May 2020 Eyesore Cinema rentals: short reviews

Here are some reviews of five films we recently rented from Eyesore Cinema  -1176 Bloor West - one of the city's last remaining sources of rental video.

ALICE SWEET ALICE was at one point titled "Communion" which is a title that makes a lot more sense in that this film is absolutely steeped in Catholicism and growing up in a hollering, dysfunctional Catholic family in Patterson, New Jersey. And there are some murders, and the killer wears those creepy translucent face masks which gives the whole affair the feel of one of Devo's early music videos. It's a low-budget creeper that makes good use of Patterson location shooting and period set dressing, marred only slightly by the refusal of the male cast to trim their very 1976 dry-look haircuts. Apparently the director got excommunicated for an earlier film; ALICE is his response. If you aren't as invested in the Papist trappings you might not get the intended emotional beats, but ultimately it's suitably unsettling, if at times weirdly suggesting the entire film is a setup for a modern-day sequel.

BLOW OUT:  DePalma's BLOW UP remake/reinterpretation/whatever tries to go in about four directions at once - a less paranoid THE CONVERSATION, a commentary on slasher movies, an actual slasher movie, a Kennedy assassination picture, an educational movie informing non-Philadelphians that a holiday called "Liberty Day" actually exists. Come for the great cinematography, stay for the gritty 1981 Philly - it's like gritty 1981 NYC but without the charm - and enjoy the good Travolta performance and a terrific Nancy Allen. Ultimately the pieces don't quite fit together, and the story feels almost disinterested in the whys of what happens, but it's a good funhouse ride while it lasts.

SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES: Disney's 1983 'dark fantasy' version of the Ray Bradbury story about the Dark Carnival that rolls into your small town, pushes all your midlife crisis buttons, and turns you into a sideshow attraction is pretty much the Walt Disney Company's midlife crisis writ large on the screen, an expensive misfire without purpose or vision. If you wanna see character actors wander through backlots, bitch about their regrets, and dodge Disney special effects department animation while two kid actors fail to compel or inspire, this is the movie for you. Seriously, if your movie needs a child to work opposite Jason Robards, that kid has to be charismatic and appealing, and the kids in this picture are neither, especially up against Jonathan Pryce, who absolutely nails the evil ringmaster role. He gives 120% at all times, hissing and twirling and working those brows. Pam Grier is wasted, James Horner's soundtrack is James Hornering it all over the place trying to liven things up, I saw this in '83 and there's a reason I barely remember it. Apparently the production was its own nightmare carnival, involving reshoots, expensive special effects sequences being entirely cut, Horner's soundtrack a last-minute addition, you name it, they fudged it. Pass.

THE MAN FROM HONG KONG is an Australian/Hong Kong coproduction starring former Flying Guillotine Master Jimmy Wang Yu as the titular Man From Hong Kong. If you've seen the Ozploitation documentary "Not Quite Hollywood" or just the trailer for "Stunt Rock" you might have an idea of what was on director Brian Trenchard-Smith's mind: high speed car chases, hang gliding, and lots of wall-smashing, glass-breaking, board-shattering fists-furious kung fu. This film delivers exactly what it promises, a gritty James Bond with the sweat, violence, and sneers dialed way up. Even ex-Bond George Lazenby is there, a dry-look heel with a great mustache and a willingness to get down and dirty with the stuntmen and to let Jimmy Wang Yu knock the holy hell out of him. Trenchard-Smith never saw a stunt scene he was willing to cut even a fraction out of, and we get to see every slo-mo instant of the crashing, bashing, smashing as Wang Yu, with an assist from Hugh Keays-Byrne - you know, "Toecutter" from MAD MAX! - works his way up to Lazenby's international narcotics gangster. It's rare to see an exploitation movie that actually lives up to the poster, but this one does.

THE BIRD WITH CRYSTAL PLUMAGE is Dario Argento's first feature and you can see Argento straining against the conventions of the murder-mystery genre; not as dreamlike or as evocative as his later features, but there's a charm to the picture that comes from all the late 60s Italian design, the spy-movie hired killer subplot, and a square-jawed American hero who's gonna get to the bottom of this, darn it. It's no SUSPIRIA, but it's worth a look.

What will we rent next time? Stay tuned!

Dave reviews the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Just what nobody needed: Dave reviews the Marvel Cinematic Universe!! 

IRON MAN - reasonably fun, enough of the 60s vibe to keep it rolling, they even used the cartoon theme song.

INCREDIBLE HULK - Hey, there's the Sam Sam The Record Man sign! Bring back The Leader, I say. Very Herb Trimpe film, which was "my" Hulk growing up

IRON MAN 2 - this is the one with Tony Stark's Dad from Mad Men hiding a secret inside his minature railroad set, and Mickey Roarke with a bad Russian accent, right? 

THOR - I waited until Rifftrax riffed this one before watching it. It's a boring movie right until the part where The Destroyer shows up, and then it gets good, and then immediately it ends.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: obviously this is the best of the early run of the movies because it has the Red Skull in it, who shows up and immediately starts vaporizing his own guys just for the hell of it. Also it has some kind of version of the Howling Commandos. I have pretty much every issue of Sgt. Fury & The Howling Commandos. 

THE AVENGERS: remember when every movie had the bad guy getting captured and put in a glass cage so he could smirk and tell the heroes that this was all part of his plan? Yes.

IRON MAN 3: this movie has people on fire and some kind of climax involving shipping containers at the Port Of Los Angeles, which is the climax of at least three other movies. What's the matter, screenwriters, does your corner office have a great view of the Port Of Los Angeles?

