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.

Hallmark Review: 12 Gifts Of Christmas (2015, dir. Peter Sullivan)

Posted on December 3, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Wow! It’s been a little over a week since I subjected myself to a Hallmark movie. Well, no time to discuss that because somebody finally got the message there.

Do you see what makes me so happy? Look here.

Yes, the screens are inconsistent, but they actually thought to do something to hide the Canadian cellphone provider’s name! Finally! All the screens I saw either fudged it or switched the phone into airplane mode. I’m just so happy because so many of these movies throw stock footage and all sorts of things in to totally make it look like the United States only to show a cellphone screen that says Rodgers or Fido. That’s not to say this movie doesn’t have goofs, cause it does, but it’s refreshing to not see this goof repeated.

That’s our girl Anna Parisi played by Katrina Law. She’s an artist who can’t find anyone to really give her a break in the business.

That’s our guy Marc Rehnquist played by Aaron O’Connell. And ah…

rest in peace red bluetooth headset from How To Fall In Love.

Oh, and let’s take another look at Anna cause…

while I know she doesn’t wear that triangle necklace in every scene of this movie till she gets a new necklace from him, it sure felt like it. I’m just going to assume that the Satanists from Crackdown Mission (1988) were involved here somehow.

That, and now that I’ve seen 8 of his 9 movies, I am a believer that Pierre Kirby should be spliced into every movie.

Okay, they meet at a bakery briefly and she gives him some tips on ordering off the menu cupcakes. Then we find out that he works at an advertising firm. Lot of stuff goes on in that office of his. At one point he gets up and buttons his jacket, only to sit down again, then it cuts, and it’s unbuttoned again. His office also goes from having one monitor to having two. Don’t know what that’s all about. But I do know that he really shouldn’t be worried about hiring her as a personal shopper because clearly…

these enormous Christmas lights are out to destroy New York City. He hires her as a personal shopper after she uses Thurbble to look up what a personal shopper is and put herself out there via a business card at the bakery.

Must say this is a big step up from the screens in Strawberry Summer. However, I love that apparently personal shoppers in the United States typically only have clients from Miami. Otherwise, they normally work for people from Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, and Russia.

Okay, I could keep making jokes cause there isn’t much to talk about here, so let’s just cut through this thing. He hires her as a personal shopper because he’s too busy to buy gifts for his friends. After she does get a gift for a friend of his that he didn’t ask her to, but his friend loves, he starts to give her free reign. That plot really doesn’t play into this much. It’s just a foot in the door for them to spend the rest of the film together. Well, that is till he uses a special painting she made in order to sell his ad campaign. She overreacts, comes to her senses, and they live happily ever after! Well, there is this at the end.

That’s supposed to have been painted by Anna. Am I the only one who looks at that and thinks they took a picture, passed it through a Photoshop filter, and then had it printed onto a canvas?

Is it worth seeing?

Well, Candace Cameron Bure seemed to like it when the credits started, but I didn’t bring up Crackdown Mission and Pierre Kirby simply as a joke. Most of the Pierre Kirby movies were made by a director named Godfrey Ho. He would take old, unfinished, or unreleased movies from Asia, then shoot a little footage with caucasian actors. Afterwards, he would clumsily splice the footage together to make a new movie. One of these is a movie called Thunder Of Gigantic Serpent (1988). The original Taiwanese movie was called King Of Snake (1984). I’ve seen both of them. King Of Snake is a generic Japanese style monster movie. It needed the addition of a Pierre Kirby to make it memorable and give it some life. That’s this movie. It needed the Hallmark equivalent. By that I mean an actor like Kavan Smith or Kellie Martin. Either one of them would have spiced this otherwise perfectly fine, but dull movie up. It’s nothing to seek out, but it’s not one to avoid either. Plus, it’s got that unintentionally funny factor going for it.

Film Review: Trancers III (1993, dir. C. Courtney Joyner)

Posted on December 3, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

This was a little sad to watch. At least it didn’t make me feel even more depressed than I did after the scene in the transploitation “documentary” Let Me Die A Woman (1977) where a trans woman cuts off her own penis. Thanks, Ms. 45 (1981)! It probably didn’t help that I also watched Crackdown Mission (1988) where Godfrey Ho spliced a Pierre Kirby buddy cop movie into a Taiwanese remake of Ms. 45 either.

