Sci-Fi Review: Trancers 4: Jack of Swords (1994, dir. David Nutter)

Posted on December 19, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Yes, there’s more of these. And three more after this one. At least this one is sort of a step up from the third one in that they let Tim Thomerson do more comedy and self aware jokes than the particularly lousy Trancers III. The movie opens up with a castle followed by this picture of Jack Deth and someone says, “now it begins”. Unfortunately, it doesn’t end with this movie because this one and the fifth film are really one movie divided into two.

Then cut to Los Angeles where Jack gives his usual voiceover only this time it’s to tell us that he’s basically just a time cop now because all the Trancers have been dealt with. Thomerson now walks through a brightly lit door and proceeds to do a little standup routine. Makes sense, he was once a standup comedian. Remember that fish head cyborg thing that he was paired up with at the end of Trancers III? Well…

he didn’t make it. And neither did anyone else from the previous Trancers movies except Tim and one of the guys who was on the council at the end of the previous film. Thomerson has some humorous lines about this. This is when you realize the movie is going to be self aware, which is a welcome return since the first one did that as well. Then we cut to a bar to be introduced to Jack’s love interest for this movie. If you can call her that. Afterwards we see Jack, a gun, and an awesome lamp.

I wonder what contest I need to win in order to get that lamp. Now Jack goes to get his mission and of course it’s the same lady he ran into at the bar. Oh, and here’s every man’s worst nightmare.

Apparently, this knife will cut through anything. That will come in use later. She has also improved the long second watch so that it can recharge. That will also come in use later for a comedy bit. He also gets an RBG-7. It’s the Trancers version of the BFG. Do I need to spell it out for you: Really Big Gun. It can recharge like Mr. Fusion from Back To The Future. Just shove things up it’s butt as she says. Oh, I’m sorry, “shove it up your butt”. She says she would have made an inflatable doll of herself for him, but she didn’t have the time. Considering the lines he has later with a different version of her, his lines about her being a smart ass here are kind of funny. Anyways, after Jack tells his boss he doesn’t appreciate that he’s been “fucking” his wife, a plot device grabs him, and he’s sent somewhere in time and space.

Jack was originally supposed to go to Topeka, Kansas, but he winds up…who cares cause look, a Trancer!

Sorry, I mean a “fucking Trancer!” This movie has more cursing and some tits for it’s R rating. Well, as you might have guessed, his Really Big Gun doesn’t do Jack Shit (Jack’s nickname in this). So Jack just stabs him and after changing colors a few times, he disappears like any good Trancer should. Here’s our bad guy.

He knows it’s important to show the girl’s breast to the camera before you kill her. Seriously, he opens up a girl’s dress just to show her breasts to the camera then vampire kills her. After the bad guy and bad guy, jr. have an exposition conversation, we cut back to Jack for comedy.

Jack hops into hay. He doesn’t hide under the hay or anything, but the guy driving the thing doesn’t notice. He’ll fall right out of that hay later and no one notices then either. Love it! After we meet people who we don’t care about, we meet this guy who is here to splice this movie into two.

I’d say he’s rocking the Star Wars Emperor look here, but there’s already a Star Wars thing coming in this. He has another picture of Jack in which he is holding up the gun which is going to get struck by lightning or something. I don’t really care. Where’s Jack!

Jack falls out of the hay and gets into a fight. Jack’s jacket gets hit with an arrow…

and then it’s time for more plot. Look, all you need to know is this is some sort of medieval place with medieval Trancers that have to feed on people to stay alive. That’s it! Oh, and here’s the lady from the future who is someone different in this past other world.

Cause of course she is. Now Jack runs into character actor Lochlyn Munro who at the time of writing this has amassed close to 200 acting credits on IMDb.

He’s here to heal Jack and then turn him in. There’s also some plot injected in here before they come to capture him. The bad guy has a son who needs to be initiated and thus needs to kill someone. Who cares. Back with Jack, he discovers that the long second doesn’t exactly work the same way in this world.

The long second actually slows him down instead of everyone else. This is a funny scene as Thomerson moves in slow motion while everyone around him is fascinated till they decide to just knock him out. Jack wakes up a little confused with the love interest who has been told to satisfy him.

Jack gets laid. After the other characters get in the way of us having fun watching Thomerson, he finishes having sex and immediately starts chewing her out for being so submissive. Part way through this Jack realizes the humor of his situation. In the future he was chewing her out for being a bitch and here for putting out at the drop of a hat.

After grabbing a guy out of a painting who must have been watching them the whole time, Jack is led into the bad guy’s castle and captured. Meanwhile, other actors are taking up quality Jack time. The bad guy talks about Jack’s weapons to pad the movie out while Jack is chained against a wall, but Jack says fuck you!

After the girl he just had sex with manages to get the indestructible knife to Jack, he is left alone, and breaks out of his chains by cutting through them using the knife. Now the movie is just a series of action scenes as Jack hooks up with rebels I didn’t bother to mention before and the bad guys search for Jack. Oh, and Jack learns his destiny.

But just before that, bad guy opens a door using The Force.

Then more stuff nobody watching this movie cares about happens. I do love this scene though.

The bad guys stumble upon them and stop. Are they surprised they’re just standing there? Do they think they’re are going to make out or something? Who knows? Who cares. The bad guys end up in traps and die. After more stuff we don’t care about…

this guy falls from the sky to kill somebody with a sword. Now we get the sword battle between Jack and the bad guy. To quote Jack: “En garde, motherfucker!”

Sadly, Jack really doesn’t know how to handle a sword at all. He swings it around in a ridiculous fashion before the guy simply takes it from him and lets Jack run away. Jack finally decides to accept his destiny by going to get struck by lightning. Well, that is after The Wizard Of Oz shows up.

Then he gets struck by lightning.

And what happens you ask? The bad guy goes up to investigate where Jack was and apparently Jack had just teleported behind him. Jack shoots him and after changing colors, he’s dead. Then they say things to tell us there is another movie before posing.

So ends Trancers 4: Jack of Swords. A movie that, while it did have better jokes and lines than the third film, is instantly forgettable and really does have a lot of scenes with actors we don’t care about. I’m not sure why they couldn’t have spent more time with Jack. He’s still very funny. This is the last of the Trancers movies I had already seen. The remaining three are going to be brand new to me.

