aka the death of Anthony
***** = worst
= worst
***** = worst
= worst
The Ice Pirates-
½
What a cheesy, cheesy movie!! Here's the run-down: the "Ice Pirates," a rag-tag group led by Robert Urich, who had apparently not paid his "acting dues" yet, searches the universe for precious and scarce water (which had "dried up" everywhere in the universe for some reason), and the fabled "7th world," which turns out to be, you guessed it, the Earth. This movie was so bad, it was SPACE bad!
A lot of geetish things happen in this film that made NO sense.
On a related note, the special effects in Ice Pirates were so bad that at parts, the director just seemed to give up! For instance, on this one planet that happens to be inhabited by women who ride unicorns, the Pirates are captured but manage to behead the (gay) android leader, and carry his head with them for protection. Anyway, there was one scene that called for the head to speak while being held up in the air. Instead of blue screen, or cleverly using mirrors for the effect, the director thought that making actor wear a light-colored shirt and leaning off from out of camera range, exposing part of his shoulder and neck, would suffice.
This film was truly terrible. But man, was it ever hilarious!! Highlight- The "Space Herpes." Spawned from a large egg aboard a ship (in plain sight on the bridge of the ship, no less!), this vicious and gooey critter "attacked" an Ice Pirate who had dozed off, and likes to burrow into the crew's food before it is served, so it can pop out and gross everyone out before scurrying across the floor and hiding. How did the egg get there? Who cares?! The Space Herpes is one of the funniest things I have ever seen, and certainly a great inside joke! ***½
Tom- my comments coming soon.
Killer Klowns from Outer Space-
½
This film was so bad that the producer couldn't even afford to run the title of the movie through spellcheck.
The story starts out at the small town's "Top of the World" make-out hotspot, where we meet our characters, Mike and Debbie, lying on a yellow rubber raft in the back of a 4x4 watching the stars, when all of the sudden, a horribly superimposed object streaks across the night sky and crashes nearby. Thanks to Debby's superior reasoning powers and astounding insight, we ascertain that this object has, in fact, landed LESS than Mike's clearly erroneous estimate of one thousand miles away. As the lovebirds head towards the crash site, a farmer and his dog, "Pooh Bear," decide to do some exploring of their own, thinking the object to be the "Haley's Comet." But what they actually find, of course, is the Killer Klowns' spacecraft, which appears to be a circus tent (in the middle of the woods) to the naked eye.
Debbie: "I don't believe in UFOs, but if they do exist, then, then we're trapped in one right now!" Whoa!! Slow down Einstein!
From this point on, the movie is packed with deranged "Klowns" armed with guns that shoot popcorn and/or guns that transform people into pink cotton candy cocoons. We also learn that Killer Klown popcorn kernels combine to form pint-sized mutant clown heads on stalks and that Killer Klown hand shadow puppets can devour people whole. Perhaps the most important lesson learned from the movie is that "Killer Klowns from Space" can be killed by popping their big red clown noses.
In the grand finale, Dave the cop, faces off against the Killer Klown Boss, who is actually a giant geetish puppet, while the "spinning top spaceship" is taking off. Dave manages to pop the evil monster's nose, which for some bizarre reason causes not only the Klown, but the ENTIRE SPACESHIP to explode! As the spaceship explodes like 4th of July fireworks in the sky, Dave miraculously lands on the ground unscathed, save the partially unbuttoned and very slightly dirty shirt. And as is true in so many B-movies we've seen, the hair remains perfectly intact (a la Flash Gordon).
Highlights: 1) Officer Moonie, the stereotypical "bad cop," who has a tendency to make fun of people who call the police station to report crimes committed by the Killer Klowns. 2) The brothers who drive the Clown Ice Cream truck and take a liking to the female Killer Klowns. Sadly, these two igits survive their truck's explosion at the hands of the Klown boss. This movie was saturated with geetishness, and I proudly bestow upon "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" a badness rating of ***½.
½ Give John Travolta a round of applause, everybody! He singlehandedly brought the big-budget B-movie rental into the 21st century!
