O.K., we're moving into a new section of the Guide here (screw this "Part 1, Part 2" crap), where I'll be introducing you to the various actors, directors and locations whose presence acts as an indicator that you're watching Good Shit. I guess I'll keep at this until I run out of people, at which time it'll be the turn of the various Good Shit classics I've mentioned to have some time in the spotlight. That won't be for a while yet, though. Now, who to start with? Why it could only be...

Only gonna say this once: Bruce Campbell is the king (Elvis be fucked - the man died on a toilet for Christ's sake). The man is a legend in his own time, and anything he's in can only be made better for his presence. What has he been in? Well, here's his IMDb filmography - you'll most likely have seen him as Autolycus in Hercules and Xena, as Brisco County Jr. in the show of the same name, and possibly as Ash in the Evil Dead trilogy. Army of Darkness (Evil Dead 3), is without a doubt his finest moment, and possibly the finest example of Good Shit known to man. Not quite as goddamn brilliant, but still fun, are his appearances in other, lower budget films - all bona fide Good Shit, of course. He's in them - it could not be otherwise.

Look for him as Walter Koenig's (that's Checkov for the non-Trekkies) side kick in Moontrap, as a hallucination in Mindwarp, as a decendant of van Helsing in the vampire flick Sundown, or as the hero of the classic horror film, Maniac Cop. Speaking of vampire flicks, he's starring in a sequel to Dusk til Dawn with Robert Patrick. I have been told by some that the film is shite, but these people are obviously drug addicts and Communists - I will see this film, and I will enjoy it - that's not a prediction, it's a statement of fact.

Having had bit parts in major motion pictures like Congo and Escape from L.A., and parts in TV shows like Ellen, Lois and Clark, and an episode of The X-Files, his latest project is Jack Of All Trades, the post-Hercules Renaissance-made TV series in which he stars as a secret agent in the early 1800s, along with our own Angela Dotchin (Kirsty from Shortland Street). It's just started in the States (to good reviews, I believe), not sure when it's showing up here. Like Hercules and Xena, it's being filmed here, though, which means that, as I write, I could well be in the same country as Bruce Campbell!! If I were the pychotic stalker type, I'd be looking for the right bushes to lurk in right now. I'm not, of course, so I'll just have to settle for hoping to bump into him on the street or something.

Or I could contact him electronically through his site, which contains filmographies, episode guides, image galleries, various articles and rants written by the man himself (he's a closet columnist, just like us!! Only he's got a whole site to himself...), and all sorts of other cool stuff. If you've any appreciation for the man, you owe it to yourself to visit this place at least once.

Hail to the king, baby.

Not quite as impressive, but still interesting, is Mark Dacascos' site - it can get a bit wanky in places, and doesn't have nearly as much stuff as Bruce's, although there are things written by Mr. Dacascos himself. Mostly talking about his martial arts training, which, quite frankly, is what I watch his films for, so that's O.K.

Now who here saw Rapid Fire, Showdown in Little Tokyo and The Crow, and was then devastated to hear of Brandon Lee's untimely death? If that's you, then you can at least take comfort in the knowledge that Mark Dacascos makes a great replacement (literally - he plays the Crow in the TV series). This guy kicks gigantic amounts of arse, Hong Kong style - he has a ton of training in Kung Fu, and in the Brazilian art of Capoeira (Aucklanders may have seen these guys demonstrating Downtown on occasion).

Not all of his films have been martial arts ones (Sabotage, which I mentioned last time, involves relatively few people getting their heads kicked in), but that's where he shines. He actually made a Kickboxer sequel good (despite the fact that he doesn't practise kickboxing at all), he was the one with actual martial arts ability in the otherwise pretty crap Double Dragon (as opposed to the one from Party of Five)...

