And then there's Kitten With a Whip, an old Ann-Margret movie. Apparently the director did several really good Twilight Zone episodes, and was a much better storyteller than most directors of movies that MST3K usually gets.
And the movie really was much better than normal, and certainly had some of that Twilight Zone surrealism in it. Jody, a troubled teen, attacks her guardian and escapes from reform school, crashes in a political candidate's home while he's out. The candidate returns, but his wife and daughter are out of town. He discovers Jody, tries to help her, and all she does is take advantage of him. She manipulates him, invites her crazy friends over, and they make him drive them to Mexico. On the way, she runs over one of her friends, the other gets a bad razor slash to the arm. When they get to Mexico, they try to get revenge on Jody, where the candidate guy once again tries to save her when he realizes how much trouble she is in with her "friends."
The end up crashing their cars, the two friends dying instantly. Jody lived long enough to exonerate the candidate guy so nobody suspected anything bad of him. I think this movie deserves two empty seats, for the kitten and the whip that never appear in the movie.
Up next is San Francisco International, another test pilot for a TV show that didn't make it.
The movie wasn't as bad as some of the others in this season (some still to come!), but the riffing was great. The movie was about a money heist. A pilot's wife is kidnapped so they can force him to delay his plane from taking off. In the meantime, other accomplices steal money from a plane (it was being shipped by air for some reason), and in a genius move put the money into boxes they were shipping along with the money, removing the ballast they originally had in the boxes. The getaway guy gets nabbed, but they only recover a bundle of old magazines. Fortunately for the good guys, they figure out what must have happened, and find the loot, which they put back on the delayed plane so they can nab the bandits red-handed later.
During all this, there's a side plot with a top newspaper reporter and his estranged wife and child. The kid loves flying, so he walks out on the tarmac and gets into a piper and manages to start it up and take off (somehow). I guess this was the kid acting out from the inattention of his parents or something. So some other pilot guy gets in a plane and talks the boy into landing the plane. Everybody lives, and they couple get back together due to the shared peril of their son.
And the TV series never gets made. I give this movie one empty seat for the sunglasses the piper's owner was supposedly looking for that allowed the kid to climb in his plane, start the engine, and fly it away.
Ah, another Ed Wood film. The Sinister Urge is about just that—it's a film about the evils of pornography. When some girls are being found dead in a local park, cops suspect foul play as they are girls that were featured in photos and movies by a local porno-ring.
I understand the point this movie is trying to make, but it was made by Ed Wood! Rife with horrid, dry acting and scene cutting (I believe even scenes from other movies were pasted in to this one), it was just a bad film.
I rate this movie one empty seat, for Ed Wood, who actually put himself in a came in this movie.
Next up, The Starfighters! Guess what? It has nothing to do about fighting in the stars. Or anything remotely science fiction.
This movie was a 1960's advertisement to be an Air Force pilot. It was the 60's' version of that awful movie Top Gun. Except there was no combat. Yes! No combat! This movie was all about flying jets around, and had long (really long) refueling scenes. Seriously, there was next to no content in this travesty of film-making. There was a teacher, and a couple of pilot trainees. They flew some training missions. One guy crashed once because of a storm. One trainee's dad was a senator that wanted him to fly something other than jets. Did I mention the airborne refueling? They did lots of that. Then they got dispatched to Europe! Then the movie was over. Seriously, no action at all, unless you count the chaperoned make-out session in the front seat of a convertible.
In all honesty, I can only rate this movie an entire empty theater of seats. Seriously, somebody spent real money making this crap! Unbelievable!
I watched Last of the Wild Horses the other day, since I was sick at home. In fact, I watched seven episodes and you're going to hear about them all. I know, I never shut up…
So anyway, it's a western. The odd thing about this movie is that, during the opening host sequence, Dr. F and TV's Frank send a "matter transference" device up to the SOL during an ion storm and cause a dimensional swap—now there are evil, alternate versions of Mike, the bots, etc (ala Star Trek) and the Mad Scientists are on the SOL watching and riffing the first part of the movie. What I remember most is probably all the gay cowboy jokes. They were many.
There were two girls in the film, and I kept getting them mixed up. Typical of a bad film, but still, I was confused a lot. There was at least one comedy relief guy, and scenes of horses running around. Not so memorable, really. Certainly nothing science fiction-y, except for the alternate evil twin parts of the host segment.
I give this movie two empty seats, one for each of the women in this film that I could never really tell apart.
Season Six, Episode Ten ladies and gentlemen! Directed by the one and only Ed Wood! It's The Violent Years starring young out-of-control girls on a rampage!
Paula, the daughter of a newspaper editor has everything she ever wanted, except the attention of her parents. Somehow this young girl that gets a new convertible every year decides her life sucks and goes out with her three girlfriends in search of adventure with guns. They rob gas stations, albeit somewhat slowly, and trash a school classroom. They throw pajama parties and invite boys! They shoot at cops when they get caught! They all die except Paula, who gets sentenced to life in prison, where she has her baby out of wedlock!
And to top it off, when her parents try to adopt Paula's baby girl, the judge denies them because they raised Paula so poorly. He even recommends they get some religion! I have to give this movie two unloved, neglected seats: one for Paula and one for her baby that must grow up a ward of the state until adequate parents are found.
Well, one more horrible movie down. I just watched Skydivers, perhaps one of the poorest movies every put to film. There was no acting to speak of, the plot was barely discernible, and it was boring to boot. The movie was about, well, skydiving. But only a little bit. It was torture to watch, even with Mike and the 'bots helping make it more bearable.
I give this movie two empty seats, one for each of the guys that hit the ground without a working parachute. Kind of like this movie did.
