My Little Talent

MY LITTLE EYE-2002-6 losers win a chance to make 1 million dollars each if they can all stay together in a secluded cabin for 6 months. The whole thing is being video taped for a reality show. Yeah, right. It becomes obvious they are being manipulated but by whom? Does it matter? Bradley Cooper plays a guy who shows up mid-way through the story to have sex with one of the women. Boring ugly nonsense shot in Canada by a British company by some guy named Marc Evans.

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Burn The Negative!

BUTCHER BOYS-2012-In San Antonio,Texas 4 assholes run into a gang of wise ass cannibals in this inane horror/thriller written and produced by Kim Henkel who wrote the original TCSM. The poor sap is still trying to cash in on that fact and recapture the cult success it brought. Too bad he can only succeed in making more derivative bullshit reserved for the direct to DVD wasteland.

 

To top it off it boasts two directors (Duane Graves & Justin Meeks)  yet can't even come up with one original idea. I rarely say this but avoid at all costs. Use the 86 minutes this turkey runs to do something constructive, like rearranging your sock draw!

 

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Anti

ANTICHRIST-2009-This is more pretentious, self indulging nonsense from Lars Von Trier. You can tell right away by the “prologue” where a couple (Wilhem Defoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg) have sex in slow motion while opera plays. While this is going on their infant son gets out of his crib and falls out a window to his death. The rest of the story (done in chapters) follows the couple as they try and come to grips with their loss. They go to a secluded cabin the the woods but things don't get any better. 

 As usual Von Trier gets actors to embarrass themselves by saying and doing stupid things, exposing their bodies and generally acting idiotic to satisfy his own warped ego mainly fueled by critics who heap inexhaustible praise on this kind of garbage. 

Von Trier doesn't need a movie camera he needs a psychiatrist. There is a dedication to Andrei Tarkovsky at the end.

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Why? Why?

CAPTIVITY-2007-Another in the seemingly unending treadmill of torture-horror-bullshit overrated hits like SAW have inspired. Now more than ever I feel the people who churn out crap like this really need psychiatric help. Don't get me started on the audience!

Jennifer (Elisha Cuthbert from HOUSE OF WAX and THE GIRL NEXT DOOR) is a top fashion model who's drugged at bar and kidnapped and imprisoned by a sadistic nut (Pruitt Taylor Vince). Occasionally she's forced to watch films of the killer torturing previous victims (and also of herself being interviewed). Eventually she meets another captive named Gary (Daniel Gillies; John Jameson in SPIDER-MAN 2). They try to escape a couple of times but don't succeed (unfortunately for the audience). The loony kills her dog and subjects her and Gary to a bunch of disturbing mind games (while watching them on video).

 It has to do with two brothers (Oh! What a giveaway!) who were molested by their druggie mother as kids. Things take a real stupid turn when 2 FBI agents show up. 

One of the screenwriters was Larry Cohen who once made good B-type movies (IT'S ALIVE, THE STUFF, Q). Director Roland Jaffe made films like THE KILLING FIELDS and THE MISSION, so like what happened?

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Stink-A-Roo

SKIDOO-1968-Otto Preminger directed this all-star stink bomb of a movie that tries to be a satire on the ‘60’s Hippie and drug culture and a comedy. It fails in both departments.

Former hit man Jackie Gleason is recruited by Caesar Romero and Frankie Avalon to assassinate a gangster (Mickey Rooney) turning state’s evidence. While in jail he gets help from Frank Gorshin, Michael Considine and Richard Kiel. He also accidentally ingests LSD and has a weird trip. Groucho Marx (in his last film role) is God, leader of the crime syndicate. George Raft is the captain of the ship he hides out on. Carol Channing is Gleason’s wife who sings. Arnold Stang is his friend who’s killed at the beginning. Also appearing: Peter Lawford, Burgess Meridith, Slim Pickens, Fred Clark, John Phillip Law and Austin Pendelton. Harry Nilsson (who also has a cameo) sings the end credits!

Screenwriter Doran William Cannon later wrote BREWSTER MCCLOUD and a TV adaptation of BRAVE NEW WORLD. Otto made this between BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING and TELL ME THAT YOU LOVE ME, JULIE MOON when his once great career was in a tailspin. He’d played the villain “Mr. Freeze” on an episode of TV’s BATMAN in 1966. I’ve read Preminger took LSD while making this movie. He must have been on something…

Apparently this has not been released on DVD (or VHS). One day it may escape!

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New Earth? Why Bother?

