Pompous Actors: 2/2

Dinosaurs: 3/10

"I'm a pretentious asshole, and I'll make this movie to prove it!"

Hi everyone, I know it’s been a little while, but I’m sure I have some good excuses.  Anyway, I feel that it is my duty to write this post as a warning to the good people who love movies, and to the idiots who run the Oscars.  It has come to my attention that for whatever reason, Tree Of Life is receiving an Oscar buzz, and this is unacceptable.  What follows will be my usual self-indulgent tripe about why the movie was ridiculous, but since the coherency of my posts reflect the coherency of the movie I’m reviewing, don’t expect to understand anything about this one.  I don’t even know where to begin, so I’ll start with something simple for all the simple people out there.

"I'll see your asshole, and raise my inflated sense of self-worth."

Tree Of Life is a movie that can best be described as “long and boring”.  At first it seems like a simple story about a son recollecting his childhood, but it quickly spirals in to a rough collage of visual garbage that attempts to tell a story through rich metaphor and pointless dialogue, much of which is just apologizing.  If I wanted to listen to Sean Penn apologize for 3 hours, I should have just confronted him after the premiere of this waste of film, I’m sure it would have been more entertaining.  The fact that actors such as Sean Penn and Brad Pitt (two actors with single syllable first and last names…I don’t trust that) headline here is a testament to how much one’s head must be up one’s ass to accept an “artistic creative choice” such as this.  For the record, an “artistic” movie is nothing more than a project by a failed creative writing student who thinks that if someone can see the crappy images in his/her head, then all of their shitty poetry will suddenly become understood.  Don’t believe me?

You never go full-dino, Sean Penn....

Interspliced throughout the film, which consists mainly of a childhood flashback where Brad Pitt is raising his 3 kids and living in the golden days of the United States, are a series of 15-20 minutes long CGI scenes.  These scenes cover the creation of the universe, evolution (you totally get to see some dinosaurs), the process of conception and incubation, and some other stuff that I didn’t really want/need to understand.  If you’re anything like the normal human being, you’ll begin to realize that these are either: 1) Some strange form of symbolism that your simple mind can’t comprehend, 2) a cruel joke by the director to test your resolve of staying in a movie once you’ve paid for it, or 3) the perfect opportunity to take a quick nap and not miss any important plot points.  I’m a napper myself, but I still have to believe that the director is also a complete douche.  He’s no M. Night Shyamalan, but damn it if he’s not trying.

This about sums up the movie, and how felt after watching it

If you can make it through all of the strange journeys through space and time, all of the awkward family situations that Brad Pitt creates by drinking and carrying on, and all of the confusing walking around that Sean Penn does whenever he is on screen, you are treated to a very special surprise:  Sean Penn walking around in a metaphorical lake with a bunch of people, including Brad Pitt (who plays his father…for those who haven’t gotten that yet).  You almost get the feeling that there is some sort of emotional catharsis occurring, but then you get the movie conclusion equivalent of blue balls, and everything ends leaving you pissed off, tired, confused, and really upset that your local theatre doesn’t warn you before they rape your eyes.  Shame on them, the studios, and any producer who put money in to this movie instead of helping to feed the poor and needy like me.

I like bad movies, and if you’ve ever been here before, you know that.  There is a difference, however, between bad and asinine, and I need no further proof of that than Tree Of Life.  From start to finish, it will do nothing more than make you feel like you should understand it but don’t, and since it can’t be understood, that’s pretty fucked up.  The acting is sub-par, the direction is confusing, the visuals are poorly produced, the dialogue is incomprehensible, the plot is fractured, and the overall tone is depressing and strange.  After watching this, I feel like I need to dress in black and read dark poetry about the hardships faced by a peach pit.  Do yourself and me a favor, and when the Oscars come around, tell your friends and neighbors that Tree Of Life deserves to be shunned and discarded.  Together, we can reach the Academy and make a difference (or at least find them and beat them up).

Thanks for stopping by, be on the lookout for my special Razzies post coming later this month.  Until next time, boys and girls, keep watching those bad movies, and I’ll keep forcing my political agenda in to your mind.

P.S.

Nobody wants to see you in artistic garbage, you hack. Stick to making soap and using funny accents.

Evil Turkey: 9/10

Football References: 7/10

Welcome one and all to my Thanksgiving Special!  If you’re anything like me, then you love a holiday that involves nothing more than eating and watching bad movies before you pass out on the couch and dream of banging super models in your solid gold mansion.  Sure, you have to deal with things like family, togetherness, and an obnoxious tradition of letting the world know what you’re thankful for, but when you can get past all of those unpleasantries, it’s just you and a bloated stomach, the way God (or Evolution, depending on how educated you are) intended.  The only better feeling is watching a greatly bad movie while you rub your exploding gut, and I have just the one-Thankskilling!

