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Tom Cody Rides Again!! Albert Pyun's ROAD TO HELL Declared The "2 Girls, 1 Cup Of Sequels"!!
Beaks here...
As threatened, Albert Pyun has delivered his highly unofficial STREETS OF FIRE sequel. It's called ROAD TO HELL, and reader "GAH" has some very interesting things to say about it.
Hey guys, since you've mentioned "Road to Hell" a few times and no one else has chimed in yet....
In the middle of Fantastic Fest, I had a diversion with the Alamo Ritz' Music Monday presenting a rare theatrical 35MM screening of "Streets of Fire" featuring Michael Paré and Deborah Van Valkenburgh in attendance. It was an immensely satisfying evening with cheering and hollering and singing and clapping. The energy was electric and the few un-iniated people who were watching the movie for the first time were blown away. The Q&A was spirited and both Michael and Deborah were charming and looked back on filming the movie very fondly. It quickly fell within my top five Drafthouse screenings of all time, and my favorite of Fantastic Fest 2008... which is quite a feat.
Unfortunately the perfect evening was derailed by the first public screening of "Road to Hell."
The first thing that should be said is that "Road to Hell" is not a film. It's not a movie. In truth, I don't know what it is. Youtube videos of mentos and diet coke are more cinematic than anything this
attempts. It isn't just bad, it's Sega CD Full Motion Video Game circa 1992 bad. It makes "Night Trap" look like "The Godfather." It's the "2 Girls 1 cup" of sequels. Most importantly, it's an insult to "Streets of Fire" and everyone who has ever watched even five minutes of it.
Before the 60 + minute "dream project" proceeded to assault those not smart enough to walk out, Albert Pyun, his wife Cynthia Curnan, and a handful of others came up and explained what we would be seeing. Cynthia mentioned that it was the result of an argument that she and Albert had had about the ending of Streets of Fire. Albert had thought it was one of the most romantic endings of all time. Cynthia thought it was deeply tragic and showed that Tom Cody was doomed. She wrote "Road to Hell" to show what she thought would have happened to him.
If the near-finished product is any indication, Albert handily won that argument and by default has now won all subsequent arguments for the rest of their lives.
Put simply, "Road to Hell" is garbage -- cinematic fan-fiction that is essentially a pointless 60+ minutes of atrocious dialogue in front of a green screen, mixed in with some black and white footage of Deborah Van Valkenburgh being interrogated and flashbacks of a poor double for Diane Lane lip-syncing and dancing along with two songs lifted from "Streets of Fire."
I'm not entirely sure why everything was filmed in front of a green screen, probably to give it that "filmed in one day" look. It definitely does no favors to the performances, and the computer animated backdrops used look like screen savers circa 1994. I kept half-expecting a flying toaster to glide across the screen. Sadly,
like any hope that "Road to Hell" would be redeemed, it failed to materialize.
The muddled excuse for a plot centers around the idea that Tom Cody is now a deranged serial killer, waiting in the middle of nowhere in case Ellen Aim's tour bus happens to drive by.
Meanwhile the two least interesting former strippers turned murderers in the world come across him.
They yell and swear and swear and yell. They talk in circles. There's some blood and some kissing. It goes absolutely nowhere and just drags and drags and drags. It could have been whittled down into a five minute short, told the same "story," and it STILL would have been painful.
I guess the filmmakers deluded themselves into thinking they were making something artistic and the characters we see might be in purgatory, or some other metaphysical realm. Unless the filmmakers' intent was to make the viewer feel like they were literally in hell, they failed.
The only elements that are even remotely interesting at all are ripped from "Streets of Fire." It is fascinating watching Paré and Van Valkenburgh reprising their respective roles, or at least it would be if the dialogue wasn't so mind numbingly awful that the characters as portrayed resemble those in "Streets of Fire" about as much as David Koresh resembled Jesus.
Pyun, particularly in his Cannon years, has made some legitimately entertaining no-budget films. There is nothing entertaining here. It captures none of the spirit, energy, character, or fun of "Steets of Fire." It's an ugly, draining, pointless trifle.
