Video Game

TEKKEN-2010-Corporations run the world in this futuristic martial arts science fiction Japan/US co-production based on the popular video game series. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (in cartoon make up) is Mishima, head of the Tekken corporation, the most powerful, cruelest, crummiest, not nice corporation of them all. Jon Foo is Jun, a smart ass who's mother (Tamlyn Tomita) is killed by Tekken so he vows revenge. Inside a steel cage death match the skinny boy somehow beats champion Marshall Law (real life MMA fighter Cung Le) so he can compete in Tekken's Iron Fist tournament although his mom told him never to do it. 

TEKKEN mostly plays like the video game it's based on but I'm sure gamers don't like it as it is just fight after fight like any other of it's kind. 

Ian Antony Dale is Mishima's real and arrogant son, Luke Goss is Jun's trainer, Kelly Overton is a female fighter and direct to video martial arts veteran Gary Daniels is a fighter named Bryan Fury. The director Dwight Little was doing mainly TV at the time he made this but in the past made HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MEYERS, a version of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA with Robert Englund, MARKED FOR DEATH with Steven Seagal and RAPID FIRE with Brandon Lee.

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It Would Have Been Better If They'd Met Abbott & Costello!

QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE-1958-It's said that this notorious campy space nonsense started out as a serious science fiction story (the story was by Ben Hecht and the script was written by Charles Beaumont who wrote many classic TWILIGHT ZONE episodes) but I guess when they hired Ben Schwab who produced many of the later "Bowery Boys" entries to produce it and Edward Bernds who directed 3 Stooges shorts to helm it, things got out of control.

Three nutty astronauts (straight laced Eric Fleming, womanizer Patrick Waltz and comic relief Dave Willock) go on a "milk run" to deliver a famous scientist Prof. Konrad (NOT OF THIS EARTH's Paul Birch) to his space satellite. Before they can get here however a mysterious beam destroys the base and sends the ship crash landing on Venus (with Earth gravity and oxygen). It turns out Venus is inhabited by nothing but women lead by the evil masked Queen Ilyana (Laurie Mitchell) who's scarred face makes her hate all men. She also wants to destroy the Earth.

Top billed Zsa Zsa Gabor (some Venusians it seems have Hungarian accents) is Talleah, a scientist and head of a movement to over throw Ilyana ("I hate zat queen!"). The dumb men need women love story seems to be intentional but I think it got out of hand. For an Allied Artists movie it does have Technicolor and Cinemascope which kind of hide the cheesy effects.

Marilyn Buferd (from THE UNEARTHLY) has a small role as a traitor who is vaporized. Joi Lansing and Ralph Gamble have un-credited roles too. Fleming was starring on TV in RAWHIDE at the time. Gabor (still alive at the time of this writing) had a small role in Orson Welles' TOUCH OF EVIL the same year.

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MMA?DNA

CYBORG SOLDIER-2008-This dumb Sci-Fi action drama has been done a zillion times before only the actors change. In this case MMA fighter Rich Franklin plays an emotionless, logical killer cyborg (named Isaac) who escapes his research lab. He hooks up with a female deputy (Tiffani Thiessen) while being hunted by another group of cyborgs. Franklin's trance like robot acting is the unintentional funny highlight of this done to death mundane film. Bruce Greenwood is the head of the project that created Isaac. The director John Steadman was a stunt director on other films.

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Dark and Stormy Crap

DARK STORM-2006-Boring Canadian production involves a secret government project working with dark matter. Two scientists (pudgy Stephen Baldwin and Rob LaBelle) head the project and Baldwin's character becomes electronically charged and there's a lot of talk. The X-Files' William B. Davis is a general who wants to close the project down. The project head is a traitor and dark matter threatens to destroy the world. Director Jason Bourque made shorts and worked in TV before this. I would have had a better time eating Canadian bacon raw than watching this.

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Day The Day The Movie Re-make Ended....

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL-2008-This movie really sucks! Anyone associated with this piece of shit should not be allowed to even make a movie again (except James Hong, one of the last character actors left in Hollywood who has one scene).

Since she won an Oscar Jennifer Connelly is becoming a female Orson Welles.