Battlefield Earth is your typical post-apocalyptic, humans-fought-technologically-superior-aliens-for-the-control-of-Earth-but-lost- and-are-forced-to-regress-into-a-primitive-caveman-society-or-become-slaves genre movie. In the movie, based on a book by L. Ron Hubbard (whose "Scientology" Travolta is a devout member of) the "rebel caveman hero guy," is captured by the towering and big-headed aliens called, and I'm not making this up, "PSYCLOS," and subjected to an alien learning device that shoots information into the eyes (and presumably the brain) of the learner, thus becoming almost instantly well-versed in mathematics, science, and among other things, the Psyclo dialect. He then uses this information and the gained trust of his captors to incite a human revolt against the oppressors and save the planet.
With that said, this movie REALLY isn't as cool as it sounds, not that it sounds particularly cool in the first place. Anthony (a film student) pointed out how most of the shots in this film were shot in "Dutch angle," meaning the camera was tilted down slightly to the left or to the right. In other words, watching this movie was REALLY ANNOYING! We actually counted the shots that were NOT Dutch angled, and only came up with about 6.
The special effects were not good. In Battlefield Earth, a sci-fi movie that relies HEAVILY on the believablity of the movie's settings and special effects, all credibility was thrown out the window within the opening minutes of the film. And it just went downhill from there. The acting is this movie is laughable. John Travolta was terrible with a capital "T." This has GOT to be his poorest movie performance ever, or at least that I'm aware of.
The script was tiresome and clichèd and the unfathomable depths of the Psyclos arrogant stupidity combined with the fact that the cavemen were expertly piloting sophisticated fighter jets and operating nuclear weapons with ease after mere weeks of "training" simply boggles the mind. Also noteworthy is the fact that said human technology was 1000 years old, but astoundingly remained in pristine condition.
Highlight- After the Pysclos (John Travolta and sidekick Forest Whitaker) observe (through hidden "clothes cams" cunningly planted on some humans) that humans eat rats, he tries to ram a barely dead rat down a guy's throat exclaiming "Do you want lunch?!" Trust me, it's very funny!
Battlefield Earth earns a respectably bad ***½.
The Killer Eye-
This straight-to-video movie was like taking a kick in the face; you just knew it was going to hurt.
And hurt it did, my friends!
The plot is loosely thus: a mad scientist opens a gate to the tenth dimension while doing an experiment on a random street kid in his apartment/studio/mad scientist lab. The kid looks at the tenth dimension through a microscope with his eye, killing the kid but making his eye a gigantic mutated eye creature complete with tentacles, which proceeds to wander the building in search of "energy" and young women.
Yes, that's right. Young women.
Anyway, we later find out that the creature is sensitive to, what else, concentrated light, so the surviving building dwellers, who are all very geetish, manage to drive the abomination back to its 10th dimension home.
The special effects were just barely a notch above Troma films and the Killer Eye had a cheesy Radio Shack style "lightning ball effect" in its retina, presumably to hypnotize victims, but mostly to showcase what must have been 80% of the production budget.
Highlight- The 10th dimension looked like a colored pencil drawing of pyramids and geetish eye-people. Words cannot express how truly funny this is. Tom, Anthony, Chang and I were rolling with laughter. The movie was short and terrible, but the ending made it worthwhile.
"The Killer Eye," with it's low budget and B-movie acting wraps its tentacle around an even ****.
Legally Blonde-
½ Just for the record, none of the guys actually rented this DVD, but it was there and came highly (or should I say "lowly") recommended, so we watched it.
Plot: boy-dumps-valley girl, girl-follows-boy-to-Harvard, boy-already-has-fiancè, fiancè-taunts-valley girl, valley girl-vows-to-be-real-lawyer, valley girl-wins-big-court-case, boy-crawls-back-to-valley girl, boy-gets-denied, valley girl-becomes-valedictorian, movie-FINALLY-ends.
This movie was dumb, but not B-movie dumb. There were no special effects to criticize and the acting was intended to be bad, so there's really not much to say.
Highlight-UPS guy hitting on white trash lady at nail salon during "package" deliveries.
"Legally Blonde" gets a score of **½.