Do yourself a favor and stop caring about this now. It will only end in heartbreak.
-GAH
Well, that sounds dandy.
Readers Talkback
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Are the cup of the two girls, one cup internet community.
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The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Except the intentions here don't sound all that good.
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Are the cup of the 2 girls, 1 cup internet community
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Bada BING!
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Just watched Streets of Fire for the first time last week. Awesome stuff.
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God that brings back good memories.
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I don't know why.
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I would have thought he'd have become addicted to meth by now. He has that trashy vibe about him.
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it's 2 girls 1 cup LITE
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With the likes of Fred Olen Ray and Jim Wynorski that man has never amazed me how much (or how little) you can do without a budget. Where are their DVD Collector's Editions with making of's and commentaries?
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Oct. 4, 2008, 2:17 a.m. CST
M-O-O-N. That spells "Albert Pyun - the original Uwe Boll"
by Tom Cullen
Only far, far worse. Has made decades worth of nothing but shit, full of both badly slumming name actors, and no name never gonna be anyone actors. I never could understand how that fucker managed to have a career, but god, he must have made 3 dozen films, more probably, since he started in the 80's. He is the God of talentless hacks.
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saying the a film is the sequel to 2 girls 1 cup... I dunno if that makes it bad considering people will still watch 2 girls 1 cup even after they sat through it the first time. A sequel will just give them something else to talk about. lol Me personally couldn't make it through the first viewing... UGH
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What the FUCK?
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A Fairly OddParents fan? :)
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.......of people whose asses need kicking. Who is this maggot to think he could possibly follow up Hill's masterpiece? Streets of Fire may not have won oscars but it is one of the all time great movie experiences a far as I'm concerned. Any of you talkbackers who run into Pyun, kick him in the nuts for me. Repeatedly.
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.....Fuck you Pyun. And the nutter wife you rode in on. In case my point wasn't clear enough.
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I just looked at this guy's imdb page, what a hackmeister!
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holy crap, anyone see the Captain America movie? i just wish bad movies were good bad. but captain america was Star Wars Holiday Special bad.
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We've had the abortion that was the Deathrace "re-imaginging" and there's a threatened Rocky Horry remake. Will anything less than a 10,000 volt, cattleprod shaped, cluebat send a message to these talentless hack directors? .... "There's a reason cult film *are* cult films - they did something unique: story, script, setting, actors, direction, timing, whatever. The chances of you [insert name of hack writer/director here] being one of only half a dozen people in the whole of movie history to make a sequel/remake equal or better than the original is close to zero."
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"SOF" is one of my all time favorite films, and this just really makes me sad. "Blues Brothers 2000" level sad. Tom Cody was a bit of a dick, sure, that was his tough guy character, but he would never re-emerge as a serial killer. I love everything about "SOF" as much as it sounds like I'm going to detest everything about this unfortunate semi-sequel. One of you guys said something about remakes or sequels to cult classics being a mistake because you can't catch lightning a bottle twice. I agree 1000% percent.
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Having endured Captain America, Nemesis 3 and Arcade, I'm clearly one big glutton for punishment, though Dollman was cheesy fun.
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Without Streets of Fire we wouldn't have had Dick Tracy or Sin City. So it's funny to see them doing the whole Sin City style greenscreen deal for a Sof sequel.<br><br>I kinda tend to believe that this project would turn out crappy, but not in the way described in this article. I figured it would just be a rehash but this at least sounds ambitious. But I definately have problems with the idea of Cody becoming a serial killer.<br><br>Anyway, this should just be a special feature on ultimate edition DVD of SoF that we've been deprived of all these years.<br><br>Fuck, Walter Hill gets no respect.
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That sounds great. In a craptastically wonderful way. <P>"The muddled excuse for a plot centers around the idea that Tom Cody is now a deranged serial killer, waiting in the middle of nowhere in case Ellen Aim's tour bus happens to drive by." <P>That sounds like gold. And what makes you think the original had good dialouge?
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