The last time we left Jack Deth (Tim Thomerson), he and Lena (Helen Hunt) had dealt with Trancers in early 1990’s Los Angeles. This movie picks up in 1992. And yes, Helen Hunt is in this. If memory serves, she did this as a favor to the filmmakers considering she was on Mad About You at this point. It opens with the usual voiceover from Jack and then we see a really sad commercial for the Jack Deth detective agency.

Yep, just like the first film, this one also has a part of it that takes place during the Christmas season. Then we see what happens when a guy who seems to barely speak English tries to rob a convenience store run by another guy who also seems to barely speak English.

It causes this guy to show up in a time machine. He’s there for Jack. Cut to Jack talking on the phone to Lena. Turns out they’re getting a divorce! Can’t really blame her. It’s either a guy who has futuristic zombies coming after him like this.

Or a guy who wants to hang a giant poster of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman in their apartment.

As Helen puts it.

I think she made the right choice.

After finding Jack, him and the reject from the third season of Star Trek: Enterprise travel into the future of 2352. There he finds that they were also able to get back Telma Hopkins as Cmdr. Rains…

and Megan Ward as Alice Stillwell.

This was three years before she would get her own show on NBC as well called Dark Skies. Unfortunately, that show didn’t succeed like the two other shows I remember them packaging with it: The Pretender and Profiler.

The gist here is that something happened in the past that led to a huge Trancer army overrunning the humans. You know what that means? Jack has to go back to the future to stop it. That means he has to go back to 2005. And by 2005, I mean we cut to a strip club.

Hey, I know that name! Thanks, Mötley Crüe!

I’ve got the screenshots, but there’s no menage a trois here, nor breaking any of Frenchies laws. However, this guy seems to like what he sees.

This scene introduces us to R.J. played by Melanie Smith.

She’s joined a special corps of people who are being enhanced to be able to Trance at will through the use of drugs. The guy I posted before decides to beat some people up before being shot to death. This scene only exists to introduce us to her and the whole drug thing. Well, that and since it has…

Travis McKenna as the bartender, it gives me an excuse to post one of my favorite scenes from Road House (1989).

I guess you could say that other guy was “too stupid to have a good time.” Now we are introduced to the villain of this movie and…

I guess this movie was an audition for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Melanie Smith would have a recurring role on the show, and that’s Andrew Robinson who would play Garak, the Cardassian tailor who was also a semi-retired dangerous spy and assassin. He really is the only good thing about this movie. Even through this stupid half assed sequel, he manages to show us exactly why he got hired to play that role. Funny that the previous Trancers movie had Jeffrey Combs in it who would also go on to play one of the most memorable characters from that show: Weyoun.

Anyways, after Jack goes back in time and shows us what being asked to make Trancers III was like…

by falling into a pile of trash, we get some pointless scenes till Jack shows up at Lena’s 2005 apartment.

And by 2005, I mean as seen from 1993. Making that girl wear that hat is cruel and unusual punishment. Turns out R.J. went to Lena because Lena has been writing about this Trancer core. It’s actually just an excuse to get her with Jack and let Tim and Helen say their goodbyes.

From this point till the final scenes of the movie can be summed as stalling for time by having pointless scenes with the villain, pointless fighting between his soldiers, and pointless conversations between Jack and R.J. The only thing worth mentioning here is that it’s not a good idea to pit a piete girl and against decent sized guy in a fight when they certainly don’t come across as martial artists. I say that because one of the scenes is like watching an ant try to beat up a beetle.

Well, eventually Jack and R.J. are captured. R.J. breaks Jack out, but starts to Trance because of the drugs, so she asks Jack to kill her, which he does. Then what must have been a joke happens. The fish head guy from earlier shows up out of nowhere to help Jack, but the second they turn to go through the door to fight the bad guys, this happens.

The guy freezes up leaving Jack to deal with them. And deal with them he does by gun, fist, and sword. I bet that was supposed to be a hint or inspiration for the next Trancers movie. Afterwards, it turns out fish head’s circuit board had malfunctioned, but came back to life as soon as the battle was done. Jack returns to the future future and goes before the council.

