So... Alright - Ninjas

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

Geoff takes a trip down Ninja lane, among a few other locations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So today we're going to do get some cleanup work. I owe you guys a lot. I've been dangling a few different subjects out over the last few weeks, and I keep getting sidetracked with other shit. Not today. Today I'm going to review the second movie from 3 a.m. theater. It's called Out of Control. Well, we'll see how this goes.

I took notes on this about a month ago now and I am not going to go back and rewatch that film ever again so we'll just see how much sense I can make of it. I'm also going to talk about another movie

because I had ninjas on the brain and that got me thinking about my childhood and how much I loved how much we all loved ninjas in the early 80s that was such a big I know there was a much later

a ninja phase and ninja craze again and I guess ninjas are never really out of vogue or popularity. I mean, I just saw the farting ninjas at Costco a few weeks ago. And, you know, the three ninjas were a big deal after my childhood. But when I was a kid, it was all about the show Kasugi Ninja movies. Enter the Ninja, Nine Deaths of the Ninja, Ninja, Ninja 3, the domination.

Pray for Death, my personal favorite. And I was so surprised to find that they were on Amazon. And I thought, fuck it, let's do it. And so I watched, I'm going to go in order. I've only watched one so far, but I watched Enter the Ninja. And a movie that I had seen, I'm going to guess, somewhere between four and seven times as a child, it was much harder to watch movies back then. You had to be able to rent it or you had to have a friend who owned it or who had been able to copy it in some way.

And it was just, they just weren't readily available. And so to see a movie multiple times, going to the video store and renting it multiple times, which is what I made my grandma do with Terminator 1 over and over and over again as a child. Today, you know, I could sit down and discover Inner the Ninja and then, by the way, not a kid's movie, and watch it a thousand times if I wanted to on a streaming service, but a little harder back then. I also owe a little bit of homework. There were some bands I was supposed to listen to and review. I did not get to this old house Tampa, but man, I'm getting, I'm getting, but man, I'm cleaning out the books so that I'll be there soon. I also got to say I just spent the weekend in Detroit with some friends went up for apples and fall and holy shit did we have a great time. The weather was amazing. The leaves were turning. The cider was hot. The pizza was fresh. It was like a legendary weekend. Had basically two and a half

days to show our friends the best of Detroit. So we did a Red Wings game. We did a Yates cider mill we did Eastern Market, we did folling, which if you've never heard of folling, F-O-W-L-I-N-G. I had neither, but Kent and Sarah took us. It's bowling with footballs, I guess would be how I would describe it. It sounds dumb. It's kind of like cornhole. It's set up like cornhole. And you have a football and then 10 pins, and you just try to throw a football and hit 10

pins, which is easier and harder than you think it would be. There's a little bit more to it than that. There's a whole defense you've got to play because it's in an open area. and part of the rules are that other people's footballs can hit your pins and it counts. And so there's some dynamics to it. But it was crazy fun, by the way. Went to the Ford Museum,

went to the original buddies, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, obviously, we were all up and down, bell aisle. But I digress. I'm back here in Austin. Went outside a few minutes ago. Fucking 93 degrees outside. I was too hot. I went to check the mail.

And I was like, to get inside. This is too fucking hot. Yesterday I was wearing a jacket and today I'm wearing swim trunks again. The man, it was nice. I'll just say it was nice to have a little bit of fall for three days because God damn. It's still like mid-July in Austin right now. Let me knock out the music reviews real fast and then we'll get into the movies. I was asked and I don't remember who asked me to listen to these bands now at this point. It's been so long. But listen to a band called drug church. I was not super into their newer stuff, but their first album was called Paul Walker, and I did quite enjoy that. They were kind of tongue and cheek and funny, and they had a song

called Deconstructing Snapcase that I really liked, also a fan of the band's Snapcase. So it's kind of a fun send-up slash lampoon of the band and their music, and I did enjoy that. I would say there later, by the way, the first album's kind of a, I don't know, I would just call it punk, I guess, straightforward punk. The later stuff is somewhere, if I had to pinpoint it, it would be between like Latterman and Turnstile with some hot water music. And that sounds more complimentary than I mean it to. And I don't mean it to be not complimentary. I just wasn't as into the newer stuff. It didn't quite grab me. But it was reminiscent of those three bands, like some sort of a mismash. mish mash oh jesus christ it was some sort of a uh combination of those three bands i can kill myself

the next band i was supposed to listen to was a band called gouge away i liked some of their stuff i actually added a song called fed up and a song called uproar to my playlist if i had to compare it to another band i i was tempted to say the black eyes because there's a male and a female singer and it's energetic, but not in the same way at all. It honestly sounds more like maybe Anaschism to me than anything else that comes to mind. Once again, I, Aniscus is one of my favorite bands. I don't mean it as positively as that. I did like it, though, and I did. It was the only band that I added songs to my playlist from, and so I'm going to go from there. But I'm definitely intrigued by Gouge Away. Pyle was the next artist slash band. And I got to say, I wasn't as

crazy about that one. He or they have a pretty robust catalog, it seems. I was reminded of the mountain goats or like King Gizzard. It just seems like they pump out a ton of music quickly. But