We begin our tale in the days of the pilgrims, where one unfortunate (and well-endowed) girl is being chased through the woods, only to be killed by our fowl-mouthed villain, Turkey!  Cut to the future, where a bunch of idiot kids are on a camping trip (as most killing sprees begin), and a campfire discussion turns into an informative session on the back story of said evil turkey.  Coincidentally, it just so happens to be 505 years since the turkey’s last death run, and the legend says that it will return this very year on this very day!  It should come as no shock that the legend is correct.

So happy and yet so doomed...

At this point in our story, you can start to take bets amongst your friends (or beautiful women you are in bed with) as to who dies first (there is no black guy for the easy first pick, sorry).  The deaths themselves are as funny as they are stupid, but nevertheless bitches gotta die.  We get to see Turkey wear faces like masks, burst from stomachs, bang whores, and use a wide variety of cutting tools, all while dropping cleverly profane catch phrase like “Nice tits, bitch” and “Surprise, mother fucker”.  Genius writing.  It seems that nothing can stop this demonic clucker, unless the kids happen to find a book that explains just that…in mathematical code…

Leave it up to the nerd to discover the turkey’s true weakness with the power of math!  All they need to do is chant a spell backwards in unison and then burn the turkey at the stake, which I’m surprised they didn’t try first.  They track the turkey back to his luxurious teepee, tie him up while he’s trying to enjoy a nice salad, and perform the chant to take away his invincibility.  Before they can put him on the fire, however, he gets shot in the face by a Ted Nugent look-alike and thrown in a tub of toxic waste (nothing bad can possibly happen).  The kids think they have won, but the turkey comes back for seconds, and it’s up to the sole-surviving girl to knock its poultry ass into the nearest convenient fire pit.  Don’t worry though, there’s always room for more, and I detect a sequel.

You look different somehow, Dad...

This movie is a pretty good example of how a low budget and poor script can create a terrible, albeit funny, chain of events.  The puppeteer for the turkey could easily be a 5 year-old child, and the turkey puppet itself looks like it was purchased straight from a cheap roadside costume stand.  The characters are as stereotypical as any I have seen (which adds to the movie’s excellence), and the overall plot is fairly predictable.  However, all of this makes for a great movie to watch with some drinks and some friends, and with a short run-time of 66 minutes, it can fit in to even the most hectic holiday schedule.  In short, I fully recommend this movie for the whole family, provided that your family shares a deep psychological trauma.  Around Thanksgiving, though, we all do.

A special thank you to Brittany for helping me get through this one, and for easily being the best looking companion on a bad movie quest I’ve ever had.  Thanks for stopping by, boys and girls, and I hope you have a bacon filled turkey day.  Until next time, keep watching those bad movies, and I’ll keep indulging myself in delusions of grandeur.

P.S. Happy Thanksgiving!

Historical photo of Pocahontas in memory of the people who sacrificed their homes so that I could destroy their land and eat a huge meal to celebrate it.

Cosmetic Surgery Work: 10/10

Desire To Become A Transvestite After Viewing: 0/10 (Fuck you, Tea Party)

Well, here we are, another bad movie with a title that just screams “Watch Me Bob” as soon as it crosses my path.  Some of you may be wondering what would draw me to a movie like this, and if you are one of those people, I can only assume that you have a mental disorder or have never been to my site before.  I actually gave fellow reviewer and resident awesome drunkard, Chako of The Awesome Man’s Burden, a choice of three movies hand-picked by yours truly, and this was the selection that he made.  No worries, though.  I will be watching and reviewing (if I’m not a lazy asshole) the other two selections, which were equally bad based on the titles, so you have that to look forward to as well.  Lucky devils.

Tranny Punch!

First, a little lesson for the kiddies who may not know: a “transvestite” is a person who who feels comfortable in clothes traditionally worn by the opposite sex.  A “transgender” person is someone who transcends traditional gender roles through a wide variety of behaviors and tendencies, involving physical, mental, and emotional features.  “Trannie” is a porn term for chicks with dicks.  This movie deals with the last on the list.  A group of sassy trannies who all work at a strip club are in for the surprise of their lives, and it is not a pleasant one.  After about twenty minutes of catty back-talk, we finally discover that the main tranny, Bubbles, was recently beaten for an unknown reason.  Her girlfriends decide to cheer her up at a bar, but when the opportunity to get laid arises (men are so predictable), all bets are off and she is forced to accompany them to a creepy warehouse where three presumably none-threatening guys are waiting.

Gives the phrase "Nip and Tuck" a whole new meaning...

The three gentlemen in question are led by a stereotypical long-haired redneck hick named Boner, who we learn has a history with Bubbles.  She dated him and never told him about her little (or big) secret, and when he finally find out, he went crazy, beat her up, and then raped her for good measure.  As he keeps assuring himself, though, he is not gay.  To punish Bubbles even more for this embarressing twist, Boner has lured her and her friends in to a trap, and soon trannies are falling left and right, while Bubbles desperately tries to escape.  Two of her friends die, and she herself is put in a coma for a couple of weeks.  She tries to move on with her life, and things are almost back to normal, but then Boner returns to finish the job.

