LAND OF THE LOST (2009)

I don't know what you think, but I say the vast majority of feature films culled from old TV shows majorly bite the big one, so with that fact in mind, coupled with a general apathy toward the overrated comedic talents of Will Farrell, I gave the bigscreen adaptation of LAND OF THE LOST a miss during its bid for summer blockbuster supremacy. Considering how the movie was obviously replete with dinosaurs, sci-fi elements and lowbrow humor, all things that I usually enjoy, me skipping it confused the hell out of several of my friends, but even with my love of stories in which dinosaurs eat each other's heads and also chomp on hapless humans, I was never a fan of the 1970's Sid & Marty Kroft kiddie show that served as the movie's source material. The previous works of the Krofts did little to draw me in — with the hippieish Brit charms of Joy from THE BUGALOOS being a rare exception to that rule — and the dime store dinosaurs found on LAND OF THE LOST looked rather wan to the eyes of a nine-year-old already indoctrinated to the films of Ray Harryhausen (although I did give them props for giving stop-motion a shot on Saturday morning). Come to think of it, one of my grade school contemporaries at the time described the show's baby Brontosaurus character, "Dopey," as looking like it had been cobbled together from freshly chewed bubble gum. I thought that assessment to be more than a little unkind, but the show did bear an undeniably cheesy look and feel that helped to nearly bulldoze over such fascinating elements as Enik (a super-genius lizard-man in a dress) and the mystery of the Pylons, a series of semi-organic formations that served as controllable gateways through time and space (controllable provided you had a clue as to how to operate the damned things). But whatever my own feelings on the series, LAND OF THE LOST lives on in the hearts and minds of those who were there to experience it as it happened, and even its budgetary constraints could not quash its considerable imagination (something that can also be said of DOCTOR WHO back in the days).

So then came the inevitable movie version of LAND OF THE LOST, a film that was met with indifference at best from many critics and outright panning from others, to say nothing of a largely apathetic response from the moviegoing public, thus leading the film's box office receipts to fall short of its production costs. In other words, it bombed. I was surprised by that, especially when taking into account how brain-dead audiences have turned pieces of shit like EPIC MOVIE and PAUL BLART: MALL COP into box office champs. Then AIN'T IT COOL NEWS — a journalistic organ whose critical opinions I give virtually no credence — intrigued me by postulating that the movie's failure lay in the fact that it was improperly marketed, with the studio pushing it on a kiddie audience when the film's content was clearly aimed at a fifteen-and-up audience. Now that I've seen the movie on DVD I have to agree with AIN'T IT COOL NEWS. The bigscreen LAND OF THE LOST was in no way what either the general audience or the original TV show's fans were expecting, taking the show's main concepts and jettisoning nearly everything else to come up with a parody of the concept, what I would consider something like a comedic DOCTOR WHO story as done by Americans, only minus the Doctor and packing a huge special effects budget.

The Land of the Lost: an extra-dimensional dumping ground for all of time and space.

Disgraced scientist Dr. Rick Marshall (Will Farrell), his cute British field assistant and science groupie Holly Cantrell (Anna Friel), and white trash roadside attraction owner Will Stanton (Danny McBride) find themselves hurled through a warp in time and space that traps them in a bizarre inter-dimensional nexus where they encounter hairy and horny proto-human Chaka (Jorma Taccone) and a number of threats in the hostile environment that make nearly every waking moment a fight for their lives. The exact whys and wherefores of how they got there and their motivations once stuck in the Land of the Lost are utterly beside the point and merely serve as a springboard for wall-to-wall live-action (and CGI) cartoon gags, so if you're expecting anything other than that you're shit outta luck. Many of the old school LAND OF THE LOST purists that I know wanted a big-budget rehash of their beloved kiddie show and as a result did not care for the feature film, but when I mentioned all of the stuff that I enjoyed in the movie as a non-fan and an appreciator of a fun parody, they agreed with each item cited. Go figure.

Holly and Dr. Marshall with the "tachyon amplifier," a device that opens a doorway to the Land of the Lost while blaring "I Hope I Get It" from A CHORUS LINE.

As stated, there really isn't much of a story but it's got it's moments, such as:

• Dr. Marshall arrogantly going on and on about a pursuing Tyrannosaurus Rex's allegedly walnut-sized brain when in actuality the T-Rex — a great parodic version of "Grumpy" from the TV series, and after whom this version is named — is not only smart but downright intelligent and it does not take kindly to Marshall talking that condescending shit, thus setting up the film's best running gag.

Grumpy, not at all amused by Dr. Marshall's ignorant trash talk.

• The film's version of Chaka is quite amusing, as is Dr. Marshall's first instinct upon meeting him being to attempt to "benevolently" enslave the ape-man and have himself accepted as his god. When Chaka completely ignores that crap, Marshall's frustrated reactions are priceless.

• There's a male bonding sequence involving Marshall, Will, Chaka and heavy-duty natural hallucinogens that joins the ranks of the classics of the genre.
• If you ever wondered what would happen if a Good Humor-style ice cream truck, complete with uniformed ice cream man, suddenly landed in one of the more hostile areas of Jurassic Park, wonder no more.
• The sequences featuring Marshall on the TODAY show tormenting interviewer Matt Lauer (playing himself) that serve as the movie's bookends are hilarious, especially the one at the end that proves the whole movie was merely one big setup for a punchline at Lauer's expense.

So the bottom line is that LAND OF THE LOST is a fun time-waster of a live-action cartoon that succeeds well enough for what it tries to be and it's definitely more entertaining than the majority of feature films with their roots in old television properties. It's a perfect mellow stoner film with a decent amount of genuine laughs (I laughed out loud several times and was not stoned, BTW), wall-to-wall visuals of interest, a shitload of Sleestak (including Enik) and a terrific take on Grumpy, so I say give it a look when it's on cable or snag it on Netflix.