Three Ninjas- High Noon at Mega Mountain-
Here's a movie with: Hulk Hogan, 3 boy ninjas, and a hacker girl vs. Loni Anderson, Jim Varney, and 198,245 incompetent "ninjas," what more could you ask for?
This movie was completely stupid, but let me attempt to summarize.. The 3 ninjas, a.k.a. 3 little boys who would actually pose NO threat in real life, fresh out of ninja summer camp training by their "Grampa" (Mr. Miyagi from "Karate Kid"), go to the "Mega Mountain" theme park to relax with their annoying friends and new mysterious hacker-girl neighbor. Evil tidings are afoot, however, and sinister black-clothed terrorists (Loni Anderson, Jim Varney, and a bajillion ninjas) infiltrate and take control of the theme park, holding hostage its unwitting populace for a cool $10 million. Little do they know that inside the park are the incredibly 80's, pain-inflicting ninja kids and a television action hero (Hulk Hogan), who happens to be the master of the closed-fisted punch (as opposed to?). Wacky ninja shenanigans ensue and the bad guys are eventually beaten.
Right out front, let me point out that this movie is PG, and as such, no blood was visibly shed, nor did anyone suffer more than a minor concussion. So, the first victim of this movie was any semblance of reality. Secondly, the special effects were just degrading. It was almost as if the producers said, "Special effects budget? It's a kid movie for crying out loud! Here's 2 bottle rockets and a small trampoline, now go make a movie!"
All of the clichèd "little guy versus big guy" slapstick martial arts moves were rehashed shamelessly. Irritating 80's quips invariably followed EVERY bad guy that the ninja boys defeated. The fighting ineptitude of the terrorists was staggering, but not staggering enough to be entertaining.
Oh yeah, and the middle ninja kid had a HUGE mullet and big donkey teeth. Very funny stuff.
Hulk Hogan's character did not have enough screentime to do anything really interesting. He did manage to taunt the terrorists after he was captured, which was almost funny, however.
Highlight - In the final showdown between the 3 unarmed kid ninjas and the infinite katana-wielding bad guy ninjas, Medusa decides instead of shooting the menacing kids with her machine gun, to shoot out all the lights in the huge factory setting in which they are fighting. All of the well-equipped ninjas pull out their bulky night vision goggles (which they were keeping where exactly?!) while the kids must learn to overcome their fears of fighting blind. All of this would be fine and dandy IF THE LIGHTS WERE ACTUALLY OUT, but they're NOT! There's plenty of light! In fact, the three ninjas have more than enough light to look at a photograph inside Grampa's pocketwatch, which proceeds to dispense non-sensical advice! And then they have enough light to find their hacker neighbor handcuffed to a pole next to a bomb. Then, they have enough light to take the bomb into the sewer, duct-tape it to three oxygen tanks and send it out of the park and into the bad guy ship in the harbor, saving the day.
"Three Ninjas-High Noon at Mega Mountain," with its haphazard plot, child acting, and oh-so-lame special effects kicks it up a notch to ***.
Urban Menace-
½ James really picked a winner. Enough said.
This geetish "straight-to-TV" video (that's B-movie clue No. 1) starts off with a disclaimer by Ice-T warning that if blood, guts, and profanity offends you, then this movie isn't for you. Only he said it with a lot of anger and swearing. What he neglects to warn the viewer about, however, is HOW MUCH THIS FILM STINKS!!
There is VERY little plot in this movie, but here goes: Guy wants to quit organized crime and a crooked cop wants him to do one last job to bring down the gang leader(s). He reluctantly agrees to do so for the safety of his family, and in the process, the crime bosses named "Fat Joe" and "Big Pun" send him and two other geets out to stop the guy who's been cleaning up the streets by killing off all the bad guys in the neighborhood. Anyway they go to his abandoned warehouse/factory lair and discover that the mysterious avenger is none other than an ex-preacher character (Snoop Dog) with a knife. Snoop Dog spares the protagonist guy and his wife but goes ballistic on everyone else, including the WHOLE crime syndicate and the crooked cop. The end.
