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Reviews
Dark Matter (2015)
Loved it - SYFY deserves slow and painful death for grotesque cliffhanger cancellation
I won't go into detail with spoilers, BUT abrupt cancellation of this series that has a rabid cult following left the plot hanging at the most unspeakably bad critical point I could possibly imagine!
Similar situations with the wonderful but woefully short lived Firefly and the earlier but much longer running and similarly popular Farscape led to fan outcries and wrap up movies, though I'm not sure this cliffhanger could have been resolved in less than a season short of actual unabashed divine intervention...
Premature cancellations seem to have become a far too common occurrence - one almost wonders how the redoubtable Babylon 5 was allowed to finish gracefully, though its sequel series did not fare so well
She (1984)
So incredibly bad one has to be amused. Switch off all critical faculties and ROFL!
If Monty Python threw together a Road Warrior spoof after a 3 day binge using a paint sprayer weilded by a rhesus monkey as their key script writing tool...
Nah, not quite fair. As many other reviewers have said, this movie manages to be class A cheese. It manages to be sufficiently entertaining to not deserve shredding by Mystery Science Theater 3000 - one needs to hear the incredibly ridiculous dialog without interference!
There is a pretty reasonable supply of eye candy headed up by Sandahl Bergman and her trusty Amazon lieutenant, who also seem to be the only people with any fencing training. Most sword fights involving men are basically aimless waving of cheesy looking weapons.
But the true charm of this effort is the degree of "OMG how can they POSSIBLY top the sheer ludicrousness of THIS bad guy encounter with the next one?" The writers consistently fail to disappoint!
The ending did kind of tick me off - something is left unresolved in direct violation of a prediction from an oracle type near the beginning.
And the landscapes totally violate the Law of Post Apocalyptic Uninhibitable Desert - everything is either small cities or dense forest, a couple of decades after a mutation inducing nuclear holocaust!
Oh - Ms. Bergman's so-so acting in Schwarzenegger vehicles was orders of magnitude better than her sleepwalking through this role
But let such quibbles go. Acceptable outrageously awful mindless fun!
Starcrash (1978)
An adventure in creative awfulness
I was inspired to watch this by reading the various other reviews that describe this movie as so outrageously bad it provides a ROTFLMAO experience. Well, it does indeed live down to that assessment. I was tempted to abandon it early on for the sub original Flash Gordon effects, wooden acting (Christopher Plummer appeared to be asleep during all of his shots - HOW did they persuade him to appear?), amazingly stupid and poorly delivered dialog and grotesque scenery chewing by the villains - but I grimly hung in there till the very end.
The leather bikini covered too much and got covered by other things during way too much screen time.
All in all, a profoundly silly and grotesque little movie.
John Carter (2012)
More "inspired by" than adaptation - but good entertainment
I've tried to avoid speaking directly about anything that happens in the plot.
My wife, who isn't generally a sword, sandals and magic fan, found a few minutes of this entertaining enough that she actually agitated for us to watch the whole thing. I'm a rabid F&SF nerd myself, so I can sit through fairly crappy stuff - which this emphatically is NOT. I agree with some reviewers that it could have been way better - but to compare it with the massive project that was Lord of the Rings is unfair. I think it earned the 6.6 it currently has or maybe even a 7.something. The casting and effects were pretty decent - there was a fair bit of scenery chewing all around but fer gosh sakes, this is of necessity an action flick! There were was about the right sprinkling of funny moments.
A few years back I forced myself to sit through "A Princess of Mars" - a direct to video abomination based on the same original material. That well deserves its current 3.3. Traci Lords, who played Dejah Thoris, claims to have actually run from the room crying after watching a couple of minutes of it, having made the ghastly error of allowing herself to be cast. Antonio Sabato Jr.'s work reminds me a lot of Harry Hamlin's in the original Clash of the Titans - a complete waste of air.
This version is at least a couple of orders of magnitude better than that bowser and I'm can't quite account for its failure to pull any significant theater audience in the US. I found it well worth the $3 it took to rent it from Amazon for a few days.