THOR THE DARK WORLD: Fun fact: nobody wants to see a movie where the bad guys are "dark elves" except for super gothy teens who haven't figured out what they really want to be are hippies

CAPTAIN AMERICA THE WINTER SOLDIER: Solid picture, good fights, ground-level super guy stuff with a minimum of magic beams shooting out of hands or flying. I wish there was a cut of this movie where Robert Redford reveals he's the Red Skull all along and somebody asks if he's going to take off his mask and he says "what mask?" This one really feels like the mid 1970s Kirby run of Captain America & The Falcon, which are my favorite Captain American comics.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY: fun spacey movie with that very specific Marvel outer space stuff that is very post Star Wars but still influenced by all the drugs Marvel's creative staff was doing in the early and mid 1970s; spaceships are big airplanes that do whatever you need them to do and go whereever you need them to go, blaster guns shoot whatever they need to shoot, and everybody's some degree of super strong, able to speak all space languages, and space suits are totally optional. Also stars John C. Reilly! 

AVENGERS AGE OF ULTRON: why does a robot have lips? Ultron is a great villian in the comics, Spader makes a great bad guy, both are totally wasted in this film that exists solely to move continuity forward and get everybody to the next movie. Time is wasted with a detour to Asia, to secure Asian funding, I guess. A big thing is raised high in the air and then falls down, that's what happens in the climax of a lot of these movies.

ANT-MAN: fun heist movie starring funny people doing fun things, doesn't take itself seriously, a nice change. More Gregg Turkington please!

CAPTAIN AMERICA CIVIL WAR: Super heroes have to fight each other for contrived reasons. Not quite as silly as the Batman vs Superman movie, but still pretty contrived. Ant-Man is in all the best parts, which should tell you something.

DOCTOR STRANGE: Nice Ditko pastiche papered over with iffy American accent for Cumberbatch. Am still not sure about Swinton's Ancient One; do you keep a racist stereotype character as a racist stereotype, do you change it to a painfully white character, thereby whitewashing your racist stereotype, I dunno. It's a difficult proposition.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 2: This was the first one of these movies that I actively disliked, mostly because it was a retread of the first picture, with lots and lots of screen time of Saldana and Gillian in crazy face makeup hollering at each other, lots of More Of The Hits From The 70s, more smirky cosmic stuff, bad digital de-aging, more hand-wavey super stoned outer space "what if, like, there were these Ego The Living Planet flowers on every planet in the universe, man? And what if they all went off at once? Because things happen simultaneously across the universe, right? Dude!" Relax and listen to Mellow Hits Of The 70s again, dude

SPIDER MAN HOMECOMING: I saw three decent Spider Man movies, avoided two lame Spider Man movies, waited on this Spider Man movie, and I liked it, they let teenagers be teenagey, kept it local for the most part, and got the most out of Keaton. Still about a half hour too long.

THOR RAGNAROK: Great course correction for Thor, somebody finally realized they should start looking at the Thor comics people actually enjoyed, instead of the Vince Colletta-inked stuff people pretend to like but that nobody actually likes.

BLACK PANTHER: fine action picture, great cast, halfway through you start thinking Killmonger actually has a point, confusing Asian detour and pandering Give Martin Freeman Something To Do segments make this movie, again, about 25 minutes too long.

AVENGERS INFINITY WAR: let's get this straight: I think Thanos is a bargain basement Darkseid ripoff, he's boring, his whole "kill half of everything" plan is stupid, and this movie isn't going to age well. In fact I don't think a lot of these films are. How dare you put the Red Skull back in these movies and he's just playing the goddamn Crypt Keeper? What a waste!

ANT MAN AND THE WASP: again, solid, grounded, action-oriented, heisty switcheroo sciency picture with, instead of Gregg Turkington, his "On Cinema" partner Tim Heidecker as "Whale Man". Keep putting these guys in these movies and I will keep paying to see them in theaters.

CAPTAIN MARVEL: A-list cast works their way through deep-cut Marvel space-empire mythology and generally makes a good showing; fun 90s setting made people nostalgic for Blockbuster Video until they remembered what a shitshow Blockbuster Video really was, burn in hell Blockbuster Video. 

AVENGERS ENDGAME: again, Thanos is boring, he's that boring guy you went to college with who would show up in your dorm room after two beers and three bong hits who really wanted to talk about his philosophy class and then later he got angry with you because he thought you were hitting on his girlfriend, and then even later he dissolved into weepy tears. Also, seriously, again, here's the Red Skull NOT being evil and betraying everybody, and here's way more Jeremy Renner than anybody wanted or needed, combined with, again, Inexplicable Asian Detour. Let's really take our time with this one, okay? Also let's tone the color way down until by the end of the picture it's all one gray-brown smudge. Remember primary colors? 

SPIDER MAN FAR FROM HOME: Actually liked it better than the first movie? Maybe? Moved a little faster. It did the Mysterio very well, better than I'd been expecting. Likeable cast gets to be teenagers, too, thankfully. 

I am probably done seeing these movies anywhere except Netflix, and as it turns out they likely won't be on Netflix, I'm... probably done seeing these movies? Maybe?

the first movie I ever saw

For no particular reason whatsoever, I've been trying to remember the first film I ever saw in a theater. Obviously as I am a white North American male in my 40s, the big cinema event in my early life was STAR WARS (1977). I believe we saw it the summer it came out. I was not sold on it at first; the ads seemed to involve a lot of people in robes standing around in the desert, and I believe there was some standing in line involved which I probably complained about a lot. Of course after seeing the movie, my brother and I  were all THIS IS THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER MADE EVER!!! and we spent the next couple of years contriving to see the thing as often as possible. 

But what are some of the other movies we saw at the Miracle Theater, at the Belmont Hills, at the Akers Mill General Cinema where I'd wind up with a part time job? What was the first? 

