Neglection...
Okay, I've been neglecting this severly. I promise I won't anymore. So, to make up for it, I'm going to write up a review for a movie I recently saw.
Now, as a prelude, I am a die-hard B-movie afficiando. It's one of my hobbies, and my weakness (seriously- what other person is going to go nuts over a chance to get Zombie Lake -one of the most notoriously bad and poorly made movies in existance- on DVD?). I've seen literally thousands of really, really, REALLY bad movies. I've seen the 'good' ones- say, Tremors, Dead Alive ("I kick ass for the Lord!"), and a few other I could mention. After that, it mostly goes from downhill to shooting over a thousand foot cliff in flames. Say, Soul Vengeance (it's about a man who strangles people with his penis and it is, depsite the kick-ass premise, incredibly boring. Seriously. It sucks) and Oasis of the Zombies (yawn), along with the ever terrible Johnny Mnemomic and Elves (no cheery holiday flick here- instead, a godawful snore-fest of Nazis breeding elf assassins). I've sat through things like Elsa: She-Wolf of the SS, which proves I am more of a machoist than the title character is a sadist. I hold a soft spot in my heart for flics like Slugs, and of course I hold John Carpenter movies very close to my heart. That DVD collection, bought on Ebay, sits next to my Diana-Rigg-as-Emma-Peel black'n'white Avengers collection and my complete Outer Limits DVD set. Yes, I am obsessed. In a good way, of course. ;)
But yesterday, I was struck by a movie of such staggering ineptitude that I had to write a review for this abombination. Now, I've been told about this movie by other B-movie fans, and it's a staple of B-worship for its sheerly abominable noxiousness. No, the movie is not Plan 9 from Outer Space. This movie is...
BATTLEFIELD EARTH: A SAGA OF THE YEAR 3000
Let me just give you a quick cap of what this movie is:
> This movie is John Travolta on stilts, dressed up as a Klingon wannabe
> This movie is not learning the main character hero's name until nearly an hour into the film
> This movie is seeing so many camera tilts you'll think this was filmed by a narcoleptic
> This movie is filled with so many badly-executed cliches I thought I was going to puke
> This movie is so full of 'humor' that your sides will split (because you willingly stabbed a butcher knife into your gut to make the pain stop)
> This movie is seeing so many blatant ripoffs of other, much better movies I was surprised no one was sued
> This movie is like like taking a big spoonful of that Ben & Jerry's chocalate ice cream, only to realize that someone ate it already and filled the container with shit.
In short, if other intelligent lifeforms out there ever saw this, they would come to the conclusion that mercy killing our planet would be the safest and most humane thing to do.
A note to Roger Christian (the director of this film): Filming every single scene with a camera tilt and a colored filter, and using center based Powerpoint wipes to change scenes does not make this movie classy. Seriously. And it doesn't look cool. And shooting at least a quarter of this movie in slow-mo only serves to draw out the pain. It doesn't look cool either.
And Barry Pepper (the guy who plays the hero who is unnamed for the first fifty-five minutes of the film)- please, just go die. If not for the fact that the backgrounds were different at the time, I would have thought they were using the same footage when you screamed "noooooooooooooo" when a)your horse died and b)you were told your father had died. You used the same inflection and melodramatic style for both. And dude, it was a horse that you had just picked up....you didn't have any life long attachments or anything.
You know what, I can't even bring myself to relive this movie. You'll just have to deal with the above. And I'll write more often, I promise.
Now, as a prelude, I am a die-hard B-movie afficiando. It's one of my hobbies, and my weakness (seriously- what other person is going to go nuts over a chance to get Zombie Lake -one of the most notoriously bad and poorly made movies in existance- on DVD?). I've seen literally thousands of really, really, REALLY bad movies. I've seen the 'good' ones- say, Tremors, Dead Alive ("I kick ass for the Lord!"), and a few other I could mention. After that, it mostly goes from downhill to shooting over a thousand foot cliff in flames. Say, Soul Vengeance (it's about a man who strangles people with his penis and it is, depsite the kick-ass premise, incredibly boring. Seriously. It sucks) and Oasis of the Zombies (yawn), along with the ever terrible Johnny Mnemomic and Elves (no cheery holiday flick here- instead, a godawful snore-fest of Nazis breeding elf assassins). I've sat through things like Elsa: She-Wolf of the SS, which proves I am more of a machoist than the title character is a sadist. I hold a soft spot in my heart for flics like Slugs, and of course I hold John Carpenter movies very close to my heart. That DVD collection, bought on Ebay, sits next to my Diana-Rigg-as-Emma-Peel black'n'white Avengers collection and my complete Outer Limits DVD set. Yes, I am obsessed. In a good way, of course. ;)
But yesterday, I was struck by a movie of such staggering ineptitude that I had to write a review for this abombination. Now, I've been told about this movie by other B-movie fans, and it's a staple of B-worship for its sheerly abominable noxiousness. No, the movie is not Plan 9 from Outer Space. This movie is...
BATTLEFIELD EARTH: A SAGA OF THE YEAR 3000
Let me just give you a quick cap of what this movie is:
> This movie is John Travolta on stilts, dressed up as a Klingon wannabe
> This movie is not learning the main character hero's name until nearly an hour into the film
> This movie is seeing so many camera tilts you'll think this was filmed by a narcoleptic
> This movie is filled with so many badly-executed cliches I thought I was going to puke
> This movie is so full of 'humor' that your sides will split (because you willingly stabbed a butcher knife into your gut to make the pain stop)
> This movie is seeing so many blatant ripoffs of other, much better movies I was surprised no one was sued
> This movie is like like taking a big spoonful of that Ben & Jerry's chocalate ice cream, only to realize that someone ate it already and filled the container with shit.
In short, if other intelligent lifeforms out there ever saw this, they would come to the conclusion that mercy killing our planet would be the safest and most humane thing to do.
A note to Roger Christian (the director of this film): Filming every single scene with a camera tilt and a colored filter, and using center based Powerpoint wipes to change scenes does not make this movie classy. Seriously. And it doesn't look cool. And shooting at least a quarter of this movie in slow-mo only serves to draw out the pain. It doesn't look cool either.
And Barry Pepper (the guy who plays the hero who is unnamed for the first fifty-five minutes of the film)- please, just go die. If not for the fact that the backgrounds were different at the time, I would have thought they were using the same footage when you screamed "noooooooooooooo" when a)your horse died and b)you were told your father had died. You used the same inflection and melodramatic style for both. And dude, it was a horse that you had just picked up....you didn't have any life long attachments or anything.
You know what, I can't even bring myself to relive this movie. You'll just have to deal with the above. And I'll write more often, I promise.