The Screengrab : unwatchable

Unwatchable #33: “Glitter”

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 28 May 2009 18:00:00 GMT

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

Barring a last minute call from the governor, this is the end of the line for Unwatchable here at the Screengrab. We made it two-thirds of the way through the 100 worst movies ever made…but is there any hope of finishing this very important project? The answer may surprise you.

Ladies and gentlemen, Unwatchable lives! Well, sort of. I am barely proud…er, I mean very proud to announce the launch of Unwatchable: The Blog. As soon as I’ve loaded all the links to the existing Unwatchable posts here at the Screengrab, I will resume the countdown at this new blog. But I need your help! Now that Nerve is cutting off the funding for this worthy endeavor, I am reduced to begging you, the Unwatchable reader, for the support to see it through to the bitter end. Sure, I’d do it for free if I could, but these psychiatry bills aren’t going to pay themselves. So if you’ve enjoyed this feature and would like to see more, why not drop a buck or two in the Paypal tip jar over at the new place? Hell, I’ll even accept corporate sponsorship if you have the connections. Exxon’s Unwatchable…it has a nice ring to it, no?

There’s still some unfinished business here at the Screengrab, however, so let’s get right to Glitter, the 2001 musical starring Mariah Carey, who won a Worst Actress Razzie for her performance as fictitious diva Billie Frank. Billie’s rags to riches story is a familiar one, but given the story’s setting in the go-go New York of the ‘80s (not to mention the movie’s reputation as a camp classic), I had reason to hope for some Velveeta-smooth cheesy goodness. Unfortunately, Glitter is more dreary than gooey, and nobody likes dreary cheese.

Billie was raised by her alcoholic, torch-singing mother, until mama had one drink too many and Billie had to go live at the orphanage. At least it was a fun orphanage where Billie met Louise and Roxanne, still her best pals years later when Billie is dancing in a club and catches the eye of would-be music mogul Timothy Walker (Terrence Howard). Walker hires the trio as background vocalists and dancers for his diva project Sylk (Padme Lakshmi), but when he gets a load of Billie’s superior pipes, he turns the volume down on the atrocious lead vocals and faster than you can say Milli Vanilli, Billie’s voice is coming out of Sylk’s mouth.

The ruse doesn’t last long, and soon Billie is discovered by up-and-coming DJ/producer Dice (Max Beesley), who promises Walker $100,000 in exchange for the rights to Billie’s solo career. Backed by Dice’s Casio beats, Billie is soon on her way to superstardom and falling in love with her producer. As played by British-born Beesley, Dice has to rank among the top five worst romantic leads in motion picture history. He’s a sleazy mook in a wife-beater, gold chains and a Ratso Rizzo accent, but we’re supposed to think he’s a tortured artistic soul because he has a marimba in his apartment. Come on, that’s the oldest trick in the book!

Dice never does get around to paying off Walker, which leads to his tragic end just as Billie is mounting the Madison Square Garden stage for the biggest concert of her career. She stops the show for a big, emotional speech about never taking your loved ones for granted, and I suppose this is the moment that secured the Razzie for her. It’s true that she can’t act, but neither could Prince in Purple Rain. He had star quality, though, and you couldn’t take your eyes off him, but the same can’t be said for Carey here. In fact, when her two satellites played by Da Brat and Tia Texada are onscreen, they out-charisma her to such a degree that Carey seems to vanish from the screen…except when she’s decked out in her satin shorts/baseball cap/pigtails ensemble. Then you sort of stare at her like she’s E.T. or something.

Previously on Unwatchable:
34. House of the Dead
35. Santa With Muscles (unseen)
36. Daddy Day Camp
37. Bad Girls from Valley High
38. Chairman of the Board

OK, that’s it! Remember to bookmark the new home of Unwatchable. For updates, you can follow me on Twitter.

Unwatchable #34: “House of the Dead”

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 19 May 2009 20:00:00 GMT

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

Eagle-eyed readers will notice I skipped over #35 on our little countdown to the worst of the worst. My rebuttal is this: What difference does it make now? I’m not going to make it to the top (that is, the bottom) of the list by the time the Screengrab signs off forever, and I had no success tracking down that #35 movie, Santa with Muscles. It doesn’t appear to have warranted a DVD release, and my attempts at tracking it down through unofficial channels have proven fruitless.

I can tell you this much about it: It’s a family-friendly comedy starring Hulk Hogan. Since I’ve already gone through the pain of reviewing such an animal for you – 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain, if you’ve already forgotten – I’m not terribly saddened that I couldn’t find Santa with Muscles. However, we can at least take a moment to enjoy the trailer together, no?

Aw, nobody told me Clint Howard was in it! What a shame. Still, there’s no time to linger over what might have been. Let’s move on up to #34, which is, by my count, the third Uwe Boll movie to appear in our festering little festival. First we thrilled to the vampire western BloodRayne 2: Deliverance, adapted from the hit videogame! Then we chilled to the “mighty tedious cacaphony of automatic gunfire and bad special effects” Alone in the Dark, adapted from the hit videogame! And now we have the zombie movie House of the Dead…adapted from the hit videogame!

The difference here is that I’ve actually whiled away an hour or three playing House of the Dead in my time, and I can attest that Mr. Boll’s versions lacks the foreboding mood, in-depth characterizations and ingenious twists of the original. It also lacks a house, which is, strangely enough, the setting of the original House of the Dead. There’s a secret rave being held on the Isle de la Muerte, which is more of an island than a house, although it is crawling with zombies. And, hey – there he is! It’s Clint Howard in a yellow rain slicker, looking like a cross between the guy on the Beach Cliff sardines can and a ferret.

To give Mr. Boll his due, I must admit House of the Dead is a groundbreaking work: it’s the first movie based on a videogame that is actually less entertaining than watching someone else play a videogame for two hours. Boll also finds a clever way to cover up the excessive gore that comes from many, many heads exploding, by utilizing frequent cut-aways from the live-action slaughter of zombies to actual videogame footage of same. Wait, did I say “clever”? I believe I meant “boneheaded.” It’s clear that Boll’s earlier Unwatchable appearances were a mere warm-up; House of the Dead is the real deal.

Previously on Unwatchable:
36. Daddy Day Camp
37. Bad Girls from Valley High
38. Chairman of the Board
39. The Invisible Maniac
40. Son of the Mask

Unwatchable #36: “Daddy Day Camp”

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 13 May 2009 19:30:00 GMT

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

I’ve got good news and bad news, Unwatchable fans. The bad news you probably already know. There’s no way I’m going to be able to complete my march to the top of the IMDb Bottom 100 list before the Screengrab shuffles off this mortal coil. The good news is that, despite this devastating setback, I am determined to complete the Unwatchable project one way or another.

Wait – that’s the good news? Well, it may not be good news for me or my psyche, but I’d hate to leave you all hanging. I’m searching for a new home for Unwatchable (make me an offer!), so be sure to check my blog frequently for updates.

There’s no time for eulogies just yet, however! Unless we’re talking about eulogies for Cuba Gooding’s career. Perhaps you dimly recall Daddy Day Care, one of Eddie Murphy’s more insipid family-friendly vehicle of recent vintage. Murphy opted out of the sequel – probably to make Norbit or Meet Dave or some other ungodly piece of shit – and the producers were left to rack their brains for a replacement. Could they possibly find an even more shameless, milquetoast, edgy-as-a-marshmallow African-American actor than Murphy has become over the past fifteen years? Who better than the star of Snow Dogs, Rat Race and Boat Trip – yes, none other than Radio himself, Cuba Gooding, Jr.

Gooding reprises Murphy’s role of affable dad Charlie Hinton, while some random fat white guy takes over for Jeff Garlin in the role of Charlie’s fat white guy friend, Phil. Having achieved tremendous success as the owners of Daddy Dad Care, Charlie and Phil face a new challenge when they take over the rundown summer camp they attended as youths. Camp Driftwood is facing foreclosure thanks to the popularity of the upscale camp across the lake, Camp Canola, run by Charlie’s childhood tormenter, Lance Warner (Lochlyn Munro).

Once the kids arrive at camp, we’re treated to two of the highest forms of humor: adorable tots who all speak like Catskills comedians, and emissions both gaseous and tangible emitting with increasing frequency from every bodily orifice. There’s a recreation of the famous Blazing Saddles campfire scene, except with belching instead of farting. But don’t worry – there’s also farting! Also vomiting, pooping, nut-punching and balloons filled with piss. All the classics! Gooding brings his usual dignity to the proceedings, which means his face is perpetually plastered with the same expression my dog sports whenever he’s left a special present hidden somewhere in the house. Speaking of which:

Previously on Unwatchable:
37. Bad Girls from Valley High
38. Chairman of the Board
39. The Invisible Maniac
40. Son of the Mask
41. Troll 2

Unwatchable #37: “Bad Girls from Valley High”

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:00:00 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 let me tell you a little about the movie I won’t be telling you about today. As any loyal Unwatchable reader knows, occasionally the IMDb Bottom 100 list presents us with a stumper. As I consulted the list in preparation for today’s entry, the title at #37 struck me as vaguely familiar: Hababam sinifi 3,5. I checked the archives and sure enough, the originally scheduled title for Unwatchable #59 was Hababam sinifi askerde, an earlier installment in the Hababam sinifi series of Turkish comedies. Apparently there’s a hardcore band of Hababam sinifi haters in Turkey…which doesn’t really help my cause since these movies aren’t available in the U.S. However, I was able to find a few YouTube clips, and I like to think this one captures the essence of whatever it is that makes these movies so hateable:

With that out of the way, it’s time to find a substitute for Unwatchable #37, which I accomplish by consulting the current version of the Bottom 100 list and selecting the first title that does not appear on the list I’ve been working from all along. And that selection, as you already know, is 2005’s Bad Girls from Valley High. A promising title, you might agree, but alas…

Like the earlier Unwatchable The Smokers, what we have here is a “chick clique” flick that draws its meager inspiration from the likes of Heathers and its many imitators. The bee-yootiful Julie Benz (Angel, Dexter), a good decade too old for the role, stars as 17-year-old Danielle, queen bee of Valley Gorge High School. Her obligatory satellites are Tiffany (Nicole Bilderback) and Brooke (Monica Keena), the one with a sliver of a conscience. Danielle may be Miss Popularity, but there’s one thing she wants but doesn’t have: dreamy Drew (former child star Jonathan Brandis). Drew only has eyes for his girlfriend Charity Chase, until the day Danielle and her minions decide to put a scare into her and accidentally cause her to fall to her death.

A year later, the students of Valley Gorge High are still mourning what they think is Charity’s suicide, none more so than Drew. Danielle is ready to make her move on him, but she is thwarted by the arrival of Romanian exchange student Katarina, who soon has Drew emerging from his funk. Danielle plots to get rid of Katarina in similar fashion as Charity, but her efforts are hampered when she, Tiffany and Brooke begin to suffer from humiliating bodily breakdowns. Tiffany’s eyesight worsens, Brooke gets all farty and Danielle starts uncontrollably whizzing herself. The bad girls begin to suspect Katarina is actually Charity’s ghost, and that she’s put a curse on them.