• Drive - this is the closest I've seen to an American-made Hong Kong action film. The fight choreography is brilliant, and action sequences aside it's a damn fine film - it features the guy who played Pete Sutter on Brisco County Jr., and Brittany Murphy as Deliverence. I love this woman, and so do you.
• Crying Freeman A live-action adaptation of the anime of the same name. A bit much Japanese and Chinese dialogue sans subtitles, and it can be a bit slow in parts, but the gun fights, and more importantly sword-/bow and arrow-/fist-fights at the end are just brilliant.
• Sanctuary Mark as a priest (and former special forces agent, of course), who gets into trouble as his past comes back to haunt him, etc. etc. Watching him start (and finish) a fight by flooring two guys with one kick more than makes up for the relatively basic plot. Good ending, though, and has the added bonus of being directed by a guy called Tibor.
• Deathline He stars opposite Rutger Hauer - all you need to know.

O.K., I'm assuming you all know who this guy is - how many people out there didn't see Titanic? And I imagine most of those who did though that our Billy was the best damn thing about it (ooh, he was eeevil!). Ditto The Phantom (except for the eeevil bit). What perhaps less of you know is that the redoubtable Mr. Zane got his start in a bunch of Good Shit films - some of them Very Good.

Critters, obviously, is the prime exemplar, and his first decent movie role (his first film appearance ever was in Back to the Future as one of teenage Biff's sidekicks). Watch him sport a ponytail and get eaten by fuzzy little big-toothed aliens! Now I've got nothing against ponytails (see The Blah Witch Project), but Billy Zane is one of a very few white men who looks good bald - I guess he still had hair back then, so he wanted to show it off while he could.

• Blood and Concrete - Total class. Billy plays one of those "down on his luck small-time criminal" characters with a suicidal girlfriend. While he truly shines in the film, the most memorable moments involve Nicholas Worth running around in a codpiece, with his henchman chasing after Billy, high as a kite, yelling "ducky fuck! ducky fuck! ducky ducky fuck fuck!" Indeed.
• Demon Knight - O.K., I'm gonna have to make this one honorary Good Shit, because it did actually get cinema release here, so doesn't really qualify. Still, it features Billy delivering some of the best lines of his career, in his role as an evil demon after the blood of Christ or something.
• Dead Calm - The film that made the world stand up and say "hey, Nicole Kidamn with her kit off!", and then "and hey, that Billy Zane sure plays a good psycho doesn't he?" And he does.
• Silence of the Hams - More "notable" than "highlight", this one - it is (as the title oh-so-witilly suggests) a parody of Silence of the Lambs, starring Billy as FBI agent Joe Dee Foster (oh my sides), and Dom DeLuise as Dr. Animal Cannibal Pizza (a piece of my brain died as I typed that). It does, however feature John Astin, milking the Gomez Addams thing for all it's worth, there's a great use of the word "fuck", and the interpretive dance scene is worth seeing, too.
• I Woke Up Early The Day I Died - I haven't seen this yet, but damn it I want to. Based on an old script by the legendary Ed Wood, it features no dialogue whatsoever, and an...eclectic cast (including Christina Ricci, another fave). Now, when's it being released here? Film or video, I'm not fussy.

And of course Sniper's good, Danger Zone's good, The Set Up's good (and features a nice monologue about how his luggage had his name, C. O. Jones, on it, which looks like "cojones", which means testicles, etc.) - Billy Zane's just good. As a bad guy, as a good guy, whatever.

Now that he's all famous and everything, there's an assload of sites for him around, but they're mostly all shite (so many people, so little web design ability - I mean, I'm not exactly an electronic Picasso, but I at least make an effort to pick a style and stick to it, and not have the page overflowing with animated GIFs, big-ass JPEGs, tiled backgrounds and the like. There's a ton of pages out there that seem to have been designed by magpies...) This'un has a good filmography with lots of pictures and .wav files (including the "cojones" bit from The Set Up and all the good lines from Demon Knight - sound quality's a bit crap, though), this one here (actually from a Back to the Future site) keeps it simple and to the point, and this one's just a bit crap.