This is what it's all about...

Luckily, Bubbles and her two tranny friends have been doing a little training in the off-season, becoming deadly forces to be reckoned with.  When it is known that Boner and his croanies have been lurking around, they set a trap, and it plays out almost perfectly.  The idea is to let Boner think that he is the one in control of the situation, when in fact him and his buddies are completely at the mercy of the masterfully trained trannies.  The men are knocked out, and wake up to discover that switchblades have been inserted in to each of their anuses (anus’s? anusi?  anus’?).  They make a last-ditch effort to finish the job and kill the trannies, but each one ends up the victim of a pretty brutal knife injury.  I guess you shouldn’t mess with ticked-off trannies who happen to have knives.

A couple things to warn you about if you plan on watching this: 1) Drink with caution, 2) Bring a snack for the long and pointless scenes of dialogue, 3) Be prepared for the now-cliched “missing reels” that conveniently skip crucial plot points.  I guess the bright side is that the movie is shorter because of this last one, but the pointless dialogue has to add a half-hour, so I think it ends up a wash.  After reading this, if you’re still interested in seeing the tranny fight of the century, go right ahead with my blessing, because it could be a whole lot worse.  That being said, people that may not stray from the conventional (or well made) movie line too often may not find much here (especially since everything is tucked and taped).  Try it if you dare, but just don’t let children watch it, or they will become gay…or Chaz Bono…or something like that.

Thanks for stopping by, and a special thank you to Chako over there at The Awesome Man’s Burden for supplying the liquor that got me through this.  Until next time, boys and girls and everything in between, keep watching those bad movies, and I’ll keep being intolerant of people who don’t.

P.S.

Don't piss off trannies.

Symbolism: 9/10

Pick-Up Lines: 10/10

It’s time once again to have your faces rocked by two men who seemingly have nothing better to do than watch bad movies, drink, and then make you feel humbled that you get to read our illegitimate ramblings.  That’s right, another dueling review brought to you courtesy of The Awesome Man’s Burden, and yours truly.  Try not to piss yourself.

I don’t need to sit here and tell you about all of the reasons why I both hate and fear homeless people (as many of my more familiar readers will remember that I have done in the past), so instead I’ll remark on how even through my negative bias, I can still admire a story about a man with nothing left to lose.  “But Bob, you’re very good-looking and how can you hate the homeless who all have nothing left to lose?”  Let me answer that question with a question:  Yes, I am good-looking, and do you think homeless people have given up on life?  They still cling to it, and stay hidden in the shadows, until a chosen warrior of the people rises up to abandon his life’s ambition of starting a lawn-mowing service and instead trades his sock full of money, can full of beans, and pocket full of dreams for a shotgun.  Guess what that makes him?

Don't mess with a man and his shopping cart.

Let me back up a little bit though, because the road to such a powerful decision is littered with the tattered remnants of his former life, and the approaching storm on the path (I should say “rails” here, because he is a train hobo…) that lays in front of him.  When we first meet our hobo, whom I will now refer to as “Hobo”, he’s riding the rails as free as a bird, waiting to get to the next town and hopefully score some old (but still perfectly usable) cigarette butts.  He quickly acquires a shopping cart to hold all of his dumpster treasures, and begins to make the rounds to all of the typical hobo places: street corners, back alleys, bum fight arenas, etc.  Soon, he begins to realise that the city is run by a dangerously psychotic (and snazzily dressed) crime lord named “The Duke”, who routinely demonstrates his cruel authority by having people’s heads ripped off in the middle of the streets by tow cables.  The Hobo tries to abide.

When Hobo infiltrates one of The Duke’s “secret” night club arcade coke house gang headquarters and saves a hooker from The Duke’s son, he has no choice but to….(so much anticipation here)…..go to the police and tell them that he is disgusted with the state of things in town (really disappointing).  Unfortunately, the police are also run by The Duke, and Hobo soon finds himself in a dumpster with the word “scum” carved in to his chest.  So what does he do next?  You bet!  He goes out and buys a shotgu……what?  He doesn’t?  He goes over to the hooker’s house instead and sleeps?  Yep.  AND he doesn’t try to get “rewarded” for his troubles?  How stupid and noble.  Instead, they become friends, and he tells her all about his dream to one day have his own lawn mowing service, where the motto will be “You Grow It, I Cut It”.  Enchanted by his obvious wisdom, the hooker gives him a sweater with a bear on it and tells him to get some rest.  Bears, as Hobo tells the young hooker, can swat your face off (damn good thing to know, if you ask me).