Will encounters the "ugly" females of Chaka's tribe.

INGLORIOUS BASTERDS (2009)

 

 Quentin Tarantino's INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS was a movie I meant to see on the big screen but missed thanks to every single show I tried to get into being sold out, so I figured I'd wait until it hit DVD. Well, less than four months after its U.S. theatrical run it's out on disc and I sat through it the other night, fully expecting an R-rated, ultra-violent, cussing-riddled Q.T. version of SGT. FURY AND HIS HOWLING COMMANDOS, but what I got was something else entirely.

I read the film's script when it was leaked to the Internet (however long ago that was) and figured what I read was most likely going to see several revisions before it finally hit the screen, simply because the movie read more like some kind of WWII-set arthouse flick rather than the kind of non-stop violence-fest I would have expected from Tarantino. Let's face it: when evaluating the guy's filmography it's impossible not to realize that what he's succeeded in building his career on is crafting what are basically high-end exploitation movies. To some degree each of his films has taken the tropes of a given exploitation mainstay genre — crime thrillers, blaxploitation, revenge/chopsocky flicks — and stripped them of their low-budget rawness while infusing them with a "quality" Hollywood look and not losing an ounce of that signature exploitation visceral charge, and now Tarantino applies his grunge-film makeover skills to the brutal WWII "mission" genre, and the finished product did indeed undergo a number of tweaks from what I read in the script, including the loss of my favorite scene, but I'll be getting to that shortly.

WARNING: If you intend to read any further, keep in mind that here there be spoilers.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (a title whose spelling is at no point explained in the film) is ostensibly about a behind-enemy-lines mission undertaken by commanding officer Aldo "The Apache" Raine (Brad Pitt, chewing up the scenery in unashamed and ludicrous full-blown good ol' boy mode) in which he and his all-Jewish squad of American commandos wage a war of terror against their Nazi foes. Making a name for themselves as a deadly scourge of the Boche, Raine and his "Basterds" mercilessly exterminate all comers and mark any they chose to let live to spread the word of their terroristic activities with a swastika carved into their foreheads with the tip of Raine's Bowie knife, an act that strikes deep terror into the hearts of Nazi scum everywhere.

The Bear Jew (Eli Roth) and Aldo the Apache (Brad Pitt) do what they do best, and it sure ain't pretty.

When the Basterds are assigned to wipe out the German political/military hierarchy while said officials attend a film premiere in occupied France, their plans coincidentally collide with a similar agenda held by Shoshanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent), a French Jew who escaped the massacre of the rest of her family at the hands of Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), a Nazi whose renowned knack for tracking down Jews earned him the nickname of "the Jew Hunter." Escaping from Landa some four years before the real meat of the story takes place, Shoshanna inherited a movie theater in Paris (stocked with an impressive library of highly flammable reels of old film prints) and through various plot machinations ends up being forced to host the aforementioned premiere.

Shoshanna (Melanie Laurent) steels herself for the premiere of "Nation's Pride."

Filled with a desire for righteous vengeance, Shoshanna, aided by her lover (Jacky Ido), aims to trap Hitler, Goebbels, Goering and other high-ranking officials within her cinema and burn the place to the ground. As the plans of the Batserds and Shoshanna converge, an apocalypse of carnage is guaranteed, but will the good guys prevail or will they end up just another statistic on the Third Reich's score card?

That's the basic setup and it sounds like fertile ground for a slam-bang WWII-era actioner, no? Well lemme tell ya, bunky, if you're looking for action, you've come to the wrong war movie. Rather than being the DIRTY DOZEN-style pic the trailers led one to believe it was, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS is more of a somewhat-highbrow WWII epic with arthouse pretensions that is by no means a bad movie, but it is definitely not all that it's been cracked up to be. Let's break it down, both the good and the not-so-good (there's very little here that is outright bad):

• The movie is over two-and-a-half hours long and there is perhaps a total of ten minutes of action/mayhem. Not good for a war movie that advertises itself as an action flick.
• Despite being the title characters, the Basterds are given virtually no development and consequently register less as characters than as interchangeable plastic army men. The small exceptions to this interchangeable aspect are Lt. Raine, psychopathic German/former Nazi team member Hugo Stiglitz (Til Schweiger), and the menacing Donny Donowitz (Eli Roth), aka "the Bear Jew" who savagely beats Nazis to death with a baseball bat, but the minuscule development they receive is not sufficient to make us connect with them as heroes. The remaining Basterds are cannon fodder at best.

• For all intents and purposes the film really belongs to Shoshanna and her plan for revenge, which is simultaneously given a boost and a thorn in her side when she catches the attention of young Nazi war hero Frederick Zoller (Daniel Bruhl). Zoller stars in "Nation's Pride," a feature film dramatizing a battle in which he picked off scores of men while holed up in an unreachable tower, and he attempts to win over Shoshanna with his status as a star, not knowing he doesn't stand a chance with him thanks to her justifiable loathing of Nazis. Much of the film has to do with Shoshanna's futile and frustrating attempts to give the young soldier the brush-off, but his efforts to win her over include him convincing Goebbels to hold the film's premiere at her cinema, thus cementing the location for the grand finale.

• While not as oppressive with his cinematic cherry-picking and references this time around, Tarantino did annoy the living shit out of me by using David Bowie's "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" as a would-be mood-setter as Shoshanna gets ready for the big premiere evening. That song is indelibly linked to Paul Schrader's (1982) remake of CAT PEOPLE, and those of us who've seen that film cannot hear that tune without having flashbacks to hallucinatory sandy dreamscapes, horny panthers and a sultry Nastassja Kinski, so finding its dance floor-flavored throb juxtaposed against a WWII setting is both jarring and incongruous. Yeah, I get that Shoshanna is "putting out the fire" of the entire Nazi hierarchy by trapping them and immolating them, but the use of that song was just too on the nose.
  