They give Jack a fancy new title, which Jack correctly knows is just an excuse so they can send him anywhere in time they please along with his new buddy. And that’s it! There’s no reason to see this. I remember stumbling across this at a video store when I was young. No wonder I basically forgot about it’s existence. Since it worked so well at the end of the Trancers II review. Here’s another shot of Thomerson giving a help me I’m stuck making Trancers movies face.

Turkish Film Fest: Turkish Mad Max/Ölüme son adim (1983, dir. Çetin Inanç)

Posted on November 28, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

I didn’t think it was possible, but they did it. This movie is even better than Turkish First Blood. Again, you can stop reading now if you want to and just go watch it. I won’t blame you. The only downside to this movie, if you can call it that, is that I think the tie-in to Mad Max might have been an afterthought. It’s feels more like they had an action packed script for the three leads to star in, then decided to throw in a few Mad Max elements such as the leather outfit and weapon from the Mad Max poster. I could be wrong, but it’s the impression that I get. Let’s dig in!

The movie begins on this shot of Kaan or Kagan (Cüneyt Arkin) climbing up onto the top of a building. He makes his way to a stairwell where bad guys start to flow in. He lights some dynamite and appears to chuck it onto the angry no arms and no legs dummy from Turkish First Blood.

Regardless, it kills some of the bad guys. Kaan beats on one guy, then takes him around by the neck and begins to lead him down the stairs. Cut to title card. Arkin is once again in badass mode for this movie. However, this time around we get to see him do some more acting.

Then we meet every slimy businessman and bikini girl from every Turkish movie of this era. Arkin says hi the Arkin way. By shooting him in the hand.

Jeez! Where’s Buddy with his Healing Hands when you need him?

Turns out Kaan was delivering a small package for this guy. It also turns out what was in it was used by a girl who subsequently died before his eyes. Kaan isn’t happy to say the least. Especially after this guy says “they were destined to die”. Kaan says “and so are you”. He makes the guy eat the whole package of heroin and watches him die.

Now we cut to Kaan dealing some cards onto a bed. Then guys start to come into the room. I think the first part of this scene is only to remind us that Arkin is going to be doing more of that knife throwing to kill guys in this movie. Seriously, he kills a lot of people by simply throwing a knife that flies like a projectile. You’d think he worked in a carnival for many years before taking up whatever his job is in this movie.

After dispatching those bad guys, the main guy comes into the room and has a job for Kaan. He wants Kaan to bring a professor who has, or is, developing a new medicine. Kaan takes the job, then cut to another room where we are introduced to the second member of Kaan’s team.

This is Ali played by Yildirim Gencer. Yildirim Gencer is the one who played Kilink in Kilink In Istanbul, Kilink vs. The Flying Man, and Kilink: Strip And Kill. This is when a strange old man bursts into the room.

This leads to a rather comical little scene where this old man appears to be having a lot of trouble firing this rifle. In fact, eventually they just end up starting to fight. After Ali pins the old man we find out that the old man is really Kaan in disguise.

This is how we learn that two of them are friends, and have a rather unique relationship. This is one of the things that makes this better than Turkish First Blood. This isn’t just one scene, but something that develops over the course of the film.

Now for another call back, we meet the third member of Kaan’s team played by actress Emel Tümer. Emel Tümer played the girl in Turkish First Blood. Except this time she’s going to be kicking butt and blowing people away right along side Arkin. We meet her during this scene where she is having a drinking contest with this guy. Of course she wins, but then the surrounding guys pin her down as if at the very least they are going to feel her up. This is honestly a great scene because of this.

Kaan and Ali enter the room and Arkin gets this smile on his face as if to say, “Hi boys! Hope you enjoyed what little you just got because I’m about to even up the odds and you won’t like what me, my friend, and she has in store for you.” And beat the crap out of them they do.

During this whole fight they are also talking to each other to catch up. We find out that she has at least been in a relationship with Ali at some point and probably Kaan as well. It ends with them taking a little breather and enjoying a drink with each other.

