Schlock and Awful: Turning up the heat

John Liu was the New York Ninja in 1984, and thanks to the folks at Vinegar Syndrome, he is the New York Ninja today.
imdb.com
John Liu was the New York Ninja in 1984, and thanks to the folks at Vinegar Syndrome, he is the New York Ninja today.
Let’s get straight down to the nitty and the gritty:
“Raw Force,” aka “Kung Fu Cannibals” (1982) has got it all. It’s difficult to encapsulate the majesty, but here goes: There’s a Pacificisland with cannibal monks who only eat shapely young women. They trade jade for shapely young women with a fat German who’s named Speer and has the last toothbrush moustache in the world. Add the wacky crew and customers of a cut-rate ocean liner, zombie martial arts warriors, a heaping helping of gratuitous nekkidity, continuous mayhem and absolutely zero plot to get in the way of the story, stir briskly, and you’ve got “Raw Force.” With Cameron Mitchell as the grumpy ship captain and the immortal Vic Diaz as the main monk.
Here’s a real oddball entry. “New York Ninja,” (1984/2021), a sprightly tale of a kung fu vigilante and the brainchild of John Liu, was shot in 1984 and never made it to post-production. Decades later the people at Vinegar Syndrome, a purveyor of the finer things in dreck, got hold of the footage and managed to get it into screenable form, despite handicaps such as no audio, no script, and no idea what the hell it was about or who all these people were. The only reason it came to the attention of the Bad Cinema desk is that the world’s greatest kung fu female, Cynthia Rothrock, was hired to do voiceover work for one of the characters.
We’ll have a future edition of S&A devoted to Rothrock.
The result warrants more than one paragraph, a rarity in S&A. We’ve got multiple villains, many wearing silly masks. One main villain with a melty face from his habit of looking into a box full of plutonium. Group of kids who overwhelm both bad guys and cops with cuteness. Kung fu badminton net. Ninja vs. maitre d’ with rattail that he sucks on while fighting. Enough gratuitous nekkidity to be going on with. The worst martial arts displays this side of “Fungicide.” Only the faintest hint of plot to get in the way of the story. An outstanding effort all around.
“Sugar Hill” features slow-moving, cobweb-covered zombies.imdb.com
“Sugar Hill” (1974) answers the question “What happens when the mob bumps off a lady’s boyfriend and she’s friends with voodoo people?” Answer: One by one the gang members are knocked off in uniquely hideous ways. Marki Bey does a pretty fair Pam Grier imitation. The zombies are the traditional, slow-moving type. In an unusual twist, the zombies are covered in cobwebs, which suggests they need to get out more. Severed chicken foot attack. Death by many many snakes. Death by quicksand. Zombie massage parlor. Zombie rhythm section. Perfunctory nekkidity we could have done without. Add completely blatant rip-offs of James Bond music and voila! It’s the poor man’s “Live and Let Die.”
Speaking of Pam Grier, one of her lesser-known efforts is “Sheba Baby” (1975), the stirring tale of a woman who takes revenge on the loan sharking hoods who destroyed her father’s legal loan sharking business. No gratuitous nekkidity, a grave flaw, but the car wash scene makes up for it. We’ve got a bad guy who looks like the young Al Sharpton dressed in carpet remnants. Lots of gunplay as opposed to kung fu. An extended fairground scene that gets filed under “Why yes we have permission to film here.” A fairly humdrum affair, all told.
Let’s wrap this up with “Red Star Rising” (1994), a Don “The Dragon” Wilson vehicle that also features the immortal Mako. This brings us to the Iron Law of Martial Arts Flicks: “If it has Mako, you must watch.” Japanese/American cop comes to LA to hunt bad guy. Cop endures many bad jokes about Japanese people. Bad guy specializes in a fatal kung fu move called the Death Touch. Plenty of mayhem and a touch of gratuitous nekkidity. Gnomic utterances, such as “Fate has pitted Thomas against this assassin” and “When day meets night only one can survive.” And, of course, the Death Touch, which isn’t as good as its counterpart in “Kill Bill” but it’ll do.