Aside from providing humiliating late career roles for Christopher Lloyd (as a suspicious, accident-prone teacher) and Janet Leigh (as a comatose stroke victim – don’t ask), Bad Girls from Valley High is just the sort of dopey, barely competent high school comedy you’d expect to go straight to video after sitting on a shelf for five years, which it did. The suicide storyline is particularly queasy-making in retrospect, as co-star Brandis killed himself between the time of shooting and the eventual DVD release. I guess I’ll never know whether or not this is a worse movie than Hababam sinifi 3,5; that will simply have to remain one of the enduring mysteries…of the Unwatchable.

Previously on Unwatchable:
38. Chairman of the Board
39. The Invisible Maniac
40. Son of the Mask
41. Troll 2
42. Zombie Nightmare

Unwatchable #38: “Chairman of the Board”

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 19:00:00 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 history of prop comics successfully making the transition to leading men of cinema is a short one. And when I say short, I actually mean nonexistent. If anyone was going to pull it off, you’d figure it would be Gallagher, or at least his evil brother Gallagher II. Neither Gallagher, however, even attempted a run at stardom on the silver screen. As for other prop comics…well, it’s hard to think of any. Wikipedia claims Rip Taylor counts, even though his only prop of note is his ubiquitous bag of confetti. They also include Harpo Marx on their roster of prop comics, which may technically be true, but let’s get real. The hall of prop comic fame basically boils down to Gallagher, who never starred in a movie, and Carrot Top, who starred in one. This is that movie.

The Carrot Top of 1998’s Chairman of the Board is not the steroidal, absurdly over-muscled alien of today – and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, get a load of this…this…thing:

Sorry I had to do that to you, but Jesus! What the hell is wrong with some people? It’s not that Mr. Top was any prize in his scrawny Chairman of the Board incarnation – he’s still got the fishy face and frizzy orange mane – but at least he didn’t look like he was auditioning for the lead role in RoboClown. The task for director Alex Zamm (The Pooch and the Pauper, straight-to-DVD sequels to Inspector Gadget and Dr. Dolittle) and his team of writers was a daunting one: build a movie around this goofball. They took the path of least resistance, casting the Carrot as an inventor named Edison – a zany inventor of items (ketchup gun, anatomically correct fanny pack) that wouldn’t look out of place in a prop comic’s supply trunk – and surrounding him with a Pee-Wee’s Beach House production design. Edison is a Venice Beach surfer dude whose notebook full of inspiration has yet to yield a profitable idea. One afternoon he has a chat with wealthy executive Armand McMillan (Jack Warden), a fellow surfer and dreamer. When Armand kicks the bucket shortly thereafter, Edison is stunned to learn he’s inherited the multi-million dollar McMillan corporation – although not as stunned as Armand’s son Bradford (Larry Miller), who had planned on assuming the mantle of…chairman of the board.

While Bradford schemes to regain control of the company, Edison becomes the toast of the boardroom by averting a worker’s strike and concocting a best-selling line of TV dinners with actual miniature televisions included in the trays. He also woos executive Natalie Stockwell, played by the lovely Courtney Thorne-Smith, who must be one hell of a good sport. As if it’s not bad enough she’s spent the past eight years cuddling up to Jim Belushi in the quintessential “fat guy with hot wife” sitcom According to Jim, she’s also smooched the rubbery lips of Carrot Top.

If not for its star, Chairman of the Board would merely be a witless, infantile comedy devoid of laughs, but there is some fun to be had in trying to read the body language of his co-stars as they are forced to interact with this shrill, hyper freak. Larry Miller in particular seems to retreat to a safe place in his mind every time Carrot Top gets near him (perhaps the place where he cashes his paychecks). As it turns out, Chairman of the Board was both the first and last starring vehicle for Mr. Top, but when they start casting the villains for the next Batman movie, I’d advise him to send in a headshot.

Previously on Unwatchable:
39. The Invisible Maniac
40. Son of the Mask
41. Troll 2
42. Zombie Nightmare
43. American Ninja V

Unwatchable #39: “The Invisible Maniac”

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 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.

Our journey through unwatchability has so far encompassed the work of such legendary schlock directors as Ed Wood, Uwe Boll and Albert Pyun, but now it’s time to make the case for an underrated purveyor of cinematic swill, a filmmaker who may not be a first ballot Hall of Shamer, but whose body of work is beginning to attract some attention among cutting edge cine-sabermetricians. You may know this man as Rif Coogan, but his real name is Adam Rifkin.

If the name rings a bell, you may be thinking of The Dark Backward, a 1991 Judd Nelson vehicle that was specifically engineered to be a cult favorite midnight movie, a strategy that pretty much never works. Or perhaps you’re reminded of The Chase, in which Rifkin tapped into that hidden longing within us all to be stuck in a car for 90 minutes with Charlie Sheen and Kristy Swanson. Maybe you vaguely recall Detroit Rock City, the comedy about four teenagers trying to scam their way into a KISS concert, or Night at the Golden Eagle, described by IMDb commenter stewart0602 as “the kind of work that grabs your package and squeezes for 90 minutes,” or the Austin-shot Homo Erectus, which only saw release under the straight-to-DVD title National Lampoon’s Stoned Age.

For this installment of Unwatchable, we delve deep into the Rifkin catalogue, all the way back to 1990 for The Invisible Maniac. Even in this early work, the Rifkin sensibility is on full display: quirky characters, broad humor and, most importantly, boobies. Lots and lots of naked boobies, many of them quite impressive and pleasing to the boobie aficionado. The cast includes Shannon Wisely, who would go on to a long and successful career in erotica as Savannah before her death in 1994 (I’ll never forget her exquisite work in Dixie Dynamite and the All-Star Tit Queens), Melissa Moore (Sorority House Massacre II, Bikini Drive-In), Stephanie Blake (“Stripper” in Mambo Kings, “Stripper in Big T’s” in Whore and “Tattooed Topless Dancer” in Danger Zone II: Reaper’s Revenge) and Claudette Rains, which I’m going to guess is a little in-joke by Mr. Rifkin.

The Invisible Maniac himself is played by Noel Peters in his only leading role and practically his only role of any kind (apparently he’s also in a 1997 TV-movie of Cinderella). Peters plays physicist Dr. Kevin Dorwinkle, who reacts badly when his colleagues laugh at his proposed molecular discombobulator and kills them all. He later escapes the asylum for the criminally insane and poses as a high school physics teacher, a gig that provides him plenty of opportunities to ogle nubile babes. Even more opportunities present themselves once he perfects his formula and is able to render himself invisible.

Although Rifkin was no doubt inspired by the rich history of invisibility literature and film, I’d have to guess that the opening scene of Carrie served as his primary muse. He seems determined to absolutely exhaust the possibilities of the high school girl’s locker room and, more specifically, the showers within, which he envisions as an all-singing, all-dancing nonstop party of sudsy boobs and steam rising from glistening buttocks. Who among us would not want to harness the secret to invisibility given these circumstances? (I’m asking the straight fellas here, obviously. You ladies and gay dudes are welcome to visualize soapy ballsacks or whatever it is that turns you on.)

Anyway, copious boobage aside, The Invisible Maniac is a rather tedious slog, thanks in large part to Peters’ charmless lead performance. The supporting cast isn’t much better, but in fairness to them, Rifkin does handicap their efforts by forcing them to engage in all manner of amateur mime activity in order to simulate their struggles with the invisible maniac. “I’ve got my hands around his neck! Oh no, I’m punching him and missing! Ha ha, he’s tickling me!” This sort of thing. There is a bonus for sticking with the movie all the way to the end: two more boobies!

Previously on Unwatchable:
40. Son of the Mask
41. Troll 2
42. Zombie Nightmare
43. American Ninja V
44. Leonard Part 6

Unwatchable #40: “Son of the Mask”

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:00:00 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.

(Last week, with the help of a reader’s thoughtful intervention, I decided it would be a good idea to take a little breather from the Unwatchable project. In retrospect, I was hitting the IMDb Bottom 100 a little too hard for a few weeks there, and it’s clear I was feeling a bit burned out. Fortunately for you and (especially) for me, however, number 40 on the list is a movie I’ve already seen. Not only that, I already reviewed it when it came out. Since that review is no longer available online, I present it to you here with minor alterations.)

If he keeps working hard and honing his craft, Jamie Kennedy may one day achieve his goal of becoming a second-rate Jim Carrey. On the evidence of Son of the Mask, that day has not yet arrived. Having learned no lessons from its dismal flop Dumb and Dumberer, the last sequel to a Carrey comedy to go forth without its original star, New Line Cinema has churned out another belated follow-up.

The 1994 movie that introduced the Mask and helped launch Carrey to stardom was based on a Dark Horse comic book series influenced by legendary Looney Toons animator Tex Avery. Computer generated effects were in their infancy at the time, so the live-action cartoon approach of The Mask had some novelty value. Ten years later, the CGI thrill is long gone, but apparently director Lawrence Guterma (Cats and Dogs) didn’t get the memo.

At least Kennedy isn’t playing the same character as Carrey; in a nod to The Mask’s origins, he’s a wannabe animator named Tim Avery. While his wife Tonya (Traylor Howard) is eager to get their family started, the reluctant Tim still harbors hopes of launching his own show at the cartoon studio where he serves as in-house mascot. Meanwhile, the Norse god of mischief Loki (Alan Cumming) has raised the ire his dad Odin (Bob Hoskins) by losing the titular mask. Thanks to the Avery family pooch, the mask falls into Tim’s hands just in time for the company Halloween party. When he puts it on his face, he morphs into a green-faced whirling dervish with unearthly transformative powers, but lacks the manic, leering menace Carrey brought to the table. He’s like the children’s party version of The Mask. Tim apparently wears the mask to bed that night, and nine months later a son is born. Having inherited the mask’s powers, little Alvey sets about making life a living hell for daddy. Father and son bond, however, when Loki arrives on the scene, determined to reclaim the mask.

Guterman and screenwriter Lance Kazhei have concocted some busy Rube Goldberg sequences in hopes of recapturing the anarchic spirit of Avery’s Looney Toons, but their execution is hit-and-miss. Too often the results are more frantic and noisy than inspired. Cumming has his moments, but like everyone else in the movie, he’s overwhelmed by the digital clutter. None of the technological advancements of the past decade can make the tired slapstick and gross-out gags any funnier.

(I originally gave Son of the Mask a grade of C-, which was the system I was using at the time this review was published. I’m certainly not going to revisit the movie now, so let’s say that translates as three Maurys.)

Previously on Unwatchable:
41. Troll 2
42. Zombie Nightmare
43. American Ninja V
44. Leonard Part 6
45. Another 9½ Weeks

Unwatchable #41: "Troll 2"

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:45:00 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.

This is historic, people - a rare SXSW/Unwatchable crossover. Although Troll 2 comes in at number 41 on the version of the IMDb Bottom 100 list I've been working from, there's no doubt that it has spent some time in the number one spot. In fact, this is proven in Best Worst Movie, the terrific documentary about the cult of Troll 2 I just told you about. I wouldn't want to take that honor away from it, but we've got a system here at Unwatchable, so for our purposes, Troll 2 doesn't even crack the Top...er, Bottom 40. What a relief that will be for director Claudio Fragasso.