• Christoph Waltz's Hans Landa is a terrific villain and completely steals the movie whenever he's onscreen.
  

The superb Christoph Waltz as the vile yet utterly charming Hans Landa, aka "the Jew Hunter."No lie, this guy deserves the Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

Landa is smooth as greased otter shit, an accomplished detective (albeit one who puts his considerable talents to highly questionable uses), quite charming, a polyglot with apparently native speaker fluency (which is a huge problem if you're trying to get disguised enemy operatives past him, as happens during the story) and a pragmatic opportunist of the highest order. When it comes to bad guys, Hans Landa comes from out of nowhere to make my Top 10 list of the best villains of the past fifty years, so make of that what you will. In fact, I think Tarantino's biggest error was in not devoting a whole movie to the character, especially since Tarantino looooooooves characters who like a good conversation, but audiences may have suffered from the CLOCKWORK ORANGE effect had that been the case, and would probably have left the theater realizing they'd been made to care about a piece of human garbage. Very charming garbage, yes, but refuse nonetheless.

• By far the worst thing in the film is the ill-advised inclusion of Mike "Austin Powers" Myers in the role of a high-ranking British military official. When he shows up in a uniform and makeup that renders him balding, bewhiskered and graying, the viewer cannot help by say, "Hey! That's Mike Myers! What the fuck is he doing in this film?" Seriously, when he appears he launches into more of his tired U.K.-accented schtick, although not (?) meant to be humorous in this context, and his miscast and intrusive presence brings the movie to a dead stop and completely removes the viewer from the "reality" that the film had thus far successfully set up.

• In Tarantino's original script, there was a powerful explanation of why Donny Donowitz wields a baseball bat against Nazis, namely that he'd gone throughout his neighborhood and asked all the Jews who still had family in the old country to write the names of their loved ones on his bat, thus infusing it with power to be used against the enemies of their people. I dunno what you have to say about it, but that's some major mythic shit that I completely understand and feel would have gone a long way to give the Bear Jew a stance as a righteous avenger instead of just presenting him as some creepy thug with a bloodied Louisville Slugger. Do yourself the favor and track down the script online, then read the sequence where Donowitz explains his mission to an old lady in his neighborhood. Very strong narrative stuff that is nowhere to be found in the final product.

• For those of you who hate sitting through films with subtitles, bear in mind that a good two-thirds or more of INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS is in French, German and a smattering of Italian, so have your reading glasses at the ready. I enjoyed this aspect of the film because the speaking of native languages only adds to the authenticity.
  

• For me the film seemed less like a straight-flowing narrative and came off like a collection of well-shot and well-acted one act sequences, most of which were of interest and occasionally compelling and suspenseful as hell. That said, the movie did not work for me as a cohesive whole work. There was just...something missing, and I can't quite figure out what.

Bottom line, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS looks great and is definitely worth sitting through once, but I find it odd that the film fleshes out everybody except the guys who you'd think were supposed to be the main characters. Perhaps this was Tarantino's attempt to outgrow his more overt exploitation influences, but I found it to be a valiant near-miss. And for the record, out of Q.T.'s entire filmography, I would rate this admittedly opulent and well-acted work as last in my estimation of his work. Some of his other films are flawed, but this is the only one I would never sit through again (although I could be tempted back just to see Christoph Waltz again).

THE CINE-MISCREANT MOTHER'S DAY FILM FESTIVAL

Yes, it's once again Mother's Day, the annual recognition and appreciation of those from whose tortured loins we emerged into this cruel, cruel world. If you're lucky you get a mom who loves and nurtures you, but if you are not so fortunate, you could end up with a mom like one of the ladies to whom I here pay tribute. If you have not seen these movies, you have missed some fine examples of motherhood at its most heinous, sleazy, insane and diabolical. In other words, that's entertainment!

STIFFLER'S MOM from AMERICAN PIE (1999)

While she's definitely a het high school male fantasy come true, Stiffler's mom (Jennifer Coolidge), the character who introduced the term "M.I.L.F." to the common lexicon, is a disturbing fusion of classy, sexy and sleazy as hell. I understand that a cougar's gotta do what a cougar's gotta do, but you don't fuck one of your son's underage best friends, especially not during a party in your own house, and on the pool table, no less. An act compounded by being witnessed by her understandably appalled son.

VIOLA FIELDS from MONSTER-IN-LAW (2005)

Even though her insane obsession and evil was directed at the horrendous Jennifer Lopez, Jane Fonda as the ultimate mom who could not let go of her son cannot possibly be considered a hero.

"MOTHER" from MOTHER'S DAY (1980)

What can you really say about an aged Aunt May-type who lives in the deep woods of New Jersey and teaches her pair of mentally ill sons to rape, murder and torture innocent victims because it's fun? She's so fucking sick that she actually has an area in the backyard reserved for private "shows" in which her boys act out scenarios using terrified young women they've kidnapped in the female roles, such as "cute girl sitting on a park bench," and this mad form of "theater" inevitably ends with the poor girl in question being beaten and tag team raped while mom watches with a huge smile on her face.

MRS. BATES from PSYCHO (1960)

I know this entry is a major spoiler, but if you have not seen this movie by now, you really have no excuse. We never see Mrs. Bates when she was alive — that's covered in PSYCHO IV: THE BEGINNING (1990) — but we can judge her by what she wrought, namely her creepy, taxidermy-obsessed, sexually-confused and ultimately murderous cross-dresser of a son with a split personality, Norman, who single-handedly embodied what later became known as the "slasher" archetype for nearly two decades before the actual slasher genre even got started. So fucked up was her son, that he heard her screeching and scornful voice in his head long after her demise, and any thoughts of lust were soon superseded by mother's desire to crush that sort of thing by any means necessary...