Again, I'd expect most of you to know this guy, who's still best remebered for his role in Blade Runner. He's one of the few European actors to have made himself a decent career there and in Hollywood, and a prolific wee bugger he is, too - check out this filmography. Better still, see it at his site, which contains pictures, bios, writing from the guy himself (not as much as Bruce Campbell, but it's a start), and even a memorial to Brion James, his old friend and Blade Runner co-star who died last year (and who deserves a mention in the Guide himself). Now that's class.

Now, it was suggested to me a while ago that the guy's in decline. I don't know about that - sure, not much has come close to Blade Runner (or Split Second - more on that later. Much, much more...), but there's been some good stuff. Admittedly, I can't think of anything good he's been in lately, and the last thing I saw him in was the pretty lousy Bleeders, a monster movie about a bunch of in-bred haemophiliac mutants who live underground and feed off the corpses they dig out of graves from underneath. Apart from that kind of cool idea (the monsters start causing trouble when the graveyard is shifted and all the coffins are moved), and the fact that its alternate title is "Haemogoblins", it really was crappy.

Sorry, what was my point again? Oh yeah - Rutger Hauer is good! Take a look at Salute of the Jugger (another oldie), or Ladyhawke (Matthew Broderick's finest moment), or Blind Fury (some good swordplay there), or The Hitcher (a classic), or Wedlock (head explodey fun!), or Surviving the Game (Rutger as quite a good nutcase) or Buffy the Vampire Slayer (no really).

And of course, there's Split Second, which I'll keep going on about until everyone on the planet's seen it. The "big fucking guns" sequence, the big fucking guns themselves, the outfits, the setting - even the monster's pretty neato. Anyway, this film by itself earns Herr Hauer a place in the Guide for all time.

So he's got one.

And speaking of Aryan wunderkinder, Mr. Lundgren here has contributed a great deal to the world of Good Shit. Sticking almost exclusively to action films, our Dolph has kicked more arses than most of you have had hot dinners (eurrgh - nasty juxtapostion of images). Despite being a hulking man-mountain and a guy who knows how to fire big fucking guns, he's also something of a martial artist, as Showdown in Little Tokyo demonstrates - the guy can hold his own next to Brandon Lee!

• Men of War - That's the stuff: a bunch of hard men shoot stuff, blow stuff up and kick the crap out of stuff. Already mentioned in Part 2b for nice punchups with Dolph and Trevor Goddard.
• The Joshua Tree - No prizes for guessing why this film gets my attention. It features some good Dolph vs. everyone shootouts, too.
• Dark Angel - Doplh's a cop on the trail of a brain-sucking alien drug dealer who only ever says "I come in peace". Features a Big Fucking Gun.
• Silent Trigger - Notable for the bit where the SAS-lookn' soldier gets the top of his head blown out by a submachinegun under his chin. Nice.
• The Minion - Before Big Arnie did the cop vs. Satan thing in End of Days, Big Dolph did the arse-kicking priest vs. Satan (or the Antichrist or something) thing here. And he does it well.

Oh yes, and sites. Well there's a few around - no official one by the guy himself that I can find, though. This one's about the best I've found - it's got a bio, filmography, reviews, articles, and so on. Full of Dolphy goodness, you might say.

At first I thought "ah, this guy's been in too many big films to count as a Good Shit actor", but then I tried to think of the last time he had a big role in a big film, and couldn't come up with anything. Sure there's been cameos aplenty - Sleepy Hollow most recently, Pulp Fiction of course, and so on, but what leading roles has the guy had? Bugger all.

Leading bad guy roles - now that's another story. As you all know, Christopher Walken plays a really good bad guy. Whether it's the ice cold psycho such as his character in The Prophecy (more on that in a sec), the ice cold psycho prone to bursts of sudden violence (like in Last Man Standing, or the cool professional criminal such as his mafia boss in Suicide Kings, you know the good guys are in the shit if he shows up on the other side.

And if he's not playing a psycho bad guy, he'll usually be playing a psycho (or at least a little unhinged) good guy, such as his drill sergeant in Biloxi Blues, or his exterminator in Mouse Hunt (a film not nearly as bad as it should be).