So the big question is: does Troll 2 live down to the hype? Is it a cult movie for the ages or just another stinker to be briefly considered and discarded on our way to the bottom? Well, I doubt I'll be watching Troll 2 dozens of times like some of the people interviewed in Best Worst Movie, but there's no way I can call it unwatchable. It could never be confused with run-of-the-mill junk like Another 9 1/2 Weeks or American Ninja V; it's so very, very wrong in every single aspect that it creates its own fully realized world. A nonsensical, ridiculous world, yes, but you can't say Fragasso doesn't have a vision.

Michael Paul Stephenson, now director of Best Worst Movie but then an 11-year-old boy, stars as annoying little Joshua Waits. Along with the rest of the ostensibly normal all-American Waits family - father Michael (George Hardy), mother Diana (Margo Prey) and sister Holly (Connie McFarland) - Joshua is getting ready to spend a month in the country. Specifically, the Waits clan will be house-sitting for a family in Nilbog, Utah, while that family spends a month at the Waits house.

When the Waits clan arrives at their vacation home, a welcome feast has been set out for their consumption. As the ghost of Joshua's grandfather informs him, this feast is made up of goblin food. I don't think I would have needed a dead relative to inform me there was something a little off about the food judging from the bright green hue, but the rest of the family is perfectly content to dig in. Joshua must stop them, so grandpa freezes time for 30 seconds so he can urinate all over the meal. This leads to Troll 2's most famous scene:

There's more, oh, so much more. There's a general store that sells only curdled milk. A witchy temptress who uses a corn cob as a means of seduction. The revelation that Nilbog is...wait for it..."goblin" spelled backwards, and that the town is populated by goblins who use their bright green food to turn humans into plant-people they can then consume. The town elder's speech about the evils of meat (including foul-smelling urine and clusters of hemorrhoids), the incomparable weight-lifting and dance stylings of Connie McFarland, the glassy-eyed, overmedicated mother's demand that Joshua sing that song she likes, "Row, Row, Row Your Boat," the satisfying knowledge that the power of goodness and double bologna sandwiches are all that is required to defeat the forces of evil...you might be tempted to think someone made Troll 2 this mind-bendingly awful on purpose, but Best Worst Movie proves otherwise.

I don't know what sort of rating to give Troll 2. On the one hand, if any movie deserves the full four Maurys, it's this one. On the other hand, it seems unfair to lump it in with unimaginative, soul-sucking garbage like Meatballs 4. I'm not ready to sign up for the cult, but I have to admit Troll 2 could very well be the most watchable Unwatchable so far.

Previously on Unwatchable:
42. Zombie Nightmare
43. American Ninja V
44. Leonard Part 6
45. Another 9 1/2 Weeks
46. 3 Ninjas: High Noon on Mega Mountain

Unwatchable #42: Zombie Nightmare

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:30:00 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 don't like to feel sorry for myself when I'm writing up these Unwatchable entries. I took this task on voluntarily, and I'm determined to see it through, so there's no point whining about it. I'll just say this: nobody's life should have this many zombie movies in it. OK, maybe George Romero is an exception, but at least he's made a good living at it. Me, I've got at least one SXSW zombie movie on deck later this week, and now this...thing.

I'll give Zombie Nightmare this much: it's an old school, voodoo-based zombie movie, which makes it a change of pace from all the apocalyptic walking dead flicks we've been bombarded with of late. Jon Mikl Thor stars as Tony Washington, a hulking, heavily mulleted young man who favors ripped muscle shirts that flatter his well-oiled physique. If you remember the Barbarian Brothers, well, picture one of them. I'm not sure which.

After busting up a liquor store robbery with a baseball bat, Tony is unceremoniously flattened by a carload of joyriding teens. His grieving mother summons the local voodoo priestess, who reluctantly transforms the late lad into an undead vengeance machine. Zombie Tony makes the rounds, tracking down the unrepentent young people who caused his demise and returning the favor. The local police captain (Adam West) is content to pin the crimes on a scuzzy punk rocker, but the murders continue until the fresh-faced young cop tracks Zombie Tony down at the warehouse where he's cornered his latest victims.

Anyone nostalgic for slow zombies will find what they're looking for here, but sadly, Zombie Tony's sluggish pace has infected the entire movie surrounding him. Adam West fans shouldn't get too excited either, as TV's Batman has limited screen time (although he does eventually get dragged into hell). Those of you who can't get enough of '80s fashions, hairstyles, heavy metal (including incidental music by the star's band Thor as well as powerful synthesizer riffs by "Thorkestra") and Tia Carrere (the actress, not the band) may be able to salvage some entertainment value from Zombie Nightmare, but I wouldn't count on it.

Previously on Unwatchable:
43. American Ninja V
44. Leonard Part 6
45. Another 9 1/2 Weeks
46. 3 Ninjas: High Noon on Mega Mountain
47. Creepshow 3

Unwatchable #43: "American Ninja V"

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:30:00 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 have to admit, I've never really cared about ninjas. Never had a ninja phase. I'm not even all that clear on what constitutes a ninja. For instance, last week I wrote about 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain, in which the ninjas were little kids with slapsticky martial arts moves. I'm not sure what distinguished them from karate kids; they didn't do any mind tricks or disappear in puffs of smoke. Whereas if I am to judge ninjas from American Ninja V, those skills are part of the package. And don't even get me started on the teenage mutant ninja turtles, who have some sort of pizza-related power I've never been clear about.

So yeah, as you've probably guessed from the above, I have never seen American Ninja I-IV. Apparently this doesn't really matter, since I am reliably informed that the American Ninja of the fifth installment is not the same American Ninja from the third and fourth entries, although the same "actor," David Bradley has the lead role. He is also apparently not the same American Ninja as the one played by Michael Dudikoff in the first two American Ninja movies, even though they are both named Joe, while the middle American Ninja was named Sean. Also, Michael Dudikoff came back for the fourth installment, but not the third or fifth, so American Ninja 4: The Annihilation is the only one to feature both American Ninjas. I don't understand why it has to be so complicated, so let's go back to the part where I said it doesn't really matter.

So there's Joe, played by David Bradley, who reminds me of the Kickboxer 4 guy in an bland musclehead way. He lives on his boat, which is being revarnished by attractive Lisa (Anne Dupont) due to a crazy mix-up. Fortunately, Joe has a timely house-sitting gig for Master Tetsu (Pat Morita), but unfortunately the gig comes with babysitting duties, as Tetsu's grandson Hiro is left in Joe's care.

Meanwhile, Lisa is kidnapped by evil ninjas working for an unethical arms merchant who has already kidnapped Lisa's scientist father, who has invented a new insecticide that can be used as a biological weapon against humans in concentrated doses. The movie consists mainly of scenes in which Joe rescues Lisa and scenes in which Joe rescues Hiro, who keeps tagging along and getting in trouble. Every once in a while, a ninja disappears in a puff of smoke. I still don't know how that works.

Given the emphasis on the little ninja kid, as well as the supporting role for Pat Morita (who himself appears in a puff of smoke at one point), what we have here bears more resemblance to an unofficial Karate Kid sequel than a hardcore martial arts movie. I didn't think there was enough of a shortage of official Karate Kid sequels to warrant a fake one, but then again, I didn't know there were five American Ninja movies and four 3 Ninjas movies until I started this project. I am learning so much.

Previously on Unwatchable:
44. Leonard Part 6
45. Another 9½ Weeks
46. 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain
47. Creepshow 3
48. Cool as Ice

Unwatchable #44: “Leonard Part 6”

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 20:00:00 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.

This inexplicable Bill Cosby vehicle is remembered as a monumental flop, which implies that some money must have actually been spent to produce it. From the evidence on the screen, said money must have gone to Bill Cosby, Bill Cosby’s personal assistant, Bill Cosby’s pool man, Bill Cosby’s bookie and perhaps even Bill Cosby’s proctologist.

An opening montage promises much: Cos driving an armored Porsche. Cos performing ballet in a spaceman outfit. Cos riding an ostrich through a flaming neon sign. Had the movie simply continued in this vein, presenting one random, bizarre Cosby feat after another for its entire 84-minute running time, it might have been more entertaining and made much more sense than the existing feature.

Sadly, there is a story of sorts, involving a crazed vegetarian bent on world domination, which she plans to achieve through animal mind control. After various CIA agents are attacked by squirrels, gophers and rainbow trout, Agent Leonard Parker (Cosby) is called out of retirement to handle the case. (The joke of the title is that Leonard’s previous five adventures have been confiscated in the interest of world security. Sadly, the same criteria apparently did not apply to the Ernest movies.)

Slapstick sequences featuring Leonard battling vegetarian warriors by firing missiles from his armpits alternate with limp scenes of domestic comedy that might have been lifted from one of the star’s failed post-Cosby Show sitcoms. A subplot about Leonard’s 20-year-old daughter performing nude in a play seems inspired by Cosby’s well-publicized distaste for Lisa Bonet’s raunchy shenanigans in Angel Heart. In the meat-throwing climax, a gay henchman accidentally swallows a hot dog, causing his head to explode.

Some of you younger readers may feel that I’m being unfair to Mr. Cosby, who has done so much to entertain us over the years. What you may not remember is that even Cosby warned his fans not to shell out for this one when it opened in theaters. He may be responsible for producing, co-writing and starring in Leonard Part 6, but at least he got one thing right.

Previously on Unwatchable:
45. Another 9½ Weeks
46. 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain
47. Creepshow 3
48. Cool as Ice
49. Laserblast

Unwatchable #45: “Another 9½ Weeks”

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:00:00 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.

Now that the Mickey Rourke comeback arc is complete – with our redeemed hero falling just short of the ultimate prize, a Best Actor Oscar – what better time to look back at one of the movies that made a comeback necessary in the first place? By 1997, Rourke’s star had already fallen far enough for him to reprise his role as wealthy investor John Grey in a straight-to-video sequel to 9 ½ Weeks (after he’d already reteamed with Weeks director/sleazemeister Adrian Lyne for the quasi-sequel Wild Orchid). The halcyon days of Johnny Handsome and Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man were but a distant memory.

In 1997, Kim Basinger was starring in L.A. Confidential, for which she won an Oscar. Clearly her priorities did not including returning for another romp in the sheets with Rourke, especially since she apparently didn’t have all that much fun the first time around. So the plot of Another 9 ½ Weeks becomes Grey’s search for his erstwhile playmate Elizabeth McGraw, which leads him into the treacherous arms of her former friend, fashion designer Lea Calot. Lea is played by supermodel Angie Everhart. You may have noticed that nobody ever refers to her as superactress Angie Everhart. There is a good reason for this, and plenty of evidence in support of this reason is provided in Another 9 ½ Weeks.

We know John Grey is in a bad place as the movie begins because he’s playing Russian roulette in a darkened room. If the chamber had only spun a little further, Another 9 ½ Weeks would have ended at the three-minute mark, but alas, fate spares John and he must struggle on. He hires a blonde, leggy hooker to go through the motions with him, but that’s not good enough, so it’s off to Paris to track down his lost love and win her back.

At an auction of Elizabeth’s artwork, John places the winning bid on all of her paintings, yet even this gesture is not enough to make her materialize before him. His efforts do attract the attention of the aforementioned Lea, who leads him on with tantalizing hints about Elizabeth’s whereabouts. Lea has read Elizabeth’s diary of her affair with John, conveniently titled 9 ½ Weeks, so she knows all his tricks and catchphrases and is eager to experience them firsthand. This leads us into the true test of any erotic thriller worth its rental price: How ludicrous/icky/unintentionally hilarious are the sex scenes?

