almost okay

Man, this early daylight savings time change has been rough on me this year. Once the sun goes down, I don't know whether to shit or tip the bartender. I'm not sleepy when the clock tells me it's time for bed, so I wind up staying up way too late watching some dumb-ass movie to kill the time. What exactly is it that we save the daylight for again? So far, all I've done with my spare hour of sunshine is sleep.

Anyway, the dumb-ass movie that I watched last night actually turned out to be fairly entertaining. I picked up my copy of 'Catch The Heat' a while back at the Salvation Army for cheap. All their dollar VHS tapes were half-off, so I grabbed an armful mainly on the box descriptions. This one promised a script by Oscar-winner Sterling Silliphant ('In the Heat of the Night', 'The Poseidon Adventure', 'Towering Inferno') and an appearance by Rod Steiger (Best Actor trophies for 'In The Heat Of The Night' and 'The Pawnbroker') who plays bad guy Jason Hannibal.

But what drew me to the flick even more than those stellar credentials was the cute Asian girl who played the lead, Tiana Alexandra. She was kicking ass kung-fu style and taking target practice with her pistol in the photos on the back, and the synopsis described her as “A one-woman strike force...” I just had to see more.

Well, it turns out that Tiana's real name is Tiana Thi Thanh Nga, and she was married to Silliphant at the time (1987), so therefore the script (no surprise!) was actually written with her in mind. Tiana plays 'Checkers' Goldberg (I kid you not!), a tough, half-Chinese-half-Jewish S.F. vice cop who, along with her partner, is sent to Buenos Aires to catch the evil drug dealer/talent agent Jason Hannibal (Steiger). In spite of laughable dialogue and horrible acting by everyone around her (including Steiger, who, at one point irritably answers his secretary via intercom, THEN pushes the talk button), Alexandra proves to be a fairly good comedic actress.

Of course, it doesn't hurt to see her simulating a blow job almost right out of the gate, then posing sans bra with her perky breasts in a deliciously tight wet tank top, before heading off to South America where her undercover 'disguise' includes high heels and dresses split up both sides to her ass. We're even treated to a nice shot of her cute little piggies picking up a letter opener and killing one bad guy with a single stab to the liver while he has her arms pinned to the ground.

The plot (in case you care) involves Steiger working as a ruthless talent agent who moonlights as a drug dealer, smuggling high-octane heroin into the states via boob jobs on his unsuspecting clients. Checkers, of course, has to tape her tits down while auditioning for a dance troupe so that Steiger will see her as a likely candidate to be one of his 'mules'.

Even though in real life Alexandra claims to be the only female ever personally trained by Bruce Lee, the action seems a bit hard to believe and the fight scenes are more comedic than tense, but she manages to take no prisoners throughout, killing one of Steiger's hired goons (played by pro wrestler Professor Toru Tanaka) by pushing his head into a pointed wooden shelf rack.

As she's being driven by Steiger through the countryside to his 'secret medical clinic' to get her surgery, her partner and local law enforcement are following ridiculously close behind by car and hovering directly overhead in a large helicopter, yet they still manage to catch the entire heavily-armed security force at the gated compound by surprise.

Every bullet fired by the good guys hits its mark and kills instantly while the bad guys waste round after round shooting into the ground. Steiger's character eventually gets his comeuppance and Checkers and partner become boyfriend and girlfriend, finally kissing just before the closing credits run.

Alexandra went on to produce and direct a well-reviewed documentary about her life called 'From Hollywood To Hanoi', which was released in 1993. Silliphant died in 1996 and Steiger managed to live until 2002.

One Final Note:

F.Y.I...For all of you folks out there who've come by the site to look for news on Ama Daetz, here's the scoop: The young lovely with the big dark eyes and dazzling smile is still working the local news weekend shifts at WDIV out of Detroit, apparently squeezed out of her weekday morning slot by Rhonda Walker.

If you have to see the news, I recommend watching Ama. Most of the time I get so caught up in just watching her lips move that I don't even remember what bad stuff she's talking about, and believe me, that's a blessing.