MARY from PRECIOUS (2009)

Probably the most realistically portrayed character on this list, Mary qualifies as a mother only insomuch as she gave physical birth to the story's utter victim of a title character. Way too close to reality, Mary is a horrid, horrid creation, and Mo'Nique's ultra-disturbing portrayal of her was completely deserving of the Oscar she won for it.

BETH JARRETT from ORDINARY PEOPLE (1981)

Mary Tyler Moore killed her sweet, kooky and perky image and buried it stone-cold tits-up dead with this Oscar-nominated portrayal of an embittered and emotionally abusive mother who cruelly torments her remaining son in the wake of her favored older boy's untimely death.

JOAN CRAWFORD from MOMMIE DEAREST (1981)

In a simultaneously brilliant and completely over-the-top performance, Faye Dunaway chews up the scenery like a rabid wolverine on a fistful of Stud City animal stimulants as Hollywood legend Joan Crawford in the film adaptation of Crawford's real-life adopted daughter's tell-all bestseller. Say it with me: "No wire hangers, EVER!!!"

MARGARET WHITE from CARRIE (1976)

Being a physically and emotionally abusive mother is one thing, but throw in utter madness and waaaaaay out of control religious mania and hangups about sex and you have the worst person possible for raising an introverted, socially ostracized girl who has just experienced her first period. Abused, perpetually fearful and practically driven insane by her mother since childhood, poor Carrie's body signalling her ascent into womanhood sets into motion a tragedy of epic proportions, and it does not help that Carrie, denounced by her mother as some sort of Satanic abomination, is a powerful telekinetic... Though nominated for the 1976 Supporting Actress Oscar for this performance, Piper Laurie was denied that honor when the statue went to 12-year-old Jodie Foster as a child prostitute in the excellent TAXI DRIVER. Foster was quite good, but if you ask me Laurie was unfairly robbed and the Academy gave Foster the Oscar because she was a kid playing a whore. NOTE: Actually it was Beatrice Straight who won for NETWORK; I misread the info during my research. Well spotted, Laser Rocket Arm! It's loyal readers like you who keep this blog on its toes.

ELEANOR ISELIN from THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962)

This Oscar-nominated role forever made it impossible for me to think of MURDER, SHE WROTE's Angela Lansbury as anything other than coldly evil. I can't explain why without giving away the intricacies of the film's exceptional plot, so just rent it. TRUST YER BUNCHE on this one.

ROSE-ANN D'ARCY from A PATCH OF BLUE (1965)

In what is my all-time favorite tearjerker movie, Shelley Winters deservedly copped an Oscar for her portrayal of the drunken, uncouth, aging white trash whore who intentionally keeps her blinded-by-acid teenage daughter uneducated and helpless, all while plotting with her best friend (who's another long-in-the-tooth prostitute) to start her own whorehouse with her blind daughter as her first rent girl, partly figuring that it was the logical thing to do since her kid had been "done over" when left alone with one of her mother's horny Johns. Rose-Ann maliciously beats and verbally abuses her daughter, Selina (heartbreakingly played by Elizabeth Hartman), and things only get worse when Selina forms an innocent friendship with Gordon (Sidney Poitier) as she sits alone in the local park, threading beaded necklaces that her mother sells to a local sweatshop. Being blind, Selina at first has no idea that Gordon is black, and since he's the first person who's been kind to her in years, going so far as to teach her basic survival skills over the course of their association, Selina, who's definitely blossoming into full-on womanhood, begins to fall in love with her friend and the feeling is mutual. Then mom finds out... No bullshit, if you have not seen or heard of A PATCH OF BLUE, rent it immediately.

THE MACHINE GIRL (2008)

Dear Readers-

if you, like me, are fed up with movies that promise heaps of action, gore and blistering violence but then pussy out in every possible way, allow me to direct you to THE MACHINE GIRL, a live action Japanese offering that is so balls-out crazy and over-the-top across the board that it brought an ear-to-ear smile to my face. 

I was intrigued by this film's trailer when I saw it several months ago, so when I stumbled across the movie itself while DVD shopping on Friday I figured I'd take a chance on it, and, hoo-boy, am I glad I did. I've frequently decried the shit quality of many recent action flicks from the Land of the Rising Sun, but this one gets a solid 10 out of 10 for its unfailing intent to give the bloodthirsty audience exactly what it wants. And then some! It's the goriest film I've seen in who knows how long, and as per what you'd expect from the Japanese it's barking mad in its over the top carnage and violence; no bullshit, I had exclaimed "Holy shit!" no less than three times before the movie was even five minutes into its running time.

A sterling example of the tried and true "you killed my brother" revenge genre, THE MACHINE GIRL takes the story of a high school girl named Ami (Minase Yashiro, in her film debut) who seeks retribution for her younger brother's murder at the hands of a pack of sadistic bullies and sends it clear into the stratosphere of mayhem-laden ass-whuppin' by rendering the sanguinary set pieces as impossibly and cartoonishly spewy as is possible to depict, all while maintaining a brisk pace that barely allows viewers time to catch their breath. The character development is minimal at best, and once the heroine's motivation is established, it's off to the races. To put it as simply as the film does, Ami tracks down the bullies and metes out justice accented with geysers of blood and entrails, losing her left arm in a one-two punch of a tempura deep-frying and a samurai sword dismemberment along the way, eventually replacing her missing limb with a fully functional assault helicopter's machine gun — complete with a seemingly endless supply of rounds — and, near the film's climax, a chain saw originally wielded by her garage mechanic ally.