I went back to the very beginning because I wasn't feeling the newer of the middle stuff and there's an album called demonstration and I was kind of into that. It kind of reminded me a little bit of Alex G meets like Pat the Bunny which honestly, once again, I don't mean to sound as positively as that probably does.

I don't mean it's done negatively, but it's somewhere in between that, and I'm definitely going to continue to listen to demonstration a little bit, and maybe that'll be my entry point for the later stuff as well. You know, maybe get to start at the beginning to understand where they end up. But those are three bands that if you were going to listen to one of them, I'd probably recommend gouge away. If you don't like offensive, loud, discordant punk, I wouldn't recommend it.

Dwight, my father-in-law, I definitely do not recommend it for you. Next up on the homework list is, I have to watch this old house Tampa for Mark the Frog. I'll be getting to that next. I think we should dive into out of control, though. This is going to be fun because I took these notes over a month ago at this point,

and we are both going to be listening to them for the first time, I imagine. If you're not familiar with 3 a.m. Theater, it's a new mini show I started inside of this podcast where I watch a movie that would have appeared at 3 a.m. on Cinemax or Showtime back in the 90s. And then from that movie, I pick another one from its related films on Amazon. And then I just keep going from there. And after I watch each film, I find another related film. It started with a movie called River of Death, which was pretty terrible. And from that, we jumped to this film out of control from 1984. It was billed as sort of a bawdy, I don't know, booby comedy slash thriller, some teenagers crash land on an island and have to escape some drug runners. Pretty typical 80s fair. I didn't find it to be particularly thrilling or booby-ish, to be honest with you. And, I don't find it to be a boobie-ish, to be honest with you. And I didn't find it to be particularly good. It was directed by someone

named Alan Holtzman, who also directed, well, let's see, he directed the 1991 TV movie Intimate Stranger. He directed 1985's Grunt, the wrestling movie, which I've never heard of. Grunt. Oh, no. A documentary cruise sets out to unravel one of professional wrestling's most closely guarded secrets is former champion mad dog joe de curso now wrestling as the mask so it's like a fake documentary stars uh not anybody with images oh here we go lydie denier played angel face and she is also known from the tv series tarzan and uh a 1990 movie called red-blooded american girl they got 3.9 stars.

Okay. He also directed the 1982 film Forbidden World, which has a pretty fucking sweet poster. It's a lady on the ground in a bikini recoiling from a giant spider, and

the background looks like molten lava. In the distant future, a Federation Marshall arrives at a research lab on a remote planet where a genetic experiment has gotten loose and begins feeding on the dwindling scientific... Okay, that sounds pretty good, actually. that stars nobody I've ever heard of but

what was that called? Forbidden world? I'm going to write that all right. All right we got a note watch Forbidden World I would say the most famous person in out of control has to be well it's Sherilyn Finn Sherilyn Finn who has had a pretty successful career in Hollywood she was Audrey Horn on Twin Peaks that's certainly the role I think of when I think of Sherilyn Finn but I know she's been in a ton of stuff.

This was her very first film, so it was wild to see her. But also, Martin Hewitt, you might remember, he was in a few things. I know he was in, like, Two Moon Junction, and, God, a lot of television in the 90s. I recognized his face as soon as I saw him. I think he was in endless love.

Betsy Russell, who I think is, she was in a bunch of stuff in the 80s and a lot of television, but she played a character named Jill on like most of the saw movies, I believe. Anyway, I will recount the film as I remember before we get into the notes. A group of teenagers has their high school prom up somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. One of them has a very rich dad who agrees to let them use his private plane to fly to a resort on an island for the weekend. But the weather is bad and the plane crashes on an island.

they have to then, you know, survive Robinson Crusoe style on the island, but very quickly discover that it's a hideout for drug runners who then discover that they're there and a game of cat and mouse ensues where the drug runners are trying to kill them for some reason and they're trying to escape. It's got music. And I think the most notable thing about the music is it's by an artist named only as Hawk.