First of all, the quality of the camera work was shoddy. It looked more like an "America's Most Wanted" re-enactment than a movie. The film was processed to make all of the colors strange, light hues, probably just to mask how BAD this film is.
There were only four or five scenes with special effects in them. And the two very brief "stealing people's souls and sending them into a purple vortex" special effects scenes were terrible and at all not horrific. The gratuitous stabbing and shooting in this movie was very geetish and not realistic at all. Even worse was the fact that only one guy and one girl IN THE WHOLE MOVIE could even act! Everyone else in the film was either a gangsta rapper or an extra whose job it was to stand around with sunglasses on and try to look menacing at the crime headquarters place, which, by the way, looked like nothing more than a stage with curtains.
This movie was not low budget, it was NO budget. You'd think with names like Snoop Dogg and Ice-T, the producers would put more than 64 dollars and one day's effort into this film.
The acting was horrible, the plot was nearly nonexistent (90% of the movie takes place in the warehouse looking for Snoop), the directing was lame, the soundtrack (mostly Ice-T) was repetitive, the "horror" factor was simply not there, the movies intro seemed longer than the movie itself, and the effects were very, very weak. This movie ranks way up there with the film fest classics, "Disciples of Death" and "Manos," only this movie had bigger names, making it more "pathetic funny" than "B-movie funny." I mean, I seriously could have made a better movie with my camcorder. And sadly no, that's not a joke.
Highlight- The unintelligable crime bosses (Fat Joe, Big Pun) who stared into the camera, not even TRYING to mask the fact that they are reading their lines from cue cards. NO ONE COULD UNDERSTAND what one of the boss guys was saying! His diction could not be deciphered by anyone in attendance! And the really sad thing was the fact that their speaking was UNINTENTIONALLY bad!
"Urban Menace" pulls out its gat, pops some slugs in the face of fine cinema, and picks up a whopping ****½.
I'm Gonna Git You Sucka-
In this movie, I learned that "O.G." means "over-gold," as in death by wearing too many gold chains. But wait, it "gits" worse...
First off, Keenen Ivory Wayans stars and directs this film. So it came as no surprise to us that the movie turned out to be a comedy. In addition to pretty much the ENTIRE Wayans clan, this flick also starred Isaac Hayes, Jim Brown, and a young Chris Rock. Basically this movie spoofed the 70's Shaft-esque genre action film.
In it, Keenen plays Jack, a highly decorated Army officer returning home from service. This would be impressive if his medals were earned for combat, but instead we learn that Jack was actually an Army secretary, decorated for exceptional achievements in such fields as: shorthand, darts, and.... surfing? Anyway, to avenge his brother's murder, Jack enlists the help of retired crime fighting veteran, John Slade, who enlists the help of some other barons, all in an attempt to take down Mr. Big's crime syndicate.
There are a few very funny moments in this film, such as "Kung Fu Joe's" Bruce Lee assault on what had to be the city's entire police force. You see, after Joe takes out the two crooked cops that tried to frame him for drug possession, all these police cars show up from out of the blue, at which point the officers get out and point their guns at Kung Fu Joe. Now, you would expect Joe to give up against such overwhelming odds, but no, that would make the movie too un-geetish! Instead Joe laughs at the surrounding cops and prepares for a fight. What he GETS however, is a barrage of gunfire!! Later on, we see that Joe had AMAZINGLY SURVIVED (although tattered and bloodied), as he tries to warn his comrades of a setup.
Highlight- Jack's over-protective Mom bursts into the local diner where Jack is about to fight two of Mr. Big's goons and she proceeds to make quick work of the two men. What makes this scene so hilarious is that throughout the whole fight, it is blatantly and intentionally obvious that the one doing the fighting was actually the STUNT DOUBLE of Jack's Mom! I mean, it's a white guy wearing a dress and a lame afro wig, for crying out loud!! Then, after the fight, the camera cuts to Jack's mom brushing herself off and straightening her hair like she had just been whooping some serious butt! Classic.
"I'm Gonna Git You Sucka" balanced a healthy dose of humor with an "English Butt-Ton" (don't ask) of geetism and earns a respectable ***.