A bit from the chainsaw fight, before the spewing blood was added.

And as if that isn't enough, the cowardly asshole who leads the bullies is revealed to not only be a spoiled Yakuza prince, but also the heir to a clan of ninja descended from the legendary Hattori Hanzo himself, so we also get modern day ninja action thrown into the mix for good, extra-stupid measure. It's an orgy of bloodshed, creative demises, loony superheroics, and a complete disconnect from reality in one of those worlds where the police simply do not exist until well after the participants in the mayhem have bled out, and I thoroughly enjoyed every frame of the damned thing.

As you've probably gathered, THE MACHINE GIRL is unrelentingly excessive, but the film is so crazy that it soon veers into outright parody of its own genre and is frequently hilarious because it's all played totally straight, with heaps of ass-kicking and violence committed by a cute schoolgirl in one of those now-fetishized school uniforms. And what's not to love about a film featuring the return of the favorite weapon of all us martial arts movie buffs: the venerable "flying guillotine?" And, yes, there's more than a bit of a debt owed to both PLANET TERROR (2007) and ARMY OF DARKNESS (1992), but I had more fun with this movie than both of those flicks combined (and I liked both of them to varying degrees). And just so we're absolutely clear on this, Peter Jackson's DEADALIVE (aka BRAIN DEAD, 1992) still gets my vote as the goriest film ever made — or that it's even possible to make — but THE MACHINE GIRL gives it a damned good shot at the title, and it's entertaining as a motherfucker. TRUST YER BUNCHE and put THE MACHINE GIRL at the top of your Netflix queue immediately!

Ami (Minase Yashiro), in sore need of a shower.

CURSE OF BIGFOOT (1976)

In the glorious days of pre-cable TV wherein one could find any number of local movie shows, cash-strapped regional stations would occasionally fill out their film schedules with bottom-of-the-barrel and most likely public domain flicks that would be broadcast at Jesus o’clock in the morning and be viewed mostly by insomniacs or the heavily self-medicated. These celluloid stink bombs would mostly come and go, being run only once, but every now and then there would be one that stood above the pack and would be remembered for all time as a movie so mind-bendingly terrible that it was literally unbelievable. In the days of my misspent East Coast youth, no film exemplified this misbegotten breed like 1976’s CURSE OF BIGFOOT, a movie that ran with surprising frequency on New York’s WOR-TV (aka Channel 9) and became a minor cult classic to myself and several of my like-minded friends. We first witnessed its anti-spectacle in the late 1970’s and we’ve been devoted to it ever since, it being the first film I ever saw that led to me to describe it as being so boring, worthless and bad that it somehow manages to transcend its own awfulness and become a thing of perverse fascination.

It’s probably impossible these days to convey to those who weren’t there for it just how much of the 1970’s seemed like everybody was stoned, including the president, and this perceived pot haze clouded pop culture with many strange fads and manias, among which could be counted “weird phenomena” stories of shit like the Bermuda Triangle, U.F.O.’s and other assorted strangeness that became mesmerizing after a few bowls of Indica. But the heavy-hitter of the genre had to be the nation’s fascination with Sasquatch, more commonly known as “Bigfoot,” a shaggy forest-dwelling specimen of cryptozoology who memorably teamed up with the Six-Million Dollar Man. I don’t recall exactly when the Bigfoot craze caught on but I do remember the country being inundated, seemingly overnight, with books, cheapjack horror movies, TV specials and pseudo-documentaries about the hairy bastard, and while I dig the idea of the missing link/nature spirit or whatever the fuck Bigfoot was supposed to be, I must admit that I never really got exactly why the creature was so popular. There was never much by way of concrete proof of its existence, the most famous example of which is the short out-of-focus 1967 film purported to be of an actual Bigfoot crossing a road that looks to me like some Amazonian woman in a rented gorilla costume; I say “woman” because in the famous out-of-focus still shot of Bigfoot taken from the film it looks like Bigfoot’s rockin’ a decent rack.

The alleged real-life Bigfoot from the famous 1967 film. Is it just me, or does it look like Bigfoot's sportin' titties?

But whatever the case, Bigfoot became an indelible part of the Seventies zeitgeist and low-budget filmmakers were only too willing to crank out shitty flicks to cash in on the craze and rook moviegoers out of their hard-earned greenbacks. None of the Bigfoot movies were any good, in fact most of them were downright terrible, but not one of them even begin to approach the nadir of quality that is CURSE OF BIGFOOT, a work that appears to have been cobbled together from a poorly-made and totally-unrelated-to-Bigfoot attempt at a horror film, a scene taking place in a classroom that looks worse than one of the educational flicks they used to run in health class, a staggering amount of seemingly random stock footage and, last but certainly least, what meager footage was available from an apparently unfinished 1958 would-be monster movie entitled TEENAGERS BATTLE THE THING. A true oddity, the film was not inaccurately described on the Internet Movie Database’s “user comments” section with the headline “A Sasquatch could make a better movie,” a sentiment I share after having sat many times, slack-jawed in disbelief, through this sole effort of director Don Fields.

NOTE: as of this point, this review becomes an in-depth examination of CURSE OF BIGFOOT's anti-grandeur, so if you want to see it for yourself and save the threadbare surprises I advise you to stop reading right now and get your hands on the DVD or check it out in chapters on YouTube.

The legs of Bigfoot as seen during the pre-credits sequence. Note the stunning cinematography.

The film opens with a glimpse of the distant past that wouldn’t have passed muster on IT'S ABOUT TIME as a narrator “ominously” fills us in on a strange creature that would kill cavemen for no apparent reason. That creature was known as…(Wait for it!)…Bigfoot!!!