so I don't know who Hawk is but Hawk did the score and it's a score it has a note here that says it contains one of the grosser kisses of all time I don't specifically remember

where that was in the movie but be on alert for a really gross kiss that movie starts at the prom and I was reading some reviews of it and a lot of the reviews reference a monologue from the dorkiest character in the film. And he's running around kind of harassing girls at the prom. And apparently there was some sort of a voiceover of him talking about getting laid that was

really raunchy and gross. And it seems most of the hate toward the film went to this monologue speech at the beginning. And they said it was just like super out of character with the rest of the film and jarring. and also really obnoxious and poorly done, I guess. But it wasn't in the version I watched. I watched it on Amazon. I read about it. Apparently there's two versions, one that doesn't have it,

one that does. The runtimes are different. The runtime that I watched was the same runtime as the film that's supposed to have the voiceover, but for whatever reason, my film did not have that voiceover. So I guess I count myself lucky that I didn't have to hear that. But if you've watched the film and you've heard the original I guess intro voiceover.

Let me know how bad it was. Send an email to Eric at jeffsboss.com. As they're introducing the characters, there's immediately a dude named Cowboy who wants so badly to be Nicholas Cage. He is so almost Nick Cage. And this movie's what, 84? And so this is around the time that I guess Cage

is doing like Valley Girl. When did Valley Girl come out? Yeah, Valley Girl Command in 83, so that makes sense. Cowboy is the resident badass of the group. He doesn't really like anybody else. He's too cool for school. He also, by the way, sounds like Nicholas Cage. There's one nerd, one rebel, they form an uneasy alliance.

It's filmmaking 101, and this film does not shy away from being formulaic. God, and let me tell you something, too. There are some scenes in this film that fucking drag. This is one of those movies where if it's, I think it's, let me see how many minutes it was. This film is an hour and 18 minutes and it feels, it feels like about an hour and 45. It's one of those films that just, they find a way 80 style to just drag out a scene. Just, just, just brutalize you with it. I think one of the worst scenes in the film that I would look out for, and it's also most of the movie, like I said, they crash, they pull themselves off the beach,

They go inland. They find a hollowed out house or shed or barn or some sort of a building. And in it, they find some old whiskey or vodka maybe. Yeah, I think it was vodka. And they party and they dance to music. And then I realized there's no music. They're dancing and listening. I mean, we're hearing music. But you look around and nobody's got a radio. I don't see, unless I was completely zoned out, I don't think there's any. sorts of music and this scene goes on so fucking long like I was saying 80 style to this soundtrack I think hawk must have done it and you're just like what are they dancing to though because they can't hear what I'm hearing they don't have a transistor radio and even if they did they probably wouldn't have the six D cell batteries it takes to run it and then I lived in the era of those things those six D cell batteries aren't going to last a full song there's no way they're getting through a six or seven minute montage so I reject that part of the film but it is the excuse for them to get drunk and dance in their underwear for a very, very, very long time.

At this point, pretty much the drug dealers arrive and try to kill them and they run from the drug dealers and cowboy kind of saves the day and they eventually defeat the drug dealers and some of them die and some of them live and you know how it goes. I won't spoil all of that. If that seems like not a lot to happen in an hour and 18 minutes, that's because it's not. It goes from prom to interior of plane, to beach, to partying in a burned out house, to running stage left from drug dealers to running stage right from drug dealers, to running back to stage left from drug dealers to defeating drug dealers and leaving island. And that's pretty much it.

It's not a great film. It's hard to get through. I'm not going to lie to you. it really is. And even as someone who is from that era and loves to look backwards, I have the most rose-tinted glasses for the 70s and the 80s because of my youth. It is really hard to get through. However, I did get through it. If you're doing this along with me, kudos to you, if you can get through it. The next film up, I looked at the related films. The next film up is going to be chopping mall. I'll be honest. Most of them were

booby films, and I'm not looking to turn this into a softcore porn podcast. So I went with Chopping Mall, which is a film from, also from the mid-80s that I have never seen. I was too scared to see it as a kid. It looked terrifying. I have a feeling it will not be terrifying in 2025. So I will let you know in the next installment of 3M theater, whenever that is. SideQuest, though, I want to talk about Enter the Ninja, because on a web, I sat down to watch what I remembered, or what I thought I remembered, to be one of my favorite ninja movies. Then I turned it on and discovered I remembered absolutely nothing about this film.

I remember watching it. I remember loving it. I have memories of scenes from ninja movies. None of them are present in this film. They must have been from Ninja 3 or from 9 deaths of the ninja, probably pray for death, which was by far my favorite of those films. But wild to realize that you have no memory of something that you have plenty of memory of, if that makes sense.