SPACEFIGHT IC-1: AN ADVENTURE IN SPACE-1965-A group of space travelers (with kids) are flying toward some Earth like new planet cleverly dubbed “new Earth”. They are lead by a grumpy American Captain Mead Ralston (American actor Bill Williams; everyone else is English which figures since this is a British production). He’s pretty dictatorial and seems also to be a fascist but part of his problem could be that he can’t get his wife pregnant. When one of the female crew is diagnosed with cancer he refuses to turn back and return to “old Earth” to save her life. When the wife kills herself, the remaining morons mutiny. They lock Mead up but he escapes and gets his command back by threatening to blow up the ship. One traveler in suspended animation gets out and walks around zombie like. He ties up the loose ends by murdering the captain. The most unusual crew member is former human doctor now a super computer severed head! A weird part of the story is that Ralston keeps talking about how the crew was “hand picked” to succeed yet everyone is complaining, belligerent and totally unprepared for any problem.

The plot has some merit I guess but this cheap British made Sci-Fi tale is just plain idiotic. One of the kids is played by pre-OLIVER Mark Lester. Director Bernard Knowles did a lot of British TV but two years later would co-direct The Beatles MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR (which was originally made for TV). Canadian screenwriter Harry Spalding wrote THE DAY MARS INVADED EARTH, CURSE OF THE FLY and later the Disney flop WATCHER IN THE WOODS and other things.

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The Curse of Craven

CURSED-2005-Film auteur/hack Wes Craven returns (who told him to come back?) with this too much talk, clichéd, done it all before nonsense. A nerd (Jesse Eisenberg) believes he and his sister Ellie (Christina Ricci) have become werewolves. Joshua Jackson is Ellie’s boyfriend who may also be a wolf person. The wolf SFX aren’t that great and the mix of humor and violence doesn’t work. I wish Craven would learn how to make a good horror film or at least retire! 

Screenwriter Kevin Williamson wrote all 3 SCREAM movies (a fourth one is in production at the time of this writing). Also with Portia Del Rossi and the band Bowling For Soup in one scene. Craven made this between SCREAM 3 and REDEYE.

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Out For The Count!

BODY COUNT is a US/Japanese co-production shot in New Orleans in 1994. It's a haphazard action-revenge flick that's only really redeeming quality is the appearance of Japanese martial arts icon Sonny Chiba!

He plays Macado, a pony tailed assassin responsible for several mob deaths. The porous faced Robert Davi plays an investigating cop who tries to take out Macado at a topless bar. After wrecking the place they manage to capture him (but mistakenly interrogate him in Chinese!).

18 months later he's in prison meditating, doing one arm push-ups and taking flack from guards while serving on a chain gang. He's sprung by former Stallone girlfriend Brigitte Neilsen. Once out, Macado goes around killing cops, trying to find the one who set him up.

At one point Davi's character says "It's the '90's" but the weird disjointed structure of this film makes it seem like something out of the '70's! Com'on! When the highpoint of a movie is that a minor character is wearing a "Residents" t-shirt...well, what more do I have to say???

Actually a lot.

To show how far his career had sunk by this time, Jan Michael Vincent has a small role as a cop who's thrown off a roof. And too much time is spend on Davi's relationship with a female special agent (Cindy Ambuehl). Since Davi looks like his face has been scrubbed with sandpaper why would anyone care whether he gets laid or not???


Despite his bad English Chiba could be a low budget action star (he had a role in KILL BILL VOL.1) but this is too talky and drawn out. He does comandeer a trolley, wreck a bus and kill in various ways (but usually with a samauri sword). Steven Bauer is on hand as a mobster/victim and hardly has anytime to do his usual scenery chewing (I guess that's a plus.....). The topless dancing was ok though......

Many hands were behind the making of BODY COUNT. The weak story is credited to David Prior who has been making his own shitty movies (many of them starring his brother Ted) for untold years. One of BC's producers David Winters has also been on the low budget film scene far too long and even directed ALICE COOPER'S WELCOME TO MY NIGHTMARE TV special and a musical version of DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE starring Kirk Douglas & Donald Pleasance! Really!!!

Director Talun Hsu also helmed WITCHCRAFT 5 and GEDO and has a small role as the Chinese interpreter.



Beware! There are several movies known as BODY COUNT! This one is also called CODENAME:SILENCER. Chiba also made a movie with wrestler Roddy Piper around this time called IMMORTAL COMBAT where he played a good guy.



Go watch STREETFIGHTER instead..



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