Delivering Justice One Shell At A Time

With a sock full of money and the determination of an employed person, Hobo goes to the local pawn shop to see what they have in lawnmowers.  While there, 3 men in ski masks walk in and start shooting up the place, and that is just about all that Hobo can take.  He opts for the shotgun as an impulse buy, and finishes off the 3 masked idiots in seconds.  Then he takes on the streets.  The first to go are the people running the bum fights, and then the pimps and child molesters, until finally Hobo is causing enough trouble to attract major attention.  The Duke orders that all of the homeless people in town must be killed, or children will start dying, and the public goes crazy.  With the world against him, Hobo still does his thing, and manages to kill The Duke’s son with a shot to the dick.  Ouch.  The Duke calls in The Plague, two guys who are basically walking tanks, and has Hobo captured so that he can be properly punished.

At this point, the movie becomes Hooker With A Shotgun, because that adorable street hussy grabs Hobo’s signature piece (haha), makes a brave and misguided speech about how homeless people are real people too, and then goes out to save Hobo’s life.  When she finds him, his head is poking out of a manhole cover and there is a tow-rope around his neck.  She is able to kill one of the members of The Plague with her gun and a shield that she made out of a lawnmower (complete fiction, women can’t use tools), but the tables turn when her hand is forced in to said lawnmower.  Meanwhile, Hobo has been freed, and while he is getting his gun back, the hooker is able to use her protruding arm bone to stab The Duke for his trouble.  The cops arrive, and a standoff begins.  Hobo lets The Duke know that they are driving to Hell together, and The Duke gets to ride shotgun.  Hobo doesn’t survive thanks to the crooked police, but who cares, the movie is over.  Oh, and I guess the hooker is now a member of The Plague or something.

Don't you dare crush his f**king smokes.

Where do I begin on the reasons why I love this movie?  The dialogue is amazing, and when Hobo speaks, you listen.  The philosophical point that you cannot solve the world’s problems with a shotgun is proven to be moot, and the comparison of homeless people who have weapons with bears is unmistakably accurate.  The visceral brutality of the movie integrates very well with the story (it’s never necessary to burn a school bus full of children, but who gives a sh**.), and the story itself is not over-complicated by the burdens of political correctness, character development, or plausible city conditions.  However, through all of the death, destruction, hookers, crooked cops, cocaine, gang activity, newspaper headlines, bum fights, catch phrases, and bears, this movie is about one thing at heart: A hobo with a shotgun.

I suggest this movie to anyone and everyone, because I believe it completely encompasses what I love about bad movies.  Thank you very much to my friend LaRue for hosting this movie at his house, and to everyone who attended the mini-screening.  Remember to check out the counter-part to this review at The Awesome Man’s Burden!  Until next time, boys and girls, keep watching those bad movies, and I’ll keep drinking until the dark hole in my soul fills up and makes me feel like a real person.

P.S.  I never want to be in this situation:

I honestly can't think of any good way that this could end.

Hands: 10/10

Polygamy: 10/10

I enjoy watching bad movies because there is something deeply wrong with me, but there are other reasons as well.  As many people are aware, I am a very big fan of Elvira, the well-named Mistress Of The Dark, and I happened to attend a Comic-Con where I was able to sit in on a discussion panel for Cassandra Peterson (that’s Elvira’s real name, posers and hosers).  She told me personally (as I stood in a huge crowd of drooling nerds and ugly goth chicks) that I should watch Manos: Hands Of Fate, and goddamnit, if Elvira wants me to review it, I have no choice but to obey (frankly, the idea of obeying Elvira gives me a halfy).

Torgo: The guy I definately want watching my house when I'm gone.

After about 5 seconds, you can understand why and how this movie was so promptly put forward by that buxom beauty of the b-movie world.  A boring opening sequence of a couple driving down a long desert road leads in to the cliché scene of a couple getting lost because the man refuses to ask for directions.  Classic.  You’ll immediately notice that the dubbing is less than par, and that all of the voices sound eerily familiar (I’ll tell you why later).  The couple, lost and helpless, are unable to find the way back down the one road they were on when they reached a dead-end, so they stop at a foreboding house to see if they can get (men close your eyes here) directions.

This is where the strangeness and true brilliance of this movie begins.  They meet Torgo, a weird little man with a strange set of legs and a literally sheepish way of talking.  He tells them that the master does not allow children in to the house, but the master is currently away.  Frightened, the wife begs her husband to leave, but the foolish man decides to stick it out for the night.  Really, what’s the worst that can happen?  *Warning: My famous “ask a rhetorical question that reveals the plot” device is coming up*  It’s not like “the master” is a nocturnal worshipper of the god Manos (which literally translates to ”hand”), whose power he uses to enslave women to become part of his immortal coven of wives, is it?  It totally is.

It's really amazing that this look never caught on.

