nuhc Reviews

Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 (1983)

The sequel nobody asked for

[2/10 · 26 February 2023]

I finally saw this turkey on broadcast TV last night. I honestly didn't even know there was a S&TB3 until a few years ago, and recently LaffTV showed the entire S&TB trilogy, so I decided to watch it just so I could say that I've seen it.

One thing that's obvious is that S&TB3 follows the mold of so many movie franchises. By the second sequel the premise has run out of steam so they're just trying to cash in on the name, such as Jaws 3 and Jaws 4. However, all movie producers should realize that when the main stars of the franchise refuse to take part in the latest sequel, they should cancel the project because it's just over.

So what's so bad about S&TB3? A little bit of everything. First there's the plot, which makes no sense. Sheriff Buford T. Justice decides to retire to Florida, but the Enoses offer him a bet to drive from Florida to Texas to deliver a fiberglass shark in order to advertise the Enoses new seafood restaurant. This is the first thing that doesn't make sense, because why make the offer to Buford instead of the Bandit? Or, since the Bandit was MIA from this movie, why not offer the job to Snowman? And if the Enoses were shelling out lots of money to hire people to slow Buford down, why did they need to hire the Snowman to act as the Bandit?

A few plot devices which continued to wear thin were the endless pointless chases, Buford's idiot son Junior, and the amount of damage continuing to occur to Buford's car, which with all the continuity errors changed from scene to scene. It just makes an unfunny movie become tedious. And for some reason they end up on a race track doing stunts at a fairground, which apparently was written into the movie to justify their stunt budget and didn't really add anything to the plot. Also there's a completely pointless boat chase scene that ends exactly where it started. It really just seems like this movie was just made up with all the discarded ideas from the first two movies. The editing was also apparently hastily done, as I couldn't count how many times Buford & Junior got caught up in a mess, giving the Bandit time to escape and likely a 5-10 minute head start, but the very next scene showed Buford right behind him again.

And, of course, for some reason they had to throw in the same old plot device of having a young, somewhat attractive woman riding with the Bandit for no reason at all. So they kind of redid the scene in the first movie where the bandit picks up a woman just needing to get away from someone. Maybe it worked in the first movie but this time it was totally unnecessary and her character didn't really add anything to the movie. Plus they couldn't even come up with a better name for her character than "Dusty Trails." Really? They weren't even trying when writing this movie. They certainly didn't give her any good dialogue.

It's also obvious they decided to use gratuitous nudity in order to prop up a lame movie, but of course watching it on broadcast TV everything was blurred out.

So all in all, this is one movie which shouldn't have been made. Of course it wasn't totally bad, but there's just way too much wrong with it to make it good.

Going Overboard (1989)

Hard to watch craptastic movie

[1/10 · 17 July 2022]

Found this movie on a streaming service, so as a fan of bad movies thought I needed to watch it. It was just about totally unbearable. I knew from the first moment Adam Sandler broke the fourth wall, it was going to be even worse than I thought.

The trivia says that this movie was written in 3 days. Cast in one day, and shot in 6 days. From concept to completion was 3 months. The quality of this movie really reflects it. Adam Sandler was asked to be in this movie about a week and a half before it was shot, before it was even written. That doesn't surprise me one bit. Everything about this movie appears rushed, ultra-low budget, and apparently used all first takes of each scene. I do understand that this movie was made in the 80's when B movies were popular, but there's no reason this movie should have been made.

Seven Days in Utopia (2011)

Worn premise with predictable plot, no ending

[1/10 · 29 November 2019]

Wife found this on Netflix, so I said what the hey and sat down to watch it with her. This movie follows a semi-professional golfer who threw tantrums in a professional match, got mad at his coach/caddy father, takes off in a tantrum, has a wreck in a small town and then has to stay there for a week waiting on his car to get fixed. While there he not only meets a local single, attractive girl as a romantic interest, but also a bully who he immediately has conflict with, and not to mention an ex-professional golfer who takes the role of his new coach in order to get his career back on track. As you can see, there are many well-used plot points there. And I'm sure you can also guess that the plot is pretty predictable. For instance, I told my wife that he was going to fall out of the boat when he was fishing (in order to learn how to be a better golfer, naturally), and when they were flying the plane and the engine cut out, I figured it was a joke by Robert Duvall's character (which is a pretty stupid thing to do since if someone who's never flown a plane before thinks they might crash due to making an unpowered landing, they could panic and do all sorts of things).

Naturally faking an engine failure and fly fishing make someone a much better golfer, not to mention developing the talent of painting a landscape with a big red arrow where you visualize your golf shot is going to go. Well after this and a bunch of religious preaching Robert Duvall gets the golf pro a shot in a small but important tournament where he immediately ties the big named golfer (Tae Kwon Oh, referred to as TKO... seriously?) for first place. It all comes down to making the very last shot, at which point the movie throws you for a loop by insulting you and saying that whether or not he made the shot isn't as important as being a Christian or some such nonsense, then gives you a website to go to in order to see how the movie ends, which from what I understand doesn't actually tell you if he made the shot or not. I instantly flipped off the TV with both hands, saying, "F you, movie!" If they can't even come up with a good ending, what the hell was the point in watching the whole thing? No, I didn't go to the website and don't plan to. From what I've read the website doesn't give you the ending of the movie either, just promises a sequel to this turkey.

