Perhaps it was your favorite movie when you were 9. Maybe you should watch it again as an adult - it might still be your favorite movie.
Some movies that have production failures on the level of The Ice Pirates go into the barrel of cinematic toxic waste. The list is so long that we have only started to scratch the surface of such turds. Yet The Ice Pirates is a spectacle. Its failures never detract from what it was attempting to be and accomplish.
Its a straight-up western, but because its from 1987 it has to be set in a post-apocalyptic world and instead of cowboy hats, we get hair-spray helmets. Despite everything there might be a good movie buried in the sands.
So its Shane, Once upon in the West, Star Wars and Fallout 4. Ok, maybe Fallout 4 is Steel Dawn. Clearly, Fallout 76 is Steel Dawn. Anyways, this is a hot mess.
Its one of those iconic 80's swords and sandals/science fiction blend movies and beloved by many. We can understand why, but this was a massive failure that likely cost the genre decades of great movies until the LOTR Trilogy.
So Krull is one of the most expensive movies of the 80s and fails on so many levels. You've got the classic inaction in action (nothing happens during action sequences), the choreography was done by Stevie Wonder, and the effects and sets are so overly impossible to do that they end up looking like 2nd grade paper Mache. The wire work is only worse in Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark. The costumes are atrocious and prevent the actors from actually engaging with each other or the scene itself. Its a mess.
It ain't Blade. It's 90s Anne Rice with unattractive people and inept opponents. And it all could have been avoided by drinking tea together.
At least everyone is evenly matched. Don's Jack Cutter is way ill equipped and ill prepared to be taking down even lower level vampires. Guns don't work, bud. A sword seriously would have been cheaper and more effective than his shotgun and M1911s. Or a hammer. Use a damn hammer! Why a hammer against vampires? Because the vampires have spines that are made of glass. Well big deal right? Nope that's the only way you can kill them. By breaking their incredibly fragile spine. Huh...
Charlie Bronson goes to Colorado to deal with that same ol' blood feud when two Mormon bros. branch out into some pretty wild dogma all while Charlie walks around and does some really bad reporting.
Bronson's Smith is arguably the worst reporter I've ever seen (Chris Cilliza at least says something even if its moronic) and I don't understand how anything happens in this film around him. We've got your classic idiot plot here. The villains yell out "Hey it's us, look at us! We're the water company! Arrest us!" while the surrounding cast of characters look at a silent Smith for all the answers. Usually Bronson is a blank slate in Cannon movies but I really can't blame him for this one. Smith is just that slow.
A town of MAGA boys get a parade each time they win a baseball game and the ladies have had enough of their bull. Sadly, their anger lasts about 24 hours. This is why we can't get anything done in this country.
According to Lloyd Kaufman, this is a women's liberation movie. I think he might have decided that way after the fact and the ties to women's lib are behind boobie movie king, Andy Sidaris saying the same thing. Sure, its got women in leads who want to be treated equally to men, but these are straight up bimbos. Where Andy's ladies were strong and smarter than their male counterparts (also usually topless), Lloyd's lady baseball team are mostly only in it so they can either get their boyfriends back or make the boys fall in love with them.
Totally awesome video game! Jeff tries to save the community center that doubles as a video arcade with the help from his friends against the dubiously motivated Joe Don Baker who wants to shut it all down. Will Billy Jack win the ski competition to save the school from the rival break-dancers?
Joysticks is arguably Greydon Clark's magnum opus. Its all of it. He threw every cheesy bad movie trope he could think of. Amazingly bad/awesome theme song? Check. Not so subtle phallic worship? Check. A nerd with a heart of gold who may or may not be packing heat? Check. Joe Don? Check. Boobs and then boobs on top of boobs? Check. Uncle Rico? Check. Valley girls who just love video games? Check. Filming without permits? Check. Everything is here.
Its twists! Its turns! Its lefts and rights! Its yields to oncoming traffics. Its Acme Fake Tunnels slapped onto the side of a cliffs! Ben Afflecks and Charlizes try to give us a shocker and instead we get the upper decker.
Reindeer Games is such a pile of mess. On one side you've got "that friend" that watches this on TNT one night (usually while wishing they were invited to the party you're throwing but you intentionally didn't because they can't play in any reindeer games, OMG you're a total dick, dude) then later comes to you and begs you to watch it with them and then stares at you the whole time until 'the big reveal' and then waits for you to react - you don't and they are shocked. You're not the type of person who will be shocked (you listen to Stinker Madness and know your stuff) and so you're relationship gets even more strained but you feel guilty because of that one time when you were really hard up after your girlfriend (that you thought was at least a 9 but was really more like a 6 and just had a solid set of cans) dumped you for a bartender for a biker bar in a different county and this friend let you stay on their couch while you cried yourself to sleep for three days about 15 years ago. Thanks Frankenheimer!
Nothing says Xmas like a handful of spinning tornados. And nothing makes less of a Christmas movie than just sprinkling in some Christmas decorations in post. I mean at least have the tornado suck up a tree farm or something!
Well, it's not good. That's it, I'll take my leave of you. Oh, I actually have to write up a review? Damn.
David DeCouteau gives us a clinic on how to make a terrible movie in 2 days. Yeah it stinks, but hey! Two days! Suck it, Spielberg!
Gary Daniels, Cynthia Rothrock, Kathy Long and Daniel Bernhardt give us the least action packed movie of all time. Yes you read that right. There is a total count of 0 spin kicks. 0 double axe handles. 0 flying leap kicks to the tummy. Literally there is 0 action. You pulled a big one on us David, you got us. LOL. Haha. We've all had a good laugh now, but so can you seriously add a Special Edition which involves Gary Daniels sweeping Chris Mitchum's legs and Cynthia Rothrock giving Daniel Bernhardt a back breaker over the couch while Kathy Long does a flying kick through a window - shattering Andy's (or Justin Bieber?) clavicle?