Last night before I went to bed I finished Code Name: Diamond Head, an old failed TV pilot by Quinn Martin about a spy in Hawaii. Complete with cheesy screen wipes and only a little action, there's no question why this never got off the ground.
The bad guy, a master of disguise, codenamed "Tree" (I know, boring) is trying to hijack some new nerve toxin. Helping Diamond Head is the Dragon Lady, a hideously thin Vietnamese lady, and Zulu, who later appeared in Hawaii Five-O. I give this movie forty empty seats, one for every pound that Vietnamese lady needed on her body to look better.
By the way, why do they always cast non-Chinese people as Chinese people? It bugs me to see someone that is obviously Vietnamese or Korean, or even Japanese, playing a character with a Chinese name. That whole "they all look alike" thing? It's utter crap.
I just finished watching Bloodlust, another season 6 episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. This movie had a lot less science fiction and a lot more crazy than normal. There was a great short film at the beginning about Uncle Jim's Dairy Farm though, which nearly redeemed the movie!
The movie is about two young couples on a boat that get off on an island that turns out to be a crazy hunter's personal playground. He captures them, and they find out he hunts people for trophies.
That was basically all there was to it, and I can only give it four empty seats, one for each of the young "stars" of this film.
Next on the list: The Creeping Terror. I'm pretty sure I've seen this movie before, but I didn't review it, so I had to subject myself to it a second time.
This movie starts with a newlywed couple returning home to California when a rocket lands nearby. The sheriff and his deputies check it out, and the government is called in quickly. They find a monster on board that is imprisoned, and later learn there is another one on the loose. The other monster rampages across the countryside, albeit somewhat slowly, and eats people whole. For some reason, they're never able to run from it.
As entertaining as that may sound, it really wasn't. This movie was somewhat slow, and every once in a while a narrator would come along and narrate a conversation that is going on on-screen. I give this movie one hundred empty seats, which is at least how many people were eaten by this stupid monster.
After a long hiatus, I've gone back to watching more MST3K (I'm on season 6). This time it's Colossus and the Headhunters, a terrible Italian movie about a guy named Maciste (we can only assume he's Colossus, but they never really tell us). Since they pronounce it like "my cheese steak" there are quite a few jokes about that throughout the show. Maciste is on an island as a volcano is erupting and people are running for their lives. Although he's a stranger, they follow him to a boat (his boat?) where they leave just as the island sinks into the sea. They sail to another island where a war is raging between two tribes, one of them headhunters. The headhunters are ruled by a guy that left the other tribe, and he captured the old king so he could force the king's daughter to marry him so he could be king.
Full of lots of Italians in short shorts, this movie wasn't really my thing. But because of all the near cheek-shots, I rate this movie two empty seats one for each of the eyes that was put out of the old king. If only I had been so lucky, I wouldn't have seen this horrible movie…
I received my copy of Cinematic Titanic's The Alien Factor in the mail the other day. I watched it this morning since I was up early with little to do. The Alien Factor like East Meets Watts, is a "live show DVD," a recording of a live performance. I didn't think I'd like either as much as I did because of the laughing in the background, but it wasn't too bad. (In case you don't know, I have a strong aversion to laugh tracks.)
In any case, The Alien Factor was a horribly low-budget film. In fact, I'd be surprised if it wasn't some amateur film school dropout project. A significant portion of the movie involved people walking around in the woods not saying anything!
The plot (what there was of it) involves a crashed alien spacecraft that held dangerous biological entities the aliens intended to study. They are freed by the crash and begin terrorizing a small town. There was a ton of plaid and most of the pants flared out at the bottom (always funny!) and the acting was horrendous. The "hospital" scene was obviously a white sheet backdrop, and the sheriff's car had only two doors. A "state policeman" showed up in uniform driving a VW Beetle.
The worst part, however, has to be the end, when we find out the guy helping to kill the monsters is actually himself an alien. The woman he's speaking to screams because he's hideous, and the sheriff shows up and blasts him with the shotgun and the film ends abruptly. While I enjoy this type of entertainment (well not the movie, but the riffing), I think I enjoyed East Meets Watts more than The Alien Factor.
Once in a while I browse things like the Kindle reviews. I'm puzzled by this one:
I have no idea to which nipples the reviewer is referring. Too much personal information?
On Tuesday night Lorien and I went to see Sherlock Holmes. The first show we originally arrived for was sold out, but a second one started just 30 minutes later. That show didn't come close to selling out, there were still many open seats.
Now I'm not a big Robert Downey Jr. fan. In fact, the last movie I saw with him in it was U.S. Marshals, and I saw it because of Tommy Lee Jones. He did a decent job, though, despite his checkered, alcoholic, drug-laced past.
His "deductive superpower" effect was neat. I must admit, though, I was surprised to see a bare-knuckle boxing Holmes. Not to mention his meager violin skills.
The story was okay, though. Not too slow, not too fast. It was, overall, a good movie. If you want to see a movie, and are considering it, I say go!
I tried to like this book. I really did.
I stopped reading it around page 120 because I ran across the third case of the author using then instead of than. It completely took me away from the story each time it happened, and by the third time I was done.
How an author, and a popular one, can get away with such sloppy work is beyond me. I wonder if anyone even looks at his work. Certainly neither he nor his editor use a proofreader, not to mention the fact that the editor couldn't have read the book without uncovering the problem.
There was another error, but it was a simple typo: the word everything was spelled wrong. Even a spellchecker would have caught that error!
I give this book 0 stars for failures on many levels. The publisher should have caught the errors. A spellchecker should have been run. The author shouldn't have made the mistake in the first place.