Oh, shit! It's Bigfoot!!!

Suddenly, in what is unquestionably the film’s only almost-exciting moment, a monster meant to be Bigfoot runs face-first and full-tilt into the camera and mauls an unseen caveman to death (unseen save for an arm with crepe hair crudely glued to it, that is), causing chocolate syrup to run down a boulder in a poor substitution for stage blood. The titles then roll and list a cast of non-stars (such as Ken Kleopfer, Ruth Ann Manella, and Bill Simonsen as Dr. Bill Wyman) as the camera for some reason delights our eyes with what appears to be elementary school documentary footage of Native American cliff-dwellings and caves which has squat to do with Bigfoot.

The film then shifts to a nigh-interminable sequence featuring a nighttime scene in which a woman scolds her dog for barking at what she assumes is some wild animal but is in actuality the slowest-moving, most nondescript and bogus-looking monster in recent memory.

Exactly what the fuck is this monster supposed to be? Anybody?

The monster lurks in the bushes or aimlessly shambles along while the camera can’t make up its mind as to whether it wants to show us the monster, the dog, the woman or random shots of the house or the dripping spigot to which one would attach a garden hose. After what feels like a short suspense-free eternity, the monster finally makes it to within arm’s length of the woman and makes his move, but we don’t get to see what happens because the footage abruptly comes to a halt when it’s revealed that we’ve been watching a movie along with a classroom full of teenagers who have themselves been watching the pitiful horror movie; the film has been shut off by the class’ professor who states something to the effect of “Well, I think you all get the idea,” thus simultaneously leaving his students and the audience feeling distinctly gypped.

This teacher’s acting is smarmy to the nth degree and comes off just as vile and unctuous as any seventies-era gameshow host, only minus any shred of charm. Of far more interest (?) is the classroom full of students, comprised of a bunch of young actors whose faces betray the unmistakable look of being both bored and stoned, providing a screen image that in more artful hands would have been intentionally meant to comment on what was likely the mindset being experienced by the viewing audience.

The stoned and bored-looking students: an ironic comment on the audience?

Alas, the film does not give us time to consider such an artistic possibility and instead allows the teacher of what is apparently a myths & legends course to whip out a placard with an illustration of Bigfoot emblazoned upon it and expound upon the existence of the hairy bastard.

"And for those students who speak Ebonics, this here nigga is Bigfoot, muthafukkas!!!"

So begins a veritable Cannes Film Festival of stock footage meant to convey the search for Bigfoot, footage including incongruous shots of assorted radar arrays,

maps and shit,

light aircraft flying at an altitude guaranteed not to allow a clear look at anything other than miles of tree cover, let alone a Sasquatch,

and copious footage depicting the logging industry.

I shit you not; the fucking logging industry!!!

To further drive home his point — nebulous though it may be — the professor then regales us with the "true encounter" had by two gurk-gurks out driving aimlessly through the backwoods. After about three solid minutes of shots of their truck slooooooowly meandering over small hills and around trees, the yokels spot...Bigfoot!

The Hairy One casually saunters across the road and vanishes into the brush, causing the stunned (stoned?) drivers (about whom we know absolutely nothing) to stop the truck and get out to investigate. The pair consists of a dude who looks like a long-lost member of SCTV's MacKenzie Brothers

and a mulleted wonder who's pretty much the living embodiment of the mid-1970's burnout who hung around shopping malls, parking lots and fast food joints looking to score some weed or underage pussy.

The mid-1970's burnout, far removed from his natural habitat of shopping malls and parking lots.

These two veeeeeeeery sloooooooowly search the brush for any sign of Bigfoot, traipsing through brambles, random branches and such, wasting nearly ten suspense-free minutes during which time we get a brief glimpse of the monster's right foot that stiffly twitches.

The right foot of...Bigfoot!!!

Sadly, our intrepid explorers don't get to see that horrifying sight and instead continue to wander about aimlessly. Finally the burnout hears the sounds of his pal being horribly mauled — which is conveniently not depicted for the edification or entertainment of the audience — and runs to his friend's aid, but too late: the lost MacKenzie lays dead and the burnout reacts with less emotion than he would have expressed if he'd spilled his bong in the rear of his bitchin' customized van.

The lost Mackenzie Brother lays dead, viciously mauled by a rapacious Bigfoot...

...while his burnout pal reacts with a depth of emotion that fairly screams "Bummer, dude."

That sub-IN SEARCH OF re-enactment goes on for so long that you'll swear you'd felt your facial hair grow, an effect compounded by whatever intoxicants may be running rampant through your system. (Which reminds me that I neglected to mention that CURSE OF BIGFOOT should not be attempted without beers, hard liquor or copious amounts of weed within easy reach, although I'd make an exception to this rule in the case of my clean-livin' buddy Jared. Get ready for it, dude. One of these days I'm going to inflict this one on you!)

Before we're given a chance to regain our composure following that exercise in flesh-crawling horror/boredom, class resumes with the bored/stoned students identifying old woodcuts of mythic beasts while turning in performances that would have embarrassed the cast of Mrs. Gage's fifth grade production of WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? But then things take a turn for the worse when the professor's special guest shows up, a creepy bespectacled guy who claims to have firsthand experience with a vicious Bigfoot, an event from some fifteen years previous.

"Kids, I had an encounter in the woods with Bigfoot, and...Hey! Stop laughing! This shit's serious!!!"

Following what's supposed to be an ominous lead-in (that isn't the least bit ominous) to the tale he's about to tell, the movie suddenly turns into a no-budget horror flick from the 1950's, complete with obviously different film stock and another opening narration, a jarring effect that not only makes the viewer think they've downed some off-date Piel's, but also leads one to conclude they've been trapped in a cruel cinematic Moebius strip that will randomly re-start the film over and over again for all of eternity, with each new beginning helmed by a completely new director.

