The Screengrab : anus magillicutty

Unwatchable Recap: 71-80

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 19:00:00 GMT

It’s time for part three of the Unwatchable Halftime Report. As you must know by now, I am watching and reviewing every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Last week I hit #51, which means I’m halfway home. Next week we’ll get started on the 50 worst movies, but I’m putting that off as long as I possibly can so that we can enjoy the fruits of my labor so far. We’ve been tackling the Unwatchables to date in groups of ten, and today it’s time for # 71-80.

80. The Smokers. “They smoke. They smoke a lot. They smoke the cigarettes and they smoke the pot. Also, they have boy troubles.”

79. Anus Magillicutty. “When it was over, I found myself actively wishing harm on those who made it, any loved ones who encouraged them to make it, and their employers (should they exist) who wittingly or not subsidized its making.”

78. The Quick and the Undead. “What we have here is your basic meat-and-potatoes (but mostly meat) post-apocalyptic zombie western.”

77. BloodRayne 2: Deliverance. “Sure, in her leather cowgirl outfit she looks like she should be pouring Jager shots and dancing on the bar at Coyote Ugly, but she’s handy with swords and guns that fire silver bullets rubbed in garlic and blessed with holy water. Her showdown with Billy the Kid is one for the ages, assuming the ages were between 9 and 9:30 last night.”

76. Kickboxer 3: The Art of War. “The high point of Kickboxer 3 arrives with a montage of wise Xian’s efforts to heal Sloane in time for the fight. He collects various roots and mouse tails and the venom from a snake to prepare a healing elixir, then smears Sloane’s body with some sort of fungal poultice. Hey, it works!”

75. The Last Sign. “I’m immediately suspicious of any movie that opens with a shitload of logos for companies I’ve never heard of. This makes me think what I’m about to watch is more of a tax shelter than a motion picture.”

74. You Got Served. “Can David and Elgin squash their beef in time to bring home the big prize? And did it really, really embarrass me to type the phrase ‘squash their beef’ just now? The answer to both questions is the same.”

73. Fascination. “The first liaison between Scott and Kelly takes place on a slanted corrugated tin roof in a photogenic rainstorm that comes out of nowhere. Just when you’re thinking, ‘Gee, looks like fun, but also a good way to fall to your death,’ Scott and Kelly slip and nearly fall to their deaths.”

72. Meet the Spartans. “Really, it’s not like I’m looking for some explanation for Britney Spears being in ancient Sparta. I realize it’s all part of the free-wheeling zaniness. But you can’t just have her shaving her head and flashing her girl parts. We’ve already seen that.”

71. Gigli. “J-Lo is also stuck with a sub-Tarantino soliloquy on the subtleties of ripping someone’s eyeball out of its socket. It’s almost harder to listen to than ‘Jenny From the Block’.”

81-90
91-100

Unwatchable #76: “Kickboxer 3: The Art of War”

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.

The Internet Movie Database is a powerful engine that can be used for both good and evil, and those of us who have ceded a portion of our lives to its control can find ourselves victims of some capricious whims indeed. In the early days of the Unwatchable project, long before I’d been beaten down by the likes of It’s Pat and Anus Magillicutty, I first encountered the Kickboxer series in the form of episode four, The Aggressor. Now, more than two months later, I find myself face-to-face with Kickboxer 3: The Art of War.

Some confusion results. Kickboxer 4 opened with a lengthy montage, presumably made up of clips from the previous installments, designed to bring us up to speed on the story. So I assumed I had already seen a miniaturized version of Kickboxer 3…but now that I’ve actually seen the movie, I can’t see how it connects to its follow-up. It seems to take place outside the carefully established continuity of the Kickboxer series; the villainous Tong Po goes unseen and unmentioned, and our hero David Sloane (Sasha Mitchell) has a Miyagi-esque mentor who appears in none of the other films. I notice that both Kickboxer 2 and 4 are directed by chronic offender Albert Pyun, whereas Kickboxer 3 is directed by Rick King (Prayer of the Rollerboys). I can only assume that King’s work did not fit into Pyun’s vision for the series, and he chose to ignore it entirely. I’d research this matter further if I thought anyone gave a crap.