Let’s see…first there’s Lea’s reverse strip-tease, in which she slowly dons a business suit while John struggles to remain conscious on the bed. (In his defense, it does look like an awfully comfy bed.) Then there’s a brief interlude at a party where women are kissing other women and one half-naked beauty has hot candle wax dripped all over her body. (I’ll pause here while you vigorously masturbate.) After blindfolding John, Lea and her lovely assistant Claire (Agathe de la Fontaine) do a hot bump ‘n grind routine, which is especially enjoyable for him because he’s fucking blindfolded! Eventually John gets around to re-enacting his greatest hits from the first movie, such as covering Lea in rose petals and dumping wine and honey all over her naked writhing body.

Finally comes the big reveal, courtesy of Lea’s pompous Eurotrash business partner: Elizabeth is dead! She became a junkie and OD’d! Which only raises more questions, like…John couldn’t find this out on his own? This isn’t public knowledge? He has enough money to buy her entire collection of paintings, but he can’t hire a PI to find her clearly marked tombstone? I’d say he’s not such a bright guy, but then again, he’s the one who got to drizzle honey all over a naked Angie Everhart – and wouldn’t it be nice to think that was his plan all along?

Previously on Unwatchable:
46. 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain
47. Creepshow 3
48. Cool as Ice
49. Laserblast
50. Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace

Unwatchable #46: “3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain”

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:00:00 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.

Our unprecedented weeklong survey of Unwatchability comes to a merciful close with what I was astounded to discover is the FOURTH movie in the 3 Ninjas series. These are, after all, movies about kids, the smallest of whom can’t be more than eight years old in High Noon at Mega Mountain. How could they possibly have had three movies worth of adventures already?

Well, for one thing, the three ninjas have been recast for the fourth installment – in fact, two of them have been recast for the second time. It’s the Menudo principle at work, ensuring a long and glorious reign for the 3 Ninjas franchise. Since these kids are no-names, however, we need an actual trio of big stars to headline the picture. I have placed the names of 732,891 members of the Screen Actors Guild into this hat. Please choose three. Let’s see…Loni Anderson…Jim “Ernest” Varney…and Hulk Hogan! Perfect!

Anderson, clad in flattering skintight leather, her face spackled with great greezy globs of makeup, is Medusa, a sad man’s Catwoman. Along with henchman Lothar (Varney), she plans to blackmail the owner of Mega Mountain by taking over the amusement park and sabotaging the rides. Her plan provides a useful opportunity for young children to practice their logic skills, in that it relies on the amusement park having a central control room, from which you can make all the rides do all manner of unsafe things. Would an actual amusement park have such a control room? Discuss.

Another thing you might do if you were the wealthy owner of Mega Mountain is send a few of your employees around the park with signs saying the rides are closed. But no, crowds of people continue to wait in line for rides they can clearly see are running too fast or stopping with their passengers hanging upside down. Please, encourage your children to be skeptical about the events portrayed on the screen. It will only help them later in life.

Anyway, who can stop the dread Medusa? Only the three ninjas: Rocky, Colt and Tum Tum. That’s right, Tum Tum. If you need an explanation, please consult Wikipedia, which has insanely detailed plot descriptions of the first couple of 3 Ninjas movies. All I can tell you is that they were apparently trained in a heavily Three Stooges-influenced form of martial arts by their grandfather, who is Japanese for some reason. They are aided and abetted by martial arts TV star Dave Dragon, played by Hogan in an unfortunate blonde hairpiece/red leotard combo that makes him look like he should be working the door at the Glory Hole.

Cheesy slapstick and corny one-liners ensue, until order is finally restored and little Tum Tum gets his birthday cake. Despite the quote on the poster from Rex Reed proclaiming “The kids will love it!” – and who better than Reed to decide such a thing? – my inner child slept through most of this particular 3 Ninjas adventure. I’m sure the other ones are really good, though.

Previously on Unwatchable:
47. Creepshow 3
48. Cool as Ice
49. Laserblast
50. Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace
51. Simon Sez

Unwatchable #47: “Creepshow 3”

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:00:00 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.

I can’t say I didn’t learn anything from Creepshow 3. For instance, I learned that, at some point, there must have been a Creepshow 2. I also learned that, unlike the first two Creepshow movies, the third one is not based on short stories by Stephen King. This is a good thing for him, as it saves him the trouble of having to file a lawsuit to have his name removed from the credits as he did with The Lawnmower Man. It’s not a good thing for us, the viewers, because King is someone who knows how to construct a horror story in the EC Comics mold, and the makers of Creepshow 3 could not construct a successful dump if you gave them three extra assholes.

Pardon my crudity but, after all, I just finished watching Creepshow 3, which is so crude it should be selling for $45 a barrel. Like the previous Creepshows, it’s an anthology film consisting of five loosely connected tales o’ terror. This time it took five different writers to come up with the stories, and if any of them had even a passing familiarity with EC Comics, I’ll eat my complete run of Tales From the Crypt. In fact, I’m not convinced that any of these scribes has ever read anything more challenging than the back of a cereal box. As a group, they don’t seem to understand that a good story is usually not simply a series of random events punctuated by gruesome bursts of gore – that a good story should have some sort of, I dunno, point.

Take the Creepshow 3 opener, “Alice.” The title character is a snotty teen who comes home to find that her father has purchased a new universal remote. Apparently he bought it at the same store Adam Sandler shopped at in Click, because this is a crazy remote that does crazy things! When he hits the “hue” button, Alice’s entire family turns black! When he pressed the button for subtitles, they all start speaking Spanish. And when he tries to get a better signal, Alice sprouts unsightly blotches all over her face and body. I guess this is her comeuppance for being such a brat, but it seems just a little disproportionate and out of left field.

In “The Radio,” a schlubby security guard buys a portable radio from a flea market to listen to the game, but instead all he hears is a female voice bossing him around. The first thing you or I might think to do in this situation is to turn off the radio or throw it out the window, but this guy just keeps following orders until he gets himself killed by the pimp down the hall. It’s just a bit unsatisfying that there’s no sort of logical progression or sense of building tension here – just a dumb guy getting dumber until he’s dead.

One story, “The Professor’s Wife,” at least boasts a promising kernel of an idea: an eccentric professor invites two ex-students to meet his new bride-to-be. The students become convinced that the professor has built himself a robot wife, and when the prof steps out to run an errand, they decide to prove it. Again, in the hands of King and original Creepshow director George Romero, this could be a giddily squirm-inducing premise, but in the sweaty grip of co-directors Ana Clavell and James Glenn Dudelson (Day of the Dead 2: Contagium), it’s just a repulsive mess.

Clavell and Dudelson save the worst for last with “Haunted Dog” – the dog in question being a bad hot dog – in which they inexplicably allow Toad the Wet Sprocket bassist Dean Dinning to run wild with his nonexistent improvisatory skills as an ethically-challenged doctor. Physicians found guilty of malpractice should be forced to watch this on a continuous loop; anyone without access to large quantities of prescription drugs should avoid prolonged exposure to Creepshow 3.

Previously on Unwatchable:
48. Cool as Ice
49. Laserblast
50. Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace
51. Simon Sez
52. In the Mix

Unwatchable #48: “Cool as Ice”

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 18:00:00 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.

Here’s a little-known etymological fact for you: the term “assclown” did not exist before 1990. It was specifically engineered by a team of Harvard linguists assigned to devise a shorthand description of Vanilla Ice. You see, at the time, no existing word quite did the trick. Sure, one could simply say he was an asshole, but there were lots of assholes around in the early '90s. One could describe him as “that fool in the baggy pants” or “that douche with the haircut,” but these are somewhat unwieldy phrases. Assclown says it all, really. Good work, Harvard linguists.

If you young whippersnappers don’t remember Vanilla Ice, well, he was sort of the Eminem of his day, minus any detectable talent. And if you don’t remember Eminem, well, you better be careful not to let your parents catch you messing around on Nerve.com. Born Rob Van Winkle – and really, if you were born Rob Van Winkle and decided to pursue a career in show biz, wouldn’t you call yourself Rip Van Winkle? This just seems like a no-brainer to me, unless you’re some sort of assclown – Mr. Ice rode a recycled riff from the Queen/David Bowie hit “Under Pressure” to the top of the pops and the dismay of hip-hop fans everywhere.

If we stick with the Eminem analogy, Cool as Ice is Vanilla Ice’s 8 Mile, the major difference being that 8 Mile is watchable and Cool as Ice…well, you see where we are. Ice plays Johnny Van Owen, and I’m sure my failure as an attentive viewer is to blame for the fact that I can’t tell you with any accuracy what Johnny is supposed to be. The easy answer is “a rebel without a clue,” but I think I’m a little late with that line. I guess he’s some sort of biker/musician/free spirit, but I could never quite figure out if he was supposed to be a famous rap star slumming in the burbs or just a schmuck who thought it would be cool to dress like Andrew Dice Clay doing an MC Hammer impression.

Anyway, boorish, uncharismatic Johnny is stuck in town while a member of his posse is getting his bike fixed, so he decides to pass the time by harassing high school student Kathy (Kristin Minter). Wait, I’m being judgmental again. To me it looks like harassment, but in Johnny’s tiny mind, I’m sure it’s just his primitive notion of courtship. And it works! Soon he and Kathy are frolicking through construction sites in a slow-motion montage, much to the consternation of Kathy’s dad (the long-suffering Michael Gross), who thinks Johnny is in league with the ex-cops who are harassing him. You see, Dad has a secret he’s never told Kathy: they’re actually in the Witness Protection Program! Dad was a cop who ratted out his dirty colleagues and they’ve finally tracked him down.

It’s not clear that Vanilla Ice himself entered the Witness Protection Program immediately following the release of Cool as Ice, but that’s as plausible an explanation as any. His acting is praiseworthy only by comparison to his weak rhymes, wack dance moves and woeful wigger wardrobe. The movie that surrounds him has a severe ‘80s hangover – it looks like a David Lee Roth video set in Pee-Wee’s Playhouse – and the tunes Ice provides failed to elevate the soundtrack to classic status, unless I blinked and missed the pop chart run of “Johnny Rox the Box.”

As fate would have it, Mr. Van Winkle has just issued a video apology on YouTube. He’s sorry for the music and the haircuts and the baggy pants. I’m almost ready to take back all the mean things I’ve said about him here. Except I can’t help but notice he does not apologize for Cool as Ice.

Previously on Unwatchable:
49. Laserblast
50. Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace
51. Simon Sez
52. In the Mix
53. Baby Geniuses

Unwatchable #49: “Laserblast”

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:00:00 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.

Unwatchable Week rolls on with one of our periodic substitutions. The actual #49 movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list I’ve been working from all along is the 1989 Bo Derek sex comedy Ghosts Can’t Do It. Oh, how I wish I could find this movie, but there doesn’t appear to be any trace of its existence left on earth besides a handful of reviews and a four-second YouTube clip of Derek in a wet t-shirt. This is a tragedy that any self-respecting film preservationists should devote all the resources at their disposal toward rectifying. After all, we’re talking about a movie that swept the Razzies, taking home Worst Picture, Worst Actress (Derek) and Worst Director (John Derek). I demand a fully restored Criterion Collection edition by year’s end, but in the meantime, we have to find a replacement for today’s Unwatchable installment. As is my policy, I have consulted the current version of the IMDb Bottom 100 list and selected the first entry that does not also appear on my version of the list.