I do have to give the movie one star for some good shots with some beautiful scenery, but other than that it was 90 minutes wasted.

Late Night (2019)

Tries to be "The Devil Wears Prada" and fails

[4/10 · 16 June 2019]

This movie is just OK, nothing to get worked up about. I saw this movie as a compromise with my wife because there wasn't much we could both agree on watching. It wasn't bad enough I was regretting seeing it, and was a passable way to spend an hour & a half, but this is one of those movies which will be soon forgotten.

That being said, the movie does have decent acting, and Emma Thompson does the best she can to carry this movie along with a decent appearance in a minor supporting role by John Lithgow. But I think the major problem with this movie is the writing. It's just missing... "something." It's billed as a comedy but there's very little comedy in it. It just seems like there could be a lot more done with the script. It's like the movie wants so hard to be "The Devil Wears Prada" but comes nowhere close. And to remain "edgy" a few F-bombs are dropped here and there, which aren't specifically bad, but just seems like the script writers were trying too hard. It just seems like a movie made about a late night TV host could have had a lot more humor.

Save your money and don't see this in theaters. Wait for it to come out in Redbox or Netflix and then don't rent it either. Of course that means you'll probably never see it, but you won't really miss much.

BTW, my wife didn't think much of this movie, either.

How to Be Single (2016)

OK movie but not much of a plot

[5/10 · 19 July 2016]

This is a total chick flick, so women will probably enjoy it, men maybe not so much. The plot is totally lacking. The movie basically consists of women getting into and out of relationships for about 90 minutes, that's about it. Throw in a few funny moments and that's the movie. It could have been filled out a little better, but if you're into relationship movies you'll probably enjoy it. Of course the acting, camera work, editing, & production is good, it's just the writing which suffers a bit. It just needed a little something else to make this movie good. Still, it's probably a good date movie, but not one which I'm likely to seek out to watch again.

Birdemic 2: The Resurrection (2013)

Well it's... um... not as bad as the first one

[1/10 · 10 November 2015]

... in the same sense that having a terrible cold isn't as bad as having the flu. Seriously, this movie stinks as bad as the first one. The format is the same in that we follow our heroes doing virtually nothing for 40 minutes, then the birdemic happens, and then our heroes drive around shooting birds for the rest of the movie.

If there's one thing which can be said in favor of Birdemic 2, it's that the editing is slightly better. But the acting is still totally atrocious, and the main actors didn't seem to learn much about acting between Birdemic 1 and 2. In fact, Whitney Moore's acting ability seemed to have gotten worse. And of course the plot is also nonexistent and the story line is completely ridiculous. And the movie starts out with about 10 minutes of what looks like surveillance footage of a guy walking down the street.

The same usual bad camera work is in use for this sequel as well. At times it's obvious a hand-held camera was being used as the shots got a bit shaky. The sound was atrocious, and often the actors' voices were covered with background music, sound effects, or noise (Mr. Nguyen, please invest in a boom mike before making any more movies). In some scenes no effort was made for sound dampening, as the actors' voices echoed from the room they were shooting in.

The basic plot makes no sense, as somehow some kind of blood rain falls making all sorts of prehistoric eagles and vultures come back to life from the La Brea tar pits. I guess global warming is so bad it melts the tar and makes dead animals stuck in it come back to life. And somehow even a couple of cave people for good measure. Later in the movie it even makes zombies rise from the grave. All of which our heroes have to fight. Of course, if they didn't think they had to stop and help the weirdest people they could find while driving around in a stolen RV, they wouldn't have that problem. And of course, the ending is as anticlimactic as in the first Birdemic. But we are hit over the head with a bunch of anti-global warming and pro-green preaching. Climate change is a big deal, but nobody's going to win someone over to environmental issues with a crappy movie like this.

There are plenty of mistakes in this movie which make it laughable. The actors fire hundreds of shots from pistols, shotguns, and an Uzi, but never have to reload. In the first bird attack scene on the movie set (inside a building, somehow the birds got inside) I counted some 77 shots fired between two actors firing pistols without reloading. And of course with all the birds getting hit and splattering into pieces, none of them end up dead on the floor. The actors constantly have blood on their faces & arms which disappears between shots, and they never actually got scratched by a bird in the first place. The scene in the movie theater where the birds were attacking the moviegoers (again, inside a building), the people were just sitting in their seats being attacked but not running out of the building. And when some people get splattered with bird blood, it makes them fall down and die for some reason. This is never explained. Neither is it explained why the blood rain would make a few zombies crawl out of their graves. Also, in the first movie Rod was a pro-green environmentalist, but in this movie when talking to people about saving the environment he acted like it was a new concept.

And of course we have the same kind of animated .gif birds which were in the first movie, which makes it totally unrealistic and unbelievable. It is, though, funny seeing all these "attacking" birds on the screen over a shot of a public park with people walking around nonchalantly.

There is a gratuitous boobie scene in this movie, which surprised me since in the first movie Nguyen didn't want the lead characters to get naked in the hotel scene. That scene is actually the best thing in this entire movie.

Birdemic 2 is bound to be yet another "so bad it's good" classic. If you're a real masochist, watch both of them in succession.

Idiocracy (2006)

Idiocracy - it's starting now!