The wives, held in some sort of suspended animation during the day, come to life at night and debate whether or not it is ethical to take the couple’s 6 year-old daughter in to their magical marriage.  As you can imagine, the wives begin an all-out brawl with each other to decide the winner, and that goes on for probably twenty minutes.  It seems the Master has trouble controlling his women (for someone with so many hands around, you’d think he could keep his pimp-hand strong), and soon he decides to just let them be and go for the wife and kid himself.  Torgo loses his hands (I’m pretty sure he was a half-goat, but they never reveal it), the daughter gets integrated in to the happy family (creepy), a dog dies (really sad), and soon another couple is on their way to the mysterious house.  I think the parents die.  If it feels like I rushed the ending there, that’s because it all mashed together for me and I really have no idea what happened.

This is one for the record books, and I cannot recommend this movie to anyone who is not a die-hard b-movie fan.  If you are, you’ll understand why what you are watching is incredible, and if not, you won’t last five minutes.  The dubbing, as I touched on earlier, is done by about only 2 people, and the editing is what you would expect from a child learning the wonders of tape and markers.  The greatest part is the portrayal of the Master, and how many hands he has displayed throughout his dilapidated shack of a house (and on his hilarious robe thing).  There is also a pretty great painting that is honestly one of the scariest things I have ever seen, so the movie isn’t a total wash in terms of losing some sleep.  Anyway, if you have the bad movie balls to survive this one, then you will earn my respect.  Otherwise, get back to the kiddie pool and enjoy some crappy Twilight movie.

Thank you very much to Elvira, Mistress Of The Dark, for getting on me (I wish) about this movie.  I feel great joy that I can essentially hump the leg of her career and put up this crappy little review.  Until next time, boys and girls, keep watching those bad movies, or you’ll feel my hands of fate around your scrawny little necks.

P.S. Unpleasant Dreams

If Elvira is reading this: I am single.

Fight Choreography: 4/10

Bad Movie Badasses: 10/10

This one is coming to you all as a special request from a good friend of mine, Fernando the Mando (it rhymes because I say it wrong on purpose).  First things first, let me say how pleasantly surprised I was after watching the opening sequence to discover that not only is Michael Berryman in this film, but also Jeffrey Combs (and my newest addition to the Bad Movie Badasses, Mark Hamill).  New Line Cinema is a studio that I have praised numerous times for its vision and dedication to excellently bad movies, and they didn’t let me down this time.  Ladies and gentleman, I give you The Guyver.

Shawn is your typical scrawny 20-something-year-old who takes martial arts classes to impress a girl.  He doesn’t know it yet, but his life is about to change!  You see, a long time ago aliens came to the empty planet Earth and created humans as the ultimate organic weapon.  They also created humans that could transform in to monsters, Zoanoids.  In order to give the humans some protection, an organic suit of armor called “the guyver” was created that could multiply its possessors strength by 100 times.  Cut to the present date, and the leader of the Zoanoids, Balcus The Zoalord, is desperately searching for the guyver in order to be the strongest being in the universe (standard bad guy stuff).  A rogue scientist discovers the guyver and hides it in an alley, but is killed before he can reveal its location to anyone.

Remember Shawn?  Well, it just so happens that he is in love with the daughter of said rogue scientist, and we she goes to the scene of the murder, he follows from afar and stumbles upon the guyver by accident.  Now if only he would get attacked by some random thugs in order to accidentally unlock the powers of the guyver…..  Good news!  That thing I just said.  The secret to activating the guyver is apparently sticking your face in it, and since Shawn is getting his ass kicked, why the f**k not?  His body becomes covered in a strange exo-suit, and he proceeds to dominate his would-be attackers, throwing them each in to their own trash can one at a time.  He barely has time to figure out what is happening to him before his girlfriend is in trouble, and only The Guyver can save her (now that the The Guyver is a person, I’ll capitalize it).

He looks steamed... (hahahahahahahahahahahahaha....I'm awesome)

Some Zoanoids corner her in an old warehouse, and The Guyver takes them all on at once.  He puts up an amazing fight, but when they discover that his weak point is his head (go figure), they literally rip the guyver out of The Guyver.  They take the girl and the guyver back to the Zoalord, who thinks he has the world licked.  It’s too bad that you can’t kill The Guyver that easily, though, because he can regenerate!  Which he does!  With Gusto!  It’s rematch time, and The Guyver doesn’t pull any punches.  The Zoanoids go down easily enough, but when the Zoalord shows his true form (a huge bird/tank thing), the only chance The Guyver has is his incredible chest-cannon thing that comes out of nowhere.  The Zoalord is defeated, and The Guyver gets the girl.  Go team human.

