As our Pride series continues we drop the first 99 Cent Rental episode looking at the extremely complicated history of William Friedkin's gay leather giallo Americano, Cruising (1980), starring Al Pacino. Dave's research and history expertise about this period of urban gay culture comes in handy as we contrast Friedkin's attempt to provoke and shock against the reality of gay night life at leather bars, BDSM bars, and the cruising scene in the days before apps and the internet made casual encounters in the park obsolete.

We also look at the organized movements to protest Cruising and convince theaters not to show the movie, explore whether or not Friedkin was exploiting the gay BDSM scene for cheap shocks, and whether or not this is a good movie. Did Cruising do more harm than good? Does it get anything right? The answer, as always, is: it's complicated.

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This week we're going down under for a look at the 1989 post-apocalypse sports movie, Blood of Heroes starring Rutger Hauer and Joan Chen. Also known as Salute of the Jugger, it's a late entry into the Maxploitation wave of the 80's but rather than being the usual quest for water or women, it's an underdog story about a team of misfits who play a violent future sport involving a dog's skull instead of a ball. What's a jugger? Don't worry about it, baby! Will they climb the ranks out of their place beating up on village and peasant teams? Will they make it to the big city and win it all when they face the pros? Probably. I mean, it's a sports movie at heart and that's what usually happens in those movies.

Blood of Heroes sports a significantly better cast than you're probably expecting with Hauer, Chen, Vincent D'Onofrio, and Delroy Lindo all slumming it. The production is also executed by a surprising cohort of filmmakers who we have to thank for the original Mad Max movies which explains why it's so competently made and looks so authentically post-apocalyptic from the people who brought us the subgenre in the first place.

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This week Bryan and Dave take a trip down south to Orlando, Florida for a look at the utterly baffling but thoroughly charming martial arts movie from Grandmaster YK Kim, Miami Connection. This one's got it all. You get a rock and roll band that's also a bunch of taekwondo black belt vigilantes, a scummy gang of coke dealin' rednecks, ninjas on motorcycles, and a battle of the band that is a little more literal than you might be expecting. Along the way you'll learn a thing or two about how great taekwondo is and the power of friendship and family.

Utterly trashed upon release and rejected by nearly every distributor that saw it, Miami Connection nearly ruined YK Kim but his sheer force of personality saw it through and the good folks at AGFA and The Alamo Drafthouse in Austin saw a sincerity in it that its contemporaries utterly lacked. It's because of this that Miami Connection roared back into life and lives comfortably in the hearts of all who see it. We love it so much that Grandmaster Kim graces our own podcast art.

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