July 24, 1996
SKYSCRAPER is a DTV movie that nobody would’ve missed if I’d skipped it in this retrospective. But it’s DIE HARD in a building, starring Anna Nicole Smith, and I hadn’t seen it, so I thought I felt I had a responsibility.
Smith had been Playboy Playmate of the Year in 1993, but most of us knew about her because in 1994 she married 89-year-old petroleum billionaire J. Howard Marshall, who died the following year. She wasn’t named in his will and had to go all the way to the Supreme Court failing to get the half of the estate she said he’d promised her, but the world had opinions about what was going on there. (A deeper and truer love than most will ever know.)
Smith got into movies with bit parts in THE HUDSUCKER PROXY and NAKED GUN 33 1/3 (both 1994), which would remain the jewels of her filmography. But SKYSCRAPER wasn’t her first starring role, or even her first action role – PM Entertainment and director Raymond Martino had already used her in TO THE LIMIT (1995). Maybe that’s why she seems a little more comfortable in this role than I expected. Just a little, though. (read the rest of this shit…)
RIOT (1996) is a Gary Daniels movie from director Joseph Merhi (L.A. CRACKDOWN, L.A. HEAT, L.A. VICE) that I decided to watch now because I heard it takes place on Christmas Eve. Daniels (between HAWK’S VENGEANCE and POCKET NINJAS) stars as Major Shane Alcott, an S.A.S. guy who brings his many karate tournament trophies with him to America, where he’s working with his friend Major Williams (Sugar Ray Leonard in his feature film acting debut) to train American soldiers.
GUARDIAN ANGEL is a 1994 Cynthia Rothrock joint from PM Entertainment, directed by Richard W. Munchkin (RING OF FIRE) and written by Joe Hart (REPO JAKE, 