I didn’t mention Mark Hamill’s character, the hard-boiled cop, because it didn’t seem to matter at all.  Don’t get me wrong, I love that he was in the movie, but in the grand scheme of things, did it really affect the plot?  No.  Jeffrey Combs also played a bit part, but when he is a crazy scientist, even a bit part can make a movie feel like home.  I really liked the way this movie brought me back to the first time that I watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or Surf Ninjas, when movies were creative and dark but still fun for the whole family.  As it is, I fully recommend this to anyone who hasn’t seen it, and would be happy to watch it again if anyone wanted to invite me over for a beer or two…..

Thanks again to Fernando for the suggestion!  Until next time, kiddies, keep watching those bad movies, or the aliens win!

P.S. The Gyver

He took this picture with a soup can, an old newspaper, two pennies, and yes, a paperclip.

Zombies: 2/10

Colorscope Glory: 9/10

I don’t ask for much when I watch movies, but I do expect a whole lot from the title.  For instance, if you have a film called Planet Of The Vampires, then I am going to assume that there is a vampire in it at some point.  I probably sound like every cheap wannabe who has written about this movie, but I still feel that I need to cover this ground right away.  The true title should be “Planet Of The Zombies”, or, more appropriately, “Planet Of The Ghost Aliens”, because that not only sounds cooler, but it also gives me a much better idea of what I’m getting myself in to.

I wish this guy was a part of the crew...

We start with a very sterile looking spaceship and its intrepid crew.  The interior is like the Star Trek Enterprise, if it were designed by German nightclub owners.  Suddenly, the ship begins hurtling toward a nearby planet with a gravitational force of over 40 G’s (I’m assuming that it powerful, but I’m not a science man), and the crew is struggling to remain conscious.  Right before they crash down, the ship slows to a gentle landing, but the fun isn’t over.  Fights start to break out as the crew seemingly lose their minds, and only the Captain remains sane enough to slap some sense in to everybody (literally).  With people returning to what passes for normal, they all begin to explore the surface of the planet which apparently has a completely dandy atmosphere.

They stumble upon their sister ship that has also crash-landed, and discover that the entire crew is dead or missing.  They set out to bury the bodies, but when they return to their own ship, they find that the dead have mysteriously disappeared.  As I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, the dead bodies keep coming back to life and attack the living, but they seem to go down easily enough.  During the excitement, the Captain has a chance to go on an adventure to an alien ship, and make some moves on his hot (but hopelessly ditzy) blonde lieutenant, so he checks out for a bit, and then returns to get to the bottom of all of the trouble.  Set your faces to stunned: Alien Ghosts that can possess bodies.

There should be a strobe light and German techno playing in the background of this scene...

The Captain gives your basic “We Will Never Yield” speech as the (fucking) alien tries to convince him of the benefits of possession, and soon it’s an all out brawl between living bodies and possessed dead bodies.  In a shocking twist, the aliens manage to capture the space ship and take over the Captain, but one rogue person remains free (until they kill him).  He manages to destroy the Meteor Repeller machine (you can guess what that does…) with his final breath, and the aliens are forced to make an emergency landing on the nearest available planet.  Here’s where it gets all Twilight Zone in your business:  They have to land on Earth, so this entire movie is about two alien species fighting each other.  I hate aliens.

So, the ending is a pointless twist, but it’s still better than anything Mr. M. Night Fuck-You-Audience has ever come up with.  The exterior of the planet seems to be an experiment with different lighting gels, but I feel it really shows the depths of greatness that Colorscope can achieve.  The aliens are pretty basic effects (Star Trek could easily trump it with its worst designs), and the crew themselves have no real individuality (save for the women, who do a phenomenal job of screaming, freaking out, and requiring men to make them feel safe (suck on that feminists)).  All told, not a particularly good movie in any sense, but it gets credit for being the predecessor to many great sci-fi movies that would come out in the future, some of which I’ve already reviewed, and for that, it has my acceptance.

Well, another job well done by me, so until next time, dogs and cats, keep watching those bad movies, and I’ll keep talking like I actually know what I’m saying.

P.S. If you hate aliens as much as I do, and you have a Twitter account that is woefully un-awesome, then you should follow my friend, @DeathToAliens.  He kills aliens for fun!

Accuracy: 6/10

I Hate M. Night Shyamalan: 10/10

Don’t call it a comeback, because I really have let all of my loyal fans down by not being more consistent.  Don’t worry, though, because Bad Movie Bob is back and ready to rock some faces with the awesome that is my blog.  Some highlights for the near future include my triumphant return (this entry), a suggestion from the Mistress Of The Dark herself: Elvira, and a 5-in-1 complete Fast/Furious post with timeline.  Ambitious for a lazy bastard like me?  Maybe, but if you don’t test yourself and try to be better, you’ll end up like that most vial of “people”, Kirk Cameron.  Seriously, f**k that guy.  Anyway, on with my salute to Avatar and my middle finger to The Last Airbender.

