ROGER CORMAN and CHEESE part X: "Crime Zone" and Cheez-It Italian Four Cheese Pizza

The sort of convenience of the "B-Movie" is that you were stuck with it -- you'd paid your money, you had your seat (or parking spot), you'd already taken in the headline feature, and now it was time for the wild card. Cut to decades later and it's 12:05 am and you're watching HBO or USA or TNT and you're definitely in for the evening but don't plan on sleeping -- they had specific low budget exploitative programming for that scenario too. It's only when it came to physical media, and now streaming, that we were given the option to seek out and commit to these ham & cheese heroes spunky cinema. And it's only the purveyors and connoisseurs of the Fine Arts like you and us who know what to look for and where to find it. 

To describe a film as a "Roger Corman Movie" is actually a pretty broad descriptor; while they all have a lotta elements in common they fell under a pretty wide spectrum of genres (and subgenres, and sub-subgenres). Crime Zone from 1988 falls into the Bleak Urban Orwellian Future category - you know, where everything takes place in damp warehouses. It very much wants to be Blade Runner but really it shares a shelf with 1988's Space Mutiny; a futuristic police state where all the wacky laws are told to us through expository dialogue. Ultimately all that translates to is trench coats and concrete interiors with enough neon signs to make you think someone in the art department had a glass blowing studio in their apartment. The movie stars Sherilyn Fenn and Peter Nelson as an outlaw couple who decide to rage against the machine with the help of a morally ambiguous David Carradine. Big or small budget, this setup can be pretty tedious -- and Crime Zone is no exception. If anything this type of setting can usually allow room for some striking visuals, but the cheapness of the production is literally left in the dark - to the point that hardly anything is visible. Like a lotta Corman movies, it was "based on an idea" he had, and then no one really bothered to fill in the blanks. 

A lot can be said for new or crazy or exciting "ideas" but putting them into action in a competent way is where the magic happens. Elaine Benes one said "It'll be years before they find another place to hide more cheese on a pizza." Nearly three decades later and here we are, putting mozzarella, cheddar, parmesan, romano, and tomato sauce on a giant cheese cracker - but not just any cracker, a big ass Cheez-It! To be fair, it's just a Cheez-It-flavored crust -- and to be even more fair, it totally does taste like a Cheez-It. If you go into it blindly it might not be immediately recognizable under all the toppings, but if you're intellectually prepared it hits hard and fast. The trick it to cook it exactly long enough to make it as crispy as the cracker from which it derives... if that's what you're going for. This is a good opportunity to point out that the democracy of this series dictates that we're to determine a letter grade average for these subjects, and there was a sizable difference of opinion when it came to this pizza. But from any vantage point, if you want a pizza made from Cheez-Its, this is as real as it gets. 

The Movie: D+

The Pizza: C