Anywhat, The Art of War finds Sloane and his wise old Asian mentor Xian (Dennis Chan) traveling to Rio for a big match. Shortly after they arrive, street urchin Marcos steals their camera and Sloane is forced to chase and put the beat-down on the lad. This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, and Sloane takes both Marcos and his jailbait sister Isabella under his wing. Lane (Richard Comar), the slimy manager of Sloane’s slated kickboxing opponent, is a slave-pimp in his off-hours, and he kidnaps Isabella with plans to sell her off to the highest bidder. Lane has his fortune riding on his own fighter, so it’s imperative that Sloane lose the upcoming match. To that end, he makes Sloane a deal: he will let Isabella go if Sloane complies with a special training regimen he’s cooked up. (He’s already asked Sloane to throw the fight and been turned down, but that was before Isabella was kidnapped. Presumably Sloane would be more willing to go along with the plan now that a child’s life is at stake, but then we wouldn’t get to enjoy the scenes of Sloane running up a hill with a backpack full of rocks and getting dragged behind a boat.)

The high point of Kickboxer 3 arrives with a montage of wise Xian’s efforts to heal Sloane in time for the fight. He collects various roots and mouse tails and the venom from a snake to prepare a healing elixir, then smears Sloane’s body with some sort of fungal poultice. Hey, it works! Sloane kicks ass and takes names and everyone lives happily ever after until Kickboxer 4. The question I’m left to wrestle with is whether or not Kickboxer 3 is really 22 bad movies worse than Kickboxer 4. On this score, I suppose it is: Kickboxer 4 features a lot more people getting kicked in the face.

Previously on Unwatchable:
77. BloodRayne 2: Deliverance
78. The Quick and the Undead
79. Anus Magillicutty
80. The Smokers
81. Soccer Dog: The Movie

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: July 5-11, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 21:00:00 GMT

And so ends another thrilling week at the Screengrab. It’s always hard to say goodbye, but let’s concentrate on the good times we’ve shared.

Paul Clark and Leonard Pierce divulged their favorites from the first half of 2008. Always a ray of sunshine, yours truly brought you the Unwatchables from the year so far.

Speaking of Unwatchables, Anus Magillicutty definitely qualifies. And though it’s not an official entrant, it sounds as if Three on a Meathook gets an honorable mention. But The Quick and the Undead deserved (slightly) better.

We shared two summers in one week: Summer of ’42 and Suddenly Last Summer.

We finished up our trilogy of patriotic lists with America the Dissonant: Seven Movies That Send Mixed Messages About U.S. And we asked for your help in picking the lists of the future.

We looked ahead to Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards, remakes of Red Dawn and The Day the Earth Stood Still, Alex Cox’s proposed Repo Chick, and…Beverly Hills Chihuahua?

We listened to the He Got Game soundtrack while enjoying a big bowl of Jeff Garlin. Then we looked at pictures of Maggie Gyllenhaal in her underwear.

And we wrapped the whole thing up with our favorite Psychics. My crystal ball says: it’s Miller Time.

Unwatchable #78: “The Quick and the Undead”

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.

First, my apologies to those of you expecting to see the latest installment of Summer of ’78 in this space. It will not appear this week due to technical difficulties beyond my control. And by technical difficulties, I mean it’s Netflix’s fault. They had to ship this week’s DVD from their Outer Mongolian branch for some reason, and it won’t get here until Saturday. Honestly, I think Netflix is just very disappointed in me. Until recently, it recommended only the most respected classics and toniest arthouse fare for my viewing pleasure. Then it noticed I was ordering the likes of It’s Pat and Battlefield Earth on a regular basis. “Oh,” Netflix sniffed. “Just another dumbass after all. Here – perhaps you’ll enjoy Encino Man.” If only I could explain to Netflix that I am, in fact, performing a valuable service for the Screengrab readership. But Netflix doesn’t listen. Anyway, the point is: look for a double dip of Summer of ’78 next week.