[7/10 · 22 September 2015]

I finally got to watch this movie the other night and it was every bit as good as I had hoped. I will say that the acting, special effects, and story isn't award worthy, but the message is the important part here. It's believable, too, with all the intelligent people being smart enough to know when to have kids and to have fewer of them, while all the stupid people are there are breeding like rabbits. And with little evolutionary pressure to be smart or die, the stupid people will always outnumber us. If there's one criticism I have of the film, it's that you likely wouldn't have to wait 500 years for this to happen, just give it about 100-150 years. I mean, when you go on the internet and see barely literate people posting to message boards in extremely poor grammar and textspeak, the future of Idiocracy is not far off. Not to mention anti-intellectual attitudes of certain segments of society, mainly those who claim that universities are bastions of liberal indoctrination. We have a major political party in which one of the members after the 2012 election said, "Stop being the stupid party," yet this year (2015) their leading presidential candidate is Donald Trump. Frankly, it's entirely easy to envision a major corporation buying out the FDA, EPA, and USDA in order to spray a salty sports drink on crops in order to boost profits.

All in all, this movie has a good story line and keeps you interested. Some of the special effects you can tell were made with models, but it doesn't really detract from the movie and in fact adds to the hokey, trashy feel of the dystopian society. It's a shame this movie wasn't supported, promoted, and more widely distributed by the studio.

If you haven't seen this movie yet, by all means do so and heed it as a warning.

Frozen (I) (2013)

I'm glad it's a good movie

[8/10 · 6 December 2014]

I'm glad this movie is good because my kids love it so much. I've seen it what seems like hundreds of times now. The best part is when my 2 year old daughter dances and sings to "Let It Go," doing all the hand movements and stomping her foot on the floor like Elsa does.

Anyway, this is a good story and the animation is excellent, I'm sure Disney would have nothing less. I understand this movie is based on a Dickens story called The Ice Queen, which I might have to read some day.

But you don't need to tell me that this movie is good, just look at how much children love it.

The Burning Hell (1974)

A Chick tract put on film

[1/10 · 26 November 2014]

I just had to watch and review this movie after seeing the first Ormond/Pirkle flick "If Footmen Tire You What Will Horses Do?" which warned us that the evil commies would take over the United States unless we as a nation had a major Christian revival. That one was bad enough but this one was just plain tedious.

"The Burning Hell" follows the same tedious formula that "Footmen" followed, with an hour-long sermon by Estus W. Pirkle with cutaway scenes to illustrate what he's talking about. At least with "Footmen," the cutaway shots with the evil commies were entertaining in that they were hilariously over the top in a not-meant-to-be-funny way. The cutaway scenes in this movie were still funny in the same way, only not as funny as "Footmen." What you get are a bunch of scenes of Middle Easterners in biblical times with Southern American accents and a bunch of shots of people in Hell with flames in front of their faces. That's pretty much it.

Of course one thing that's pretty funny is that when one of the characters has a fatal accident on his motorcycle, instead of going to notify the police his friend returns to the church and sits through an hour long sermon. Nor does anyone at the church think it necessary to get help. Not funny, not cool: When the guy, obviously upset and distraught after witnessing the death of his friend asks Rev. Pirkle if his friend is in Hell, instead of offering words of comfort Pirkle says, "Yes, I'm afraid so." What an A-hole. Then he uses the man's emotional state to win another convert for Jesus. Nice.

Only watch this if you like sitting through hour-long sermons at fundamentalist Christian churches, because that's basically what this whole movie is. It's not entertaining, not really even in a so-bad-it's-funny way. It's just an hour of Estus Pirkle saying that Hell exists because the bible says so. As proof he cuts to a couple of other preachers who also say that Hell exists because the bible says so. Pirkle also makes a bunch of claims which shows that he's reading his own ideas into bible stories, such as saying that the bible doesn't say how Cain killed Abel (true, it doesn't) but then goes on to claim that he strangled him with his bare hands. Other embellishments are giving a name to the rich man and claiming that he knew so many other important people in Jerusalem at that time. He then later states that the rich man is still suffering in Hell to this day. Uh, excuse me Rev. Pirkle, but the story of Lazarus and the rich man was just a parable that Jesus told. You know what a parable is, don't you? A made up story with a moral? When he talked about the sheep and goats, he didn't literally mean that there would be sheep in Heaven.

I understand that this movie was probably made to preach to the choir in that it was likely made to show to church groups in order to keep the flock from straying, so anyone who's not already a fundamentalist Christian will feel some brain cells dying. I'm not kidding, right now I can't remember where my car keys are. I do like watching and making fun of bad movies, but this one was just terrible. I have a feeling that if there really is a Hell, this is the only movie which is playing 24/7.

If Footmen Tire You What Will Horses Do? (1971)

Fidel will bring you candy!

[1/10 · 25 November 2014]

Before I get into the review, I must say that the background of this film is interesting. Ron Ormond, a low budget C-grade movie director on the level of Ed Wood, survived a small plane crash with his family. Instead of thinking that maybe he's not a very good pilot, he saw it as a sign from God that instead of making terrible B movies, he must make terrible Christian movies. He teamed up with a preacher named Estus W. Pirkle to make Pirkle's book of the same name into the hour-long sermon that is "Footmen."

From the very beginning, even before watching the film, you know it's going to be terrible, mainly in that the title is too long and unwieldy. It may be OK for the title of a book, but movie titles are usually a lot shorter and to the point. Something Ron apparently didn't learn in film school.