Then we get a sequence that I’m not sure of the plot purpose. However, it does give the film a chance to have her get shot in the butt, which is kind of funny. But more importantly, it introduces us to the coin flipping thing that Kaan does in this movie. He’ll flip a coin to see whether he or Ali will do something, Ali always calls heads, and loses every time. It also gets in something else that will carry throughout the movie. That Kaan and Ali really are fond of her. Next she gets behind the wheel and proceeds to tell Ali she didn’t appreciate being shot in the butt by his friendly fire.

I love the back and forth here between Ali and her, which does end up like it should because she isn’t paying attention to the driving while doing all this talking.

Of course she’s gonna need some help pushing that car. Heads or tails?

Now is when the action largely takes over the movie. I’ll try to hit the high points here.

Arkin is ready for his Mad Max poster now.

I didn’t expect Turkish Mad Max to be the one where Arkin wields a bow and arrow.

At this point, they find the professor and his wife. Arkin gets some nice poses in here too.

Then there’s a conversation between Kaan and Ali. I didn’t pick up the in joke till I looked up that Ali was played by the same actor who plays Kilink, but I get it now. Kaan tells Ali: “You’re a celebrity nevertheless. Twice even. At being a crook and at scoring ladies.”

Now comes a humorous action sequence where they have obviously returned to the set of Turkish First Blood. It’s funny because during the majority of this scene they are doing battle with stock footage.

This is where we find out that the guy who hired Kaan has double crossed them. Big surprise there. About as much of a surprise as the fact that they return to the quarry set of Turkish First Blood and I believe the set of Turkish Star Wars where Arkin punched rocks.

Of course more action ensues and Ali once again loses the coin toss and has to carry the professor who was shot during the battle. Next we return to what I assume are the caves from Turkish First Blood. We also get this great shot.

Then we get what is probably the most insane action sequence in any of these Turkish movies I’ve watched so far. After everyone but Kaan goes down the side of a rock face on a rope, Kaan tries to go down. He’s got people at the top and on sides of him. The scene is hilarious as Kaan switches between shooting and many knife throws to deal with the bad guys. There is no way I can do this over the top action sequence justice. Just take my word for it that it’s pretty cool in it’s lunacy.

Once they are safe, we get a nice little scene where Kaan gives Emel Tümer’s character a flower. Ali then asks him where his present is to which Kaan gives him his cigarette. “A cigarette for death”. Then they’re off to battle some more stock footage. We get some more action, then Ali finally finds out that Kaan has been using a coin that is tails on both sides this whole time.

Now all the friendship stuff between Kaan and Ali comes to a head when Ali is left trying to get to the truck Tümer and Arkin are in while bad guys close in behind him.

He honors his friend’s plea and shoots him. After some more action, Arkin and Tümer return to the guy who hired them and do him in for lying to them that it was medicine when it was drugs. It ends with this look on Arkin’s face.

I really enjoyed this one. Aside from the Django one, these were fun for me to watch and write about. I hope you had a good Thanksgiving week.

Film Review: Chatterbox! (1977, dir. Tom DeSimone)

Posted on November 27, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

I’ve known about this movie for awhile now because of The Cinema Snob. I knew it was one of at least four talking vagina movies from the 1970s. MGM Impact even had a warning on it that said “Impact elements of action include: Talking Vagina Tv”. None of that really prepared me for actually watching this movie. And they should have added the boom mic as an action element in this movie. That sucker pops in all the time, and at really odd times in odd places. Well, since the movie jumps right to it, let’s jump right to it. Penelope (Candice Rialson) is lying in bed with her boyfriend when chimes ring and a voice starts talking saying it wasn’t happy with the sex it just received. Then we learn what’s making the noise.

It takes the characters way too long in this movie to realize it’s her vagina talking. Even though the sound is coming from a different place, it’s not Penelope’s voice, and sometimes people are looking directly at her face when it happens. Her boyfriend isn’t happy with the pussy talk and storms off.

Penelope works at a beauty parlor and here comes the attack of the boom mic.