Keanu Reeves is perfect and idiotic as the alien who comes to destroy Earth. He lacks any of the class Michael Rennie brought to the original role but then what the hell am I saying? Audiences today don’t even realize this is a remake (which it is not anyway…). Please do me a favor and don’t watch this piece of crap (and if you do don’t tell me how wonderful and rewarding it is by watching it, ok?).

Wooo, John Cleese has the Sam Jaffe role! Maybe he and Keanu should have done something with a dead parrot instead!

Director Scott Derrickson had previously made such gems as HELLRAISER:INFERNO and THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE. Oh yeah Will Smith’s son and Kathy Bates are also in it!

Sorry for the rant..thanks for reading it though!





　



　

Galaxy of Corman

GALAXY OF TERROR-1981-Blatant ALIEN rip-off from Roger Corman's New World Pictures finds a group of space travelers send to investigate some strangeness on a distant planet. Grace Zabriskie (TWINPEAKS) is the weird troubled captain. Zalman King is Baelon, the mean, know it all in charge of the mission and top billed Edward Albert is Cabren, his more sensible rival.

Cabren's love interest is Alluma (HAPPY DAYS' Erin Moran), an empath. Other crew members include a pre-Freddy Kreuger Robert Englund (who gets to fight a double of himself), Bernard Behrens, Sid Haig ("I live and die by the crystals"...??), Ray Walston (who's more than just the ship's cook) and Taaffe O'Connell who is featured in the movie's most infamous scene as the crew member that's raped to death by a giant worm.

The team enters a strange pyramid on the planet and most everyone dies violently (Joanie's phony head is crushed, Sid loses an arm, etc.) but it all seems to have to do with an ancient alien "game" that preys on their subconscious fears. In the climax Cabren has to fight a giant slime worm in red lit cave and then most of his reanimated dead crew mates. 

Director Bruce D. Clark (from New Zealand) had made HAMMER with Fred Williamson in 1972. James Cameron was a second unit director.

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Parts Is Parts

PARTS: THE CLONUS HORROR-1979 -Former second Darren Stevens on TV’s BEWITCHED Dick Sargent (who was in Paul Schrader's HARDCORE the same year) runs a camp of young people training to go to a place called America. Surprise! He’s actually in charge a secret cloning project called “Clonus” and is “harvesting” the poor dopes so their vital organs can later be used to save the lives of politicians, millionaires and other evil people.

Meanwhile Presidential shoo-in Jeffery Knight (Peter Graves) campaigns. One camper member and future organ donor named Richard (Tim Donnelley; TV's "Em-ergency") falls in love with the strange looking Lena (Paulette Breen). After he finds a beer can in a nearby river, Richard decides all is not what it seems to be. He runs away and winds up in LA. He steals a bicycle and crashes into the garbage cans of retired reporter Jake Noble (Keenan Wynn). Richard kind of explains his situation (“Can you help me find my other part?”) and Jake argues with his wife (Lurene Tuttle) providing the most entertaining scene in the whole movie!

After viewing a film Richard brought with him Jake takes the clone to meet his DNA counterpart a professor named Richard Knight (Wow! What a coincidence! They are both named Richard!). He lives with his weird looking son Ricky. They seem more like lovers than father and son. Anyway, when Prof. is convinced that Richard is his clone he decides to contact his brother Jeffery who just happens to be running for President. Bad move! Jeff knows all about Clonus and in fact arranged to have the Richard clone made! That’s brotherly love!

The whole thing plays like a typical but slightly more violent ‘70’s TV movie. It’s bad and boring but funny and enter-taining in spots. Director Robert S. Fiveson never made another movie but sued the makers of THE ISLAND in 2005 for plagiarism. I'm not even sure if this was ever released into theaters. I originally saw on cable in the early '80's.

Graves played George Washington in the made for TV THE REBELS the same year as this. Good commercial roles seemed to elude Mission: Impossible's Mr. Phelps until AIRPLANE in 1980 but who can really complain about the guy who played the hero in KILLERS FROM SPACE??

MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 later used this and produced one of their funniest episodes…

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