The film itself consists mainly of Estus W. Pirkle giving a sermon in a church while occasional flashbacks show graphic detail of what Pirkle believes will happen if the United States doesn't get Christian enough and allows the commies to take over. From making children run through a stream, numerous shots of dead bodies with ultra-fake blood all over them, teaching children that praying to Jesus doesn't get you candy but praying to Fidel Castro does, dropping people on pitchforks, to shooting Christians leaving a church service, you get the general idea that when the commies come life will be particularly bad for Christians. The beheading scene is particularly hilarious in that not-meant-to-be-funny way of bad movies like this. However, the scene where the child with sticks poked into his eardrums is vomiting is particularly disturbing when you realize they must have really made him vomit for that scene.

And one thing that seems particularly funny is that when the commies come they won't be driving tanks, but they'll be riding horseback. In fact, none of the communist soldiers or officers drove any kind of vehicles at all except for the one white Ford pickup with a gun rack in the back window. And for some reason the commies all have M16 rifles in one scene. I guess living in a communist economy meant shortages of AK-47's so they had to steal rifles from the U.S. military when they invaded.

As far as the technical aspects go, the sound is bad and the color tends to get washed out even in dark scenes. The acting, of course, is particularly atrocious, and the main commie officer can't seem to hold his accent together. Not to mention that the armbands on their uniforms look like something made by children in grade school.

Then of course you have the message, a mixture of paranoia and religion. The basic message that Pirkle gives is that within 24 months (back in 1971), if we don't stop watching Saturday morning cartoons, dancing, and going to drive-in movies, God will leave America and go to Indonesia (strange because that country has a huge Muslim population) and without God living here (that's right, he seems to insinuate that God is an American) the commies will easily take over and start killing Christians. Apparently fundamentalist Christians had a persecution complex even 40 years ago. And of course the only solution is to fill churches with bible-believing people to listen to bible-banging preachers. I just hope they don't all fall asleep during the sermon like some of the people did in this movie.

The writing of this movie is completely horrible, since watching this movie is about as fun as listening to a street corner preacher for an hour. The flashback scenes with the communists persecuting Christians were totally laughable. And of course, what Christian movie would be complete without a come-to-Jesus moment? This movie is hilarious only when you look at it through the lens of what some crazy fundamentalist Christians believe. Of course, nowadays they're not afraid of communists so much as they are Muslims. The old paranoia is still there, only the bogeymen have changed. This movie is worth a laugh or two and shouldn't be taken seriously by anyone, even Christians. My condolences to anyone who was forced to watch this at their church group as a child.

The entire movie is available on Youtube, but for a better version look for the version by the Riffing Religion guys who give it an MST3K treatment.

Space Mutiny (1988)

Horrible, cheesy, low budget 80's sci fi flick

[1/10 · 26 April 2014]

Watched this horrible piece of garbage movie as an MST3K episode, and if not for the MST3K treatment, this would have to be one of the worst low-budget sci fi flicks ever. But, this one is so bad that it's funny, especially if you look out for all the goofs. For example: the woman with the big hair gets killed by Kalgan and shows up in the next scene like nothing happened, the beginning of the movie has footage from Battlestar Galactica, the captain of the space ship has an obviously fake Santa beard, all the action takes place on board a space ship, yet they have no problems blowing stuff up or starting fires, at one point the hero is running down a hallway next to a brick wall even though he's on a space ship, a flamethrower appears to be a propane bottle painted silver, the buff hero knocks out some skinny dude and then puts on his uniform which he manages to fit, a bunch of people running around in a factory and falling over railings to their deaths, and everyone uses 8088 desktop computers. Then throw in some useless plot points about some alien women who like to do tai chi while running their hands over plasma balls direct from Spencer's Gifts, a cheesy 80's soundtrack (don't get me wrong, I grew up in the 80's and love the music), and a steroid-filled leading man and you get Space Mutiny.

Watch the MST3K version, it makes for some pretty funny moments, especially when Captain Santa gets lucky.

The Skydivers (1963)

Snore

[1/10 · 3 April 2014]

Since I've watched Coleman Francis' other "masterpieces" The Beast of Yucca Flats and Night Train to Mundo Fine (aka Red Zone Cuba), I had to watch his other movie. If not for the MST3K crew this movie would just remain awfully dull and boring. Just like Francis' other movies, this too is plagued with awful acting, bad editing, weak story, and bad sound, lighting & camera work. Which is a shame for something which at least in part proposes to be an action movie, but even the skydiving "action" scenes seemed pretty dull and lifeless. But at least they had coffee.

If you're looking for a good ending, forget it. For some reason Coleman Francis thought that the way to deal with criminals is to shoot at them from the air, since all three movies ended that way. So much for arrest and due process, we know they're guilty so let's gun them down. But basically the ending is the somewhat climactic ending to a movie with hardly any plot.

The MST3K version will keep you laughing, though.

Red Zone Cuba (1966)

The most pointless movie ever

[1/10 · 2 April 2014]

Night Train to Mundo Fine (aka Red Zone Cuba) is about the most pointless, incredibly ridiculous movies ever made. The story follows an escaped convict named Griffen (Coleman Francis) who befriends a couple of drifters looking for work, and they decide to join the Bay of Pigs invasion force. After about 20 minutes of military training, all 8 men of the invasion force invade Cuba. They're all captured and awaiting execution, when the three friends escape and fly a plane to Arizona to look for precious metals in a mountain one of the men in the invasion force told them about in their cell. They drive around, kill a couple people, jump on a train, meet the wife of the guy who owns the mountain, and as they're heading out to do some mining G-men show up to capture them.