Instead of doing a full movie review of a film, I didn't even tell you I was going to watch and make you sit through that after just doing Out of Control. I'm just going to go through my impressions from the film in case you want to watch it. I recommend you watch it because way better. No offense to Out of Control, but way better than Out of Control.

and still not good. I will say it has the longest credit scene ever, and it's basically like their version of, I guess a James Bond intro where he's like spinning left and right in silhouette, firing his gun or shooting it. They just have a ninja doing like every single ninja move they can think of a ninja to do.

It feels like it's seven or eight minutes long. It can't be that long. But at the end, they just run out of shit for the ninja to do. So they just have another ninja come in just kick the first ninja and then you finally get into the film where you see a white ninja and I mean like just a dude in a ninja costume that's totally white looking over this beautiful landscape somewhere in Japan at like noon it's the middle of the day and he stands out like a sore fucking thumb it's pretty funny I don't know why I thought that was cool when I was a kid

it made me realize pretty quickly as he then starts running into the woods in the forest that these ninja movies are basically crayon fights because red ninjas primary color red ninjas show up, yellow ninjas show up, one black ninja shows up, and then it's just like, it's just colors fighting left and right, which is so great because it's broad daylight. And they're in the fucking forest, a green forest. Nobody's green. Even if they were, it'd be a fucking neon green. But you just have this green and brown forest with white, black, red, and yellow costumes bouncing around. Like, it's the most visible thing you can imagine for a ninja whose whole vibe is being sneaky and invisible and, you know,

they're silent killers, except in this situation, their primary colors just like running through broad daylight. Also, smoke everywhere all the time. Even when ninjas aren't throwing smoke bombs, apparently the entire landscape of this film, which takes place in Japan and the Philippines, is just bubbling hot springs with steam escaping from the ground. Everywhere you look, it is the most steam or smoke-filled film I think I've ever seen in the most improbable of situations. Sometimes they do throw smoke bombs. That's a big part of what a ninja does. But a lot of times, it's just smoke coming out of the ground for no goddamn reason.

I think somebody should count how many shots in the film were close-ups of eyes, because in the first seven or eight minutes alone, it's got to be in the double digits. Here's a note I have. One would assume to become a ninja, your whole life would be intense training. So it's got to suck to get split open in half by another ninja who was just running through the woods and doesn't even really look at you. There was a lot of that. Then there's a scene where one of the ninjas lose, the white ninja loses the ninja that's chasing him in the water. And I got to say, there's nothing less ninja.

There's nothing less intimidating than a soggy ninja suit falling off of a white dude with a mustache. It's pretty embarrassing. and it's hard to take him seriously at any point in the film going forward because of that. At 10 minutes and 35 seconds, the White Ninja utters his first words, but also the first words of the film. This film goes on for a full 10 and a half minutes

before somebody speaks, and he says surrender or die, which is a cool way to start it. He then chops a head off, which is very cool, very 80s head chop. turns out to be not a real head. Well, you know what? Or it does. Maybe it is a real head.

I don't want to spoil that for you. I'm not getting into a full review here. I'm just reading my notes. You then find out that this was a test, right? And it's like his final ninja exam before he gets to become a ninja. And then when he comes in and he sits down and he gets like his ninja evaluation,

the master makes him do the nine levels of power, which was so cool to see because when I was a kid, all of my friends and I always nine levels of power to each other. we'd always challenge each other to see if they could do the nine levels of power, and we would always practice it. I practiced the nine levels of power a hell of a lot more than I practiced any kind of ninja work. It was just something you could do with your hands.

It's like, you know, this is a church, this is a steeple, open it up, and you're a ninja kind of thing. So that was a lot of fun. I actually rebounded and watched it a few times to see if I could remember how to do it, and I absolutely do not. The guy then becomes a ninja and goes to visit a friend in the Philippines, and that's where the majority of the film is. There's a lot of cockfights, and not in a lot of,

bad way at all, more of a like, hey, get grab, grab granny and the kids and let's all stand around in a circle and bet on these chickens ripping each other up. This will be a family fun activity for the whole town. So be prepared for that. There's some pretty cool shirtless nun chucking. There is the coolest silver jeep I've ever seen. If anybody knows what the silver jeep that he has a friend that he goes to visit in the Philippines, this dude and his wife, and the guy looks kind of like a Timu James Khan, sort of. And they have this silver-ish Jeep kind of truck that is so fucking cool. I would love to know what it is if anybody knows. If anybody sees that and recognizes it and knows how to find it, send me an email at Eric