Well, let’s end this the same as the last three reviews. By that I mean with a great Tim Thomerson look. This time it’s probably the look he gave when he was told he would not be back for Trancers 6.

Sci-Fi Review: Ewoks: The Battle For Endor (1985, dir. Jim Wheat & Ken Wheat)

Posted on December 17, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

So one year later we returned to Endor to see the continuing saga of Wicket (Warwick Davis) and the family from The Ewok Adventure. What were those words Burl Ives left us with at the end of The Ewok Adventure again?

“Reunited, the families enjoy the simple pleasures of being together. Having learned something they already knew. That courage, loyalty, and love are the strongest forces in the universe.”

Well, those forces are apparently not that strong because this movie opens up with Cindel’s (Aubree Miller) family getting murdered. That’s nice!

I love that apparently Kilink’s ultimate weapon from Kilink vs. The Flying Man made it all the way from Turkey to the moon of Endor.

During all this killing we meet the two main villains of this movie.

This guy (Carel Struycken) who looks like every generic bad guy from ever fantasy adventure movie ever made. He wants some sort of device from a spaceship that he thinks will make him powerful.

And this lady (Siân Phillips) who looks like she belongs in He-Man and The Masters Of The Universe.

After getting captured, then escaping, Cindel and Wicket do battle with something I’m pretty sure I once hit a golf ball into when I used to play miniature golf.

While trying to escape that dragon via a hang glider, they crash. Then they meet this guy who is quite annoying throughout this film.

I guess they figured since Wicket now speaks English, they needed something else small that doesn’t. That thing takes them to a house in the woods, but soon the owner comes home.

Yep, it’s Wilford Brimley. According to IMDb, he and the Wheats didn’t get along, so the production designer Joe Johnston directed all the scenes with Brimley. How did that work considering Brimley is in the majority of this film. Well, unfortunately Brimley did not bring Remo and Chiun with him. That would have made for a very short film.

A large chunk of this movie can now be described as Brimley talks to Cindel, the bad guys talk amongst themselves, and Brimley and crew decide to seek out the bad guys. Oh, and this happens.

Unfortunately, Chewbacca from The Star Wars Holiday Special isn’t around to tell little Cindel that something about this doesn’t smell right. Of course she pulls a switcharoo and kidnaps the kid.

Now we get the annoying little creature, Wicket, and Brimley walking. For some reason we bump into a rock and get this shot of it.

Looks like a slot machine to me. They finally reach the evil castle, and after girl talk…

Brimley and crew scale the wall of the castle. Meanwhile, stuff is happening inside. Remember that whole Han and Greedo thing. Who shot first and all that. We can stop arguing about that. It’s time to start arguing over which one of these guys shot first.

There really isn’t much to talk about now because after they break the good guys (other Ewoks and Cindel) out of the castle, the rest of the film is a run and gun battle. At least this time Endor doesn’t scream Northern California like it did in The Ewok Adventure. Now shots like this just scream EBMUD watershed lands and Redwood Regional Park in the Oakland hills.

Eventually it all comes down to a battle between Brimley and the bad guy.

If you strike him down, he will become a more powerful spokesman for diabetes testing supplies then you can possibly imagine. But before that can happen, Wicket throws something that hits a thing on the bad guy’s chest and this happens to him.

With that done, it’s time for goodbyes and Brimley and Cindel leave the moon of Endor.

The question is whether this is any better than The Ewok Adventure. I would say no. Sure Wicket can talk, it feels more like we are on a foreign world, and there’s a lot more action to it, but that doesn’t make it better. The Ewok Adventure was a serviceable, but forgettable children’s sci-fi/fantasy adventure movie. This feels like they were contractually obligated to make a sequel so they threw together as generic a fantasy plot as possible and paid Brimley a few bucks to be in it. It’s super forgettable.

Now I just need to rewatch my childhood favorite Warwick Davis movie Willow (1988) and hope that The Force Awakens opens with Wicket pulling a Star Destroyer out of the sky using the force.

Sci-Fi Review: The Ewok Adventure (1984, dir. John Korty)

Posted on December 17, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Yes, the Ewoks were cute, fun, and Warwick Davis, but did we need two movies devoted just to them? I guess so. This movie is about two kids who are separated from their parents after their spaceship crashes in Northern California where a bunch of little people are cosplaying as Ewoks. Or they have crashed on the distant moon of Endor as our narrator Burl Ives tells us. I believe Burl Ives was an afterthought as he actually barely narrates this movie. It begins when we see the parents at the crash site looking for their kids. A giant shows up and takes them away.

Then the opening credits start. I swear you could put these over the start of a Davy Crockett movie and they wouldn’t look out of place.

Next we meet the Ewoks. Two of the kids went out hiking in Marin County and haven’t come back, so it’s time to go hang gliding to find them.

After the kid Ewoks are saved, we get introduced to the human children.

This is Cindel played by Aubree Miller who just had a mirror put in front of her and realized she’s wearing that unfortunate headband.

This is Mace played by Eric Walker who is doing his best impersonation of David Packer in V (1983).

It’s actually kind of tough to talk about this movie cause there’s little to it. So let’s hit the main points here. Such as that we finally know where the llama at the gas station in Godard’s Film Socialisme came from.

It came from the North Bay Area Moon of Endor. This is the first of several times you’ll see Earthbound animals that apparently exist on Endor too.

A bunch of this now is the kids and the Ewoks feeling each other out such as how to communicate, can they be friends, and will the Ewoks help the kids to find their parents. Cindel isn’t feeling well so the Ewoks and Mace go out to find some special medicine. And by that I mean we can have a scene where Mace almost gets his arm chewed off by putting it in a tree with this.

Now Cindel is just fine.

The kids try to sneak away, but they should be careful out there, it looks like there’s a werewolf howling at the moon.

Scratch that! It’s one of those Rodents Of Unusual Size that Wesley fought in the Fire Swamp.

They find something on the creature that leads them to believe that their parents are still alive. Now it’s time to go out and hunt for them. But first we need to hand out special items to the members of the caravan that will go to search for the parents.

