We have so many channels at our disposal now, choosing what to watch can be a dizzying, anxious and frustrating nightmare. Just one touch of a button can take the viewer to so many different places. However, it often feels like there’s never anything good to watch. Turn the clock back to the 1980s, and whilst there was much less choice on Cable TV, there was still the urge to channel-hop. And late-night television seemed to have a life of its own. Amazon Women on the Moon is a portmanteau film which pokes fun at such nocturnal offerings.
WIDB-TV (channel 8) is showing 1950s sci-fi ‘B’ movie Amazon Women on the Moon as its late-night film. Whilst Captain Nelson (Steve Forrest) and Queen Lara (Sybil Danning) battle space monsters, the TV studio is having trouble keeping the show on the air. During these breaks, an unseen viewer jumps between the offerings available on other channels. These range from banal commercials to niche shows and old films.
Whilst Amazon Women on the Moon is a comedy anthology, it feels more like a series of sketches vying for time around the central feature. Featuring film stars (including Michelle Pfeiffer, Steve Guttenberg, Rosanna Arquette), television actors and a hodgepodge of other performers, it is hit and miss and does represent the humour of the time. Amazon Women on the Moon is created by five different directors (Joe Dante, John Landis, Robert K. Weiss, Carl Gottlieb and Peter Horton) with the skit by talk show host Arsenio Hall being the standout sequence.
Extras:
- We’re Gonna Need Bigger Skits: An Interview with Carl Gottlieb
- Cinematographer on the Moon: An Interview with Daniel Pearl
- Audio Commentary with Mondo Digital’s Nathaniel Thompson
- Booklet: Includes new interviews with composer Ira Newborn and Sybil Danning
- Picture Gallery
- Trailers
- Six Cut Scenes
- Bloopers
Amazon Women on the Moon is released on DVD & Blu-Ray by 101 Films on 2nd April.