If you're an absolute stickler for complete faithfulness to the original, you won't be happy with this. But it had pretty much the right look and feel, except for John Carter having been transformed into yer basic current anti-hero (Wolverine as currently portrayed by Hugh Jackman is sort of the idea, though Jackman does it much better) and we were well entertained.
The Starlost (1973)
Starlost: great concept ruined by production-company greed (spoilers)
Steve Nyland pretty much said all there was to re assessment of this project's quality.
Despite the cheesiness I managed to stick with this thing through a few episodes - I suspect it was a matter of TV access/control at that point in my life rather than losing interest in the show that kept me from watching more. I saw John Colicos' evil dictator character (that seems to have been a notable shtick during some parts of that excellent actor's career) - never made it far enough to see Walter Koenig's evil alien.
Having watched a few minutes of the first episode on YouTube early this morning (I can't wait to show it to my wife, having described it to her as one of the most awesome wasted-talent epic fails in the history of television) I think the inimitable Sterling Hayden deserved mention for his totally unbending Amish bishop character in the first episode and possibly others.
My main reason for starting this review is to mention a mid-70's Trek convention in a ritzy hotel we couldn't afford - we had to walk through an almost completely deserted and personality-free section of town for a few blocks. Most of my memories revolve around a panel featuring Bjo Trimble, Walter Koenig and the man himself, Harlan "Cordwainer (give Paramount the) Bird" Ellison. Listening to Harlan read all of "I'm Waiting for Kadak" in a thick Yiddish accent was an absolute delight - but the recent Starlost train wreck got mentioned and Harlan launched into an entertaining tirade about Paramount's assorted lunacies in connection with his thoroughly Frankensteined brainchild. I recall him mentioning the non-existent effects budget with particular reference to the orange throw rugs whose function was rapid transit of halls hundreds of yards long - he was quite dumbfounded by the fact that nobody thought to secure the rugs in any way. When our dauntless heroes jumped from some off-camera box or shelf, frequently en masse, to simulate landing from being catapulted down the hall, the rugs just naturally went sliding. I wonder whether anyone was actually hurt during a take? I don't remember what reminded me of The Starlost this morning (I was about half asleep at the time) but it's been a great trip down memory lane. I'm a bit disappointed that my first-generation Roku box doesn't seem to have a YouTube channel, so I can only stream this wondrous train wreck to my PC!
Stonehenge Apocalypse (2010)
Not completely terrible, pals and themes from StarGate - Spoilers
Gosh - at least 2 noteworthy StarGate characters, and a mad-scientist loon who was determined to allow the apocalyptic cycle to complete so we all - or at least the worthy ones - could ascend. I guess this guy missed the Hale Bopp ascension. At least on StarGate, you generally had to EARN ascension! Ascending Earth en masse sounds like an invitation to create a race of Ori or more likely a bunch of rabid individualist Satan types like Anubis.
Most Syfy-produced stuff these days is much less interesting than the stuff they used to do, e.g. Epoch. Sort of like the degeneration that happened to Hallmark when they started having to pump out a constant stream of romance novel garbage. This was at least more interesting than their current monster-of-the-week nonsense, which generally edges into the unwatchable realm IMHO.
Supernatural: The Girl Next Door (2011)
Mixed reactions. Entertained by Dr. Who ref. Possible spoilers
I agree with most of zombiehigh18's points.
I wound up watching major chunks of this show a while back as my 21-year-old grandson is a major fan of this series. He's in the midst of re-watching the whole thing on NetFlix so I occasionally catch an old episode these days.
I gather this episode abounded with in jokes. I remember spotting some of of those now and again in the series, but don't recollect most episodes as crawling with the stuff. I remember seeing this episode sometime or other, but not being stopped in my tracks by "Amy flaming Pond?!" multi-age scenes, as I was just now while looking at Jewel Staite's history, prompted by the disasterathon running at the moment on Syfy.
Too bad they didn't sneak some fireflies or some other Kaylee reference into the episode - or did they? All things considered, about as entertaining and angst-ridden as most Supernatural episodes.