It’s Rip Taylor doing a flamboyant gay stereotype. I think the boom mic could have picked him up just fine out of frame. It really looks like it’s going to hit him on the head. Oh, but it gets better. Penelope decides to confide in a friend about her little problem.

Yep, the boom mic is below them as if Candice Rialson’s vagina is actually going to speak and the microphone needs to be there to pick it up. The boom mic also swings back and forth between the two actresses during this scene staying visible most of the time.

Now a customer comes into the place and because it’s the 1970s, Penelope is wearing this.

Penelope’s vagina starts talking, so she runs into the back room. The vagina apparently has eyes too since it knew the lady was a lesbian and was checking her out. You know one thing leads to another at beauty parlors and before you know it, this happens.

Of course Rip Taylor comes in and breaks things up.

Penelope decides to see a psychiatrist about her problem and it turns out the vagina can not just talk and apparently see, but can sing too. He immediately decides to exploit the talking vagina for money and books her on a show. This is as much as I can show without resorting to black boxes.

Then we get a ridiculous scene where she gets pulled over by a cop and the talking vagina gets her arrested. She is then bailed out by the boyfriend from the beginning of the film. Seriously, the only reason I can think of that the scene exists is to remind us that the boyfriend is still a character in this movie. The boyfriend storms off, but the psychiatrist/agent takes her out and walks with her through a park. This is when the film tries to give some meaning to this talking vagina situation. He says that it’s her otherwise anonymous organ crying out to have attention paid to it. Sadly, this is leading to an ending that makes no sense. Also, they have named the vagina Virginia.

Penelope listens to the doc and Virginia so she decides to walk the street dressed like this.

And wouldn’t you know it. It attracts some unwanted attention. Go figure! Of course it does lead to her being rescued by a bunch of jocks. Yep! Just yep.

The next morning she gets a call that Virginia and her have been booked on another show. And there you go.

Did I mention this movie is quite the experience to watch. Now she has become a huge star and you can tell because of the newspaper and magazine montage. This includes such classics as the headlines “Odds Go Down On Virginia” and “Police Close Virginia’s Opening”. Then, well, I expected to see plenty of Turkish Supermen, but I never expected to see the ‘S’ there.

Things get even wackier when Penelope’s mother shows up and gets in on the act. There’s also a really stupid restaurant scene with bad jokes. Then Penelope decides to try and patch things up with the boyfriend. They even make it so far as the bed before Virginia pisses him off and he’s out the door again.

Now she goes on a version of The Dating Game called The Mating Game. This scene and the sequence that follows only exist because the writers must have thought the talking vagina alone wasn’t funny enough so this needed to happen.

Yep! She gets dressed up like a princess and he walks in dressed in full armor. He even lays down on the bed with her that way. The next morning he tells her he can’t see her anymore via a fortune cookie. No joke. He says all of his fortune cookies say goodbye. This is followed by more coming to fame stuff including Hollywood Walk of Fame stars and concrete feet. Then she’s going to be in a movie directed by a guy who wants people to know his movie isn’t “just the first film to star a real cunt.” I do love that considering the number of times the boom mic pops into frame in the movie itself, we can actually see the boom mic for the movie within the movie. Then the actual movie starts. Here’s are a few shots of this insanity.

She runs off the set and goes to jump off a cliff. This is when the movie ends in the dumbest way possible.

Yep! Even though it makes no sense, the boyfriend had a talking penis this whole time. It and Virginia sing together before Penelope and him run to each other for a final embrace.

THE END!

This is one of the weirdest things I have ever sat through. It’s not good, but it’s strange enough that I kind of do recommend it. Also, I will be tracking down Pussy Talk, Pussy Talk 2, and Angel Above – The Devil Below as a result. Cause once I’ve sat through this one, I might as well sit through the others too. Plus, I’ve heard that Pussy Talk is actually good and is a bit of a landmark in French cinema. But I think I need a little break before I come back to this genre.

Turkish Film Fest: Kilink vs. Django/Cango – korkusuz adam (1967, dir. Remzi Jöntürk)

Posted on November 27, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Let me address the first question on your mind. Does it use the famous Django (1966) theme song included below?

Unfortunately, no. But it does use the one from For A Few Dollars More (1965).