Can't Stop the Music-
Question: What do you get when you make a musical/comedy starring The Village People and Steve Guttenburg? Answer: A really, really, really gay movie.
I opt to rename the movie, "Can't Stop the Music, but MAN, Do Wish I Could!"
The movie follows the rollerskating, overly happy, highly caffeinated, over-acting, and progressively gay DJ Steve Guttenburg as he tries to make it in the music business as the "composer" of the 70's Disco group, "The Village People." This film is so bad in SO many ways that I found myself fitfully struggling to find the will to go on watching and not fall into a terminal coma.
It just so happens that our DJ protagonist is friends with an ex-model, who uses her strangely convenient network of connections (including, but not limited to: a tax lawyer, a major record company president, a choreographer?, and a bunch of singing gay men) and her sex appeal to land the group a record deal. But what happens between point A (group formation) and point B (record deal), is a perplexing and EXCRUCIATINGLY LONG series of bizarre events, such as the group starring in a three minute milk commercial, complete with Broadway dancers dressed in white and a COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY trip to the "YMCA" (more like a US men's gymnastics training facility), in which the poor viewer is forced to endure what HAS to be one of the most horrible "music videos" (this movie was pre-MTV) ever created.
Highlight- At the Village People "try-outs," a leather-clad biker complete with a biker mustache "accidentally" walks into the audition, thinking it was a tax claims office, apparently oblivious to the scads of very gay men dressed in wacky attire all talking and drinking. When told that this was actually a try-out for singers, he exclaims something lame like, "You ain't heard nothin' yet!" He then proceeds to stand atop a piano, cue the piano player, and sing a soulful, heartfelt rendition of "Danny Boy." Run-of-the-mill tax-filing biker indeed!
"Can't Stop the Gayness...I mean Music" stank. Badly. I give it ****.
Dead Alive-
½ This is BY FAR the hardest movie I've had to rate in that on the one hand, it's an extremely gory horror flick with ample comedy and questionable acting, but on the other hand, this movie is UNBELIEVABLY AWESOME!!!
Dead Alive is a cult horror classic (like Evil Dead 2) that boasts a seamless combination of horror, gore, and non-stop hilarity. If you haven't seen this movie, you owe it to yourself to check it out. That is, if the superlative GORIEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME doesn't scare you off!
The basic plot of this movie is thus: a widely-feared (as well as hilariously stop-animated) "rat monkey," infected with some supernatural disease which makes the bitten victim a decaying zombie, has been caught and put in the town's zoo. Our sheepish hero Lionel goes on a date with love interest Paquita to (where else?) the zoo, when his nagging mother, who had been spying disapprovingly on the couple, is bitten by the rat monkey. Lionel's mother falls ill, and within days has become a full-fledged, mindless zombie. Not having the heart to "kill" his already dead mother, Lionel sticks her in the basement.
As luck would have it though, Lionel's mom busts out of the house and goes on a rampage, creating more zombies. Wacky zombie shenanigans abound! Then, Lionel rounds up the zombies, tranquilizes them, and ties them up in the basement. To Paquita and much of the rest of town, Lionel is ostensibly a disheveled, unshaven, sleep-deprived wreck.
The grand finale takes place at a party at Lionel's house, which is now Lionel's uncle's house (his uncle blackmailed him for the deed), when Lionel accidentally injects animal stimulant into the zombies (instead of poison), and, well, you can probably guess what happens next. This is when 90% of the gore (and probably the budget) of the movie is unleashed and the result is more blood, guts, zombie mayhem, killer entrails that fart, fires, explosions, and lawnmower hacking than you've ever seen, period. What a great movie!!
Highlight - Even though there were a LOT of amazing parts in the movie (e.g. Lionel taking the mischievous zombie baby for a stroll in the park), my favorite scene was that of kung fu master and Catholic priest, Father McGruder delivering some serious pain to the zombies who had surrounded Lionel in a cemetery. It just doesn't get any more classic than when a priest says, "Stay back boy, this calls for divine intervention!" then jumps to the ground, beats up a few zombies, and pauses for dramatic effect as he exclaims--accompanied by organ music-- "I kick a** for the Lord!!"