There really does seem to be no point to this movie whatsoever. There are so many plot lines which go nowhere, and no real reason to involve the Bay of Pigs as part of the plot, other than to learn about the Arizona mountain and its riches. There's no reason for them to kill people after they go to Arizona. There's no reason for them to ditch their car and hop onto a train, only to get another car later on. There's no need for Griffen to shoot the woman after the feds are chasing him.

This could have been a decent movie if it had decent directing and a budget for the action sequences. As it was, about all the action was cut out of the movie. There was little action in the invasion sequence, certainly no combat to speak of. Then when they were escaping Cuba in the airplane, one minute they're taxiing down the runway with a jeep chasing them and people shooting, next thing they're walking in a field. Same for the train sequence. One minute they're walking on top of a moving train, the next they're jumping out of a stationary boxcar. In fact, the whole train scene was no more than 1:20 or so minutes long. It's like Coleman Francis thought it'd be a great idea to take out all the best parts of the movie and leave in everything else.

And in the end, there's really not much of a message to this movie, or if there's supposed to be it's difficult to determine what it is. You really can't feel empathy for the lead character because he's just not much of a likable guy. Nor do you really care about the others. Nor is the movie good entertainment, even in a "so bad it's good" sort of way.

If you watch this, watch the MST3K version.

Leonard Part 6 (1987)

What was Bill thinking?

[1/10 · 25 March 2014]

I saw this movie on cable not long after it came out, and all I have to say is that it was atrocious. The funniest part was when his wife dumped food on his head. That's it. If you don't think that's funny, you won't like the rest of the movie at all. And of course being a kid at the time, I thought the scene where he launched his armored Porsche was amusing, as if he were launching it off an aircraft carrier. But animals eating secret agents is a pretty lame plot line.

Even Bill Cosby felt remorse for this turkey and urged people to not see it. It really is that bad. I just wonder if he felt he needed some quick cash or something, but he had his TV show going at the time, so that can't be the case.

Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)

Yep, another great bad movie

[1/10 · 25 March 2014]

I'd heard of Manos but only just recently got around to finally viewing it. And yes, in the bad movie department it doesn't disappoint. While worse than Plan 9 From Outer Space, it's still not as bad as Monster-A-Go-Go. And of course to make this movie worth watching you should watch the MST3K version.

The acting is horrendous, the lighting is poor, the sound is bad, and the video a bit fuzzy. Typical for amateur, low-budget movie efforts. Also typical for low-budget movies is the plot. Travelers get lost, find a group of weirdos, then try to escape from said weirdos. Tell me you haven't heard that one before. And yet another typical amateur low-budget mistake are many scenes which seem to go nowhere, along with confusing plot lines. But you have to see the Master's wonderful cloak.

Interspersed with the plot are a couple of policemen who don't seem too keen to investigate anything except for the couple who seem to be interested in making out in a sports car 24/7.

If there is one bright spot in this cinematographic dungheap is that the character of Torgo really did come off as creepy. I understand reading the trivia was that the actor was on LSD at the time which caused his twitchy, out-of-it behavior. That's not to say that the part was good or that he was a good actor, though, but you really wouldn't want to spend the night with Torgo.

I can understand why this movie bombed at the premier and why it's consistently been rated as one of the worst movies in history.

The Counselor (2013)

Confusing mess of a movie, poorly written with dumb dialog

[3/10 · 8 November 2013]

My wife and I decided to see this movie since nothing else in the theater looked good. Other than a brief synopsis on the movie theater website, I didn't know anything about this movie. But it looked intriguing with a great cast.

Looks can be deceiving, and that was certainly the case here. What looked like it should be a good movie turned out to be a confusing film that goes everywhere, yet nowhere. All the dialog between characters was filled with language which apparently was supposed to be deeply profound and philosophical, but came off as either confusing or silly. People just don't talk like that in real life.

The other problem with the movie was the fact that very little is explained. We don't know why the Counselor (couldn't they give the main character a name?) wants to get involved in a drug deal, especially since he's rich enough to drive a sports car and fly off to Amsterdam to buy a 3.8 carat diamond for his girlfriend's wedding ring, but it's revealed later (as much as anything in this movie is revealed) that he got into the deal for money. Of course, we are not told what his involvement in the deal is, nor anyone else's.

In the middle of all this heavy dialog between characters, we're shown scenes of a truck full of drugs coming into the country. A truck which gets stolen and therefore the drug cartel thinks the Counselor and everyone he knows is responsible. So therefore the movie turns into an effort for each of the main characters to survive, yet all but one seem unconcerned that they might be killed by the cartel members.

