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The Creature Wasn't Nice (1981)
Bad just isn't bad enough when describing this film.
This film is so utterly horrible that it defies description.
Leslie Neilson does a great stony-faced captain, Patrick Macnee is almost good as a mad scientist (as the box claims him to be). In fact, the actors all actually do a fairly good job.
So what is wrong with this piece of garbage?
I guess it boils down to the script. The concept of a couple of musical numbers is cute, but they don't work. The special effects don't work. The fact that you can see the concrete floor of the studio doesn't work. The space ship models are so reprehensibly bad that they don't work.
The movie just doesn't work.
I remember the first time I saw the box for this DVD at Best Buy. They wanted $20. I read the box, saw the cast, and a cold shiver clutched my bowels. I _knew_ this was a horrible film.
But time passed, and I came upon a copy for $5 at a used book store and I should have passed on it. Instead I wasted 90 minutes of my life and whatever time it's taking me to write this warning, sorry, review.
I'll end with this: at the end of the credits you find out it was made in 1983 at a community college.
It shows.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
Sadly, I was not terribly impressed. *** SPOILERS ***
Before seeing this film, a fellow movie buff commented that the movie felt distinctly split, that you could feel where Kubrick died and Spielberg came in.
Having just seen it, I agree.
Kubrick and Spielberg may have been telephone buddies, but I think Ridley Scott would have been a much better choice for finishing the film. I could feel Spielberg trying to slap a happy ending on the film and it just didn't fit.
I was VERY disappointed in the 'amphibicopter'. Submarines and helicopters are opposite ends of the pressure scale for the environments in which they operate. I just don't buy a helicopter being able to go deep underwater for long periods of time, it went well beyond the breaking point of my willing suspension of disbelief. That thing should have started leaking and filling with water as soon as it got more than ten feet underwater, and judging by how much of Manhattan was underwater, it was a heck of a lot further down than that.
I also have a goof gripe: "David" breaks when he eats spinich, shortly thereafter you see him fall into the swimming pool and sink to the bottom. If I recall correctly, you see his mouth open while underwater.
I don't buy it. If spinich breaks him, he obviously isn't sealed internally. He should have blown apart underwater from massive short circuits. I don't understand why a robot designed to be a surrogate family member couldn't be designed to eat, as family meals are an important social function to such bonding. If they can address this in Westworld all those years ago, why couldn't the engineers in the movie add a 20 second blurb showing that David is sealed? They couldn't because then you don't have the touching scene of David holding Mommy's hand while the technicians clean out the spinich remains from his guts. He should have been demonstrated as sealed and then hit by a car or something. I guess they felt needed the 'sibling rivalry' thing that lead up to his eating the spinich.
To me, this rates right up there with Jeff Goldblum uploading a virus into an alien spaceship from an Apple Powerbook.
I was terribly disappointed in this film, I think the only thing that could have saved it for me is if Kubrick had lived to see it through to the end. I only paid $1.75 to see it on the big screen, I'm very thankful I did not pay more to see it during the initial release.
Into the Night (1985)
One of my all-time favs
Jeff Goldblum, always one of my favorite actors, portrays a wonderful insomniac (something that I can relate to right now.) The action is well-paced, and Landis does a great job putting something into every scene. David Bowie slips unobtrusively right in, and you can't go wrong with a soundtrack with B.B. King, Marvin Gaye and the Four Tops.
I just wish the DVD would get here! I don't want it in VHS!
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)
Fun stuff, sorely under-promoted
I am among the few that saw it during the initial week or two that it was in theatrical release, I am also privileged to own a copy of the media kit and a bootleg of an editors cut with additional footage.
This is a film that had the difficult task of creating a superhero whole-cloth with 100 minutes to do it in. All other hero films (Tarzan, Superman, Batman, The Phantom, The Shadow, Doc Savage) already had their mythos firmly established in print: not so with Buckaroo. They had to start at ground zero and explain everything in as little time as possible while giving you the film's own story: a very formidibal task.
Then the money behind the pic got insulted. He (whoever he is) felt that the theatrical release slammed him and was personally insulting: that's why the film was in the theatres for all of a week or so. No PR, no theatre run time: miserable flop.
I'm unapologetic: I think the story is great. An fantastic take on Orson Welle's War of the Worlds radio broadcast, a truly all-star cast, alien Rastafarians, the jet car, some pretty good blue screen work on the cobbled-together Lectroid ship, and true love triumphing over death itself, not to mention one of the coolest end title sequences I've ever seen! (I will fault the lighting on the parachute sequence)
I think it was quite commendable, and a film truly worthy of the cult status it has attained with the science fiction fans. I attend San Diego ComiCon every year, and every year I see Banzai t-shirts for sale along with all sorts of other merchandise.
I only hope that the Fox series pilot is accepted, broadcasted, and becomes a moderately successful series, as that would give me a slight chance of someday getting the movie on digital media.
Tanno Banzai!
Ozark Savage (1999)
A Solid, Pretty Good B Movie
Let it be said that I love good B Movies. Doc Savage, The Phantom, Buckaroo Banzai. I think this is where that movie belongs. This isn't Grade A material. Could it be described as an existentialist Pulp Fiction? There's enough shooting, and it gets strange in a time-shifting, SciFi way.
I thoroughly enjoyed it as a B Movie. I saw the premier at the 1999 San Diego ComiCon, and as I said, enjoyed it thoroughly.
Basic Story: shifty detective type (Lens Savage, presumably from the Ozarks) is hired to recover a coin, the ownership of which bestows the ownership of Hong Kong. Turns out the guy who hires him is is evil in more than a mental sense. The coin is also much more than it seems (surprise surprise). Filmed entirely on location in San Diego, CA and Hell with amusing fight sequences, very good martial arts, and no rubber mask villains (as far as I can recall).
Soundtrack was excellent (I presume it was done by San Diego talent) as was sound quality. Absolutely flawless copy for a premier. I only wished the producer/director had stuck around for Q&A: they showed the film, he took his applause, and scooted.
The best endorsement I can give it is that I would be perfectly happy to add it to my collection and even show it to some people now and again.
One minor spoiler: if the film seems too short and the plot unfulfilled when the credits appear, keep your butt in your seat. It goes on.