Mace gets stuck with a rock. That’s no good. The rock arcs over anything you throw it at.

How is Mace supposed to save his parents from Jason Voorhees? Now they head out and make me depressed that I can’t go hiking right now.

Next Mace makes a rookie mistake that people who approach California ponds frequently make. He gets really close to the water when…

suddenly he is erased from the frame leaving only his reflection in the water…

before we cut to him trapped under the water like he’s under ice.

It could have been worse. It could have been this pond just a few miles from my East Bay California home.

After he’s rescued and some more travel, we get to the next plot point. Nukie flies by the tent.

Actually, it’s a bunch of light that is collected and turns into Mace’s own personal little fairy.

Time for more walking. They finally arrive at “The Dreaded Forbidden Fortress Of The Giant Thorax (???)”.

Good thing Ives told us that because otherwise I thought they arrived at the poster for The Keep (1983). Now we find out what the rock from earlier was about. Turns out it’s hollow.

Inside is an arrowhead that was clearly placed inside there by some Native Endorian Indians. The arrowhead flies toward and underneath a rock. The kid blows the rock away with his gun. Inside, Mace decides to leave Cindel behind for her own safety. Now the Ewoks mean business. This one puts on its Thor helmet just in case they run into Vincent D’Onofrio and don’t have the money they owe him.

Now they reach a cavern, but unlike Indy, they have a web they can climb across.

They fight a huge spider, which falls down the cavern, then magically pops up again before getting defeated.

Now we finally get a good look at the creature holding the kids’ parents.

After a battle that takes the strength of all of them working together, they defeat the monster who also falls down the cavern, then is magically back at the top of it before ultimately being stopped.

They all make it out alive. Mace lets the fairy thing loose and Cindel gets her wings.

This is when Burl Ives comes back to leave us with these parting words: “Reunited, the families enjoy the simple pleasures of being together. Having learned something they already knew. That courage, loyalty, and love are the strongest forces in the universe.”

And when those don’t work, just shoot lasers…

and throw hatchets.

This is a harmless little 80s children’s fantasy/sci-fi movie. The thing is there are better films of this sort from that same time period such as Labyrinth (1986), The Never Ending Story (1984), and Willow (1988). I’d say this is for Star Wars completionists only.

Sci-Fi Review: Return Of The Ewok (1982, dir. David Tomblin)

Posted on December 17, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Apparently, David Tomblin, who worked as an assistant director on Return Of The Jedi, thought it would be fun to shoot a little behind the scenes movie back when they were making the film. This short ~25 minute movie was first seen at conventions in 1999 according to IMDb. Now it’s still a little obscure, but I was able to find a copy. This is what the holiday special should have been like in my opinion.

The movie opens up and we meet young Warwick Davis, barely a teenager, deciding it’s time for him to make a name for himself. This first takes him to see if he can be a training partner for Dave Prowse, the “Undefeated Weightlifting Champ”.

As you can see, that doesn’t work out for him. Insert your own joke here about Warwick Davis, Dave Prowse, and this scene from A Clockwork Orange (1971).

Next Davis spots a sign from the Chelsea Football Club for a “First Team Goalkeeper”. This is when Take The Long Way Home by Supertramp kicks in as we see Davis trying to play goalie.

But Davis was destined for other things. Such as intersecting with stock footage from the Star Wars movies. I love that we have Luke fighting Vader.

Then Luke gets pushed back by Vader into the street.

Davis gives him some words of encouragement,

then Luke goes back in the door…

and flips right back into the stock footage to finish the fight.

Now Davis is off to be an actor! But first he has to deal with those pesky elevators with their buttons that are too high to press. Davis is clever though. He calls someone on the floor he needs to go to and fakes a voice to get them to come down so he can go up. He makes it to an agent.

The agent tells him the movie he’s currently working on is Revenge Of The Jedi. Says he’s got a box of costumes, so go try something on and let’s take a look.

Warwick decides Boba Fett isn’t for him cause he wants to play a good guy. The agent suggests an Ewok. Neither knows what that is, but it pays, and the costume fits! So off he goes to try and find the studio.

The cab driver asks for his fare, but Davis tells him Ewoks don’t have money. Next let’s prank Harrison Ford.

Ford doesn’t know where he’s supposed to go so it’s time check in with Hamill.

When Hamill doesn’t know, then it’s time for Carrie.

Nice to know that Carrie just hung around in the bikini whenever she felt like it. She tells him to go Jabba’s palace so off he goes!

Davis runs into C-3PO, R2-D2, and Chewbacca. He asks for directions, but they get scared and run away. He finally makes it to the palace.

This is a great little scene where Davis interacts with the puppets, dances, and talks to the choreographer. Now Davis finds himself on the Death Star and narrowly escapes Boba Fett.

Davis thinks he’s found Frank Oz’s office, but whoops!

Now we see C-3PO being an annoying jackass. Luckily, Davis is here to show how to handle him. Just turn him off.

And with C-3PO turned off, let’s turn him into a lamp.

But Davis still doesn’t know where to go. That means it’s time to turn to Yoda.

Yoda tells him he needs to go to Endor which is in a galaxy far far away. Davis asks him how to get there. Yoda says on the table is his passport and ticket. So Davis is off to the airport. He first tries to get aboard the plane as an Ewok, but it’s a no go, so he goes undercover as Warwick Davis instead.

Finally Davis makes it to Endor. This part makes up the last 6 minutes or so of the movie. Davis basically wanders around Endor with a little interaction from the characters. The best part is when he runs inside the little fortress with a bomb and blows it up.

His job done, Davis leaves to go into the forest of Endor to meet back up with his parents.

They have a humorous little discussion about him wandering off, that sure he was just in a movie, and about how much it costs to take a rocket ship.

I was born the year The Return Of The Jedi came out so obviously I wasn’t there to see the holiday special when it aired, but I’d bet people were expecting something more like this movie. This was fun, it had it’s own original storyline that still interacted with the films, featured the actual actors, and more than anything, the actors actually look like they had fun making this. To my knowledge this still isn’t something that is out there widely available. That’s sad. If you can find it, watch it!