This is just where the movie starts to get interesting, yet there are so many continuity errors and plot holes that the movie which was confusing before just becomes silly. Are we really to believe that Westray, who said that he could disappear and not be found, would be tracked to London and then hook up with a beautiful woman from New Mexico (when all the previous action took place around El Paso) and would allow her to steal the password to his computer? I knew she was a plant when he met her at the hotel desk. Are we to believe that instead of driving around with a couple of bodyguards when a drug cartel is after him, a drug dealer is just going to drive around alone with a gun in the glove box? Are we also to believe that the Counselor, after throwing his cell phone away so he wouldn't be tracked, would apparently just run down to the Verizon shop and get another phone? Are we also to believe that instead of going into hiding, he goes down to Juarez to talk to (I'm guessing, that character is never explained) a drug kingpin who instead of just telling him that he's screwed, goes into some pseudo-intellectual philosophical soliloquy? And after talking to this guy, instead of leaving and going into hiding somewhere he just walks around the streets and falls asleep in a restaurant? Are we to believe that Cameron Diaz's character is from Barbados? Why do we even need to keep following the subplot about the truck after the drug cartel goes after the main characters? It's like that part was kept in to fill time and provide some more gruesome on screen bloodshed. And Brad Pitt's character wasn't even really needed in the movie.

After seeing this movie I understand that a well-known novelist decided to write a movie script, and this movie is the result. That explains the improbable, convoluted dialog between characters, so much missing from the plot, and why character development was lacking. Best to leave novels to the novelists and leave screenplays to the movie writers.

The movie wasn't totally bad, since there were a couple of scenes of people getting killed in interesting ways and a funny sex scene involving a woman and a car windshield. But the confusing plot, lack of development, and ponderous dialog make this movie hard to watch. And the ending is a total letdown. This is a movie I don't really care to see again.

Last Ounce of Courage (2012)

Conservative Christian propaganda

[1/10 · 30 December 2012]

I sat through this awful movie because my conservative Republican in-laws rented it. When I saw the subtitle which mentioned family, faith, and freedom, I just knew it was going to be an hour and a half of conservative propaganda. And I was right.

The movie takes place in some bizarre alternate universe where Americans aren't allowed to celebrate Christmas under penalty of law, school kids get suspended for taking bibles to school, Christmas trees are declared unconstitutional, people actually protest Christmas, and Christians get arrested & thrown into jail for hanging a cross on the side of a building which houses a religious mission. I know that a lot of conservatives actually believe that this is how America is today, but nothing could be further from the truth. And this is really what ruined the entire movie. Since the premise was flawed, the entire movie was flawed.

So the hero's son dies in a war apparently in the Middle East, and of course the movie's message is that he and all American soldiers who have died in the Middle East died to protect our freedom, freedom we're taking for granted because we're not forcing kids to pray in school and allowing non-Christians to celebrate Christmas without acknowledging Jesus and evil black liberal lawyers like to push their weight around with that pesky separation of church & state thing.

So some of the school kids decide to fight back by changing the non-Christmas play the (obviously gay) school play director wrote. They change it into a Charlie Brown Christmas-type play until the one kid shows the video of his dad getting blown away in Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever, which apparently endears everyone to the cause of dying for your country.

There are just too many plot holes to make this a good movie. For example, the first part of the movie takes place during a time when the United States is involved in a war in the Middle East, and then a few scenes later it's 14 years later. So if the latter part of the movie is supposed to be happening now in 2012, then that means the US was at war in the Middle East in 1998. Either that or the first part of the movie takes place now or some time between 2001 and the present, and the latter part of the movie is a few years in the future. At any rate, this isn't made clear and I think was a mistake by those writing the script so that a teenager who lost his dad in a war could be involved in the story. I suppose the first part of the movie could have taken place during Desert Storm and the latter half during 2005, but I don't think they were intending that. Then there's the plot hole where the main hero's military service record was being questioned, even though he won the Congressional Medal of Honor which would be in the public record. Not to mention the biggest plot hole of everyone hating Christmas because the government isn't allowed to erect Christmas symbols on government property, and cities "passing laws banning Christmas" which would be unconstitutional in real life.

Plot holes notwithstanding, the rest of the screenplay is just as lousy. For instance, two of the main character's names: "Bob Revere" and his grandson "Christian." Subtlety just doesn't exist in Christian films.

So in total, the movie totally sucks donkey butt. The acting isn't nearly as atrocious as other pro-Christian movies like Fireproof, but the anemic and totally implausible plot means that unless you're a regular Fox News viewer (and in that case you'll be thrilled by the brief footage of Bill O'Rielly), you won't like this movie at all. I'm tempted to rate this movie higher due to the cinematic work and acting not being totally bad, but the overall heavy-handedness of the "them evil, godless liberals is destroying our country" message ruined any enjoyment to be had by this movie. So 1 out of 10.

Hop (2011)

Good for kids, not good for adults

[2/10 · 4 August 2012]

The only reason I watched this movie was because my wife rented it for our 2 year old son. It's OK as a kid movie, I guess, but I found it to be mindless drivel with a bunch of disjointed scenes. At different points the main character E.B. was thought to be a stuffed toy, a ventriloquist's dummy, or just a talking rabbit. As if the rabbit's identity had to be hidden from some people but not others, but the ridiculous part was that some of the characters were not even surprised by a talking rabbit. Then there were ridiculous subplots about a talent contest, the main character wanting to become the Easter Bunny, and a coup de etat by chicks at the Easter Bunny's candy factory (on Easter Island, no less).

Even my son didn't pay much attention to this movie. 2/10.

The Right Stuff (1983)

Awesome film

[10/10 · 5 July 2012]

I caught this movie on one of the movie channels again the other night, and realized how much I love this movie. I am a flight/space buff so of course it appeals to me. But aside from that, the acting, special effects, story line, everything is good to the point of making it a good film. It has just the right mix of seriousness and comic relief to make it enjoyable to watch and entertaining as well. The movie shows how pitifully far behind the Russians we were in the space race, yet we somehow managed to catch up.