On to the next order of business, in which we find ourselves in a situation similar to the recent Levottomat 3/Soccer Dog: The Movie imbroglio. As you may recall, Levottomat 3 was number 81 on my version of the IMDb Bottom 100, but I was unable to locate a copy of this 2005 Finnish movie about sex maniacs. So I was forced to make a substitution from a later version of the list, and that turned out to be Soccer Dog: The Movie. As it happens, number 78 on my list is Dis - en historie om kjærlighet, a 1995 Norwegian film that also eluded my grasp. I can only assume that movie fans in the Nordic countries are particularly vigilant about voicing their displeasure on the IMDb. In any case, I was forced to make another substitution from a later iteration of the Bottom 100, and it turned out to be 2006’s The Quick and the Undead (#66 on the list as of this writing).

What we have here is your basic meat-and-potatoes (but mostly meat) post-apocalyptic zombie western. (That reminds me, someday I’m going to have to tell you fine people about the zombie western I wrote. Have I ever mentioned that I invented fast zombies? I should be a gazillionaire by now and instead I’m doing this. Not that I’m bitter!) More specifically, writer-director Gerald Nott (who really should reconsider the name of his production company, Nott Entertainment – that’s just asking for trouble) has conceived The Quick and the Undead as a Clint Eastwood/Man With No Name zombie picture, and then cast another guy named Clint. It is in fact Clint Glenn who stars as zombie bounty hunter Ryn Baskin, who goes up against his rival Blythe Remington (Parrish Randall) in a town infested with the walking dead.

I’ll get right to it: I have no idea what this movie is doing on the list. Presumably, most folks who sat down to watch it knew it was going to be a zombie movie, and that generally entails entrails being eaten and plenty of heads exploding. The Quick and the Dead delivers on both counts. It even has a reasonably clever twist on western conventions: instead of collecting scalps, the bounty hunters remove fingers from their victims and save them in a bag in order to collect their reward. Remington hits on the bright idea of infecting towns previous spared from the zombie plague and then killing all the residents to pad his finger count. Okay, maybe it’s not ingenious, and Clint Glenn’s Eastwood impression is not the most inspired, but The Quick and the Dead at least flirts with competence. There’s a world of difference between this and a genuinely worthless piece of shit like Anus Magillicutty; I do believe that Mr. Nott set out to make the best zombie western he possibly could, given his limitations. I can’t say I recommend it, exactly, but I’ve seen far, far worse.

Previously on Unwatchable:

79. Anus Magillicutty
80. The Smokers
81. Soccer Dog: The Movie
82. American Soldiers
83. First Sunday

Unwatchable #79: “Anus Magillicutty”

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 17:30:00 GMT

Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.

I’m not going to lie to you folks. This project has been a struggle at times. Devoting my full attention to such works as Track of the Moon Beast, Marci X and Soccer Dog: The Movie is not easy, but all along I’ve known that if I just kept plugging away, eventually I would be rewarded with Anus Magillicutty.

It’s true that I knew nothing about Anus Magillicutty aside from the title, but that only added to its mystique. I had to know more, and I had to share my knowledge with you fine people, because you have been anticipating this moment as eagerly as I have. Who is Anus Magillicutty? Is he man or myth? Does he bring vengeance in tiny boxes for us to unwrap? Or is he simply an asshole, repugnant in every way, just like the movie that bears his name?

Please. This is Unwatchable, after all, so there’s no prize if you guessed the latter. To say that Anus Magillicutty is a disappointment is to admit that I had any expectations for Anus Magillicutty in the first place. It’s sort of like being disappointed by a kick in the balls, or let down by an episode of According to Jim. When it was over, I found myself actively wishing harm on those who made it, any loved ones who encouraged them to make it, and their employers (should they exist) who wittingly or not subsidized its making. Without knowing anything about producers Henry Lloyd and Moishe Goldgarb, director Morey Fineburgh and writer Abraham Fineburgh, I’m going to assume they work as bartenders in a strip club and that they made Anus Magillicutty with their tips.