Gor (1987)
Razzie fodder, I think - can't get past first 20 minutes
I'll have to check this director for Razzie awards in a minute - if he could get financing for other movies he may challenge the incomparable Uwe Boll (5 Razzie noms, 2 wins)for worst Euro-Z movie maker of all time. I've taken a couple of shots at this thing without getting past the "win first fight, run away with princess" point. The star is yer basic mindless slab of beef, the heroine isn't bad looking but shows no acting ability, the script and direction are unspeakably awful. HOW did this moron get Jack Palance and Oliver Reed to chew scenery for him? Surely he can't have invested massive fundage in them given that he doesn't look to have had more than a few thousand dollars to work with and spent most of it on beer! Even Uwe managed to throw together at least ONE vaguely watchable movie (In the Name of the King), if only for the joy of watching a huge number of actual stars doing a lot of silly stuff! It might almost be worth a stupid-drunk night to properly "appreciate" this abomination. Nah, I'm old - that much alcohol might kill me! I think I read the first Gor book umpty-gazillion years back but wasn't impressed enough to read any more. It has to have been at least somewhat superior to this thing to succeed in the John Carter-wannabe marketplace.
In summary, life's too durned short to waste any of it watching this thing!
In the Name of the King: Two Worlds (2011)
Unwatchably awful sequel
The first In the Name of the King movie was a bit silly, but not bad as sword and sorcery stuff goes - and Uwe somehow got a whole cast full of real actors to and decent enough effects people to work on it.
This abomination, on the other hand, was so terrible that I, who can usually find some value is just about anything, gave up in disgust after that first half hour or so - life is too short to waste time on stuff this bad.
Even Dolph Lundgren, who can usually do a fair impersonation of a wall, was given absolutely nothing to work with here - and I'd never heard of anybody else in the cast.
Rewatching the original In the Name of the King is a much better use of your time than trying to watch this thing.
The Time Machine (2002)
*** Spoilers *** not bad as scientifically laughable morality play
Almost all science fiction fantasies require total suspension of disbelief.
I had to step out of the room for a couple of minutes during the broadcast just as Our Hero was taking off in the coach with his dear lost girl friend, so I didn't get to see his failure to save her - but His Totally Awesome Omniscient Arrogance the Uber-Morlock (Jeremy Irons pretty much stole the show with this, few can do this sort of thing better)did a reasonable job of explaining the paradox.
I liked the fact that the Eloi actually had a well-developed green culture. The impossible library computer was fun, and the evolved descendant of the soulless tyrants who have run things since the Stone Age was a wonderful addition. The moon stuff was stupid of course, and quite unnecessary as we're doing a fine job of destroying ourselves without tossing in something that couldn't result from mere nuclear construction work and should have reduced the Earth to gravel.
All things considered, a fairly entertaining graft of current outlook onto a Victorian concept. I doubt Mr. Wells would have taken major issue with it. He put a couple of things in his works that he knew perfectly well made no scientific sense.
The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption (2012)
Somewhat amusing grade C action trash - I miss DuaneJohnson!
*** SPOILER ALERT!!! *** This movie is way beyond silly - at least the 50's and 60's Hercules vs. the stop motion monster of the week stuff stuck more or less to the same side of the BC/CE line! The military tech spans about 3500 years, but what was truly amazing was the amazing range of soldiers involved in the action. The Akkadians were in the neighborhood of 2000 BC; I suppose the Greeks may have been off by a thousand years or so re the Trojan war being around 1200 BC though the Romans thought it was more like 600 BC in tracing their founding to Aeneas' sons.
War elephants go way back to Hindu myth, so OK.
But imperial Rome era legionaries? Late medieval era NINJAS??? This is almost as good as Hedley Lamarr's all-eras bad guy army in Blazing Saddles! The acting, writing and directing is somewhere between fairly silly and profoundly silly, but doesn't quite make it to the outrageous parody level that would make it really fun. The humor, though dumb, is sometimes good for a chuckle.