I know we saw OH GOD - that one came out fall of '77, so it's post SW -in the Belmont Hills theater in Belmont Hills, at one time the South's largest shopping center, now demolished. It was already run-down when I was a kid, and I'd spend most of my Belmont Hills time in the Turtle's Records or digging through comics at the Book Trader than seeing movies there.  I didn't get to see CLOSE ENCOUNTERS on its first release, we tried three times and it was sold out each time. There's a bunch of films from '77 that I've subsequently seen, but lord knows you wouldn't want a seven year old to see, say, SLAP SHOT. 

I know we saw SNOW WHITE ('75 re-release) and PINOCCHIO ('78 re-release). We saw MESSAGE FROM SPACE ('78) at the Cobb Center theater with a gang of friends and we all thought it was just as good as STAR WARS, an opinion I still hold. I saw ISLAND AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD (1974) starring future Good Morning America host David Hartman, and that's a good three years before Star Wars. 

A similar picture, WARLORDS OF ATLANTIS (1978) starring Doug McClure was screened with friends at the Town & Country theater that was in the Town & Country shopping center behind the Miracle on South Cobb. Actually it was more directly behind the old Dairy Queen. That's also where we saw the quasi-documentary THE LATE GREAT PLANET EARTH (1979), planting within me both an apocalyptic no-future worldview AND a healthy regard for the work of Hal Lindsey. The Miracle, on the other hand, is (I believe) the theater where we saw MOONRAKER (1979), the first James Bond film I ever saw. Strangely enough, the film's amazing badness didn't prevent me from seeing other Bond movies. There was yet ANOTHER movie theater in this vicinity, the free-standing Cobb Cinema, built behind the Miracle, and that might have been where we saw Moonraker. 

FLASH GORDON (1980), on the other hand, was seen in the Belmont Hills theater, a crumbling edifice that dated from the shopping center's construction in 1954. I loved that movie in 1980, felt it was rubbish in 1990, and came to realize its campy glory again later in life.

I never saw FREAKY FRIDAY (1976) or THE BAD NEWS BEARS (1976) but I did see GUS (also '76), the Disney film about the mule that kicked field goals. GUS was screened in Cobb Center Mall - not in the theaters outside the mall, but in a small auditorium INSIDE the mall that appeared to be a community room that showed kids' movies during the summer. I have distinct memories of seeing THE STRONGEST MAN IN THE WORLD (1975) starring Kurt 'Snake Plissken' Russell, but where or when I cannot say.

I am pretty sure I saw Disney's ROBIN HOOD (1973) in a theater. It may have been in a drive in that was showing a Planet Of The Apes picture on another screen - I never saw any of the Apes movies in the theaters, but the TV show scared the bejeezus and fascinated me at the same time, and I can remember turning my head to watch the apes go about their apey business. I did not see the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (1978) theatrical compliation film - though I watched a lot of the TV show - but I did see the BUCK ROGERS (1979) pilot film in a theater and liked it fine. Hey, I was 9. I did not see JAWS (1975) - would you take a 5 year old to see that? - but I did see JAWS 2 (1978) and was appropriately scared to go in the water even though I had not previously been under the assumption that the water had been in fact safe.

The whole family went to see STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE (1979) at Akers Mill and I fell asleep at some point when Spock was mind-melding with V'Ger. That summer me and every kid I knew saw THE MUPPET MOVIE (1979) over and over again - it was the default babysitter that year. I saw THE BLACK HOLE (1979) and enjoyed the great visual design and the ending where the bad guy is shown suffering in Hell. More movies should end that way. 

We actually got out of school the day THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980) premiered, because our parents loved us deeply. I think we saw it at Phipps Plaza. SUPERMAN II came out in 1980 as well and I enjoyed it more than the first SUPERMAN (1978). 

I never did get to see INFRAMAN (1975) or GODZILLA VERSUS MEGALON (1973) in theaters, though I desperately wanted to and probably made a pest out of myself about it. Of course, as soon as home video made them available, I immersed myself in the ultra-bionic world of Princess Dragon Mom and her legion of Inframan-fighting monsters, and to a lesser extent the cheesy Jet Jaguar badness of Godzilla Vs Megalon.  At the time I also really, really wanted to see LASERBLAST (1978) but thankfully did not. Sheesh. I know I have seen BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS (1971) but in a theater? I hope not. Don't take your 2-year old to movies.

Anime Hell 2016 for AWA!

My freeform clip show Anime Hell returns for its 19th iteration at Anime Weekend Atlanta, which is a fact that fills me with both pride and horror. As does much of what I'll be showing this year!

If you miss it you'd better be dead or in jail! And if you're in jail, break out!

Alien Defender Geo Armor Kishin Corps review

This review originally appeared on Anime Jump in 2003.

Let's clarify a few things. The original Japanese title of this OVA series is Kishin Heidan, which roughly translates to Armored God Corps. It's based on a series of early 1990s light novels by Masaki Yamada. The Geneon-produced anime was first released in Japan in 1993, and was released in North America on VHS as Kishin Corps in 1995. To further confuse the consumer, the 2001 DVD release is titled Alien Defender Geo Armor Kishin Corps, and when the title of each episode is shown, it has the kanji for Kishin Corps, and beneath that, in English, "Kishin Corps - Active Defense Force". Confused? So am I.

Kishin Corps is an alternate-history World War Two story of Nazi Germany's pact with evil alien invaders, the secret army raised by Japan, Russia, the US, and Britain to defeat them, and how your requisite stalwart young Japanese boy is caught in the middle. Once again Japan's semiautonomous Kwantung Army is trotted out as power-mad imperialists (okay, but only because it's true); Geo Armor Kishin Corps labels them the Kanto Army, and as our story opens they're after a powerful secret module. Our hero Taishi is on board a Manchurian train with his mom and his pop, who is, as you have already guessed, a top scientist. The train is halted by Col. Shinkai and his Kanto Army, but their hijacking is interrupted by the arrival of space aliens, goopy amorphous humanoids who have mastered laser beams and space travel but prefer to use Russian PpSh submachine guns. This three-sided struggle is again interrupted by a mysterious giant robot from the Kishin Corps because this is, after all, their video.

