Cheeseball Cinema: Joysticks (1983)

It has been a tradition here on Cheeseball Cinema to discover films that the snobs of cinema would discard and throw into the recycling bin. One of my favorite decades of cinema has always been the 1980’s which gave birth to a genre known as the teen sex comedies and we have covered so many of those on here. If it’s cheesy then it’s for us and for today we have one that involves the earliest form of video games in 1983’s Joysticks. The film stars Scott McGinnis (Secret Admirer) as arcade owner Jefferson Bailey who just happens to run the best arcade in town that all the kids come to for a little fun. Well, there is one man in town who doesn’t feel that way and he goes by the name of Joseph Rutter (Joe Don Baker) who wants to shut down the arcade. Will he succeed in doing it or will Jefferson have a plan to keep it open? The film also stars Leif Green (Grease 2) as Eugene, Jim Greenleaf (Evilspeak) as Dorfus, Jon Gries (Napoleon Dynamite) as King Vidian, Corinne Bohrer (Police Academy 4: Citizens On Patrol) as Patsy Rutter, John Diehl (Stripes) as Arnie, Kym Malin (Road House) as Lola, Kim G. Michel as Alva, Erin Halligan (Wacko) as Sandy, and the film was directed by Greydon Clark (Black Shampoo).

First things first, I have seen Corinne Bohrer in plenty of films and I have enjoyed what she has brought to the table, but this has to be by far one of the most annoying performances of all time. The only other character to ever annoy me as much when their mouth opes was Jar Jar Binks in Episode 1. I have no idea in the world why she had a valley girl’s accent in the film when no other character did throughout the whole film. Other than that, I actually enjoyed the film and all of it’s dumb 80’s quirkiness like the guy who thought he was Curly from The Three Stooges. Then we get Uncle Rico (Gries) playing a punk rock video game weirdo named King Vidian which helped provide real comic relief throughout the whole film. Besides Joe Don Baker, he was one of the true villains of the film and he was awesome. My other favorite thing about this film is the pairing of John Diehl and John Voldstad who played his cousin Max. These two played the roles of the bumbling idiots that your villain needs to blame when things go wrong. One thing that is for sure with this film is that there is plenty of T&A in the film from mud wrestling fun, Jacuzzi in a van, strip video arcade, and so much more. There is some cheesy scenes in the film, but its not that bad of film in reality. It represents a time when society was still being tough on kids and it’s not surprising that video game arcades were an issue back then. Anything that keeps kids occupied and away from home is a bad thing to society. Check it out for yourselves where ever you can find it. On a scale of one being close to an A-List Hollywood film and five being the cheesiest film of all time, I am going to give the film an 2.9 for a final grade.

Cheeseball Cinema: Ilsa, Harem Keeper Of The Oil Sheiks (1976)

Sexploitation and Cheeseball Cinema go together like Peanut Butter and Jelly, they just go well together. Plus, we covered Ilsa, She Wolf Of The SS sometime ago so I wanted to check out the sequel. So, what we have here for you today is Ilsa, Harem Keeper Of The Oil Sheiks which was released in 1976 and once again stars the beautiful Dyanne Thorne as Ilsa. Ilsa this time is taking care of the operations for Sheik Al Sharif (Jerry Delony) as she takes care of all his sex slaves. Ilsa and the Sheik begin to suspect that their guests, Dr. Kaiser (Richard Kennedy) and Cmdr Scott (Max Thayer) are not just their to negotiate a plan for oil, but to sabotage his operations.  She tries to seduce the Commander, but Ilsa may have found her match. The film also stars Haji (Supervixens) as Alina, Uschi Digard (Supervixens) as Inge, Sharon Kelly (Supervixens) as Nora, George ‘Buck’ Flower (They Live) as a begger, Tanya Boyd (Black Shampoo) as Satin, Marilyn Joi (Kentucky Fried Movie) as Velvet, and the film was directed by Don Edmonds (8 Million Ways To Die).

From Left To Right Clockwise: Dyanne Thorne, Sharon Kelly, Su Ling, and Uschi Digard

You automatically know what you are going to get when you watch a sexploitation, women in prison film which is a whole lot of T&A. The great thing about this film is that it actually has a pretty good story attached to it and the acting is actually pretty good for the most part. The only thing is how old is Ilsa? She served the nazi party during world war 2 and now she serves the oil sheiks some years later and she doesn’t look like she aged one bit. But that is the beauty of these films where you don’t need continuity moving on for every sequel. I actually look forward to seeing the other films in the series for more Cheeseball Cinema entries. As I said before, there is plenty of T&A as well as some unkempt seventies bush and some of the torture devices they came up with for this film were actually quite clever, but a little on the kinky side with some like the boob vice or the exploding vagina. Check out the film on Youtube right now if you would like to because it’s there. On a scale of 1 being close to an A-List Hollywood film and 5 being the cheesiest film of all time, I am going to give the film a 3.5 because it’s practically softcore porn, but with some action and violence. Plus, a lot of the actors were painted to look Arab and it’s a little too obvious.