It's Over

All blogging has been transferred to my new blog:

martinandrade.wordpress.com

Open Thread!

Still not dead

I swear...

Not Dead

Just on hold.

They Came from Beyond Space

I Bought a package of fifty Sci-Fi movies for less than 50 cents a movie.

"They Came from Beyond Space" was one of those movies.

My 50 cent review?

Ya get what you pay for.

Open Thread!

One of my Favorites...

Available at Walmart, Kung Pow, Enter the Fist!

$4.88

Steve Oederkerk is really an unsung hero in the movies. He doesn't get a lot of parts, yet he's one of the funniest guys I ever watched on screen. It's not different in this flick. Steve takes an old Kung Fu classic and inserts new dialogue and action sequences.

It's a spoof movie, and some parts are not well done. However, it's truly creative. If you're a fan of bad movies, or of movies making fun of bad movies, or spoofs, get this film.

It's hit or miss, but for less than the cost of a ticket, I say get it.

Crap for crap and crap

Millenium

1989

Located at WalMart, price $5.50

How many movies do you know that replay the same scenes and can still hold the interest of the viewer? Not many, if any. However, the creators of Millennium decided that about one third of the movie should be the same scenes. Total failure. This is a case where the makers of the film underestimated the intelligence of the viewers, thinking that going through the movie twice was the only way viewers could keep track of the incredibly difficult concept of time travel.

Then again, if this was truly a good movie than we shouldn't be disappointed in seeing the scenes twice, since we could then enjoy good acting etc. Not so in Millennium. Kris Kristofferson looks grizzly with a heavy beard and has the skin tone of beef jerky. Cheryl Ladd plays opposite of Kristofferson as the time traveling tough women from the future who happens to know nothing about time traveling, she needs a personal robot to explain "the obvious" to her on many occasions. Maybe she forgot to read the script.

In this movie, the future is a place of rust, the present is a place of ignorance, and the viewer is left insulted.

Just a little hint

As much as I love Walmart, if you go to the 1 dollar aisle at most Targets, you not only get a movie for a dollar, but a classic cartoon and a classic television episode. The selection is a little poorer though.

Beverly Hills Cop III

Beverly Hills Cop III

1994

Price: $5.50

Location: Walmart

This movie doesn't get a lot of acclaim. Some people feel it is formulaic, others feel it just isn't funny. I give this movie the benefit of the doubt. Is it funny (i.e. does it make me laugh)? Yes. Do I want to stab myself in the eye with a pencil while watching the movie? No. That's all I really need to know about a film in the bargain bin, and Beverly Hills Cop III is almost as good as it gets.

Project: Boring!

Project: Kill (1976)

Location: Walmart

Price: $1 (that's right, a dollar)

I have to admit it, I like Leslie Nielson. His performances over a broad range of parodies and spoofs has been excellent. Everything from the Naked Gun movies to the unheralded 2001 a Space Travesty is in my movie watching rotation. I feel bad, he's approaching the age of 80 now, and his movie making days are coming to a slow halt.

I also have to admit that I knew Nielson had a serious acting career before he found fame as a comedy actor. You might remember one of his serious roles as the captain of the ship in "The Poseidon Adventure" and played Commander John Adams in my favorite 50's sci-fi flick "The Forbidden Planet." If you ever get the chance, see "Day of the Animals." Let's just say there's a scene with Nielson and a bear, funny as hell, it wasn't supposed to be.

However, very rarely is it that I find myself looking at a serious film that is starring Leslie Nielson. Project: Kill was just such a movie, and this movie flops, despite an excellent effort by Nielson.

In fact, Nielson's serious acting ability bounces well off of the collection of terrible performances that surround him. He plays this chemically enhanced secret agent that rebels against his organization and goes into hiding. Of course, the "agency" sends his apprentice, played pathetically by Gary Lockwood, to hunt him down.

Unfortunately, this film never gets going. It's carried by Nielson the entire time, but even he couldn't save this work.

Seriously, I was paying close attention, I don't think anything important happened. Here are my notes while watching this film:

-Character introduction, Nielson's escape, tolerable.

-20 min nothing important has happened yet...

-35 min still waiting...