That turned out to be Laserblast, an early effort from producer Charles Band, who was essentially the Roger Corman of the VHS era. Glancing over his filmography, I see that Band has spent much more of his career exploring our primal fear of dolls and puppets than I would have guessed, although these days he’s turned his attention to the largely untapped “scary gingerbread men” genre. In 1978, however, aliens were all the rage…and Band and his first-(and only-)time director Michael Rae were not about to buck the trend.

Even if, like me, you have a soft spot for cheesy ‘70s sci-fi, you’ll be hard-pressed to extract much entertainment value from Laserblast. The fun begins with a couple of Play-Doh aliens vaporizing a rather vampiric-looking fellow wielding a laser cannon. After this brief but oh-so-tantalizing burst of sci-fi action, Laserblast turns into a horny teenager movie, as young Billy Duncan (Kim Milford) wakes from a dream only to find his slutty mother is off to Acapulco again. The lonely boy tries to visit his girlfriend Kathy, but her crazy grandpa (Keenan Wynn) who thinks he’s still in World War II chases him off. Billy wanders out to the desert, where he finds the abandoned laser cannon. This completely turns his day around, as you can imagine. He starts blasting cacti and sand dunes as any of us would, little realizing the effect this alien artifact is having on him.

Exposure to the weapon turns Billy’s skin an unhealthy shade of green, and he develops some sort of seeping chest wound that calls for a cameo from Roddy McDowell as the town sawbones. I’m sure Mr. McDowell was just happy to be in a cheesy ‘70s sci-fi movie that didn’t require him to sit in a makeup chair for seven hours, but he doesn’t bring a whole lot to the party. Billy continues to mutate, much to the dismay of Kathy, the local law enforcement, an investigating government agent, and Billy’s high school tormenters (including cinematic uber-nerd Eddie Deezen in his motion picture debut).

The dramatic conclusion finds Billy hitching a ride with a hippie driving a VW bus and using his trusty laser cannon to blow up a Star Wars billboard. (Now that’s chutzpah.) His rampage is cut short when the Play-Doh aliens finally catch up and give him a taste of his own medicine. I’ll say this much for the aliens: they may be cheaply made, but at least they have personality, which is more than I can say for Billy or any other human in the movie. Otherwise, Laserblast has little to offer besides periodic explosions and a chubby girl in a bikini eating cake. I know some of you are into that sort of thing.

Previously on Unwatchable:
50. Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace
51. Simon Sez
52. In the Mix
53. Baby Geniuses
54. Meatballs 4

Unwatchable #50: “Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace"

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:00:00 GMT

Welcome to Unwatchable Week! Every day this week will feature a new installment of the most ill-advised exercise ever undertaken by a member of the reviewing press, as your faithful movie janitor (that would be me) continues his mind-numbing quest to watch every film on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. We've finally cracked the top 50, so there's no point stopping now.

Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace is, as you may have deduced, the sequel to The Lawnmower Man, which was once known as Stephen King's The Lawmower Man until the master of horror sued New Line Pictures to have his name removed from the credits. When you consider some of the movies Stephen King has seen fit to leave his name on, this would seem to be quite an indictment. Actually, King's problem with the movie is that it has absolutely nothing to do with his short story "The Lawnmower Man." As I recall, King's Lawnmower Man was a big fat naked guy who ate grass and any woodchucks that might be hiding in said grass, while New Line's Lawnmower Man was Jeff Fahey in a funny wig.

The 1996 sequel Lawnmower Man 2 offers neither of these options. Instead, it stars Matt Frewer as Jobe, the same character played by Fahey in the first movie. Jobe was once a simple-minded lawn care employee, until a scientist used drugs and virtual reality to turn him into an evil genius. When last seen, Jobe had entered cyberspace and was making all the phones in the world ring at once. He had his reasons, I’m sure.

As the second movie opens, Jobe is sucked out of cyberspace and imprisoned in a new body with only one working limb and Matt Frewer's face. He is now forced to work for James Lipton lookalike Jonathan Walker (Kevin Conway), who wants Jobe to finish building the special Chiron chip that will give him control over all the world's computer systems, and thus all its banks. Jobe dives back into virtual reality to find his old pal Peter, a teenager with a gang of VR hacker buddies. Jobe asks Peter to find Dr. Benjamin Trace (Patrick Bergin), the chip's original inventor, who can provide him with the secret doofalator bypass program that will allow him to unleash all of the chip's power.

Of course, Jobe plans to use the power for his own nefarious purposes, which James Lipton lookalike would have figured out if he'd seen the first movie. There's an awful lot of nonsensical techno-babble of the sort you used to be able to get away with in cyberspace-themed movies before everyone got access to the Internet and realized it was mostly useful for porn and twittering. There are also lame retreads of sci-fi action sequences familiar from the original Star Wars trilogy, and plenty of cutting edge mid-90s "virtual reality" graphics. (I was sure by now we'd have the special VR goggles that let us mingle with bigwigs at the White House or Playmates at Hef’s Grotto without ever leaving our parents' basements, but I guess those are still a few years off.)

If there's any wit to be found in Lawnmower Man 2, it's in the casting of Frewer, who was, of course, the original virtual star, Max Headroom. That joke gets sort of old once you realize Frewer is essentially reprising his Headroom performance, but without the cool squiggly video backgrounds. Oh, 1990s - can't you do anything right?

Previously on Unwatchable:
51. Simon Sez
52. In the Mix
53. Baby Geniuses
54. Meatballs 4
55. A*P*E

Unwatchable #51: “Simon Sez”

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:30:00 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.

A few years ago I was on a bus from Paris to Frankfurt, following a whirlwind 36-hour tour of the City of Lights. Gazing out the window at the French countryside should have been entertainment enough for our tour group, but no: we had an in-ride movie. It was an action movie called Double Team, and it starred Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dennis Rodman and Mickey Rourke. Appropriate, no? Van Damme is almost French after all, and they still loved Rourke in France for many years before his recent comeback.

Anyway, I don’t remember much about Double Team, but Wikipedia reminds me that Dennis Rodman played “a flamboyant arms dealer.” One thing I don’t recall thinking is that Rodman would have a long and successful film career. In fact, I very specifically remember not thinking that, and I think history has proved me right. The ex-basketball star’s sleepy-eyed brand of charisma may be an asset to the likes of Celebrity Apprentice, but his acting chops only served to make Van Damme look Brandoesque by comparison.

Nonetheless, Rodman did get a second chance at becoming the next Van Damme with Simon Sez, which I would charitably describe as an action comedy. Rodman plays the titular Simon, an ex-CIA operative now working for Interpol in France. (Apparently the European agency has a more lax dress code, allowing their agents to sport platinum blonde hair and multiple facial piercings and tattoos. I would think such an appearance might be a drawback on undercover missions, but I never went to spy school.) For reasons that eluded me, Simon is assisted by two monks, a wisecracking fat guy and a wisecracking black dude; they’re like the worst Abbot and Costello tribute show on earth.

That makes them a good match for the sorriest Jim Carrey substitute a SAG minimum salary could buy in 1999, Dane Cook. As Nick Miranda, Simon’s old classmate from Langley, Cook has clearly been given free reign to unleash his comic genius at will. He makes Wookie noises and Jurassic Park noises! He snaps off the one-liners in the midst of a high-speed car chase. (“These guys are like my college loan officers – they just keep comin’!” “Maybe he just wants some Grey Poupon!”) There is a satisfying moment when he falls off a fire escape into a garbage can and rolls down an alley, but it’s not enough to make up for his gruesome mistaken faith in his own talent and likeability.

Anyway, the plot has something to do with Rodman and Cook teaming up to rescue a rich man’s kidnapped daughter who is being held ransom for the disk full of CIA secrets Brad Pitt thought he’d found in Burn After Reading. Rodman’s vortex of bad acting takes over the rest of the cast, none of whom can make the typed-by-chimpanzee dialogue sound like words actual humans would say. The action sequences offer an array of gaffes and utter disregard for the laws of physics (I think I saw Rodman stopping for a sandwich as he fell from a 30-story window), but there is a quicksand sequence, which always cheers me up. (Unfortunately, Rodman rescues Cook before he completely disappears beneath the surface.)

The good news is that Simon Sez was rewarded with one of the worst opening weekends in history, debuting on 504 screens and taking in a miserable $185,472 total. The movie got what it deserved, and I don’t need to pile on any further. I will mention something you may have noticed: this is Unwatchable #51, which means we’ve made it halfway through the list and have 50 more to go. They bet against me! They said I’d never make it past #78! But I proved ‘em wrong! Tune in next week for a special first-half celebration of…Unwatchable!

Previously on Unwatchable:
52. In the Mix
53. Baby Geniuses
54. Meatballs 4
55. A*P*E
56. Araf

Unwatchable #52: “In the Mix”

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 21:00:00 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.

In the Mix comes described as an “edgy romantic comedy,” which I guess is a romantic comedy in which people shoot at each other. Our star-crossed lovers are club DJ Darrell (R&B star Usher) and Mafia princess Dolly (adorable Emmanuelle Chriqui); they’ve known each other all their lives, but, you know, not in that way. Darrell’s late father was a trusted employee of Dollie’s daddy Frank (Chazz Palminteri), the mob boss of New Jersey. Frank hires Darrell to DJ a party, which proves fortuitous when a rival attempts a hit on him and Darrell takes the bullet in his shoulder.

It’s only a flesh wound, and Darrell quickly recuperates in Frank’s spacious McMobsion. Given the potential mob war a-brewing, Frank is unwilling to let Dolly leave the house without protection, but Dolly refuses to be accompanied by one of his goons. (Frank is perpetually surrounded by a cast of goombahs who might have finally made it onto The Sopranos if the show had run seventeen seasons; Robert Costanzo IS Fat Tony!)

That leaves it to Darrell to chauffeur Dolly around, and soon enough the old friends are playing tonsil hockey. This doesn’t sit well with Frank and the boys when they find out, so they decide to knock some sense into Darrell by having Fat Tony dunk his head several times in the pool. See, these are lovable mobsters! Except for the two young nitwits who kidnap Darrell and Dolly in order to lure Frank into a trap, so they can kill him and take over the crew. It all works out, though, when Darrell takes another bullet, finally winning Frank over. Hey, any asshole can take one bullet for you, right? But two? Ayyyy, gabbagool!

Directed by genial hack Ron Underwood (City Slickers, The Adventures of Pluto Nash, and I don’t actually know that he’s genial, he just looks that way in his IMDb photos), In the Mix is at least competent in a straight-to-video sort of way, which, along with Chriqui’s million dollar smile, should probably be enough to disqualify it from Unwatchable consideration. If I had to guess why it ended up on the list, I would be inclined to place the blame on the character of Dolly’s brother Frankie Jr. (Anthony Fazio), an incredibly annoying wigger in the hiz-zayyy who somehow makes it through the entire movie without being beaten to death by either Usher or Palminteri. For this missed opportunity alone, I award In the Mix two Maurys.