• The Prophecy - bloody good nice angels vs. nasty angels flick, with Christopher putting in a typically brilliant turn as the archangel Gabriel. See this film if you haven't already - it's got some good Eric Stoltz action too.
• A View To a Kill - Christopher Walken was a Bond-villain! See him say "you amyoos me Mr. Bond" as a better Aryan wunderkind than Rutger Hauer's ever managed, and he really is one!
• McBain - finding Good Shit films with this guy in it did turn out to be kind of tricky - the films he's in always seem to be instant classics, too good to class as Shit. This one, though, is all you could want and more. Obviously I first got it out because of the Simpsons reference, but rather than playing a cop with a big gun and a stupid chief like the Simpsons' McBain, Chris plays a mercenary (with a variety of big guns) in this ass-kicking 1991 action film, which actually seems to have had a decent budget - there's a lot of impressive Things Exploding and gunfights and whatnot.

So there you have it ladies and gentlemen, Christopher Walken - class act. A little too classy for this Guide, really, but here's his filmography so you can see all of the damn good films he's done, and this here site seems to be a good guide to all things Walken. Enjoy.

C. Thomas.

C. Thomas Howell.

Howell, Thomas, Howell.

Ah, I never get tired of that...

Sorry, what was I saying? Oh yeah, C. Thomas Howell, star of a bunch of Good Shit action films, and the odd sci-fi one, too. You'll have seen him in a few films, I guarantee it, you just may not have known at the time. He was, for instance, in E.T., he was one of the main characters in that Spelling vampire TV series thing, The Kindred, but mostly he's in Shit of varying degrees of quality. I think he was a bit of a teen idol in his day, but now plays a variety of adult roles, sporting a variety of interesting attempts at facial hair, some of which work, but some are just plain hideous - reminds me of any film where Rutger Hauer has mustache. Always a mistake...

...

• The Hitcher - the aforementioned classic, and probably C's (can I call you C?) finest moment (and one of Rutger Hauer's finer ones). He directed and starred in a film called Hourglass, which has the alternate title "The Hitcher '95". I haven't seen it, but from what I can tell it bears no apparent relation to the original.
• Red Dawn - teen C. Thomas saves America from the Commies alongside teen Patrick Swayze and teen Charile Sheen! Which rhymes.
• The Sweeper - nice action film, this one. It's all about vigilante cops and stuff, and features a number of nice action set-pieces, including a car chase that involves a truck dropping a seemingly unlimited supply of gas canisters which go rolling all over the road getting ignited by the bad guy, who can hit them by firing out of the back of his car with an Uzi, but who can't actually scratch C. Thomas. Go figure.

Ah screw it, he has a bunch of films out there, dating back to the mid eighties - one's pretty much the same as the next. Look for his name on the cover, it'll probably be worth your while. Oh, and I couldn't find any sites for him. Strangely. You can go now.

"Howell, Thomas, Howell" tee hee hee...

Hollywood - alarmingly racist, isn't it? I've not yet gone into the "ethnicity means death" rule of action flicks, but I imagine most of you will have worked it out through observation by now. If not, watch any film where you've got one of those multi-ethnic teams of mercenaries or whatever - it's always the clean-cut, white-toothed American who sees the film to the end. And the chick, of course. Deep Blue Sea is notable for being a big budget film where the black guy lives and the chick dies¹. How innovative.

Anyway, if they're not cannon fodder, ethnic minorities are usually the bad guys. You'll either get foreign politically bad bad guys (e.g. Arab terrorists, Irish terrorists, Commie terrorists, etc.) or just plain foreign bad guys - Asians seem to be the most popular here. You know, the old opium-dealing, gun-running, downfall-of-the-Western-world-plotting inscrutable Yellow Peril thing (my what an enlightened age we live in). And here's where our Evil Asian Guys come in. There's two of them: Evil Asian Guy himself, and Evil Asian Boss Guy, AKA Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa.