Sci-Fi Review: The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978, dir. Steve Binder & David Acomba)

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Here I am, glass of soda in hand and Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End) by The Darkness playing while I write about The Star Wars Holiday Special. Didn’t I go to college or something? I have a paper on my wall signed by Schwarzenegger that says I did. Oh, well. Let’s talk about this thing. The special begins and it’s already showing me something sad.

Instead of airing an episode of The Incredible Hulk or Wonder Woman, they aired The Star Wars Holiday Special. Now we cut to Han Solo and Chewbacca in the Millennium Falcon. They are being chased by the Empire while they are trying to reach Chewie’s home planet so he can celebrate Life Day. I’ve watched the whole special and I still don’t know what that means. At first Han is a little hesitant, but they jump to lightspeed anyways. Now we get weird iris shots of people who are in the special including Julia Child if she were a man who was turned into a female plastic doll then given a spray tan.

Then we cut to this shot of the Swiss Family Robinson house.

Inside is the main set filled with the main characters such as:

Papa Wookiee who is here to give all the viewers nightmares.

Mama Wookiee who we know is a woman because she’s working in the kitchen.

And Baby Wookiee who we can all thank for introducing the worst animation I’ve seen since that Chinese computer animated movie Agent F.O.X. (2014).

After pointless and meaningless noises from the Wookiees, the special reveals it’s true colors. By that I mean that it’s really a variety show of bad comedy and musical numbers. It’s not everyday you get to see Anton Lavey in a musical number though.

And this shot makes watching the whole special worth it.

Now the Wookiees put in a call to Luke Skywalker.

It’s been awhile since I watched the original Star Wars movies, but I don’t remember Mark Hamill looking like this. He reminds me of Pierre Kirby’s girlfriend in Dressed To Fire (1988).

After Hamill embarrasses himself, we now go back to the Wookiee household. They place a call to “Trading Post Wookiee Planet C”. I call it we roped Art Carney into this horrible thing to do really unfunny comedy bits.

Next we cut to a shot of Zuco from Brazilian Star Wars…

before cutting back to the Wookiees. Just in case the kids weren’t already traumatized for life…

there’s this scene where they thought it would be funny to dress up Harvey Korman like this. I’d be offended since I’m transgender, but all I can feel is sympathy for poor Korman. Not only is he in this, but this is one of his appearances in the special. That thing is cruel and unusual punishment. Mama Wookiee is watching this on TV.

Now the special cuts back to Han and Chewie to remind us they are still in the special before cutting back to more pointless crap. The only difference is that now Art Carney shows up to deliver some stuff to the family. Carney says the name Han as if he is saying the word “hand”. That would have made for a great name, wouldn’t it? Hand Solo. Goes right along with the single weirdest thing in the special that happens next.

Papa Wookiee looks at VR porn. Diahann Carroll says things like “Now we can have a good time” and “I’ll tell you a secret. I find you adorable”. Oh, and Papa Wookiee makes drooling noises while pressing a button to have her repeat “I find you adorable” over and over. Then she goes on to sing a reject Bond song. I guess this part could be worse. I’m pretty sure Wookiee’s don’t have genitals and he could have been watching Water Power (1977).

Now the special cuts to Leia and C-3PO to remind us they are in this too before cutting to Chewie and Han. Then Imperials show up at the treehouse to look for Chewbacca and to remind us that people in Dayton, Ohio suffered greatly one night.

This part goes on forever, and Art Carney gets a brilliant idea. I’ll distract this guy by making him watch Jefferson Starship.

We built this special on Schlock ‘N Schtick.

Then Baby Wookiee goes to some sort of device while the Imperials are searching the very small set. He calls up the infamous cartoon. This thing is supposed to introduce us to Boba Fett. I could actually talk about this cartoon, but I think this shot sums it up.

Already missing Harvey Korman doing bad comedy? He now makes a return. Earlier Baby Wookiee opened a present which had the Brain Computer from Brazilian Star Wars in it and now he needs to watch an instructional video on how to use it.

This part can best be described as Harvey Korman auditioning for Max Headroom about a decade before that show came on the air. Also, it shows us what anyone looking at this special was doing in 1978.

I don’t know what that was all about, but now we go to the bar scene. This is the only bright point in this special thanks to Bea Arthur.

Harvey Korman comes into the bar run by Arthur and attempts to hit on her. Korman has a hole in the top of his head that she pours drinks into.

Didn’t think this character through, did they? If he takes in drink through the top of his head, then what exactly comes in or out of his mouth? Arthur turns him down. Then an announcement is made over the TV that the bar is to be closed by order of the Empire. This is when the scene basically turns into that part from Casablanca where they sing the French National Anthem. Honestly, this scene is not that bad. Granted it’s surrounded by fecal matter, but still. Arthur does a decent job singing and is kind of funny.

Now we cut back to the treehouse where we get a cameo appearance by the Wilhelm scream as Han Solo throws a Stormtrooper off the patio. It’s funny that even during this tiny little scene with Harrison Ford, we can still see why he’s a good actor.

Now the time has finally come to celebrate Life Day where it appears a bunch of people are walking into a star to commit suicide.

It’s kind of like that overly edited version of the Star Wars commercial with Anna Kendrick that was on YouTube where they cut out enough of her lines that it appears she picks up a knife then kills herself.

Then we get to see the whole gang together. You know, like I’m sure everyone thought they were going to see when they tuned in to this “Star Wars” special. Carrie Fisher sings here because who cares.

After stock footage from the movie to remind us this thing actually had something to do with Star Wars, we cut to the Wookiees at the dinner table together.

I’m just going to assume they are conducting a seance to try and contact Obi-Wan. Now the credits roll and according to them we have Bob Mackie to blame for that thing poor Harvey Korman had to wear during the cooking scene. I love that the ending credits don’t include any of the actors names from the Star Wars movie. Apparently, Miki Herman was their “‘Star Wars’ Consultant”. It’s hard to believe that position existed. Oh, and of course David Winters did the choreography. That reminds me, I do need to see Dancin’ It’s On (2015). Heard it’s terrible. Then the 20th Century Fox logo comes up which is nice considering I’ve been watching Godfrey Ho movies that start with a girl standing like the Columbia Pictures lady while the Star Wars theme plays.