The one issue I have with the movie is how it portrays Gus Grissom being at fault for blowing the hatch to his capsule, while in actuality NASA concluded that he was correct. The astronauts had to punch a large switch with the side of their closed fist to blow the hatch, leaving tell-tale bruising on their hands. Grissom never had any bruising on his hand so could not have blown the hatch himself.

However, this is one of those movies which I've seen several times, but every time it comes on again I'll want to sit and watch the whole thing.

The Room (2003)

This film is tearing me apart!

[1/10 · 27 June 2012]

I became aware of The Room after reading reviews for Birdemic, comparing two bad films. So I had to sit down and watch The Room to see for myself, which I did with no preconceptions about it other than a few vague references to it being a bad movie.

I won't say it's the worst film ever made, since I believe that (dis)honor goes to Birdemic in my opinion. While The Room had atrocious acting, a lousy plot, and poor dialog, it at least had decent editing and good sound although if I see one more panning shot of San Francisco I think I'm going to vomit.

Several things which brought this film down were the aforementioned poor acting (whoever told Tommy Wiseau that he could act needs to be slapped senseless), lousy dialog, and poor plot. There was only one or two decent actors in the whole film.

The character of Denny was just annoying. I mean, he's 18, not 8 for goodness' sakes, why does he want to throw the football around all the time? Speaking of which, the one football toss scene where the actors kept running into and out of the scene reminded me of a Saturday Night Live skit.

The use of green screen in the rooftop scenes was pretty noticeable, partially because the actors hair didn't blow in the wind. This wasn't particularly annoying though.

There was nothing lovable about the character of Johnny which made you want to like him. The way he acted didn't give off any feeling of warmth, so why was everyone so concerned about his feelings? There also could have been a couple of good subplot with Denny & the drug dealer, but once that conflict was over, it was never mentioned again, nor did they ever figure out why he was buying drugs anyway. Same with Lisa's mother telling her about having breast cancer, almost in passing. But once that scene was over, nothing else was ever said. It's like those parts of the movie were just thrown in for the heck of it.

The fight scenes were totally unrealistic (as was everything else) and near the end when Johnny was going on his "rampage" was pretty laughable.

Basically the whole movie was worse that a Lifetime made-for-TV movie, with basically the same plot. Even as a so-bad-it's-good type of movie, this one doesn't even make me want to laugh at it.

The Boat That Rocked (2009)

Great film for pirate radio fans

[8/10 · 26 June 2012]

As a fan of pirate radio, I was looking forward to watching this movie with eager anticipation. I have some tapes sent to me by a friend in the UK of different pirate radio broadcasts from pirate ships in the 1960's-70's, and could only imagine what it would be like to be broadcasting from sea. This film brought that imagination to life, bringing you back to a time before automated, bland format radio stations with no personality became the norm, to a time when DJ's were celebrities.

I'm sure it's a fanciful interpretation, and probably nowhere near to reality, but it was definitely entertaining to watch the antics of DJ's and radio crew who just wanted to bring a genre of music to the British Isles that for some reason the BBC and British government didn't think it necessary at all. The movie is entertaining and gives quite a few funny moments, like when the nighttime DJ risks his life to save an album from the sinking ship, only to have another DJ call the album crap and toss it back into the water.

Even if you're not a fan of pirate radio, you should be entertained by this movie. It is kind of a David vs. Goliath story, even though Goliath doesn't fall down dead. This is a movie I'll want to watch again and again, but then again I'm a radio nerd.

Dark Star (1974)

Interesting but often boring film

[3/10 · 22 June 2012]

OK the only reason I ever watched this movie was because I read in the book "Big Secrets" that there is a "subliminal" shot of one of the computer screens flashing "F--- you Harris," a dig at producer Jack H. Harris who annoyed John Carpenter. Watched the whole thing and never did see it (even later slowing down through the parts showing the computer screens), so it must have been edited out of the version I rented.

Anyway, the premise of the film was OK, and I appreciated how they got around the low budget with the special effects. Yes, we all knew it was a beach ball alien, and Pinback's video diary cartridges looked suspiciously like 8-track tapes, but it wasn't overly cheesy like a lot of low-budget films are. I don't fault them for having a low budget.

The parts I enjoyed the most were Pinback's videos where he admits that he's not really a member of the crew and his steady progression from sanity, and the part where they had to talk the bomb out of detonating itself.

However, most of the movie just seemed to drag on and I tended to get bored during parts of it. Perhaps I wasn't totally in on the joke, but it just seemed that a lot of the movie just dragged on. Perhaps this was a way of making you feel the monotony the characters were dealing with in the movie, but it wasn't fun. Even the alien chase scene didn't appear as funny as it could have been.

Perhaps I need to watch it again to fully appreciate, but if I do I will be prepared for the boring parts.

Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010)

Attack of the animated .gifs!

[1/10 · 20 June 2012]

I first heard about this movie from my nephew, who told me it was so terrible that I just had to see it. As a fan of bad movies, all I can say is that I wish MST3K were still around so they could lampoon it. Yes, this one is one of the best of the worst movies ever, and should rank right up there with Plan 9 or Manos: Hands of Fate. If you like to watch bad movies, you've got to see Birdemic. It's so horribly bad it's actually got to be seen to be believed. I know that a lot of people call this or that movie "the worst movie ever made," but in this case I have to say that this is definitely the worst movie I've ever seen.