For those of you who don’t know, this movie is based on the hit Nickelodeon pseudo-anime show “Avatar: The Last Airbender”, a pretty decent way to waste time if you ask me.  The show focuses on a young airbender named Aang, who gets frozen in ice for a hundred years, and wakes to find the once peaceful world a much different place.  Aang is the Avatar, the one person in the world who can manipulate (bend) all four elements: Air, Water, Earth and Fire (also Heart, but nobody gives a shit about Heart), and it’s his duty to maintain balance in the world between the four elemental nations.  In his absence, though, the Fire Nation has started a war, and the world has been ripped apart because of it.  The show follows Aang on his quest to master all four elements, leading up to his inevitable battle with the Fire Lord who wants nothing short of world domination.

The Last Airbender movie focuses on book one of the saga, “Water”, in which Aang is discovered frozen in the ocean.  He quickly meets Sokka and Katara, his soon-to-be partners, and learns of what has happened since he took his unplanned vacation.  Some quick (and obvious) character introductions and a couple muted fight scenes later, and Aang is on his way to the North Pole with his new friends to find a waterbending master.  We also get to meet Prince Zuko (played by that Slumdog Millionaire kid), the banished son of the Fire Lord who can only return home when he has captured the Avatar, and all of the other pivotal characters that are only given enough screen time to warrant mentioning their names every time that they appear.

The top of his head says 'I'm With Stupid"

After a bunch of scenes where Shyamalan attempts to smash as many of the episodes from the cartoon as he can together, Aang finally reaches the North Pole and has an emotional breakdown.  He can’t master water bending until he can accept the fact that all of his people are dead, and it’s pretty much his fault.  He also has to save the moon spirit (a koi fish), stop an invading Fire Nation fleet, and figure out how to communicate with the “spirit world” via a random talking dragon.  Well, to cut this short, he does all of these things (except that whole moon spirit situation, which resolves itself), and saves the North Pole from the invasion.  He accepts his role as the Avatar, and then we learn that in 3 years a comet will arrive that will give the Fire Nation unnatural strength.  It would seem Aang has a deadline of when needs to face the Fire Lord (but at least it’s more time than “by the end of the summer”).

This movie could have been saved if M. Night Shyamalan had pulled his head out of his ass and actually focused on a few key plot points, instead of trying to include as much as he possibly could from the source material.  You can’t cram 7 hours of story in to an hour and a half and hope to come out with something that makes sense.  Trying to please the fans because you’re a cocky asshole doesn’t cut it, and I think that is highlighted here.  The casting is exactly what I would expect for a Nickelodeon made-for-TV-movie (with the exception of Zuko, who was pretty solid), and the special effects, which I didn’t think were too bad, were bad enough to net this film “Worst Eye-Gouging Misuse Of 3-D” at the 2011 Razzie Awards.  To sum up, “Avatar: The Last Airbender” is an awesome show, The Last Airbender movie was a train wreck, M. Night Shyamalan is a douchebag, and I’m still the coolest guy I know.

Until next time, boys and girls, keep watching those bad movies, so you can tell “Mr. I-See-Dead-People” how shitty he is.

P.S. You can go ahead and call it a comeback.

I looked up "M Night Shyamalan Sucks" and this is what came up.

Fourth Wall: 0/10

No F**king Reason: 10/10

It’s extremely rare when I venture out of the dark cave of awesome that I live in to go to a theatre AND pay to watch a movie (I’ve got connections).  There are few concepts that will intrigue me enough to warrant such a quest, but the idea of a tire that comes to life and goes on a murderous rampage is just too good to pass up.  In fact, I’ve been waiting specifically to see this movie in a theatre since I was told about it by Everet, one of my many fans (perhaps you’ve seen it sitting in my movie queue).  Well, the local indie theatre finally showed it in one of their tiny crappy auditoriums, and I was right there to capture all of the bad movie glory.

What makes the movie special right away is that it begins with a character in the movie talking straight to the camera.  He gives a very well written speech about movies that have no reason for certain parts, and then goes on to say that this movie is dedicated to the philosophy of “no f**king reason”.  As it turns out, he’s actually speaking to a crowd of people in the desert, all of which have gathered to watch the movie first-hand through binoculars.  They spot the tire as it begins to show the first signs of life, and then continue to observe it as it learns to roll…and kill.  Small things at first, cans and bugs, but when it tries to run over a glass bottle, it learns of a different ability: the tire can focus and blow things up with its mind.

Rolling down the road, the tire begins the follow a girl in a sporty car, but is soon thrown off track by a hick in a red truck.  The tire blows up the man’s head, and then follows the girl to a seedy little motel in the middle of nowhere.  A young boy witnesses the tire kill a maid, but his warnings fall on deaf ears, until the local sheriff arrives (the man who gave the speech in the beginning).  He explains that everything is just a movie, and nothing is real, so there is no reason to panic.  He has apparently poisoned all of the spectators, which means that there is no more reason for the movie to keep going if no one is watching it, but he missed one guy.  Since he still has an audience, everything is still real, and the sheriff puts out an APB on the tire.