 Two months later Taishi, still holding onto the secret Macguffin Module, is leading a gang of orphans in Shanghai, staying one step ahead of the authorities and the Kanto Army. He helps a mysterious lady escape from Shinkai. This mysterious lady has a twin sister who is working with the Kanto Army to develop their own giant robots. Mysterious Twin swipes the Module from the kid gang, Taishi pursues, and again is saved by the intervention of the Kishin Corps. Taishi gets inducted into the Alien Defender Whatever Kishin Corps and gets to help out as their three giant robots - one land, one sea, one air - battle both the Kanto Army and our alien pals.

 You see, a few years back, mysterious modules fell to Earth. These modules enabled whichever nation that found them to build giant fighting robots. Coincidentally these were distributed amongst the Major Powers of the prewar Earth, which was lucky for us since we had a world war brewing. It would have been interesting to see what kind of giant robot France or Brazil would have come up with, but we'd have to wait for G Gundam to see THAT.

The Japanese version of Kishin Corps made the rounds of fansubs and fanclubs for a few years before its legit release. To be honest, I wasn't too impressed with it at the time; mostly because Part One is weighed down with a lot of exposition and infested with charming kids and their charming kid-gang antics. Once Taishi gets hooked up with the Kishin Crew and is blasting aliens, things pick up considerably. The best part of Geo Armor Kishin Active Defense Whatever Corps is the detail given to the titular robots: these are gigantic, heavy, riveted-steel behemoths. They have spark plugs and fan belts and vacuum tubes and hydraulics and all that stuff that your car has under the hood, and they all move with a ponderous weight that the animators do a terrific job portraying. In fact, there may be a little too much attention to detail. Kishin Thunder has to be transported to the battle via train: luckily, the bad guys have cooperated by locating their evil deeds or evil bases on train tracks. It's enough to make one think of Homer Simpson's favorite show "Nightboat", where there's always a river, or a canal, or a fjord.

Kishin Corps' main ingredient is characters rushing from one place to another: our heroes jump from moving cars to giant blimps to airplanes to trains and back again, always chug-chug-chugging towards another battle with the foe, rattling off great gobs of exposition every chance they get. And yet, with all this "action", nothing much happens. This is a 7-part OAV that easily could have been a 4-parter, or even a 3-parter without too much trouble. Even the fight scenes are padded like a junior high school girl's bra; while the explosions and gunfire conveniently halt, characters will stare at each other, stare at their opponents, stare at the new arrival zooming in from a few miles out. In a film with a stronger visual sense and a knowledge of how to use the quiet moments for effect - think Oshii's Patlabor - these time-outs heighten the sense of drama and contrast the action. Unfortunately Geo Armor Alien Kishin Defender Corps isn't one of those films.

Not much attention is given to making this period drama look like a period drama. There's an attempt to make the Nazis into bishonen-style prettyboys with long hair and dreamy eyes; the Kanto Army's leader Shinkai looks like a pumped-up Count Dracula, and there are enough giant, pointed shoulder pads to make Joan Crawford run for cover. The good guys are all pretty standard anime-character good guys, with the big hair and pointy chins and giant ears. These are, hands down, the largest ears for standard characters seen in anime since Tobidase! Batsuchiri. All told, Geo Kishin Armor Corps sports a really jarring look for a period anime, and one that begs the question, if you're not going to be obsessive about period detail, why do a period anime in the first place?

Characters all have standard issue anime-character crazy multicolored hair, defying gravity as if they were ignorant of the Hair Treatment Technology that was widely used in those turbulent times. If these characters happen to be dressed in period costume, it's because fashions haven't changed that much - and some characters aren't anywhere near the 40s, unless the Miami Vice look began in 1943.

The dubbing is well-acted, but clumsily written. There are plenty of awkward pauses and sentences that sort of make sense. Here's my tip; if the anime involves Japanese military, go with the subtitles. The DVD extras are: mechanical designs and character designs. There's a point-by-point explanation of the various systems of the various robots, which is where I learned that Kishin Dragon's Anchor Guns are powered by "gunpowder force". There is also a hilarious live-action segment, a round-table discussion starring non-acting gaijin playing high-level Nazis discussing the aliens, the modules, and the Kishin Corps in bad German. Available on the original video release, it's now professionally subtitled for everybody to enjoy. It is an interesting clamshell two-DVD set; instead of the standard black plastic Pioneer has given Geo Armor Kishin Corps a nifty copper-colored case that really stands out.

To be sure, there's some entertainment in Kishin Corps. The battle scenes are entertaining, if overused, and the concept of Japan at war with its own imperialist faction makes for a nice what-if. But the WWII setting is woefully underused and the aliens remain unexplained creatures from the planet Plot Device, while the character designs seem to be lifted wholesale from a completely different show. Plus, there are lots of annoying children. In short, Geo Armor Kishin Corps has some interesting parts, but they don't add up to an interesting whole.

-Dave Merrill

anime I hated: Melty Lancer

(this review originally appeared on the website Anime Jump.)

Melty Lancer: A Half-Baked Recipe For Disaster

This recipe will, if properly prepared, result in a bland, uninteresting casserole of characters and concepts previously used elsewhere to better effect. While fulfilling all necessary recommendations for Anime Video Cliché, it must be noted that this production is likely to be a complete waste of your time.