Previously on Unwatchable:
53. Baby Geniuses
54. Meatballs 4
55. A*P*E
56. Araf
57. Phat Girlz

Unwatchable #53: “Baby Geniuses”

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:30:00 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 a peaceable man by nature, and I know everyone has to make a living somehow, but I can’t help it: I really wish something bad would happen to everyone involved in making Baby Geniuses. I’m not talking about something life-threatening or even physically debilitating – I’m thinking more in terms of a flat tire, a tax audit or perhaps a visible soiling of pants at a high-profile public event. Actually, that last item probably did happen to one or two of the stars of Baby Geniuses, given that they were actually babies. I suppose I can’t blame these tykes for their roles in the movie, so instead, let us hope their parents had the courtesy to pay for the inevitable psychiatric counseling these toddlers required.

Baby Geniuses is, as you might have surmised, a talking baby movie. At the time of its release in 1999, the Look Who’s Talking series had run its course and America was once again hungering for verbose infants. Apparently. The premise here is that babies have universal knowledge up until the age of two – they have all the wisdom of the universe, but it vanishes once they begin learning to talk. Baby scientist Dr. Elena Kinder (Kathleen Turner, speaking her unspeakable dialogue in the thick Transylvanian accent she inexplicably developed in the early ’90s) and her colleague Dr. Heep (Christopher Lloyd) believe that babies under the age of two are communicating with each other in a secret language, and they plan to crack the code.

One of the test subjects at their facility, wisecracking toddler Sly, manages to escape. He is pursued into a shopping mall, where he inadvertently switches places with Whit, the twin brother he never knew he had. Whit had previously been adopted by kindly couple Robin and Dan (Kim Cattrall and Peter MacNichol); now he is in the clutches of Dr. Kinder and Sly is living with Whit’s unsuspecting parents. When Kinder figures out what has happened, she sends her minions out to retrieve Sly, and the final third of Baby Geniuses transforms into a tired retread of Home Alone, complete with plenty of groin injury humor.

I don’t think this is too much to ask: if you’re going to make babies talk, give them something funny to say. Austin Powers quotes don’t count. Salacious innuendo is probably not a great idea. When one boy baby asks a girl baby to take her clothes off and the girl baby responds, “You could at least buy me dinner first”…that makes me a little queasy. Also, while the “trying on funny outfits” montage is, of course, always hilarious, it looks like the baby is being manipulated by marionette wires when he does the John Travolta moves in the little white suit. I’m pretty sure this is illegal.

As I said, I don’t actually wish death on any of these people – not even Dom DeLuise, who performs a repulsive tongue-wiggling maneuver that cost me several hours of sleep last night – but as it happens, the director, Bob Clark, was killed in a car accident in 2007. Mr. Clark will always be fondly remembered for A Christmas Story, and no doubt many males of a certain age retain some affection for Porky’s, so it gives me no pleasure to report that the director’s final credit was SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2. It gives me even less pleasure to contemplate the likelihood that said sequel is lurking in wait, higher up the list of…the Unwatchable.

Previously on Unwatchable:
54. Meatballs 4
55. A*P*E
56. Araf
57. Phat Girlz
58. Ed

Unwatchable #54: “Meatballs 4”

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 18:00:00 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.

Note to aspiring filmmakers: if the success of your movie is dependent on the audience perceiving a character played by Corey Feldman as “the cool guy,” you have already failed.

There’s a sort of reverse Darwinism at work in the Meatballs series when it comes to the cool guy; the original 1979 Meatballs may not be a comedy classic for the ages, but it does feature Bill Murray as the cool guy, and I think we can all accept that. I’ve never seen 1984’s Meatballs, Part II, but as far as I can tell, its cool guy is John Mengatti as Armand “Flash” Carducci. Mengatti also played Salami’s cousin Nick Vitaglia on The White Shadow. I don’t remember the character or the actor, but for the sake of argument, let’s say John Mengatti is slightly less cool than Bill Murray. Next up is Meatballs III: Summer Job, also unseen by me, which doesn’t seem to have a cool guy at all. It does have Patrick Dempsey, and I know today he’s TV’s heartthrob McDreamy, but believe me, in 1986 no one on this planet thought he was cool.

This brings us to Meatballs 4 and the aforementioned Feldman, who plays Ricky Wade, the super cool activities director for the Lakeside Water Ski Camp. Ricky has recently been lured from Twin Oaks, the rival camp across the lake, by Lakeside owner Neil Peterson (Jack Nance, the poor bastard). Lakeside is facing bankruptcy, which is hard for me to understand, since most of its enrolled campers are apparently vacationing Hooters waitresses with clothing allergies. Call me a skeptic, but I don’t think camps like this actually exist. If they do, please send me a brochure.

Anyway, it’s up to Rick to whip all the campers into shape – including the shy fat guy – for the big waterskiing showdown with Twin Oaks. Feldman brings not only a smarmy low-grade sarcasm to the role (it would not surprise me to learn that he rewrote much of his own part, tailoring it to his perceived strengths), but also his faux-Michael Jackson dance moves. I didn’t think much of the supporting cast’s acting chops until I saw them successfully pretending to be impressed by this crap.

There’s not much more to say about Meatballs 4 itself, so let me tell you a couple of behind-the-scenes stories. You may have read the first one, which concerns poor Jack Nance, in the late, occasionally lamented Premiere magazine. Nance, best known as Eraserhead himself and Pete “She’s wrapped in plastic!” Martell from Twin Peaks, was married to Kelly Jean Van Dyke, daughter of Jerry “Coach” Van Dyke at the time of the Meatballs 4 shoot. Kelly Jean had a severe substance abuse problem and had begun working in porn and Nance was beginning to think the marriage was probably not going to work out. He explained this to her over the phone, she freaked out and said she’d kill herself if he hung up on her, and at that moment “the storm that had been raging outside killed the phone line.” And Kelly Jean did, in fact, kill herself. It was all downhill for Nance from there, and he died under mysterious circumstances in 1996. I’m not saying Meatballs 4 is entirely to blame, but facts is facts.

On a somewhat lighter note: When I first moved to Los Angeles in 1990, my first job in the movie biz was working an unpaid production assistant on a straight-to-cable Debbie Harry thriller called Intimate Stranger. Making her feature debut was an attractive young actress named Paige French. As the on-set scuttlebutt went, Ms. French was hired for the role with the understanding that nudity would be required at some point during the production. However, when the time of the nudity arrived, there was a prolonged delay as a result of a heated dispute over the veracity of this required nudity clause. At some point a compromise was reached involving sexy lingerie, but Ms. French’s wares remained under wraps.

Why am I telling you this? Only because now, 18 years later, I have finally seen Paige French’s boobies. She wouldn’t do it for a piece of crap like Intimate Stranger, but Meatballs 4…now that’s a whole other story! All kidding aside, it’s a bit depressing to see that Meatballs 4 was effectively the end of her brief movie career (though she did have a role on the short-lived George Carlin Show). She’s one of the few people in the movie to actually bear some resemblance to a genuine human being. And yet the Feldman persists.

Previously on Unwatchable:
55. A*P*E
56. Araf
57. Phat Girlz
58. Ed
59. Don’t Go in the Woods…Alone!

Unwatchable #55: “APE”

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:30:00 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.

A*P*E (also known as Hideous Mutant, Super Kong and, um, Attack of the Giant Horny Gorilla) was released in 1976, the same year as the Dino De Laurentiis remake of King Kong. The conspiracy theorist inside me would like to think that De Laurentiis secretly financed A*P*E so that his incredibly fake-looking Kong wouldn’t look so bad by comparison. In reality, A*P*E is a South Korean-American co-production with no apparent connection to the De Laurentiis empire. But I’m allowed to have my suspicions.

The first five minutes of A*P*E set a standard for gut-busting awfulness that few movies could sustain – and indeed, the remainder of the movie is a routinely terrible Kong ripoff. But oh, those first five minutes! It begins with a title card thanking the United States Army for its cooperation in the making of this motion picture. Wha? The United States Army cooperated with this? For what possible reason? Did anyone in charge read a script? You figure there has to be one guy in the Army who has the task of reading all the scripts submitted by producers looking to borrow some tanks and helicopters. (And by the way, how did this guy get that job? Is his brother fighting on the front lines while he sits at a desk reading Attack of the Giant Horny Gorilla? Must make for a fun time at Thanksgiving.) Maybe this guy just wanted to assure us all that the Army would be on the case if we’re ever attacked by a giant ape. Or maybe there was some misunderstanding with the Korean producers over the use of the word “Kong.” Something was lost in translation, I’m almost certain.

Anyway, A*P*E skips all the usual tedious nonsense about assembling a crew, chartering a freighter to the island, dealing with the natives and capturing the giant ape. You know, all the stuff that took up about seven hours worth of the Peter Jackson King Kong remake. As the movie begins, we’re already aboard the ship with the drugged 36-foot-ape locked down in the hold. But not for long! The ape awakes, crashes through the deck, and – for reasons I could not discern from the mise-en-scene presented by director Paul Leder (I Dismember Mama) – the entire boat explodes. Apparently the freighter has been cruising along in about fifteen feet of water, because the ape now stands, waist-deep in the ocean, and dances with a rubber shark. (Here is a clip of his escape, which sadly, cuts out right before the shark-dancing.)

Eventually ape defeats shark and reaches land. Specifically, he makes it to Korea, where American movie star Marilyn Baker (Joanna Kerns) is making her latest picture. (From the clips we see, she appears to be starring in the story of a woman in constant danger of being raped.) Ape and actress are destined for a rendezvous, but unlike Kong, this big gorilla does not appear to be a misunderstood gentle soul. Actually, he’s kind of a dick. He rampages around willy-nilly, knocking over schools and hospitals and whatnot. He defies physics by being 36 feet tall and yet towering over four-story buildings. When the inevitable helicopter attack arrives in the final reel, the ape deploys a rude gesture the original Kong could never have gotten away with.

When the beast meets his violent demise, his carpet-remnant fur rippling in the breeze, Marilyn’s weenie boyfriend gets the last word. “He was just too big for a small world like ours.” Poignance, thy name is A*P*E.

Previously on Unwatchable:
56. Araf
57. Phat Girlz
58. Ed
59. Don’t Go in the Woods…Alone!
60. Carry On Columbus

Unwatchable #56: “Araf” (aka “The Abortion”)

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 20:30:00 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.

Turkish cinema is yet another hole in my film studies education. (Yeah, I actually have a degree in this stuff. No one has ever asked to see it.) I’ve seen clips of the Turkish Wizard of Oz and Turkish Batman and the like, but I have a feeling those are not representative examples of the current state of Istanbullywood. (I just made that up. At least I thought I did until I googled it and got seven hits.)

That being the case, I can’t really tell you where Araf (known in this country by the cheery title The Abortion) ranks on the spectrum of Turkish filmmaking. To my eyes, it looks like a very low-budget movie with a threadbare story, subpar acting and unimpressive special effects, but for all I know this is a top-of-the-line product in its country of origin. I would like to think not, and if the IMDb commenters claiming to be from Turkey are to be believed, I would be justified in thinking not. “Listen. I do not like to criticize my own country's movies for we are in the birthing pains of a stable film industry, but what the hell, this movie is horrific,” one earnestly proclaims. I feel his pain.