The tire doesn't 'spare' them. Damn, I'm clever and sexy.

Meanwhile, the tire (whose name is apparently “Robert”), has been angered by being thrown in a pool and tossed around.  He (I’m assuming it’s a guy) goes on a massive 3-day killing spree, and the sheriff finally catches him sitting in a room watching TV.  A decoy with explosives is set outside of the door, and the plan is to make the tire kill it/himself. After debating the value of the plan with a couple of people, the explosives finally go off and the tire is destroyed.  The one spectator comes down to enjoy the final show, but is shocked to learn that the tire has been reincarnated as a tricycle!  Needless to say, everyone dies, and the tricycle (formerly the tire) begins to assemble a tire army.  They go rolling down the road as the credits roll on the screen.

Honestly, I can’t really do this movie justice by writing about it.  The concept and execution are done so well that it pulls the film out of ludicrousy and into the realm of enjoyment.  The lack of a fourth wall pulls the viewer immediately in to the madness, and the writing is almost too clever for what is going on around it.  True, many will find that this is a strange and boring waste of time, but those people are what I like to call “the blockbuster morons”(you know, the people who make sure shitty movies make a lot of money at the box office).  Trust me, the irony of saying that I hate people who pay to see shitty movies is not lost on me, but let me say in my defense that I never add to film grosses for 99.9999999999999% of the crap that comes out, and if anything I help take away from it.  If you don’t buy that, then let me say I don’t care.

Thanks again to Everet for bringing this to my attention, and thanks to some of the gang that went with me to see it.  Until next time, keep watching those bad movies.  No reason, just keep watching them.

P.S. I really wanted to say that the tricycle was putting together an “en-tire” army, but I held back.  I’m awesome.

Robots: 9/10

Danny Trejo: 8/10

In this chilling look in to a possible future of privacy invasion, someone gets the bright idea to equip extremely maneuverable robots with cameras, dubbing them the titular “eyeborgs”.   The title alone makes this a bad movie, but it gets so much better/worse.  The main character is actually played by former Highlander and dreamboat, Adrian Paul, with a special guest appearance by Mr. Badass himself, Danny Trejo.  Mix in some unexplained artificial intelligence, and you got yourself some bad movie gumbo ready for the eating!

R.J. “Gunner” Reynolds (Adrian Paul) lost his wife and child to a maniac who shot them while they were on a playground.  He then testified this to the Supreme Court and was able to gain enough public sympathy that the Eyeborgs were put in to official use.  Part of this “official use” was the initiation of ODIN, a network that basically connects every camera in the world to a central server controlled by the government.  With ODIN in place, police were given a powerful tool to track down criminals, but it came with a price.  Since the camera footage was admissible as evidence, it was never questioned, and thus the first battle against machines was lost.

It soon becomes pretty obvious that the robots know what the hell is going on, and they have the interesting ability to create videos and render them in real-time, essentially creating whatever illusions that they want people to believe.  They begin to murder people who try to expose them, and then release footage to the police of their victims doing something illegal.  When the nephew of the President comes to Gunner and tells him that the eyeborgs attacked him and killed someone else, the Highlander begins to take things seriously.  He decides to protect the boy, who is supposed to be playing music at the President’s next speech (which, by the way, doesn’t make any sense).

Cute AND deadly.

Gunner discovers that the boy is unknowingly carrying a bomb in his guitar, and runs to the speech house.  Once inside, he makes a terrible discovery: there is no president.  The eyeborgs have completely taken over the government, and are simulating the President nationwide to keep the population under control.  The eyeborgs then begin to attack Gunner and his men, leading to a very long battle between man and machine.  Gunner is finally able to locate the boy, fight his way out of the building, and grab some actual footage of the destructive eyeborgs on the way.  The bomb goes off, and everyone assumes that the President is dead, so the eyeborgs simulate the Vice President taking over.  Gunner and the kid become refugees, hiding from the eyeborgs, and beating them up at every opportunity.  God bless America.

Pretty terrible, I must say.  It’s not clear as to why there is actually a bomb in the guitar, because it’s not clear who put it in there.  Also, the difference in technology between the eyeborgs and everything else is pretty radical, considering these things are completely maneuverable and independent.  The dialogue was terrible, and though there are obvious references and parallels to the PATRIOT Act, the whole concept for why eyeborgs started being used is stupid.  I know people who bitch about cameras on the freeway, so I’m pretty sure a walking camera would bug people the fuck out.  Anyway, this isn’t really a “need to see” movie, but if you want to watch a flashy rant about the government for 90 minutes, then check this out. 

Until next times, kids, keep watching those bad movies, and they’ll watch you right back.

P.S. There can be only one. 

And it's Christopher Lambert.