Ingredients:

• One (1) team of Beautiful Female Police People, including one Brainy Mature Woman, one Alpha-Female Team Leader, one Demure Traditionalist, one Tough Chick With Battle Armor, one Shape-Changing Magical Girl, and one Cat-Girl With Big Ears. Must have unpronounceable or improbable D&D-character names like "Sylvia Nimrod" or "Nany Nataresionn Neinhalten". One character must have Pet of Indeterminate Species.
• One Whiny, Impotent, Crybaby Male. Glasses optional.
• One Rough, Tough, Mature Male. Roy Fokker from MACROSS is a good example here. In fact, one might say this DVD adheres to the Roy Fokker template a little too closely. Smoking, drinking, and gigantic sideburns are a must. Character is actually competent and therefore must be featured as little as possible.
• One mixed pair of Funny Criminals who Screw Up. See: Time Bokan, Nadia, Pokemon.
• One set of Real Criminals who are working for the Mysterious Big Boss. Even though their plans are smart and well-executed, they will never win. 
• Assorted cheap-looking CG spaceships, planets, computer readouts, crowd scenes, placards, and camera tricks. Use liberally and without shame. Here's a tip: crowd scenes are easily created by simply using a field of little moving dots.

Directions:
Gather ingredients in two DVDs of three episodes each. Be careful to adhere slavishly to the clichéd anime formula of the Bizarre And Meaninglessly-Named Team Of Well-Meaning Yet Bumbling Female Police People Who Succeed By Accident.

If possible, ensure that your anime is based on a Playstation game, as this one is.

It is essential to include many scenes that highlight your lack of knowledge of the basics of astronomy or physics - the time-honored Object Entering Solar System Passes Every Planet In Order has been used successfully since the early 1970s, but Melty Lancer is notable for inventing new mistakes, such as Passing Stars While Travelling Between Earth And Saturn. You can also point out your ignorance of basic police tactics by having your policewomen threaten criminals with their guns while standing in each other's line of fire. At all times characters will talk before shooting, giving their targets ample time to escape.

The script must include the following: Shocking Revelation that Our Heroes are only being used as a Diversionary Tactic; the Poignant Tragedy of the Doomed Romance between Heroes and Villians; and the time-honored Expository Scene While Character Lies In Hospital Bed, Suffering From Tragic Chronic Incurable Illness. In order to give this production that extra-stale taste, make certain the plot involves a Sentient Super-Computer Out To Destroy The Galaxy. Do not forget to have characters miraculously rescued by the timely invention of a brand new scientific device. One character must appear to be dead to allow the other characters to mope around for twenty minutes.

Character designs should be ugly and unappealing, with bizarre chipmunk cheeks or the lack thereof the only indicator of a character's age. Hairstyles and clothing should be outlandish and impractical.

Animation must be as cheaply produced as possible. Characters must deliver huge chunks of dialog with their backs to the camera or their hands in front of their mouths, or in extreme long shots. Still frames and digital zooms will be used at all times. Point-of-view scenes must involve the camera pitching and swaying drunkenly. Any scene involving a telescope or gunsight must contain a shot through the telescope or gunsight, in order to get the message across to the dimmer members of the audience that a character is using a telescope or a gunsight.

Direct this series so that no scene lasts longer than thirty seconds. Combat scene, hospital scene, comedy scene - no matter what's going on, when your egg timer says thirty seconds, it's time to cut to another scene. This will give the production a schizophrenic aimlessness that will effectively kill any likely dramatic or humorous effects.

Highlights of this title should include highly-trained combat soldiers who fight by ramming their heads into each other, a counterproductive tactic that brings to mind the Sanrio sheep-from-Hell production Ringing Bell. For extra irritation, dramatic climax must involve all characters being transported into a psychedelic freakout dimension where our heroes first whine like babies and then talk the supercomputer out of destroying the universe. Our crybaby male lead should not be merely uncomfortable around girls, but should literally scream in terror whenever touched by a female.

These ingredients- lackluster animation, intrusive and clumsy CG, mediocre character designs, obsessive-compulsive editing, confusing character names, and a script that involves people from other dimensions fighting supercomputers who control terrorist organizations who are starting religious cults in order to harvest DNA in an attempt to destroy space itself- don't combine so much as congeal, and result in what can only be described as an unsatisfying mess.

Extras on the DVD release should include a glossary of completely irrevelant backstory information, including identifying the parents of the main characters. Printing of the DVD label should involve metallic inks that render the artwork and text nearly illegible. This release, if properly half-baked, should serve any amount of non-discriminating viewers who are reasonably undemanding in their entertainment choices. It is suggested that this feature be served alone, as it will suffer in comparison with virtually any other production ever made.

Dietician's Notes:
1. After watching Melty Lancer, I no longer fear death.

guardians of the galaxy at Mister Kitty

Mister Kitty's Stupid Comics takes a look at the 1970s iteration of Marvel's popular space-spanning super hero team, the Guardians Of The Galaxy!  WARNING this comic includes mind-expanding tripped out space god consciousness sequences and sex between ultra-powerful cosmic beings that threatens to destroy - or save - the entire universe!

IT CAME FROM HOLLYWOOD

Over at Corn Pone Flicks' movie review section, I take a fond look back at the greatest badfilm clip show of all time, the movie that launched thousands of us on our voyage of discovery of terrible films from around the world; It Came From Hollywood. 

Hah, hah, hah, hah, hah, hah, hah, hah, hah, hah.

kids love green slime

Godzilla 2000

(In 2000, I won tickets to a special sneak preview screening of "Godzilla 2000". Here, then, is my next-day quickie review.)

Let's get one thing right out in the open. The effects aren't as good, the dialogue is clunky, and Matthew Broderick is nowhere in sight. And yet, this film is STILL ten times more entertaining than that so-called film Sony saw fit to inflict upon us two years ago.

Forget that wimpy computer-generated iguana. This is Godzilla as he's meant to be acted - by a MAN in a RUBBER SUIT. This is a movie where badly-dubbed scientists make dire predictions as a model Tokyo is destroyed behind them through the miracle of explosives and optical printing, where shots of panicky crowds are scattered like rice at weddings, in which even the uranium hell-beams of sixteen-million-year-old flying saucers from outer space are unable to destroy our big green hero.