And the special goes out like it came in, by reminding us we could have been watching an episode of The Incredible Hulk or Wonder Woman.

I’m sure there’s a fascinating backstory to this, but I don’t care. This is one of the most ill-conceived and poorly executed things I have sat through this year. And I watched a parody of Rocky where he gets hit in the face with the Star Of David as well as a children’s Hallmark movie where a little girl refers to beauty squirting out of her body onto the floor.

#LateNightMovie Review: Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny

Posted on December 12, 2015 by paddiesthoughts

Every year, since 2013, us as a #LateNightMovie gang have had an annual Christmas party week. In 2014 it was two weeks and this year it will be three weeks. And as a joke, myself and Tammy (@TRDownden) try to find the worst #LateNightMovie ever.

And as Tammy, and the rest of the gang admitted, I found it!

The movie I put the gang thru was “Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny”

220px-Santa_and_the_Ice_Cream_Bunny_FilmPoster

Cast: As I researched this movie, literally, no cast member wanted to be associated with this movie, but here is what I could find.
Director: R. Winer

Writer: Hans Christian Andersen (You will get this if you watched the movie)

Santa: Jay Ripley

Plot:

In Florida, Santa has his sleigh stuck in the sand. To escape the heat all of his reindeer fly back to the North Pole, leaving him in the heat. Passing out from the heat, Santa telepathically summons local children to help. The children bring several animals, including a donkey, a horse, a gorilla and most hilariously a pig, to try and get the sleigh free.

When all efforts fail, Santa tells the children the story of a girl who visits a theme park and hears the story of ‘Thumbelina’. At this point, the movie-in-a-movie starts, with the entire 1970 Barry Mahon ‘Thumbelina’ playing, credits and all.

After the movie, Santa tells the children not to give up. The children leave and return with an Ice Cream Bunny driving a fire truck. The bunny offers to take Santa back to the North Pole. The kids left wondering about the sleigh, it disappears and joins Santa at the North Pole.

Review:

Gawd, this movie was horrible! I mean really horrible! If you are sitting around with 96 minutes of your life you never want back, try and sit thru this movie. I will almost put that out as a dare.

Quips:

As always, the #LateNightMovie gang brought their A game to this movie. Here is a sampling of the snarky fun!

TRDowden:
Annnd we just found an even more annoying song

(referring to another movie we will watch!)

WarrenPeas64:
So… exactly how much LSD would it take to write this?
TRDowden:
Did Vic Savage direct this one too?*

PinkyGuerrero:
no one thinks to get an adult with a brain to help

kellythul:
Little children, animals, creepy old guy… this IS a Vic Savage film *

*Great minds thinking alike!

TRDowden:
Is there going to be trauma therapists on hand after this movie, because we’re gonna need it

WarrenPeas64:
I think I’ve been to the other part of Florida – the parts I’ve been to don’t have children wandering the beach with farm animals

JesCoolbaugh:
Plot twist, the horse kicks Santa in the jingle bells…

PinkyGuerrero:
Ok, how ironic that Santa say if you have faith your dreams will come true, and he can’t move his sleigh
Janeen_FluffyJ:
Wow! Santa heard our wishes and gave us a new movie! LOL
(And Thumbelina begins)
kellythul:
Was this movie one of the 7 plagues set upon Egypt? It should have been

WarrenPeas64:
When this bottle is empty I’m going to hit myself in the head with it

Janeen_FluffyJ:
Great… now our hell is freezing over.
TRDowden:
The director really needed to quit licking frogs at this point
WarrenPeas64:
Hey – I am LOVING this – we’re MYSTing a movie that’s nearly as bad as Frankenstein’s Island
(Nearly as bad???)

JesCoolbaugh:
Ahahahahaha!!! THe coming was foretold!!!
kellythul:
makeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstop
WarrenPeas64:
Bet you guys aren’t pitying me for being a Jew now, are ya? are ya?

JesCoolbaugh:
Even Santa can’t take another song. F’k the sleigh, let’s get outta here!!!

Thanks Amber, Becs, Myke, Cindy, Holly, Jinni, Jes, Kelly, Phil, Pinky, Warren, Matt, Kurt, Tammy and Myrna for watching this disaster with me!

If you dare to try and sit thru this movie, here is your chance!

Film Review: Brazilian Star Wars/Os Trapalhões na Guerra dos Planetas (1978, dir. Adriano Stuart)

Posted on December 10, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Did you like The Passion Of The Christ (2004), but felt it needed slapstick comedy to go along with its overuse of slow motion? Well don’t worry, cause Brazilian Star Wars has got your back. Just like Turkish Star Trek is actually an entry in a different series of movies, this is one in a series of films that featured a Brazilian comedy troupe called The Tramps. They basically run around acting like silent comedians. In fact, the movie has little dialog in it. They must have thought it would be fun to stick them into Star Wars cause I guess sticking them into Planet Of The Apes went over so well in 1976.

The movie opens up exactly like Star Wars. By that, I mean a car chase.

Like almost every scene in this movie, it seems to go on forever. Oh, and it starts with the slow motion right off the bat like these two shots.

It turns out the Tramps were being chased because one of them fooled around with a girl who was already with someone. All you need to know is that this means they are stuck camping out in the middle of nowhere. But before Star Wars can enter into their lives, we need some more comedy. Enter the turtle with a candle on it’s back.

This leads to a guy being set on fire.

And don’t let the comedic opportunity of a fire extinguisher and a black member of the Tramps go to waste!

Now comes Star Wars.

But first, let’s get a good look at each Tramp.

Now it’s time to meet this movie’s Luke Skywalker.

Or Flik. I don’t care. I’ll just call him Hunk Skywalker. He’s there to tell them he needs their help to retrieve half of the brain computer. It is being held by Zuco AKA Darth Vader. He offers to pay them their weight in gold. So of course they agree and go to board the ship. Then Chewbacca pops up in the entrance. This is when this film introduces us to another annoying thing it will do. They see Chewbacca, run away, then the footage is reversed, and they go into the ship. They will also sometimes simply repeat a shot several times for…comedy? Regardless, here’s Chewbacca.

Now we go to Hunk Skywalker’s planet and a battle ensues that goes on forever with so much slow motion.

