Monday, January 18, 2010

New Wave Hookers (Gregory Dark, 1985)

Supporting the spiritual trajectory of a decade's counterculture has never been the strong suit of mainstream Hollywood. Take, for instance, the cinematic output of the 1980s. You can scour the frames of countless motion pictures that were made during that particular period of time and still come up empty in terms of finding era specific examples of the fashion, music, sexuality, and interior design that helped shape the Zeitgeist. The people in charge of making these movies clearly had no real interest in the chromatic explosion that was happening all around them. It's true, there were a handful of directors, costumers, and production designers who understood the full magnitude of what was going down. But for the most part, the film's reek of misguided nostalgia and broken dreams. If the bland and the feckless amongst filmmaking elite weren't going to remove their collective heads from the gaping asshole known as "the sixties" and properly capture the essence of the fingerless glove decade, who would? Pornographers! That's fucking who. The unsavoury world of pornography may have a lot going against it: wanton drug abuse, suspect production values, wonky acting skills, and scene after scene of unappealing double penetration action to name slightly more than a few. But when it comes to crystallizing what it meant to be alive in the 1980s, you should look no further than your average adult film made between 1980 and 1989.

Unashamedly embracing everything that has made the 1980s the shining beacon to all those who desire to be a little less lame in their day-to-day life that is today, New Wave Hookers is the most audacious, most shameless, most stain-covered '80s movie ever made. Fearless when it comes depicting new wave culture gone awry, writer-director Gregory Dark and his crack team of perverts (including set designer Pez D. Spenser) have come up with a premise so simplistic, yet so mind-numbingly brilliant, that it's no wonder it has spawned a truckload of sequels and a remake.

It starts off with two slackers named Jimmy (Jamie Gillis) and Jamal (Jack Baker) sitting on their couch watching pornography – this act itself is groundbreaking in that it breaks the pornographic fourth wall rule, you know, the one that stipulates that there is no porn in porn. Wondering aloud about how great it would be if they were pimps and could control their "bitches" with the sound of that newfangled new wave music.

Drifting off (the television is now nothing but static), the pair awake to find themselves sitting at desks in an office setting. Jimmy, wearing a studded collar and a sleeveless t-shirt with word "anarchy" written on it, and Jamal, sporting a yellow jumpsuit with matching sunglasses, are now in charge of New Wave Hookers Inc., a pimping agency that supplies new wave obsessed women to those who need to be sexually serviced. (It should also be noted that Jimmy, on top of getting a funky new wardrobe, now speaks with a bad Japanese accent.)

Oozing coolness from start to finish, New Wave Hookers grabs you from the get-go with its super-terrific opening credits sequence set to "Electrify Me" by The Plugz (the band responsible for the majority of this film's amazing music). Introducing the female cast through a series of tantalizing clips that feature them posing seductively and pawing at their genitalia, this smokey sequence gently moistens our eyeballs for the gaudiness to come.

The first scene involves a gal named Candy (Desiree Lane) roller-skating into the fledgling pimps' office in a pair of skimpy white denim shorts (she saw their ad in the Valley Gazette). The guys slap some headphones on her, no doubt blasting the latest new wave jam, and before you know it, Candy is feign consuming the cock of Jimmy and Jamal's dog (Steve Powers); yeah, their dog is a man (he also makes the ringing sound for the two phones in the office). Anyway, while the dog is getting his biscuit polished, Jimmy repeatedly slams his turpentine estrada into Candy's minimal compact, and Jamal can be seen masturbating off to the side.

Next up, Jimmy and Jamal send over Palace (Kimberly Carson) and Nora (Brooke Fields) to sexually gratify a fella named The Sheik (Peter North) in his indoor tent. Well, the ladies start off by gratifying each other: licking and groping the usual places. Now, don't get me wrong, the sheer amount of spunk produced by Mr. North was awe-inspiring (I thought their respective crevices were gonna overflow), but it was actually the irregular nature of Kimberly and Brooke's wardrobe and makeup that made the scene the worthwhile entity that it is.