There is no attempt to connect this film with any other Godzilla film, American or otherwise. So the last Japanese film, Godzilla Versus Destroyer, ended with Godzilla being destroyed? Big deal. Godzilla 2000 starts from first principles - there's a giant monster named Godzilla - and the ride starts there. Re-introducing Godzilla to America by ignoring every movie since the first one isn't a new idea - they tried it sixteen years ago with Godzilla 1984. It led to a new series of films in Japan which completely failed to make it over here except on video, and that wasn't until a few years ago. Will Godzilla 2000 open up America to new theatrical Godzilla releases? On the face of it, I don't think so; but on the other hand, Jean-Claude Van Damme movies keep showing up in the multiplexes, so who can say?

I'd say a few words about the plot, but let's be honest. This is a Godzilla movie; the plot of this movie is two guys in rubber suits pound each other while the fate of the Earth hangs in the balance. Sure, there's a conflict between the amateur science otaku of the Godzilla Prediction Unit and the Government suits who see Godzilla as nothing but a target. There's the dedicated Godzilla hunter who brings his little girl along in the minivan to chase down the big G, the intrepid reporter's award-winning photos are ruined by Godzilla's radiation, and the chief Government scientist is torn between friendship (saving friend) and duty (defeating invaders). In short, there's enough human interest to make us care when Godzilla destroys things. It's not as convoluted as, say, the time-travel back-and-forth of Godzilla Versus King Ghidorah, but that's a good thing.

Like all the best Godzilla movies, the latent heroism in the title character is brought out by the introduction of a monster that's even WORSE, in this case an energy-sucking whatever-it-is that crashed into the ocean millions of years ago. When our government pals dredge it up, they find out that their potential new energy source is instead a malevolent being from outer space capable of hacking into our computers, using up all of our electricity, and extruding parts of itself to form a really ugly giant monster that attempts to absorb Godzilla in one big gulp, meaning, we now have two giant monsters with which to destroy twice as much HO-scale Tokyo real estate.


I'll be blunt. If you're a Godzilla fan, you'll enjoy this movie, and if you think the whole idea is stupid, then you will not. If you expect Hollywood stars and Hollywood special effects then you will be disappointed; Toho's better than ever, but still not up to the standards of expensive old ILM. Old-time Godzilla buffs such as myself will enjoy G's updated, well-wicked look and the frequent directorial nods to classics like Godzilla Versus The Thing and Monster Zero. Of course, old-time Godzilla buffs will also be distracting their fellow movie patrons with comments about how Godzilla really could use Mothra's help or how the Super-X or a Markalite or two is really what's needed in this situation, so choose your movie partners with caution. The dubbing is adequate but rushed in spots, and there are several attempts at humor, some of which actually work. The effects are excellent for a Toho film, which is to say some of the optical printing is not quite as bad as it used to be. The model work is up to their usual high standards, and there's a fair amount of CG that works surprisingly well. On the whole, a lively and welcome return of the one, true, Toho Godzilla.

-D. Merrill

anime I hated: Robotech The Sentinels

Robotech II: The Sentinels is terrible.

The success of the syndicated anime TV series Robotech in the mid 80s meant there was a built-in audience of fans eager to see "the saga" continue, and in 1988 it looked like this was about to happen, with the videocassette release of  Robotech II: The Sentinels.  For a few moments, as fans placed the tape into their VCRs and pressed "play" and waited for the show to begin, it seemed as if all their wishes had come true. Then the video itself started and those hopes came crashing down. Because, as I said, Robotech II: The Sentinels is terrible.

Rather than being edited together, rewritten, and assembled from disparate elements, as the original Robotech series was, The Sentinels was concieved and commissioned from the get-go by Harmony Gold.  Yet due to production problems and various financing crises, The Sentinels we eventually wound up getting was, yes, edited together and rewritten.  As it happens, the original plan to create a 65 episode television series ran into problems when the Plaza Accords revalued the Japanese yen, taking what had at one time been cheaply produced Japanese animation and turning it into more expensively produced Japanese animation. The price tag on The Sentinels ballooned and sponsor Matchbox pulled out, leaving Harmony Gold with a mere three episodes of usable footage. This, along with material from the original Robotech television series, is what we get in our Sentinels. 

The characters, old and new, are distressingly ugly, with a disturbing proportion being old men with terrible hair who are given way too much screen time. Many scenes are merely the backs of  heads or helmeted characters, saving the trouble of animating mouths. As a bonus the audience does get to see the mysterious alien enemies The Invid, who are giant slugs who talk to giant brains. There is a very long scene solely composed of a giant slug talking to a giant brain.

Now, I watched and enjoyed the original Robotech TV series, and I can assure you that this show was not a success because it featured scenes of giant slugs talking to giant brains; it was a success because it featured transforming robot fighter planes, well-animated action scenes, and cute girl singers. Robotech II: The Sentinels has none of this. All the returning characters are uglier and have stupider hair, and the new characters are also ugly and have stupid hair. Popular Robotech singing star Minmay sings once - as part of a duet!! - and we mostly see the backs of their heads. There are dismaying amounts of wrinkled old guys with amazing hairpieces who grind out huge chunks of expository dialog in fake accents. There are two - count 'em, 2 - scenes with transforming robot fighter planes, both of which are training missions. There's a confusing subplot involving a planet on the other side of the galaxy, which may or may not be the home of the Robotech Masters, which is being invaded by the Invid and/or overrun by robot dogs. Again, not something audiences were clamoring for. 