All that’s important here is that Zuco kidnaps this movie’s Princess Leia.

After one of the sand people blows up a hut, we get introduced to the multi-colored ladies.

I guess the movie thought it needed to add some women in because otherwise it was too much of a sausage fest. That, and maybe this already colorful movie needed even more color. I don’t know, they serve about as much purpose as the Tramps in this movie. After a little travel we come to Brazilian Star Wars’ version of the bar scene. It’s a disco!

Here’s another scene that goes on for EVER!!! Actually I think it comes out to about 10-14 minutes of the movie. Dancing, fighting, and Hunk Skywalker talking to a guy named Igor about where to find Zuco. Eventually this nonsense comes to an end. Then just in case we weren’t sure this was the 1970’s.

Yellow tramp gets hungry and refuses to just eat a pill. He goes off and cracks open a giant egg.

And I’m pretty sure that’s what the Phoenix would have looked like if the Tramps were in Harry Potter.

Then Yellow Tramp spots Zuco and his soldiers which means more pointless scenes. They wind up underground.

After Brazilian Farrah Fawcett looks around, they run into a giant spider.

Oh, no!

Eventually, they make their way out. Too bad the spider didn’t get them so we could be spared this Hunk Skywalker dream.

Do I even need to tell you that’s all in slow motion? Then we get a flashback to the car chase at the beginning of the film since it’s crucial we be reminded of that.

After some talking and this…

they go to make an exchange with Zuco. Their half of the brain computer for the princess. This doesn’t go well. They make the exchange but then the princess takes off a mask and it’s this.

But at least this scene gives us a line that should be immortalized right along side “Use the force”.

Apparently, that meant hanging them over spikes.

They didn’t count on Yellow Tramp to be in the box instead of the brain computer. This leads to another scene that goes on forever.

Eventually this comes to an end and they take Zuco’s men prisoner.

After putting the brain computer back together almost everything is fixed like this city emerging from who knows where. At least I think it’s a city.

Now Hunk Skywalker finally asks Zuco where his princess is. Turns out making that fake mask for the exchange killed her in the process. Isn’t that nice. Yellow Tramp decides he is going to stay with the Yellow Lady, but there’s one problem. Turns out when the princess dies, her older sister takes over as princess.

After the movie gives us false hope…

they wake up back home. At first they think it was a dream, but there’s damage from where the spaceship landed. Then Hunk Skywalker flies by and not only is their Jeep full of gold, but the Jeep itself is gold. The End!

I actually watched this for the first time a couple of years ago and liked it. I didn’t like it this time. The scenes really do go on way too long with way too much slow motion. The comedy is unfunny to say the least. This might be fun for a little kid, but for everyone else, it just means we should all be saying “Now everyone will die the primitive way.”

Film Review: Turkish Star Wars/The Man Who Saves the World/Dünyayi Kurtaran Adam (1982, dir. Çetin Inanç)

Posted on December 7, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Well, it wouldn’t be right to let a Star Wars month go by without reviewing two of the most infamous Star Wars knockoff movies. This is the Turkish one best known for its training montage. I swear I haven’t heard the theme from Raiders Of The Lost Ark more times in my life then I did watching this movie. The movie is like watching something sci-fi fans in 1982 would have made by mashing together their favorite stuff. The two main things it combines are Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica.

A voiceover provides the setup of the movie while it literally shows footage from Star Wars in the background. I’d make a joke here about the effects looking better than the special editions, but I’m not that much of a fan. Oh, and it goes on for quite awhile it seems. Let me try to paraphrase here. People left Earth and scattered across the galaxy. A struggle to discover the secret of immortality ensued. Despite all this talk about people leaving Earth, there is apparently still an Earth tribe. However, then it says Earth was destroyed. Okay, whatever. Wait, maybe I can’t paraphrase this cause it makes NO SENSE!!!!

Okay, all you need to know is here’s Cüneyt Arkin who apparently also wrote the screenplay for this.

Here’s his friend played by none other than Aytekin Akkaya AKA Turkish Captain America.

After getting shot down by stock footage from Star Wars, they find themselves on a desolate planet with this bad guy who looks like he belongs in a Turkish Flash Gordon movie.

They begin to wander. His friend thinks they might have landed on a planet inhabited by nothing but women. Turkish Captain America thinks he’s a ladies man in this. They see stock footage of the Sphinx, Pyramids, and hieroglyphics. Then the voiceover kicks in saying they were seeing things that look like another civilization that must have fought an unknown power and enemy millions of years ago. This part made me think of Stargate. Of course it doesn’t take long for them to attract some attention from some weird skeleton-like creatures. And this movie doesn’t disappoint. You get to see plenty of Cüneyt Arkin and Turkish Captain America leaping all over the place.

When you’ve fought weird skeleton things, you just gotta follow it up with reject sand people.

And Cylons!

Then they spot the people of this planet. There’s this guy…

who jumps off there for reasons I still don’t understand. Now we meet Turkish Robbie The Robot.

Oh, and Turkish Robbie The Robot doesn’t mess around.

After several of these Turkish Mad Max: Fury Road guys…

kill some people, Arkin and his friend decide to really fight. All you need to know is there’s a blonde with a kid that you’ll see throughout the movie and the bad guy from Turkish First Blood and Turkish Rambo is here as their leader.

After a little conversation, their leader drops the bomb on Arkin and his friend.

Yep, the 13th tribe. This is apparently a piece of Earth controlled by “the Wizard”. The Wizard being the Flash Gordon guy.

Since this is by the same director of Turkish First Blood, there are of course zombies for, um, reasons?

A fight ensues and Arkin and company are sent to go to the “Green Valley” cause, well, I have no idea what this line means, but here it is.

Yep, you apparently need strong body and believer head for fighting with Nimrod.

After the bad guy severs the heads of several zombies, he creates Turkish Abominable Snowman.

There’s some weird stuff that happens here with dead bodies, but who cares because…

it’s time to punch some fucking rocks!!!

Here are some highlights.

Not sure why the punching rocks thing happens considering Arkin will get gauntlets later. No, not Turkish Wolverine gauntlets, but gauntlets none the less. However, I do know why this happens.