If the bad guys are Japanese (usually Yakuza - "they're the Japanese Mafia, you know"), then five'll get you ten that Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa will be the guy in charge of them. He plays Evil Asian Boss Guy in Showdown in Little Tokyo (that name should sound familiar by now), The Phantom, and Mortal Kombat, and fuck it, he plays them well. He's not always evil, of course - look at Vampires (vampire killer), Licence to Kill (Secret agent giving James Bond shit), or Top of the World (SWAT team leader). He's a very versatile actor, hell, he's a damn good actor (and more than capable of kicking a bit of arse in his films). Look for him (and the company he keeps - Billy Zane for example, in The Phantom and Danger Zone).

• In Rapid Fire as an Evil Asian Guy beating up on Brandon Lee.
• In Dark Angel, Big Trouble in Little China, and Joshua Tree, alongside good old Dolph. Well, getting killed by him most likely.
• In Replacement Killers, as one of the eponymous killers.

¹Interesting tension between clichés in that film - Saffron Burrows' character is the lead woman (who always lives), AND the mad scientist who created the monster (who always dies at the hands of his/her creation). What will become of her? Well, she gets bitten in half by a the giant shark at the end - oops, spoiled it. Tee hee...

So I finally got Richard to do me an entry on the "uniquely attractive" Brian Thompson - Shakespearean actor, celebrity punching bag and Good Shit staple extraordinaire. I figured Richard's the guy to write this, since he is quite possibly the man's greatest fan. Since he's doing all the writing, his text'll be in plain, with me in italics for a change. And away we go...

Right. Brian.

What can be said of Brian Thompson that has not already been said of our lord and shepherd Jesus Christ? I should mention that we saw Dogma last night - that could explain some of this. Our Brian is a martyr who dies for our sins, in movies, videos and television. Remember the poor spud who got two lines at the beginning of The Terminator before having his spleen punched out? Brian. The stocking-clad axe-wielding lad who gets a big-arsed hook through the spine (in Cobra)? Brian. The bodyguard who gets a completely unjustified kick to the head in Wrong Bet? Brian. The bug-chomping latin-babbling suave vampire who gets disembowelled in Fright Night 2? Brian. The bald hammer-time villain in Mortal Kombat Annihilation? Brian. The criminal helicopter pilot who redeems himself in a fatal Horatio-at-the-bridge last stand in Moon 44? Brian. The bubble-headed alien who gets a torch in the face from James Caan in Alien Nation? Brian. The poor white-sneakered CIA agent having his teeth yanked in Commando Squad? You get the idea. This boy has appeared (briefly) in Buffy twice, and has been killed, twice. He even appeared as a wrestler, the master of "Ein Schroten Stamp", in Weird Science (the show, not the movie), before being trounced by those comedic upstarts. This man has been killed from the greats, like Stallone and Schwarzenegger, all the way down to bloody teenagers in sitcoms. And to some, this is all Mr Thompson will be. But he is more, Oh, so much more.

For Brian has paid his dues on the big and small screen, taken his beatings like Jean-Claude "I must be punished by the villain before kicking his arse so my violence is morally justified" Van Damme, but he has also been able to shine in roles that do not end in death and dismemberment. I refer to his alien roles in "The X-Files" and "Crusade", but most importantly, the greatest action film EVER, Hired to Kill. Oh yes, Hired to Kill (this is another one of those "finest moment" things). Here is the Gospel of Saint Jellybean (that's Richard) telling of this miracle of Brian Thompson.

