Machete Kills plays like a late Roger-Moore era Bond film — and not just because there’s a lot of visual cues and ideas taken from Moonraker — the action and the humor are constantly fighting for dominance, and the humor, regardless of whether it’s appropriate or not, makes sense within the context of the scene or not, hell, is funny or not, usually wins out. Though, to be fair, the plot of Machete Kills is a lot easier to follow than the plot of Octopussy.

Machete (Danny Trejo), in case you didn’t see the first film…or the trailer on which it was based, is an ex-Federale-turned-spy-or-something-like-that-but-all-around-badass, seemingly indestructible and legendary throughout Mexico. His latest “case” has him busting up a gun-running ring, apparently sponsored by the U.S. Army, and distributed to the Mexican cartel. Gun fights, explosions, dramatic standoff music, and hell ensues. Machete is somehow the only survivor when the cops show up, and by the next scene we’re in the local sheriff’s office and Machete is swinging from the ceiling with a noose around his neck. And then the President calls.

And the President is…Charlie Sheen. Naturally. He needs Machete to hunt down and kill Mendez (Damian Bichir), a nutty terrorist with a vendetta against the cartel who’s moved on to threatening the U.S. with a nuclear device. The catch is that once Machete finds him, Mendez reveals that the trigger for the bomb is tied to his heartbeat, so once he dies, boom. And he’s also put a hit out on himself that everyone in Mexico is trying to cash in on.

This week’s Monday Pick comes to us from the wonderful world of the king of Independent cinema, Mr. Roger Corman, who produced the low-budget version of Jaws, and that movie was the Joe Dante classic Piranha (1978). Cashing in on the “animals run amok” craze of the late 1970s, Dante and screenwriters John Sayles and Richard Robinson crafted a truly unique horror film that quickly gained a huge cult following.

The film centers around a young woman named Maggie McKeown (Heather Menzies) who is hired to find two missing teenagers who were hiking in the vicinity of Lost River Lake. Maggie enlists the help of a backwoods drunk named Paul Grogan (Bradford Dillman) to be her guide and to help her find the two missing teens. Paul and Maggie’s search brings them to an abandoned military installation with a giant pool filled with salt water. Maggie and Paul enter the facility and find a series of mutant specimens and preserved experiments. Maggie finds the master control in order to drain the pool and see whether or not the teens possibly drowned. Maggie pulls the lever and is suddenly attacked by the facility’s caretaker who is knocked unconscious, as he was trying to stop the pool from draining.

Maggie and Grogan take the man back to Grogan’s cabin where he has sustained further injuries after he crashed Maggie’s jeep in an attempt to flee. The man is tied down to a bed and is frantic when he awakens and learns that the pool had been drained. Grogan decides to take the injured man down river in a homemade raft. As the three trek down river, the man introduces himself as Dr. Robert Hoak (played by Dante alumni Kevin McCarthy) a military scientist who explains that the pool was filled with genetically engineered piranhas for a project codenamed Operation: Razorteeth, a plan which was to introduce the deadly strain of fish that could survive in the coldwater river systems of North Vietnam.

This week’s pick is the 1979 Roger Corman cult classic Rock ‘N’ Roll High School which features the legendary NYC punk rock band The Ramones in their first ever feature film. Corman alumni Allan Arkush who began his career with Roger Corman’s New World Pictures in the mid 1970s directed the film. Corman’s company helped launch numerous careers for many directors like Joe Dante, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovitch, Jonathan Demme, Ron Howard and the Zucker brothers.

P.J. Soles stars as Riff Randall, a rebellious teenager who challenges the authority of Vince Lombardi High School’s newest principle, Evelyn Togar (Mary Woronov) who rules over the school with an overwhelming hatred of rock ‘n’ roll music and will stop at nothing to keep it from disrupting the students. When Riff learns that The Ramones are coming to town to play a concert, she plans to get backstage and deliver to Joey Ramone a song she wrote titled “Rock ‘N’ Roll High School”.

Soon after learning that many of the school’s students will be attending the concert, principal Togar confiscates Riff and her best friend Kate’s tickets thwarting any attempt Riff has at getting her song to The Ramones. At the same time, High school jock Tom Roberts (played by tennis player turned actor Vince Van Patten) hires the school’s business guru Eaglebauer (Clint Howard) to be his dating consultant in an attempt to get a date with Riff Randall.

If you love old B-movies, you can’t miss Shout Factory’s line of “Roger Corman’s Cult Classics” DVD collections. Horror, fantasy, science fiction, grindhouse- all are represented in these neat 3- and 4-film multi-packs.

The Vampires, Mummies, and Monsters collection is kind of a B-movie potluck. The four films on two discs created over a span of 17 years have incredibly different looks, tones, and yes, monsters.

Once upon a time, the state of cinemas was a gritty, hilarious, violent place filled with guns, big boobs, and every kind of animal wanting to kill and/or eat your flesh. These days, everything is dumbed down to the least common denominator, but with an homage to some of those classic film genres.

Now, you can get to see exactly what that world was like with a brand new documentary delving into the eclectic mind of cinematic legend Roger Corman in Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel. Here’s the premise.

CORMAN’S WORLD: EXPLOITS OF A HOLLYWOOD REBEL is a tantalizing and star-studded tribute to Roger Corman, Hollywood’s most prolific writer-director producer, and seminal influencing force in modern moviemaking over the last 60 years. Featuring interviews with Hollywood icons and cinematic luminaries, some who launched their careers within Corman’s unforgettable world of filmmaking, including Paul W.S. Anderson, Peter Bogdanovich, Robert De Niro, Peter Fonda, Pam Grier, Ron Howard, Eli Roth, Martin Scorsese, William Shatner and Jack Nicholson, along with many others, this documentary chronicles how Corman created his cult film empire, one low-budget success at a time, capitalizing on undiscovered talent, and pushing the boundaries of independent filmmaking.

The film is set to hit select theaters on December 16th, but you can check out the very first trailer for it after the jump.