Jane Mansfield

• Little Richard
• Nino Tempo
• Johnny Olenn
• Eddie Fontaine
• The Chuckles
• Abbey Lincoln
• Gene Vincent
• Eddie Cochran
• Ray Anthony & His Orchestra
• The Treniers
• Fats Domino
• The Platters
• Freddy Bell & The Bell-Boys

Plus a haunting, unforgettable version of Cry Me A River by Julie London.

Add to that some kool cars, and Jane Mansfield wearing some of the tightest clothes ever built and you’ve got a winner. This movie pretty much proves she gave Marilyn a run for the money. Such a drag that she died so young. At least we’ve got the film.

Oh, yeah, why was Tom Ewell the luckiest man in Hollywood in the 1950s? Simple. Love scenes with Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch in 1955, love scenes with Jane Mansfield in The Girl Can’t Help It in 1956. Ya dig?

- Tiki Chris reporting from behind the Tiki Bar with a Mai Tai in one hand and an Easter Egg in the other

Mod (Retro) Movie Monday: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, 2004

Sky Captain

Direct from the Tiki Blog - When I started Mod Movie Mondays, I said they might not always be mod, and they might not always be old. Here’s a flick that will have anyone into Art Deco, retro-30’s style and the sci-fi future of yesteryear drooling.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, 2004

Beautifully created Art Deco sets inspired by the work of Norman Bel Geddes (of 1930s World’s Fairs fame) transport you back to an alternative history, a 1930s New York where retro-futuristic technology co-exists with fat-fendered cars, where ray guns are real and Nazis are more interested in flying luxury airships than conquering the world. So if Nazis aren’t the nemises in this pre-WW2 adventure, who is? An evil scientist, of course, played by Sir Lawrence Olivier (yes, he was long dead at the time this movie was made - they made fantastic use of B&W archive footage!)

Sky Captain is an airplane pilot who flies a modified P-40 fighter (it not only flies, it’s a submarine). His mission is to protect the world, basically, from anyone who tries to crack things up. When a small army of giant iron robots lands in the Big Apple and start tearing things apart, Sky Captain swoops in. The story progresses from there in a 1930s comic book-style and takes him to exotic lands like Shangri La.

But enough about the story, time to talk about why this flick is being featured here. As I said, the sets are incredible - works of art in every scene. And almost none of it was real - this was one of the first full-length movies to be filmed almost entirely in front of a blue screen, with all of the sets digitally sequenced in. Some sets came from actual photographs, some from vintage art, and the rest were created electronically just for the film. What this translates into is a work of art on a moving canvas living behind the action of the actors. If you like the retro life, you will wish you lived in this movie.

Since the action takes place mainly in 1930s New York of the Future, I’d suggest a retro-futuristic dinner and drinks. Try a deli style sandwich platter of corned beef, roast beef, Swiss or Havarti cheese, and coleslaw on marble rye, served up on your favorite Jetsons-style dishes with a side of waffle fries. For dessert, Dove chocolate ice cream banana splits in Art Deco, blimp-shaped bowls. And for the drinks - Highballs, Slow Gin Fizzes, and of course, Manhattans, served in your finest futuristic stemware.

-Tiki Chris Pinto for Tiki Lounge Talk, South Florida’s Swingin’ Scene for Retro Hipsters and Tiki Lovers