It’s cause you will see Arkin fly around in this movie a lot. They made good use of trampolines in this film.

Now while this may be gone by the time you read this because of the music used, here is the full scene in all of it’s glory!

I don’t care how they make it happen, but I want to see Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford punch some rocks. Even if it’s just an extra they do on the DVD release. This needs to happen!

Now we go to the Turkish version of the bar scene. No worries about who shot first here because it just leads to a fight breaking out with one of the saddest costumes I’ve ever seen.

There’s also this guy who looks like he got lost on the way to a Turkish Kung Fu movie.

The bad guy shows up to say this…

and take them to his lair. After traveling through some stock footage they arrive.

Turkish Captain America meets this lady who is the queen of the planet, but will play basically no role in the film. Her and the bad guy seem to think the key to ultimate power and immortality is the human brain. After explaining his plan, Arkin gets this look on his face.

Gotta give the man credit. I’ve seen in him several of these now and he does do one of the best “I’m not happy and about to beat the crap out of everyone in the room” look. And he does just that. He even severs a guys arm and stabs him with it.

Badass! Of course people move in on Turkish Captain America and he joins in the fight. Unfortunately, it’s not enough and now we get to a scene that rivals the Black Widow capture and the inclines in Turkish First Blood and Turkish Rambo for the least inconvenient character inconveniences. The bad guy tries to bury them alive. Yeah, that’s going to work with these two guys. Of course it doesn’t and they simply pop back up out of the dirt.

By the way, throughout all of this stuff is the Star Wars, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Battlestar Galactica, Flash Gordon, and other popular themes on the soundtrack.

Now we’re outside again for who knows what real reason. Doesn’t matter. It means it’s time for Arkin to battle the Snowman by jumping all over the place.

Turkish Captain America gets in on the action, but isn’t very successful and gets captured again.

Now is the time for another exposition dump. This is the first of two sequences that are quite confusing. I am obviously watching this with fan subs so it could be that, but I don’t think so. The leader of the humans tells a story that basically amounts to a sci-fi retelling of how Muslims in Arabia kept science alive while Europe plunged into darkness. He says his people are from “Islam, the greatest tribe and an established community that lived on Earth.” Makes sense, it’s a Turkish movie after all. Well, at least it makes sense at this point in the film. It won’t make sense later though. However, he does say that Muslims are a guardian of religions. I’d think this is just a typo, but given what comes up soon, I’m not sure. It probably has to do with the fact that Islam is the third in the Abrahamic faiths which doesn’t exclude the stuff that came before Mohammed. Christ himself is considered a prophet. It’s most likely a part of this film’s ultimate message of unity and peace among people.

After some fighting and…

a scene that has Turkish Captain America in Turkish A Clockwork Orange, Arkin and blonde go into the tunnels to find the sword of power. This is when we get stuff that I’m really not sure of. Apparently, the faithful went underground with Jesus as their guide. This place includes Christian religious imagery too.

You can kind of think of this as Indy going through a holy place to find something at the end that will help him. Then we get a little backstory on how the Wizard emerged from these people with an obsession for immortality. I’m really not sure if this is supposed to mean the people on the surface were separate from those underground or not. It’s confusing and I would want someone like Ed Glaser who makes a lot of videos about Turkish films to explain it to me.

All that’s really important, which is something often said when talking about Turkish Star Wars, is that Arkin has the sword and is ready to deal out some justice.

Even the Cylons have trouble because Arkin can block bullets with that thing.

After the movie drops it’s English title into the film…

Turkish Captain America just casually knocks out Arkin.

Once again, all you need to know about what happens next is Turkish Captain America gets fooled and Arkin has to come to the rescue. Sadly, Turkish Captain America is killed. Arkin gets the sword of power again and melts it down into gauntlets.

Now the movie just becomes an action sequence with a lot of Arkin jumping. Seriously, I think his jumping rivals the slow motion falling down in Brazilian Star Wars. All of this is going on while Earth is threatened with destruction and I guess is destroyed?

No time for that oddity. Just more action.

After defeating the bad guy, Arkin says goodbye, and flies off in the Millennium Falcon.

That’s it! It really is like watching something that was thrown together by sci-fi fans. It certainly is quite a mess, but a fun mess. A fun mess with some of the best movie scores of the time. Even if they were lifted. I do recommend this. Don’t know if I could watch it again, but it is fun to watch once.

Hallmark Review: Help For The Holidays (2012, dir. Bradford May)

Posted on December 6, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

What we have here is a story about an elf at the North Pole who becomes disillusioned with her job. She feels that there must be more out there. She has lost some of the Christmas spirit because she’s always making toys, but never really gets to see the lives she touches. Santa takes notice and decides to send her on a mission. There is a family who runs a Christmas store. They too have begun to loose the Christmas spirit. They are so tied up with the business that they are neglecting their children and look forward to Christmas being over. Santa sends her in to be a nanny for the kids and help them rediscover the Christmas spirit. She helps them to see that they are missing experiencing Christmas themselves by spending it with their children. She also helps them to see the lives they touch through their business that helps other people to celebrate Christmas. In the process, discovering the importance of her work at the North Pole. However, she also meets the uncle of the family who also tries to help people during Christmas, but in a little different way. The uncle and the family are a little on the outs, but she helps to bridge the gap so they can reconnect. She also falls in love with him even though that was against the rules. But since Santa isn’t a bad guy, he of course gives her the choice to become human. Although her passion for the work she does at the North Pole has been rekindled, she decides to become human. She can continue to help people have a Merry Christmas with the uncle whom she has fallen for. In the end, we see the newly extended family under the tree at Christmas as Santa looks on from the North Pole. The end.

Well, that’s not quite how it goes. That would’ve been nice. Instead, add more cliched writing and demonizing of the parents to that story, with less of the Christmas spirit stuff.

This is our elf Christine played by Summer Glau. She is not really disillusioned with her work, but kind of feeling cabin fever for lack of a better term. We get a brief scene to make sure we know the kids of the family aren’t happy, the parents have systematized “traditions”, and that their uncle disapproves. Then Santa sends her on her mission under the name of Christine Prancer.