at jesboss.com. Are any of you familiar with this film? Have any of you seen this film? I can't imagine many of you have, although you might want to check it out because it is definitely better than out of control. There's this early bad guy with a hook hand, who's this little weasily dude who looks kind of like Eddie Munster. And there's this whole subplot of him getting this comeuppance that's a lot of fun to watch. The ninja is really bemused by this guy. So he gives it to him pretty good. And then you find out, though, that he only works for like a big corporate overlord. And it's actually this big corporation that's the bad guy. Anyway, the land that his friend and his wife live on is a, I guess very valuable. It's a farm that they have in this

old mansion and the evil corporation wants it. So they've hired these thugs to try to take it from him. And he just kicks the shit out of everybody they send. So eventually they're like, how the fuck is this guy so badass? And they realize he's a ninja. So then they go and they find their own ninja and lie to that ninja and tell him he's evil so that that ninja will come and do the dirty work for them and kill him. And then it becomes a ninja versus ninja battle. I'm getting ahead of myself. But that's the fucking movie. if you wanted to know. The main bad guy lives in a high rise.

I can't remember what city it's in if it's Manila or late or wherever, but he's in a high rise. And I got to say, I will say, one of the cooler high rises I've ever seen in my entire life, because he's a vague businessman, he has people working for him, but the entire middle of his floor is a giant Olympic swimming pool. And then on the edges, like where you, they say like, don't run around the edges, are just dudes in suits sitting at desks doing paperwork. And he's in a big desk with a huge view behind him at the front of the swimming pool. And most, I'd say like 90% of his penthouse office is a swimming

pool, which is ridiculous and kind of awesome. There's a point where the ninja gets taken to see the bad guy and they pick him up in a sedan and he rides in the back of the sedan in the daylight in a ninja costume. That's also kind of intensity breaking. Really doesn't work. Seeing a ninja in the backseat of a car as a passenger. There's a scene where he puts about 12 blowdarts into a dude who looks like Patty Pemberton's ugly cousin. That's pretty funny. And then the film ends, like I said, I'm not going to spoil it all. I don't want to give away too much. But the film ends with a fourth wall breaking wink, which if that, if that doesn't just sum up the 80s in general. I don't know

what does. It was directed by this guy Minahem Golan. I'm going to look at, I'm going to look up and see what else he's done. Minnahan. All right, let's see. He's made a lot of stuff. Oh, wow. This guy produced life force. He produced over the top. He produced cobra.

He's done a lot. The most recent thing was marriage agreement in 2008 and wild dogs in 2008. This is producing work he's doing. Let's see, I just want look at his directing work. He directed a movie called Kumatee. Final

Combat. The Road to Glory. Russian Roulette, Moscow, 95. Over the top. Hell yeah. Delta Force. Hell yeah. Delta Force was a Chuck Norris movie, I believe. Enter the Ninja. Wow. Yeah, he's had a career of doing a lot of like 80s

adventure schlock. That's pretty cool. Doesn't look like he did another ninja film, though. He just did Enter the Ninja, which, by the way, the coolest part about that film to me was the bad guy, Ninja, who is played by Shokasugi, who is, he played Hasagawa in the film. He ends up being the good guy in a lot of ninja stuff later. In my favorite movie, Pray for Death. He's really fantastic in it. And so it was cool to see him. I didn't remember that he was the bad guy in this film, but he was. Crazy, huh? But those are my notes on Enter the Ninja, the first of the Ninja Trilogy.

And I am going to watch the rest of them because it was trippy. I also want to put the puzzle pieces together of what movie is what because I got all these scenes in my head and none of them were in this film I've seen multiple times. That'll do it for today. Let me give you guys a song of the episode. We're going to go with Long Knives by Reiner Maria. They were an indie band in the late 90s, early to mid-2000s.

I think they might be back together again. and I know every couple years they put out another album. This was off the last album I really got into Long Nides Drawn. I think the entire album is awesome. But this, the titular song,

is pretty cool. It's, I don't know, there's a quality to the way Caitlin, I think her name's Caitlin Damaris. There's, I don't know fuck that up. Let me look it up.

Yeah, Kathleen Damaris. There's a quality to the way she sings some songs that it's, I don't know, there's something, there's something forceful and guttural in the way she belts out some of the lines in this in the song. It feels almost less like her singing at times

and more like her like expressing a stance on something if that makes sense. Anyway, this is a great band named after the poet who wrote The Panther, obviously German poet. And thinking man's band, they're smart, introspective. Reiner Maria, the poet is pretty awesome. So is the band. Check them both out if you get a chance, and I'll see you next week.

All right.