Author and cartoonist Peter Steiner signed books at Sharon Summer Book Signing last summer.
The 27th annual Sharon Summer Book Signing at the Hotchkiss Library of Sharon will be held Friday, Aug. 1, from 4:45 to 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, Aug. 2, from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; and Sunday, Aug. 3, at noon.
Friday’s festivities will honor libraries and the power of the written word. In attendance will be 29 locally and nationally recognized authors whose books will be for sale. With a wide array of genres including historical fiction, satire, thrillers, young adult and non-fiction, there will be something for every reader.
The event will include a selection of hors d’oeuvres and drinks, followed by eight festive author dinners where writers will read and discuss their work one-on-one with attendees.
Saturday will feature a new Page to Plate program that merges the literary and culinary worlds. Just as writing is a practice of patience and love, so too is the art of cooking. Cookbooks and food writing make cooking teachable to those excited to learn and celebrate the art of a perfect meal.
Through a combination of demonstrations and conversations, acclaimed cookbook authors and chefs will cover a variety of delicious topics. Highlights include a discussion with Chris Morocco, food director of “Bon Appetit” magazine and “Epicurious.” Sharon resident and chef Jessie Sheehan will demonstrate recipes from her cookbook “Salty, Cheesy, Herby, Crispy Snackable Bakes: 100 Easy-Peasy, Savory Recipes for 24/7 Deliciousness.”
With the combination of vetted recipes and thorough discussion from food experts, attendees are sure to leave knowing how to cultivate the ultimate act of service: the gift of a full stomach.
Sunday will be brunch at a private Sharon residence hosted by Graham Klemm and Cody O’Kelly to celebrate author Carolyn Klemm and her cookbook “Culinary Collection: Favorite Country Recipes.”
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit hotchkisslibraryofsharon.org
All proceeds support the programs at The Hotchkiss Library of Sharon.
Ukraine Emergency Fundraiser at The Stissing Center in 2022 raised over $120,000 for Sunflower of Peace.
The spirit of Ukraine will be on display at the Stissing Center in Pine Plains on Sunday, July 27. Beginning at 5 p.m., the “Words to America from Ukraine” fundraiser is set to showcase the simultaneous beauty of Ukrainian culture and the war-time turmoil it faces, all the while fundraising in support of Ukrainian freedom.
“Words to America from Ukraine” aims to remind and spread awareness for the suffering that often gets forgotten by those who live in comfortable worlds, explained Leevi Ernits, an organizer for the event. “We are trying to make an attempt to remind people that we are human, and we are connected with human values,” she said. “With very few words, poetry can express very deep values.”
Sponsored by the Town of Stanford, Friends of Ukraine, L.E. Design LLC, Bartelby & Sage, Oblong Books and Borshch of Art, the fundraiser will host the recitation of war-time Ukrainian poetry. Readings will include the works of Vasyl Sagaydak, Oksana Lutsyshyna, Serhiy Zhadan, Victoria Amelina, Marjana Savka, Ostap Slyvynsky, and Mariana Harahonych.
“Poems are fishhooks into our souls,” added Mark Lagus, another event organizer, explaining why poetry was chosen for the main event.
Guests will also enjoy a performance by Ukrainian Village Voices, a New York City- based band dedicated to preserving and promoting traditional Ukraining Folk music. The evening will also feature speakers Jed Sunden and Maria Genkin, along with a live auction. Food and drink will be provided by Bartelby & Sage, a sustainable, local and female-owned company.
All ticket proceeds, bids, and donations will go directly to Razom for Ukraine, a U.S.-based nonprofit. Razom, meaning “together” in Ukrainian, has the mission of “contributing to the establishment of a secure, prosperous and democratic Ukraine,” through “creating, inspiring, and collaborating on initiatives that motivate people to think, partner and do.”
Tickets, donation opportunities, and more information are all available by visiting www.wordsfromukraine.org
Celebrating its 45th year, the Grumbling Gryphons will perform at HVRHS Friday, Aug. 1, at 7 p.m.