Of course she gets hired immediately which is good. Unrealistic, but it would have felt like the movie stalling by not keeping things moving along. She encounters the parents issues with Christmas because as the mother puts it, they are “kneecap deep in it”. Understandable, but this won’t ultimately lead to any kind of discovery about taking some pride and enjoyment in what they are doing during Christmas to help people celebrate. They will just say they are going to cut back at work, have some of the employees do some of it, and spend more time with kids. The employee part certainly came as a surprise since everything leading up to that made me think the two parents ran the entire operation themselves.

Then we find out about the origin of the store. It was a family thing they used to do that ultimately expanded into a business. Again, this movie doesn’t do anything with this. They just have them cut back on work hours and spend more time with the kids.

Now the film starts to hit its stride so to speak. She starts to warm up to the uncle who certainly has the Christmas spirit. She starts to clash with the parents. Sometimes because she does sort of overstep her boundaries such as when she and the uncle decorate the home tree which the mother clearly wants to hold onto as a family thing. She feels that her trust has been violated, which it has. They also sneak in a line that hints that they only decorate the tree because they own a Christmas store, but they really don’t do anything with that. And of course she becomes good friends with the children. It ends the way I said, but not with a Christmas spirit thing really going on. Basically, the parents just reconnect with their kids at Christmas time.

It’s all nice and everything, but it’s not really a Christmas story. October Kiss is almost the same thing and takes place at Halloween. There’s really not much of a Christmas spirit rediscovery here. It’s a nanny brings a family together and finds love at the same time story that happens to take place with Christmas characters during the Christmas season. Nothing really wrong with that, but it is cliched and falls back on the old demonize the parents who work thing. The story afforded them the opportunity to bring the Christmas spirit into the story and instead of demonize, help the parents to step back and reevaluate the work they do in a new and more meaningful light.

The acting is fine all around, but I particularly liked Steve Larkin as Santa.

Nothing bad here, but it is nothing special when it could have been. It feels like a missed opportunity.

Hallmark Review: The Note (2007, dir. Douglas Barr)

Posted on December 4, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

I finally worked my way backwards to the first in The Note trilogy, and I’m kind of disappointed in it.

The movie starts and we are introduced to a newspaper columnist named Peyton Macgruder (Genie Francis). She writes a newspaper column called The Heart Healer. We are then introduced to King (Ted McGinley) who plays her love interest and also writes for the paper.

A small complaint I have is that he never really had the short moment of douchebaggery that he had in the other two Note films. I know it was a weird anomaly, but I had gotten used to it. Here we just get a couple of lines that he chocks up to old locker room talk. It’s just not the same.

During the introductions to the characters, including that her column is on the chopping block, we also are hearing about a plane that is going down. Macgruder goes out to a funeral being held for the family of someone who died in the crash. This is when we are introduced to the problem with this film.

The allegedly evil TV news reporter. We know he’s supposed to be bad because how dare he ask this girl very politely a question after Macgruder also went over to her and introduced herself. She goes back to her office in disgust. She says, “How does a guy like Truman Harris sleep at night?” to which her friend responds, “Comfortably wrapped in the arms of any woman he wants.” All this because he went over, introduced himself, and politely asked her a question. This supposedly evil TV news reporter is a running thing in this story and it’s stupid.

After we get a flashback to tell us her husband is dead, she is sitting next to the water and discovers something. It’s a note and a bag of cookie crumbs. She’s struck gold! Now she has a story to milk in order to keep her job. Even King says, “I think you may have struck gold here.” When she brings the idea to her boss, she’s hesitant, but then her bosses boss tells her it’s a good idea so the hunt for who the letter is meant for is on!

Phone call! It’s the evil TV news reporter. He has called her up to dare to offer her the opportunity to use TV coverage to help find the person the note belongs to faster. But she turns him down because it’s her story, and how could he possibly think that finding the person quicker is what she wants. She wants to “do the story as a continuing feature.” You know, drag it out as long as possible to keep her column going.

Now she visits the first person she thinks the letter might have been meant for. The two of them have a nice little conversation, but it isn’t his. The evil TV news reporter shows up as she’s leaving. The guy says he doesn’t want to speak with him and she says, “no comment”. Then she makes sure to remind him that it’s her story and that “without the note you’ve really got nothin'”. Did they even read the lines they have her saying? She comes across as a person who is holding this personal private note hostage and dragging it out for her personal gain while lashing out at someone who could help her find the person who should have the letter as soon as possible.

Now she writes about it, and it’s a hit! Look she’s got 200 emails!

Of course this being a Hallmark movie, it cuts to her face and back to the screen to find it’s suddenly 1,991 messages.

Now she’s asked to work with the evil TV news reporter by her boss because their companies are related, but she’s not having any of it. She goes on a bit of a rant here saying: “I think corporate should go to…Look, this is a story that either I can tell or Truman can tell! Oh, wait a minute, I forgot. Truman can’t tell it because he doesn’t have the note.”

And just in case we thought we were meant to read her as going overboard, she has a conversation with her boss a little while on where she is congratulated. Apparently, she protected her “readers’ interests” and her bosses boss liked that she stood up to those “new media types in New York.” He has been a print guy for 30 years! Wow! That’s like way before television was invented in the 1980s. By the way, she publishes her articles on the Internet as well as in newspaper form.

Then she meets with another lady and this is when we finally get a real reason why she probably shouldn’t work with the TV guy. This lady shares quite a personal story with her. Of course that really doesn’t matter too much because she isn’t the one who the letter was for. Thus, making this exist only for her to have another article and pad the film out with more emotional material.

It basically carries on this way for the rest of the film. Ultimately, her hunt brings her back to herself. I feel bad spoiling it here for some reason even though you can figure it out if you’ve seen the other films in the series. She also gets closer to King in the process. It would all be a nice little emotional story of her going from person to person as this note touches lives ultimately coming around to touch hers in the most profound way. However, they had to throw in this evil TV news reporter. The only purpose he seems to serve is to pander to people who see someone like him as a threat to their traditional values as embodied by this somewhat religious newspaper reporter. It’s totally unnecessary to the story and damages the credibility of the main character needlessly. This isn’t a bad movie, but one with a stupid writing mistake that drags on it.