Here is what happens in Anus Magillicutty: Anus (Lloyd) sits at a bar and tells us, in voice-over, that he really likes tits. A five-minute softcore sex scene between Anus and the bartender (Paige Abbot) ensues, during which much of the footage is recycled several times. Then someone arrives to kill Anus, but the bartender kills him instead. Then someone who is apparently supposed to be Anus’s father, but who doesn’t actually appear to be any older than Anus, tells him to take out the garbage. For a long, long time. Finally, Anus does take out the garbage, which contains a skeletal corpse. He tries to leave it in a dumpster, but the guy in the mullet wig who lives behind the dumpster won’t let him. Eventually Anus learns that the man behind the assassination attempt is his former friend Chee-Chee, whose girl he screwed. Satan makes a cameo appearance at the end to take the corpse off Anus’s hands.

This “plot summary” can’t capture the experience of watching all 68 minutes of Anus Magillicutty, which is padded out with extended sequences of naked women showering, making out with each other, and fellating bananas. These sequences are unexplained and unmotivated, but at least they contain naked women, unlike equally inexplicable interludes such as Father Magillicutty dancing in his underwear or Chee-Chee fondling two honeys in a bar while running his tongue over his disgusting teeth. According to this site, Anus Magillicutty was made for a budget of $5000, which I’m guessing is a generous overstatement, and is intended for audiences aged 19-30, which must be a misprint – surely they mean it’s intended for audiences with IQs ranging from 19-30. Anus Magillicutty has no script, no actors, no production values and no visual sense. However, as I’ve mentioned, it does have titty.

The DVD cover of Anus Magillicutty proudly proclaims it as “The Worst Movie Ever Made.” Here’s hoping its makers only realized this after showing Anus to sentient human beings. Because if they intentionally set out to make the most worthless piece of shit possible, they’re even bigger idiots than they already seem to be.

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Previously on Unwatchable:
80. The Smokers
81. Soccer Dog: The Movie
82. American Soldiers
83. First Sunday
84. It’s Pat

Unwatchable: The All-Time Bottom 100 Movies

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:30:00 GMT

Forget Ishtar, Heaven’s Gate, Howard the Duck and all the other renowned turkeys of cinema history. The Guardian delves into the depths of the IMDb’s 100 lowest ranked movies to find the truly toxic, the absolute worst of the worst. As Sam Richards writes, the IMDb list “differs from most critic-voted ‘worst movie of all-time’ lists, in that any film that's memorably bad - say, Swept Away - tends to get just enough positive responses to save it from total ignominy. The Bottom 100 exists to catalogue films that have been viewed out of error, obligation or last-turkey-in-the-shop desperation.”

Richards sampled a handful of the lowest-ranked entries “in a Ludovico technique-style experiment.” Number three on the list is Zombie Nation, “a staggeringly idiotic 2004 film by German director Ulli Lommel, regarded as a modern day Ed Wood…Expecting a gore-fest, you're confronted by the world's worst 'zombies': they wear aviators and lipstick, drive cars and devour their prey to the sound of perky Europop.” He also checks out Mystery Science Theater 3000 favorite Manos: The Hands of Fate, “shabby piece of teensploitation” Invisible Maniac, and the number one entry on the Bottom 100, none other than The Hottie and the Nottie. “It's not the worst film ever though, just a predictable, insulting vanity project that asks you to accept that an emu-faced posho with only one available facial expression is the most beautiful woman in America.”

You can check out the complete list here. As you can see, it skews toward more recent fare like Witless Protection and the critically reviled oeuvre of spoofmeisters Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (Meet the Spartans). Somebody must like those movies since they keep making money, but apparently the fans prefer to remain incognito. Our biggest disappointment is that Richards did not subject himself to #82 on the list, Anus Magillicutty. An IMDb user comment reveals one of the pitfalls of the Bottom 100: “I watched this movie because it was rated to be so bad it might have been good.” If there’s one thing we’ve learned here at the Screengrab, it’s that this is almost never true.