In fact, the story is this: Rick and Lisa and the remaining characters from the Macross part of Robotech go to a space station, where they walk around in terrible new uniforms and talk. Talk talk talk. Rick and Lisa get married. Apparently they are going to launch the SDF3 and go to the homeworld of the Robotech Masters, whoever they are, and ask them why they did what they did whenever they did it. Meanwhile on that self-same Robotech Masters homeworld, old guys in robes (the thrilling Robotech Masters themselves) watch robot dogs prowl a futuristic ruined city. This alien city was destroyed by the alien Invid - different aliens, mind you -  in what would have been the first episode of a Sentinels TV series.  However, being the only interesting thing happening in the three existing episodes, the Invid attack was placed at the climax of Robotech II: The Sentinels, resulting in many scenes of boring bald old robe-wearing Robotech Masters staring at video screens of a ruined planet that, according to the new edit, hasn't actually been ruined yet.



After what seems like an eternity of scenes of hairy nobodies staring at computer screens, the robot dogs overrun the capital city and the hairy nobodies escape into a shelter, where they stare at computer screens some more. Oh, and a giant slug talks to a giant brain.

Robotech II: The Sentinels definitely feels like a failed pilot for a TV series; there are even blackouts for commercial breaks. I don't blame Robotech creator Carl Macek for trying to continue his one successful franchise, sure, fine, whatever. But why Streamline would re-release it years later is anybody's guess. I usually try not to emphasize my mistakes.  

Robotech is a franchise that spawned novels, comic books, games,  a large toy line, and a fandom that continues to this day.  What it hasn't spawned is a satisfying sequel. Not that people won't stop trying. Hollywood continues to option Robotech for feature films, Harmony Gold monopolizes the Macross brand in North America, and the hope of more sequels always springs eternal. My hope is that it won't be another Sentinels. 

-D. Merrill

SPOILERS

Everybody's wondering what's going to happen to Dr Who in the new season. Not me! I know already! And now you will too because here's the nothing but spoilers sneak preview of what's going to happen on Dr Who this season, episode by episode, thrilling minute by thrilling minute, totally not cobbled together out of plot holes and hand-wavingly nonsensical contrivances buttered over with a thick, gooey layer of treacle and fan-wank. No sir!

1. HAMMERHEAD OF THE GODS The Doctor and his spunky female companion - who is from London, mind - land on a crazy planet that is almost but NOT QUITE like England. Some crazy stuff happens and various authority figures attempt to exert their authority but the Doctor cuts them down to size with a chainsaw - I mean, with sarcasm. He reverses the polarity of the neutron flow and saves the crazy planet that is almost but NOT QUITE like England. He almost kisses his companion but is saved by a gay man. Just as the episode is about to end a television turns on and it shows somebody wearing a mask hollering "FORESHADOWING!!!!", and then it cuts to static.

2. MAN, THAT HURTS The Doctor and his spunky female companion land in London present day. It looks normal, but SOMETHING CRAZY IS GOING ON WITH ALIENS!! The Queen tries to exert her authority over Annie Leibowitz but the Doctor shows her the special paper that he thinks reads peoples minds and appears to be an important document, but it actually just says "I am a crazy man with a bomb, do whatever I say" and so the Queen does whatever the Doctor says. It turns out that some important British guy that nobody in the rest of the world has ever heard of is actually a computer-generated space alien and he dissolves in a smokey pile of goo that forms the word FORESHADOWING on the floor. Then the universe explodes.

3. MAN THAT HURTS PART TWO The universe explodes. As it is exploding the Doctor remembers something important, vacuums up the alien goo, puts it in a glass, swallows it, opens a bit of the Tardis console, pukes into it, hits some buttons, and the universe quits exploding. The force of the puking has thrown the Tardis into a crazy time vortex bubble alternate dimension universe where everybody has water spigots in their foreheads and wanders around three dimly lit sets. The round-type spigots are at war with the two-prong spigots. The Doctor is caught in the middle and his companion is about to have a spigot implanted into her forehead. Suddenly he starts just yanking the spigots out of everybody's forehead. Since he's a Time Lord and lives forever he just keeps yanking those spigots out one at a time until fifty or sixty years later he's yanked the spigots out of every forehead on the entire planet. He then goes back in time and rescues his companion for whom it's only been an unpleasant fifteen minutes.

4. RETURN OF THE MASTER The Doctor lands on the Quarry Planet where other planets mine rocks and film BBC series. He's just chilling when the Master suddenly appears. He's got some super new plan to conquer the universe and is sneering about it, but the Doctor says, "I've had enough of your shit" and pulls out a handgun and shoots the Master two or three times. He then buries the body in a convenient gravel pit and leaves a tombstone that has a video screen in it of that scene from MOMMIE DEAREST when Faye Dunaway playing Joan Crawford says "Don't fuck with me, fellas."

5. DALEKS VERSUS CYBERMEN The Sontarans and the Zygons have learned to be peaceful and are having their Space Olympics against each other on Mars in the year 3000. The Doctor and his spunky London companion arrive. The stadium is called "Foreshadowing Stadium." The Doctor says "I don't like this one eentsy-weentsy little bit!" The Sontarans and Zygons all apologize for trying to kill him previously. Several different sexy alien women and two sexy alien guys try to kiss the Doctor, but he always gets distracted and turns away at the last minute. Turns out the Doctor had deadly space bacteria on his lips that unknowingly he'd gotten on there while eating a space burrito on the planet XC44-7, and the aliens all have Super Blistex that will kill the space bacteria before it infects everybody. In space. They concoct a plan whereby the Doctor has to compete in the Galactic Pole Vault and when he lands everybody jumps on him and kisses him, eliminating the bacteria. The Olympics end and everybody goes home and then the Daleks show up wondering where everybody is.

6. DO NOT IGNORE CLEAR DISCHARGE The Tardis goes through a black hole backwards which fractures space time into five hundred different segments. Five hundred different Doctors visit present-day London and get married to five hundred different 18-30 year old London women and they all go off and have dashing adventures in time and space. There's dramatic music and a fade out and it turns out it's all a story being written by an intelligent computer locked in a dungeon on planet Foreshadowing. The first letters of every sentence in his story spell out a secret formula for a super explosive that, when assembled, does something very impressive indeed. At the end of the episode the Tardis arrives and the Doctor pokes his head out and spits.