The Hoff and Joan Collins find love and trouble in a plot to steal all her stuff. Can Curt Taylor find a way to save her career, her belongings, his own life and stop Kojak from further living in up in Club Feb? You tell us - cause we couldn't be bothered to pay attention.
The Cartier Affair is an absolutely solid movie - if you are stacking it against other made for TV movies from the 80's. And then Lonesome Dove came out and TV was changed forever. For the purpose of this podcast/blog - The Cartier Affair is a massive waste of time. There's just nothing to show up for. The plot isn't fun but it's concise. The acting is competent but no standouts. The action "exists" and that's about the best I can say for it. It's just buttered toast that is perfectly toasted. It's still just buttered toast.
Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone return with a few cast surprises and a completely different tone of movie than the first one. Give this one two tries at least. You might love it more if you see it again.
Yes, we know. This isn't near as silly and bonkers as the first one. Yes we know that they recycled pieces from the first one, namely the music and a few shots. Yes we know that the city of gold reveal is pretty unimpressive. BUT....
Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone team up in arguably the best/worst knockoff in film history and arguably Cannon Pictures most fun and most accessible project. Hashtag shenanigans to come.
Campy, cheesy, corny, and whatever C words you can come up (no not that one) fit here. While clearly being an attempt to ride on the financial coattails of Indy, King Solomon's Mines departs greatly in tone. Its more of a Errol Flynn knockoff than anything with Harrison Ford in it. Sure, there is no swashbuckling, but there's an endless parade of "adventure shenanigans", overly ridiculous villains, and constant damsel in distress scenarios with Sharon Stone's Jesse Houston.
Despite it's own best attempts to keep it down, like its terrible VHS cover and misguided title, this western with vampires is an absolute must-do and instant classic. Can we finally have peace with the bloodsuckers?
So the premise here is that vampires have been sent into hiding and chose a small town in the west called Purgatory to sit out the years in relatively quiet peace built by Count Mardulak (David Carradine). They've built their own factory to produce a blood substitute so that they don't have to murder anymore and keep their numbers manageable. That's all going well until the Mayor or guy in charge of staffing (?) Ethan Jefferson (John Ireland) hatches a plan to take over the town and return to the old bloodsucking days. Add in a visit from Van Helsing's descendent (Bruce Campbell) and a family of four with a history to the CEO of Vampire Science Co and you've got a volatile situation brewing.
It's a road trip movie with a cast of psychopaths through zombie infested forests, cannibalistic tribal villages, eclectic owners of mansions, and kittens who live in grandma's tummy. Rough to view in places and absolutely hilarious in others. Viewer beware - this is advanced class stuff.
This movie comes with two major warnings:
It's Evil Dead part III (only in Italy) and has absolutely nothing to do with it. It also has nothing to do with Hoff being Hoff nor Linda Blair being Linda Blair. Nor does it have to do with a plot that makes any sense. Nor does it have to do with being enjoyable.
Witchery (or La Casa 4 in Italy - thus the sequel to Evil Dead) is the baffling tale of a fallen actress whom lives in an island hotel and becomes a witch at some point and then attempts to perform a ritual to either close the gates to Hell or summon Satan to provide the seed for the anti-Christ. It's really impossible to tell what the hell (or not hell) is going on here. You've then got Hoff and Blair running around in the hotel trying to piece together what's going on while avoiding death and trying to escape.
Most will see this as a Monkey's Paw retell but it's really and truly just a recut of Teen Witch but without all the singing and dancing and then they made it so much crappier...crappier than Teen Witch. Yup.
Some movies are prime for knocking off, right? See the endless list of Jaws and Conan movies from late 70s and 80s. See any Roger Corman movie post-Star Wars. Sure, you won't work very hard on it and make just a few bucks but hey, that's easy money.
A NATO team of the least qualified sea-men (giggle) take the Beatle's submarine down to the depths of the sea and find some icky monsters, hungry starfish and love. Of course they do.
So some might call the Rift a Leviathan and Deep Star Six knockoff, but we see this as much more of an Aliens knockoff, which becomes its fatal flaw. The plot is just so familiar and could take place in space just as easily as it does it under the sea. You've got the expedition into tunnels with an unknown monster patrol ahead. You've got the "military wants the monster for biological warfare" yadda, yadda. You've got the ship breaking down due to sabotage, yadda yadda. It gets tedious just watching Aliens again.
An old villain from Mitch's past comes back to enact revenge by.... having him get married to his one true love? With a cast of Baywatchers this size, and a plot as dumb as it is, this has got to be one wild ride, right? Well....
Sato (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) comes back from season 2 of the Baywatch TV series, to get revenge against Mitch and Hobie for getting him arrested. That's all fine and good. The issue lies in how he decides to get it. He gets his girlfriend to have Face-Off style surgery to look just like former show member and off/on again Mitch love interest, Stephanie Holden. Then she must seduce Mitch, bone-down with him repeatedly, get him to propose and then get him to agree to have the wedding on a volcano island so that Sato can put his friends in James Bond style death traps and let Mitch save them. Lots of moving parts in this diabolical-ness.
Nic Cage goes on a deep quest to prevent his own hiring decision from ruining his plans to get super-rich. Along the way he confuses us with poorly written treasure clues, crazy eyebrows, word-association and flaunting Jerry Bruckheimer's watch.
National Treasure is arguably the most "blockbuster" movie ever made. It's filled with EVERY trick in the book for film-making that puts the butts in the movie seats. It's more crap that's ever been put in one burrito. The problem is that every single one of these tricks is as safe and risk free as can be. So yes, it's filled with stuff, but no is it anything you haven't seen 1000 times in other movies.
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