The Grumbling Gryphons Traveling Children’s Theater is preparing to celebrate its 45th year — not with fanfare, but with feathers, fabric, myth, chant, and a gala finale bursting with young performers and seasoned artists alike.
The Gryphons’ 2025 Summer Theater Arts Camp begins July 28 and culminates in a one-night-only performance gala at Housatonic Valley Regional High School on Friday, Aug. 1 at 7 p.m. Founder, playwright, and artistic director, Leslie Elias has been weaving together the worlds of myth, movement and theater for decades.
“We’re a touring company that is participatory,” Elias said with her trademark storytelling cadence. “Even when there’s no pre-performance workshop, it’s still participatory. Always.”
Founded in 1980 “in a little basement apartment on the lower east side with co-founder Vanessa Roe,” said Elias,Grumbling Gryphons (recipients of the 2003 Connecticut Governor’s Arts Award) has long occupied a unique niche: part performance troupe, part educational outreach, part community ritual. Whether dramatizing Greek myths, Native American legends, or original tales about bees and bogs, the company’s ethos centers on inclusion, transformation, and hands-on engagement.
This summer’s camp offers children ages six and up five fast-paced days of storytelling, acting, mask-making, and rehearsal. The first three days will take place at Elias’s own home studio — a tucked-away space filled with costumes, puppets, and instruments — before moving into full performance prep mode.
“In the ideal world, we would have more time,” she laughed. “It’s a lot of pressure to be performing for the public after five days. But we’re going to do our best.”
The gala performance, she explained, is a kind of theatrical mosaic — scenes and excerpts from Grumbling Gryphons’ vast repertoire, some showcasing seasoned adult performers and others giving campers center stage. The cast will include returning campers, newcomers, and guest artists drawn from the Gryphons’ decades-spanning circle of collaborators including mask maker and artist Ellen Moon.
“We’re still figuring out exactly what we’ll do,” said Elias, “but it’s kind of like a smorgasbord… a celebration. And it’s open — if anybody wants to get their kids involved, or even volunteer, we welcome you.”
Photo provided
Elias’s own theater background winds through early improvisational schools, Viennese dance traditions, and experimental spaces like Henry Street Settlement. As a child on Long Island, she studied with jazz pianist Ivan Fiedel and dancer Rosalind Fiedel, eccentric mentors who nurtured her taste for the surreal and spontaneous.
“Mr. Fiedel was a character,” she recalled. “He would smoke a cigar… and take the cigar in his ear and the smoke would come out the other end. I don’t know how he did it.”
Elias built Grumbling Gryphons with this sense of magic — not as a traditional company, but as a living, evolving story in itself. Whether working with preschoolers or middle-schoolers, audiences in botanical gardens or historic town halls, the Gryphons invite kids to become creators — to chant, to improvise, to embody archetypes from ancient lore or environmental parables.
And that’s what this summer’s camp and gala are all about. “It’s more than theater,” Elias said. “It’s myth, poetry, movement — it’s about building self-esteem, imagination. It’s about transformation.”
For more information, to register a child for the 2025 Summer Theater Camp, or to inquire about volunteering, visit grumblinggryphons.org
Attendees practive brushstrokes led by calligraphy teacher Debby Reelitz.
Calligrapher Debby Reelitz came to the David M. Hunt Library to give a group of adults and children an introduction to modern calligraphy Thursday, July 17.
Reelitz said she was introduced to calligraphy as a youngster and has been a professional calligrapher and teacher for more than 25 years.
She said there is no age barrier to learning the basics. “Once children can hold a pen or pencil, they can do it.”
Reelitz said her 5th-grade teacher introduced her to the art.
Then her mother pressed her into service doing the lettering for “4-H certificates and gift cards.”
Reelitz handed out a sampler and blank sheets of paper and then turned to the easel for demonstration purposes.
She noted that the letters (I,T,H,L,E and F) on the top row of the sampler were not alphabetically arranged.
Rather, they comprised a “latter family” of similar shapes.
Soon enough the entire group of six adults and three children were concentrating and turning out decent versions of the letters
Reelitz alternately demonstrated and encouraged the novices.
“Remember, this is not an instant gratification skill.”