Of far less interest than the patchwork incoherence/boredom festival/endurance test of the film's earlier segments, the 1950's mini-movie is merely a deadly-dull account of a teacher and his students discovering a mummified Bigfoot in a hillside cave and what happens when said critter gets loose. There's a little bit of dimestore mayhem before Bigfoot meets an untimely and uninteresting death by immolation, but before we're finally granted the mercy of the familiar words "The End" we're forced to endure scene after scene of some boring Eisenhower-era white folks wandering around some nondescript hills for what you'd swear was the entire running time of the U.S. version of BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ.

Can your heart stand the excitement?

Even when the monster goes on the rampage, not one single thing of interest happens, and when "The End" does finally pop up the film just abruptly comes to a complete halt. No cutting back to the anguished Bigfoot massacre survivor, no summing up from the professor, no comments from the class, no twist ending, no anything. The shit just ends and the viewer is left to sit in silence for a few moments, reeling from the cumulative boredom and confusion, but thankful that they didn't spend the cash to see it in the theater. Yes, you read that right: CURSE OF BIGFOOT was apparently actually released onto the big screen, probably to the drive-in circuit, a wasteland where the attendees were more often than not too concerned with getting stoned or fucking to care if the movie being shown was the cinematic equivalent to an empty McDonald's Big Mac container.

But believe me when I say I'd have loved to have seen this monument to how not to make a movie if it had played theatrically during my youth. Films of this ilk are best enjoyed with an unwitting audience of liquored-up grindhouse regulars who enliven such flicks with their non-stop barrage of often vulgar commentary and impromptu insinuation of themselves into the movie's events with observations such as "If I was in this movie I'd've kicked that muthafukkin' Bigfoot muthafukka right in the fuckin' nuts!" which would probably have been answered back with "You wouldn'ta done shit 'cuz Bigfoot would be too busy bonin' you up the ass!" We may not have seen it projected, but my friends and I had a field day with CURSE OF BIGFOOT whenever it aired on Channel 9, and just the other night myself and my friend of twenty-six years, Chris, sat through it yet again and laughed ourselves silly. There are those who slag off Ed Wood and his films as being the worst ever made, but at least Wood had a unique vision all his own and legitimate desire to make viable movies; CURSE OF BIGFOOT appears to have been cobbled together from spare parts with naught on its mind save ripping-off the moviegoing public, and it certainly succeeds at that dubious goal, and what entertainment can be garnered from its towering ineptness was almost certainly not intentional.

Bottom line: CURSE OF BIGFOOT is exactly the kind of film that should be considered when trying to define "the worst movie of all time," a flick lacking any of the things that make a movie legitimately entertaining in the first place, such as characters you care about in any way, thrills, romance, a coherent plot, gratuitous titties, graphic violence, talking dogs, anything. Being wholly without merit, CURSE OF BIGFOOT is recommended only for those who have worked their way through the Thirty-Six Chambers of Bad Moviedom and attained the Zen-like mastery needed to weather its complete and utter inertia. That said, I would also recommend it to those who think they may be ready to handle it; if you newcomers can make it all the way through CURSE OF BIGFOOT's eighty-eight minute running time you may find yourself among the growing legion of moviegoers who love it for a number of indefensible reasons, and may even find yourself attempting to lure the innocent down the path of ruin that you yourself have trod upon, becoming sort of a bad movie "pusher," if you will. A pusher just like Yer Bunche.

MONSTER X STRIKES BACK: ATTACK THE G8 SUMMIT (2008)

In the annals of Japanese monster movie cryptozoology there are few city-stomping giants more visually ludicrous than Guilala, the one-shot star of 1967's THE X FROM OUTER SPACE. Not unfairly described as looking like the result of a drunken tryst between some foam latex, a chicken, and a large order of Egg Foo-Yung, Guilala came and went from the daikaiju landscape in the blink of an eye, remembered here in the States only by those of us who saw its sole feature film on afternoon movie showcases like THE 4:30 MOVIE in the Tri-State area, where it ran for years as part of the rotating roster of perennials during that show's beloved "Monster Week."

Guilala, as originally seen in THE X FROM OUTER SPACE (1967).

I haven't seen THE X FROM OUTER SPACE in a long time and don't recall it with the clarity of its more compelling brethren, but I do remember Guilala as being a monster generated from an extraterrestrial mineral that had adhered to a returning spacecraft from Earth, and once it hit the planet's atmosphere it got all big and proceeded to do the "urban renewal boogie." As giant monster time-killers went, THE X FROM OUTER SPACE was clearly a kiddie flick and its star didn't have an ounce of the appeal of a Godzilla or King Ghidorah, so Guilala was swiftly forgotten, except when brought up in geeky, drunken arguments over which was the goofiest Japanese monster of all time. (Goofy though Guilala certainly is, for sheer conceptual idiocy I still go with the original series version of Gamera. A flying, flaming turtle with saber-teeth? What the fuck?!!?)

Then the ludicrous critter popped up again in a recent TV ad for a high-end job search website, and now Guilala gets another shot at a feature film in this 2008 feature that made me say "You have got to be kidding me!" aloud when I heard about it a little over a year ago. As is my wont as a diakaiju follower, I checked out all the available info on the then-upcoming film and was amazed to see the level of seriousness that its filmmakers were apparently pouring into the production. But what totally eluded me during the reading of those articles and press releases was the fact that MONSTER X STRIKES BACK: ATTACK THE G8 SUMMIT is a comedy, so when I got my hands on it last week I was totally unprepared for what I sat down to watch that night. A lot of Japanese comedies that make their way over here fall flat due to the marked differences between American and Japanese humor, but I'm glad to say MONSTER X STRIKES BACK: ATTACK THE G8 SUMMIT works well without a crash course in Japanese culture thanks to the United States having been fed a steady diet of Japanese monster movies and TV shows since the 1950's, thus allowing Godzilla and his colleagues to become in a strange way as American as Superman.