First I'll discuss the "plot." Apparently global warming is so bad it makes birds in southern California attack people, even conducting kamikaze attacks against buildings and gas pumps (complete with aircraft sound effects!). Global warming must be really bad when dive-bombing birds explode into flame. Just how hot is it, anyway? And the plot holes are so huge it's a wonder all the actors don't just fall into them. For example, one moment the group in the van is running away and shooting at killer birds, the next minute they're out having a picnic at a state park. The heroine smiling at different points in the movie after the bird attacks. Kids playing with a ball and having a good time while they're on the run from killer birds (and after their parents were killed by same).

The first 45 minutes or so of this "movie" center around the hero, Rod, who finds the woman of his dreams, Nathalie, and starts to develop a relationship with her. For some unknown reason, she is totally attracted to his lack of personality, and they begin a no-conflict relationship. In fact, even Nathalie's mother is totally supportive of her modeling career, even happy that she's going to appear on the cover of a Victoria's Secret catalog. Everything's going great. Rod and Nathalie have an intimate moment in a hotel, and wake up the next morning when the birds start attacking. They find another couple in the hotel who just happen to have a van full of automatic weapons (which is never explained except later that the guy was an ex-Marine), so they go around shooting the birds and trying to help people. The ending is just as confusing as the premise of the movie, with Rod's girlfriend asking a question that starts with "Why?" which I half expected her to finish "did I take this role in this cheesy movie?" Or perhaps, "Why was this movie even made?"

OK, let's talk about why the movie is so incredibly bad. The plot, for one. Secondly, the editing is incredibly amateurish. You could drive a Mack truck through some of the cues. The opening camera shots from the front seat of a car were all tilted so that it looked like they were driving on the side of a mountain. In fact, most internal car shots were slanted like this for some reason. Couldn't they find a cameraman who could hold a camera upright? When characters are talking to each other on the phone, the scene constantly switches back & forth between each character as they give their one or two word replies, which became annoying.

The quality of the filming is extremely poor. Poor lighting left some actors entirely in the dark on a few occasions. The sound quality was horrendous, dropping out completely at times, and you couldn't hear the actors speaking while on the beach because of the loud ocean sounds. The background music was terrible, and in some spots where there should have been music there was none.

Then, you have to take into account the incredibly horrendous acting from just about everyone in the movie. The lead character walks like he's got a stick up his butt. Which isn't surprising, because all the acting is so stiff and wooden they couldn't have done worse than replacing the actors with department store mannequins. In fact, the extras seem to be the best actors in the entire movie, whether just walking into a building or laying around dead. Watch the scene early in the movie where Mr. Stick-butt is walking into the building, and then contrast that with how naturally the extras are walking.

And the piece de resistance is the incredibly cheesy special effects birds in the form of what appears to be animated GIFs added to the video post filming. It reminded me of viewing a Geocities website back in 1999. In fact the cheesy CGI was probably the funniest thing in the whole movie, especially when some of the birds dive-bombed and then fell over dead. When the actors were shooting the birds down, it took me back to playing Duck Hunt on the Nintendo back in 1990, though the birds in Duck Hunt at least flew around instead of hovering in one spot while flapping their wings. They couldn't even put together fake bird props for the dead birds, but had still .gif images of birds laying on the ground.

I was tempted to give this movie 2 stars instead of just one because this movie was so incredibly bad it made me laugh. But I rate movies on their own merits here, so it has to be only 1 star. But I do recommend it for the hilarity factor. At the time of this writing, the entire full length movie is available on Youtube, so I recommend seeing it there instead of renting or buying it. If you don't want to sit through the whole thing, watch the trailer or see the video showing the "best" action scenes from the movie.

I understand they've made a Birdemic 2. I can't imagine why.

Napoleon Dynamite (2004)

Still don't know if I liked it or not

[5/10 · 28 July 2011]

This is one of those movies where I'm not sure if I really liked it or really hated it. It is a quirky, odd movie with quirky, odd characters with funny moments, but the plot line is a little weak which basically consists of Napolean trying to get a date to the prom and Pedro running for class president, with a subplot of Napolean's uncle & brother trying to make money. So I'll understand why some people will love this movie and why some will hate it. I've seen it several times now, and while the funny parts do make me laugh (like the scene were Kip tries to run over the Tupperware bowl and the scene where they try out the time machine), it's not a constant laugh fest and the plot is still a bit weak. So, since I'm in the middle of the road with this film, I have to give it 5 out of 10 stars.

Fred: The Movie (2010 TV Movie)

WTF is this?

[1/10 · 25 July 2011]

WTF? That's what I was thinking when I was watching this. And the only reason I saw this was because my 5 year old nephew wanted to watch it, so I put it on for him. The Fred character was totally annoying. He was like a teenager with an extremely annoying high-pitched child's voice and totally annoying manner. I wasn't sure if he was supposed to be a child or teenager, or something in between. I'm guessing that Fred is some kid's TV show or something which could only explain how this got made into a movie. I watched for as long as I could before leaving the room to work on a project, and when I came back there was a shot of someone throwing up into a microwave. That's when I ended the movie. I'm guessing kids will like this, but adults with more than two brain cells to rub together will hate it.