With star quality written all over her, the sight of the angelic Ginger Lynn Allen standing between two nerds craving anal sex was the pinnacle of the film's off-kilter sex appeal. Sent over to satisfy the poop-shoot desires of two college students (Tom Byron and Steve Powers), Ginger plays Cherry, a forthright New Wave Hooker in a chi-chi retro number that was poodle rectum red, drive-in theatre blue, and covered in black polka dots. Even though both her southbound holes end up getting prodded with erect penises simultaneously, Ginger manages to maintain an air of dominance about her. Also, the industrial-sounding music that played during the scene was downright awesome and the assertiveness of Ginger's command for one of the dorks to lick her ankle was greatly appreciated.

The action returns to office where Jimmy, Jamal, and the dog expose Kammy (Kristara Barrington) to a three-pronged attack on a desk. All of them seem to love jabbing at Kristara's foxy organic structure with a profound vigour, yet I found Jack Baker's enthusiasm for her dainty curves to be the most pronounced when it came to heaving the contents of his mouth in her general direction.

This dedication to Kristara's ethically complex body continues over to the next scene. Moving to the storage facility of the New Wave Hooker offices, we find a trio of hookers languishing on a red spinning wheel (a.k.a. the "whoring machine"). The aforementioned Kristara is joined by Desiree Lane's Candy and an unnamed new face (the lovely Gina Carrera). When the wheel stops spinning, the dog ends up straddling Kristara's frequently visited undercarriage (Jimmy beats her softly with a belt), and two vice cops (Greg Rome and Steve Drake) busy themselves with Desiree and Gina. As usual, Jamal jerks off from a distance, shouting race-based encouragement ("Fuck those white bitches").

The coda of New Wave Hookers has a surprisingly surreal vibe about it. However, it shouldn't be that surprising; there is, after all, a giant Residents-style eyeball sitting on top of one of the desks and Jamal does go on this strange tangent about disembodied dicks in Borneo. At any rate, the sight of a recently awaken Jimmy driving through the neon-tinged city, reflecting on all the debauchery that has transpired, while the "New Wave Hookers" theme plays over the soundtrack, was the perfect way to wrap up this titillating masterpiece.

If archaeologists in the not-so distant future want to know what life was like during the 1980s, I say show them a copy of New Wave Hookers. In terms of fashion, crude stereotyping, politically incorrect humour, music, stylistic temperament, and sexual deviancy, you can't get a clearer picture than this. Hey, whatta you know, maybe the infamous scene featuring Traci Lords in devil horns and red lingerie will be included in this futuristic version.


video uploaded by alehouserock
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12 comments:

  1. Somehow, I have missed this one. I must have fallen in the period when all the Traci Lords films were gone. Perhaps it is on Blu-Ray now, you know, to get all the blazing colours.

    I always had a thing for Kristara Barrington.

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  2. I was under the impression this was totally unavailable due to the Traci Lords thing. Thanks for reviewing - where did you find it?

    P.S. Porn breaks the fourth wall all the time - to the point where you might even say it's a rule to break the fourth wall. I love it. You could write a whole book about it. In fact, I know someone who is.

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  3. @Darius Whiteplume: Having a "thing" for Kristara Barrington is the most sensible thing I've heard all day. (And I've been up since 5pm.)

    @Gore-Gore Girl: I bought my New Wave Hookers DVD at CD Universe.

    Don't tell anyone, but I have no idea what the expression "fourth wall" even means.

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  4. I've been up since reading your review. Ba-dum-DAH!

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  5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_wall
    Theater term. Steve Coogan breaks the fourth wall in 24HPP.

    Pez D. Spencer. I just got it. hahhahahahaha.

    So funny--I saw the eyeball and thought, "Wow, how Residents-esque," and you obviously had the same thought.

    James Urbaniak.

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  6. Yum-Yum, you're a scholar and a woma of impeccable taste and aesthetics.

    It warmed my heart and associated organs to read your love poem to NEW WAVE HOOKERS.

    The Plugz score is a revelation, and it comes into its own during the scene in which the schoolboys plow Ginger's openings. This scene, by any measure, is exceptional from an erotic and aesthetic point of view.