-42 min romantic introduction, superfluous

-45 min nothing important

-60 min some people died, not interesting

-72 min Kinda hungry

-80 min Lockwood unbearable

-annoying soundtrack

Yeah, that's right, nothing important happened at all. The character development they tried failed, the storyline was both confusing and ridiculous, and the martial arts scenes were mechanical and slow, even by the standards of the time.

This film is completely unmemorable.

However, it's redeeming quality is that it costs a dollar, and you can use this movie to force someone to dump you.

Second verse, same as the first...

Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965)

Location: Best Buy

Price: $5.99 (included two other films, "Warning from Space" and "Assignment: Outer Space")

How many hands in how many pots by how many cooks on how many stoves in how many countries does it take to ruin a movie? I think the answer is not very much, as the classic Manos: Hands of Fate showed us. However, the makers of this film, and there were many, decided to test going the other direction. This movie has had more hands on it than Paris Hilton.

Portions of this movie were originally known as "Planeta Burg" (Russian for "Planet of Storms") and had a cast of several almost not so bad Russian actors. This footage, captured with state of the art communist photo machines, is almost not grainy. In fact, on the Beer Scale of Footage Quality, this ranks "Killian's Irish Red" meaning the footage is slightly more clear than looking through a pint of Guinness.

But that's not even the best part, the best part was the footage that was spliced in when the film came to America. There are crystal clear shots of Basil Rathbone and Faith Domergue added. You can see Faith Domergue in "This Island Earth" that was so succesfully riffed as the feature of "Mystery Science Theatre: 3000 The Movie."

Also, there are some scenes spliced in with American quality special effects (America was even ahead of the USSR in Z-film movie quality). From this mish mash of cinematography, the producers decided to find complete idiots to do the voice dubs of the Russian actors. At least I hope these people are idiots, they may just in fact be people with profound mental retardation, in which case their efforts are laudable.

A funny note here, the dubbing of the film was pretty bad, but what makes it hilarious is the fact that the Rathbone and Faith Domergue lines are not dubbed at all.

So, the Russian Director, the U.S. director Curtis Harrington, and the fall guy Roger Corman all added their individual specialties to this work of a thousand authors, and the result? Mud.

Wait, that's an insult to made, at least mud is consistent.

Oh yeah, I didn't even mention silly things like plots and performances and neat stuff about this film...

Maybe because there were none.

A Gem from the Bin

Warning from Space

AKA The Cosmic Man Appears in Tokyo.

(1956)

Location: Best Buy

Price: $5.99 (included two other films, "Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet" and "Assignment: Outer Space")

This beauty had my name written all over it. First we had the terrible costumes of space aliens that were shaped like starfish. Starfish that had a giant fluorescent eye smack dab in the middle of their bodies, and they had no arms or usable appendages, so they were psychic. Second, there were the state of the art special effects, like the gold spray painted cardboard that made up the space aliens' fleet. Third, there was the completely unbelievable plot. Let's see, a planet from another galaxy that is sort of like a star in the sense that it is really hot, is coming straight at Tokyo. An alien race (those starfish Cyclops things) is trying to warn the world, but everyone just freaks out whenever they see these guys (Doesn't anyone own an aquarium?) so that the starfish people have to morph into really almost semi-attractive Japanese s to get old nutty scientists to notice them. On top of all that, the film was dubbed into English.

The best part about this film is that it was a serious effort. The acting is that of deep drama and intensity. The special effects are used a tremendous amount (strangely enough, the effects even get better as the movie goes on). The viewer even begins to share concern with the characters as their acting careers end tragically.

But alas, this movie is terrible. During one scene (the "Panic Scene") people are seen fleeing Tokyo for no reason whatsoever. There are images of people jumping off moving trains, the police chief of Tokyo decides to have the city evacuated. It's an illogical order as the Earth is being threatened by A PLANET, moving away from Tokyo is not going to help much. In fact, after the one eyed aliens make contact with the Japanese scientists, the viewer spends the rest of the film completely confused. The aliens come and go as they please, only appearing when really, really necessary. But, thankfully (spoiler ahead) everything turns out fine, except for the millions of people killed by heat stroke and panic.

I highly recommend that you go out right now to Best Buy and get this movie. Mainly because, though I've never met you, I probably don't like you.