Araf tells the depressing tale of Eda (Akasya Asiltürkmen, who you will of course remember as the star of the TV series Felek ne demek), a dance student who learns too late that she is pregnant by her secret lover. Unable to have a legal abortion (a 1983 law made the procedure legal in Turkey during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, or later if the mother’s health is at risk), Eda submits to the back-alley variety. Three years later she is married to stalwart Cenk (Murat Yildirim) and expecting their child but alas, she suffers a miscarriage. At about this time she begins hallucinating (or is she?) that her aborted child is now a creepy little girl straight out of a J-horror movie.

This could be a scary scenario (or just an offensive one if you choose to read Araf as an anti-abortion screed), but the video effects are so poorly rendered, it just looks like a junior high AV club's remake of The Ring. There’s nowhere near enough story to sustain a 92-minute running time, so director Biray Dalkiran pads out the proceedings with extended shots of characters walking to their cars, getting in the cars, pulling out of their driveways, driving, pulling into driveways, getting out of their cars, walking up to doors, walking up long flights of stairs…I think you’ve got the picture.

Given my limited knowledge of the Turkish language, I can’t vouch for the quality of the English subtitles, so I don’t know who to credit with some nearly Ed Wood-ian dialogue, as in a scene in which Eda consults a shrink. “We cannot live free of space,” he tells her. “Space is our irrevocable past.” Yes. Yes it is.

Previously on Unwatchable:
57. Phat Girlz
58. Ed
59. Don’t Go in the Woods…Alone!
60. Carry On Columbus
61. Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie

Unwatchable #57: “Phat Girlz”

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:30:00 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.

Happy New Year, Unwatchablers! Oh, what a mountain of crap we have ahead of us as we continue our assault on the upper reaches of the IMDb Bottom 100 list. We begin the new year with the continuation of a potentially disturbing trend, as Phat Girlz joins such other African-American comedies of recent vintage as The Honeymooners, First Sunday, College Road Trip, Meet the Browns and The Perfect Holiday on the list. Now, I’m not defending any of these movies in and of themselves – as you can see from my posts, I think even the best of them is barely mediocre – but the clustering of said flicks at the sad end of the IMDb spectrum does give me pause. I’m not necessarily suggesting that there’s a preponderance of racist IMDb users skewing the numbers, but it may merit further investigation.

I’d do it myself, but I have another, more pressing task, which is watching Phat Girlz. With the above disclaimer out of the way, I feel comfortable in reporting that Phat Girlz is indeed a bad movie, fully deserving of its spot amongst the Unwatchable. I think it would also be a very bad movie if it happened to be about fat white women, but that happens not to be the case.

Plus-size comedian Mo’Nique is Jazmin Biltmore, a sales clerk in the ladies’ clothing department of a high-end retail outfit. Along with fellow full-figured clerk Stacey (Kendra C. Johnson), Jazmin bemoans the lack of fashionable wear for the large ‘n lovely. Jazmin is an aspiring designer who makes her own (hideous, although we’re supposed to think otherwise) clothes, but her snippy manager refuses to schedule her some face time with the store’s buyer (Eric Roberts, no doubt paying off some gambling debts).

Along with Jazmin’s more, uh, conventionally hot cousin Mia (Joyful Drake), the phat girlz take a vacation trip to a resort where they meet up with a group of Nigerian doctors, including dreamy Tunde (Jimmy Jean-Louis), who falls for Jazmin. It seems that Nigerian men prefer what they call “thick madames” – the bigger the woman, the better. I confess, I don’t know if this was a pre-existing stereotype or if it was invented for this film. (All my Nigerian friends are too busy emailing me with offers to stash their millions in my bank account to worry about the ladies.) In fact, not only do these gentlemen prefer the girth, they shun the fit and trim Mia, dismissing her as a “toothpick.” Personally, I’ve never seen a toothpick with a great rack and a smokin’ ass, but perhaps your finer strip clubs make them available to their best customers.

Pardon my sexism! And pardon the sexism of Phat Girlz, in which all the good men are ripped and rich. I guess the movie wouldn’t be teaching us a valuable lesson if it was, say, Cedric the Entertainer falling for Jazmin. The lesson is, of course, that Jazmin is beautiful inside and out. Except I saw little evidence of her inside beauty on display here; she’s mostly loud, obnoxious and shallow, although she goes through bouts of self-pity just to spice things up.

Other than that, writer/director Nnegest Likke’s movie is dull and predictable, but at least it looks like ass. And I don’t mean Mia’s fine, fine ass.

Previously on Unwatchable:
58. Ed
59. Don’t Go in the Woods…Alone!
60. Carry On Columbus
61. Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Movie

Unwatchable #69: “The Perfect Holiday”

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 18:00:00 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.

Folks, I’m taking the rest of 2008 off the Bottom 100 beat. I need a break and there’s no time like the holidays, am I right? Your regularly scheduled Unwatchable series will resume in the new year, and there can be no doubt 2009 will be one for the history books as we count down the 57 worst movies of all time. But before I call it a year, we have a bit of catching up to do. As you may dimly recall, I had to skip #69 on the list because it was not yet available for home viewing at the time. That excuse has expired, so it’s time for a very special Christmas edition of Unwatchable: The Perfect Holiday.

For the most part, this is your basic, run-of-the-mill holiday warmedy tailored for African-American audiences. Beautiful, well-to-do Nancy (Gabrielle Union) is raising three kids on her own since divorcing hip-hop star J-Jizzy (Charlie Murphy), and all she wants for Christmas is a man under the tree. OK, not literally under the tree. Really, she’d settle for a compliment from a nice fella with no shady ulterior motives. Her daughter informs a department store Santa of this wish, little realizing that under the snowy white beard is a suitable nice fella, songwriter Benjamin (Morris Chestnut).

For reasons that eluded me, Benjamin passes himself off as an office supply salesman as he first compliments, then woos Nancy, much to the chagrin of eldest son John-John (Malik Hammond), who holds out hope of his parents getting back together. We know there’s not much chance of that happening, as J-Jizzy is a self-absorbed, womanizing jackass who can barely be bothered to cobble together a quickie Christmas album. His producer Delicious (Katt Williams) doesn’t smell a hit single until he accidentally plays a demo tape submitted by Benjamin. The tape contains a treacly holiday ballad that would make Lionel Ritchie weep hundred dollar bills, so J-Jizzy rings up Benjamin and offers him a recording deal. Benjamin is excited until he realizes he’s talking to Nancy’s ex-husband and sitcom-ish complications are about to ensue.

So far so bland, but on the family holiday movie scale, there’s nothing out of the ordinary to justify The Perfect Holiday’s place in the Bottom 100. Except…I haven’t mentioned Queen Latifah and Terrence Howard, have I? Well, they’re in the movie too, although I’m not sure I could tell you why. I guess they’re angels or magical elves or…some sort of shape-shifting Greek chorus, anyway. They keep appearing in different guises – security guards, hot dog vendors and such – and Latifah even introduces a little magical realism into the proceedings late in the game. She’s one of the movie’s producers, so I can’t stop her.

Still, that’s hardly enough to warrant a spot as one of the 100 all-time worst, particularly with an appealing and funny supporting cast (notably Murphy, Williams, and Faizon Love) to distract from the ongoing sappiness. The past couple of years alone have seen far worse Christmas movies, including The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause and the deadly Vince Vaughn duo of Fred Claus and Four Christmases. While channel-surfing the other night I came across that atrocity with Ben Affleck and James Gandolfini’s big scary beard. Surely that would have been a very special holiday Unwatchable for us all to enjoy. Ah well, fear not – cinematic sewage galore awaits us in the new year.

Previously on Unwatchable:
58. Ed
59. Don’t Go in the Woods…Alone!
60. Carry On Columbus
61. Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Movie
62. Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie

Unwatchable #58: “Ed”

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:00:00 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.

Anyone who knows me will tell you there are two things I love above all others: baseball and monkey movies. So it would only stand to reason that Ed, in which Friends doofus Matt LeBlanc befriends a baseball-playing chimpanzee, would be my favorite movie of all time. This turns out not to be the case. The filmmakers appear to know very little about baseball and even less about what makes a successful monkey movie. You may say to me, “Scott Von Doviak, you heartless, childless bastard! This is a movie for kids! Lay off!” I can only warn all my friends with young children: Do not show Ed to your kids. It will make them stupid and turn them into violent criminals. If you do show Ed to your kids, don’t tell me about it or I will be forced to call the Department of Social Services.

With the arguable exception of Jennifer Aniston, none of the ex-Friends have particularly distinguished themselves on the big screen, but no matter how low David Schwimmer may sink, you know he’ll never let LeBlanc live down Ed. He probably still drunk dials LeBlanc in the middle of the night and yells “Let me to talk to Ed! Roll over and wake him up for me, I need to talk to Ed!” At least, that’s what I’d do.

If you or I had the idea to make a movie about a baseball-playing chimp, isn’t it obvious how we’d start it? We’d have a couple of major league scouts taking a day off to visit the zoo. As they’re passing the monkey house, one of the chimps grabs a big ol’ fistful of feces and flings it into the face of one of the scouts. As he’s sputtering and wiping the globs of crap out of his eyes, the other scout says admiringly, “You gotta admit – he’s got a hell of an arm!”

But no. Director Bill Couturié, whose resume is otherwise stacked with war documentaries like Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam, and screenwriter David Evans, who will be bringing you the forthcoming Ace Ventura Jr: Pet Detective, begin their movie with hayseed Jack Cooper (LeBlanc) attending an open minor league tryout and blowing away the scouts with his rocket arm. He’s soon suited up for the AA Santa Rosa Rockets, but his over-reliance on his poor curveball puts his new career in jeopardy. Manager Chubb (Jack Warden) gives Jack the task of babysitting the team’s new mascot Ed, a chimpanzee that once belonged to Mickey Mantle. Jack and Ed become best buddies, and soon the chimp is displaying his baseball prowess as the Rockets’ new third baseman.

It’s hard to choose a favorite moment. Jack and Ed sharing a hearty communal piss? Ed farting in bed? Ed stealing second base, then stealing the second baseman’s pants? What about the hilarious “trying on funny outfits” montage? The special guest appearance by Tommy Lasorda? Oh, I know! It has to be LeBlanc’s sly delivery of the line, “I’m gonna spank that monkey!”

As I was watching Ed, I assumed the chimp was actually a child in a monkey suit, but apparently Ed is an animatronic creation. Had the movie been made a few years after 1996, he no doubt would have been a full-on CGI critter, like Gollum but more flatulent. Attention, Hollywood: This does not mean I’m suggesting a remake.

Previously on Unwatchable:
59. Don’t Go in the Woods…Alone!
60. Carry On Columbus
61. Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Movie
62. Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie
63. Alone in the Dark

Unwatchable #59: “Don’t Go in the Woods…Alone!”

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 09 Dec 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.

It’s time for another Unwatchable substitution! As I make my way up the IMDb Bottom 100 list, I occasionally come across an entry that proves to be not so much unwatchable as unfindable. For example, #59 on the list is Hababam sinifi askerde. This is a 2005 Turkish comedy, the title of which translates as The Class of Chaos in the Army. It is apparently a sequel to the 1975 film Hababam sinifi sinifta kaldi, which translates as The Rascals’ Class Misses Its Grades. Although available on DVD in the UK, Hababam sinifi askerde is not to be found here in the good ol’ USA. However, I have tracked down an untranslated YouTube clip, which I now present for your viewing pleasure.