Now comes the time when I actually have to talk about this thing. Why? Can’t I just say it’s not good and leave it at that? Okay, fine, but it won’t be much.

The movie begins with the McLee family and Mr. McLee’s nephew Tom (Tunç Oral).

Tom is supposed to take charge of the new family gold mine. Enter Kilink known as the Death Rider in this one.

Before Tom can really take charge of things, Kilink kills Mr. McLee.

Tom swears vengeance and asks everyone to call him Django, or Cango as my subtitles kept saying despite Tom audibly saying Django.

And that’s about it as far as the main plot goes. There’s a bunch of stuff that seems to be happening, but I couldn’t really tie it back to anything unless it was on the rare occasion that Django actually showed up or Kilink severed a guy’s arm.

Other than that, it’s just Western stuff that keeps happening while the two characters, who should be at the center of things, are on the periphery. Kilink even takes off his mask in this. Kilink never did that in the other three ones I watched.

I’m sure I could pick up some more of the plot if I watched it again, but I don’t care. So much of it felt like padding with a bunch of characters I don’t need to know about. Every once in awhile Django or Kilink would interject to presumably move things along, but they should have been at the center of everything going on. It was not a good time watching this movie.

Only watch this if you are a die hard fan of Kilink. I don’t think I can even recommend it for people who like seeing Django pop up in odd places. Oh, well. Can’t win ’em all.

Turkish Film Fest: Turkish Rambo/Rampage/Korkusuz (1986, dir. Çetin Inanç)

Posted on November 26, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Right up front I have to say that this is a big step down from Turkish First Blood. Yes, the actor who plays Rambo resembles the character more than Cüneyt Arkin did. However, what made Arkin so good was his delivery, not his muscles or a more genuinely wounded soldier look. He was intimidating and he made the action exciting. He filled his role with an enthusiasm that isn’t matched even remotely by this Rambo. Oh, and the print I watched had good subtitles, but it looked more radioactive then the set of The Conquerer (1956). Let’s talk about the movie.

Just like the first two Kilink movies, this one opens with the equivalent of a trailer of the movie you are about to watch that seems to seamlessly blend into the beginning of the movie. As such, we are immediately shown this movies Rambo named Serdar (Serdar Kebapçilar). As you can see, he’s got the muscles, and he’s got the I can and will kill you if needed, but I’m permanently wounded inside look about him. We’ll skip the rest of the trailer, cause that’s the rest of the movie. A rest of the movie that is kind of confusing. There is a lot of who is actually working for who stuff going on here. I will try to navigate it, but it’s really just something you wade through to reach the action sequences.

This guy has been given a blank check to just do whatever he needs to in order to stop these bandits/terrorists in the mountains. He arranges a hit on a car so that some of the bandits will get captured. It’s a little unclear to me how this worked since it appears some people died, but regardless, they now have some of them in prison where they are conveniently placed in the neighboring cell to Serdar. They send Serdar and the bandits away to be delivered to the appropriate authorities when Serdar arranges a breakout.

The men he helped escape agree to take him to their leader. Serdar gives them that choice, or death. At this point, I think we are cutting between the military guys and Serdar helping the other guys, but I think the military guys are shooting at them too. Doesn’t matter because we get another scene like in Turkish First Blood where the girl is having trouble getting up the slightest of inclines.

This, the one in Turkish First Blood, and Black Widow’s capture in Avengers: Age Of Ultron (2015) are the least inconvenient character inconveniences I’ve seen since that guy named Julius tried to fight Jason on the rooftop in Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989).

Now Serdar is taken to a home. I’m not to sure about what goes on here, but Serdar kills some people and his love interest comes out of it.

It’s interesting that director Çetin Inanç returned from Turkish First Blood to make the sequel. He’s not the only one who returned.

Super over the top bad guy returns as well. Now the movie really is just a long string of torture scenes before Serdar goes all Rambo on them. In other words, highlights!

It appears that the big bad guy decides to send Serdar out on a mission for him, but that doesn’t really work out. This is when the action largely takes over the rest of the film. Unfortunately, this is like the last 20 minutes or so of the movie. There are a few dialogue exchanges between Serdar and the girl. More highlights!