FYI: Peter Jackson (of Lord of the Rings fame) directed this movie. Since Dead Alive was far more entertaining than bad, I give it *½.
America 3000-
½ Through movie-magic technology, we journey 1000 years into the post-apocalyptic future, only to find that the future looks EXACTLY like a bad movie made in the 1980s!
After watching the glorious Dead Alive, this futuristic comedy(?) was a real downer. The plot is roughly as follows: Some time after the nuclear apocalypse, we find that human civilization has been reduced to a few primitive tribes. There is the matriarchal dominant tribe, which consists of dozens of women with 80's perms, blindingly white teeth, and angularly-applied mascara, and there is rebel men tribe, a bunch of lumbering morons. Everyone speaks perfect English, even though the only book to be found in the movie is an ABC book which the hero, Korvis (played by Chuck Wagner), struggles greatly with to read. So anyway, the Amazon warrior women have enslaved men into labor and breeding camps and believe that all men are inferior and stupid, which, in this movie, is not too far from the truth.
One day Korvis literally stumbles into an underground bunker complete with sparkly gold radiation suits, guns and grenades, and...(*sighs*)...a boombox. And yes, the boombox had an 80s rock tape in it. So, to quickly wrap things up, the dumb men use their newly-discovered technology to bring peace and equality to humankind.
This movie suffers many of the same post-apocalyptic logic flaws Battlefield Earth did, but whatever. There is only a little actual action in this movie, which is too bad since the watered-down violence in this movie is WAY more laughable than the comedy. And if you think that despite how awful this movie may be, it might still have redeeming philosophical undertones, let me be the first to rid you of that ridiculous notion! You will find it quite difficult to try to contemplate sociological themes of gender equality and the feasibility of a truly matriarchal society, when everyone in the movie keeps using irritating "slang" like, "that's cold plastic," "gettin' all loose and waggoed," and "scan this!" This movie gives me a headache just thinking about it. Nice find, Tom!
Highlight - the warrior women had this big, hairy bigfoot-like creature (a la Harry and the Hendersons) kept in a cage within their village. When the rebel men raided their village to release their slaves, they inadvertently free this creature, who is actually pretty harmless and follows the men around while being annoying. At the end of the movie when a truce is called between the sexes, the bigfoot appears with the 80s-music-blasting boombox on his shoulder and then leaps into the air, at which point the frame freezes and the credits start to roll. It couldn't be more 80s if it TRIED!
This movie was pretty cold plastic, so I'm going to go waggo and scan it a ***½.
Unclassified
These films aren't technically "movies" and only some of us have seen them, but they are so bad that they demand negative attention.
This "documentary," hosted by some old has-been folk musician guy with a shiny, new red convertible (a striking contrast to the rustic settings and gravel roads in the film), did a fantastic job of not talking about the actual backroads themselves. Rather, we got firsthand tours of peach fields and some up-close and personal interviews with very old people who are frighteningly out of touch with modern life. At first, Evan, Colin Mee, and I were having a great time making fun of "Georgia Backroads," but as time progressed and the realization set in the the host was never going to talk about the actual backroads of Georgia, the novelty of "documentary bashing" had very much lost its appeal. Highlight- making fun of the fact that the roads boasted in the documentary's title were rarely seen and never talked about. ***
Evan: Further proof that my uncle is the most boring person in the world. He ordered this video for completely serious purposes. Then, after I stole it from the mailbox, he ordered another one! This video had surprisingly little to do with backroads themselves though. It's more or less a history lessen with interviews from old people talking about backroads. Our host for this is Larry Jon Wilson. He drives around in his camero, plays guitar and sings, and talks about peaches. But throughout the video, HE NEVER TALKS ABOUT THE DAMN BACKROADS! He doesn't care. If I'd paid for this I'd feel gipped. *****
More later..
Ratings and reviews are the expressed opinions of Raymond Rodriguez, Evan Athsma, and Tom Mucus (Jim). Bryan, Greg, Anthony, and Chang, please feel free to add on!!