I’m sure we could have had a lot of fun with that one – where there’s a big pile of potatoes, big laughs are sure to follow – but alas, it is not to be. Fortunately, the IMDb Bottom 100 is a fluid, continuously evolving entity. All I have to do is go to the current version of the list and search it until I find an entry that is not duplicated on my version of the list, downloaded six months ago or seventeen years ago or whenever I started this insane project. In this case, the lucky movie is called Don’t Go in the Woods…Alone!

Or is it? The movie itself seems unclear on its own title. The packaging identifies it as Don’t Go in the Woods…Alone!, as does the poster you see here. However, the onscreen title is merely Don’t Go in the Woods. This title actually makes more sense, because during the course of the movie, many people go in the woods and terrible things happen to pretty much all of them, regardless of whether or not they’re alone. In fact, this incredibly shoddy and moronic 1981 slasher movie posits the most overpopulated remote wilderness ever to grace the silver screen.

Our heroes, I guess, are four young, virile backpackers – Peter, Ingrid, Craig and Joanie – but since none of them manage to establish any sort of personality except the whiny guy (I think that was Craig), it’s hard to care what happens to them. They don’t actually get much screen time, since, as I mentioned, there are approximately seven dozen other hikers tramping through this same patch of woods. There’s also a crazed killer. At first it’s unclear whether this fiend is a bear or Bigfoot or a guy with a big knife. It takes about an hour before the big reveal, at which point we learn that the killer is a sort of brain-damaged Jeremiah Johnson mountain man in a great big fur hat. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I have since learned that Don’t Go in the Woods was made for about $12,000, which is about $4000 more than I would have guessed. Director James Bryan (Boogievision, Lady Streetfighter) and screenwriter Garth Eliassen (his only writing credit, although he did play Sleeping Yokel in 1980’s Heart Beat) take a rather loose approach to narrative conventions, and the result is pretty much what you and your friends would have come up with had one of you received a video camera for your thirteenth birthday: a bunch of people running around the woods and getting their limbs hacked off. Fattest kid plays the sheriff.

I could go on, but I couldn’t possibly top this succinct description from Wikipedia: “The hillsides are crawling with fat women huffing up hillsides, nerdy bird-watchers, and young couples, most of whom meet gruesome ends at the hands of a deranged and growling woodsman with a sharp spike.” The only reason Don’t Go in the Woods has any notoriety at all is that it was labeled a video nasty in the UK and banned for many years. This is laughable, since nobody could possibly take the movie’s copious blood and gore seriously. I won’t give Don’t Go in the Woods the full four Maurys, only because the final confrontation between the growling woodsman and two campers gave me the best laugh I’ve had in days. Skip to the 7 minute mark in this clip and enjoy for yourself.

Previously on Unwatchable:
60. Carry On Columbus
61. Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Movie
62. Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie
63. Alone in the Dark
64. Angels’ Brigade

Unwatchable #60: “Carry On Columbus”

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:30:00 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.

In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Five hundred years later, Carry On Columbus was released in theaters. Oddly enough, there’s actually more evidence that the former event took place than the latter. Reasonable people can argue Columbus’s place in history. There is no reasonable argument for Carry On Columbus, and it has no place in history. Except here.

The Carry On comedies are a British institution – and like the Royal Family, a British institution that has long since outlived its usefulness. Fifty years ago, the first movie in the series, Carry On Sergeant, delighted audiences in the U.K. At least, I must assume it delighted them, as a whopping 30 more Carry On comedies would follow. Some favor Carry On Cleo and Carry On Up the Khyber. Others go to bat for Carry On Screaming or Carry On Camping. Most agree that the series began to lose some steam as it entered the 1970s. Many of the original cast members departed after 1974’s Carry On Dick. Surely Monty Python had made what Wikipedia calls the Carry On films’ “energetic mix of parody, farce, slapstick and double entendres,” obsolete.

After the release of Carry On Emmanuelle in 1978, fourteen years passed during which moviegoers could reasonably assume they had seen the end of this venerable tradition. Yet Carry On carried on. In 1992, in honor of the Columbus quincentennial, the 31st and almost assuredly worst of the Carry On films was excreted into theaters. What with most of the original cast members being dead or retired, a younger generation of British comedic talent was recruited to debase themselves, including Rik Mayall, Alexei Sayle and Julian Clary. Carry On veteran Jim Dale returns as Chris Columbus, a mapmaker with a plan to cross the gloomy sea, establish a new route to the Indies, and make off with all of their gold. He cuts a deal with the King and Queen of Spain, and they apparently supply him with some seaworthy vessels, although there’s never any attempt made to convince us that Columbus and his crew are actually at sea. I’m fairly certain I participated in school plays with higher budgets than Carry On Columbus.

In the annals (or, if I’m a Carry On character, the anals) of really boring and stupid British historical seafaring comedy, Carry On Columbus ranks well below Yellowbeard or even the soporific Erik the Viking. It’s stunning to think it was actually made in the ‘90s; you would think medical science had brought us no advances in humor since 1958. If you enjoy old-school sniggering innuendo (“Come up my end!”) or jokes that would have slayed your fifth grade classmates (“We just had a leak in the hold!” “Did you? Well, next time go over the side.”), you may find my judgment too harsh. Things pick up ever so slightly when Columbus and company arrive in the New World, to find natives who speak with Brooklyn accents. Their king is played by Larry Miller, who gave me a chuckle or one. I have to say, though, that any chance I might have ever been curious enough to check out the back catalogue of Carry On movies is now greatly diminished.

Previously on Unwatchable:
61. Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Movie
62. Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie
63. Alone in the Dark
64. Angels’ Brigade
65. Meet the Browns

Unwatchable #61: “Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Movie”

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:00:00 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.

What fresh hell of pre-teen pop culture is this? Oh, capricious Bottom 100 list, you have topped yourself this time, flinging me directly from the Power Rangers movie to yet another disposable kiddie cash-in of years gone by. I know even less about Yu-Gi-Oh than I do about the Power Rangers; I’m vaguely aware it was a collectible card game played in the back of the comic book shop, ala Magic: The Gathering. I only know this because my nephew was briefly obsessed with it a few years back, before discovering the more important things in life like girls and baseball. One brief Wikipedia refresher course later, I am armed with the knowledge that Yu-Gi-Oh began as Japanese manga before spawning several anime series, the aforementioned card game and this abomination, easily the least watchable of the Unwatchables so far.

I mean this. After twenty minutes, I was in agony. Each ensuing minute stretched into eternity. I couldn’t go on. I must go on. The integrity of the Unwatchable project was at stake. I pressed on and stuck with it to the bitter end, but at what cost? AT WHAT COST?

My grasp of the Yu-Gi-Oh back-story is tenuous at best, but here’s what I’ve gleaned: A young boy with funny hair named Yugi solved the ancient Egyptian Millennium Puzzle, and in doing so merged with a 3000-year-old Pharoah spirit. Yugi attempts to help the Pharoah recover his lost memories through the card game Duel Monsters. By the time the movie begins (apparently it follows after one or another of the anime series), Yugi is quite the dueling master, and his rival Kaiba is eager to unseat him.

So the movie is about..these two guys playing cards. There’s a subplot involving the Pyramid of Light and some mummies and whatnot, but for the bulk of the running time, I shit you not, we’re watching an infomercial for the card game. And what a dorky card game it is. Here is a sample of dialogue: “I activate the magic card Monsters Reborn to bring them back. And play Ultimate Offering! Now for every 500 life points I give up I can summon one additional monster and by sacrificing my two Gemini Elf, this final monster will be quite a powerful one!” It goes on and on like this. It’s like being at a party and getting trapped in the kitchen by a hulking nerdlinger who insists on regaling you with a summary of every single episode of Babylon 5. (Yes, this has happened to me.)

I tried to imagine a younger version of me enjoying this nonsense. I mean, I had quite a nonsense tolerance in my day (and apparently I still do), but I simply could not conceive of any possible scenario whereby Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Movie would be considered acceptable entertainment. Given that it was made in 2004 and the Pixar revolution was already in full swing, it’s astounding how godawful the animation is. There are episodes of He-Man from 1983 that are more artistically accomplished.

I feel I’m failing to convey the full measure of the horrors of Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Movie, so I challenge you to sit through this clip. I think you will gain a newfound respect for my lonely quest.

Previously on Unwatchable:
62. Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie
63. Alone in the Dark
64. Angels’ Brigade
65. Meet the Browns
66. Jail Bait

Unwatchable #62: “Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie”

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:30:00 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.

First of all, kudos to whatever marketing whiz came up with that title. I love the modest little shrug it implies. “Yeah, it’s a Power Rangers movie. Whaddayagonnado?”

Your question, assuming you missed a crucial stretch of mid-90s pop culture while on a Peace Corps mission, is “What’s a Power Rangers?” Unfortunately I’m not the best guy to ask. I always associated the Power Rangers with the Teletubbies: Both were programs that, although intended for children, held great appeal for the 420 crowd. Both centered on a group of color-coded characters, one of whom was gay. (At least, I think one of the Power Rangers was gay; I do know that fellow Screengrabber Andrew Osborne and I once hired a Red Power Ranger stripper to perform at a gay friend’s birthday party.)

More specifically, the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers series that debuted in 1993 was a kiddie show that spliced new scenes featuring American actors with existing footage from the Japanese Super Sentai Series. This was part of the appeal, particularly to stoners: you’d have these five Saved by the Bell-type teens who would morph into a team of superheroes, at which point the show itself would morph into wacky Japanese action sequences. What I didn’t realize until my consultation with Wikipedia is that, although the original Mighty Morphin series ended in 1996, an endless number of spinoffs has kept the Power Rangers on the air ever since. The current series, Power Rangers: Jungle Fury, is the fifteenth variation; Power Rangers: Turbo was the fourth, and was preceded by this 1997 feature film.

Sadly, none of this information has aided my appreciation for Turbo, a truly pathetic money grab that surely resulted in many parents vowing never to take their kids to the movies again. The needlessly cluttered story – the main points of which are repeated ad nauseam just in case anyone in the target audience really gives a crap what’s going on – concerns the villainous, cleavagey Divatox, whose plot to free her fiancé Maligore from an invisible island in the Nemesis Triangle entails kidnapping the dwarfy wizard Lerigot. Only the Power Rangers – now equipped with snazzy new TURBO! powers - can rescue Lerigot and his family and prevent the release of the lava-monster Maligore.

Aside from its Saturday morning production values and acting, Turbo suffers from its mid-90s origins. It’s not old enough to be campy fun, just old enough that the special effects and dork-rock soundtrack (“There’s hope for the world…hope for the world…as long as I exist, there’s hope for the world”) have completely putrefied. Worse than the charisma-free stars and the puppets Sid and Marty Krofft would have rejected and the shots of volcanoes spliced in from ‘60s nature films…worse than all of that is the fact that the creative minds behind Turbo apparently decided it wasn’t pandering enough, so they disable the Blue Ranger in a martial arts match and replace him with an obnoxious little pre-teen turd who spends the whole movie screechin’ at a frequency that nearly gave my dog a seizure. And for that crime, it deserves four Maurys.

Previously on Unwatchable:
63. Alone in the Dark
64. Angels’ Brigade
65. Meet the Browns
66. Jail Bait
67. Nine Lives