Mod Fuck Explosion (Jon Moritsugu, 1994)

What the fuck, I don't remember the 1990s ever being like this. It just goes to show that even someone as exceedingly cool as myself can miss out on certain key events. And believe me, Mod Fuck Explosion is definitely a motherfuckin' key event. It's not only an event that is key-like (or key-esque) in nature, it's the closest thing I've seen to my life story captured on film. Now, granted, my mother isn't a pill freak (at least not to my knowledge), nor is my face anywhere close to being as dynamic as the face that belongs to the film's female lead, but I distinctly remember being friends, by association, of course, with a gang of unruly mods (the kind that wear fishtail parkas, smash garden gnomes for fun and listen to The Action). Forced to endure/put up with their misguided obsession with a subculture I had little or no respect for, I patiently waited for the right opportunity to cut these losers loose. Well, in Joe Moritsugu's Mod Fuck Explosion, the über-chic, über gorgeous London finds herself pretty much in the same situation.

In reality, my experience as a juvenile delinquent seemed more in tune with Nasty, London's gothy sister. It's sad to say, but when all your so-called "friends" are into things that you know deep down are lame, you end up spending a lot of time alone in your room. *sniff*

As I was saying, caught in the middle of an impending rumble that will pit the mods (the gang her brother's in) against the  bikers (Japanese bikers, to be ethnically specific), the self-proclaimed teenage fuck up must choose between love and violence.

One, two, three, four! Wait, what is this movie called again? (27 Dresses?) No, I remember, it's Mod Fuck Explosion. And you wanna know how I remember? Um, because the film's title is mentioned repeatedly during the opening five minutes. And why wouldn't you... mention it? The movie is called "Mod Fuck Explosion." In other words, rinse, lather and repeat, baby! Mod. Fuck. Explosion!

Wandering down the street in her lacy bell-bottoms, London (Amy Davis), the poster girl for sullen teens everywhere, is surrounded by a gang of Japanese bikers. Noticing that she was admiring a leather jacket in the window of a store, their leader, Kazumi (Jon Moritsugu), tells her, straight-up, that he can get her a leather jacket. The catch being, she come party with them. Declining his offer, London continues on her way. But not before Kazumi shows her his chest and says: "Check out my chest. Cool, huh?"

Since we've met the Japanese bikers, it only makes sense to introduce the mods. The first mods we meet are Cake (Alyssa Wendt), Cherry (Bonnie Dickenson), Shame (Lane Mclain), Columbine (Abigail Hamilton), Babette (Deena Davenport) and Snap (Sarah Janeane Pullen), who are gabbing about their mod boyfriend's prowess when it comes to the control-related fortitude they display when they employ their testicular outreach programs during coitus.

One after another, each mod chick tells the group about their respective boyfriend's thrusting-based inadequacies. All except Cake, who has nothing but praise for her boyfriend's ability to make her loins dewy. It would seem that Madball (Jacques Boyreau), the leader of the mods, is a gentle lover whose pelvic thrusts are as smooth as homemade molasses.

With the elevator in her building not working, London is forced to take the stairs (exercise was frowned upon in the '90s). When she eventually gets to her apartment, she finds her mother (Bonnie Steiger) and her mod brother, X-Ray Spex (Victor of Aquitaine) playing the "wrestling game" on the couch (incest much?).

When London tells her mother to stop acting like a whore, mom shoots back: "The whore is an emblem of womanhood."

Anyway, mom likes art books, chocolate covered ants, gossip, ugly furniture and talking on the telephone.

How do I know this? It's simple, London, on top of being interesting to look at, is very descriptive. And quite generous when it comes to doling out her mom's back-story. I loved how London gives us a detailed account of the events that make up the average day in her mother's life. As you might expect, most of these so-called "events" centre around ingesting pills.

Her mom might be a mess (a leggy mess, mind you, but a mess nonetheless), but that doesn't mean London's going to wallow in a pit of her own teen angst. Starting every scene by tucking her hair behind her ears (much like Angela Chase used to constantly do on My So-Called Life), London doesn't want anything from this shit stain of a city. Well, except maybe a leather jacket.

Not to get sidetracked, but I found the fact that Madball likes to call his semen "his juice" to be somewhat disturbing? Refusing to fornicate with Cake in an alleyway, Madball doesn't want to waste "his juice "on the day of the big rumble. Apparently, "his juice" gives him strength.

We soon meet another character, who, like London, is on the outside when it comes to the mod-biker rivalry. His name is M-16 (think Ralph Macchio with a hint of Sal Mineo) and he likes to call London up every once and awhile and read to her a story he came across in the paper; they usually involve murder and suicide.

Speaking of things that cause death, did anyone else notice the sound of crows cawing as Madball denied Cake the use of his cock? I'm not superstitious, but this cannot bode well for the mods.

After a dream sequence that has London talking about being a member of "The Shit Generation," a generation that is, according to her: "Stupid, strangulated, straitjacketed, stunted and sexually unsatisfied," she is visited by a woman named Cleopatra (Elisabeth Canning), the patron saint of shit, or was it poop? Either way, while reclining in London's bath-tub, Cleopatra serenades her with a ditty about diarrhea (loose and watery fecal matter).

Later in the movie, Cleopatra visits M-16 (Desi del Valle) while performing auto-erotic asphyxiation on himself in a dirty warehouse. But this time around she's the patron saint of masturbation, or was it self-massage? Either way, Cleopatra, who is wearing black nylons, tries to steer M-16 off this particular path, and more towards the realm of conventional one-on-one sexual intercourse.

Hi, my name is Nasty, and I like schizophrenic painters, tortured writers, fashion designers, low and vulgar literature, porno movies, video games, punk music, motorcycles, tattoo artwork, homo poetry, disaster and murder magazines and the horoscope. I hate high culture.

Played with a Cure-adjacent indifference by Lisa Guay, Nasty is London's older sister, a bit of a minor celebrity who spends most of her time drawing cartoons. Oh, and London can forget about it, she can't have her leather jacket.

Desperate to obtain a leather jacket of her very own, London decides to sell some of her rare records.

"Welcome to Fucker" by Fucker, 50 bucks.

"Skunk" by Asshole, 75.

The Shit-matrix bootleg, a lot.

And her limited edition DILDO! LP, 100, easily.

Like London, I, too, think the records in my modest collection are worth more than they actually are. The band Unrest, by the way, perform the majority of the songs on the film's soundtrack.

The only motion picture, at least that I know of, to feature a scene where a character robs a record store of its only plaster statue of Grace Jones' penis, Mod Fuck Explosion is the kind of filmed anarchy that would make Gregg Araki (who is thanked in the closing credits), John Michael McCarthy (The Sore Losers) and John Waters proud. Oh, and of course, the actor who steals the plaster statue of Grace Jones' penis is credited as "Cock thief." In closing, who would have thought there was more to the 1990s than Hammer time? Mod. Fuck. Explosion! It sure beats masturbating with garden gloves.