Warning: it is absolutely necessary to suspend ALL critical faculties before attempting to watch this nonsense. That done, it's possible to watch it. I'd rather have watched the original Scorpion King or the Mummy movies, or a couple of episodes of the engagingly ridiculous Hercules/Xena saga, all things considered.
The couple of actual actors involved in this must have been having a few really slow weeks.
Superman II (1980)
don't watch: "Richard Donner cut" allegedly of superman 2
OMG! sup2 joins sup the movie on my all time faves list. Christopher reeve was the perfect mythic hero and everything about the as-released version of this movie was spot on. but the abomination known as the Richard Donner cut is NOT the movie i've loved all these years.
Richard lester managed to pretty much destroy the series with sup3ff, but he did a bang up job of finishing this movie.
in just about every case where the "real" release diverges from this one, the changes were significant improvements.
i did sort of like the additional Marlon Brando work - but that by itself doesn't reward me sufficiently for the hours invested in watching this heresy.
grrr. i'm off to order the REAL superman 2 from netflix. this thing was a massive disappointment. sorry mr. Donner, the salkinds were right about the material.
Collision (2009)
Liked it, sat through all 5 hours in one evening
My wife and I, who are fond of Brit TV generally and mysteries in particular, were grabbed enough by this to watch all 5 episodes via Netflix in the course of an evening, with a time out for a Midsomer around the middle. Doug Henshall plays the sort of low key, beset by life character he excels at, and each of the supporting cast are pretty much perfect.
An interesting picture of a bunch of people united by a senseless accident and the hapless cop who struggles to make sense of it all and inject a little justice where it's needed. Well worth the 5-hour time investment.
Midsomer Murders (1997)
Perhaps my favorite British mystery
Morse (and latterly Lewis), Jane Tennyson, Frost, Dalgleish, Lynley, to name just the more or less modern-day British detectives - my wife and I love them all, thanks to PBS' Masterpiece Theater over the years. But many of these folks have been written with serious personal problems of one sort of another. Midsomer is delightful both for its gently humorous picture of English village life and for the wise old philosopher king, DCI Tom Barnaby, played by John Nettles. His character brings considerable intelligence, patience and humor to the job of teaching a succession of junior officers how to avoid jumping to conclusions - and while he doesn't get to spend as much time as he'd like to with his lovely family, the show mostly avoids the dysfunctional-family issues that beset many policemen in most places.
We haven't seen half enough of Midsomer in the US (BBC America's Monday Night Mystery show is (sob!) long gone and Masterpiece doesn't completely specialize in mysteries though I see Poirot is back just now). I am therefore, now that I've invested in a Roku box, delighted to see that the show is still in production and that a huge number of episodes we haven't seen are online. We're taking the series in order at the moment so it might be a while before we see the current DCI Barnaby - I expect we'll go out of sequence at some point to meet him.
We looked up Midsomer just expecting to find and re-watch some old episodes, like "The Killings at Badger's Drift" which we watched last night. Finding such a wealth of stuff we haven't seen out there is wonderful! One does sort of wonder how Midsomer (like Morse's Oxford and Marple's St Mary Mead) retains any live people as some episodes lose characters at an Italian-renaissance-court pace.
Happy happy. 10 out of 10.
The Apostle (1997)
outstanding work!
I've seen complaints about this movie's length and the intensity of its focus on Duval's character. Well, it's a long movie all right - but my wife and I were riveted the whole way through. This movie is totally ABOUT the Apostle E.F., a holy madman seeking to do all the good he can before the payback he knows is coming for his greatest sin, killing his wife's lover in a moment of rage (pure Darwinism - he warned the silly ass in no uncertain terms to stay out of his face!).
E.F. is an acting tour de force for Duval, and why he didn't get an Oscar is beyond me though I haven't checked what he was up against.
It helps to be a Christian (even a wimp liberal mainstream one like me) to really appreciate this movie - at the beginning you sort of have him figured for a phony and it becomes more and more apparent that he believes in God and his mission all the way down to the core despite his many failings. Even if you're not a Christian this is one compelling character!
Taken on its own terms, this movie is awesome. Taken on anybody's terms, IMHO it is very, very good!