Guilala 2008: Still crazy after all these years.

Yankee diakaiju enthusiasts will find much to laugh along with here as the film knowingly skewers damned near every trope in the giant monster movie handbook. As the world's leaders converge in Japan for a global summit, Guilala arrives from outer space in a red energy bubble — straight out of the first episode of the original ULTRAMAN — and immediately starts in with the city-stomping. This rampage is covered by two journalists of the type common to these films since at least as far back as the excellent MOTHRA VS. GODZILLA (1962), and during an initially unrelated assignment they discover a village deep in the woods that's still very much in touch with old school nature worship. The deity the villagers ritually venerate is named "Take-Majin" (pronounced "tah-keh mah-jheen") and entreaties to the guardian spirit may be the only thing that can stop the increasingly amusing rampage of Guilala as the world's nations take turns at strategic one-upmanship regarding the monster and fail miserably.

The awesomeness (?) of Take Majin.

Saying much more would ruin the genuine surprises offered by the movie, but here are a few things to consider:

See these gun-wielding cuties? You simply will not believe how they end up in the story.

Carrying on a fine giant monster movie tradition, all of the non-Japanese players turn in shockingly awful performances of a jaw-droppingly bad caliber not witnessed since GODZILLA VS. KING GHIDORAH's infamous "Lieutenant Spielberg" bit. Seeing as this is an intentional comedy I'd say it's safe to assume the unbelievable overacting may be part of the gag, but you never know...

The military general speaking into the microphone is none other than Susumu Kurobe, better known to American fans as Hayata, the human host for the original Ultraman.

There's much to recommend here, but I do have to say it's probably best enjoyed by people who are already fans of the genre being lampooned. Totally suitable for kids — provided they don't balk at the subtitles, or their parents taking umbrage over Take Majin's unbelievable method for getting rid of a nuclear warhead — MONSTER X STRIKES BACK: ATTACK THE G-8 SUMMIT is a hoot and would make the perfect second half of a film festival including episodes of ULTRAMAN or JOHNNY SOCKO AND HIS FLYING ROBOT.

GOLGO 13 (1983)

Known on U.S. DVD as THE PROFESSIONAL: GOLGO 13, this anime adaptation of Takao Saito's long-running manga classic is one of my all-time favorite action movies, animated or otherwise, and I'm at a loss to explain why so many dyed-in-the-wool anime junkies despise it.

Duke Togo is the world's greatest assassin-for-hire, better known as "Golgo 13," and if you're on his list you might as well dig the fucking hole because there is no way, repeat, NO WAY you will elude him. Once he's hired, it's your ass. Period. Togo's adventures take him across the globe, and his skills with weaponry, hand-to-hand combat, and damned near anything else a human being could master are constantly put to hair-raising tests. Though lacking in actual metahuman superpowers, Togo could nonetheless be considered a superman, so with that in mind it's seldom in doubt that he'll come out on top in any given situation, so the suspense lies in seeing just how the hell he's going to pull off the often impossible assignments he chooses to accept. All of this information is old news to readers of the venerable manga series, yet it's given the most cursory noting in the feature, seen briefly in a C.I.A. transcript at the film's beginning, and it's vital to suspending one's disbelief and once past that we're immediately thrust into Togo's violent world.

Gazillionaire industrialist Leonard Dawson throws a birthday party for his son, Leonard Jr., aboard his private cruise ship, a lavish ceremony in which he names his son heir and successor to his empire, but Dawson's elation is shattered when his son is surgically shot through the forehead with but a single bullet, killing him instantly. The assassin: Duke Togo. The senior Dawson, now nearly insane with grief, launches an all-out war against Golgo 13, employing the most vicious and lethal professionals that his bottomless coffers can procure, including horrific ex-military sociopaths, crooked intelligence officials, and an unspeakably terrifying monster of a man who rightly goes by the moniker "Snake," all while Togo hops the globe carrying out other "jobs." Togo must stay one step ahead of his assailants, each as hard as he is, and figure out how to survive one Christ Almighty shitstorm of graphic violence. And there also lurks the mystery that spurs the plot: exactly who wanted the junior Dawson murdered, and why?

Loaded with more action than most films have any right to possess, GOLGO 13 is a breathless kick in the ass that fans of old school James Bond and other such espionage will simply eat up, and you pretty much forget it's a cartoon about five minutes in. I first saw it on an untranslated VHS tape in 1986 and I've been a staunch supporter ever since, sharing it with as many people as I can convince to give it a chance despite its reputation as a bomb. I think it may come off as tame when compared to the later excesses in Japanese animation, such as post-apocalyptic slugfests filled with showering viscera, city-leveling psychic children and titanic robots, female ninjas with poisonous vaginas, and the ever-popular spectacle of sailor-suited schoolgirls having their every orifice checked for change by the tentacles and other bits of demonic rapists just before they explode in a torrent of offal and demonic DNA, but GOLGO 13 has all of them beat for sheer quality entertainment that even your parents might dig (but keep in mind that it would get a well-earned "Hard R" if submitted to the MPAA for a rating). I gave my VHS copy to comics legend John Romita, Sr. — I worked in the Marvel Bullpen with him for years and hooked him up with a number of movies during that time — and he absolutely loved it, so if you don't believe me, trust Jazzy Johnny. But, as always, TRUST YER BUNCHE!!!

No bullshit, this cartoon rules.