Alamo Basement, Week 4: The Trailers

This week's trailers were a trio of action movies, the winner being the one that promised the most nudity. Typical.

1.) Japanese school-children murdering eachother dystopian action favorite: Battle Royale:




2.) Awesome ax-clanging, match chewing, mega-violent Stallone movie Cobra:




3.) And this week's winner, USA "Up All Night" fodder Hard Ticket to Hawaii. This ain't no hula:




Commercials and Bumpers after the jump...

"Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" (1970)

Last week’s trailer challenge was dedicated to dumb, hyper-sexualized X-rated movies. The last was David Cronenberg’s Crash, a trailer I’ve featured before to lukewarm Basement reception, but decided to try again because it’s about people getting their rocks off with car crashes. The second was infamous shitshow Showgirls, which famously sent Joe Eszterhas’s overpaid, over-lauded screenwriting career into a nosedive, and also boasts former Saved by the Bell starlet Elizabeth Berkley screwing a hilariously banged Kyle MacLachlan in the world’s greatest terrible sex scene.

Despite the skeezball promise of both of these movies, I was reasonably confident that the evening’s first trailer, 1970’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, would get picked, and get picked it did:

 

From the Refreshment Stand:

To truly explore all the facets of Cube Gleaming, we came up with some food and drinks to go along with this week's showing of Gleaming the Cube.

Since most of the movies shown at the Alamo Basement are ones I haven't seen, it can be a challenge to find appropriate food references basing yourself solely on the trailer. I, for one, had not picked up on the fact that the movie was seemingly sponsored by Pizza Hut and Coke.

I decided to focus on the fact that this movie is totally rad and from the 80's. And while my concept of the 80's might be technically incorrect, I think we got the right feel from the food. We made Hot Dog Surprise. And the surprise? It tastes good. You wouldn't think it from the look of it when you're about half way through the recipe but it does not disappoint.

These doggies were "sold out" before the Asian roommate brother was dead.

As for the drink- this was a harder task if only because I can't mix a drink with more than 2 ingredients (Need a rum and coke? I've got you covered!). To explore the rad flavors and bogus colors of the 80's I got hooked on using Watermelon Vodka- surely the most ridiculous of vodka flavors. We tossed around the idea of rimming the glasses in Pop Rocks or Pixy Stix but after finally located them (when did grocery stores stop selling this kind of stuff??) neither of these candies would stick. And cleaning stuck Pop Rocks off a plate is a little dangerous... I also wanted to include Kool aid somehow- hopefully in crazy colors and flavors. And then it hit me: flavor-gleaming-ice-cubes!

We made Hawaiian punch flavored ice cubes and then followed the instructions on the grape and strawberry Kool Aid packet to make "Sour Ice Cubes". As they melted in the drink, the sour cubes did provide that extra punch I was hoping to get from the candy rimming but they were hell-a sticky and just never seemed totally frozen. Probably too much sugar...

Some of our awesome viewers rounded out our selection of refreshments with some tubular treats: Fruit by the Foot, Gushers, Fruit Roll-ups and Capri Sun.

It was a sugar fueled event

Recipes after the jump.