Tag Archives: Post-Apocalypso

Movies, Reviews

The Island (2005)

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Parts: The Lens Flare Horror
Parts: The Lens Flare Horror

I expected to hate The Island. But 2005 was a real bi-polar year. We all learned what it means to miss New Orleans, but look on the bright side: Batman came back to unexpectedly-viable life, I was enjoying all the benefits of dating a Reed College student, and Michael Bay directed a film that doesn’t totally suck. It’s not good…but it fits in with the general tone of this site a whole hell of a lot better than, say, The Rock. I’m a Sci-Fi geek through and through. Gave up making apologies for that sometime in the early-90s, around the time Star Trek started rocking my world.

As such, I could care less about frat boy circle jerks, like the Bad Boys duology or Pearl Harbor. This film faced longer odds then a sailor on the U.S.S. Arizona on December 7, 1941. And yet it…kinda…sorta…beat them. Continue reading The Island (2005) →

Movies, Reviews

Yor, the Hunter from the Future (1983)

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Suplex!
When Captain America throws his mighty...um...whatever...all those who oppose his loincloth must yield.

Here it is: the movie Bad Movie websites everywhere are obliged to review if they want to flesh out the “Y” sections of their archives. It’s certainly worthy, nominated for three Razzie Awards, including Worst Original Song, Worst Score (it “lost” both to The Lonely Lady) and quite-unfairly-named Worst New Star (he “lost” to Lou Ferrigno).

Not that Reb Brown isn’t a star in his own, strange right. But by 1983 Brown was a long way from “new.” He built up quite the career catching bit parts on every 1970s TV show you might actually remember. Scratch The Six Million Dollar Man, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, The Rockford Files or Happy Days with enough force and you’ll find Reb Brown already there. But fame is a fickle bitch, unwilling to give Reb the time of day even after he played Captain America. Twice.

The 70s were a spiteful decade, driven by desperation…but at least that drove innovation. Occasionally, a truly weird experiment in movie lunacy (like Reb Brown’s first movie, the turning-men-into-snakes epic Sssssss) escaped the wreckage of Hollywood’s old studio system. But the 80s saw Reb slumming more and more as the character of the times changed. The desperate spite of 70s gave way to the angry spite of the 80s, a trend exemplified in the rise of the American Action Movie. Like an intergalactic race of cyborgs, Action Movies rose to international prominence by assimilating everything in its path. Our culture adapted to service theirs. Resistance was futile. And Reb didn’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind was blowing. Continue reading Yor, the Hunter from the Future (1983) →

Movies, Reviews

I Am Legend (2007)

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My eternal friend, the beloved Colonel Giddens, has horrible taste in movies. I swear, I love the girl. As human beings go, she’s the pinnacle of  evolution. We’ve shared many films together, each inflicting untold horrors on the other. Payback is a bitch, and one of these days I’m going to find my old copy of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and the Colonel will pay (oh yes, she will pay) for her enthusiastic recommendation of Michael Bay’s Transformers.

Another day, another drunken stupor.

In the meantime, you and I can hash out the Colonel’s latest recommendation: I Am Legend, a film I dismissed out of hand once I learned the identity of its star. Nothing personal against Mr. Smith; I’ve never met the man. And if, on some planet, on some distant day, I ever have the occasion, I won’t let the fact I that he’s now an adherent of  a certain batshit-insane religion get in the way of being polite. But let’s face it: most of his movies are forgettable trash at best (Wild Wild West), roaring monstrosities at worst (Bad Boys). Memories of his reign as the Fresh Prince of Bell-Air will forever hobble his attempts to be a “serious actor.” What is a man named Smith to do? Another Men in Black sequel? Perish the thought. {More}

Movies, Reviews

Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 (2000)

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A monument to our civilization.Far-Right Fellow Traveler Michael Medved, a radio host and former PBS movie critic, famously declared Ed Wood’s Plan 9 From Outer Space the “worst” movie ever made. This, to the best of my knowledge, is the only true statement Medved’s made since falling into the clutches of now-Vice President Dick Cheney, back in the late-70s when Cheney was mere Chief of Staff to President Ford. Hopefully Battlefield: Earth’s mind-numbing atrociousness will send the insidious alien symbiote posing as Medved’s mustache into some form of toxic shock, finally freeing the poor man’s mind. He’ll stop writing stupid books about the “War on Traditional Values.” Because if he doesn’t, I might just have to declare a few nonsensical wars of my own…

How about a War on Scientology? Like any good disease, L. Ron Hubbard’s pseudo-religion dissevers to be eradicated with a full frontal assault, complete with Concerned Parent Groups and hearings before Senate Committees. Only this can prevent another Battlefield: Earth from polluting the planet’s imagination.

Sometimes I do things that most people, normal people, would consider deliriously stupid. Stupidity so grand that, if any of my friends were to witness it, I’d full expect them to look at me sideways and shout, “What the fuck are you doing?” {More}