The premise is this: George Kennedy wants a bunch o' mercenaries to go and hassle poor old Oliver Reed in his Third World Banana republic. To do this, they call.... Brian Thompson (Yay!) Yes folks, he's the star. Brian is then assigned a team of mercs. There's the sniper, the explosives one, the knife one, the just plain sassy one... and they are all chicks. Cute chicks at that. Yes, these wimmenfolk are gathered from some of the worst clichés possible. They bust the explosives expert out of a Turkish prison. The mute(!) knife-thrower was in a sanatorium after being raped and killing her assailants. The sniper was on death row after the CIA betrayed her in a Mafia assassination. The eighties-looking blonde has a history with Brian. The photography one was an Israeli assassin in hiding¹. Photographer, you cry? Yes, the plan is this. This team of bimbos led by Brian are posing as a bunch of models showing off Brian's (The gay fashion designer) new line of clothing, and they just happen to go to Oliver Reed's piece of dirt for their photo shoot. That's right folks, it's the old "Mercenaries with pasts disguised as models and a gay designer infiltrate a third world country. Hijinks ensue." And ensue they do. Brian's lovely speaking voice and impressive muscles get a good airing, the plot gets tackier, the nudity gets nekkid, blood flows, bullets fly, and Brian saves the day. Wahoo, it don't get any better than this...

Brian Thompson for president!

I'm spent. I must now go have a lie down.

So there you have it sports fans, Brain Thompson and Hired to Kill - a Good Shit staple and a Good Shit classic in one entry. How economical. I should probably also mention that you can find Mr. Thompson online at his site. If you call yourself a fan of Good Shit, you must visit this place. Call it a pilgrimage.

¹For ridiculously clichéd characters, see also the Parker Stevenson/Terry Farrell/Cory Feldman number, Legion.

Can't say good bye to this section of the Guide without mentioning the star of Highlander - the best swordfight movie ever. Fact¹. Like Ruger Hauer, Mr. Lambert is originally from Europe (actually, he was born in the States, but moved to Switzerland when he was two), and like Rutger Hauer, his career has been somewhat in decline of late. He has, in fact, sunk to the level of churning out straight ot video sequels of some his greatest triumphs. Fortress 2 should be out any day now (plot: they catch him again), and a fourth Highlander movie is in the works (starring Chris and the guy from the Highlander TV series).

A word about the Highlander sequels: There is no Highlander 2. The film does not exist - it is dead to me. I have my doubts about the third one, too (Highlander 3: The Apology - "sorry about number two, guys - here, have some more cool fight scenes and zappy quickening bits"). We'll just have to see how the fourth fares...

• Highlander - his finest moment. I shall say no more.
• Fortress - damn good sci-fi, this. Chris must escape with his wife from a futuristic prison with groovy neutron cannons and cyborg guards and big guns and stuff. The nice and bloody fight scene was mentioned in this guide some time ago, you may recall.
• Beowulf - what did they call this again? Techno-gothic, I think. Something like that anyway. It's one of those sci-fi/ fantasy things, where people ride horses and hit each other with swords, but still have groovy technology around when they want it. As the title suggests, it's an update of the classic saga of Beowulf and Grendel, with our boy Chris as Beowulf, of course. It's nothing too special, but worth it for the hugely cool hardware Beowulf sports at various stages of the film - staves with swords in them, throwing axes, repeating crossbows, etc.
• The Hunted - More fun with swords. Swords on trains, no less. This sticks to good old-fashioned Kendo (or rather, Kenjitsu, which is to Kendo what Jujitsu is to Judo, hence the names) throughout, and that's a good thing. A good thing.
• Gunmen - Christopher Lambert, Patrick Stewart, Denis Leary, lotsa guns, lotsa swearing, lotsa fun. Brenda Bakke's in it too, for the American Gothic fans out there...
• Mortal Kombat - Yeah, it's the film of a video game, but it's got a damn good soundtrack, some fun fight scenes, and Mr. Lambert and his trademark snigger: "heh heh heh" (you know the one I mean), so it can't be bad. The sequel replaced Chris with James Remar, and it sucked - coincidence? Fuck no.

For Lambert on the Web, you could check out this site here - it seems to have all you'd want. Or you could go to the man's own homepage, which looks a lot more professional, but is a pain in the arse to navigate, quite frankly.

¹Yes, yes - The Princess Bride has a good one, the Star Wars series has had some decent ones - I myself have always been partial to the one at the end of Rob Roy - but none of them are whole films devoted to the things.