7. DANGER UX-B.S. Winston Churchill gets really, REALLY drunk one night during WWII and fires a super rocket at Greenland by accident. The rocket bounces off an invisible space ship piloted by a new kind of time-travelling Dalek who exists outside his Dalek casing and actually looks like one of the guys from Milli Vanilli - the not dead one - and who is the last one of his kind and is really really looking for a place to go to the bathroom. The spaceship lands in the middle of Times Square New York on New Years Eve and fifteen thousand people all see it and go "Hot Crackers!" Then there's a really expensive shot of the Pentagon and everybody in it, and then they send out a squadron of B-17s which pretty much bomb the hell out of New York. Hitler parachutes in to make a deal with the Dalek who agrees to help the Nazis conquer the world in exchange for some Charmin. Hitler is just about to suck all the super science knowledge out of the Dalek's brain with a turkey baster when the Tardis arrives and the Doctor shoots the Dalek two or three times with the same handgun he shot the Master with. There's a closeup of the gun, engraved on the slide is the word "Foreshadowing" in flowing script. Oh yeah, he shoots Hitler too, and a couple of bystanders as well. In fact he just goes nuts and starts shooting everybody. Suddenly the REAL Tardis arrives and the REAL Doctor comes out and hands everybody five dollars and tells them to forget the whole thing.

8. OUTER SPACE IS REALLY NOT MY CUP OF TEA, THANK YOU VERY MUCH On a dark planet that we really can't see very well some space aliens are working on a giant piece of machinery that hisses and has lots of tubes and wires. The space aliens are greenish-gray and have three eyes and wear cloaks with little lights. There's a loud noise and lots of smoke and a hatch opens in the machinery. A big thing rolls out. It's Davros who has had the Master's head surgically implanted in his stomach and the Brain Of Morbius sitting on top of his regular brain and a direct compu-cyber link to the vast data banks of the.. shit, I dunno, the Movellians or the Tereliptils or something. Meanwhile on the planet next door the Doctor and his two London-female companions are having a nice vacation. Suddenly everything around them starts exploding. The Doctor pulls a telescope out of his pocket and looks at the other planet and sees the Davros-Master-Morbius guy firing a gigantic laser cannon at the planet he's on. He's just blasting away at that planet. People are running around and screaming and stuff is on fire and blowing up and stuff. Suddenly a really big laser beam penetrates deep into the planet's core and a giant fire demon comes out. It's Satan. He's pissed. Satan flies up to the other planet and even though Davros blasts him four or five times with the laser cannon it bounces off. Satan quotes "Prince Of Space." The Doctor watches it all through the telescope. This was all part of his plan, he says, he knew Davros would surgically attach the Master's head to his stomach and do the thing with the brains and the cyber compu link and start shooting a giant laser cannon at him and release Satan. All the Doctor has to do is sit back and watch Satan kill Davros. Suddenly the Doctor remembers something. He jumps down the hole and goes to Satan's house, where there's another door. He opens the door. It leads to another planet!

9. OUTER SPACE etc PART TWO The Doctor stumbles drunkenly about the other planet which looks just like Cardiff on Earth. He gets arrested for public drunk and is bailed out by a mysterious stranger. It's Rose! He's back on the crazy alternate Earth where he dumped Rose and her boyfriend and her mom and everybody else from Season One & Two that we got sick of seeing over and over and over again. There's a big weepy reunion and everybody cries. The crying goes on and on. A text crawl appears at the bottom of the screen advising viewers at home to take out their Dalek toys and pretend they are having exciting adventures in outer space with Doctor Who, or perhaps enjoy one of the fine novelizations or comics based on Doctor Who, or perhaps go outside and take a walk. The Doctor promptly gets a job as a stockbroker and buys a townhome and spends the next five years watching television. At the end of the five years he looks up and says "Oh crap!" Meanwhile back in the 'real' world Satan has consumed all living things and is now really, really fat. Also bored. Then God shows up and snaps his fingers and everything is exactly the same again, except the Ramones album "Rocket To Russia" is now titled "Rucket To Rossia."

10-13 FORESHADOWING IS YOUR KEY TO QUALITY LITERATURE

This is a massive three-part story that explains everything that has REALLY been happening throughout the entire season, and in fact if you haven't been taking really careful notes you will not have the faintest idea what's going on. The only part I really understood is the part where the Master and the Brigadier team up to fight litter.

There you have it, the entire new season of Doctor Who, all spoiled forever. Let's team up to fight litter.

Star Quest... To Avoid Copyright Infringment

Out of the depths of outer space and beyond the furthest galaxies comes STAR QUEST, the fantastic series of novels released in 1978 that only slightly resembles a popular film of the day! 

The cover of this, the first book, only hints of the Star Warsy goodness inside, but check out the back cover copy for juicy details of the reptiloid Lord Blog, servant of the evil Dark Emperor Ylang-Ylang, as their forces threaten the entire galaxy! And when the second book came out, I wanna say sometime the following month, they ditched the noncommittal SF cover theme and went straight for the Star Wars.

I've flipped through the books and they seem to be boilerplate pulp full of scanner-techs, quadrant formations, murderous reptiloids, hydro-gliders, felinoids of the planet Yahwoo, and the boy genius Ween Leever and his robot techno-companion O-V-1. "Ween Leever"! Oh yeah.

The third book in the series, "Star Force", brought this entire cosmos-shattering saga to a universe rattling conclusion.  Robert E. Mills retreated from outer space, never to write another science fiction novel again... or is there a three-book prequel out there waiting to inflict itself upon an unsuspecting public?