    Barrington, of course, is super-hot, as she always was, and delivers here in spades.

    The late Jack Baker, fresh from a 'Happy Days' career, is perfectly as as Jamal and returned once again in the Darks' DEVIL IN MISS JONES 3 & 4.

    Dark has been copied but never eclipsed. His brand of pussypunk pornography will never lose its heat or brilliance.

    Terrific that you managed to catch the Tracy scene, too; certainly a showstopper.

    Other Dark faves of mine are LET ME TELL YA 'BOUT BLACL CHICKS, THE SHOCKING TRUTH, SEX FREAKS, and DEVIL IN MISS JONES "sequels".

    Re: "fourth wall" -- it's where the camera is. Most actors learn to glance over it or past it. In "Gilligan's Island", for example, Skipper would often break the fourth wall by shrugging at the camera or making a silly face after Gilligan had just demonstrated his grapefruit IQ.

    Shame nobody released the scores of these flicks; I do, however, have the score for CAFE FLESH (not a Dark flick, but not too far removed, either).

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  7. @Darius: Up? That's doesn't make any... Oh, wait, I get it. ;)

    @Karim: I guess I'm familiar the fourth wall, just not the term itself.

    Tilda Swinton repeatedly breaks it in Orlando.

    Pez D. Spencer is credited as "Piece of Bread" in Nightdreams (a.k.a. the Cream of Wheat flick).

    Whenever I see out-of-socket eyeballs that are larger than a bowling ball, I think of The Residents (who had a surprisingly consistent presence on Canadian TV during the 80s.)

    I've been watching Venture Bros. a lot lately... Hence, the reference to Urbaniak.

    @Phantom of Pulp: Thanks, P.O.P. That's means a lot coming from a distinguished connoisseur of irregular titillation such as yourself. :)

    The so-called "pop tunes" were excellent, but the music heard during Ginger's dp scene was top drawer.

    The Devil in Miss Jones 3 is probably my most anticipated film at the moment. I can't wait to devour it... you know, with my eyes and stuff.

    What's weird is I saw the Traci Lords scene from NWH something like fifteen years ago. I remember it playing on a loop at this gothy nightclub.

    If that's the meaning, then the greatest example of the "fourth wall" breaking, in my mind, has gotta be the ending of The Holy Mountain.

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  8. Having never seen this, I feel OK commenting that Ginger Lynn was not only beautiful but could actually act, which made the movies I've seen her in that much better.

    I miss shot on film porn with lighting and a few talented actors. OK, maybe that never really existed, but I wish it did...

    Hey, have you ever been on IAFD.com? It's the Adult Film Database and is really interesting. There's this great list of "Dead" porn stars and how they died. It also includes info on if they faked their death, which I guess a lot do when they want out of the business...

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  9. I just saw Ginger in the non-porn flick Dr. Alien, and her talent as an actress is quite evident. Sure, her character doesn't say a word, but still...

    "Amanda By Night" is an excellent example of a porn shot on film (at least I think it was shot on film) with pretty good lighting and competent acting.

    I think I've been to IAFD.com. I mean, the dead list sounds awfully familiar. I recall a lot of the deaths being drug-related.

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  10. I hate to admit that I've never seen Amanda By Night, but the "Amanda" in question is also from Vegas and went to a neighboring high school of mine. She's also really frickin' cool...

    I actually picked up the pen name when a guy name Roland with no legs rented Amanda By Night from me at the video store I worked at in Vegas in the early 90s. He said, "When I watch it, I'll think of you," and a legend was born! :)

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  11. Lovely review. At first glace, I was in belief that the title at hand was NEW WAVE HUSTLERS, directed by David Decoteau, under one of the multitude of nom de plumes he's been rockin' and directin' under.

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  12. This is still one of my all time favourite films, of any kind. I remember going out of my way back in 1984 to go and purchase it on Beta cassette. I still have it, although I have long since converted it to digital. The Traci scene was very good and the movie looses something without it. Ginger made me fall in love with her in this one. Thanks for the memory of this great classic.

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